Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Todd Albertson

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 delete all. — FireFox ^(talk) _{14:30, 27 August 2006}

Todd Albertson

There are a lot of claims made about this person. Filmmaker: well, a 10 minute short from an LA film festival, a documentary also from a film festival, and a full-length movie, starring two people which have never stared in any other movie. Author His book The Gods of Business is apparently unpublished; it is not listed at Amazon, B&N, Books in Print, or the Library of Congress. Founder of the charity God Farm. Except that the God Farm web site says it isn't up and running yet. All the references are to sites he owns or to anonymous glowing reviews at IMDB. None of the other claims can be backed up by reliable sources. Great self-promotion, not so great for this encyclopedia.

Also nominating:

• The Gods of Business Has a very pretty web site, but is not listed in Amazon, Borders, Books in Print, or the Library of Congress. Wishful thinking at best; wikipedia is not a crystall ball.
• The proverb A 10-minute film by Todd Albertson (see above). No coverage in Lexis/Nexis entertainment reporting. Not for sale anywhere. For sale at Amazon as a self-published DVD. ( Possibly shown at one film festival. Only references are the film's web site and IMDB. Like all Todd's projects, tagged with a false {{wikiquote}} tag. Like all Todd's projects, a very pretty article with infoboxes and everything. Non-notable and not verifiable.
• Soliloquy movie No coverage in Lexis/Nexis entertainment reporting. Not for sale anywhere. Stars two people who have never been in any other film. Possibly shown at one film festival. Only references are the film's web site and IMDB.
• Sidewalk soldiers A documentary produced, written and directed by Todd. No coverage in Lexis/Nexis entertainment reporting. Not for sale anywhere. Possibly shown at one film festival. Only references are the film's web site and IMDB.

Note that several speedy and prod tags have been removed by different redlinked users and/or IP addresses, so expect someone to be watching out for Todd. All in all, a very sophisticated walled garden. Thatcher131 (talk) 01:47, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete all the articles. I'm not voting in each one; you could have just done one AfD for the whole kit and kaboodle, seeing as they all tie into this one guy. Danny Lilithborne 01:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I've never done that before. I'll try to fix it up. Sometimes multiple noms get dinged though. Thatcher131 (talk) 01:39, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, I combined them. Thatcher131 (talk) 01:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• I say delete them all. Without the slightest shadow of a doubt, the auxiliary pages (the book and the movies) should be deleted. I could imagine that someone would make a case that Albertson could have a very short article about him which mentions these works, but I don't see it passing the bar for WP:BIO. As nom says, this guy is a great self-promoter, but that's all. Again, delete. --- Deville (Talk) 02:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all Aspiring filmmaker and author who clearly hasn't yet made it in either. Fan-1967 02:09, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• delete this and the linked articles. Looks like he wrote the entire thing himself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Outside Center (talk • contribs)
• Delete all per nom. Thatcher definitely did his research. -- Kicking222 11:08, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Added comment The Albertson main page lists a dozen foreign-language WPs with Todd Albertson articles; none actually do. Whether this was just to make his page look even fancier, or whether someone actually had the intention of making these articles, remains to be seen. -- Kicking222 11:11, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all per nom ST47 11:08, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete each as the article bears the burden of proof. A very young person with ambitions is likely to promote himself, and we should not be included in those plans. It's awful that we have to prove conclusively that there is no evidence for the subjects, but the one thing to add is that IMDB has never heard of the film maker, either. Geogre 12:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Albertson (weakly) as fundamentally unverifiable other than from his own website. He gets 250 unique Googles, which is about the same as I get and is rather implausible given the CV presented in the article. Strong delete of the balance, which give every appearance of vanispamcruftisement. The involvement of an interlocking circle of single purpose accounts makes this pretty much a certainty. Just zis Guy you know? 18:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all Leuko 19:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• What a bunch of...!$!@# are the comments of the estemed contributors to this thrred. I don't know this guy, but I did design his book cover and I delt with the publisher and the webmaster not him. I don't care whether you delete him or not and he probabaly doesn't either since wikipedia is so slanted and unreliable anyway. I just looked at these comments and am disgusted with the entire process. You guys make the Bush Administration dealing with Hurricane Katrina seem smart! But as thatcher would say "so expect someone to be watching out for Todd." There is no way Albertson wrote his own bio, he didn't even want his picture or bio on the book cover. If he wrote his bio, why wouldn't he have the same stuff on his websites or link to wikipediua? It doesn't make sense to me as he hardly says anything about himself on his sites. Someone who wrote their own bio would have a link and say something like "Wikipedia now recognizes my expertise. Go to this link to see for yourself." Check your facts before you say crap about somebody. I hope you end up getting sued for defamation. For example, his website clearly says that his book isn't published until the Fall and you can't pre-order until October, thus it wouldn't be listed for sale yet nor would it be in the LOC. DA! Someone said that his 10 minute film isn't for sale and there is a link to on his website that takes you amazon. Someone else said only imdB verifies his films. imdb is far more difficult to to get into than wikipedia as they check stuff ahead of time and don't allow annonymous contributors. Instead of talking all this crap and acting like idiots, why don't you contact him, there's a link on his website, and ask him. You don't verify any information submitted to wikipedia except when you think someone is self-promoting. What if an ex-wife or disgruntled employee or stalker wrote this stuff. What if it is 100% accurate and verifable? Grow up and act like adults. If you're going to fact check, then be professional about it, and don't sling mud. Freakin idiots! miss_pat 20:6, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

