Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jamie Metzl (2nd 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 to delete. Eluchil404 (talk) 22:36, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Jamie Metzl
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Previously was nominated for deletion in 2006. Result was delete. Article later was re-written. But circumstances leading to deletion have not changed. Biography of entirely non-notable individual who ran for congress in Missouri in 2006 and soundly lost in primary. Article plainly was designed to promote its subject, rather than being an biographical, encyclopedic entry. In fact, the subject has admitted in a web screed that he himself is responsible for most of the content in this article, as well as the article's post-deletion rewriting (see ). Article makes numerous unsubstantiated and editorialized claims. Does not fit WP:BIO or meet WP:N, and clearly violates WP:BLP and WP:ADVERT for extreme self-promotion. Urge strong delete. Wikophile (talk) 05:47, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions.  —Tom Morris (talk) 10:07, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Missouri-related deletion discussions.  —Tom Morris (talk) 10:07, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 14:37, 1 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment&mdash;Note that the article has been subject to tag bombing by the nominator, a form of disruptive editing. As noted by the nominator, one of the contributing editors is User:Jamiemetzl, which suggests a conflict of interest. It all seems a bit dubious. That being said, there are news ghits on Jamie Metzl from Bloomberg/Washington Post, so he may prove to be notable. Regards, RJH (talk) 18:22, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep for now: A search on Google brings up several mentions of him and his work in published books (see for instance here, which provides biographical information and is published in a reliable third-party source--note that even if Metzl or his staff presumably wrote the sketch, it was still approved by the editors of the book, and so should qualify as reliable). His essays have been published in numerous major publications (frequently cited is one from 1997 in Foreign Affairs). It's disingenuous to describe him as merely a politician who lost a primary once.
 * That said, I agree there are serious COI and other problems here. The article needs to be substantially rewritten to remove self-promotion and unsourced statements, and Metzl and his staff or friends should refrain from editing it. It's unfortunate that so many of the stuff I can find on him online is little biographical blurbs on sites he is affiliated with, but there's enough reliable stuff there that a short article should be possible (see, e.g., the book I linked to above). While on the subject, I should also say I disagree with Wikophile's interpretation of Metzl's piece here. There's no indication that he was ever seriously involved in the editing of the first incarnation of the article (all he mentions is that he'd "occasionally ask my assistant to add a link"). The essay seems to me mostly a jocular piece written for fun. To summarize my position then, the subject seems notable enough (numerous publications in major journals/newspapers/etc., frequently interviewed on major news networks, on the boards of several non-profits etc., mentioned [albeit often in passing] in various reliable books, has written several published books, was on a task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, and so on). There are major COI concerns here, and User:Jamiemetzl and other users in any way associated with him need to stop editing the article, but ultimately I disagree with Wikophile's characterization of the subject of the article, at least on the basis of what I've found so far. This seems like a case where major rewrites are needed, rather than deletion.
 * As one final point, I'll mention that I'm a bit concerned that other concerned parties like User:Jamiemetzl or User:Alansohn haven't been notified on their talk pages of the nomination... --Miskwito (talk) 18:53, 1 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep The scope and breadth of the subject's governmental, international and organizational roles, as well as his extensive body of published work, backed by numerous reliable and verifiable sources, all establish a strong claim of notability. I am responsible for rewriting this article after deletion, as the most cursory check of edit history will demonstrate. I urge the largest possible trout slapping for the nominator, whose tag bombing includes demands to source statements that had already been sourced and are easily verifiable. The tag bombing attack still has 25 citation demands remaining, all of which will be addressed shortly, and could have been addressed by the nominator if there is any serious interest in improving the article. Alansohn (talk) 20:44, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * That wasn't "tag-bombing." None of the tagged material was sourced, and much of it was written like an advertisement. The tags were/are appropriate. A "cursory check of edit history" reveals that, for the most part, this article was written by User:Jamiemetzl himself, as he admitted in the above-cited article. Also, User:Alansohn's own edits are mere WP:OR and have an equally strong WP:COI problem; he posts User:Jamiemetzl's quote praising from the above-cited article in his own userpage! The subject of this article, User:Jamiemetzl, who wrote most of it, is simply not notable; he isn't the subject of multiple secondary biographies, as WP:BLP requires. Most of the links here, which all were added by User:Jamiemetzl, are primary sources. In short, Jamie Metzl is just some well-educated rich kid from the Kansas City area who worked in a few minor, low-level, quasi-political roles, wrote some non-notable editorials, ran for Congress, and lost miserably in the democratic primary. The