Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Randall Fontes


 * 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. Cirt (talk) 12:23, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Randall Fontes

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

No sources that establish notability, and really no claims in the article that assert it in a substantial way. If everything non-encyclopedic were removed from this article, there would be nothing left. It appears likely that the article was written by its subject. Article was previously prodded, and the prod was removed by the author, Looie496 (talk) 18:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete -- Yowuza yadderhouse | meh 18:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi, You certainly have me at a disadvantage as I am a novice in Wikipedia. I am not the subject person of this article. My name is Bob Swanson and I went to college with Randall and worked with until 1981. I had not seen him for 28 years. I ran into him this summer and talked with him and experienced some of the work he has done. I realized that as a scientist he had cloistered himself away in workshops for all that time and much of the work that he has been doing no one knew about.

As an educator for many years I have taken it upon myself in my spare time to help educate people about his wonderful work. I have to disagree with the idea that he is not notable. I read the guidelines and he is notable in at least both books and movies.

As far as non-encyclopedic I would have to disagree. Perhaps you don’t like my writing and I would certainly be open to suggestion. What I am looking for is friendly help if there are errors. Bob Plantman77 (talk) 02:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The reason I nominated the article is because it doesn't give evidence that he's more notable than the average guy -- what I would like to see is some evidence that he has received significant attention from authors or the media. The material about The Secret Life of Plants goes in that direction, but doesn't make clear how important his role was.  If he has academic or journalistic publications himself, that would also help.  Basically all the article shows solidly right now is that he's a guy with a Masters degree who works at a museum and fools around with plants.  In short, the article currently has lots of biographical material that is unsupported by sources, but very little in the way of solid statements about what makes him notable.  Regarding your writing, it has no major problems stylewise, but the content violates the principle that anything that appears in Wikipedia must be backed up by published sources -- we can't write from our own personal knowledge.  Regards, Looie496 (talk) 03:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank You for your response. The Author Peter Tompkins and Randall went on the book tour for the Secret Life of Plants and it is a best seller. They did radio shows, TV spots, The tonight Show, David Susskind and more.

Randall’s work was highlighted in the Movie of the same name. I have included a YouTube clip of the movie as a reference on the page. I have listed a number of news articles that were dedicated to his work. Unfortunately the internet did not exist in the 1970’s or there would be more information to link to.

I hope that I have been able to meet the needed criteria. Plantman77 (talk) 06:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)  Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Scott Mac (Doc) 23:09, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JForget  01:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Speedy Keep How can you make a claim on notability after looking at this article? He clearly passes General Notability by a wide margin.  Reliable sources including  multiple newspapers, published books, documentaries etc...  A case can be made for meeting WP:Notability (academics} as well since he is one of the pioneers in the field.  Clearly meets WP:AUTHOR as well.  I'm pretty confident this article doesn't stand a snowballs chance in hell of being deleted.  Nefariousski (talk) 01:17, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep, sufficient third party coverage. - Reconsider !  08:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. The article has been significantly improved since the nom, I think notability is pretty clear now. Wine Guy   Talk  12:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Great job of rewriting this article to meet guidelines. His notability is now well established. --MelanieN (talk) 01:58, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all for reviewing this article. Thanks for the guidance and kind words. Plantman77 (talk) 19:49, 7 February 2010 (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.