Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William Rivers Pitt (2nd nomination)


 * 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   no consensus. Jayjg (talk) 01:44, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

William Rivers Pitt
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )


 * Delete - Non notable author. No indication that this person satisifies wp:AUTHOR having done none of the criteria listed there. His political activism is run of the mill and his job as editor of truthout is also unremarkable.  All of the citations are from places he has worked and, therefore, are not really third party. Bonewah (talk) 16:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete - per nom. -RobertMel (talk) 22:09, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Neutralitytalk 01:25, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Alabama-related deletion discussions.  —Altairisfar 23:38, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep. The guy was Kucinich's press secretary during the 2004 US presidential campaign, he co-wrote a book with Scott Ritter which was reviewed by the Guardian, and he was managing editor of one of the bigger US progressive websites; that's more than run-of-the-mill.  His recent activities seem less notable, but notability is not temporary.  Failing WP:AUTHOR isn't sufficient justification to delete because his notability (such as it is) doesn't stem from his writing alone.  Also, the article has survived two previous deletion attempts and I see nothing substantially new in this nomination.  The article could certainly stand to be improved, though. Jd4v15 (talk) 03:13, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Accordin to this article about him in The Boston Globe, "his first book has stormed the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post lists of best-selling nonfiction paperbacks" and has been translated into more than a dozen languages.  The nom dismisses his significant role at truthout as "unremarkable" but offers no explanation, and doesn't wikilink Truthout, which is notable enough for its own article. I also note that the article has survived two previous VfD attempts, in which, by my count, there were more than two dozen "Keep" comments, and there's no reason to believe he's become less notable. JamesMLane t c 09:16, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment I offered a very good explanation for why I dismiss his role at Truthout, it fails wp:AUTHOR, to the best of my knowledge, working at a major news outlet does not confer notability. As for the previous AfDs, each one also had a number of delete comments, and, a number of the keep comments were weak keeps.  Despite that, the article hasn't improved much over the last 4 years. Bonewah (talk) 14:15, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep as person is the subject of multiple in-depth articles in reliable third-party sources and crosses the verifiability and notability thresholds. While the author of a New York Times best-seller, his other activities mean WP:AUTHOR is not the sole set of criteria that can be applied. - Dravecky (talk) 20:17, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep, clearly enough significant coverage here to indicate that he meets the notability criteria. Lankiveil (speak to me) 01:11, 11 March 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.