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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Seth Andrews

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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. Although the raw count here consists of approximately equal numbers of keeps and deletes, a number of the advocates of keeping the article have advanced rationales not based on recognized elements of WP's inclusion policies. The major problem noted by the advocates of deletion—that the sources available for writing about the topic fail to provide significant coverage independent of the person himself—does not appear to have been successfully rebutted. Deor (talk) 11:29, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Seth Andrews

Seth Andrews (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Does not meet WP:BIO or WP:ENTERTAINER. Refs are from the subject's own book and website, routine coverage in college newspapers, and trivial mentions in state/national newspapers (e.g. "calendar of upcoming events"). Yoninah (talk) 15:26, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Atheism-related deletion discussions. Yoninah (talk) 15:26, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Yoninah (talk) 15:26, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I fear he will now have even less than Zero Serenity, if that's even possible. EEng (talk) 00:00, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep your opinions about my user page off this page. Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 22:11, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't the foggiest idea what you mean by that, but since you bring the subject up, your user page is a bit TMA. EEng (talk) 01:17, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@EEng WP:NPA. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:05, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:47, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:47, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Per nom.--Dcheagle • talk • contribs 09:57, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep A quick google search shows that there is more coverage of this guy than just his book. His YouTube channel is also fairly popular with upto 600k views on one of his videos. It seems unnecessary to delete an article which is sourced and fairly well written. ツStacey (talk) 21:23, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that in the article the page views should not be used. However, to judge someone's significance in the world (which is what this AfD is about) I think YouTube views are relevant. I will have a look at this article if I have chance tomorrow to see if I can find some more independent sources to use. ツStacey (talk) 22:12, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • This AFD is not about someone's significance in the world, but about notability according to the Wikipedia definition. Please read WP:BIO. Yoninah (talk) 23:15, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The nominator's statement that "Refs are from the subject's own book and website, routine coverage in college newspapers, and trivial mentions in state/national newspapers" neglects a number of references in national and international atheist / skeptical publications. WP:AUTHOR is a better match than WP:ENTERTAINER for this subject. In that case the article is close to meeting its burden of showing that he "is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers", and since it is such a new article I propose the best way is to allow some time to research further sources to close any small gap remaining, rather than deleting it prematurely, per Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#Failure_to_explain_the_subject.27s_notability. --Gronk Oz (talk) 05:45, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
We're waiting patiently. EEng (talk) 13:33, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
...one of whom showed they don't understand WP's concept of notability, and the other of whom has encouraged "someone" to find appropriate sources, but at this point hasn't actually done so. EEng (talk) 14:36, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@EEng WP:NPA. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:03, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@EEng: - I apologize if my points were not clear enough, and you thought I simply "encouraged 'someone' to find appropriate sources". I was attempting to get across three points:
  1. All of the references should be considered when evaluating the article (the nomination was deficient in that it omitted several of the most pertinent references);
  2. The article should be evaluated against the most relevant policy, which is WP:AUTHOR (this had also been omitted or incorrect);
  3. Once those defects are remedied, IMhO the balance falls in favour of Keep. Others' opinions may differ. Either way, it is a much closer call and so it is only appropriate to consider beginning the AfD process after "improvements have not worked or cannot be reasonably tried".(Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#Failure_to_explain_the_subject.27s_notability) --Gronk Oz (talk) 09:48, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Right now the article has 36 sources, almost all of them passing mentions, routine announcements, blogposts, softball interviews, and so on. It may very well be that somewhere in there is the evidence that "The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors" (WP:AUTHOR), or the sources qualifying as "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" (WP:GNG) and if so, please just point those 3-6 sources out. If you believe there are notability-lending sources not in the article, then please go find them and either add them to the article, or list them here. The rest of us don't feel like playing Where's Waldo to find them outselves among all the fluff. EEng (talk) 12:19, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Enough RS amongst the 36 current references. Pax 01:54, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Would you be so kind as to list a few which are "significant coverage ... independent of the subject"? EEng (talk) 05:05, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

