Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tommy Bolack


 * 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. Star  Mississippi  02:58, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Tommy Bolack

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Non-notable individual. Not meeting POLITICS or GNG. Donating his ranch is a good cause, but nothing notable for our purposes. Oaktree b (talk) 01:47, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: People, Politicians, Radio, Police, Archaeology, Kansas,  and New Mexico. - "Ghost of Dan Gurney" (work / talk) 04:50, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep. (Article creator) Meets WP:GNG. Significant coverage - No original research was needed to get the content. Reliable - plenty of independent, secondary published sources, with a variety of "reliability" levels from OK to good; I will add a couple more. Tommy Bolack was already mentioned in 3 coin and radio-related articles, IIRC and FWIW. Comment on process: WP:NEXIST seems inconsistent with User:Onel5969. IMO it is a mistake to use deletion process to try to coerce editors to improve new articles; it encourages defensively written stubs for new articles. Comment on categories: Input from editors interested in collections, coins, museums, etc. could be good. -- Yae4 (talk) 11:06, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * It's not to try to get people to improve articles, it's that based on what we have, it's likely not meeting notability requirements on Wiki. I looked for other sources and couldn't find any. Always a chance others can find sources, and the article can be kept, but I tried and couldn't find any. Oaktree b (talk) 13:16, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I've added numerous more citations including several from books, including one with a lot of coverage of Tommy and related archaeology work. -- Yae4 (talk) 23:07, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Most of it is routine stuff; running for politics isn't notable, donating land could be, but it's mostly trivial mentions. The museum he runs is likely more notable than he is as a person, we could perhaps redirect there, but that article would need to be created. Oaktree b (talk) 15:33, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete. GNG is not just "any webpage you can find that has his name in it", and requires a certain specific class of substantive and analytical coverage in real media and/or books. Notability cannot be established by blogs, content self-published by organizations he's directly affiliated with, or by his own bylined writing about other things — but that's 14 of the 20 footnotes here, and of the just six that come from real media, all six of those are "local man does stuff" human interest coverage in the local media of his own hometowm media market, which is not in and of itself sufficient coverage to get a person over WP:GNG if he has nothing more nationalized than that. Bearcat (talk) 18:20, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Please re-count. Also WP:SUSTAINED over time. -- Yae4 (talk) 00:34, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Sustained yes, coverage of trivial events is the problem. Oaktree b (talk) 15:34, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete: One is not notable simply because their dad is notable. One is not notable simply because they ran for a local position. One is not notable simply because they did a good act, or simply by owning a rare coin, or simply by hosting a community event. One is notable by receiving significant coverage, which generally does not include run-of-the-mill coverage in hyper-local news; this subject does not have meaningful coverage, thus not passing WP:GNG. Curbon7 (talk) 01:01, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Significant coverage: "" Check. Check. It's not A coin; It is 16 of 19 known Washington quarter  Mule coins. It is not hosting a community event; It is 30 years of events, 20-30+ years of archaeology including discovery of hundreds of pre-historic home sites and thousands of samples from pottery to skeletons. Mixing your father's ashes into fireworks and firing them off is just icing. As for associated or local organizations self-publishing, some are academics, some are published books now. -- Yae4 (talk) 00:35, 23 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Comment. Compare and contrast this AFD with the other I'm recently involved in. They are two different categories - BLP and a business/non-profit, but I took the other to AFD because it was difficult for me to find independently published sources, of any kind, and I tried. People who support the non-profit find a couple obscure Linux publications and say that's enough for notability. Here, it is easy to find independently published articles, books and scholarly publications involving Bolack. The most difficult thing is getting past login-walls or Tor-block-walls to read and summarize them. Here is a rich guy in a poor US state doing interesting - you could say historic - things with lasting consequences, but he needs "national" coverage? Maybe if he was shooting cattle from helicopters he'd be in the NY Times. Shaking my head. -- Yae4 (talk) 07:57, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * He needs more than trivial coverage. Donating the ranch is fine, but it's two lines of text in the article. Most of what he have is non-notable and longer than the notable parts of it. Oaktree b (talk) 15:35, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment. WP:ANYBIO page: Google scholar search for "Tommy site" or for "point site" farmington "new mexico", along with protection of the ranch property is enough, but add on interesting and unusual aspects like unique collections, two museums, a unique spreading of ashes with fireworks, etc., is enough to deserve attention or be recorded. Another comparison article, a related BLP (related in archaeology impact): Anna_Sofaer. It has a NY Times citation (with mentions of some activities, but otherwise similar complaints about citations can be made. Maybe the Bolack article should similarly focus more on the archaeology discoveries and work? -- Yae4 (talk) 21:30, 23 February 2023 (UTC)


 * General Comment. I don't doubt people such as Sarah_Jim_Mayo (but also somewhat weak references), Richard Wetherill, sister in law Louisa Wade Wetherill should have biographies in Wikipedia, but where is Richard Wetherill's wife, Marietta? (In a national historic site)
 * Researchers/Authors Stephen Lekson, Gordon Vivian, his son R. Gwinn Vivian who literally wrote the encyclopedia on Chaco Canyon (The Chaco Handbook, An Encyclopedic Guide) by Vivian and Hilpert Frank McNitt are cited dozens of times, so they clearly had unique and interesting things to say, but when you look for their biographies in this wiki encyclopedia, they are not found. Oh well. -- Yae4 (talk) 14:01, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
 * How does Sarah Jim Mayo have weak references lmao???? Curbon7 (talk) 19:30, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
 * "also somewhat weak" = vulnerable to similar (IMO invalid) criticisms.
 * The Mayo article and citations are mostly about a famous basket, and basketry. A story about the person is pieced together from brief mentions in several sources... Citation 1: Reno Gazette Journal is "hyper local" newspaper obituary, a criticism given above. Citation 3: Dissertation, University of Nevada, Reno: In 218 pages Mayo gets brief passing mentions, local not "national", and indicates uncertainty ("said to be", identification difficulty): p.92 (cited) says "Renowned Washoe ethnographer Warren d Azevedo " and "The great importance the Washoe attach to their basket-making tradition... Not only does this exemplify the cultural importance of basketry, it points to the diminished Washoe agency and their absorption of Euro-American ascribed identity." Sara Jim Mayo— said to be the daughter of the first Captain Jim (He’nu-keha) who had died in the 1860s—completed a large commemorative basket into which she had woven..." Page 107 (not cited?) does say "noted basket maker" but also hedges: "It may be easy to confuse Captain Pete and Agnes with Captain Pete Mayo and his wife, noted basket maker, Sara Mayo, pictured at Al Tahoe on the South Shore in Figure 6.7. Often the Captains Pete are referred to as such, so it is difficult to identify them without their last names or spouses.29" "29 The identification of Sarah Mayo was from the UNR Special Collections website Images of Lake Tahoe (“Images of Lake Tahoe” 2015). d’Azevedo discusses the two Captain Petes (d’Azevedo and Sturtevant 1986). Identifying individual people is difficult because through time, some photographs have been misidentified and this misidentification lingers in scholarship." Citation 4: The Art of Native American Basketry book does mention her more, but mostly is about the basketry, not the person. Similarly, article section "Early life" is mostly about Captain Jim; Mayo does not inherit notability from him. Citation 6: A "hyper local" Carson NV museum postcard....
 * I got deja vu looking at the sourcing, because IMO it is similar. -- Yae4 (talk) 20:29, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I look forward to seeing your critiques again at WP:PR and eventually WP:GAN or WP:FAC. Curbon7 (talk) 21:25, 26 February 2023 (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.