original genesis of this article was to help his failed campaign. Its continued existence on Wikipedia is entirely, as User:Jamiemetzl admitted himself, for self-promotion. Delete this unencyclopedic article. It sets a terrible precedent. Wikophile (talk) 04:44, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Adding nearly 30 citation needed notes to an article of this size, often including a half dozen in single sentences and ignoring sources already present in the article is the definition of Tag bombing, which specifies that "Adding tags to articles should be accompanied by sufficient reasoning on the tagged article's talk page" and that such "Unjustified tag bombing is a form of disruptive editing." The addition of a single "unreferenced" tag in the lead followed by discussion of specific issues on the article talk page would have been appropriate. It's hard to see someone who has served in policy-making roles in the White House, and served in senior positions in numerous international and quasi-governmental articles, not having a strong claim of notability, especially given the dozens of sources added to the articles per the nominator's demands for sources for such non-controversial and easily verifiable details, such as the name of the high school that the article's subject attended, in conflict with WP:V. I agree that it has been inappropriate for User:Jamiemetzl to edit the article, assuming that this editor is the article's subject himself or someone with a direct connection to him, and that such editing would violate WP:COI. I'm not sure what the nominator's claim of WP:OR even refers to, so it can be easily ignored, as all of the material I have added has been to support claims in the article with corresponding sources. I still find it funny that the real-life Jamie Metzl mentioned me in an article he wrote about the previous deletion travails of his Wikipedia article; I do not know him, I have never met him, I wouldn't recognize him if he ran over me multiple times with his bicycle while competing in an Ironman race, and all of the material I have added and edited has been written / rewritten to reflect his notability in the WP:NPOV fashion required by Wikipedia policy. WP:COI defines that "Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest" and I can assure you that I couldn't care less about advancing the interest's of Jamie Metzl, but that I do see the continued existence of this notable article to be advancing Wikipedia's body of knowledge. Alansohn (talk) 12:17, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Again, I don't agree with your interpretation of that essay of his you keep linking to. I don't see it as anything more than a humor column. And he certainly never says in it that he was a significant editor of the (initial version of) the article. Obviously he or someone affiliated with him is probably making substantial contributions to this second version of the article, and I agree that whatever the outcome here that needs to stop. Also, "Jamie Metzl is just some well-educated rich kid from the Kansas City area who worked in a few minor, low-level, quasi-political roles, wrote some non-notable editorials, ran for Congress, and lost miserably in the democratic primary" is simply not an accurate description of him, from everything I can find. I think there can be a genuine question over his notability, but we need to be honest about what those claims of notability/non-notability rest on, and the sources I can find (and I freely admit that a lot of them are, unfortunately, primary or at least closely connected with the subject) don't support that generalization of him --Miskwito (talk) 16:39, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong delete per nom, above, & WP:YOURSELF. Article clearly was primarily written by its subject to make him, a non-notable individual, sound notable. Check of edit history reveals that, of the 251 edits to this article, 67 (more than a quarter - and nearly all the major edits) were by User:Jamiemetzl, the article's subject. Clubwiki (talk) 14:38, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. COI doesn't automatically mean the article is inappropriate for Wikipedia--it might just mean we need to substantially rewrite the article, but the subject may still be notable. You've just asserted his lack of notability without providing any justification for that. Personally, as I've said above, I'm kind of ambivalent on the question--there's lots of sources I can find that seem to suggest he's notable, but a frustrating lack of genuinely independent sources which discuss him in-depth. --Miskwito (talk) 16:39, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete - Editors with COI are strongly discouraged from contributing to articles about themselves for a reason. User:Jamiemetzl and User:Jlwong10 are single-purpose accounts that basically crafted this article, and only that.  While Mr. Metzl's contributions to the field of international relations is commendable, in my view his profile he has not risen to the level of notability required for a Wikipedia article per WP:BIO. Do you know how many 'senior advisors' or 'senior counselors' there are in politics?  Perhaps soon, he will rise to greater notability.  But I would encourage Mr. Metzl to heed WP:COI and stay out of directly editing his article, and keep it to the talk page, if the page ends up being created again, or ends up not being deleted. ~  Pesco  So say•we all 04:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Why not look to an earlier version of the article that is untainted by WP:COI issues and revert back to that version? If you take a look at the article history, the main content of the article was written by me, an independent editor, while most of the material added by those apparently associated with the editor consists of lists of articles written. This situation is far from ideal, but is easily addressable. Alansohn (talk) 17:48, 9 November 2011 (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.