Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greg Downs (writer)

{{AFD help}}

:{{la|Greg Downs (writer)}} – (View AfDView log)

:({{Find sources AFD|title=Greg Downs (writer)}})

Poorly structured autobio which fails to establish notability. Orange Mike | Talk 23:18, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

:Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ _Talk 23:19, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

• Comment The reviews are mostly to dead links, but their existence suggests he meets WP:NAUTHOR. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 01:07, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

:*Comment The only plausible criterion he meets in WP:NAUTHOR is 4(c): "The person's work [...] won significant critical attention", but for how borderline uselessly vague it is, it is still a criterion. However, whereas I think the notabillity of the subject can be debated, deleting the article and starting from scratch is the best thing to do in this case, for reasons I'll address below.

• Delete (changed to 'Keep'; see below) – Even if we assume the subject passes notability criteria (I think it's ambiguous; see above), the article would need to be remade from scratch due to a number of issues I addressed over on the the COI noticeboard. The gist of it is: borderline WP:G11-worthy (see: WP:IBA) content clearly written by the subject himself; poor reference formatting with no inline citations (have fun sorting that out); and terrible prose structure. The relatively short article is so far below the project's quality standards that bringing it up to them would probably take more time than rewriting it from scratch while utilizing the existing references (and more, if you can find them; I couldn't from a cursory search). Essentially, the article in its current form just isn't fit for Wikipedia, and there's no good quick fix, because the issues are foundational to the article itself. I have no qualms with keeping this article in my sandbox to help a future editor in creating a new article, but unless some Good Samaritan is willing to sit down and rewrite this into something passable, my vote is a clear delete, as having such a blatant, COI-ridden advertisement here is far more detrimental to the project than it is helpful. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 02:14, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

::Well, ya got me. I hope most Wikipedians would rather be the good Samaritan than the first two guys who didn't care or the victim of violence. Rewriting such a short article as this is easy as pie. Do research, cite sources, delete the fluff. Why throw a baby out with the bathwater? And cursory searches? As in Googling? Noooo. I'll start tomorrow with paywalled sources. It'll be apparent whether a Flannery O'Connor award-winner is notable after a little bit of work. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 02:50, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

:::What are your objections to the article in its current state, TheTechnician27 and Orangemike? DiamondRemley39 (talk) 16:00, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

::::The article is so fundamentally different than the one that I voted on that I retract my vote and change it to 'Keep'. The only thing I could really suggest at a glance is changing the date format from YMD to MDY per MOS:DATETIES, and I say that to contrast this minor nitpick with the litany of fundamental issues the article had three days ago. You kept the baby, threw out the old, grimy bathwater, and installed a drop-in jacuzzi in place of the old tub. Hats off. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 21:00, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• Keep. As DiamondRemley39 notes, fixing an article like this is not a task that requires a total reset. It seems a stretch to say the article includes no usable content at all; see WP:SURMOUNTABLE and WP:DINC. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 12:03, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
• Keep as he sure meets WP:NAUTHOR. Just getting started with improvements--all of which have been available on the open internet so far. WP:BEFORE could have been stronger. Also: AfD is not cleanup. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 13:31, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
• Keep there appears to be adequate, in-depth coverage in reliable sources. The problem, I think, is with the article and what it says, rather than his notability. Possibly (talk) 04:49, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
• Keep, meets WP:NAUTHOR as there are multiple reviews of his books (thanks {{u|DiamondRemley39}} for article improvements), btw one place i go for authors is WorldCat, if their books are in 3digit+ libraries it may be an indication that they're probably "well-known" with reviews out there, ie. [https://www.worldcat.org/title/spit-baths-stories/oclc/62804656?referer=br&ht=edition Split Baths: 300 libraries], [https://www.worldcat.org/title/after-appomattox-military-occupation-and-the-ends-of-war/oclc/968494081?referer=br&ht=edition After Appomattox: over 1000], occasionally reviews are also listed (Woohoo!:)) - [https://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=Spit+Baths+Greg+Downs Split Baths 4 reviews], [https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=after+appomattox+military+occupation+and+the+ends+of+war&qt=results_page After Appomattox 4 reviews], then more digging can occur. Coolabahapple (talk) 13:22, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• Keep meets WP:NAUTHOR - seems to be a legit author, with valid published titles, and evidence of reviews on the page, including an award one for a short article. Deathlibrarian (talk) 02:36, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

{{clear}}

: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.