Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steven Pruitt


 * 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 delete. OK, first off it seems like the nominator and one delete !voter are sockpuppets and that would normally get the AfD thrown out, but there are legitimate users making arguments in favour of deletion. The crux of the argument is whether GNG is met (and whether BLPREQUESTDELETE applies, seeing as the article topic is a Wikipedia editor and they have opined in favour of deletion). Numerically it's fairly evenly split after throwing out the socks but the "delete" case is going in more depth about whether the sources are (in)substantial enough. That plus BLPREQUESTDELETE tips it over into "deletion". It's OK for Wikipedians to have articles so as long as normal biography inclusion criteria are met (i.e I am not familiar with any Wikipedian-specific policy different from normal biography policies), generally. Finally I see some users arguing whether to have a general "List of Wikipedians" article. It didn't get much discussion and I point people to WP:REFUND if they need the content of this article for such a project. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:45, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Steven Pruitt

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Not notable, permission not given for creation by Ser Amantio di Nicolao. Mrmei 22:01, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. Permission not needed. Coverage in El Diario and Time  is enough for WP:GNG, and widely-enough separated in time to prevent this from being a case for BIO1E. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:10, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. As per David Eppstein. If James Heilman deserves one, so does Steven Pruitt. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:14, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, but do you think that James Heilman deserves an article?  Nik ol ai Ho ☎️ 00:07, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 21:39, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 21:39, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 21:39, 10 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete as nominator. Mrmei 22:01, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * , I have stricken your above delete !vote, as per WP:AFDFORMAT, which states, "Nomination already implies that the nominator recommends deletion (unless indicated otherwise), and nominators should refrain from repeating this recommendation on a separate bulleted line." Everymorning (talk) 22:58, 10 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. Press coverage fine, and we don't normally ask the subjects of our articles for permission. Ser Amantio was one of my first contacts here, because I recognized his name from Gianni Schichi, my favourite opera. Brianboulton, author of that and many other featured articles, should perhaps also be featured in an article? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:08, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Over my dead body. Brianboulton (talk) 22:20, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure thing, Brian. You'll enjoy it. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:46, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. As per David Eppstein Wikipeida is an encyclopedia, not a book. Policy doesn't require permission of the subject to make an article. Deathlibrarian (talk) 22:34, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Unsure while there is some verification for this, unsure about the wisdom of having this article given it is about a Wikipedia editor and there are BLP issues as well as Internet privacy issues. Capitalistroadster (talk) 22:52, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * (Point of order): Is the subject of this article: {a) excused from commenting by dint of common politeness; {b) prohibited from commenting by COI (c) required to comment in order to give his permission (d) something else? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:58, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep per Martinevans123 's response. Delete I nominated the article James Heilman for deletion-that went horribly wrong. I stated that if James had an article, so should Ser Amantio. Guess what? Someone decided to create it because of that. Because I was disappointed by the result of that AfD, I decided to originally state keep for this article because it is true, if James has an article, so should Mr. Pruitt. In my opinion, neither are close to notability.  Nik ol ai Ho ☎️ 02:55, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * For context, the other AfD is Articles for deletion/James Heilman (3rd nomination). And "went horribly wrong" apparently means that Nikolaiho canvassed a bunch of editors who he thought would agree with him, but they all sided with keeping the article instead. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:08, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification. Apparently now, posting a reddit on/r/wikiinaction is also canvassing. When I saw that the article is tagged with the category 21st -century singers I almost died laughing. What has this become?! No normal people read these useless bio's anyways so i'm going to stop wasting my time over it.
 *  Nik ol ai Ho ☎️ 02:50, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is very much canvassing. For one thing, it is far from neutrally worded, and for another it is off-wiki, and would apparently not have been visible here without Everymorning's intervention. So it fits two of the four characteristics of inappropriate canvassing on WP:CANVASS, non-neutrality and stealth. I don't want to violate WP:OUTING by asking whether that was you, but whoever did that could face sanctions here for their misbehavior. This AfD is already somewhat questionable because the nominator turned out to be a sockpuppeteer; it doesn't need help making it more so. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:58, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * No, I have absolutely nothing to do with that reddit, I learned about it from that tag. The author of it wasn't telling people to come here and vote, he/she was just expressing his opinion, so what's the matter?  Nik ol ai Ho ☎️ 00:01, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok, glad to hear it wasn't you. But my feeling is that if someone just wants to blow off about an AfD they disagree with, the better approach is to wait until it is closed so that it doesn't look like canvassing. That also has the advantage that there's less chance of looking stupid when the AfD changes direction and ends up aligned with their opinion. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:48, 17 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Sure it might be for their benefit not to have posted that but is it actually canvassing. In other words, should the canvassing notice on this AfD exist? That is my concern.  Nik ol ai Ho ☎️ 03:44, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The first commenter there clearly believes its intent was to canvass. Regardless, what's the harm of the notice? It's just a helpful reminder to any newcomers who might wander by (canvassed or not) and to the closing admin. