Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Francis E. Dec (3rd nomination)


 * 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. After a re-list, there was no consensus to Delete (non-admin closure) Britishfinance (talk) 18:55, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Francis E. Dec
AfDs for this article: 
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Previously deleted per Articles for deletion/Francis E. Dec (2nd nomination). Opening an AfD rather than tagging with G4 given that:
 * The AfD was over 6 years ago
 * As a non-admin, I cannot see how similar the content is
 * To test T231357 - see Special:Diff/923969701 DannyS712 (talk) 02:34, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 08:19, 1 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Weak delete As a fan of Francis E. Dec's writings, I really wanted to keep this one, but the sources I could find didn't convince me that he meets GNG. The book cited in the article is definitely substantive coverage, and this book by Donna Kossy also covers him, although I don't know to what extent. Our article on Kossy calls it "the first biography of Francis E. Dec", so if we trust that, it's probably reasonably detailed. But those two sources seem to be all there is outside of zines, fansites and blogs. So I'll have to go with delete unless more sources turn up. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 19:56, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: Kooks has a 5 page chapter on him (note that it's a large format book, 8.5 x 11). I can't access any of the content, though. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 12:21, 3 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep - I was skeptical at first, but Google turned up 70,800,000 results - among them was the book "The Technical Delusion: Electronics, Power, Insanity" by Jeffrey Sconce, published in 2019 by Duke University Press which cited Dec well over 10x. That tells us there is long term encyclopedic value in keeping and expanding the article. There is an article in Medium (website) but I'm not all that familiar with the source. There is also this book and this one, both of which cite the WP article about him, and that tells me we need to make sure the article is accurate. Just my nickel's worth. Atsme  Talk 📧 19:19, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Adding another citation: Amiran, Eyal. "THE PORNOCRATIC BODY IN THE AGE OF NETWORKED PARANOIA." Cultural Critique, no. 100, 2018, p. 134+. Gale OneFile: Health and Medicine,
 * Medium is a blog site, and those two books seem to be generated by bots that scrape Wikipedia articles. The Technical Delusion is definitely a good source though, and I've put in a request at WP:RX for the Kossy book I mentioned above... if its coverage of Dec is substantial I might change my vote. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 21:52, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete He might be worth some discussion in an article on the mentioned book, but he is not notable enough to justify a stand alone article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:56, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Yunshui 雲 水 09:52, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep I believe he meets GNG based on being profiled in the Sconce book and the multiple other sources noted by Sconce. This is one of those folks who falls into the pre-Google age as far as sources go, but he definitely was a high profile lunatic in his time. I’m finding limited caselaw on him, but google scholar popped up two appeals that were denied, can’t find the lower court cases, though:  Someone transcribed his legal appeals here.  I don’t have access to paid legal databases, but he did seek cert at the US Supreme Court in 1961-62 and it was denied twice.  There’s an off-wiki article on him that might have been a previously deleted one here that maybe folks can check the sources on.  He seems to have had a brief cult following noted here  Montanabw (talk) 18:23, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep - Notable enough on a quick Google search, I believe that more reliable sources will be found upon deeper digging. SerTanmay (talk) 16:33, 17 November 2019 (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.