*Keep (still): (Note to closing administrator: This is Gronk Oz's second Keep vote) I have held off because I am no expert in this topic, but since nobody else is responding I will have a go: it seems to me that the strongest independent references indicating notability are the ones cited in the "Recognition" section, including:

    • Readers' Choice Awards, About.com.
    • EVOLVE Award winners, American Atheists.
    • "Inoculating Kids Against Fundamentalism". The Huffington Post.
    • "Get them while they're young", The Guardian. --Gronk Oz (talk) 01:15, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment None of these choices show "widely cited by peers or successors" or "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". About.com is not a RS. The Huffington Post is a trivial mention; the whole article (4 paragraphs) is just a reverend's recommendations; it is not in-depth coverage of Seth Andrews. The awards listing is nice, but it just shows that Andrews won an award. The Guardian source is a video from the subject's own website. Only the Patheos and ESkeptic sites come close to meeting the criteria, and that's not enough to save this from deletion. Yoninah (talk) 16:43, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I was gonna say exactly the same thing. This is nothing like significant coverage. EEng (talk) 17:04, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I searched for more sources but found none that didn't duplicate those already used (mostly announcements of appearances). I checked each cited source. None include significant coverage to establish notability. The eSkeptic source is a review of Andrews' self-published autobiographical book. Although it includes in-depth information on Andrews, it is based on a primary source. The Tampa Bay Times is a reliable source but contains only an announcement of Andrews as a guest speaker and that he will sign books, far from in-depth. Even though The Guardian is a reliable source, Andrews isn't even mentioned in the cited link; the only connection to Andrews is an embedded link to one of his YouTube videos. The American Athiest EVOLVE award announced in the patheos.com blog post falls well short of "well-known and significant award or honor" to support notability. The About.com Reader's Choice award for "Favorite Agnostic / Atheist Website of 2011" also is not "a significant award or honor" to establish notability. Andrews just doesn't meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·ʇuoɔ) WER 22:33, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Stacey. I have to say this smacks of religious persecution. I will be polite but I believe that the user originally marking this and now Matt's page for deletion has religious motivations for wanting to delete notable atheists. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Psugrad98 (talk • contribs)
  • KeepSeth has the one of the largest subscriber bases on Itunes and is by far the largest podcast on religion, with roughly 50,000 downloads per episode. 74.128.233.155 (talk) 07:10, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - I've looked through the sources, and despite the huge amount of them, the best in my view that ticks all three boxes of significant, independent and reliable is this, and even then that strikes me as routine coverage that's part of a newspaper's general announcements. As a side issue, the POV in the article is also a problem. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:34, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Serious failures of the keep side trying to argue invalid arguments (Youtube subscribers, download statistics, religious persicution, personal attacks, claims that the opposition is personally attacking without any proof or citing to policy). Not seeing a significant claim under Entertainer/Writer justifications, so this is a delete for me. Hasteur (talk) 16:15, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep You guys may have a point that he isn't that noteworthy, but all this discussion at least already proves that he's in some type of gray area. He's part of an Atheist community and that needs to be weighted in. To put into perspective, if you have a religious leader let's say a rabbi, and he's very well known in Jewish circles he might not get national media attention, and never be featured in a New York times article, but he might well be featured in Jewish publications and news and he might have a huge follow on his synagogue, but this can't be measured by reliable independent sources. Even though few people would question this Rabbi, notoriety because he can be well know among the Jewish circles. So notoriety must be put into perspective. If we don't allow for such subjective value in conext then you are risking to exclude notorious people just because they belong to a minority. With that said, Seth he was featured in the American Atheist Magazine issue on the first quarter of 2013 American Atheist Magazine Here. So this is a magazine in print and online that is distribute nationwide in newsstands and across the globe. So it qualifies as Nationwide (which is a bogus criteria since this is English Wikipedia, not American Wikipedia) and also it's a reputable source. The only thing that you might object is that it may be not "impartial". But to compare it with the Rabbi example, it's like to say that he wouldn't be noteworthy because he's featured in Jewish magazines ans newspapers only. Of course the most interested people on this case will be people from his community, so it's natural that the other news sources on a majority Christian nation won't reflect him. But it doesn't mean that he isn't notorious to lot's of people, specially on his community.
