Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tiger Sarll

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. Weak keep is still a keep Tone 04:38, 3 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tiger Sarll[edit]

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This article is about a "larger than life" character sourced primarily from a book. Using an offline source is of course OK, provided that source is reliable. The problem is that the story contains multiple implausible claims, Being born a 3 foot long baby, catching 25 foot long alligators and 35 foot long pythons, and those are just the ones I knew would be improbable world records if true. It is possible that the book was properly researched and set out which stories the author was able to verify and which were tall tales revolving around or from the subject, if so a rewrite by someone with access to that book would be in order. But if the book recounts those tales uncritically then we can't treat it as a reliable source, and therefore we may not have sufficient reliable sourcing available for an article. Ϣere SpielChequers 10:20, 19 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Shifting to "weak Keep" as some of the less plausible claims have been retracted or attributed per closer perusal of the source. Ϣere SpielChequers 15:24, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Keep I think being featured on This Is Your Life is enough to establish notability. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:19, 20 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I found a few paragraphs in a 1993 issue of Sight and Sound: "In Time of War", an article about wartime filming. I also found a short article from March 1961, "Adventurer Deluxe", in The Windsor Star. Not a lot, but it could be something to build on. — Toughpigs (talk) 20:59, 20 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 04:39, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 04:39, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 04:39, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Journalism-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 04:39, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 04:39, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Weak delete I'd very much like to keep an article which features a photo of the subject "Hypnotising an Alligator"(!), but I'm not sure that WP:BIO is met. The Australian media of this era is a decent proxy of the British media, but searching the National Library of Australia's very wide ranging Trove newspaper archives finds only two stories for Thomas Sarll (syndicated across multiple papers) [1] and only an ad for "Tiger Sarll" [2]. If there are equivalent British resources they'd be well worth checking. Nick-D (talk) 08:59, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I think if he was notable enough to feature on This Is Your Life and have a biography written about him then he's notable enough for us. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:50, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
But if that "biography" repeats a bunch of improbable tall tales, should it be treated as a reliable source, or are we basically legitimising someone else's hoax? Ϣere SpielChequers 10:32, 24 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep featured on This Is Your Life He gets some passing mentions in major media also, like the BBCWm335td (talk) 17:54, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete fails WP:SOLDIER and I don't believe that appearing on This Is Your Life is sufficient to pass WP:GNG, rather this is an example of early pop culture. Mztourist (talk) 08:44, 22 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- But he was obviously not just a nobody if he was selected. It's hardly the same thing as being a contestant on a reality show, given only one person was selected for every weekly show and they were generally people who were well-known in the media. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:23, 24 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - And that is more significant than being a one-hit wonder (which you object to so much) how exactly? Mztourist (talk) 03:34, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    - I don't object to one-hit wonders having articles at all. I object to one-hit wonders having articles but people who are genuinely notable not having them. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:29, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. See these two articles, one of which has a short biography, complete with reptile hypnosis: Bottomore, Stephen. "Introduction: The Cambrian Cinema." Film History, vol. 10, no. 1, 1998, p. 3 and eadem "In time of war." Sight and Sound, vol. 3, no. 9, Sep 01, 1993, pp. 30-33.

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: I find the "This is your life" argument unpersuasive as an IAR "keep" rationale, but relistin to allow discussion of the sources provided in the last !vote
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Vanamonde (Talk) 18:53, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I have a copy of the book that the article is largely referenced from, I can confirm that the claims mentioned above and in the article are present in the text. Very happy to privately share images of the text if need be. Also the Article's kindly provided by Nick-D add further credibility and notariety to the article. I have also found Sarll regerstered in the following RAF lists backing up the claims later in the article about his wartime history. [3] SALVAHOUSE (talk) 20:59, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anyone disputes that the book exists, but can we treat that book as a reliable source? If it simply repeats claims about 25 foot alligators, 35 foot pythons and 3 foot babies, then I don't see how we could trust the rest of the book. However if the book differentiates between things that the writer was able to verify, and treats the more improbable claims as merely claims that exceed anything in the Guinness book of records knows of, then yes it could be treated as a reliable source. If the book isn't reliable then all we have is an officer and film cameraman who doesn't approach notability either for his military career or his film career. Ϣere SpielChequers 23:27, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Just Looking through the book now to see how its phrased, as you are right, if the book takes it as fact or sees it as claims is very important for the reliability of the source. So the 3ft Long claim is described " His sister, Rosa, who is four years his senior, remembers only that he was 3 feet long." - So obviously a child memory and not a fact. The Aligator claim is a typo "Tiger Hired four dugout canoes...which carried a number of long boxes with holes drilled in and a couple of handles on top. Some of the boxes measured as much as twenty-five feet long." - The box was 25ft not the alligator, Sarll was clearly ambitious but no record breaking aligators are mentioned. One way or another I have edited the article to reflect the communities concerns as far as possible. To add, this article [4] has a nice consice summary of sarlls life including photos of him with his plethora of medals and old images while he was a camera man for pathe SALVAHOUSE (talk) 11:17, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep the sources mentioned above combined make him borderline notable. I also found an article in the Essex Chronicle (on proquest, any wikipedia editor can get it through TWL) by the title of "Legacy of adventurer's global trips to go under the hammer: CASKET: Relic of ancient Egypt set to be auctioned" and some other coverage like this that seems just enough to pass GNG. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 17:21, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: I think that there's enough coverage to be notable. Implausible claims should be removed from the article, or described as "Sarll claims that (x)." This can be handled through normal article editing. — Toughpigs (talk) 17:55, 31 August 2020 (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.