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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shawn Landres

: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. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:17, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

=[[Shawn Landres]]=

:{{la|Shawn Landres}} – (View AfDView log{{int:dot-separator}} [http://toolserver.org/~snottywong/cgi-bin/votecounter.cgi?page=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Shawn_Landres Stats])

:({{Find sources|Shawn Landres}})

This article seems like it might be promotional, and I can't see any real indications of notability. I did not tag as speedy delete because I would like some community input here, especially as this article has 13 sources. It should perhaps be noted that the author of this page has only contributed to wiki by creating this article and the article on Jumpstart, the company that this person is CEO of. Benboy00 (talk) 00:45, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 02:40, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 02:40, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

  • Delete (changing to Keep, see below) It's not clear what he is supposed to be notable for, or what criterion can be used to justify an article about him. He claims to be a scholar, and he has written a few things. [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=J.+Shawn+Landres&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp= Google Scholar] finds him as co-editor of three books; however, they are not often cited (the article describes Personal Knowledge and Beyond as "frequently cited"; GS gives it a total of 38 citations). He does not appear to have any academic or university appointment. So there is no basis for WP:ACADEMIC. That leaves WP:GNG, and he doesn't qualify there despite the article's breathless claims of "worldwide headlines" for things he does. At Google News I found a mention of him and Jumpstart at [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324463604579045081273989534.html this] item from the Wall Street Journal, otherwise nothing significant. The article could be redirected to Jumpstart but I have doubts about its notability as well. --MelanieN (talk) 21:28, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Keep Sorry MelanieN, have to disagree with you on both counts here. You don't need a university appointment to be considered an academic (and the article describes him as an "Independent Scholar"). For someone as young as Landres, 38 citations is no small matter within the realm of Jewish scholarship. Furthermore, Landres is at the center of the "Jewish emergent" movement -- a group of non-profits that is rapidly growing in size and influence. This is demonstrated by the attention that the White House has paid to it over the past several years. I think that this is a very well-source, balanced, and credible article. Truly see no reason to delete it. NathaneMiller10 (talk) 17:18, 3 September 2013 (UTC)— NathaneMiller10 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Delete Over the past week, there are multiple SPA IP accounts devoted only to expanding this article (User:128.111.61.74, User:128.111.61.65, User:128.111.61.93, User:128.111.61.79, User:128.111.61.96, User:128.111.61.95, User:128.111.61.90) which I believe are accounts used by the article subject...probably also article creator User:Dbauth, too, as his/her only contributions to Wikipedia involve Landres and his work. Landres might one day warrant his own article but it should be less self-aggrandizing and self-promotional (that is, written by someone other than Landres). Right now, it resembles a bio that would appear on the subject's own website, not Wikipedia. It doesn't matter how many footnotes it has, he still doesn't meet WP standards of notability, especially for an academic (as the lead paragraph asserts that Landres is primarily known for his scholarship). Liz Read! Talk! 16:42, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Liz Read! Talk! 16:50, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

  • Keep or Transclude I am not new to reading and using Wikipedia, though I am new to editing and commenting. I hope this will not count against my comments here. I am familiar both with the material referenced in this article and with the subject himself. Liz may be right that scholarship alone may not make him notable, but that may only reflect a poorly-written entry. Landres's increasing notability in Jewish communal circles seems evident; is that enough for Wikipedia standards? The challenge is that even if Landres's notability on its own may be debatable, he seems deserving of mentions in a number of articles on different topics; some (though hardly all) of his writings are notable relative to those specific topics. I have adapted/transcluded some of the material from this article into relevant entries (I am not sure how to list them here but I was logged in when I did it). There also is material I did not have time to incorporate - a Google search on his name suggests a major recent publication by his organization (and co-authored by Landres, with one co-author who is already in Wikipedia) that may add to this subject's notability. On balance, I would be inclined to retain this article but at the very least I would transclude it to relevant other entries. If it is transcluded, though, then it may be necessary to create a brief new entry on "Jewish emergent" or expand the existing "Emergent church" article to include other religions). BrntwdCrtc (talk) 04:47, 8 September 2013 (UTC)— BrntwdCrtc (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

::I think some of the material in this article could be included within the pages on the associated organizations and, if anything, this profile should be a stub. There are very important and influential people in the world who have Wikipedia biographies a third the size of this one. It's way too long and detailed in comparison with his notability and some of the claims are inflated (it is implied, for example, that he impacted the campaign of President Clinton when he was a graduate student). It resembles coverage a person would get for a cover story in a national magazine, not a simple encyclopedia entry.

::Plus, there is a huge question of authorship of the article, WP:COI and WP:NPOV. I wouldn't be against keeping the portion of this article that pertains to his work in the Jewish emergent movement in Los Angeles but that is a small part of a much longer biography presented. If this article is retained, much pruning should occur. Liz Read! Talk! 16:21, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

  • Delete. Horribly promotional, no convincing claim to notability. --Michig (talk) 05:52, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment - This discussion, the edit history of the article and the linking to the article positively reeks of socks. I'm starting a sock case to hopefully clean some of that up. - SummerPhD (talk) 13:32, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

::Please see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Dbauth. - SummerPhD (talk) 15:50, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

::: New readers, please refer to this investigation when considering this article. Liz Read! Talk! 01:38, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

  • Comment This article is currently still being actively edited so I think before a final decision is made, whoever closes this request should check back and see if the article has improved. Liz Read! Talk! 20:18, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm changing my opinion to Keep based on the new references added to the article, including many from mainstream Reliable Sources such as the Orange County Register, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, etc. He still fails WP:ACADEMIC but he does pass WP:GNG in my opinion. By the way, I just spent about 15 minutes fixing all the coding errors in the references; there were two or three different KINDS of coding errors, which leads me to think that more than one person was involved in the recent edits to the article. They may all be special purpose accounts, and they might be WP:meatpuppets, but I doubt if we are looking at WP:Sockpuppets. They appear to be unfamiliar with Wikipedia, but in different ways. --MelanieN (talk) 18:10, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Keep I consider the Forward list as a major contributor to notability. The article needs some considerable editing for tone. Perhaps we should have a way of saying, keep, provided the previous contributors keep away from the article. 'DGG (at NYPL) (talk) 18:50, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

:: I wish there was some option between Keep and Delete when an article basically needs to be stripped down to the basics and edited to suit WP style. But unless a reader here wants to take that responsibility on (like MelanieN thoughtfully did), I'm not sure if there is a third option like Probation. Liz Read! Talk! 01:23, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

::: There actually is a middle ground or third option; it's "Merge/Redirect to Jumpstart." --MelanieN (talk) 04:41, 10 September 2013 (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.