    Also he is capable of doing speeches nationwide, like the Unholy Trinity Tour that's now flying to Australia and other atheist conventions with lot's of people PAYING to watch him. It's hard to document with documented independent sources, because this would require to call each venue were he has presented and have the banners, and get scanned spreadsheets with the attendances for each event, and that's ridiculous. But let's face it, you can't fill up a room with lots of people in several cities across the country and have them flying him to Australia if they weren't somewhat known. There's lots of people that are paying to see him! here. But if we don't weight in the notoriety criteria to a given group, for example all Zimbabwe singers pages will have to be removed, because none of them will be published in nationwide news independent sources, their notoriety will fade away compared to American singers which is simply stupid. So with that said, I believe that sources like Patheos or American Atheists meet the notoriety criteria for this context. If you don't accept that we should evaluate notoriety based on only major outlets in the media, then I guess 1/3 of the biographies on Wikipedia should have to be taken down. And to me, having some information is much better than have none. And our goal should be improve Wikipedia's content by adding information and not impoverishing it by removing this page. One more thing. I don't understood the comment Ritchie333 on POV. Can you indicate any sources of some criticism or controversy that aren't expressed on his profile? What other aspects from his profile you think that you think should be covered that aren't? --Nixbrazil (talk) 18:03, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Some examples of NPOV I spotted include "A student leader, Seth was actively involved in school functions, outreach, weekly chapel services, student council and the local Youth For Christ chapter" - but is that important to his notability? "Andrews became a big fan of contemporary Christian music" - a "big" fan, or just a fan, or maybe just a casual fan? "In 1997 the death of Rich Mullins shook Andrews's faith to the core" - "shook to the core" is a problem per WP:EUPHEMISM - "This event became a turning point for him" - turning point - "and that became a catalyst that helped him to leave faith behind, finally coming out as an atheist to his family and friends" ... not to mention all the quotations. Okay, we have one interview piece, that may be enough to tip into a case study for Atheism, which would probably be a better place for the subject. However, a big red flag for me is when I typed "Seth Andrews" into Google Books, I got no independent hits at all. For somebody living and working in the modern age, that is extremely unusual. That indicates that American Atheist probably run stores on lots of Atheists, most of whom are non-notable. All in all, I can't really see that, when taking into account what completely independent sources write, we'd be able to include anything more than an odd line or two in another article. PS : Regarding "There's lots of people that are paying to see him!", well there are lots of people paying to see my dentist, but he's not notable either. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 18:23, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I like the dentist bit. There should be an essay, WP:DENTIST. EEng (talk) 18:40, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I see. Yeah maybe we should review it if the page doesn't get deleted. Thanks for your clarification. I know you were been sarcastic on the dentist thing. But in order to filling up lecture rooms and conventions across the country it's a different story. So, I guess you understand what I meant. In order to fill some rooms and have people paying to hear your lectures, people must know you. If you try to fill up a lecture room without you being know and have people paying for your hotel, flying tickets it's going to be pretty hard to do it one time, imagine several times. So please, don't be sarcastic, this doesn't help the discussion. And I know this isn't a criteria for notoriety, but to show that he's well know among atheists. Perhaps in the future as he get's more mainstream his media coverage will grow. I'm following his progression, and I'm not even a native English speaker, but he grabbed my attention. He wasn't lecturing a year ago, and now is lecturing in other countries. If he continues on this progression I suspect that If this page get's indeed deleted, I think it will end up coming back maybe in a year or two. I was willing to translate his page (I mainly work with translations) into Spanish and Portuguese , and I then saw the tag. That's sad. I felt that he is noteworthy to be even in other languages, I guess I'll have to wait now. --Nixbrazil (talk) 19:07, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Nixbrazil: Regarding your rabbi comparison, I have been involved in numerous AFDs of rabbis and I can tell you that we have just as much trouble finding reliable sources for them because they are not widely written up in Jewish media, let alone general media. If the rabbi is the head of a yeshiva, we could claim notability under PROF #6, but in general we are still waiting for someone to rewrite the rules on rabbis. Yoninah (talk) 19:17, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Yoninah: Thank you very much for your clarification. I still don't think it's fair to not weigh in the notability criteria when we are talking about minorities, I feel for example that if a small English speaking nation will have lots of difficulties to prove the notoriety for their national notorious people, than a Hungarian notorious people will have for the Hungarian Wikipedia. I know it's a little bit off topic, and I know Hungarian Wikipedia rules have nothing to do with the English ones. My understanding is that in this cases, since the subject notoriety is in some sense a subjective criteria we should be able to factor this differences in. And in the case of Seth Andrews page, he's kind of in this area were I see argument both ways. Maybe he isn't notorious enough, but to me he seems to be. I'm wondering if in those cases we should really force the notoriety criteria when we are talking about religious, ethnic and other minority groups. Perhaps this could be viewed as prejudice and indeed it can be hard to prove notoriety on those cases, as we saw some people trying to argue that--Nixbrazil (talk) 20:02, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Not notable as an author: some very few self published books have made people notable, but not one in only 29 libraries a/c WorldCat. "Public Speaking engage,nets" do not make for notability and are usually unimportant enough to be even appropriate content. The notability would rest on the blog,and I'm not convinced of the significance of the awards. The article in addition is highly promotional: name dropping of guests at his podcast, the person appearances section, the overly personal bio most of which can only be based on what he chooses to tell about his own motivations, the promulgation of his own views in several places,the inclusion of quotes such as "good storyteller and conversationalist" , the use of the first name thruout. DGG ( talk ) 18:33, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.
    1. McCormack, Brian (2014-02-21). "Seth Andrews of The Thinking Atheist to visit Abilene". Abilene Reporter-News. Archived from the original on 2015-01-13. Retrieved 2015-01-13.

