Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Freeman (cryptozoologist)

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 per WP:NEXIST since the consensus is that there are sources to establish notability. If the current content doesn't reflect the sources, editors are welcome to stub and/or rewrite it. RL0919 (talk) 19:28, 24 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Richard Freeman (cryptozoologist)[edit]

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This article suffers from the same problems as the other related deleted articles Jonathan Downes and the Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ). There is a serious lack of reliable sources. Most of Freeman's books are self-published by the CFZ Press. If we look at the sourcing. Reference 1 is the CFZ website (self-published, primary source). Reference 2 is the Metro tabloid newspaper which is unreliable per WP:METRO. Reference 4 is definitely not reliable and reference 5 is a self-published blogspot [1]. The other referencing is not reliable or only mentions Richard Freeman once or twice. The most reliable source on the article is Regal's book but it is not enough to establish notability and only has a few lines about Freeman. In total if all the unreliable references were removed there would be about 3 references left on the article. Due to lack of reliable sources and the way the article is written (it reads as promotion), I believe the article should be deleted. Psychologist Guy (talk) 17:23, 10 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It should also be noted that the user who created the article has admitted to being an employee of CFZ Press [2] (they have not edited since 2008), suspicions were raised about this account being a sock-puppet in a previous afd. Psychologist Guy (talk) 17:30, 10 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See however the Guardian [3], and note that his works are currently on sale from WHSmith, which generally eschews self-published work of no interest to the public. Also a named-author bit here:[4]. The fundamental problem is that this bloke lives in a grey zone between fantasy and reality, dealing with imaginary monsters that feel more like steam punk/fantasy than reputable zoology, so he's going to attract a lot of attention from sensationalist sources. Nevertheless he has a substantial public profile, and the nominator has said it themselves: "In total if all the unreliable references were removed there would be about 3 references left on the article." Three's enough; why not just trim this down to a non-promotional, simple statement of who he is and what he's done, supported by that tiny handful of references, and leave it at that? Elemimele (talk) 18:02, 10 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If I or someone removes all the unreliable references and keep the 3 reliable sources there will be about one or two lines on the article of text because two of those sources hardly mention Freeman. It isn't enough to establish notability. I have not seen any detailed sources that discuss Freeman's life in detail. The idea of a one or two line article is a joke, that is not even a stub. Just because a source is reliable does not mean it makes this man notable. The sources need to be detailed. Here is an example of a reliable source on the article [5] it merely quotes Freeman saying that he had seen a Wels catfish. This isn't a good source to establish notability. Psychologist Guy (talk) 18:56, 10 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I did a search with The Wikipedia Library and found several sources about him, including with a fair bit of background info on his life. Covers several of the citation needed sentences in the current article, it looks like.

Brown, Helen (July 12, 2006). "The monster detectives". The Independent. pp. 59, 60. Retrieved December 10, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
Hancox, Dan (June 9, 2005). "In the lab: The worm that didn't turn up". The Guardian – via Gale OneFile.
Daly, Ailbhe (June 10, 2019). "Search For The Mythical Peiste". Daily Mirror – via Gale OneFile.
Durn, Sarah (February 28, 2022). "Could 'Monsters' Exist in the Modern World?". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved December 10, 2022.

So I think there's enough for at least a good stub currently. Certainly more than just the few sentences you stated above. Silver seren^C 19:59, 10 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I thought AO was USERG, but that article looks like it might not be. DM is a bit iffy for BLP:s, IMO. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:59, 12 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The AO article seems to be by one of the actual editors for the magazine, so not usergenerated. I made sure to check. :) And agreed on the Daily Mirror, it would only be a minor contributor to notability (and it has the least info on Freeman in it anyways), but I thought to include it in my list since it is something, however minor. Silver seren^C 22:37, 12 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: People, Paranormal, and United Kingdom. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 21:01, 10 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

doesn't seem like any of that is the in the article at present, might be best to just WP:BLOWITUP and start over—blindlynx 20:10, 13 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:49, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and TNT, the sources above are ok but wow, we need a renewal here. Oaktree b (talk) 00:41, 18 December 2022 (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.