Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul Skallas


 * 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__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. Ordinarily, I'd relist this discussion in hopes of getting more opinions but no editor has participated here since the last relisting so I'll close it now as No consensus. Liz Read! Talk! 23:25, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Paul Skallas

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

Non notable per WP:NAUTHOUR - books are self published and coverage is minimal, and not independent. Page was created following coverage of the subject and his lifestyle teaching in several notable papers including New York Times, The independent and The Spectator. However, reading the articles shows the same text. For instance "Paul Skallas, a 36-year-old technology lawyer and writer, has today picked up antiquity’s torch. He’s an evangelist for wisdom derived from the distant past: like, say, skip the mouthwash." is in both New York Times and Independent. Possibly also in the Spectator but it is paywalled. The coverage is therefore clearly written off a press release, and as such fails in the Independent test and cannot be used for GNG. Thus there is no significant independent coverage in reliable secondary sources and subject fails WP:GNG as well as WP:NAUTHOR Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:12, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:12, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Actualcpscm (talk) 11:15, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Illinois-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 11:26, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete. I have access to the Spectator. Only two sentences are about Skallas, not SIGCOV. The NYT and Independent pieces with identical text were written by the same guy (self-plagiarism). Splice is non-RS, and Protocol (which I'm familiar with) can be so-so. Several writers have shown screenshot evidence of repeated plagiarism by Skallas. Given that these pieces all focus on his online writings, you'd think that a piece of in-depth, neutral coverage would mention that. But none of them do, except Protocol, which does so in passing (and frames it as an "accusation" without evaluating its merits, despite the evidence being public). Regardless of what we think of the general reliability of the sources, these specific sources aren't sufficient to write a proper, neutral, non-puff piece article (WP:RSCONTEXT). We shouldn't apply WP:GNG and WP:SIGCOV too mechanistically. Sometimes, coverage can be superficial (non-SIGCOV) regardless of word count. DFlhb (talk) 13:18, 6 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Keep (note: changed to Speedy Keep below) - Skallas received a full article profile in The New York Times, the paper of record. He's also heavily featured in an article on Protocol, the tech-focused imprint of Politico, which is listed on Wikipedia as a a generally reliable perennial source. These two citations alone clearly meet the bar of WP:GNG. PK-WIKI (talk) 17:23, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
 * The New York Times article is addressed in the nom. statement. Both are addressed by DFIhb. WP:GNG requires multiple significant independent reliable secondary sources, so these two alone would not be enough to meet the bar. That is a misunderstanding of GNG. Also noting, for the record, that you are the page creator. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 17:51, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
 * The nomination statement that the "coverage is therefore clearly written off a press release" fails to notice that the New York Times article and article in The Independent were written by the same author. Any shared text between the two says nothing about the WP:INDEPENDENCE of the source. I did not list both of those articles in my keep support, as GNG states "Multiple publications from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability", but the full profile article published in the New York Times must be considered for the subject's notability. PK-WIKI (talk) 18:12, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Protocol isn't POLITICO [...] We're a standalone company, with our own editorial and business teams (link); they don't inherit Politico's reliability.
 * The NYT piece is a mere lightly-editorialized interview; it's primary (see footnote (d) of WP:NOR) and not independent, and doesn't count towards GNG. The Protocol piece intersperses an interview with editorial commentary; editorial commentary is independent, but is a primary source for the author's views (see WP:NEWSORG, part of WP:RS), not secondary.
 * Your reasoning (outlet is generally reliable --> GNG is met) only addresses presumed notability, not the other criteria. I don't think we have any source that meets GNG.
 * Reasoning from first principles: we shouldn't base an article exclusively on magazine-style profiles, because they share many traits with human interest stories (like focusing primarily on a single aspect, and packaging it into a storytelling narrative, as both the NYT and Protocol pieces do). NPOV can't be met if such sources are the sole basis for an article's notability. DFlhb (talk) 00:06, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete As per above. Death Editor 2 (talk) 00:15, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Changing my vote to Speedy Keep per clause 3 "The nomination is completely erroneous. No accurate deletion rationale has been provided."
 * This AFD nomination is based entirely upon the similarities between the New York Times piece and the article in The Independent. Because of this similarity, the nominator states "The coverage is therefore clearly written off a press release, and as such fails in the Independent test and cannot be used for GNG."
 * The nomination fails to notice that the two pieces were written by the same author and that the Independent article ends with the words "This article originally appeared in The New York Times". The articles were clearly not written off a press release (which would be quite a claim against The New York Times...).
 * The nomination provides no other deletion rationale. The nomination is completely erroneous and the article should be speedily kept. The nuanced discussion of the sources in replies here should be brought to a different AFD, if desired.
 * PK-WIKI (talk) 01:05, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * But a deletion rationale is given. Fails WP:NAUTHOR and WP:GNG. Additional deletion rationale has also been added by another editor. This is clearly not eligible under speedy. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 06:56, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * A completely erroneous deletion rationale is given in the nomination. Additional deletion rationale subsequently added in comment threads is irrelevant to the AFD nomination being erroneous. PK-WIKI (talk) 13:34, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Weak delete Mostly because the article right now reads like a short promotional blurb instead of an encyclopedic article. Not entirely sure it meets GNG, but I would consider the NYT and Protocol articles independent coverage. RoseCherry64 (talk) 20:25, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,   ArcAngel    (talk) 23:41, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep came across this when closing AfDs and decided to vote: the nomination is essentially claiming that the New York Times, arguably the most credible journalistic source in the world, is republishing marketing material? That is the single most ridiculous deletion rationale I have ever read, and I'm usually the first to call it out. The reason The Independent and NYT piece are similar is because they were written by the same author. Yes, that probably means they aren't independent sources given that the author was the same and they are published in the same time period, but it also means that two major international papers have found it acceptable to publish said article. That gives it strength not weakens it.Was able to view The Spectator bit. Combined with the Protocol one there is sufficient independent coverage in addition to the NYT source, which is of the highest quality and quite obviously not based on a press release. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:39, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep - not sure the NYT is "the most credible journalistic source" but certainly the refs provided on the article seem to support notability. The duplicate coverage is because those refs share the same author as mentioned above. - Indefensible (talk) 04:53, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * 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.