Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Johannes Maas (missionary)

This discussion was subject to a deletion review on 2009 October 28.
For an explanation of the process, see Wikipedia:Deletion review.

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. MuZemike 15:56, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Johannes Maas (missionary)[edit]

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This article does not assert , much less establish, any notability other than being "a Christian leader". Leader of... what? The only references are mentions in "Who's Who" publications, alumni magazines, YouTube, and other self-published sources. :Ἀλήθεια 13:56, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This article establishes clear notability in several areas:

Maas served as an advisor for the White House during the Carter administration, and was

granted a rare letter of recommendation from a presidential assistant (sourced}

Maas was independently featured in a University of Pittsburgh alumni publication (sourced)

Maas was awarded a key to the city by Mobile, Alabama

Maas' biography has been independently published in several biographical publications (sourced)

Maas' works and contributions have been independently published in several leading newspapers

and websites (sourced)

Maas is indeed the leader of an international organization. His biography indeed merits

inclusion R/T-รัก-ไทย (talk) 04:20, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The only one of the sources in the article that looks as if it might confer notability is the Maddox book, which, according to Google Books, doesn't have any mention of the subject. Marquis Who's Who is a publisher of vanity bios. Searches for "Johannes Maas" and "Joe Maas" with "missionary" don't come up with anything. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:23, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The letter from Maddox is published on Scribd. I found many references on Google,

(without missionary, which was added because another article is named Johannes Maas)

including the feature in PITT magazine R/T-รัก-ไทย (talk) 16:45, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't doubt the existence of the letter, but it it not a published source usable for an encyclopedia. Anyone can put anything they want on Scribd. The "feature" in PITT magazine consists of two sentences in a local university publication, not the significant coverage in independent reliable sources required for notability. If you can provide evidence for the fact that "Maas' biography has been independently published in several biographical publications" as you claimed above then we can keep this, but this claim is not currently sourced. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:27, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Searches combining the subject's name with every one of the potential claims of notability in the article find 66 web pages, none of which amount to significant independent coverage, no Google News hits, three irrelevant Google Scholar hits and these 10 Google Books hits, only one of which appears to be about the subject - this mention in the Christian Herald. Of course there may be significant coverage in offline sources, but I think that I've done a pretty exhaustive check of what is available online. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:02, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I have worked some on this article, and have checked out the reliable sources cited in the article. The Pitt article is an independent source of his

notability as this was a choice of the university editors. Further, I have read his aticles in "Bangkok Post" and "Nation" newspapers, whose editors considered his writings

to be worthy of publication. As compared with similar articles, this merits inclusion Jackie-thai (talk) 18:43, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, none of the statements below demonstrate notability:
- "served as an advisor for the White House" - not notable
- "granted a rare letter of recommendation from a presidential assistant" - not notable
- "independently featured in a University of Pittsburgh alumni publication" - per WP:BIO, trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability
- "awarded a key to the city by Mobile, Alabama" - not notable
- "biography has been independently published" - per WP:BIO, entries in biographical dictionaries that accept self-nominations (such as the Marquis Who's Who) do not prove notability
- "works and contributions have been independently published in several leading newspapers and websites" - unable to verify this
- "the leader of an international organization" - this alone does not confer notability. Hokie RNB 18:55, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep IMHO, the founder of such global humanitarian efforts as Worldwide Faith Missions and Feed the Orphans (very similar in scope to Cross International) -- not to mention the services rendered to our own government -- deserves a couple kilobytes of server space in Wikipedia. JimScott (talk) 14:08, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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.