Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Howard Bloom


 * 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   delete. Spartaz Humbug! 17:20, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Howard Bloom

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No reliable sources found for a long time, endorsed by an admin piksi (talk) 21:51, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete - no reliable sources are in the article, and I can't find anything about him online. I found one ABC interview, but that's about his ideas, not him.  All other references that I can find are about other men with the same name. Bearian (talk) 18:02, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Bloom has written for the Washington Post, Wired, the village voice, Wall street journal, etc. He is a notable figure. Wikifan12345 (talk) 05:02, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep He is a indeed very famous, at least as a writer. I know this is not the best of references, but just take a look at amazon: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=howard+bloom. If we are missing references for him its about time we start making them, or something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.68.119.102 (talk) 08:17, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete It doesn't matter that he has books published in Amazon. A lot of people have and they are in no way significant authors. I have been looking for sources all over the net, and none of them have been reliable. Most of them were either made by Bloom himself or pointed to a random website which simply claimed a lot of things without backing them up in any way. No reliable sources have been found for a) "launched the careers of Stephanie Mills and Chaka Khan" b) "Howard Bloom Organization, Ltd., the largest public relations firm in the record industry" c) "His clients included Prince, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley..." In the older revisions of the pages there are claims of "He is a Visiting Scholar in the Graduate Psychology Department at New York University" and "He is founder of the "International Paleopsychology Project" (also nothing notable found on the net or in scientific journals). How surprising, that these claims have disappeared in the newer versions as no sources could be found? It seems that whenever a claim in the Bloom article is found to have no proof, it is removed and soon some new claims start popping up. People have been asking for proof for so long, and proponents have had plenty of time to present them, yet they havent. So: delete. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Piksi (talk • contribs) 15:07, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. This is sort of weird, but I'm commenting here because I'm sitting across from Bloom in a coffee shop at this exact moment and looked him up on Wikipedia since his book is for sale in the coffee shop. (Bloom comes in here a lot and I do as well so I've seen him pretty often, but I've never spoken to him). Anyhow that's not the point. Having just read the blurbs on the back of his book I would have figured that there's probably a lot of secondary source material on this guy (thus surprised it was up for deletion), but like others I'm really not finding it. Per the GNG I don't think he meets the guideline for notability, particularly since I think we need to err on the side of not having too many BLPs on marginally notable folks. If I'm missing some sources I could be persuaded to change my !vote, but my feeling right now is that this ought to be deleted. No offense to Mr. Bloom or this coffee shop. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 23:31, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Funny story. Anyways, here are some secondary sources: WSJ, science 2.0 (see Science 2.0, DH, another, village voice, daily news.....
 * This only took my five minutes. Bloom has been cited as an authority figure by numerous mainstream sources and is a published author. Notability has been established. Wikifan12345 (talk) 07:51, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The links you supply include a piece Bloom wrote in the WSJ, a tangential mention of him in a publication, and a number of interviews with not particularly notable organizations. The only link which supplies any real information about Bloom is from the Village Voice, though that is a short piece announcing a talk and is probably based on a press release. Here's the thing--Bloom comes from a marketing background, and his basic info is all over the web, but it all seems to be based on copy that he himself wrote up. The general notability guideline calls for "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." I'm just not seeing "significant coverage." Doing an interview with a web site about his book is not "significant coverage" and neither is a blurb in the Voice about a talk. Like many Wikipedians, when it comes to BLPs I tend to err on the side of not having bios of marginal figures. Despite the grandiloquent--and almost always unsourced--claims about Bloom such as an absurd reference to him as "the Darwin, Einstein, Newton, and Freud of the 21st Century," there really has not been very much said about this guy other than blurbs on book jackets and boilerplate info sent out to people who will interview him. To me that makes him fairly "marginal" and thus my inclination is still to delete this. (A final aside: to be honest I simply don't trust all of the information out there about Bloom, which for the most part seems ultimately to be sourced only to him. See this earlier version of the article largely written by Bloom himself--which describes him as instrumental in bringing about many key cultural and media trends of recent decades--for an example of why I'm a bit skeptical.) --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:47, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Village Voice not notable? What? Recognized by mainstream science organizations? Half a dozen published books? Bloom easily meets the basic requirements for notability. Wikipedia doesn't care if you don't trust the information. See WP:VNT. The authenticity of sources can always be debated in talk, but there is simply too much data to write it off as "marginal." Wikifan12345 (talk) 21:28, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes yes, I do know about verifiability and all that. As I said above my point about not trusting the info was an aside&mdash;it's not the basis for my !vote. I did not say that the Village Voice was not notable&mdash;in fact the clear implication was that it was notable&mdash;rather that it was the only link you supplied with (minimal) coverage of Bloom in a secondary source. But the GNG calls for "significant coverage." Obviously part of why these AfDs are discussions/debates is that opinions can vary on what constitutes "significant coverage." I do not see "significant coverage" of Bloom, particularly because I have a higher standard for this when it comes to BLPs. It's completely fine if you disagree.


