Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William Bradford (professor)

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 broken beyond repair. Concerns have been raised regarding sockpuppetry which I find to be credible. Please feel free to open a new deletion discussion for this article at any time. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 21:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

William Bradford (professor)

This was originally tagged as speedy here as non-notable and attack. I removed it as invalid. It was then prodded here as non-notable, non-publc and author requests deletion. I do not know if User:YHoshua who created the article is the same as the anon who has been tagging it. I am listing here with no comment to keep or delete. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 01:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Note to closing admin: There have been several comments left here by one off accounts etc. Groggy Dice has done an excellent job of laying out the problems and possible sockpuppets. He left the information on my talk page and with his permission I have copied them to Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/William Bradford (professor). CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 07:13, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I haven't been the one tagging it, but I am the creator and would vote to delete the article. I don't think the professor warrants his own page and, perhaps most important, he would like removed. Therefore I vote for deletion.--YHoshua 01:34, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• Weak delete. The absolute minute that anyone provides sources in the article or on AfD to provide verification that Fox News (not FrontPageMag, as that publication is of borderline notability and no reliability) frequently interviewed and then covered this guy, however, my vote will change to keep. When you put your face on national television repeatedly, you are a public figure. We don't delete articles because they're inconvenient for the person being written about; to do so would encourage the writing of hagiographies and that is not in the spirit of Wikipedia. Captainktainer * Talk 02:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep On the basis of the extensive work done by Groggy Dice, providing reliable sources that attest to the professor's notability, I have reconsidered my position. The professor is a notable public figure and became embroiled in a parallel to the Ward Churchill case, and was commented on several times by figures of note. I think it's time to give the contributors who are putting time and effort into this article a chance to fix it up and bring it into line with Wikipedia policies. I can't, in good faith, recommend the deletion of this article at this time. Captainktainer * Talk 20:52, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Strong Delete. This guy isn't a public figure and the author wants it deleted. Easy call. Wiki shouldn't trifle. Vote to delete. The author wants to delete and the subject is not notabel. Jonswift 03:19, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• Speedy Delete requested by author. -- Alias Flood 03:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy Delete as requested by author. Delete Even without such a request, seems like a non-notable subject per nom. -- H·G (^words/_works) 03:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Tagged with {{db-author}}, since the article creator wants it gone. --Coredesat talk. o.o;; 04:25, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Speedy removed, others have made substantial edits to the article. Kimchi.sg 07:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I searched on Google for '"william bradford" tenure', got 15,700 hits[1]. Adding "fox news" to the terms narrowed it down to 305 hits[2], which included left-leaning blogs crowing about how Fox's poster boy turned out to be lying about being a Desert Storm veteran, Green Beret, and Silver Star winner [3] [4], which led me to their media sources: [5] [6]. On Fox News, all I found was an O'Reilly article[7] and two guest listings for John Gibson[8][9]. The article as it stands says nothing about his military record claims. I looked through history, and found that it had been in the article at various points, then taken back out. The last time, IP 130.94.134.250 took it out[10], then nominated for speedy as an "attack page,"[11] starting this whole process. Not sure if this controversy is notable enough to be in Wikipedia. --Groggy Dice 03:00, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Delete. Sounds like the kind of smear job that both parties were trying to use against Bush and Kerry. Either way he's a nobody and not worth any attention. Delete. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonswift (talk • contribs)

• Jonswift, please do not edit other user's comments. I already identified the blogs as "left-leaning," if you consider them "far left," say so in your response, rather than editing me in a way that makes it look like I called them far left. If anything, my post about them being blogs was misleading, because the first two articles were actual media articles I found through the two blog listings. Your action has led me to check your user contributions, and your only contribs are to this AfD. I hope you aren't coming to this discussion with a predetermined POV. --Groggy Dice 04:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Groggy, I'm new and didn't understand the etiquette. My apologies. Jonswift 04:52, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete attack guise is real tough to clean up, don't let it hang around long enough to regret it. Ste4k 04:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Strong Delete. My husband Jens and I live in Florida, and I have known Bill for 15 years. Jens served with him in Bosnia and elsewhere, and I greatly doubt he would have ever spoken with a reporter about his military background. Jens still can't tell me much of what he did or where he went, and my guess is the reporter was misinformed by someone else about Bill's background and then had to blame him to cover her own you know what. Whether you think Bill deserved tenure or not, it isn't beneath a university to dirty someone's reputation in order to gain leverage, and my husband and others I've talked to think that someone from the university probably fed the reporter misinformation so they could blame Bill for it later. Something really horrible happened to Bill and his wife 5 years ago which is how and why he left the Army, and it would make him a very sympathetic person if he could talk about it. Whatever the case, it was a tempest in a teapot and it is long since over. Bill is out of teaching and is now working in insurance in New York or New Jersey. Wikipedia policy is not to include bios on living people that aren't notable. This man and his family deserves his privacy and for this article to be deleted. Barbara

