Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Samuel Stoddard

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.

The result of the debate was Delete. 6 deletes, 3 keeps. dbenbenn | talk 04:18, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Samuel Stoddard
Appears to be either a) a vanity page or b) innappropriate content (based on the 'non-famous person' controversial criterion). The content of the page is ...
 * Samuel Stoddard (Sam) is the webmaster of RinkWorks.
 * Template:bio-stub

...has expanded significantly (as noted by one of the voters below). Courtland 18:34, 2005 Feb 13 (UTC)

Thanks for your votes. Courtland 06:56, 2005 Feb 11 (UTC)


 * Delete Courtland 07:05, 2005 Feb 11 (UTC)
 * sorry, but I'll stand by my call for deletion; now it reads like it has been written by a fan Ceyockey 18:36, 2005 Feb 13 (according to history Uncle G 06:07, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC))
 * ... which is quite amusing, really, considering that I'd never even heard of the bloke until this came up for VFD. &#9786; Uncle G 06:07, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)
 * I am quite sure it's not a vanity page. I have read Sam's writing a lot, and talked to him in e-mail, and he doesn't seem the type to make a vanity page. Still, I vote delete. This page is almost devoid of information. Make it redirect to RinkWorks instead. 193.167.132.66 09:43, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete or redirect. No useful info. Egil 09:51, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Redirect, And delete. Inter 13:47, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * One cannot simultaneously "redirect" and "delete", people. It's one or the other.  (One can "delete and then create a redirect", of course, or as per Egil "delete, or failing that redirect")  Please clarify your votes. Article does not establish notability (not even to the extent of David J. Parker), however a quick Google Web search indicates that there is plenty of potential (Dialectizer, "ultra-condensed books", the stupidity and barratry of of Bank of America, Samuel Stoddard the 18th century theologian, and so forth). Keep. Uncle G 16:07, 2005 Feb 11 (UTC)
 * (Note: I am the same person as 193.167.132.66 above.) OK, I stand corrected, I meant "delete and then redirect". This article has way too little content to warrant a separate article. The RinkWorks main article already mentions its webmaster is Samuel Stoddard, so what's the point in a separate article that only says that and nothing else? As for the RinkWorks features, they should be included in the RinkWorks main page or in articles of their own. As for Samuel Stoddard the 18th century theologian, well it's nice that there was such a person, but until someone actually writes something about him, there's no point in keeping a dummy article. Therefore, I say that either write something here (about either "our" Stoddard or the 18th century guy), or delete this article. 81.17.198.7 17:24, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, agree with UncleG. There is plenty of potential here. Obviously it has to expand beyond the current one line status. Megan1967 22:57, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Even though Uncle G has found a Samuel Stoddard or two who might be notable, they are not this Samuel Stoddard.  This Samuel Stoddard's only claim to notability is that he is the webmaster of an Alexa rank 28,330 website.  I am the webmaster of a Top 2000 website, according to Alexa, and believe me I am not notable enough to merit a Wikipedia article.  Neither is Samuel Stoddard, which doesn't mean he isn't a great guy, like all webmasters.  --BM 00:58, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * I consider Samuel Stoddard's website RinkWorks quite notable. Many other websites mention or link to its humour features. However, having a separate article only to mention that Samuel Stoddard is the webmaster - especially when it's already mentioned in the RinkWorks article - is needless. Articles with next-to-none content shouldn't be kept just because someone might write something there in the future. When they actually write something, they can recreate the article. 85.76.152.179 09:47, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Even if the website is notable (a point not yet validated), that does not mean that the webmaster of the site is automatically notable.  No evidence has yet been presented that he meets the recommended criteria for inclusion of biographies.  To Uncle G's point, if some future editor has something encyclopedic to say about one of the other Samuel Stoddards, he/she can create the article more easily from a redlink.  Rossami (talk) 23:43, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete: no useful content. No need to disambiguate articles which don't yet exist. Wile E. Heresiarch 07:48, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, there is a need to disambiguate, even without the now expanded article. If deleted and re-created as a redirect, we'd still have a choice of whether to redirect to Solomon Stoddard, who appears to have been known as "Samuel", or to RinkWorks. Uncle G 10:48, 2005 Feb 13 (UTC)
 * I see the article has been expanded, which is a Good Thing, but still all the material is about Stoddard's website RinkWorks, not Stoddard himself. I have heard from Stoddard himself that there is more to his life than just RinkWorks! 85.76.152.179 18:20, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Then, as someone who clearly knows him, you should be expanding this article instead of decrying it and asking other people to write about what you know for you, because otherwise (and despite the fact that there's a strong argument for Samuel Stoddard to be a redirect to Solomon Stoddard) it's likely that this article is going to end up being a redirect to RinkWorks, giving pretty much exactly that impression. Uncle G 06:07, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)
 * (Note: I am the same person as 85.76.152.179. I am on a different computer.) First of all, I am only an active participant on RinkWorks. I am not Stoddard's personal friend. We have never met, but we've talked via e-mail. Thus I don't know very much about his personal life, other than the fact that he's married. Second of all, I never said I had anything against merging the article with RinkWorks. Go ahead if you want. 193.167.132.66 08:06, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * keep: an author of notable things is notable by association. We have plenty of precedents here, even with sillier things, like Sonja Elen Kisa, the author of Toki Pona language with "10-20 proficient speakers". Mikkalai 04:03, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.