Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dominick Sokotoff

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. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:58, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dominick Sokotoff[edit]

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WP:BLP of a journalist with no credible claim to passing our notability standards for journalists, and no reliable source coverage about him to pass WP:GNG. His notability claim amounts to "columnist for a midsize-market newspaper", and the referencing here is entirely to primary sources like his own writing in that newspaper, a spreadsheet on Google Docs, a video on Facebook and his own photography website. As always, a journalist is not automatically entitled to a Wikipedia article just because he exists -- he must have a notability claim that passes WP:JOURNALIST, and he must be the subject of reliable source coverage in publications other than his own employer, for an article to become earned. Under normal circumstances I would have speedied this, but it's a followup recreation after an earlier version was speedied for not having a strong notability claim. There's also a potential conflict of interest here, as the creator is an WP:SPA for whom Sokotoff is the only topic they've ever attempted to write about on here. Bearcat (talk) 17:32, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - searches turned up little but press releases and announcement type coverage of his employment. Almost all from primary sources. Fails WP:GNG. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 17:42, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 17:52, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - The sourcing in the article is a mix of unreliable and non-independent sources. My own search does not turn up anything better with which to establish notability. -- Whpq (talk) 20:15, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Blackguard 22:48, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I don't believe that I have a conflict of interest per se, I simply know of and appreciate this writer in our community. He is young and ambitious and I believe that it is important to illustrate that (in a non-biased way). Though you may not see the notability from your community, there is plenty an audience in ours who not only knows of, but shows interest in Sokotoff. What is the problem with having a page as a foundation to build upon as this individual does more important things in the future? There have been around ten other editors who did not seem to pose any problem regarding the notability of this subject and who must have believed that it was worth their time to invest in editing the page. There are some reliable third party sources, while there are some that I admit are a stretch, but I am still looking for a source on the heuristics research that Sokotoff has done at Carleton College, some of which is notable. It would be a waste to delete an informative community resource that not only has potential for noteworthiness, but also that many editors have spent time on. In addition, it has been picked up and rated by a couple WikiProjects who must have believed that it was notable enough. What harm would it be to simply keep it? Thank you for your time, Penger888 (talk) 04:14, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

While it's not impossible for people of primarily "local to a single area" notability to qualify for a Wikipedia article, it requires really solid sourcing. Wikipedia is highly prone to getting misused as a public relations platform for LinkedIn-style profiles of people with no notability whatosever, on the grounds that people are somehow entitled to have articles on here just because they exist. But the key to getting a Wikipedia article, regardless of the scope or geographic range of a person's notability, is that they're the subject of enough reliable source coverage, in media outlets independent of their own careers, to clear WP:GNG — for the purposes of qualifying to have a Wikipedia article, notability is defined as the extent to which media outlets without a vested interest (i.e. not his own employer) choose to devote their editorial resources to covering him as a subject. And at any rate, WikiProjects do not pick and choose which articles to "adopt" based on notability assessments — every article on Wikipedia is automatically put under the aegis of whatever WikiProjects cover the article's content. So getting "adopted" by a WikiProject is not proof of notability per se, because it automatically happens to all articles that exist at all regardless of whether there are notability problems or not. Bearcat (talk) 14:37, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete He is one of a rotating group of ten teenage columnists for a newspaper serving a city of 112,000 people. Bearcat has ably explained the sort of sourcing needed to keep this article. It is lacking and he is not yet notable. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:42, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. I don't have very much else to add other than the subject fails WP:AUTHOR. Sro23 (talk) 03:33, 8 August 2017 (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.