• Barbara, editing other users' comments is considered bad form on Wikipedia, especially when it changes the meaning of what they say. Don't change "turned out to be lying" to "had allegedly lied" (which was what the articles were saying, not me personally). Don't change me from saying "not sure if this controversy is notable enough" to "this controversy is not notable enough." If that is your opinion, you make your own case, don't make it look like I'm making it. This sort of thing only serves to push me towards voting to Keep. --Groggy Dice 05:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I apologize, Groggy Dice. You are correct to admonish me. I admit to being a little emotional on the subject, because I know Bill and I am upset that he was treated badly. I hope you will maintain your delete vote :) Barb P.S. What does "Groggy Dice" mean or what is the origin? I think there is a bar by that name somewhere.

As a "grognard," I've rolled a lot of "dice." --Groggy Dice 06:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Jens is a Squad Leader fanatic--sometimes I lose him for a weekend to that damn game. Barb Definite delete. Author and subject want it deleted, and the subject is obscure and unimportant. Also it looks like a personal attach. Zvonimir

• HOLD ON! Are all of the last few voters actually reading the article? The ironic effect of the heavy pro-Bradford edits is that it makes it hard to see how the article can be seen as a "personal attack" piece. It describes how he "graduated summa cum laude," received various degrees and honors, "served at the War Gaming and Simulation Center, National Defense University, Fort McNair, Virginia, and was an advisor to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Shalikashvili," "authored numerous law review articles," and "was named a Dean's Fellow in recognition of scholarly excellence." The controversy is a section at the bottom, and gives as much space to Bradford's charges as to his opponents'. All mention of the military record issue has been removed, which appears to be the sore point. While the controversy's result may have been one-sided (his resignation), Wikipedia's coverage of it is not.

There needs to be an actual discussion here, not just taking claims at face-value that he's non-notable. Maybe both "author and subject want it deleted," but the only real reason the author's given is that the subject wants it deleted. He hasn't said why he created the article in the first place, and why he apparently thought the subject was notable then. Has everyone read the articles from the Indianapolis Star[12] and Inside Higher Ed[13], or did my mention of "left-leaning blogs" lead some to not look closely? I mentioned that one Google search I ran got 15,700 hits, which contains a lot of false positives, but would normally be enough for people to explore the possibility that he might be notable. I've come up with a more selective search[14] that gets 800 hits. That's not a huge number, but enough to normally make some people think he was notable enough, and others to waffle.

I also turned up a copy of one Dean's Report (Google cache)(original PDF) which on p. 36-38 lists his recent accomplishments of 2004. It describes several papers he'd published or presented, a couple of positions he'd been appointed to, and notes his appearances in the media. Many of these are local, but also cited are NPR Morning Edition, Fox National, John Gibson, and Radio France Info. It says that he was interviewed by the Charlotte Observer, Spokane Spokesman-Review, the Associated Press, the Daily Tennessean, and the Atlanta-Constitution. At the end, it say that he was nominated for the "American Bar Association Law School Division Henry J. Ramsey, Jr. Award for Diversity." He may want his privacy now, but if he failed to achieve Wikipedia-level notability, it was not for lack of trying.

