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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dan Roodt

: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. Today, Johannes Jaar made a major edit to improve the article's sourcing and quality and I think there is a good chance that this edit will make the article more palatable to those who have voted to delete it. Since the article has been relisted several times, I won't continue to drag out the issue. The article may be renominated at some point if someone feels Jaar's edit is insufficient. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:08, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

=[[Dan Roodt]]=

:{{la|Dan Roodt}} – (View AfDView log{{•}} {{plainlink|1=http://toolserver.org/~betacommand/cgi-bin/afdparser?afd={{urlencode:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dan Roodt}}|2=AfD statistics}})

:({{findsources|Dan Roodt}})

A possibly self-promotional biography of a white nationalist of questionable notability. The only third-party source linked mentions Roodt almost as an afterthought, and really isn't about him. All other links are to his own websites and blogs. Stonemason89 (talk) 00:34, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

  • Comment: Above is a whole bunch of nonsense, it is without fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jason.schoeman (talk • contribs) 16:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Keep: This should be kept at all cost, he is a true icon of the Afrikaner. This is not about anyone else except the protection of our culture. Dr. Roodt is a respected member of our community and a leader.
  • Do you have any evidence to back up these claims? Stonemason89 (talk) 19:38, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Delete: I agree that this entry should be deleted. I can read Afrikaans, and would therefore rewrite it - but I do not consider Dan Roodt as noteable enough (nationally and internationally) to be entered into Wikipedia. This is only supported by the fact that he would probably not have been added had he not written so much of the page himself. Furthermore, the article mentions that he "is cited in both Kannemeyer (1983: 241) and Van Coller (1998: 83), being the two most recent and authoritative literary histories on Afrikaans literature." The use of this information is questionable. Both texts are viewed as leading literary histories of Afrikaans, yet the information is incomplete. Simply stating that Roodt is mentioned is redundant if there is no clarification of why he is mentioned. The text from 1983 is not the most recent edition (as claimed), and an updated edition was released in 2005. In the 2005 edition, Kannemeyer states that Roodt's book Moltrein (2004) is testimony of a severe ineptness regarding the use of the Afrikaans language, and that his oeuvre makes no significant contribution to the Afrikaans literature whatsoever. The publication of his most recent books seems to be the simple result of his organisation (PRAAG) having its own publisher, as is also stated in the article as it is at the moment. None of the other respectable South African publishers who publish Afrikaans books have published any book by Roodt. His entry into these literary histories is most likely because he published a book through the major anti-apartheid underground publisher Taurus at the beginning of the 80s. Johannes Jaar (talk) 15:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
  • He used to be anti-apartheid? Interesting....but it certainly looks like he's done a U-turn on the issue since then. Stonemason89 (talk) 15:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Weird, yes, but I think one would refer to Roodt's views of back then as anti-establishment, rather than anti-apartheid. It was more the publisher that was anti-apartheid. Johannes Jaar (talk) 17:24, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment: This person has been editing Wikipedia (including this article) as User: Danroodt. He has also attempted to advertise (spam) one of his own blog entries on the Nelson Mandela article. The article's creator, User: Tertiavanreenen, may also ties to Roodt, as it appears to be a SPA who has only contributed to this article, not any others. Also, if you Google "Tertia van reenen dan roodt", you get quite a few pages with both names on them. However, most of those pages are in Afrikaans, and I can't read Afrikaans, so I don't know for sure if they are linked in some way or not. Many of those pages have the word "praag" in the title, though, and according to this article, PRAAG is the name Roodt uses to refer to his "organization". So it's possible that Tertiavanreenen is affiliated with PRAAG, and would therefore arguably have a conflict of interest if this were true. Stonemason89 (talk) 01:29, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

::See [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=+site:praag.co.za+tertia+van+reenen+dan+roodt+praag&ei=o-6DS7rYDsepnQfZwrzlAQ&sa=X&oi=manybox&resnum=3&ct=all-results&ved=0CAIQqAQwAw], [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nelson_Mandela&diff=prev&oldid=339541994] and [http://www.nelsonmandela.tk] for evidence of what I was talking about. Interestingly, the anti-Mandela blog has the country code ".tk", which is associated with Tokelau! Stonemason89 (talk) 15:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

  • Keep and cleanup I think. GregJackP's comment leaves me puzzled. If there are "plenty of reliable sources", shouldn't the article be fixed rather than deleted? I'm thinking that someone must once have said that AfD isn't cleanup. Google News does indeed have a fair bit of coverage of the subject, and he is a member of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, and that should count for something too. If Mr Roodt won't mend his autobiographical ways, we have ways to deal with that. Has anyone pointed WP:COI out to him? Angus McLellan (Talk) 22:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment - clarification. The article as written appears to be a COI and AB. The WP:AB link states "Articles that exist primarily to advance the interests of the contributor will likely be deleted." It appears to me that the article exists primarily to advance his interests, without a single mention of the controversies that surround him. There is no mention of his views that blacks are by nature violent [http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=20209], faces or faced a hate-speech charge [http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article72497.ece], or any other blemishes. I don't have any desire to edit it myself, but I would not object to it being rewritten to Wiki standards. As the article is currently written, it meets the test for deletion under WP:AP. (GregJackP (talk) 23:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC))

:* Well, I can only read Afrikaans insofar as it is like Dutch, and my Dutch isn't great to start with. But I'll see if I can do something with this. Cutting it down to a few sentences will be step one. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

  • Delete unless somebody can find some reliable sources. If this article was brought to afd soon after its creation, i'd say it just needs to be cleaned up, but due to the time that has gone by, I don't know if it can be cleaned up, but I am not an expert on the subject, so i'd be glad to change my comment towards someone who is if the situation changes. Doc Quintana (talk) 15:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

:Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Beeblebrox (talk) 02:13, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

  • It seems several participants aren't sure themselves whether to keep or delete this article, so a relist seems in order. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:13, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of South Africa-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Good that this article has been included in the South Africa List now. I also added a notice on the WikiProject South Africa. While I agree that this article is heavily biased and generally in bad shape, I am quite convinced that this controversial person is clearly notable. See only [http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=20209 this news article] and [http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article129450.ece this article] in The Sunday Times. More references can surely be found. Keep — PanchoS (talk) 17:09, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

: The first reference you gave appears to be from a publication ("Socialist Worker") that pushes a particular POV. The very name sounds decidedly slanted to me. This doesn't necessarily mean we can't use it as a source, just that we have to be careful when doing so. Stonemason89 (talk) 17:29, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

:: Tell me one publication that doesn't push a particular POV... the main difference is how much the POV is mainstream or not. However I agree with you that this article can be only a starting point to search for broader, and therefore more reliable news coverage. PanchoS (talk) 17:40, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

  • Keep and Cleanup - In spite of the article currently being mostly his own work, most of the content is uncontroversial and verifiable - even objective truth. There is plenty reliable information available about him - from opponents, supporters and neutral sources. His notability is established as a well known and highly controversial figure in political, literary and cultural (battle)fields in South Africa. A "nobody" doesn't get nearly 200 000 Googlehits. The article's main problem is about what is not in it rather than what is in it. The Afrikaans WP article[http://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Roodt] is much better and can be used to help fix this one. Roger (talk) 21:52, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

::Please read WP: GOOGLEHITS. Search engine statistics do not guarantee notability. Stonemason89 (talk) 14:06, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

:::I am familiar with the content of WP:GOOGLEHITS. I did not claim that google hits per se make him notable. All I meant is that the fact that the name gets over 200 000 google hits at the very least implies that this person is not a "nobody". WP:GOOGLEHITS does not forbid mentioning the number of hits a subject gets. But that is in any case not the core of my argument - the subject's notability comes from his prominence in the South African media in terms of the high profile role he plays in ethnic politics in the country. The fact that the current article is largely edited by the subject himself does not nullify his notability either. Roger (talk) 11:00, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

::::I agree that Roodt is not a nobody, yet I think that many of the hits on Google are a result of websites either owned or operated by Roodt, or websites owned and operated by supporters of Roodt (or those who agree with some of his views, not necessarily supporters). The following are owned by Roodt: roodt.org, www.praag.co.za, www.praag.co.uk. Searching on Google Scholar results in 80 hits. Not really huge. I also did a search for Dan Roodt on the websites of major South African newspapers (Afrikaans and English) with the following results: Beeld (Afrikaans daily, Northern parts of SA) - 16; Die Burger (Afrikaans daily, Cape area) - 25; Volksblad (Afrikaans daily, Free State/Central) - 5; Rapport (Afrikaans weekly, national) - 21; City Press (English weekly, national) - none; Mail & Guardian (English, national) - 15; Pretoria News (English, Gauteng) - 4; Times Live (all news papers owned by The Times, including Sunday Times) - 26; Sowetan (English, national) - none. Unfortunately much of the subject's notability seems to be generated by him via his own websites (which are often copied from and paraphrased elsewhere on blogs, etc.), and by writing letters to newspapers and South African e-zines (like www.litnet.co.za). I don't think his part in the South African media in terms of ethnic politics is that big. His prominence is utterly questionable, and hardly probable. Delete Johannes Jaar (talk) 10:52, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

:::::I got the same result when I Googled him; nearly all the hits were from websites linked to Roodt or PRAAG. Stonemason89 (talk) 20:02, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

  • I have also checked out the Afrikaans article ([http://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Roodt]. Although it includes more info, there are still very few reliable sources. It simply looks like an expansion of the English article. Mostly edited by (well, what do ya know?!) User:Danroodt. Johannes Jaar (talk) 11:09, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

:Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Arbitrarily0 (talk) 00:52, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

::My apologies for the second relist, done in the hopes that a more conclusive consensus can be reached. Regards, Arbitrarily0 (talk) 00:56, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

::Comment I don't think this repeated listing is achieving anything at all. I'm not even sure that it should in principle be allowed as it can be interpreted that the proposer is pushing a particular POV. Roger (talk) 11:07, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

  • This is a debate. Pushing a point of view is expected behaviour in a debate; indeed, it's a central aspect of debating, and nobody should be censured for doing it.

    I think Dan Roodt is controversial enough, and well-known enough, that people might search for "Dan Roodt" on Wikipedia. This implies that Dan Roodt should not be a redlink. It could be a redirect to a different article, or to a list of activists, rather than an article in its own right. In other words, whether or not Dan Roodt is notable enough to deserve his own article, his name is a plausible search term.

    This means that what we need to decide is whether to replace his article with a redirect (and if so, to where), or whether to keep a shortened version of the article.

    This is not a decision for AfD. You don't need administrative tools to do any of that, so the normal talk-page discussion route is sufficient.

    Therefore, this debate can safely and correctly be closed as "no consensus" and the matter continued on the article's talk page until a conclusion is reached.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 12:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

  • Keep: This should be kept at all cost, he is a true icon of the Afrikaner. This is not about anyone else except the protection of our culture. Dr. Roodt is a respected member of our community and a leader. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jason.schoeman (talk 17:00, 16 March 2010 (UTC)• contribs) 16:57, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
  • You already posted these exact same comments at the top of the AFD. Please do not make duplicate posts, it merely clutters up the discussion. Stonemason89 (talk) 19:38, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
  • I have rewritten the article, added sources, info, etc. It's not perfect yet, but I think it's better. Please check and change if necessary (and remove labels, if possible). Johannes Jaar (talk) 09:39, 18 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.