Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2006 September 25

Full reviews may be found in this page history. For a summary, see Wikipedia:Deletion review/Recently concluded (2006 September)

25 September 2006

Harris mercer

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Sam_Vaknin

That should be Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Harris mercer. --Metropolitan90 07:08, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

This is my first entry on wikipedia; pardon me if I violate protocol somehow. I've perused all the instructions and think I know what to do. A friend of mine told me, a coupled of months ago, that I had been posted on Wikipedia. I found the article, and though it was fairly badly written and overemphasized by importance, it was an accurate factual record. Now, it seems overwhelmingly probable to me that being one of the more prominent youth figures in the ACLU does not make me, by the Wikipedia definition, notable. But I was quite amused that when the same friend told me the article was gone and I searched Google for it within wikipedia, I discovered a page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_20) which stated that my existence was "clearly a hoax." Go ahead and keep the deletion, but I do exist. Oh! I haven't even said this. The article was on Harris Mercer.

H.merceraclu 20:13, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This may be your first text entry in Wikipedia using this account, but its your second action and I don't think you're so new to Wikipedia. This was your first - an edit blanking a substantial comment (by another skeptical editor questioning the now deleted article) to the talk page of the anon IP account which originally created the article. What was that about? Bwithh 20:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. I smell trollshit. Guy 23:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh--I cut that, thinking I'd post it into my comment above. Sorry.

What does Harris Mercer have to do with Sam Vaknin? I'm confused. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:50, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• I don't think Sam Vaknin is supposed to be involved in this one. --Metropolitan90 07:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse deletion. OK, I now accept that Harris Mercer exists. Note failure of Geogre's First Law. Guy 10:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion (I also note that the closure of the AfD was Xoloz, so someone else should close this discussion when the time comes.) As the original article was unsourced, and we have a policy requiring verifiability, there would be no prejudice against the creation of a sourced article. It should demonstrate notability to our standard for biographical subjects. GRBerry 12:36, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse Deletion Well, the deletion itself wasn't challenged - if the claimant has an issue with the public record of the deletion page, they should contact Wikipedia under WP:LIVING, and ask to have the record suppressed while emphasizing that you are not making any claim to encyclopedic notability. Then, after the requisite preliminary review and audit periods, and after you've had your unique case number certified, you'll need to turn up in person at a Wikipedia Authentication Center with 3 government-issued photo identification documents and a public notary. I'm kidding. Just talk to an admin associated with WP:LIVING and someone will blank the current deletion discussion page (but not the archive/history) for you. Probably. Bwithh 14:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

hmmm... as a minimal level of authentication, I think you should send an email from from an aclu.org account - either your own name or a verifiable aclu administrator's (if you're going down the route I suggest) Bwithh 17:26, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse my own deletion. While Harris Mercer may exist, I remain fairly certain that the article's details were a hoax -- the claims were absurd enough (and absurdly-written enough) that I judged no remotely plausible assertion of notability was present, a judgment I stand by. The "speech" attributed to Mercer sounds like something written during a drug-trip (hopefully, a prescription drug-trip) and was almost certainly not read before any real ACLU convention. Xoloz 15:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Sam Vaknin

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Sam_Vaknin

Endorse Restoration Can we have the Sam Vaknin Wiki entry back please ?

Zeraeph is currently under suspension and will probably be permanently banned for constant Wiki violations and verbally attacking others. She has a long known history for persecuting and ridiculing experts. She herself is a malignant narcissist. She and her sockpuppets are very poisonous. She obviously worked Sam Vaknin up into a frenzy as he got to perceive Wikipedia in general in the same way as Zeraeph, as for a while Zeraeph had full backing from Wikipedia.

I am not in Sam Vaknin's fan club. My website barely even mentions him. He is a self professed narcissist but not a malignant one. He still runs two support groups for victims of narcissism and is generally respected on the internet. Like him or loathe him he is an important authority in the field of narcissism. I am trying to make improvements to the Workplace Bullying and related Wiki entries. There are a variety of experts relevant to this but I really find it necessary to refer to Sam Vaknin's work as one such expert. To be consistent with the way the other experts are treated (such as Robert Hare, Heinz Leymann and Tim Field with their own Wiki entries) it is not consistent for Sam Vaknin not to have his own page. NPOV in itself would be enough reason for Sam Vaknin to have his page back.

