Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2019 February 27

27 February 2019

Kenny Biddle

Kenny Biddle (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Rewrote article (now in user space: here) to address issues in AfD, including substantial coverage of subject in NYTimes. RobP (talk) 02:54, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

• RobP, your draft is WP:Reference bombed. Please tell us the two or three best sources for demonstrating the subject's notability.

Looking at the 1st three references:

1. Does not mention the subject "Biddle"

2. Facebook. Not a reliable source, cannot be used to show notability.

3. An interview, advertising the subject's workshop. Not an independent source. Cannot be used to demonstrate notability.

Usually, if the top three are no good, the rest are only worse. Skimming them, I think this is no exception. The onus is on you to name the best sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:23, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

• The New York Times Magazine (note:- not the newspaper) article is maybe over the threshold? It's not about Kenny Biddle, but it includes arguably non-trivial coverage of him if you take a charitable view?—S Marshall T/C 18:36, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Reference 6? [1]. It mentions Biddle 10 times. The article is not about Biddle, it doesn't really comment on Biddle, unless you are being charitable. It quotes Biddle talking to the author. This is not an independent source. URL "psychics-skeptics-facebook" is a red flag. Leading text: "setting up fake Facebook pages... tips for her team’s latest sting operation — this one focused on infiltrating the audience of a psychic ... Facebook sock puppets — those fake online profiles". "Collectively, the group, which has swelled to 144 members, has researched, written or revised almost 900 Wikipedia pages". Lots of flags. Although now a skeptic, Biddle was previously a paranormal enthusiast, this topic remains very much Wikipedia:Fringe theories. Refer to that guideline. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:17, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe Fringe? Flags? What flags? Seriously? I do not see how you could have read the NYT article and gotten the impression you did. This is the summary of the NYT article as it currently appears in my sandbox: "Biddle has frequently criticized claims of psychic powers,[26] and in March 2017, he participated in "Operation Pizza Roll", a sting operation against purported psychic medium Matt Frasier. Sting organizer Susan Gerbic and fellow skeptics created false identities on Facebook for Biddle, as well as for his wife and four others he recruited for the operation. Biddle and his team attended a Matt Frasier show in Philadelphia, assuming the identities detailed in the false accounts, in an attempt to determine if Frasier was doing hot readings.[31][6]" The entire point of the article is a group of science-mined individuals, Biddle included, performed a sting on Fringe people. This sting has been making massive news and praised in the skeptical movement on social media. And how is a NYT reporter not an independent source? I am flabbergasted. RobP (talk) 02:13, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I used a large number of references to write an article fully documenting the subject. (Not my fault that the order placed the less notable ones in the top three.) As a large number of sources to document different things is seen as a bad thing, I will slash the article to the bone and leave just the material from the best sources. If the article is approved and published, I can always restore this "extraneous" information following approval. And note that the NYT Magazine uses the same editorial control as they do for the newspaper as I understand it, they just print longer form articles. So I do not know why that distinction was even pointed out above. In any case, give me a few days to trim it so notability is easier to determine. Oh... the first ref was broken because the URL was a homepage which had changed, but the archive I made and included was OK, so I changed this citation to be just to that archived URL. RobP (talk) 01:01, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

No, RobP, don't do that. Or at least, that is not an efficient way to move forwards from here. Instead, tell us the best notability-demonstrating three sources. In terms of the article, it is best to get those three sources into the lede, so that they are the at the top of the reference list.

The many many other sources may be overkill, and may need reduction for that reason, but they don't detract from notability, and they may actually be good sources for very specific content. But that is not the current question, the current question is whether multiple independent others have written about Biddle, and thus whether he can have an article at all. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:07, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

See WP:THREE, which is a decent guideline. Also, if you could post the best three sources that are new between the AfD and this version, that would be very helpful. SportingFlyer T·C 02:27, 28 February 2019 (UTC)