Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vanna Bonta (3rd nomination)

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 no consensus. Nakon 03:36, 21 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Vanna Bonta (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Bit actress with only minor or uncredited parts; author whose novel and poetry are self-published and whose article credits are trivial; artists' model with two credits that can't be confirmed, and one claim that's provably false. She's sufficiently non-notable that it's not even possible to confirm her death. This article has been deleted twice as promotional fluff, and the third iteration hasn't added any evidence that she passes WP:BIO. BenedictineMalediction (talk) 16:12, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. BenedictineMalediction (talk) 16:21, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Notified major contributors to article, as well as people who participated in the last two nomination discussions. BenedictineMalediction (talk) 16:37, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - She appears to be notable enough to me. Eeekster (talk) 19:37, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: not particularly notable as actress, but notability not impeached in my opinion as far as author and inventor. Quis separabit? 23:11, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete and salt - just as before, there is nothing here to meet WP:GNG in general, or any of the subsidiary guidelines. The prior discussions AfD were so laden with nonce arguments by new and single-purpose accounts that other editors deemed it appropriate to remove the content as a courtesy to the subject. Subject's self-promotional efforts were as inept as always. I regret the death of any human being, including hers (assuming as implied above that she is dead); but even fewer reliable sources seem to have noticed her death than noticed her in life. --Orange Mike | Talk 02:38, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:21, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Poetry-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:21, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:21, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:21, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I must admit, without prejudice to any comments above, that I never heard of Bonta when she was alive; glad to know I am not the only one, but I'm old anyway, so ......... Quis separabit? 17:01, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A newsletter put out by one of her friends includes a farewell that she wrote shortly before her death. It appears that she is, regrettably, deceased. BenedictineMalediction (talk) 15:56, 3 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Extremely weak keep That there are major promotional and verification issues in this article is obvious, and the vast majority of sources cited within it are either not independent or secondary (and thus not useful for establishing notability in particular) or are simply not reliable sources for use on Wikipedia in general. Those sources and the many (often dubious or not terribly encyclopedic) claims which they support should be removed. All of that being said, there remains a small core of useful and acceptable sources which do establish a level of notability sufficient to support the article. But good luck to whoever has to wrangle the content into consistency with our policies. Snow talk 00:49, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Which elements do you find notable? If they have their own article already, moving the details into the other article would be preferable to keeping an entire article on Bonta. There are already articles on the 2suit and quantum fiction, for example, and they go into lavish detail about Bonta's involvement. BenedictineMalediction (talk) 18:32, 2 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That might be a viable solution, but for the fact that a couple of the small selection of viable sources do address her written works. For the record, here are the sources which I think pass muster as reliable sources (as of the current version): 2, 4, 5, 10, 30, 31, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 66, and 80. The rest of the sources all fail WP:Verification standards (usually by a solid mile), for reasons ranging from the fact that the source is not a viable references on Wikipedia under any circumstances (about two-thirds of the list), the source in question is a primary one and not independent of the subject or the claim being made, the source is utilized in editorial synthesis to express original thought, and a number of other obvious shortcomings.

I'm more than a little bothered by the fact that, with 95 references listed on that article, less than 20 of them are acceptable sources, while the sources are themselves in-lined in a technically proficient manner; this seems to strongly suggest to me that whoever added all of this content must have had significant enough experience with Wikipedia to know that the remaining sources do not meet the standards of our policies, but decided to add them anyway in any attempt to make the subject's notability "unimpeachable". This seems in keeping with the comments that are being added here about previous gaming, sock-puppetry and general bad-faith tactics in the previous creation (and deletion discussions) surrounding this article.

But when it comes down to it, I can't depart from the notion that nearly 20 sources do exist and seem to meet the minimal standards for notability here. I do think the article needs to be stripped down that small fraction of its present claims that are actually verifiable, and anyone adding content in blatant violation of our policies or while evading previous blocks on the matter needs to be dealt with via SPI and/or ANI. Snow talk 11:27, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Of the references you listed, I agree that 2, 4, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, and 66 are notable, and 40-44 are notable but need trimming.

