Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Denis Dutton

Denis Dutton

Non-notable individual does not me WP:BIO criteria Ursasapien (talk) 05:34, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete If he is included then there is good reason to include an obscene number of others. What has he done? Plenty of others have founded webpages. Plenty of others teach at universities. As a philosopher what ideas has he contributed? The important question is, is Wikipedia to become some sort of Facebook? There are quite a few others currently in Wikipedia who have not done anything of significance to justify a biography. Unless Wikipedia becomes ruthless on this type of self (or friend) promotion Wikipedia is liable to be overwhelmed by 'Facebook' entries. I suggest delete and search for other candidates to delete. Their presence only encourages others to put in more 'Facebook' entries.
Delete - The NY Times link in the article does not even actually mention Dutton by name. There are no other references. Bullzeye^{(Ring for Service)} 05:48, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - the material in the article strongly suggests some indep sourcing shold be available. I am prepared to assume good faith that those who can find some material can get it in there eventually. Also, independent bits and pieces should fulfil notability. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:57, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you can find some more indep sourcing on the man himself, I'd change to a keep. But independent bits do not by any stretch automatically confer notability; "trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability." Bullzeye^{(Ring for Service)} 06:10, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Keep - Seems notable, just need the sources fixed up. αѕєηιηє ^t/_c 06:17, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just curious, what about this person appears notable to you? He seems extremely non-notable to me. Ursasapien (talk) 06:43, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, the founder of Arts & Letters Daily is clearly notable, but I am concerned about the lack of sources.-gadfium 07:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:18, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of New Zealand-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - His upcoming book has a reasonable sales rank for something which is still a while away from being released. This may indicate its/his importance. Also, his new website has already been acclaimed by the Times of London.
Delete Plenty of writers have books with reasonable sales rank etc., (although 651,175 in Books doesn't seem all that 'reasonable') and there are plenty of other climate change skeptics/deniers who have achieved something other than denial. This type of denial is likely to be a passing fad anyway, rather like hula hoops, or flared pants in the '70s. Evolution denial, that is, creationism (God did it) or intelligent design (someone like God did it), is a much more noteworthy reason for inclusion. Creationism and ID are likely to continue longer and do give people somewhat more to laugh at than climate change denial. The questions are: What has DD done that merits inclusion? And should Wikipedia become some type of Facebook or fan site for any blog writer who currently has a few fans? If he actually does achieve something then, when he does, he can always be included.
Keep - would be notable simply as founder of a highly-notable website, but in this case there's also significant coverage in at least one reliable secondary source, this salon.com writeup from 2000. I found this with only a few minutes work; I imagine further searching could turn up more independent sourcing.