Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jeff Kent (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   delete.  ·Add§hore·  T alk T o M e ! 00:51, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Jeff Kent (author)

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subject is not notable Nonsenseferret (talk) 04:18, 10 January 2013 (UTC) To update - I have searched for significant independent sources and cannot find anything which would substantiate notability for the subject of this article   nonsense  ferret  17:58, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. &#9733;&#9734;  DUCK IS PEANUTBUTTER &#9734;&#9733; 06:58, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions. &#9733;&#9734;  DUCK IS PEANUTBUTTER &#9734;&#9733; 06:58, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. &#9733;&#9734;  DUCK IS PEANUTBUTTER &#9734;&#9733; 06:58, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. &#9733;&#9734;  DUCK IS PEANUTBUTTER &#9734;&#9733; 06:58, 10 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment The referencing on that article is terrible! Completely useless for finding anything. Searching myself, I did find a few articles from local press in West Midlands, Staffordshire, and Cheshire. But it's all local interest: he generally writes about Mercia (a historic region of England) and his local football team Port Vale.  And his books are all self-published and I can't find any reviews beyond one short piece about a Port Vale book on ThisIsStaffordshire.co.uk. I'm sure there's more local press beyond what I have listed, and I'm not sure about the directories the article says he's in. So there's still a chance he's notable, but I'll see if anyone can find more. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:55, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete -- He appears only to be a further education college lecturer (=NN). Almost all the music and published works appear to be related to "Witan" - probably effectiely self-published (=NN).  His Mercian Manifesto appears to relate to a movement seeking regional government, but with no WP article on the movement, I must suspect it to be consist of a mere handful of people (=NN).  Occasionally several NN activities together may be eough to push a person over the barrier of notability, but not in this case, in my view.  Peterkingiron (talk) 16:57, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep: The reason given for the proposed deletion as stated is a personal value judgement, with no supporting argument or evidence. The article has been present for almost four years, with no previous proposal to delete it and, in my opinion, the article and citations satisfy Wikipedia's notability guidelines. If they do not, how can the article (in a brief and undeveloped form) have been accepted as notable in the first place and how can it have survived for nearly four years without challenge? Over that time, there have been more than 9,000 visits to the page, which have proved its notability. That amount of traffic isn't great by the standard of very popular articles, but (at the most cursory glance) it can be seen to be considerably more than that received by numerous articles happily in place on here and seemingly not under threat of deletion. Year by year, this article's number of visits has risen and in 2012 there was more than 2.5 times the traffic that there had been in 2011. Therefore, the article must have been of notability and value to thousands of people who have visited it. Without any further investigation, the notability of this subject is proved by its listing in several published books of international biography for different achievements. The article's bibliography lists 21 published books written, co-written, edited or co-edited by the subject; the discography shows four albums by him to have been released and the campaigns section of the text indicates the subject to have had a dynamic involvement in English regional politics. By most standards, these achievements (especially when combined) would be considered notable, without having to consider any of the others of the subject. Whether a book is self-published or not is irrelevant as to the author's notability because the method of publication is looking at cause and not effect. Some self-published works have sold huge numbers of copies and are therefore notable. On the highly dubious criterion of works of notability having to be released by outside bodies from the creators, few 1970s punk rock bands (who preferred the artistic control of self-releasing their music) would qualify for a Wikipedia article. A majority of this subject's creative works clearly predate the Internet age and therefore will not have had online reviews, but paper ones, which will be more difficult to find. Nevertheless, the thisisstaffordshire.co.uk website alone lists 25 recent references to the subject. Also, there may well be relevant references to the subject in the numerous press cuttings I have on various topics and I can add any I find to the article's references if that would be helpful. Finally, although classification of the geographical nature of creative productions is fraught with difficulty, it is inaccurate to say that the subject's works have 'generally' been regional or local in nature. The article's bibliography and discography show a range of geographical types of the subject's works, from international in scope to regional and local, and eleven of the subject's books and records listed can arguably be classified as international in content and outlook. --Snoobysoo (contributor) Snoobysoo (talk) 17:09, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The argument that the article has been here four years is specifically dealt with in WP:ARTICLEAGE, and is generally considered on wikipedia to have little weight in this discussion. The question of how many page views there has been is also pretty much irrelevant, see WP:POPULARPAGE.  The 'Dictionary of international biography' mentioned in the article several times is an International Biographical Centre publication which is generally recognized as a vanity publishing scam (they search far and wide for people to include to obtain money from them or their supporters) and does not confer notability on anyone just due to the fact they are mentioned in it.  The International Who's Who in Music and International Who's Who of Authors and Writers books mentioned are also formerly International Biographical Centre publications, the entries for which are solicited from the subjects themselves and so are neither independent nor presume any notability as far as I can see.  As to the Writers and Artists it is not clear to me at all that this implies any level of notabilty.  The fact of having published a book does not confer notability particularly - what I believe is key is the significant and independent coverage of that publication which will establish notability. Also as a side point, I'm not implying any sort of bad faith at all, but in the interests of openness in this discussion would you be prepared to declare your relationship to the subject of the article, thanks?  I think references to specific newspaper articles would be particularly helpful, obviously these will have much more weight as regards notability if they are in the regular national newspapers rather than a local publication.   nonsense  ferret  17:58, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * also - I think there is a slight misunderstanding in that the point is not that the subject's works are local in nature or not, that's not at issue, the question is I believe how widely known and significant those works are - you could definitely write a book about a local town, and if that book was on the national bestseller lists and was the subject of significant coverage in books and media, that would be pretty notable.  