Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Dubro


 * 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. Keep. Especially due to http://www.williamapercy.com/wiki/images/Booking_the_Mafia.pdf Sancho 16:57, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

James Dubro

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This article contains no references and it is unclear that the subject is notable. The bulk of content has been contributed by one user abookguy without any references. At the very least it constitutes unverified research, and since the username abookguy appears to also be James Dubro's handle on at least a few other websites, speculatively the edits may constitute original research. 1of42 (talk) 23:49, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep, many news sources are readily available with a basic search, and there are references in the article itself. If not then it simply needs to be cleaned up. Sportfan5000 (talk) 20:56, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment - Which news sources are those? I was unable to find more than a stub page from a Toronto newspaper listing book titles by the author. I have been unable to find any sources that seem to meet Wikipedia guidelines. As for the references, they lead nowhere that I can tell, thus this AfD. Yes, there are references written down, but that does not mean that they are legitimate references. I'm not an experienced Wikipedian so I don't know. 174.119.253.80 (talk) 17:35, 12 December 2013 (UTC) (This comment was actually made by me - wasn't logged in. 1of42 (talk) 17:36, 12 December 2013 (UTC))
 * Follow the link at the top of this page for Google News hits, you need to use the custom range feature to pull up stories for years' past. Sportfan5000 (talk) 20:42, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That might have been true several weeks ago but it is not true now. Google news archive searching no longer exists. The news link gets a result "The search option you have selected is currently unavailable", with no results listed (other than the Wikipedia article itself) and no custom range feature. So rather than hiding behind vague instructions that you have obviously not tried yourself, which sources do you mean? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:42, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is my issue. I managed to find (via Googling) the text from an article in the Toronto Star 13 years ago that mentions the article subject, but that doesn't seem enough to meet the notability guideline. Every other result from Google either appears to be related to the article subject's own websites/organizations, or is the sort of repeated uninformative links that don't meet any sort of criteria for being valid references. 1of42 (talk) 22:01, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
 * What I've been doing is clicking - what i see - is the "advance search options", which then gives me several sorting sorts, one of which is time. The preset is for "anytime", however if you click on "custom time range" you can put a date range like 1/1/1959-12/12/2013. When I do that all sorts of articles pop for this guy. Sportfan5000 (talk) 22:09, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

But the issue is not just references, it is a combination of references and notability. My initial reaction was that I did not think the article subject was notable, which was compounded by a lack of references to substantiate that notability. We now have references, which means we need to assess notability. It is not clear to me that any of these sources passes muster with GNG. Particularly, each article seems to fail the requirement that "Significant coverage is more than a passing mention". Each article only discusses Dubro himself in a passing way to give background to his quote about the actual article subject. The very most an article says about him is a couple of small paragraphs, again only in context of giving background to a quote of his. I really don't think that can be said to pass GNG, despite the fact that we do now have references.
 * Comment, I've added a few, there are still more in a Google Book search. Sportfan5000 (talk) 22:29, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
 * So far there are ten sources that mention him, but none that provide evidence that he passes WP:GNG. Nine of the articles, "Mob violence sign that no one is in charge: Expert", "Fires kindle fears of feud", "Mourners pack church for Rizzuto funeral", "Rizzuto shooting weakens family's power: crime experts", "'No Surrender Crew' aptly named", "Police crack down on alleged Italian-Canadian Mafia in Europe", "Speedy justice for Papalia hitman", "Requiem pour un mafioso", and "Omicidio Cuntrera: è guerra di mafia. Liborio Sciascia, il guardaspalle morto con lui nell’agguato", merely have quotes by Dubro but nothing much about him or his books. The tenth source, "Media Advisory and Photo Opportunity - Arthur Ellis Award winners announced" is a press release (so it is not acceptable as a reliable source) and says only that he is a past winner of an award. What we need are profiles of Dubro's life, reviews of his books, stories directly about him getting an award, or other such sources that go into nontrivial detail about him or his works. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:37, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I see nothing in any of those sources that dispute what we have or cast any doubt on what the article states. In fact they cite him as an authority in his field. This article may have to pull together several dozen sources to cover every statement made, but that doesn't mean it needs to be deleted. Additionally he would be covered as well in every review of his books. And for that press release i find no qualms with accepting that as evidence he has won an award unless you are suggesting it's false in some way. Sportfan5000 (talk) 00:01, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

To maybe quote a more directly applicable part of the notability guidelines: "We require "significant coverage" in reliable sources so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic. If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate page"