In my nomination I did not link to the various relevant policies. Perhaps you would be interested in Verifiability, Notability, Biography and Reliable sources. Also what Wikipedia is not. For example, wikipedia generally does not have articles on things that do not exist. If and when the book is published, and if it otherwise meets the notability requirements for books, the article can be rewritten. Movies with very little audience and exposure generally do not meet notability guidelines. In the case of Todd himself, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collector of information, and the importance of individuals must be independently verifiable (such as through newspaper articles about his achievements). Whether the article was written by an ex-wife and said bad things or written by himself and said good things, it would be a candidate for deletion because it can not be independently verified. On final comment, funny thing about his personal IMDB profile, it says it was submitted by "anonymous." Thatcher131 (talk) 20:37, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

cWe're not deleting Todd (just discussing deletion of the article about him) or slinging mud. To be listed, we need someone other than Todd, a reliable third party source to confirm these things he says he's done actually exist. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• Wow. This guy really worked hard on all these pages. Delete 'em all Sparsefarce 23:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Them All and Response to Thatcher131!I don't know how to respond in-the same thread as Thatcher131, so I am posing this here. I apologize, but I've never done this before and don't have the time to learn a new markup language.

I apologize if I came across as a jerk earlier, but some of the comments didn't and still don't sound professional or objective, but rahter feel like a bunch of bullies ganging-up on someone and I find that unfair or plain old wrong. Nonetheless, I think all of these listings should be deleted too.

My reasons are differen't than Thatcher131's reasons. When I read these articles I don't find them flattering to Albertson at all. Nor do I think they are accurate. I do believe his websites are accurate and they don't say 99% of this stuff. So they should be deleted because no data is far better than bad data.

I also believe these articles should be deleted because I don't think the fact checkers are objective and probably not qualified to fact check. Most of these comments are nasty personal attacks. For example, he's a wannabe or this guy really worked hard on creating the phony websites. Again, they were not written objectively by professionals and I question the competency and motives of the contributor.

For example after I correccted Thatcher131 on a few of his obvious mistakes, he changed the verbage to read that his DVD was self-published. His Proverb was publised by CustomFlix. They are same people who publish 60 Minutes, A&E, NBC among lots of other "big boys." The company is owned by amazon and very legitimate. Saying "self published" makes it sound like he is shipping VHS copies out of his garage. Then Thatcher131 says, in a "I told you so" tone, that his imdb biography is written by anonymous. WOW!!!!! 95% of imdb's bios are written by anonymous or just signed with someone's email address. You have to be a major A lister to have a big name attached to your bio. For example, Jim Belushi's bio is written by anonymous. Go to imdb and actually do some research and check this out instead of just talking out of both sides of your mouth.

