Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mike Thorn


 * 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 draftify‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. Dclemens1971 (talk) 13:43, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Mike Thorn

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Possible WP:AUTOBIO of a non-notable writer. (The photo was uploaded by the same user as "own work" and the editor's user page redirects to this article.) Of sources in the article, only this Calgary Herald piece qualifies toward WP:GNG. Sources 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9 are links to the author's own writing. Sources 2 and 6 are to the school paper of the subject's alma mater and thus disqualified toward notability per WP:RSSM. Sources 10-12 are WP:INTERVIEWS and thus disqualified toward notability as primary sources. There is no evidence that he would qualify under any criterion of WP:AUTHOR. Dclemens1971 (talk) 03:14, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Authors and Canada.  WC  Quidditch   ☎   ✎  06:11, 18 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi there!
 * I was new to making Wikipedia pages when I made this page, and I didn't understand the sandbox feature so I apologize about the redirect to my own page... I don't think that reflects on the relevancy of the subject, and I would be more than happy to fix that if it's possible. I'm just an unaffiliated fan of Mike Thorn's work, and I thought that fans were usually the genesis for page creation. I would hate for this to negatively impact him.
 * As for the photo, that might have been an issue on my part as well. I found it in this article from the Calgary Guardian: https://calgaryguardian.com/mike-thorn/.
 * Regarding sources 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9: I'm presently working to improve them. Regarding 9, I found it on JSTOR (https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7560/322833), and I'll continue working on the others! Could you please clarify what you mean by the "author's own writing"? They're not coming from his own website domain, so I thought they'd be fine... What other kinds of content creation exist for authors, given that they are authors?
 * Thanks! Mirbb1990 (talk) 13:35, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @Mirbb1990 Thanks for responding. Please familiarize yourself with the general notability guideline: we need multiple examples of significant coverage (not trivial, passing mentions or mentions of the subject in the context of something else larger) in sources that are reliable, secondary and independent of the subject. That means that the author's own writing, whether on his own website or in other sources, cannot establish notability; it's not independent. The fact that the author was published in an anthology does not make it notable unless there are secondary sources explaining why that anthology and its contributors are notable. Interviews are likewise disqualified for notability, since they are the subject talking about himself. And Wikipedia consensus is that student media is insufficiently independent to be used for notability. The only source you identified that would pass the test of significant coverage, secondary, independent, and reliable is the Calgary Herald piece, and we would need multiple examples of those kinds of pieces. I wasn't able to find them in my searching. Now, some of the sources you identified can stay in the article and be used as sources for facts, but only the Herald piece qualifies to establish Thorn's notability and thus his eligibility for an article at all. (As for the photo, it was already deleted from Wikimedia Commons as a copyright violation. Please do not upload any photos there as your "own work" if they're not your own work.) Dclemens1971 (talk) 14:28, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @Mirbb1990 I should add, since I see you are adding links to book reviews, that the reviews are not about the author but about the book, and thus will not meet the WP:SIGCOV test for the author himself. Dclemens1971 (talk) 14:39, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @Dclemens1971: Thanks for the input! I've carefully reviewed the criteria and added links to other noteworthy figures (such as the creator of the Final Destination film franchise), academic sources (including jstor), and articles about the author himself from sources such as IMDb (the Internet Movie Database). I've reviewed an analogous page for another author with fewer sources than Mike Thorn's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._P._Miskowski (who has blurbed Mike Thorn's work). Could you please explain why this page meets the criteria and Mike Thorn doesn't? Mirbb1990 (talk) 14:53, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * A few thoughts - Jstor is not itself a source, it's a directory of other sources, and your source link goes straight to the WP page for Jstor. Per WP:IMDB, IMDB is user-generated and not a reliable source. Finally, take a look at WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS -- the argument that another page is allowed so why not this one is not a valid argument at Articles for Deletion. The Miskowski page seems not to have any valid sources to establish notability, so I may well nominate it once I do a search for other sources. Regardless, Wikipedia is full of pages that shouldn't be there since anyone can create one. I came across the one you created during the New Page Review process (which has a 10,000-article backlog!) and I still think it should be deleted. Dclemens1971 (talk) 17:33, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I've corrected the Jstor link as per your note. The IMDb sources link to external publications that are not user-generated. Mirbb1990 (talk) 19:34, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @Dclemens1971: Is it possible for us to delete this page now, if that's ultimately going to be the end result? I feel guilty for putting this page up now, unbeknownst to the author himself, and I'd rather he didn't come across it because the deletion notice is a little embarrassing to see up there for a whole week. Mirbb1990 (talk) 19:54, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * If you wish to have more time to improve the article (and ask about sources at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, as you get more familiar with our sourcing practices), you can request to draftify the article by replying "draftify" in bold. I will support that as an alternative to deletion. Since you and I are the only editors who have weighed in so far, that alternative is permissible and can shortcut the deletion process. I get that these policies can be confusing for new editors, so thanks for bearing with me! Dclemens1971 (talk) 00:56, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Draftify Mirbb1990 (talk) 13:24, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @Dclemens1971: Thanks for allowing the Draftify option. Requested above. Mirbb1990 (talk) 13:35, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Draftify per author request. Dclemens1971 (talk) 13:39, 19 May 2024 (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.