Is any mention of Sam Vaknin automatically forbidden in a Wiki entry even if a reference to his work is justifed in context, say, in bullying or narcissism Wiki entries ?

Has no-one worked out yet that what Zeraeph claimed were Sam Vaknin's sockpuppets were most likely Zeraeph's own sockpuppets ? --Penbat 15:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Deleted, valid AFD. Naconkantari 16:13, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Isnt there at the very least a fallback position whereby Sam is still banned as a user but others are free to refer to him and set up a Wiki on him for the purposes of referring to the substance of his work ? Is any reference to his work banned in any Wiki or what ? --Penbat 16:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment -- as self-published work, you should be cautious of citing his work in wikipedia articles, but it may well still be possible. Read WP:V and WP:RS carefully, and make sure what you're doing falls within the uses described there. JulesH 16:56, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment You just say "Valid AFD". I dont know anything about your reasoning. You havent given any specific points to justify it. The original AFD was poisoned by Zeraeph. --Penbat 09:10, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete - most commenters on the original AfD apparently improperly ignored that his latest book has a high Amazon sales rank (currently #7,598, which puts him right up in the top tier of self-published authors), and has "editorial" reviews on the Amazon page (not customer reviews, so these are identified by Amazon as important reviews). Although his previous book isn't doing quite so well, down at #2,151,882. JulesH 16:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment -- he also appears to be regularly published in a variety of publications that wouldn't constitute self publishing, e.g. American Chronicle [1]. JulesH 17:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion, valid AfD. New evidence since AfD? None appears to be presented. There are notable self-published authors, but very few who are notable for their books rather than some other work (Robert Gunther is my usual example here). The apparent overweening vanity of the subject is not of course a reason for not having an entry, but a credible authority would normally have publications in reputable peer reviewed journals in is field of expertise. Do we have those in this case? I can find cites in chemical journals and the like (routine sub-professor test stuff) but not for what he's currently claimed to be an authority in. If we do have an article it almost certainly won't be this one; if there was an NPOV version we could see as a subpage then it might be easier to judge, and I don't mind userfying if someone wants thins content to start from. Guy 17:36, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Comment You have rather lost me on the self publishing point. A huge proportion of Wiki citations are to websites which have the advantage that you can link to a specifically relevant page. Website citations are obviously much more convenient than the poor reader having to buy or borrow a book just to read what may be a single page. Webpages are very commonly self-publishing themselves surely. Sam Vaknin also has many webpages addressing individial points - some I believe are relevant to the work I am doing on Wikis. Also, as I said, Vaknin, has a generally well respected web pressence. It doesnt matter much to me if Sam Vaknin's user ID stays banned but placing artificial restrictions on me using my own judgement about how useful his material is, seems to smack to me of communist non-persons where a person is airbrushed out of history. I have read half a dozen books by different narcissist experts and I do not blindly accept what Sam Vaknin says. However I do find quite a lot of his material helpful. JulesH above has anyway given examples of Sam Vaknin webpages that are definately not self published e.g. American Chronicle [2]. So what's the problem ? --Penbat 18:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• The problem is this: I have been published in the British Medical Journal, does that make me an authority on medical matters? Of course not. I am an electrical engineer with some expertise in a particular area where doctors consider themselves qualified to comment - we have an overlapping field of interest. So, I'll happily userfy the article if someone wants to work it up into a verifiably neutral article which allows us to judge the merits of the subject, but the AfD itself is valid and I see no compelling evidence to challenge that. Guy 23:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Comment A huge amount of material in Wikipedia are just ideas. Religion, for example is just different people's beliefs and doesnt stand up to any scientific scrutiny nor is it expected to be. For, example in the field of bullying there is very little proper scientific research. Most of the pioneers in the field of Bullying have developed their ideas from anecdotal experiences. To take one anti-bully poioneer as an example, Tim Field developed his ideas mainly through documenting and analysing case histories of hundreds of bully victims he personally helped. Tim Field was also largely self-published