Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John H Graham

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 --JForget 23:02, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

John H Graham[edit]

The text of this article is almost unreadable. Although it gives a long list of minor recognitions received by the subject, none of them appear to imply notability. Looking for information about the subject on the Web, it appears that he has held some off-field management jobs in minor league baseball and was the general manager of a minor league team for a year or two. It also appears that he may have done some writing for a local paper and some local radio work. There's so little information available that it's hard to be sure what he's done. I wasn't able to find any evidence that he meets WP:BIO. BRMo (talk) 04:08, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Baseball-related deletion discussions. —BRMo (talk) 04:21, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep for now...this guy seems to have achieved notability in several endeavors, especially in minor league baseball. But the lack of citations and the disorganized state of the article - not to mention the curious range of content - makes me suspicious that this article's content was plagiarized from somewhere. Brain Rodeo (talk) 04:23, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What, specifically, do you think he's done that rises to the level of notability? It's true that lots of minor awards are listed, but it isn't clear to me what any of them are for. And where is the significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that's required for notability? BRMo (talk) 04:29, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The awards themselves suggest notability. The list of accomplishments in the first paragraph of the article suggests some exceptional accomplishments in his field, though his involvement in those accomplishments isn't explained. A number of sources can be found with a simple Google search for "John Graham baseball" instead of "John H Graham" - but it's unclear how many are specific to this John Graham. I think notability would be more obvious if the article were better written. I know that's circular reasoning, but circles can be nice. Brain Rodeo (talk) 04:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's the problem. The whole thing reads like self-promotion, maybe lifted from the guy's resumé. Although he was just an office worker on minor league teams, the article cites the teams' on-field accomplishments, giving the impression that he played an important role. I don't see any evidence that's the case. He won the "Dancy award", but the only references to the award on the Web seem to be on a handful of Web sites that he controls. Here's is the only Web site I've found that provides any information on what he actually did in minor league baseball: [1]. Although it's also self-promotional, it suggest that his "17 years Professional Baseball Experience" started out of high school in low level office jobs, and he eventually worked his way up to assistant general manager, then business manager, and finally general manager. But a general manager of a low level minor league team isn't necessarily notable. We need more than this guy's self-promotion. We need some reliable, independent sources. And I can't find them. BRMo (talk) 05:14, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - This seems more like a personal/family biography of the person or a curriculum vitae rather than an encyclopedia article. I tried reading the thing, but I still can't see why he meets WP:N. There are a lot of links to organizations and the like, but nothing that shows me why this guy is notable. He isn't mentioned in any of the links I followed. If this article meets WP:N then anyone could write an article about one's self and include links to one's high school's web page, college's web page, web pages of employers, pages that describe hobbies, etc. That just doesn't cut it. ++Arx Fortis (talk) 05:07, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. I really can't figure out from this article what sports occupation this person held at each stage of his career, which is essential to any article about a person in the sports world. If the article received a complete rewrite, and independent reliable sources were provided to support his notability per WP:BIO, I might reconsider. The supporters of this article should be encouraged to look up other people who have held comparable positions in baseball to see if Wikipedia has articles about them. If so, the structure of those articles should be used as a model for this one. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:00, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - as a baseball historian, there are serious flaws with this article, to the point where I am thinking WP:HOAX. Some of the links are either dead ends or lead to foreign websites. I will need to see some serious verifiability to promote keeping this article. LonelyBeacon (talk) 07:31, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: I'm sorry, but a list of alleged nominations and awards at the low minor league level doesn't at all "suggest" notability. It alleges notability. Our job at AfD isn't to swallow any superficial reference that sounds good, but to find out whether in that field of endeavor such honors actually are notable. This fellow isn't. RGTraynor 09:29, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I think RGT has put it into good words ... this is alleged notability, not claimed. There are no sources to defend what is being implied, and invoking WP:DUCK, I think I need to be convinced otherwise. LonelyBeacon (talk) 09:33, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Doesn't pass the smell test. For example, the '80 Phillies were not 100-40 (try 91-71) and the clubs mentioned haven't won four pennants combined in the last 30 years. Also, if he was a top executive, why was he doing PA announcing for college games at the same time? Giants2008 (talk) 12:01, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – Actually, I think the team with the 100–40 record was the minor league Peninsula Pilots of the Carolina League, which were a farm team for the Philadelphia Phillies [2]. Graham apparently was employed by the Peninsula team from about 1976 to 1986 ([3]). I don't know what his job was with them, but since he graduated from high school in 1978, it's doubtful that he held an important position by 1980. Of course, the article is so poorly written that I had to turn to other sources to try to figure this stuff out. BRMo (talk) 01:02, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Reads like a resume, and there's not really anything notable enough for the encyclopedia in there. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 14:55, 14 July 2008 (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.