Also, another thing we should consider is what to do about Florence Roisman#Controversy and the mention of the Bradford incident there. Again, it was edited to delete earlier references to the military record aspect (diff). If we decide this incident really is non-notable, maybe we should remove all mention of it there as well. --Groggy Dice 20:44, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete - not notable. Massmato 16:53, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete I don't see that this is someone who needs to be an entry in an encyclopedia, virtual or otherwise. In my estimation, a person ought to be notable or important in some extraordinary way to merit inclusion, and I just don't see that this is the case here. I think it is especially true if he is no longer even a professor, and therefore being described incorrectly by the entry. The fact that the editing history reveals so many conflicting/contradictory bits of "information" makes me even less willing to give any credence to the article in any form. If both the subject and the author desire deletion, my opinion is that they should have the final say.Owmyeye 21:10, 21 July 2006 (UTC) (Note: Sorry, I posted this in the wrong place initially). Owmyeye 19:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • You have some valid points, but overall I disagree with them. George W. Bush also has a "conflicting/contradictory" editing history, but that's not grounds for deleting his article. In fact, controversy can be an indication that the subject is notable enough for people to care about. If Wikipedia adopted a policy of deleting articles because partisan edits made them unreliable, controversial topics by the thousands would go. As for the subject wanting the article deleted, I believe that should hold NO weight. Everyone has warts, and as someone else has pointed out, the writing of articles cannot be held hostage by its subject. That's the Daniel Brandt precedent. Suppose Charlie Manson decided he didn't want to have a Wikipedia article, somehow convinced the entry's creator, and argued that they should have "final say" and that he was "no longer even a cult leader!" (Though we don't know for sure that Bradford wants his Wikipedia entry deleted, that's what YHoshua says, but he hasn't come back to the discussion to elaborate, and we haven't heard from Bradford directly.) Back to notability. I would agree that he may not be "extraordinarily" notable, but that's usually not the standard applied on Wikipedia, and the more I've dug into this, the more I'm leaning to the view that he's notable enough. Now that I've seen a photo of him, I do recall him being a guest on cable news. If a Wikipedia entry for Bradford had been created before mid-2005, before this mess blew up in his face, I'm sure he would have been pleased. And at that time, I'm also sure he would have taken umbrage at a move to delete it on the grounds that he wasn't notable enough. That's the tragedy here: here is someone who eagerly sought notability and had the gifts to achieve it, now forced to seek obscurity. He had remarkable achievements, but was undone by the need to claim still-more remarkable achievements. --Groggy Dice 00:22, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as non-notable. He fails WP:PROF. Regardless of whether or not he wants to delete the entry he doesn't meet notability. His credentials are nothing special for a tenure-track asst. prof. The controversy is essentially local -- this happens all the time where someone is denied tenure and claims he has been discriminated against based on race, sex, polical affiliation, sleeping with the dean's daughter, etc. Some of them have been discriminated against, others have not. Some win, most don't. He probably had a little more than his 15 minutes of fame because there are groups who like to push the point of view that conservative faculty are discriminated against. I see nothing beyond local interest. If he becomes a poster child for the Student Bill of Rights, then we can revisit the issue. Right now, he's simply just another relatively anonymous former-assistant professor. Ted^Talk/_{Contributions} 05:08, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Ironic that you would mention being a poster child for the Student Bill of Rights, because David Horowitz was one of the biggest backers pushing this case at a national level. I just Googled "student bill of rights", and the top result was "Students for Academic Freedom." That site created a special page just for the Bradford case[15], featuring seven articles from Horowitz's other site, Frontpagemag. (At the end of some of them, Horowitz gets personally involved in the correspondence.) Another page on that site, covering everything related to Indiana University[16], lists those articles and an eighth, a hosted Indy Star column[17] (written by the same journalist who would eventually question his military record. The combination "william OR bill bradford" "david horowitz" gets 475 491 Ghits[18]. --Groggy Dice 07:40, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Definite Delete. Looks like third parties with political agendas used this former professor for their own purposes, but inherently he doesn't even come close to meeting the criteria for notability as a professor. He was a useful tool for about 5 seconds. And Barbara's comments make a lot of sense. Finally, the author himself wants to delete the article, and it may well be that he regrets having written something that he knows has unfairly treated the subject. Delete. Silvestre

• "Silvestre," he himself wanted to be "used" and actively sought to enlist those "third parties," which milked the case for a lot longer than "5 seconds." David Horowitz's Frontpagemag gave the case at least two months of heavy coverage, and he mentioned it regularly in his appearances. Even after Bradford's downfall, an excerpt[19] from the introduction to his new book (focusing on Ward Churchill as his poster "anti-child") makes a mention of Bradford's case. "Barbara's" story would actually make this case more newsworthy than the mainstream version. As for the author realizing that he had "unfairly treated the subject," I think it would be a good idea for everyone to view his original version of the page, since the current version has been so heavily watered down. --Groggy Dice 17:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Definite KEEP I think it's time to admit to myself that I've decided to vote keep on this article. Having my comments tampered with has led to dig far deeper into this matter than I ever expected to, and what I've found has convinced me more and more that this is a keeper. Also, I've come to realize that some people are drawing their conclusions from the current state of this article, which differs greatly from the original version. I'm going to do what I probably should have done a long time ago, and re-edit the page to resurrect an earlier incarnation. Don't jump on what appears to be a steamrolling bandwagon- look very closely. --Groggy Dice 17:25, 23 July 2006 (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.