      The article notes:

      The Christian faith may be woven into the fabric of Abilene, but nationally known atheist Seth Andrews hopes to unravel the strings of the devout at 7-9 p.m. Monday during a stop at the Abilene Public Library downtown.

      Andrews a former Christian broadcaster and the author of “Deconverted: A Journey from Religion to Reason” and host of the popular podcast “The Thinking Atheist” is stopping in the Big Country as part of a 40-city tour.

    2. Bishop, Mark (2000-03-15). "Andrews is part of KXOJ morning team". Tulsa World. Archived from the original on 2015-01-13. Retrieved 2015-01-13.

      The article notes:

      Regarding how he got his start in radio, disc jockey Seth Andrews said that in high school he had a deep voice.

      `The running joke when you have a deep voice,` he said, `is people telling you you ought to be in radio.`

      Andrews, who was born in Tulsa and moved to Broken Arrow with his wife a year-and-a-half ago, took that running joke seriously, and in February he celebrated his 10th year with Christian radio station KXOJ, 100.9 FM.

    3. Kirk, Scott (2014-02-24). "Atheist says his battle is not against Christians". Abilene Reporter-News. Archived from the original on 2015-01-13. Retrieved 2015-01-13.

      The article notes:

      Seth Andrews, known to his fans for his “The Thinking Atheist” online community, made it clear Monday that his battle is not against Christians.

      “I love people,” said Andrews before speaking in the Abilene Public Library Monday evening. “I know some believers will hear me and they will feel personally attacked, but I love people.”

      Andrews, the author of the autobiography “De-converted,” was raised by parents who were religious. He was educated in Christian schools and worked as a broadcaster for a Christian radio station. He pointed to two events that started him down the road toward atheism. One was the 1997 death of Christian music star Rich Mullins.