which as JulesH says makes it more difficult to promote yourself not easier. Sam Vaknin claims to give an "insider's view" of narcissism as he is a self professed narcissist and gives insights from his own perspective. This is quite useful as it complements drier academic works. --Penbat 08:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• Here's the difference: when we document bullying, we don't draw on that original research ourtselves, we draw on the publications of those conducting the research and the analysis of it by their peers in reputable scientific journals. Guy 13:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• Well there is very little scientific research on bullying in academic journals and what there is very fragmented and the methodologies are dubious. However there are a lot of ideas on bullying based on anecdotal research. If you don't allow anecdotal research you may as well delete the whole Bullying and Workplace Bullying wikis as almost none of it has hard edged peer reviewed scientific evidence - not that there is much published scientific research to peer review. On your basis do you want to ban Tim Field and a few other anti-bully luminaries as well as Sam Vaknin ?--Penbat 15:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I don't believe he's exactly notable as a professional researcher on narcissism. He seems to have written extensively about the area, and his books are apparently very popular, despite being self-published (which does put them at a substantial market disadvantage). He's notable, therefore, as a popular science writer. Using him as a source is not what we're discussing here, so the lack of peer-reviewed publications seems to be irrelevant to me. JulesH 07:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
  • His book is currently the third most popular book on amazon which turns up in a search for "narcissism", despite being priced at roughly 5 times as much as the competition. You can't tell me this doesn't make him notable? JulesH 07:21, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse Deletion, valid AfD. You're free to refer to Sam Vaknin in your articles as much as you'd like; there's no requirement that he have an article here in order for his writings to be referenced. --Aaron 08:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - What's the difference between referring to his work on other Wikis and there being a specific Wiki in Sam Vaknin where his work can be described on a NPOV basis ? Thats the approach I am using for other anti bully and narcissism pioneers ? Surely I could have a section devoted to him on another Wiki say on Bullying or narcissism but it is much more convenient for there to be a self contained Sam Vaknin wiki. Anyway its easy to just say "Valid AFD" but I dont know anything about your reasoning. You haven't given any speciifc points to justify it. The original AFD was poisoned by Zeraeph--Penbat 09:10, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: There isn't much difference between referencing Vaknin in your articles and putting up another article on him; what I left unsaid in my comment above is that there's always the possibility that another editor may come along and remove any references to Vaknin in articles you write, citing many of the same criticisms that were brought up in this AfD. As for the original AfD, I consider it valid because it was nominated with a legitimate argument and the discussion appears to be normal. When I look through the AfD, I only see one vote that is from an obvious {{spa}}, and one other vote from an IP address (which I have no reason to believe Johnleemk did not discount when he closed the discussion). That's not enough to have thrown the debate in either direction. --Aaron 16:57, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: I was requested to give my input on this DRV. If there was sockpuppeting involved in the original AfD, the original decision may still stand, depending on whether the sockpuppets were numerous enough to throw off the impression of consensus. However, we shouldn't base our decision entirely on whether the original AfD was accurate; the article's importance must be assessed with reference to how things stand now. Aside from that, I am not sure if the rationale given by the nominator is sound. You do not need an article on an expert or anything of the sort for him/her to qualify as a source. Gordon P. Means is an expert in political science renowned for his analysis of politics in Malaysia; he has no article, but such is not a deterrent to citing him as a source. The status of one as an expert is independent from whether he/she has an article on Wikipedia. Johnleemk | Talk 11:44, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
  • • Comment: OK I understand that I can cite Sam Vaknin within Wikis without him having his own article but I would find it useful if he did have his own article to be consistent with the way similar figures in his field have. I can't see the problem with this as any Sam Vaknin article would be NPOV. What about if i devoted a section in another wiki say Narcissism called, say, "Sam Vaknin's work on Narcissim" would that be alright, although it would be less convenient than a separate Vaknin wiki ? --Penbat 12:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