The referenced material from verifiable independent sources would only provide material to write a couple of sentences or maybe a paragraph about Dubro, stating that he is a crime writer. It seems the notability guidelines explicitly address the situation here - yes, there are passing references to Dubro, but referenced, verifiable independent material does not support an article about him. The press release, for the record, simply doesn't qualify because press releases from an organization affiliated to the article subject are just not valid references. Dubro is clearly a fairly established member of the organization whose press release you cited, which means that it can't be used as a source - "For example, advertising, press releases, autobiographies, and the subject's website are not considered independent.[4]" 1of42 (talk) 18:23, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The press release is independent of the subject. And all the other sources including some more from Google Books search each adding a sentence or two puts him past the GNG requirement. If those references weren't taking about the subject, or if fact stating things like "said James Dubro, a long-time crime writer, investigative journalist and expert in organized crime." I might agree. But they hold him up as a leader of sorts in his field. Have a look at this] and see if you don't think that just maybe there are enough sources out there for a good article. Sportfan5000 (talk) 19:57, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:40, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:40, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:40, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:41, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:41, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:41, 12 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete for lack of evidence of passing WP:GNG. I'm willing to change my mind if sources specifically about the subject or his works and covering the subject in nontrivial detail are found, but the ten detailed above are completely inadequate, and the five new ones added since I analyzed those ten are even worse: bare-url links, to Google book web pages, for books whose title and authorship does not make evident any connection to Dubro, with no page numbers listed for finding anything about Dubro within the books. Searching these web pages reveals that Dubro is mentioned only trivially in three of these books, that he is not mentioned at all in a fourth, and in a fifth it is revealed that one of his awards is a service award of a type that does not lend much notability to its subject. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:36, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * He is mentioned more than trivially but again, all the sources combined put him well over the GNG. Additionally I found an archived full length piece about him at William Armstrong Percy III's website: 1st page, 2nd page. I am hunting down to find out where this was originally published and who wrote it but does suggest we are missing the point this is a well-respected journalist and author. So we have a mystery full length article that proves he is covered non-trivially, and tons of sources dating back to the 1970s, that are on outdated media, as a lot of television coverage in the 1970s/1980s is. That's a systematic bias that he doesn't have a press agent, and isn't a shameless self-promoter. Sportfan5000 (talk) 21:44, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete Per David Eppstein. --Randykitty (talk) 21:47, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment Notability is not temporary. This subject was publicly notable as a Canadian crime expert, enough to have headline recognizability as late as 2009 as evidenced here. The subject was notable for writing about crime, and notable for documentary films, and taken seriously enough to be considered worth some time from a Parliamentary Standing Committee regarding justice legislation. The nominator's rationale, "unverified research", is only an argument to remove or revise or source information within the article. This subject meets WP:AUTHOR as, at the barest minimum, they headed a trade group elected by professional peers, even if the other sources for notability are discounted. __ E L A Q U E A T E  15:32, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment That 2009 "article" confuses me. It has no author on the byline and reads like a paid advertorial-type piece. I don't know what impact that has but I question using it as a source. 1of42 (talk) 19:53, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Using scare quotes, and suggesting it's a paid advetorial seems needlessly combative. You have zero ground to lob such accusations likely because Dubro doesn't need to buy articles. And no one has suggested using it as a source so perhaps you could avoid putting words in other editors' mouths. Sportfan5000 (talk) 20:12, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment. I've found another full-length article about Dubro that should put this to rest. It was referenced in the first one, but I had overlooked it. It's from Saturday Night (magazine), March 1990.  It is archived here page 19, page 20, page 21, page 23. Sportfan5000 (talk) 21:21, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment, searching under "Jim Dubro" also yields more results. Sportfan5000 (talk) 21:24, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep Article needs some cleanup (has some strange editor comments inlined), and that wall of sources in the first sentence should be pared down to the best ones. But there are sources to pass WP:GNG. -- GreenC  19:59, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep, only because the necessary cleanup isn't quite enough to put this into WP:TNT grounds. As far as I see it, the strange editor comments were all added here as citations to additional resources; it looks like we have sufficient reliable sources.  First sentence is the biggest example of WP:BOMBARD that I can ever remember seeing.  Nyttend (talk) 15:58, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep - Dubro clearly passes WP:AUTHOR, having published several books with major publishing companies (Penguin, Macmillan), and being talked about in mainstream media for decades. Also, there was quite a lot of TV documentary work which, with the books, adds up to a "significant body of work". The shape of the article is irrelevant to determine notability, it can always be tagged for clean-up or wikifying. Kraxler (talk) 15:07, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep Although badly in need of cleanup, Sportsfan5000 has dug up enough to show this author passes the GNG. --Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:46, 21 December 2013 (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.