Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Randall Bell (3rd nomination)


 * 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. (non-admin closure) buidhe 17:55, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Randall Bell
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Pure self-promotion for a real estate agent. The original article, created by an army of sock-puppets, was deleted in October 2014, but less than a month later another single-purpose account, AllthatshineLA, re-created it. All points raised in the 2014 AfD still remain valid: this biography does not meet WP:ANYBIO or any other relevant standard. bender235 (talk) 13:44, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone  20:42, 6 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete: all spam, no notability. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 22:34, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep - No doubt a promo, but the guy passes WP:BASIC and WP:ANYBIO. I Googled "Randall Bell""appraiser" and found one reliable source after another.  And not just passing mention, these are full articles about Bell, see ,,. Magnolia677 (talk) 22:43, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
 * But how to "de-fluff" it? --bender235 (talk) 02:21, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
 * It should be tagged as a promo, which may attract an editor skilled at trimming biographies. Promo aside, the guy's work is fascinating. Magnolia677 (talk) 10:01, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. North America1000 23:56, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. North America1000 23:56, 6 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep he appears to be a fairly common subject of magazine/newspaper features WSJ, Seattle Times, LATimes, Associated Press Rolling Stone (interview) . These are indicative of wide spread coverage and are spread out from the 90s to 2020, showing that the significance isn't one-off. Passes WP:GNG and WP:NPERSON. The article may be a promo, but with this amount of coverage that isn't really enough to justify deletion. Eddie891 Talk Work 11:53, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Strong delete we have rules against creating an article on your self for a reason. If he is truly notable someone else will create it later, we must not at all tolerate people creating articles on themselves. If we do not stand fast to this rule our whole project will be overrun with self promotional rubbish.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:12, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
 * If the article had just been created User:Johnpacklambert and only edited by the proponent, that might be a valid argument. But in six years since it was created, it has been vastly rewritten by many editors - including yourself in 2015! Nfitz (talk) 19:17, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Doing four minor edits that either add or change cateorization is not the type of edit that moves the article out of the factors about its creation. So the above is a dinsingenous assessment of my contributions. If we do not enforce the rules against people creating articles on themselves we will go down the path of turning into LinkedIn or Who's Who. We must fight this, and so we must delete this article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:35, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
 * To pretend that I claimed that you'd made extensive edits yourself is disengenous. You and many editors contributed over the last half-decade to rewriting it. There is nothing in Wikipedia "rules" that make it okay to delete an article 5 years after it was created, because the version as it existed 5 years ago was problematic. And if you don't know that, then there is a rule about competence to edit, that I believe should be used to topic-ban you from AFDs. Nfitz (talk) 20:52, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep - references meet GNG with references provided above. Subject is notable, and article should be improved, not deleted. Nfitz (talk) 19:17, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 12:34, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Architecture-related deletion discussions. Tyw7 (🗣️ Talk) — If (reply) then (ping me) 19:43, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ohio-related deletion discussions. <i style="font-family:'Rock salt','Comic Sans MS'; color: Green;">Tyw7</i> (🗣️ Talk) — If (reply) then (ping me) 19:43, 14 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep: Significant coverage in the Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, People and The Wall Street Journal. I was considering making an edit to the first paragraph to soften the statement "Bell is an expert on real estate damages," but then read the whole article, and yeah, he clearly is an expert on real estate damages. Whether the article has been created/edited by people with a conflict of interest is not relevant to its notability; there is no policy on "original sin" that demands the deletion of articles on notable subjects in order to punish CoI editors. The subject is clearly notable. — Toughpigs (talk) 22:57, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep:As per and . All the points that i was about to state have already been stated by Toughpigs (like if he was reading my mind). Further, what  says is totally illogical. It makes no sense whatsoever. "Someone else will create it"? If this was to be the mentality of each one of us then wikipedia would have been shut a decade ago. The subject is clearly notable. It has also received signicant coverage in independent and reliable sources. That's it. No way it is a "Strong delete". Regards Pesticide1110 (talk) 08:46, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * "And if you don't know that, then there is a rule about competence to edit, that I believe should be used to topic-ban you from AFDs." This may sound rude but it won't be even slightly wrong if done. If you go on to check the contributions of Johnpacklambert, you can see that, in general, all of his edits are votes for deletion (and only deletion) on AFDs. You can also observe the same pattern i.e. to say that it does not meet this/that notability guideline and hence it should be deleted. And that too without explaining how and why, which directs us to a possibility that he never even tries to do a proper check on whether the subject of the article is notable or not. I have seen him calling out those subjects not-notable which easily satisfield WP:GNG and so can you. I know that its a big accusation if considered that he has over 300,000 edits. But edit counts are more like an illusive characteristic of an wikipedian. Quality of edits is of paramount importance and i can see the quality being sub-par here. Regards Pesticide1110 (talk) 08:46, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The above is an uncalled for character assasination. I have very clearly explained why our rules clearly state we should remove this article based on its bad creation history and why we should not tolerate such bad creation histories and how they undermine the project. The claim that I always vote for deletion is just plain false.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:11, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Plain false? Ok fine. Maybe it is. But won't it be better if you prove it rather than just saying it? Can you show us a total of just 10 Afds where you have commented in favour of keeping the article? Just 10. Regards <b style="color:NavyBlue">Pesticide 1110 </b> <i style="color:Teal">Lets wrestle!</i> 18:05, 18 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep. Have tidied up this BLP (and thus no need for the tags).  He does meet GNG (per the refs in the article, and which are also re-quoted above), and this includes several WP:SIGCOV pieces, including a dedicated piece from the Wall Street Journal.  He really is an expert in this area, and his career and the cases that he has taken on are very interesting (and fully supported by multiple RS quality independent sources).  It is also possible that he meets WP:NAUTHOR in his field of Stigmatized property (for which we have a WP article). Britishfinance (talk) 14:27, 21 June 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.