Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thomas Wm. Hamilton


 * 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. Rjd0060 (talk) 03:20, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Thomas Wm. Hamilton

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

First of all, I'm a little dubious as to whether this person exists at all. His biography seems bizarre to say the least. But assuming he does, why is he notable? He doesn't appear on the IMDb at all, despite claims that he appeared in films and TV series. If he only appeared in the theatre as a child actor I'm not sure that qualifies for notability - the notability bar has to be higher for stage actors since they don't reach anywhere near such a large audience as film and TV actors. If he had a large corpus of adult work then yes, but only as a child? He would have to have been pretty high profile. And what did he do then? He went to work for a small college, wrote a few articles, mostly for local consumption, and got involved in some local politics without a great deal of success. This does not seem to make him particularly notable, unless it can be proved that his planetarium work (covered here in a few words) makes him notable.

Incidentally, this article was originally created as Thomas William Hamilton, deleted after an AfD, and has now been recreated using an abbreviation for the middle name, which is weird in itself. Does he really call himself Thomas Wm. Hamilton or was this simply an attempt to recreate a deleted article? As it stands, this article seems to be making a minor academic out to be far more important than he really is - his work looks impressive until you realise that almost all of it is of a very local nature. It also looks as if it may well be self-created, with heavy editing by another editor who has only worked on this article and articles related to it and seems to know a lot of obscure information about Mr Hamilton! -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:26, 31 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.   —• Gene93k (talk) 09:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Actors and actresses-related deletion discussions.   —• Gene93k (talk) 09:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions.   —• Gene93k (talk) 09:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment This does look like a hoax: I have tried locating the ISBN and ISSN numbers mentioned in the article and they don't seem to exist outside of Wikipedia. If this article was deleted at AfD before, shouldn't the re-creation be a simple speedy? --Crusio (talk) 10:22, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd rather it was dicussed. The previous AfD does not look to me to be particularly conclusive and the article has got plenty of references, although their veracity needs to be verified. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:32, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete: Looks very much like a hoax. Yes, there are plenty of references, but isn't it "odd" that all of the citations are too obscure to be readily verifiable? --Orlady (talk) 11:59, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: This is not a hoax. I happen to know this person. (I am not he and have never edited his article). And yes, he does use "Wm." as a middle name/initial. I take no position on deletion/notability as I have a COI, but see here for proof of existence. I can't vouch the veracity of most of the article -- it would be OR if I could -- but on the other hand there's nothing in it I know to be untrue.Xcvfgh (talk) 12:45, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. Thomas Hamilton apparently is for real.(NYT article). The issue in the first AfD is whether his credentials added up to notability. The big problem here is COI from Hamilton himself, who re-posted the article, and a former student who tried to fix it. • Gene93k (talk) 16:36, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. There are still some WP:V issues here but even if all the info in the article is verified I don't see it adding up to notability under any of the notability guidelines (not enough here for WP:BIO and most certainly not enough for WP:ACADEMIC). Nsk92 (talk) 20:41, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * delete and (salt Thomas Wm. Hamilton and Thomas William Hamilton) I cannot compare this version to that previously deleted via AfD so I can't say whether a speedy is justified, but re-creating a deleted bio such that the new version is virtually indistinguishable from a hoax shows the problem). None of his books generate anything like a single measly google hit.  The NYT mention of his name seems like the only WP:V source to confirm anything, but he still falls far short of WP:PROF (absolutely no evidence that his work has had a notable impact on the world of ideas), and clearly fails WP:BIO (as he is certainly not the subject of extensive coverage in reliable secondary sources. Pete.Hurd (talk) 21:42, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete No evidence of notability seems to be forthcoming, and Pete's analysis clearly states the problem with this article. --Crusio (talk) 22:14, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Not a hoax but fails WP:BIO and your can take your pick of any secondary criteria, esp. WP:CREATIVE. From a mirrored version of the old article, notability was barely asserted. From a closer look at current article shows many of the same problems, just better decorated. He seems to published mainly in the in-house bindings of the companies he worked for. No academic acknowledgment found, just Hamilton apparently citing himself. He is an engineer/scientist with an unremarked body of work. • Gene93k (talk) 04:56, 1 August 2008 (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.