Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lazarus Long (micronationalist)


 * 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, without prejudice against making alterations as argued for below. Consensus should be worked out at the article talk page. Chick Bowen 22:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

New Utopia

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

If this nomination results in at outcome of "delete", it should also cover New Utopia and (!!!) "Principality of New Utopia", which is now a redirect, and that should be salted if recreation becomes a problem.

This is a peculiar nomination, as I'm nominating an article I have just spent a considerable amount of time working on, to bring it in line with what the sources provided actually say (my version). This was previously an article entitled Principality of New Utopia, about a so-called "micronation". However, the article before I moved and edited it presented this entity as a country, with information about the "head of state" and the "number of citizens". That in itself was woefully non neutral given that the sources provide no justification whatsoever for referring to this as anything other than a scam (please see Talk:Lazarus_Long_%28micronationalist%29 for my comments on this, and Micronations for some guidelines I have proposed). New Utopia was twice before nominated for deletion: once in 2004, and once earlier this year.

I've refactored the article into a biography/article about the scam. However, I believe this person and his project is barely notable (WP:WPBIO) from the sources (WP:RS) provided. Most of the cited mentions are trivial. He was in trouble with the SEC to the tune of a mere $24,000. By all accounts his "micronation" is pure fantasy.

Now, if folks think I've done such a wonderful job here the article should be kept, fine, I'll take it as a compliment. I do however recommend that we delete this article. --kingboyk 20:25, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Note to closing admin: If the result of the debate is to Keep, please ensure you note that it's to be Kept as an article on the scam. At the time of writing consensus isn't clear between deletion and keeping as an article on the scam, there seems to be no consensus at all to keep as an article on a micronation. --kingboyk 12:12, 12 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete Fails WP:BIO. Edison 04:18, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * There have been 2 previous atempts to delete this article under the name New Utopia. The most recent of these resulted in a clear consensus to keep. The present nominator is attempted to deliberately subvert community consensus by renaming the article and renominating it a third time. Obvious bad faith nomination. --Gene_poole 08:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Would you please provide a link to said nomination? I don't recall ever nominating the article for deletion before, and the 2 AFDs I have found had nothing to do with me. That's not to say I didn't; I don't remember. It's also rather irrelevant: there's full disclosure above that I renamed the article, and full disclosure as to why it was in breach of our policies and guidelines. --kingboyk 11:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, fifteen minutes of fame isn't. As the article indicates, there's no tangible evidence of his so-called nation.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  12:25, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep and rename to New Utopia. I think kingboyk was right to delete most of the article's (unsourced) content, but the move to "Lazarus Long" was unwarranted as he doesn't seem to be notable. I also believe that any article on the subject should focus on it as a scam. That said, the scam itself seems to be notable, having received coverage in the Wall Street Journal, CNN Money, The Motley Fool, and others. I'll see if I can factor the sources into the article. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 13:49, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * That wouldn't help, because a micronation that has no tangible evidence of its existence isn't notable either.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  14:06, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I only used the sources which were already provided; if there are other more substantial sources available please do integrate them into the article and we'll see how it looks. I believe my name change was fair, for the reasons provided, and would contend that if Long isn't notable nor is "New Utopia" as they're one and the same. (And I am very far from convinced that either are notable, per Radiant). I will, however, defer judgement until I've seen what you come up with. Thank you for the constructive input.
 * I believe the article should focus on the fraud because that's what the sources I've seen so far focus on. So, no micronation infobox with nonsense about princes and population, please. I'm also thinking of creating a subcategory to contain these fraudulent schemes, to seperate them from the hobbyist/experimental micronations like Empire of Atlantium. --kingboyk 14:17, 9 May 2007 (UTC) (e/c)
 * I don't really think Long/Turney is notable per WP:BIO. Also, the "micronation" is not notable. The only thing that I think is notable is the scam; that's why I suggested reversing the pagemove. I agree with you that the article should focus on the details of the fraud (its beginnings, its organisation, the SEC case, the aftermath) rather than any fictional country statistics and I have tried to keep it that way (e.g., referring to "Turney" instead of "Prince Long"). I have finished making some changes with the 3 sources I noted above. There are some other news sources available (mostly about the SEC's involvement) and the existing sources could be used to add some more content, but I will stop for now for comments. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 14:45, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * You've done a wonderful job. Between us we've now got an article which as far as I can see is neutral per the sources. I still believe this isn't sufficiently notable, and that most of the mentions in the sources are trivial; I also look at the [|incoming links] and see precisely zero coming in from non-micronation articles. In conclusion, then, I continue to recommend deletion, but thank you for your work and wouldn't be unhappy if this version is kept. Job done as far as I'm concerned, now we let the community decide on notability and sources. --kingboyk 15:18, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I think we let this AfD play out ... who knows, maybe others'll edit the article too. I continue to recommend keeping based on the the Quatloos source, the three sources below, and the fact that the scam merited a non-trivial (in my view) mention in the Wall Street Journal 2 years after the SEC case. In any case, I'm quite happy that we were able to take the article from this to this. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 15:49, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * ^ McMillan, Alex Frew. "Beware of Net stock scams", CNN Money, April 25, 2000. Retrieved on May 9, 2007.
 * ^ Perlman, Jay. "Securities Fraud: Bogus Offerings", The Motley Fool, February 23, 2000. Retrieved on May 9, 2007.
 * ^ Reagan, Brad. "Strange -- but Not True", The Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2002. Retrieved on May 9, 2007.
 * I agree with you on all but the notability, and am happy to agree to disagree on that :) The diffs you presented are very pleasing; and also reaffirm to me my suspicion that in many of these articles it's the infobox which is responsible for a lot of the problems. It presents these entities as nations; in cases like this that's clearly incorrect. Thanks again for your hard work, and for proving to the more disruptive voices out there that it's possible for people with opposing views to work together and find compromise. --kingboyk 15:57, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * PS I like your version better than mine, and think both are infinitely better than what went before. However, I am absolutely not convinced of notability or the availability of reliable sources, so please do follow through on your offer. Cheers. --kingboyk 14:24, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep and rename per Black Falcon. It has no tangible evidence of its existence as a nation, but the article shouldn't portray it as a real nation, the article should portray it as a scam.  Wikipedia can cover fantasy as long as we maintain a NPOV. PubliusFL 14:17, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Portraying it as a scam has been my point all along; however, you haven't addressed my main rationale for deletion, that even when refactored as a scam, the sources aren't multiple and non-trivial and there's no notability. The sources cited a minor fraud ($24,000) and "New Utopia" got bit part mentions in long articles on more general topics. Unless Black Falcon comes up with substantially more than is already there I don't see the sources nor the notability, I see a small time crook who got a brief mention in a few news articles. --kingboyk 14:20, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete non-notable dude, non-existent place. Carlossuarez46 21:24, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with both of your points, but the article is no longer about the dude or the place. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 21:47, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep the articel about the scam, as now moved to New Utopia. The scam is notable enough, as the cited sources show; the scamster seems to have no notability except as the creator of the scam, and that is better covered in an article about the sacam DES (talk) 22:31, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep under New Utopia (or move back to Principality of New Utopia) - notable as micronation. The huckster isn't, but the micronation is.  Georgewilliamherbert 23:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep The discussion above and the various page moves are very confusing. As of the time I am making this comment the article is about a hoax or scam that seems notable. The whole micronation thing is irrelevent except as it relates to the scam. If there are sources for the microantion, which as I understand it was never built and thus was basically Something Made Up At A Bar One Day, a seperate article should be written and stand or fall on its own merits. Or there was an article...or it was renamed...or whatever the hell is giong on here. Keep the scam, lose the rest.-- killing sparrows  (chirp!) 03:22, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep in current state. Even if it is a scam, the references provided (thereby meeting WP:NN) clearly makes it a notable scam and worthy to be in a diverse reference such as Wikipedia.
 * Comment OK,now I'm more confused. Did someone redirect two other articles to this one and then nominate in essence three articles for deletion in one fell swoop? Where are the other two articles? WTF???-- killing sparrows  (chirp!) 06:26, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll try to clarify as best I can. This article was initially titled New Utopia. On May 8, it was moved to Lazarus Long (micronationalist) and subsequently nominated for deletion. On May 9, it was moved to Principality of New Utopia, but the move was reverted 2 hours later. Three hours after that, it was once again moved to New Utopia following a rewriting of the article and per discussion on this AfD. I hope this clarifies things somewhat. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 07:14, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Right. It's only one article, but it's been on a bit of a ride as far as naming is concerned. The "permanent" links in my nomination (links to old revisions) are the best way of seeing how the article has changed. --kingboyk 10:40, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete or keep as an article about an investment scam, which is the verifiable and notable aspect of this incident. I've tried to do this after last failed Afd. But that version didn't survive. --Pjacobi 11:58, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll leave a note to the closing admin. Agree with you, and I don't see any suggestion at all here that we should roll back to the old version. --kingboyk 12:12, 12 May 2007 (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.