• 5: It's doubtful that the Contemporary Authors team did independent research to compile Bonta's biography. It's more likely that they printed whatever she or her PR agent supplied them.
• 10: Very fluffy, with numerous unsupported claims whose sole source is Bonta.
• 30: Are interviews considered reliable, independent sources?
• 31: Bonta has one paragraph, which the index says is on pp. 235-6. (https://books.google.com/books?id=Vx3BBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT156&lpg=PT156&dq=brief+guide+to+star+trek+vanna+bonta&source=bl&ots=I_hgYKtEVH&sig=AFbPQqZ53MaSCCuovPRM-Mnb9CI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ATbSVOH3IYarNoHOgdAK&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=vanna%20bonta&f=false) It briefly describes the plot of the rejected episode she wrote.
• 38 doesn't mention Bonta. It's a book by an unassociated scholar on a topic that Bonta also covers.
• 80: The description of the video doesn't mention Bonta. This link was probably added to add weight to the discussion of Bonta's theoretical "smart clothing" inventions.

The claims the notable references support are: that Bonta wrote a novel of questionable notability; that she gave a talk about the 2suit, which the History Channel later fabricated and featured as a segment on a TV episode about sex in space; and she was one of the top 5 winners of a haiku contest. She has enough references to support notability, but not enough achievements. BenedictineMalediction (talk) 15:38, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Judging her achievements (through the lens of secondary sources) might make sense in a notability discussion based on WP:BIO, but that's an incidental discussion if the topic already meet WP:GNG -- and even if we take just the dozen-ish sources that are non-controversial between you and I (who both clearly critics of the larger content), GNG seems to be established. Maybe there's some sort of argument to be made for why the presumption of suitability for an article established by WP:significant coverage does not apply in this case -- after-all, GNG itself notes that there is not an absolute link between significant coverage and being an appropriate subject of an article, only a very strong one -- but it needs to be predicated on arguments that are not at all based on subjective assessments as the importance of the subject's accomplishments. Snow talk 16:25, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is, in fact, a notability discussion based on WP:BIO. There may be enough references to support GNG, but the references are for trivial accomplishments--winning a non-notable haiku contest, self-publishing a novel--or for an accomplishment that already has its own page (the 2suit) and covers the important details of Bonta's involvement. There's no point to having a biography for someone who fails WP:BIO.

In any case, I doubt the sources amount to "significant coverage." One short but notable review and one dubiously notable foreign-language review; five references to her winning the MAVEN haiku contest, most of which are short filler pieces that don't go into depth about her, and which are routine coverage of a low-importance contest. She did get significant coverage for her appearance on the History Channel documentary, I admit. However, that appearance doesn't establish her as an inventor of any importance, and the coverage can be rolled into the 2suit page without removing any facts of encyclopedic importance from Wikipedia. BenedictineMalediction (talk) 19:55, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, as to the first point, see WP:N; she doesn't have to satisfy WP:BIO (or any other subject-specific criteria) if she already meets the requirements of WP:GNG. And as to the second point, we're not meant to be using our own subjective criteria as to whether or not her accomplishments are important and worth discussing; as with all other such matters we take our ques from the sources on that. And while I appreciate that there is some nuance necessary to parse this case in establishing the depth with which sources actually treat her, I still don't see how she could be said to be failing GNG as typically a single acceptable source or two is viewed as sufficient argument against deletion and here we have more than a dozen reliable sources at the least, several of which address aspects of her creative career and cannot be rolled into existing articles -- and even if they could, she would still probably qualify for her own article.

