Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arkady L. Bukh


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. There are sources, but there's disagreement about whether they are numerous and reliable enough to pass WP:GNG. The size of the argument between two of the !voters makes it impossible to proceed with this discussion. Article may be re-nominated at some later time, provided WP:BEFORE is observed. Improvements have been proposed. (non-admin closure) Kraxler (talk) 20:49, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Arkady L. Bukh

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

WP:COI WP:N WP:BIO,This article was either written by the attorney himself or at the direction of the attorney, based on the following evidence:

There are 450,000 lawyers in the United States, and a small fraction of them have been involved in cases that warrant an entry in Wikipedia. This one certainly does not.
 * 1) The attorney's website began to advertise a "As seen as Wikipedia" badge at the same time that the Wikipedia article was written (according to the Wayback Machine).
 * 2) It was uploaded in its entirety by an account that is no longer active.
 * 3) No other substantive changes were made since the creation of the article. That means this article owes its existence to the initiative of a single anonymous person, whose account has since been removed.
 * 4) It is consistent both stylistically ("high-profile attorney") and content-wise with promotional pieces typically written about lawyers. The entire contents of the article consists solely of the list of his clients.

PaperWario (talk) 02:35, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. &mdash;&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·E·C) 03:07, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. &mdash;&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·E·C) 03:07, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. &mdash;&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·E·C) 03:07, 22 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete--Jack Upland (talk) 07:59, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * COI is not a valid grounds for deletion.   As consensus is not a vote, simply saying that something should be deleted without explaining why it should be deleted carries no weight either. James500 (talk) 12:43, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * COI is only listed because the template allows to list only one reason for deletion. The other two reasons are that the person is not notable (as far as lawyers go) and that this is an advertisement.PaperWario (talk) 18:57, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * paperwario, just ignore James, he has a track record of trying to derail afds. Anyone can vote and demonstrate how this person is or is not notable. LibStar (talk) 15:13, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * LibStar, you know perfectly well that I was not arguing that the topic is notable. I was merely pointing out that certain arguments advanced above were irrelevant, in order to prevent them from confusing other editors. I was not trying to derail the AfD, I was trying to prevent it from going up two blind alleys. I have no such track record, and allegations of 'inclusionism' are, anyway, no more a valid argument than if I was to accuse you of having a track record of massively deletionist nominations and voting. James500 (talk) 19:39, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * there is certainly a track record of arguing to almost every keep voters in AfDs with swathes of massive text and multiple failed notability proposals. But reply again with a long winded rant. Remember more text means less angry. LibStar (talk) 15:34, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I have added WP:N and WP:BIO per James500's comments regarding COI. While COI alone may not be sufficient grounds for deletion, it's a helpful to know there is COI when the other two factors are present.PaperWario (talk) 17:07, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete - the multitude of references are intended to give the appearance of notability, but in reality just cover the cases. Nothing indicates that the subject himself is notable.--Rpclod (talk) 04:16, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * delete probable WP:AUTOBIO. Most of the sources are about people he has represented. Fails WP:BIO. LibStar (talk) 15:15, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep - significant coverage of him and interviews with him in Russia as he has had several high-profile clients, not just the Boston bombing-related guys but people accused of espionage, hacking etc., ,, , , , . COI is not a reason for deletion. —Мандичка YO 😜 00:15, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Yet there is zero coverage in the U.S. and the rest of the English speaking world. We are discussing an entry in the English Wikipedia here, and the reasons are COI, Notabilty, and WP:AUTOBIO.  He represented a Kazakh accomplice of the Boston bomber, so no surprise it was covered by a few Kazakh newspapers.  The remaining clients you mention are not even remotely "high-profile" (not that the guy who hid the Boston bomber's backpack is high-profile either).  PaperWario (talk) 14:36, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