 * One other thing I'd point out: I'd actually be more inclined to have articles about Bloom's books rather than Bloom himself, assuming the books have received enough attention to warrant it. We already have one on The Lucifer Principle. With fairly marginal living authors I think it often makes more sense to discuss their books rather the authors themselves, which is again a view I take from my reading of the BLP policy. (Incidentally, Bloom has apparently published exactly three books, not half a dozen. This interestingly titled item has apparently never been published.) --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:55, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

I count seven secondary sources, not one. BTP, you explicitly said you as an editor don't "trust" the material cited in reliable sources. I'm sorry, but this doesn't matter. Bloom easily meets the general guidelines of notability, his books have been cited and praise by serious journals and newspapers. He has been interviewed by mainstream organizations. What more do you want? It's too bad the article relies exclusively on primary sources so I can see why an editor would see a cause for deletion, but there are more than enough sources available to clean up the article. Wikifan12345 (talk) 22:30, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * No, there are not seven secondary sources. A Wall Street Journal article written by Bloom is not a secondary source. Interviews about his book from minor web sites don't help much either because they don't give us biographical information about Bloom. You're missing my argument here even though I've spelled it out more than once. I do not see significant coverage of him, meaning articles or books written about Bloom. That's what we need. And I have no idea why you won't take my word for it that the fact that I'm skeptical of some of information about Bloom is not the reason I'm arguing in favor of delete. It's something I pointed out specifically as an "aside" which is why I used that word. Whether or not the info on him is actually trustworthy, I think there is too little coverage to justify an article. Obviously we disagree so I don't think there's anything else to say about it. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:47, 8 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. Look, I am sorry if I am not knowledgeable enough about Wikipedia’s Standards (I’ve only edited statistics articles in the Spanish Wikipedia), but I believe (again, these are my beliefs only) that ANY author who has published ANYTHING with an actual recognizable ISBN number deserves to have a page on Wikipedia. As far as I am concerned, this is the only information we can check to be true, so that is the only information we should keep about Howard Bloom. The books are not even e-books (which many indie authors use as medium) they are paperbacks/hardcovers. They also are sold directly by Amazon, so there must be a publisher (Prometheus Books) with some information for Howard Bloom, we could ask them (I don’t know if we are supposed to go that far). Even the Amazon review seems to acknowledge the guy. Just for the record, I haven’t even read anything about him, but I have heard plenty. The Amazing Atheist (YouTube’s most famous atheist) invites him several times to have a Q/A and everyone gets excited when he does. Also look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0jXIVVckr4. Again, these are not arguments in favor for keeping the guy, but he certainly has some fame (look at the amount of reviews that his books have!), and keeping him for the sake of his books seems reasonable to me. I've made an account on Wikipedia, I go by freakycreator. For reference, I also posted this: "He is a indeed very famous, at least as a writer."--Freakycreator | talk | contribs 17:56, 7 November 2010 (GTM)
 * All of the sudden I am a skeptic. Look at a quote that I took from Bloom’s bio in the publisher’s site: Howard Bloom (Brooklyn, NY) has been called "the Darwin, Newton, and Einstein of the 21st century" and "the next Stephen Hawking." This is preposterous. I want to know why there aren’t more references about this guy if he is supposed to be the next Darwin for crying out loud. --Freakycreator | talk | contribs 17:56, 7 November 2010 (GTM)
 * The Darwin/Newton quote came from a British TV station supposedly, though I would question whether it is being reported in its full context. Even if Bloom is a genius, it's obviously ridiculous. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:50, 8 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete. Pity, as he sounds quite interesting, but there just doesn't seem to be the material out there to justify retention. Aside from a single interview which isn't really about him we seem to have only primary sources and passing mentions. Alzarian16 (talk) 12:03, 8 November 2010 (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.