Look, I'm not super happy about it myself; is this the most encyclopedic subject in the world? No, certainly not. But I know a WP:SNOW argument when I see one and I don't see how inclusion can be opposed here on grounds of notability guidelines. Forgive the unsolicited assessment here but it seems like maybe in having had to work hard against bad-faith/promotional behaviour by single-purpose accounts in the past on this subject, you've been forced to move a little too much to the opposite extreme, such that now that a dozen sources are provided which discuss the subject to varying degrees, it still seems insufficient. But I think it's going to meet most editors standards.

But if you are still opposed to the content staying, can I suggest an alternate approach? I know it entails a lot of work that you shouldn't have to take upon yourself, but I think the only thing that might give us a more certain picture of whether or not the subject should stay is to go through and pull out all the material in the article that is not adequately sourced. If socks there oppose these changes on non-policy-consistent grounds, then RfC the matter and/or take it to SPI/ANI/3RR. I know that's a lot of work to propose when you feel it would be so much simpler to just delete the whole mess now and save the extra steps, but I don't see the vote going that way this time. But if the article is reduced to the 1/9 of it's current content that is actually supported by sources, we might have a better idea of whether or not it reasonable to keep it. And even if it is kept, you will have removed the bulk of the inappropriate content. And I imagine from some of the comments here and the previous AfDs that you wouldn't have to do the work alone. Anyway, that's about the extent of my two cents on this topic. Snow talk 02:54, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've outlined--twice--what the article would consist of if only the reliably sourced information were left. Why do you need to see the entire article whittled down by someone else before you can make a judgement?

For the third time:

• She self-published a book.
• She won a non-notable haiku contest.
• She invented the 2suit and appeared on the History Channel wearing it.

Based on these three accomplishments, does Bonta merit inclusion?

You keep arguing that the 13 reliable references are enough to establish her notability, then you turn around and say that if the unsourced information were removed, mmmmaybe she wouldn't merit inclusion. Which is it? Is 13 articles enough to guarantee notability, regardless of topic, or does the topic actually matter?

You say "we're not meant to be using our own subjective criteria as to whether or not her accomplishments are important and worth discussing," but you also reject the idea of applying the guidelines established to add some objectivity--WP:AUTHOR and WP:ENT, among others. At the same time, you're using your own subjective criteria to declare that her references meet WP:GNG, although there's no official definition of "significant coverage," and you yourself admit that there's doubt about the depth of her coverage. You're clinging to the fact that she has 13 sources, and refusing to look at what those 13 sources say.

If it makes you feel better, there's this guideline: "If, however, there is only enough information about one notable event related to the person, then the article should be titled specifically about that event". Bonta's invention of the 2suit received enough coverage that even though I think it's a slightly less important invention than the rubber-band gun, my cold, dead heart will thaw enough to admit that the coverage is significant. As it's the only Bonta-related topic with enough notability and enough coverage to meet Wikipedia guidelines, the coverage can be rolled into the 2suit article, along with whatever verifiable Bonta-related facts are relevant to the invention of the 2suit. And then we don't have to gut this article down to Bonta's three verifiable accomplishments and argue, yet again, over the notability of someone that you yourself have doubts about. BenedictineMalediction (talk) 15:46, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've completely misinterpreted my comments here. First off, I'm not "clinging" to anything; I've made it pretty clear that I'm not an advocate for this content nor a particularly big fan. I'm simply applying our basic notability policy, looking at the other perspectives here, and using them to read the writing on the wall. And I didn't suggest you remove the unacceptable content as a condition of my switching my !vote or ceding to your argument -- rather I was suggesting it to you as an alternative route to achieving the best compromise solution to your efforts here, since it seems very likely to me that this AfD will close as a keep (or a no consensus if you're lucky). As such, if you are determined to get rid of as much of the cruft content involved here as possible, you're going to have to remove those unsourced elements peace-meal anyway -- so why not do it now and have at least an outside shot at converting positions here (either amongst those who have already lodged a keep !vote or those who might yet comment)?

