Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greg McKeown (author)


 * 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 keep.  Sandstein  08:53, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Greg McKeown (author)

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Person that does not meet WP:GNG. The list of public speaking engagements is unreferenced. With a couple of exceptions, the "Journal articles" section is a collection of blog posts. The content about his book is mostly promotional in nature, as few if any edtiorial reviews are provided. A snapshot with Tony Blair is offered without context or verifiability. This topic includes a plug for McKeown's executive and leaderhip training services, and claims he's a "social innovator", whatever that might be.

I'm not finding references to support the claims made in this article, so I don't think toning it down and editing is a viable alternative to deletion -- the subject simply doesn't meet WP:GNG.

NB: I've nominated this author's book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Mikeblas (talk) 01:56, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm going to try to clean this up since I do think that he may be notable, however the article as it was written was absolutely terrible, to the point where I'd say it's a great example as to why you should not pay to get your article written for you. There's no way that this article wasn't written by someone without a conflict of interest. I've removed the list of "journal articles" since Mike is right - most of them were glorified blog posts. I've changed this to just "articles" and named a few places he's published, since traditionally we don't list every article someone has written - typically these are only listed if the articles are frequently cited in various RS. I'm also going to remove some of the pictures, since they just emphasize the puffy tone to the article. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  07:07, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I've boiled it down to its essentials. I'm somewhat leery of leaving some of the sources behind, as many of them are just dates for newspaper publications. Now this doesn't mean that they can't be useful since sources don't have to necessarily be online, but given that the article's creator has used some pretty unreliable sources in an attempt to source the article, I have to say that I'm kind of uneasy about how much usable content might be in these sources. I'll leave it up to the closing admin as to whether or not we should use them, based on how WP:PUFFY the article initially was and the usage of various primary and otherwise unusable sources in both this article and the book's article. Hopefully I'll be able to find more sources to make this a moot point. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  07:18, 2 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep. I've managed to pull together just enough coverage for his book to where we could probably argue for a keep on his writing. I'd recommend having an article for McKeown rather than for the book since some of the book sources are sort of more about him in general rather than the book specific (ie, they talk about his idea rather than specifically the book) and it's usually easier to justify an article for a person rather than for a book. I don't think that we need individual articles in this situation. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  07:25, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete Sorry, Tokyogirl - you gave it a good try, but I just don't see this as meeting GNG. This person has a book whose topic wavers between business advice and self-help, which has gotten a few minor reviews. The Chronicle of Higher Ed review is part of their blog. I admit I don't know how to measure his award as a young leader from World Economic Forum in Davos, but it doesn't appear high in any searches I do so I have to take that as not being of great importance. One article (the BYU journal) says he wrote another book that was a bestseller, but when you look at it he appears to be a secondary author, and I can't verify the "best seller" part of it. 142.254.111.113 (talk) 23:04, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment. I can't verify " best seller", either. AFAICT, the books were top-ten on one of the subordinate NYT lists, but not a best seller. I've edited the article to reflect this. -- Mikeblas (talk) 19:55, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * KeepI think the article is fine to keep, but I actually think it was better in the old versions. Now there seems to be little helpful information. I think it just needs to be re-written so that its not puffy like Tokyogirl said. I was able to find the reference for the NYT times best seller http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2014-05-04/advice-how-to-and-miscellaneous/list.html. Looks like it was number 7 May 2014. I also think the Young Global Leader is bigger than you think. Let me see what I can do with the article at getting some reliable sources so that it fits notability. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.187.97.19 (talk) 18:08, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep - seems borderline notable (although article was compromised by massive COI edits), so keep to be on the safe side. -Zanhe (talk) 19:19, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep Appears to be fine now. COI edits seem to have been mitigated. Still needs more/better references. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:a601:536:9e01:98f8:9b6b:6881:62b6 (talk • contribs) 2015-09-04T10:05:25
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:12, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:12, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:12, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:12, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Book has now been redirected to author via parallel AfD.  Sandstein  18:01, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   18:01, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment Just to say that I cycled back around and looked at the edited version, but my !vote does not change. LaMona (talk) 16:39, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment, i am disapointed with myself for not having gotten involved with the afd on his book Essentialism as i have found numerous reviews which would lead to the book's notability (although some/all? may be deemed too brief and trivial:)) ie.  - The Irish Times of 19 May 2014,  - The Dallas Morning News of 3 May 2014,  - Buffalo & Erie County Public Library shows a review by the School Library Journal,  - Yoga Teacher Magazine (Vol 2 , Issue 1),  - The Christian Science Monitor of 1 April 2014,  - Publishers Weekly ,  - review of audio version by AudioFile,  - Becker's Hospital Review of 21 April 2015. Maybe, it can be resurrected? Coolabahapple (talk) 18:26, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep - per references above, article meets WP:GNG. MrWooHoo (talk) 00:05, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Weak keep with a nod towards TokyoGirl's efforts. I absolutely understand the nomination, but I agree the book is just notable enough when added to the author's other appearances to confer GNG notability. Xymmax So let it be written   So let it be done  20:51, 19 September 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.