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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 keep. Withdrawn by nominator. Non-admin closure. Jujutacular T · C 05:57, 14 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Natasha Mostert

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Natasha Mostert (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Nominator's statement - This author is not notable per WP:N, WP:PEOPLE, or WP:AUTHOR. She has one award win, for Book to Talk About: World Book Day Award 2009, but the award itself is not notable. It's award is only mentioned on three Wikipedia pages[1] and only seems to be reported in the media as part of book publisher's announcements.[2] --Marc Kupper|talk 23:04, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • The World Book and Copyright Day article is not mention the award at all. The award does not seem to be notable.
  • Being published is not a notability point on WP:AUTHOR. This idea has been discussed with no consensus reached.
  • The in.reuters.com interview is good and I've added that to the reference list on the Natasha Mostert article. I personally don't think much of interviews as WP:PEOPLE coverage as they tend to a glowing lead to hook the reader's interest and then it's short questions by the interviewer that get answered, sometimes at length, by the subject. The person who did the interview did not write "about" the subject rather it's the subject writing or talking about herself. Thus interviews are not independent though the fact that there was an interview is evidence the subject received some notice.
  • The www.grafwv.com article is a review of one of the author's book and with one sentence of coverage of the author whose article is the subject of this AFD. It appears that while the author of the review is a long time blogger on this site that this article is one of the two that she's not written as a blogger. It might be WP:N coverage of the book. Of the 416 words in the review 27 words are coverage of the author, 128 words are coverage of the book and the rest is a story summary.
  • I can't find the review on the femalefirst.co.uk site. I see the publisher's summary, followed by an author blurb but no review.
  • Of the more 40 articles found by the Google news archive one was the in.reuters.com interview. I found another interview plus an award presentation both of which I added as references to the article. The remaining hits are book summaries or mini reviews and not coverage of the author. I think a few were for someone else with the same name or our subject is also on the Soutpansberg, South Africa chamber of commerce.[6]
While I added three references to the article none were the "significant coverage" from sources "independent of the subject" that WP:N asks for. --Marc Kupper|talk 07:18, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, when somebody is interviewed by a reliable source, that source is giving significant coverage to them. And in-depth interview of this person by Reuters is in fact significant coverage of this person. If the topic were interviewing herself and then posted it on her blog, then your "glowing lead" point would be valid. In fact, "glowing leads" by reliable sources are still significant coverage per WP:N. And an in-depth review of the topic's work is in fact more significant coverage of this person. Remember, WP:N defines non-significant coverage as a "one sentence mention" in another work as an example. Defining the coverage that this person has received by reliable sources as anything like a "one sentence mention" would be opposite of reality. --Oakshade (talk) 17:21, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the context, such as Reuters, is important. My usual formula is I'll take an article, review, interview, etc. and to count the number of words about a subject. Thus I counted the Reuters interview as 147 words about the subject (the lead), and 457 words from the subject (essentially WP:SELFPUB material) in Reuters. I don't separate out the word count for the questions as it's supposed to be a fast and rough evaluation.
WP:N is frustrating as it says one sentence is plainly trivial as you noted. Next up is "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention" but no definition of "plainly trivial" vs. "trivial" is given. Finally it's that 360 pages (roughly 6,400 sentences) is plainly non-trivial. If we used WP:N literally then that 147 word lead (or even the full interview) is less than one percent of the way between "plainly trivial." and "plainly non-trivial." :-)
You do have a good point though in that people can see it as 604 words of coverage or exposure in a major media outlet. --Marc Kupper|talk 01:14, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This AfD nomination was incomplete (missing step 3). It is listed now. DumbBOT (talk) 16:45, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I have removed the June-2009 themercury.co.za interview as a reference and possible WP:N source. It turns out to be word-for-word identical to the April-2009 interview on in.reuters.com with the following changes, insertion and removing commas, replace the following words, "witch doctor" with "sangoma," "feels" with "believes", "mobilize" with "mobilise", etc. --Marc Kupper|talk 01:05, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Tim Song (talk) 09:27, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I only saw one WP:N source which is the interview. Did you see something else? WP:GNG has "multiple sources are generally expected" and so it'd be easy to make this a "keep" if you saw a couple more independant/reliable sources. The calculation stuff is something I do to see if a source is trivial or not. --Marc Kupper|talk 10:29, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I just don't really understand where you get the numbers from to determine "significant coverage". Anyway, I was meaning the Evening Standard article too, which I presume you're discounting. Also, an article in the San Jose Mercury [7], some other coverage I can't evaluate because links are dead, or behind paywalls, or not in English. All in all, I think it's borderline, but I think she scrapes through. The interview in Reuters is enough to demonstrate notability (as 1 source I mean); WP:SELFPUB is about verifiability, not notability. The fact that they are interviewing her makes it notable - as opposed to an autobiographical "about me" piece on her website or something like that. --BelovedFreak 11:15, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'll write about the numbers system on my talk page and may later move it into an essay. That someone has interviewed her at all is the strongest case for notability. As I was going to sleep last night I was thinking it's a week-keep based on a combination of one interview, one non-notable award, and publication by a major publisher. I saw the San Jose Mercury item you mentioned earlier but was not comfortable with its reliability as it's an anonymous editorial. If it was reliable it would be one 16-word sentence of coverage in a 310 word article. WP:N is empathetic that material qualifying for notability be independent of the subject and that it be "works of their own" that "address the subject directly in detail" by the person writing the material. This is why I do not include most interview questions and direct quotes by the subject as part of the word count to see if something is non-trivial coverage. --Marc Kupper|talk 22:10, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be interested to read that essay, and will be interested to see what discussion results from the thread you started at WT:N.--BelovedFreak 22:22, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For the San Jose Mercury News piece, unless it's a "letter to the editor" or the like, it is a reliable source per WP:SOURCES. It has editorial control over its content and is independent of the topic. Frequently in major market newspapers the editorial pages aren't credited to specific writers as they come from anyone on the editorial board. --Oakshade (talk) 00:34, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, I'd forgotten about library holdings and agree with "keep" for this. --Marc Kupper|talk 20:36, 11 March 2010 (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.
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