Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul John Dykes


 * 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. &mdash; Coffee //  have a cup  //  beans  // 16:34, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Paul John Dykes

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Writer of sports biographies, which appear to have been well received (e.g. mentioned in Scotsman book lists) but are essentially narrow fan-interest publications, about notable subjects but of little notability themselves. Although the article cites several reliable sources, they are mainly news items of the "a book about a notable subject has been published" variety, rather than carrying any particular coverage of Mr Dykes, so I'm inclined to think it fails WP:AUTHOR. To be honest, I suspect a degree of promotion (possibly self-promotion) behind this article, as its creator's editing other than on this article is almost exclusively limited to the subjects of Mr Dykes' books. Until I removed them, it also included unsourced personal info, such as date of birth, and a link to a commercial Celtic books website. Jellyman (talk) 19:36, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment The article's creator,, left the following response on the talk page of this nomination, rather than directly here. I have copied it across as follows:

"These publications are not "narrow fan-interest" items. They include an authorised biography about a Scottish international World Cup player, and a Scottish football captain, who managed clubs in America and Australia.

Each book has been published by separate publishers, and they are not fan or self-published.

In terms of being notable works, two have been named in a national newspaper's end-of-year merit list, and the other was adapted into a feature-length documentary (as listed on IMDB).

On the subject of the edits being around one subject, my interest lies in Celtic literature, and the subjects written about here (The Quality Street Gang, Neil Mochan & Andy Lynch) all have Wikipedia pages that include references to their respective biographies and autobiographies. By expanding on the subject of the author in this case, readers of Wikipedia are able to research further, each of the respective publications. It is not relevant that I, as someone who has taken the time to make factual edits to this site, has done so exclusively to one subject. This is not something that should prevent me or other users from making updates (exclusivity of subject) unless there is a term of use preventing them from doing so.

To further speculate that I have done this as self-promotion would suggest an accusation that I am indeed Paul John Dykes. This is an unfounded accusation and not one that I take lightly. These updates about a notable, three-times-published, author and documentary producer are in keeping with the terms of Wikipedia (which were fully read and understood in relation to notability etc).

On the contrary, the reason that you wish for these articles to be removed would appear to be self-motivated, as they deal solely in speculation (that you believe the author to be the subject).

Perhaps the DOB information was unsourced, but it was factually accurate and obtained from other online sources (Amazon and IMDB).

In terms of the link to a webpage, again perhaps poor edits on my part, but this was a link to this author's publisher's homepage, and no more a commercial effort to sell books than any other link to an official website." This is the full text their response, excepting quotations from my original nomination. Jellyman (talk) 12:12, 4 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I am not an expert on Wikipedia's deletion criteria, but I have seen many articles worse than this. I have also looked at WP:AUTHOR and to me this seems like a reasonable inclusion due to two of the books being nominated for awards by a national newspaper on separate occasions, and referenced accordingly. Obviously the books themselves are not notable but due to there being two such nominations I think there is at least a decent argument for the author being listed. The books relate to a fairly narrow subject but of course football is immensly popular and Celtic is a club close to many hearts with a rich history so it would not be suprising that books on the subject would be both popular and meritorious, and that readers would wish for the author to be more widely known having enjoyed the books. So overall my vote would be for Keep so long as nothing further is added which appears to be promotional in nature (obviously new works would deserve a new mention). That being said, I notice with amusement that User:HummingbirdSong does not actually deny being the subject of the article. It is a little atypical that a person would create a Wikipedia profile purely to create a profile of a fairly obscure sports biography author and link the subjects of the author's books to the author's profile, without being in some way connected to that person, therefore I wait to be convinced that if you are not Paul John, that you are not perhaps his agent or publicist. Crowsus (talk) 22:58, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Kurykh (talk) 01:05, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Scotland-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 12:34, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 12:34, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Kurykh (talk) 01:49, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete perhaps WP:TOOSOON. Claim to notability is based on 2 books about Scottish football.  The first is said to have inspired a documentary, but the documentary does not appear to have come out yet.  There appear to have been no published reviews of either book.  The first book did attract a small amount of attention when it was announced that it would become a documentary film.  Finally, both books were included in The Scotsman's  lists of the 20 or so Top Sports Books of the year.  Not at the top of the lists, and I am tempted to suspect that The Scotsman included them because of the local angle - and editorial need to include a local book, at least, inclusion on such a list would be more persuasive if it was in a newspaper published in Dublin or Sydney.  In addition, I have some suspicion that this article may be intended to assist with promotion of that documentary, if it is actually going to come out.  If that is the case, one of the editors active on the page or in this discussion might want to offer to move this article to userspace, and bring it back when/if the film or a more notable book makes this writer notable. E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:42, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 * one thing I would point out is that the second Scotsman list is more of a collection, I don't believe the books are placed in any order of merit and a lot of them are based around Scottish/Edinburgh subjects so I don't think the book in question is a particular local sympathy vote.

, looks like this may be your final chance to keep your article on Wikipedia... Crowsus (talk) 20:56, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

On the earlier point that a contributor remained unconvinced that I am not the subject of this article, I wish to state for the avoidance of any doubt that I am not.

In relation to the documentary adaptation, this was completed and released in 2015, and it is listed on the Internet Movie Database with Paul John Dykes as the Executive Producer. This documentary was adapted from the author's second book, Celtic's Smiler: http://m.imdb.com/title/tt5539538/

The question around his third book (Hoops, Stars & Stripes) being included in The Scotsman's list due to it being sympathetic to local subjects, I would point out that other subject matter of other books also on the list included Argentina, Real Madrid and Johann Cruyff. This is a list of football books of the year, not Scottish football books of the year.

There are numerous reviews of the three books and the documentary online. These links (and the IMDB link to the documentary) can be added as sources, and I am happy to do this in order to reference the subject more thoroughly.

Perhaps this listing was initially poor in its structure and referencing, but the subject should remain, as the author's work has been critically acclaimed (The Quality Street Gang and Hoops, Stars & Stripes in end-of-year lists) and adapted on to the big screen (Celtic's Smiler).

HummingbirdSong (talk) 21:48, 20 February 2017 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Final

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Nördic   Nightfury  12:05, 28 February 2017 (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.