Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bill Shanks


 * 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. Black Kite (talk) 22:36, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Bill Shanks

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He seems to have had a level of success, but not enough for me to be sure he meets WP:BIO or WP:GNG. This has been tagged for notability for 7 years without resolution. A couple of the incoming links are potential redirect targets Boleyn (talk) 19:02, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Georgia (U.S. state)-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:57, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Radio-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:57, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:57, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:57, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:57, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, &mdash; kikichugirl  oh hello! 05:53, 5 April 2015 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 09:43, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete. Does not meet the general notability guideline. --Inother (talk) 11:13, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
 * This is tough. He is clearly a successful sports journalist. He is still on the air in Atlanta, is there an appropriate page to which we can Merge?E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:23, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
 * (see below) Merge to WPLA E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:51, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete Nothing to show he meets WP:GNG. The only accessible source is from a local paper saying he'd been let go from the local radio station but had found a job in Atlanta. That's not enough to show notability. 204.126.132.231 (talk) 15:11, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * He's still broadcasting E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:06, 17 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Merge to WPLA, a reasonable WP:ATD that will enhance the merge target article. North America1000 19:02, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep – Meets WP:BASIC upon a review of sources below. North America1000 17:40, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.  The article notes: "When author Michael Lewis wrote 'Moneyball' in 2003, showing the Oakland Athetics and their devotion to the numbers of baseball in building a ballclub, many die-hard stats aficionados jumped on that bandwagon. Bill Shanks wasn't one of them. The former local sports anchor, who produced a weekly TV show for three years on the Atlanta Braves and did play-by-play for two of its affiliates, had followed first-hand the intangibles that the organization used in acquiring players during its current run of 13 straight division crowns. Shanks, who also maintained his own Web site about the Braves, was contacted by a publishing executive in New York about writing a book after the editor read one of his articles about the team. Shanks, who was coming up with various ideas, knew what he wanted to do once 'Moneyball' came out.  'It stirred up the baseball world and had knocked traditional scouting,' said Shanks, 35. 'It said it was unimportant compared to the math whiz kids. I had done this TV show for three years and I knew what scouts did, the Braves' philosophy, and why it worked.' The result was 'Scout's Honor: The Bravest Way to Build a Winning Team,' published by Sterling & Ross. Shanks' book details how the Braves' organization transformed over the past 15 years into the most successful in the majors. The book hit the stores last week. The book is a collection of anecdotes from the Braves' players, coaches, scouts and front-office personnel about how the organization was transformed from what was a laughingstock in the 1980s to a consistent winner from 1991 through the current season. 'My background was in TV,' said Shanks, a Waycross native and graduate of the University of Georgia. 'I had written some, but nothing of this magnitude. 'The book was a happy fluke. In October of 2003, I wrote an article about the offseason of '82-'83. An editor saw it and asked me the big question. I think all TV folks think about writing a book to legitimize themselves journalistically.' It took Shanks about nine months to conduct and transcribe interviews and another six months to write it."  There's a copy of the article at http://www.staatalent.com/Headlines/08/0809/15wifn.htmWebCite from the Sportscasters Talent Agency of America.  The article notes: "Then Bill Shanks, the host of the weekday 4-6 p.m. 'Bill Shanks Show' on Macon's WIFN-FM, 'the Fan,' chimes in. 'It's kind of saying the Falcon fan base - black, white, blue, Puerto Rican, whatever - is stupid enough to where they're gonna knock somebody or not cheer for someone because of the color of their skin,' Shanks said. Shanks' style is anything but incendiary. His year-and-a-half-old show, which ranks third among male listeners in its time slot, doesn't get by on shock-jock shtick. It banks on water-cooler guy talk, offering a sounding board for sports fans of varying allegiances from Eastman to Eatonton. It is proof that people in the sticks want to talk sports - and listen to it being talked about - as much as anyone else. ... SHANKS KEEPS LISTENERS ENGAGED AND CALLING  After college, Shanks covered sports at a Brunswick TV station in the middle '90s. Then he moved to the sports desk at WGXA-TV, Fox 24, in Macon for two years. He later went out on his own as a producer and host for regional cable shows that focused on Atlanta's professional teams. Earlier this year, he launched a successful rant-laced, on-air campaign to raise money - and the ire of locals - when the annual induction ceremony for the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame appeared bound for a permanent home in Atlanta. Shanks, a Waycross native, broke into radio with a weekly sports show there at age 16. He recalls listening to sports-talk out of Atlanta as a teen, thinking, 'My god, they're sitting around talking sports. How fun is that?'"  