 * We do not require coverage in the USA, the English speaking world or the English language. I do not see why Kazakh national newspapers should less valid than any other national newspapers. We have never required international coverage for anything. James500 (talk) 19:33, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Do not confuse regional significance with the lack of validity. The coverage had regional significance for Kazakhstan only, because the accused was a Kazakh national.  The accused may very well have his own entry in the Kazakh version of Wikipedia.  But in the English version he gets one or two sentences in the Tsarnaev article, so you can extrapolate the extent of his notability and his lawyer's notability from that.PaperWario (talk) 21:51, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter what language the coverage is in, per Wikipedia guidelines to notability, nor is there a requirement that someone be high profile only in the English-speaking world (or only in the eyes of the nominator). As I said Bukh has represented several notable individuals. These were not all Kazakh sources but mainstream Russian media such as Russia Today and Moskovskiy Komsomolets. I didn't search for Kazakh (language) sources as it is a Turkish language I can't understand, but presumably there would be coverage as his client in the Boston bombing case was most definitely ethnic Kazakh. Nominator needs to study up on WP:BEFORE and WP:GNG: "Sources do not have to be available online or written in English." —Мандичка YO 😜 23:17, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Leave the attacks on the nominator out of this discussion and make sure you have an understanding of requirements for Notability. The YouTube video you have provided as a "source" is a sponsored TV spot by the lawyer.  Moskovskiy Komsomolets is yellow press and Russia Today is a Russian government-sponsored propaganda network that picked up a sensationalist (and ludicrous) quote by this lawyer about "cold war" motivations for the prosecution of the accused.  That does not equate to significant news coverage nor make any of the subjects "high profile." Even if in some alternate universe these sources were worth including, the subject is still only mentioned trivially, which is again, not notable per Wikipedia requirements.  PaperWario (talk) 15:12, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I apologize if you felt I was "attacking" you - it's quite standard practice in AfD to remind nominators of the many guidelines we follow. I'm not quite sure why you have it out for this guy - first you insist that sources must be in English (no, non, nyet, ne, nein; they don't have to be) and then you argue the non-English sources provided are not reliable. MK and RT are not on any Wikipedia blacklist and are considered reliable sources. Strangest to me is that you undid the improvements made to the artice because you want people here at AfD !voting on the article to "see the evidence" of the COI, aka the worse version..... It seems to me you really have it for this guy.  —Мандичка YO 😜 17:10, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems quite the other way around. You are the only one on here who's unusually keen on defending the deletion of something that's clearly a lawyer advertisement, and you started aggressively editing the page during the AfD to make it appear less of an advertisement (which obviously didn't address the article's failure to meet notability requirements).  I have nothing against him, but I found the "As seen on Wikipedia" badge on his site was strange because he was treating Wikipedia as a source for his celebrity, which made me research the history and contents of the page, and lo and behold, both were bogus.  But your fervor in defending him, including providing dubious sources, such as his promotional videos on YouTube, makes you appear either affiliated with this lawyer or to be simply defending him because he's Russian.  PaperWario (talk) 17:48, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Please just sit back and kindly let the AfD process proceed. That would be very helpful. If people want to try to improve an article, it is not some kind of assault on you. If you spent time at AfD you would know that it is very common for editors to try to improve articles (yes, a few of us even show "fervor") and you should WP:AGF here. It's highly disruptive to revert good faith improvements because you want to keep a worse version of the article (!). The idea that I am affiliated with the subject of this article in ludicrous, and I have recommended deletion for many Russianish articles so I take offense to your accusation of bias (see Articles for deletion/Andrey Davydov, Articles for deletion/Yury Serebryakov, Articles for deletion/Iskander Galiev, Articles for deletion/Maxim Stoyalov etc.), and I'm going to again remind you that WP accepts non-English sources (WP:GNG) so please stop making belittling comments about "foreign" sources in a "foreign" country. . Thank you. —Мандичка YO 😜 03:14, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Wikimandia is correct in saying that if an article contains promotional content, that should always be removed immediately, and not restored, regardless of whether there is an AfD in progress or not. The relevant policies are ATD and SOFIXIT. James500 (talk) 03:20, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Point taken about allowing editing during AfD. The point still stands--the entire article is a self-promotion, and this AfD came to life upon detection of that fact.  You can rewrite a poorly written article but you can't rewrite one to make a non-notable subject notable.  And enough with the red herrings about foreign languages.  The point here is not to discriminate against information written in foreign languages.  The point is that most subjects that receive extremely limited, regional coverage are only notable in that limited context and are not notable for the purposes of compiling an encyclopedia.  When a Harvard student falls off a bike while riding it in Manhattan, that event may very well be covered in The Harvard Crimson, but guess what--NYC and the world couldn't care less.  It's a notable event for Harvard and a non-notable event for the rest of the Universe.  Three Americans gathering in Union Square to shout anti-American slogans might very well be covered by Russia Today, because that's what they do--take advantage of any news, no matter how insignificant, to paint the U.S. in a bad light.  Again, not a notable event.  None of the links provided by Wikimandia show the subject's notability.  If you are going to write a Wikipedia article about every lawyer who says "My client's not guilty" to anyone who's willing to listen, then you have get to work, because you have millions of articles to write.PaperWario (talk) 05:16, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.