Frankly, you are walking against the WP:SNOW if you expect that an article with the number of sources that are involved in this case (and you are low-balling the number of sources at this point) to not be considered to pass GNG. You're trying to parse the wording of that policy down to a place where it will agree with your intuition that this subject is not notable, and you've gotten to the place where people who try this strategy always end up; that is to say, the place where you say "well significant coverage as a standard is rather open to debate". And yes, this is technically true, but from experience with AfD and notability discussions broadly, I can almost guarantee to you that the consensus is going to be that the number and nature of the sources in question here satisfy the condition of significant coverage by a considerable margin.

I'm actually trying to help you get to the closest thing to your desired outcome here as you are likely to get by pointing out that you can count on some degree of consensus for drastically reducing the offending content, and reminding you that you have community tools to help with the socks if they get problematic. I'm encouraging you in that regard because I'd like to see much of that content gone as much as you. Whether you want to wait to see if you can get the article deleted outright before investing that time (instead of doing it now and getting some possible marginal benefit to your AfD arguments now) is completely a matter of your discretion regarding how you use your time editing. But I wish you'd try to understand that I'm suggesting it as an option because I think it would help your efforts, rather than viewing the suggestion with suspicion and borderline hostility simply because I don't happen to agree with you down to the last letter here... Snow talk 19:21, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

After taking some time to think, I see the merit of your suggestion. Is it acceptable for the original proposer to do such a severe edit in the middle of an AfD debate? BenedictineMalediction (talk) 15:02, 6 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good question and an understandable concern. Under most circumstances I would say avoid it if there were any chance that the move could be seen as a bad-faith effort to do an end-run around the AfD result. In this case, however, I think you're probably in the clear because so many of those sources are so obviously nowhere near meeting our RS standards. Even if your edits there will align with the same end as the AfD here, most if not all are going to be unimpeachably consistent with our verification standards.

Still, what I would do to avoid these issues is to start with the most clearly unacceptable sources (IMDB pages, the various quote sites, cdbaby.com) and work your way down from there. Don't be in a hurry to do it all in one go, so that if anyone opposes any changes you have time to stop and show you are willing to discuss. Make sure each inappropriate source is handled in a separate edit and make sure each edit summary is clear as to the policy (or policies) being violated. As a basic rule of thumb, if there's a source you think 25% of editors might accept, err on the side of caution and don't delete it; those can wait for wider editor involvement if it comes to that. If anyone reverts your changes, go to the talk page and give a brief explanation, but don't get caught up arguing every point and instead be willing to let some of the contested edits go for the time being. Although unfortunately the timing could not be worse for me, I will do my best to follow the page and provide a third opinion where necessary so that you do not come off as acting unilaterally or otherwise in bad-faith. I hope that other parties reading this will pitch in a comment or three as well if necessary, so that these changes reflect obvious consensus.

Take your time and show every willingness to discuss and I don't think anyone will have cause to accuse you of acting improperly. In general it's considered entirely appropriate to try to improve an article while it is at AfD. Usually this is to try to salvage the page in question from deletion (rather than demonstrate that it needs to be deleted), but the same principle applies; each challengeable claim needs to be consistent with WP:V and removing elements that do not meet this standard is acceptable and a separate (if parallel) issue to whether the article as a whole is retained. It's more than a bit of work, and I wish I could help you shoulder more of it, but I'll least try to keep abreast of the discussion and keep you from appearing lone wolf on the matter if you have to work against the interests of SPA. And consequently, if you suspect anyone of being a sock, let us know here (or you can contact me on my talk page) and if the case is really blatant I'll do the leg work on opening the SPI, so you can concentrate on the content; it may take a few days though, so just do your best to ignore them until then, even if they get disruptive. Good luck and thanks for taking on this work. Snow talk 12:54, 7 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your advice. I appreciate it. I've removed many of the most questionable sources, but cut the text of the article only modestly to give other editors a chance to find reliable sources I missed. If no one speaks up within a day or so I'll make deeper cuts. There's plenty of work to be done on the remaining citations, too.