The article notes: "Put Bill Shanks, author of Scout’s Honor: The Bravest Way To Build A Winning Ballteam, in the most extreme corner of the anti-Moneyball camp. Not only does he not agree with the Moneyball philosophy, but he doesn’t care for the book itself. And it’s a shame, because the bitter taste of Lewis’ book sours an excellent in-depth look at the recent history of the Braves. Personal stories become merely a prop for the flawed anti-Moneyball agenda of Shanks when jabs at sabermetrics seem to come out of nowhere. Although he doesn’t directly address Moneyball until the last chapter, it’s clear what the first 23 chapters are building up to. If you are a Braves fan, you need to buy this book. Though I disagree with Shanks about a lot—and we have aired our personal differences with each other over the past year—after reading this book I feel a strange kinship with Shanks that I think stems from our age. The time between our discovery of baseball and when we become adults is brief, but it’s amazing how a few years seem to shape our perceptions. ... What’s selling this book isn’t the story of the Braves. The anti-Moneyball marketing strategy makes this book sexy to the masses. The problem is that Shanks just didn’t get, or even read, Moneyball, and not because the message was a difficult one to grasp. Shanks’s relationships with scouts, which allowed him to provide such a good picture of what goes on within the Braves, unfortunately caused him to take what Lewis had to say personally. And in his blind rage to strike back he reveals that he is not all that familiar with the book that boils his blood. Take for example Shanks’s interpretation of Moneyball:"</li> <li> The article notes: "The second traditionalist text, 'Scout's Honor,' by Bill Shanks, celebrates the Atlanta Braves' scouts, a profession that often serves as Beane's foil in 'Moneyball.' The Braves have won 13 straight division titles, Shanks writes, by letting their scouts find the players with the best 'makeup,' a baseball catch-all phrase for hustle, attitude and heart. Shanks is openly contemptuous of the Lewis book, writing, 'The brash disregard for scouting in its truest sense as portrayed in 'Moneyball' was just as insulting to me as it was to so many scouts around the game.'"</li> <li> The article notes: "In the book ‘Scout's Honor', author Bill Shanks attempts to not only provide an alternative to ‘Moneyball' on how to build a baseball organization, but to discredit the whole underlying philosophy of it as little more than a passing fad. While it is true that the Braves' approach is diametrically opposite of the A's, ‘Scout's Honor' fails to develop any type of coherent argument, structure, or evidence to support his contention or to more importantly explain the reasons for the Braves success."</li> <li> The article notes: "As the editor of bravescenter.com, former Georgia TV sportscaster Bill Shanks doesn't exactly come to his new book without preconceived notions. But in Scout's Honor: The Bravest Way to Build a Winning Team, Shanks puts his biases aside to present a fascinating and long-overdue look at Atlanta's baseball dynasty. The book, a sometimes barbed answer to the best-selling Moneyball, sheds light on the decision-making brilliance of General Manager John Schuerholz, Manager Bobby Cox and visionary scouts such as Paul Snyder, Roy Clark and Dayton Moore. It also credits longtime Braves employee Bobby Dews with formulating an organizational manual called The Braves Way back in the 1980s."</li> </ol>There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Bill Shanks to pass Notability, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Cunard (talk) 00:36, 22 April 2015 (UTC) </li></ul> Wow, AFD working beautifully in this case. Thank you User:Cunard for cruising up to the plate in time to save the day. The sources brought by Cunard are more than persuasive.  User:Cunard, I hope you will add them to the page.  Which ought to be keep(changed my opinion above.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:22, 22 April 2015 (UTC) <div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached. Relisting comment: Cunard posted a long list of sources well past the expiry date of this AfD, so I'll give it another week for other editors to respond to.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Deryck C. 20:18, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This debate has been included in the list of Baseball-related deletion discussions. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 18:05, 24 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep Per above. Alex (talk) 18:29, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment Are we really at the point where three local stories (Macon Telegraph) and a couple of two-paragraph passages elsewhere now counts as significant coverage for purposes of GNG? - Bbny-wiki-editor (talk) 19:50, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete a few local sources and a few passing mentions really shouldn't be considered enough for notability. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 04:02, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
 * A subject that has received significant coverage in The Telegraph as well as multiple articles discussing his book Scout's Honor in publications including The New York Times and Sun-Sentinel easily passes Notability. Cunard (talk) 23:58, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I disagree. He was mentioned briefly in a couple non-local stories, but there isn't anything close to substantial coverage of this subject outside his hometown. - Bbny-wiki-editor (talk) 23:49, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Notability does not discount local stories. And that there are non-local sources such as The New York Times and Sun-Sentinel discussing him and his book push him over the bar. Cunard (talk) 23:41, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The local sources, combined with a few paragraphs of non-local coverage, aren't enough to pass GNG, which requires "significant" coverage. - Bbny-wiki-editor (talk) 00:14, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * From Notability: "'Significant coverage' addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material." These sources cover the subject "directly and in detail" so amount to "significant coverage". Cunard (talk) 18:15, 1 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Note The sources that have been brought to this AFD have not been added to the page, which has few sources, however, the sources are sufficient to establish Shanks' notability.E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:27, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I have expanded and added those sources to the article. Cunard (talk) 19:14, 1 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep as I believe Cunard's sources and subsequent expansion of the article to be enough to pass WP:GNG. Tavix | Talk 04:26, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep - per Cunard's sources demonstrating GNG. Rlendog (talk) 05:08, 2 May 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.