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:57, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete, though I'm flattered to have been considered. Various issues, none of them having anything to do with BLP issues (believe me, I'm fine with anything in the article appearing publicly. I'm an open book, generally speaking.) But I've never been convinced that there are enough sources to currently justify writing me up. There aren't but four, after all...and there are aspects of my life missing from them all (birth date, birthplace, etc.) -- Ser Amantio di Nicolao Che dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 06:58, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Merge Suggest we have a List of Wikipedia people and Steve has a section. The recognition by Time is great but do we really have enough material for a biography? I wouldn't want one if ever I got coverage for most articles created personally. I think we should wait until there is more coverage like Rosie has had for his own article.♦ Dr. Blofeld  08:00, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * KeepIm agree with @David Eppstein  Amirdaeii (talk) 07:32, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep Meets GNG.  Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:53, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep other editors have attracted media attention for GNG over much weirder aspects of their editing history, David Eppstein and Andy Mabbett have the answer it meets the requirement JarrahTree 10:42, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete No clear reason for the article's existence, and sure, Jimbo deserves an article, but as per SADN, not WP:Notable. Sure, he has 2 million plus edits, I have 2 million plus bacteria on my toilet seat. I consider notability to be something you can put on a resume and have the interviewer want to hire you immediately, or not hire you at all. Sure having two million edits to Wikipedia is impressive, but you put that on your resume and the guy will probably just go "cool" and pass right over it. Metmeganslay 00:38, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The above editor has been blocked as a CU confirmed sock of the nominator. ~ Rob 13 Talk 14:27, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Wanted to add this. Jimmy Wales does have an article.  Bobherry  Talk   Edits  04:57, 15 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep Meets GNG.  Bobherry  Talk   Edits  14:41, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete; it's all news reports, which are almost always primary sources, and these cases are human interest stories, which to quote WP:NEWSORG, are "generally not as reliable as news reporting, and may not be subject to the same rigorous standards of fact-checking and accuracy". In fact, one can question the idea that these are human interest stories — they all tend toward being opinion pieces of who's-who, and opinion pieces definitely aren't reliable for anything other than "Editor Alice thinks X".  Nyttend (talk) 04:12, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: I like 's idea of a list of the Wikipedians who have had some off-WMF news coverage, but perhaps do not want an article (as here) or do not have adequate coverage to quite meet GNG (or be comfortable) for a full article. So, I can't decide if my !vote is weak delete or merge with list yet to be created, but this is my two cents.  Montanabw (talk) 05:07, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. Here's my take on the situation. Ser Amantio himself is arguing that he doesn't pass notability guidelines and I have to agree with him. The coverage I can find for him seems to center on the coverage in TIME, which is frankly very recent and doesn't show a true depth of coverage. Now while some of the notability guidelines do state that two sources show notability, that guideline is meant to cover cases where those two sources assert that the topic or person has done something that would be considered so major and significant that the article can be kept on that claim alone. Very, very few things rise to that level of notability, which is reserved for things like winning an Oscar or assuming a major political office (like President of the USA). In other words, those two sources would contain information about something that is so incredibly notable that it's obvious that more secondary, reliable sourcing is available somewhere, even if it's not immediately accessible.
 * I'm not trying to downplay Ser Amantio's contributions here or his impact on us and others, but right here and now he has not accomplished that level of notability, as the TIME designation would not be considered to be at that level. It's the type of thing that makes it incredibly more likely that more coverage will become available, but he hasn't received that level of notability right here and now. Now if we had a list akin to what has suggested, then I'd whole heartedly suggest listing Ser Amantio's article there, but we don't have a list like that and I would recommend that anyone debating on starting such a list wait and start a discussion first because there is a lot of consideration that needs to be done for that list. (IE, notability threshold, coverage, etc.) Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  18:45, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Good point. When a Wikipedia editor says "Delete my article; I'm not notable", we really ought to do it — who's better familiar with the sources?  This isn't someone saying "I don't want a Wikipedia article!" but someone saying "I'm familiar with WP:BIO, and I don't pass it".  Nyttend (talk) 11:49, 17 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete - I think the notability here is borderline (one event really) (and uh, no offense Ser Amantio) and if it's borderline it should default to the subject's own preference. So if Ser Amantio says delete here, so do I (if it wasn't borderline, it'd be different). Also, I've seen this kind of thing go bad before.  Volunteer Marek   19:25, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep Substantial coverage in Time and Vocativ, therefore meets GNG.  Jakob ( talk ) 22:56, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete - Basically of the same opinion as Volunteer Marek. Whether the paragraph in Time, a paragraph in Inc, and some decent coverage in El Diario and Vocativ amounts to not just notability but a stand-alone article isn't clear, and since the subject would prefer deletion, I hop off the fence to the delete side on this one. Not opposed to Blofeld's idea of creating a larger list and merging, fwiw. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 23:58, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete This article goes totally into the realm of navel gazing. Having articles on people who have made huge numbers of edits on Wikipedia without longstanding and good quality sources about them, just undermines the quality of Wikipedia itself.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:41, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. In the real world, this subject's notability is minor, not "substantial".  – Athaenara  ✉  08:06, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete The subject is a superb Wikipedian and it is appropriate that our most prolific editor has been recognized in human-interest stories in the media. However, notability cannot rest on one assertion (prolific editor) repeated by a number of outlets, particularly given WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE and the fact that the subject has above requested deletion. The confusion regarding James Heilman is regrettable—this is not the place to expand on that, but even quickly scanning Heilman's article shows it has 59 references covering half a dozen different aspects of his work. Johnuniq (talk) 09:12, 17 October 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.