---

Case for Un-Deletion

* Endorse restoring Sam_Vaknin page

* Comments -TRCourage 06:01, 28 September 2006 (UTC) I would like to chip in with what I know. While I know of no science topics that Sam writes about, I do know that besides his tenure as a UPI economics columnist, he writes on a variety topics, the commercial web, general global economics articles (including a recent one on the Great Depression). He was previously a columnist on Eastern Europe for the Christian Science Montitor, a real printed on paper publication.

In his thirties, he was the recipient of the Israel Government's Maiden Writer's Annual Award for his first commercially published book of short stories. A bound hardback copy of this book is in the Library of Congress as well as one Ivy League college - where it is joined by a copy of Malignant Self Love. Actually, MSL is to be found in several Ivy League University Libraries. That is available information via an online academic library database. I can dig up that link if anyone cares to see it.

It takes a professor in the field to request that the university library purchase a book. And no, you can't just mail a copy of your book to a library of that stature and expect to have the head librarian put on the shelves.

He has recently published a new book of short stories in Hebrew, some of which he has translated and once of which one was named the featured winner of their monthly New Author spotlight. He has also written a number of exceptionally memorable short stories in English.

Sam has lived in Macedonia for over 10 years, mentored the wave of young turk politicians who replaced the Old Guard. He was given a paid-for apartment and an appointment as advisor to the Minister of Finance. For several years he wrote highly popular (and inflammatory) opinion articles about Russia and Eastern Europe that are still archived on that online newspaper. He published a small volume his articles entitled "How the West Lost the East", but the first edition is still in stock.

If Vaknin didn't live in an especially impoverished corner of post-Communist Eastern Europe, MSL might conceivably have sold to a American publishing house by now. (They would face an extensive editing - it is over 580 pages). He has limited access to publishing agents that are easily accessible in this country and the US is where his book sells the most.

Sam's opinion articles and various financial and economics articles have been the vast bulk of his writing for many years. His writing in narcissism was limited for years to just two short articles a month and they were almost completely self-revelatory. He has not written such articles for more than half a year. He is now writing referenced "by the book" twice weekly articles on personality disorders and issues of diagnosis, classification and therapy. There is nothing unique, original or about himself in any of these. It's purely by the experts.

When Sam brought his book to the web 10 years ago, hardly anyone even knew about NPD and you seldom -incredibly seldom- could find it mentioned in the popular press or elsewhere on the web. He has been highly influential in influencing the fact that you can't Google search the print news sources thru Google on any given week or day without coming across articles about narcissism or NPD.

I have occasionally seen a high paid staffer columnist virtually quote his book, poorly disguised plagiarism, with giving no clue as to where he read it. Afterall - a self-published book on a website? Who would know? Who would care.

I recently accessed the website of a West Coast psychology university professor who has just suddenly "discovered" the importance of understanding narcissism in therapy. And he has just had an article accepted for publication by a professional psychology journal.. The subject? "INVERTED NARCISISSM" which he brags on himself for having uniquely recognized and named as Inverted Narcissism a previously unrecognized development in the children of narcissists. He of course wants his audience to believe he coined himself, for ever this distinct concept he is describing. Funny. I remember seeing it first mentioned in 1998 by Sam. And by the person who actually coined the term Inverted Narcissist term, my long-time best girlfriend Alice R., child advocate attorney at law in British Columbia, Canada.

The whole point is that Sam is not a one-trick pony. And his accomplishments are not pretend and are, respect him or despise him, significant. He is a recognized gifted short story writer, a man with two books that are found in major universities around the world and a strong influencer of a large uniquely enabled self-help movement that has been embraced by therapists who hand out portions of Sam's website that they print out for their patients and who give the web address to their clients. And he is a widely read opinion columnist.

All true. The truth is that Zeraeph has known Sam Vaknin since 1998. She wrote glowing reviews for Malignant Self Love and How the West Lost the East. But that was years ago. She came to Wiki with the express intent of dethroning Sam. First she accused him of sock puppetry, despite the fact that thousands of the residents of Skopje share the same range of IP addresses and could fully have been expected to come here in his defense, just as Zeraeph had her friends come her to wage war against their common enemy. They used the same screen names they use in the NPD online community, so were easy to spot.

After she tackled his articles, she decided to get his page deleted, and finally she got him permanently banned. She has an entire page of gleeful gloating on an admin's talk page (the guy who wrote a response to Sam's "6 Pillars of Wiki" article) where she talks of her years long battle against Sam's influence. I think it important, in light of the fact that someone brought an off-Wiki matter to Wiki to find a new group to influence and inflame against him, as she did at least twice a year elsewhere on other web venues and forums. And she won in all respects at Wiki. And then gloated at her success on these very pages. And she was the one who told Wiki members what to see in him, described his supposed heinous character, ascribed vile motivations to him, and did what she trained as and was very successful in previously... Namely, influencing public opinion. Via the print media and radio broadcasts.

Given all this and the fact that this reinstated Sam Vaknin page will not be authored nor maintained nor reverted by him, but instead will be (we know full well) intensively and scrupulously monitored and gone over with several fine tooth combs daily to ensure that it is neither a fan club nor a slam page, but a balanced referenced page as would be demanded of any living person. Frankly, I can see no other fair and reasonable conclusion than to give such a page a chance.