    4. Beall, Nova (2013-07-30). "North Pinellas religion briefs for July. 31". Tampa Bay Times. Archived from the original on 2015-01-13. Retrieved 2015-01-13.

      The article notes:

      A former religious fundamentalist and Christian radio station DJ, Andrews came out as an atheist in 2008. He now has his own podcast/radio show called The Thinking Atheist.

    5. Whissel, Pamela (March 2013). "From Christian Broadcaster to Thinking Atheist: Seth Andrews is Deconverted". American Atheist. 51 (1): 5. Archived from the original on 2015-01-13. Retrieved 2015-01-13.

      The abstract notes:

      An interview with Atheist author Seth Andrews is presented. When asked about his religious upbringing, he refers to the spirited debates of his parents regarding faith. Andrews states that he first started to doubt religion during the death of Christian composer Rich Mullins from a traffic accident in 1997. He comments on his admiration for Atheist civil rights worker Christopher Hitchens.

    6. Betz, Eric (2014-02-14). "Popular atheist to speak at Northern Arizona University on Saturday". Arizona Daily Sun. Archived from the original on 2015-01-13. Retrieved 2015-01-13.

      The article notes:

      Seth Andrews was raised in a traditional Midwestern home by devout Christian parents. And he spent a decade as a Christian radio broadcaster in Tulsa, Okla.

      But then, he says, he started to embrace his doubts, ultimately coming to the conclusion he did not believe there was any evidence for God.

    7. 余創豪 (2014-04-29). "余創豪：混淆了描述和判斷——舊約聖經中離奇性行為". Gospel Herald. Archived from the original on 2015-01-13. Retrieved 2015-01-13.

      The article notes:

      塞思‧安德魯斯（Seth Andrews）是「思考無神論」網站（TheThinkingAtheist.com）的創辦人，他說，創立該網站的動機是為了彌補他童年和青年時代在俄克拉何馬州所受的隔離，他要通過互聯網去鼓吹思想解放。據他介紹，俄克拉何馬州有兩樣著名的東西：龍捲風和教堂。他的父母是基督徒，他說自己從孩提時代起已經被基督教包圍和洗腦，他曾經擔任一個基督教廣播電台的播音員，但後來他放棄了基督教信仰，並且創立了「思考無神論」網站，他還寫了一本書來記錄他的心路歷程，書名為《逆轉：從宗教走到理性的旅途》（Deconverted: A journey from religion to reason）。

    There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Seth Andrews to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

    Cunard (talk) 19:16, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You obviously have no idea what "significant" or "independent" mean. These are all WP:ROUTINE, passing mentions, and puff pieces. If that's the best you can come up with then this is a delete for sure. EEng (talk) 02:15, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Per nominator, Ritchie, DGG, DocTree, Hasteur. Does not meet notability guidelines. A lot of puffery and smoke and mirrors, but no real substance vis-a-vis notable, significant, reliable, independent coverage. Softlavender (talk) 08:20, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Aside from not giving any real evidence of the article's subject meeting relevant specific Wikipedia notability guidelines, a couple of the Keep !votes are from people (including an IP) who have barely edited on Wikipedia, which I find ... odd. Just thought I'd mention that. Softlavender (talk) 08:31, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I looked at the sources listed by Cunard and Andrews has received coverage in local and regional newspapers from Florida to Arizona. The newspaper articles are written by different reporters for these newspaper. They appear to be based on interviews with Andrews since they include a number of quotes. These sources also assert his notability: he is especially known by fundamentalist Christians in the southern part of the US. It appears to me that these sources establish his notability across the southern US and especially among fundamentalist Christians, and so he satisfies WP:GNG. --I am One of Many (talk) 08:43, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: Much like my disdain for self-published stars that try to claim their one-second of fame, this guy just doesn't cut it. Sorry. seicer | talk | contribs 17:45, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Not enough significant coverage, nor reliable sources despite volume of references.  B E C K Y S A Y L E S  20:03, 14 January 2015 (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.
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