Here's the point, I'm not a film expert, I'm just a graphics designer and I know this. Even a half way smart person who has done anything at all in the "industry" knows this. Thatcher131 and I suspect most people claiming to be experts here don't know this because they're not experts, they're not even smart, they're wannabes. If they were experts, they'd be doing this for a living not living out some sort of fantasy by self-publishing on a free encylopedia.

Just so there is no confussion, I think all this articles should be deleted as well. And I also think that if wikipedia ever hopes to be taken seriously, you need to have some serious people running it. There are other models like dmoz that lets the average joe edit, but they do so under the supervision of qualified editors. This whole thread illustrates this perfectly in my mind.

Just my two cents. Have a nice day!

miss_pat 22:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete — and delete the rest of the listings per nom. NN Dionyseus 01:49, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all per WP:BIO and WP:SPAM. I do not consider that Albertson nor his movies and book meet inclusion criteria. Sure, someone cared enough to put in all the effort in creating the pages to ensure inclusion on wikipedia (thus answers.com, shortopedia.com), and spamming the internet. In most of these cases, the information has been copied verbatim from one site to the next. Except that the wiki entry seems the most complete, including details about how he earned money by being a hacker, suggesting it could only have been autobiographical, as no independent sources can be found WP:V. His websites toddalbertson.com,1, thegodsofbusiness.com2, theproverbmovie.com3, none of which are linked to anything, but score Ghits when searching for "Todd Albertson". I personally don't consider imdb entries necessarily as criteria for judging notability. Even if there's an entry at imdb, editors need to check qualitatively whether the global achievements of the subject meet wiki's criteria by looking for other corroborating sources. Wikipedia will only be unreliable if people continue to post nonsense, spam and entries of non-notable people or organisations and if facts are not correctly checked. Ohconfucius 03:36, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
• 'DELETE IT ALL My name is Todd Albertson and I am the subject of this discussion. If there are any doubts as to my identity, I created this account and verified it using an email address at my domain toddalbertson.com.

I was not aware that there was a Wikipedia article about me, let alone 5 of them until “Miss_Pat” brought this matter to my attention a few hours ago. I have neither written nor commissioned nor asked nor approved nor authorized anyone to create, modify, or edit the articles entitled Todd Albertson, The Gods of Business, Soliloquy movie, The Proverb movie, and/or Sidewalk Soldiers. Had I created these articles, they would have been far more polished and professional in appearance and content than they are now.

Some of the information in these articles is correct and verifiable. That information appears to be directly stolen from my websites verbatim in violation of US and International copyright laws. The rest of the information is completely erroneous and/or taken out of context and is malicious and damaging. Therefore I have already contacted Wikipedia's copyright violation department and asked this information be removed immediately because of the copyright infringement. Additionally, I have contacted the Wikipedia info team and asked them to remove the libelous portions of these article, i.e. - the remainder of garbage.

I have no desire to be listed in Wikipedia. To be listed in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which I am not, is an honor. I am not of the opinion that being listed in Wikipedia is any sort of "badge of honor”. It is more on the order of being mentioned on someone’s MySpace blog.

Moreover, I am outraged at how easy it is to add and create erroneous and libelous information without someone verifying it first. To put the burden on an individual to find out that this erroneous information exists is not the correct way a professional organization should conduct business. Some of these articles are over a year old and went unnoticed. There are some very serious and alarming errors in the Wikipedia editing process.Toddalbertson 03:40, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment There are examples of subjects who do not wish, for whatever reason, to have a wiki article on them. So the issue is not whether the subject approves of their bio or whether they want to be listed. It is a question of, amongst other things, the subjects' notability, and verifiability of the information on the subject. Ohconfucius 05:34, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete all per nominator. RFerreira 08:34, 27 August 2006 (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.