Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lucien van der Walt


 * 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. North America1000 00:21, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Lucien van der Walt

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I've proposed this article for deletion, due to violation of policy Wikipedia:AUTO (see #9 from Reasons for deletion). However, it may meet Criteria for speedy deletion A7, which has in the past been deemed appropriate for autobiographical entries.

In December 2015, Lucien van der Walt was identified as the user Redblackwritings with autobiographical contributions on this and other pages concerning his career and books. These articles contain unsourced personal and career information that only comes from the subject/author, Lucien van der Walt. After being confronted with this information and the fact that his nom de plume was exposed, Lucien van der Walt admitted to owning the Redblackwritings account, which has been editing only this autobiographical article and other related to his career (such as his books Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism (Counter-Power vol. 1) and Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940).

Lucien van der Walt's admittance of this blatant autobiographical, unsourced, non-encyclopedic editing is available in the "Personal statement" from February 2016. In it, he describes his use of the Redblackwritings account: "I apologise sincerely and unreservedly for engaging the issues under the Red.Black.Writings identity without clearly identifying it as mine. I should have done so, from the start. I am sorry if it was misleading. I acted emotionally, and without care. I am truly sorry... But that does not excuse me."

Furthermore, there is reason to suspect that anonymous edits to this article and related articles (for example, articles about the author's books), originate with the author or close friends and/or colleagues. The IP addresses 41.13.200.2, 41.13.216.24, 41.13.220.57, 41.13.228.45, 41.13.228.127, 41.13.192.222, 41.13.220.5, and 41.13.238.143 are also likely Lucien van der Walt, contributing original, unsourced information (such as "working class and slave family background") and all originating from a private ISP account near the author's home and workplace in South Africa. The IP addresses 197.79.37.234, 197.79.56.46, and 197.79.29.54 all originate from mobile broadband in South Africa, and only contribute links to talks and articles by Lucien van der Walt that the author or a close colleague would know. Other IP addresses that have edited this article show a similar bias, such as 105.250.162.49, which also originates in South Africa.

A first step to rectify this situation is removing this non-notable article about Lucien van der Walt that was clearly written by Lucien van der Walt himself. Beyond that, any edits by Redblackwritings and associated IP addresses (some listed above) should be scrutinized. Edits by those users should be reverted or the articles removed completely. It is questionable whether the articles reach the criteria of notability and some, such as Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940, were created by user Redblackwritings/Lucien van der Walt.

As an aside, it's rather embarrassing for a serious academic to be engaging in such blatant self-promotion, especially under a "once-well-known name I used to use". Since that username was an open secret amongst Lucien van der Walt's friends and colleagues, it displays the author's brazen will to violate Wikipedia policy... it's almost like editing this article under the nickname "IamLucienVDW" - Africanarchist (talk) 07:22, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep Unfortunately WP:AUTO is not a reason for deletion alone. He seems to be notable under WP:PROFESSOR (criteria #2), however, any blatant promotional content and the ridiculous over-listing of works by the author need to be removed.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  02:55, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:38, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:38, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of South Africa-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:38, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete. A GS h-index is not enough to pass WP:Prof in pop-sociology. Authorship of BLP is irrelevant. 21:46, 25 March 2016 (UTC). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xxanthippe (talk • contribs)
 * I'm open to Keeping if this can be improved. Delete at best as I'm uncertain but I'm able to examine this is still overall questionable. Also asking 's analysis. SwisterTwister   talk  04:19, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. but rewrite;, which I have just done.   Anarchism and syndicalism is a reasonably important book. I removed the large excess of material which made it promotional , and does not conform to the standard practices for academic biographies.  WP is an 1encyclopedia , and our policy is NPOV--not to reward or punish  potential article subjects  according to whether the people follow our rules   DGG ( talk ) 04:58, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I just removed further promotional text by Redblackwritings, unsourced irrelevant material (racial and ethnic ancestry), and redundant info (birthplace, awards already mentioned). I still think it merits deletion; once you have stripped out the self-promotion and unsourced autobiography, there isn't much left but a stub page.  There is even more text that probably merits removal or editing, but I will wait until this discussion closes.  Africanarchist (talk) 07:06, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  MBisanz  talk 03:03, 1 April 2016 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — UY Scuti Talk  19:28, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep For me, we need to figure out where the promotion ends and the fact begins. If he meets WP:GNG he should be kept. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 19:30, 8 April 2016 (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.