nonsense  ferret  23:47, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your references to the article age and popular page sections of the deletion discussions article. Although the state of play given there seems illogical to me, clearly your comments about the validity of the age and popularity of articles are correct. Regarding the international biographical sources listed as references at the end of the article on the subject (Jeff Kent), I haven't the first-hand knowledge on them to comment on the overall accuracy of their content. However, I have checked the "International Biographical Centre" website and it says 'We never charge for inclusion' in their publications, so, unless that is a blatant lie, by definition the "Dictionary of International Biography" cannot be a vanity publishing scam because vanity publishing consists of paying money to be published. Also, the "International Who's Who of Authors and Writers" and the "International Who's Who in Popular Music" are published by Routledge and the Wikipedia article on the company suggests nothing sinister about them. Also, their website says nothing about payments to have entries published. Therefore, unless you have evidence to the contrary, these international biographies don't seem to be disreputable. I agree with you that having a book published these days isn't all that notable, but only a very small percentage of authors have as many books published as the subject (Jeff Kent). Therefore the actual number of his publications is notable, irrespective of the quality of his work. It is perfectly reasonable for you to ask for my connection (as a contributor to the article and the discussion) to the subject. I do know Jeff Kent. I live in Staffordshire, in England, and he is very well known here. However, I have done everything I can to be objective (simply supplying facts known to me) in my article contributions and I am also trying to be objective, and put points purely from evidence, in this discussion too. I note your comments about the value of adding specific newspaper articles (especially national ones) to the article's references and I would be willing to play my part in doing that. I'm confident I will find some reviews in national publications, but it will take time for me to trawl my records. However, it will be futile for me to undertake such a big job if the article is going to be deleted anyway (the more so after the discussion ends on Thursday) or is likely to be deleted because I would be wasting my time. Obviously, you cannot guarantee that the article will not be deleted, but to undertake the task I would have to believe that there would be a fair chance of the article being retained if the proposed references above can be found. Therefore can you suggest a positive way forward? Snoobysoo] [[User:Snoobysoo|Snoobysoo (talk) 14:43, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * re the IBC - if you follow the link to the article here International Biographical Centre you can see some references that might be helpful. You may also notice a link at the bottom of the who's who in music article to Who's Who scam.   nonsense  ferret  15:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Regarding a positive way forward, after the discussion ends the administrator could decide to keep the article, continue the discussion to obtain a better consensus, or delete the article. If the article is deleted and you wish you continue working on it, then all of the page can be transferred to your user space where you are free to continue editing until such time as it is suitable for reconsideration - this can be requested on the talk page of the administrator who carries out the deletion. In terms of establishing notability you are probably aiming to meet some of the requirements of WP:Author. I hope this is helpful.  nonsense  ferret  15:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, one final point re the number of books published - by way of example, I could publish 100 expert books on a given subject and that of itself would not be notable, but if I published only one book and it was the subject of an in-depth review in the Times and Guardian newspapers, it won the Man Booker prize, and it sold lots of copies then that would certainly be notable. Jeff seems like an interesting chap and may well be an expert in his field, that in itself I don't think is notable until it can be demonstrated that he has obtained widespread recognition.   nonsense  ferret  15:37, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comments. Yes, they are helpful. Perhaps there is something of a consensus, in that further, more wider-scale references are being requested for the article and that is okay with me. Is the precise and specific listing and dating of such reviews/articles sufficient as references in each case or do the reviews/articles themselves need to be posted on the subject's page? If the latter and they are pre-Internet sources, how can they be uploaded onto the subject's page from scanned original copies? Also, I may wish to ask your further advice. After the discussion has ended, how would I contact you if need be? Snoobysoo Snoobysoo (talk) 14:53, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I stand to be corrected but I don't believe any upload of articles is necessary - a clear citation that would enable others to find the same article is sufficient. Re contacting me, happy to receive any messages at User_talk:Nonsenseferret  nonsense  ferret  23:02, 15 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete A self-published author, with no evidence of passing WP:CREATIVE. A lot of the information is drawn from pay-to-publish "directories" like the Dictionary of International Biography, International Who's Who, etc. Googling is infeasible due to common-ness of name. Ray  Talk 17:48, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Notability is not dependent on the means of publication. It's dependent on the notability of the subject. On the denial of self-production logic, many punk rock bands could not be listed on Wikipedia because they began by producing their own records. The international biographies mentioned are a small minority of the citations of the article and if there's proof that they are pay-to-publish directories (because I've not come across any such evidence), please post it. As advised by Nonsenseferret above, if the article isn't permanently deleted at the end of the discussion, I intend to play my part in helping to improve it by seeking to add specific newspaper and magazine references, especially national ones. Snoobysoo Snoobysoo (talk) 18:25, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
 * If you could produce those references here, that would certainly help sway the opinion of commenters. But so far, what's dooming the article is the lack of any significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. I mean, there are very nice articles in regional websites saying that he's going to offer to guide a walk for tourists past local landmarks. That does not count as significant serious attention to his work in detail. Ray  Talk 19:58, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm aiming to do as you say. Obviously, it will take time to do and so before I begin what is likely to be a fair amount of work, I will need to know what the outcome of the discussion is and if the article is to be deleted, to be reassured by an administrator that it can be resubmitted later. If the outcome is that the article is to be retained, or retained for a period, for improvement, then I will be able to begin work on references fairly quickly. Snoobysoo 87.114.138.130 (talk) 23:51, 16 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete. He seems to be very prolific but that's not a notability criterion, and I'm not seeing any evidence of passing WP:GNG. Almost all the sources in the article are either vanity press sorts of things (e.g. related to the International Biographical Centre), his own works, or in one case the same Wikipedia article itself. What we don't have are any reliably published third-party sources that discuss the subject in depth. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:15, 17 January 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.