As to whether people make references to what he has written about NPD, it is true that while he does list his references, he does not footnote his articles nor his book. However, with so many people swiping his thoughts and his very words (but putting their own degree initials on the articles and referencing only the resources they copied off Sam's webpages!!!), I am sure that we now have Sam's thoughts officially written by truly credible degreed (AND American) sources. :D -TRCourage 06:23, 27 September 2006 (UTC) ps: (forgive any typos - it's past my bedtime)

pps: Sam's book, MSL, has been translated, in full or in part, into several languages, available on the web.

---

* Comment

I see that prior to my posting 24 hours ago, there were quite a few positive comments, even tho not voiced as "votes" ... But I truly thought that what I posted would certainly provoke some comments, whether for or against. Certainly, every time Penbat posted, someone would post in reply - quite a busy time of lots of posting. But suddenly nothing??

Then it occurred to me that perhaps my post had been overlooked because of my putting in the line breaks (so people could find the beginning and end of my post - thus the edit work tonight at the head of the last article. Should anyone care to examine some of my evidentiary proof, I will provide the link to the database of university libraries and the page from the professor in California who has "adopted" Inverted Narcissism as his own insightful thought and creative naming. :D

I am just starting to get the most peculiar uneasy feeling that a de facto decision has already been made and that the evidence above is being ignored. That couldn't be true, could it? -TRCourage 06:01, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Funnily enough, I'm coming to the same conclusion. There are approximately zero valid grounds for not having a wikipedia entry about this person. He's widely published, and while he may not be perfectly qualified to speak as an authoritative source on the issue he's perhaps best known for, I fail to see why this disqualifies him from being discussed. His book is extremely popular, and there are also his other publications on other subjects to take into account. Whether or not the reasons stated in the original AfD debate (i.e., that his books are self-published, that he regularly posted links into the article himself, and that his qualifications are fictitious) are true is of little importance -- there are no rules against having articles on wikipedia about people who satisfy any of these criteria. He *is* notable, the amazon rank of his book and other places he has been published is enough to satisfy that.

Why the article was deleted in the first place I fail to understand. There were 5 delete votes and 3 keeps, which would normally in my experience consign a discussion to "no consensus". At least one of the 'delete' voters in the original debated cited utterly invalid reasons for wanting the article delete. The rest of the reasons were, IMO, rather dubious. The original nominator admitted that the nomination was in bad faith. Whereas the arguments for keeping -- that the man has written a popular book, is the subject of numerous google hits, and that the nomination was in bad faith all seem to be valid. So what happened? JulesH 17:30, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

* Comments Just to add that there are currently several Wiki references to Sam Vaknin's material anyway. There is one on the Narcissistic_personality_disorder article for example. Sam Vaknin has articulated some aspects of narcissism and bullying better than anyone. He has also covered some aspects of the subject that others have often overlooked. I can't possibly do a good job of overhauling the narcissism and bullying material on the Wiki with any artifical constraints placed on Sam Vaknin's material. As I said before, not having Sam Vakin's own article smacks to me of him being made a communist-style "non person". He is a very well known person and people would expect to see a fair share of material on him on the Wiki. --Penbat 18:33, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse deletion Honk honk honk honk BLAM! That was my bullshit detector that just exploded. Fringe figure with all of 24 Newsbank hits (none about him mind you) and a knack for self-promotion bigger than the Eiffel Tower on stilts. No prejudice against creating a new article in user space which can be reviewed here. ~ trialsanderrors 18:47, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse Restoration TrialsandErrors, I fail to understand how you can read the facts and somehow reduce it all to the charge of bullshit. I am not familiar with Newsbot, but you present it as a clear indicator of whether someone is noteworthy to the general population. I would hazard that you didn't get a single hit. Nor would 99.9999999% of the rest of us. In your considered opinion, just exactly how many hits should be required before an official Wiki rubber stamp of approval can be attached to a biography page? As soon as the number is decided upon, a new bot must promptly delete all pages of living humans who don't cut the "Newsbank-Indicator Mustard."

As must be clear from my vote, I find the post of the other evening to be very convincing and would like to see some of those who listed just comments instead of strong indicators come back here and update their impressions. I agree with JulesH about the sudden death of relevant and considered comment. -I am Kiwi 20:31, 28 September 2006 (UTC)