For what it's worth, the sockpuppetry and gaming of Bonta-related articles have died down to a whisper. The cluster of editors whose contributions made discussions so, er, lively, all went silent in early May 2014. She did have friends, some of them quite devoted, but the silence of her loudest and most dedicated supporters is perhaps the saddest evidence that rumors of her passing weren't exaggerated. Your support if her friends do show up would be most helpful, though. BenedictineMalediction (talk) 04:11, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep seems notable enough to have an article. —Jonny Nixon - (Talk) 09:35, 2 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Flight was notable enough to be reviewed (poorly) by David Langford, and the practice of having pages for creators that redirect to individual works, while common here, is unhelpful and ludicrous. Andrew Rodland (talk) 02:33, 3 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Did he actually review it? Or does he just ridicule it occasionally? duffbeerforme (talk) 04:16, 3 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It appeared on his Ten of the Worst list (http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2009/02/david-langfords-top-20-pre-1990-genre.html) and he also chose it as one of the ten books he'd want with him on a desert island: "Since one of my hobbies is collecting really, really bad lines from SF and fantasy, the final selection was a book which had caused unseemly uproar in Internet SF circles: Flight by Vanna Bonta, a novel of 'quantum fiction' (don't ask) which transcends all the old-fashioned, non-quantum ideas of ordinary SF." Then he quotes from it and describes it as "laugh-a-minute stuff." (https://books.google.com/books?id=n78kYbvUd_8C&pg=PA68&dq=flight+vanna+bonta&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pOvQVM-WM4ODNuqRgZAP&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=flight%20vanna%20bonta&f=false) If David Langford's review makes Flight, and therefore Bonta, notable, then the article should be edited to note that Flight received significant attention for being awful. BenedictineMalediction (talk) 15:48, 3 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That seems like the appropriate solution; we should be reflecting what reliable sources say, including in editorial review. Snow talk 11:30, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So no review then? duffbeerforme (talk) 10:28, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Now that you mention it, no, nothing that could be called a review. BenedictineMalediction (talk) 23:13, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Overly promotional fluff for someone who at best is marginally notable. Editting around this mess and it's related subjects have been a mass of undisclosed promotion, sockpuppetry and bad-faithed gaming of the system. If Wikipedia wants to be a credible encyclopedia it needs to rid itself of such thing. Stop rewarding such behaviour. Ignore all rules and delete spam to help clean up Wikipedia. duffbeerforme (talk) 04:03, 3 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, the bad-faith behaviour of even baldly promotional users doesn't change the criteria for notability or the content's consistency with it, no matter how disruptive those editors may have been nor how obvious their single-purpose tactics. I agree there's a monumental effort underway here to fluff the subject of this article up well beyond its relevance in reliable sources. But once a subject has a certain number of direct references (of a certain level of detail each) in the form of reliable sources, it's hard to argue that notability has not been reached. I think this article is going to survive deletion this time, so if I were you and very concerned about keeping the most policy-inconsistent content out -- admittedly a tedious task in this case, made borderline obnoxious by the sheer volume of sources that were added against sourcing guidelines, seemingly intentionally -- I'd refocus my efforts into removing all of the unsourced cruft (that is, the vast, vast majority of the article), and making sure that COI-editors are removed from the equation if they are socking to foist inappropriate content on to the project. Snow talk 11:37, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - Women authors are seriously underrepresented and this one seems significant enough. HullIntegrity^\ talk / 14:14, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - Have we all see the number of project banners on her page? And the rating of the article in those projects? There is no way this article should even have been marked for deletion in the first place. HullIntegrity^\ talk / 14:21, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply - those ratings, and in most cases those banners, were inserted by her sockpuppets and supporters as part of the puffery campaign. That they have not been removed reflects primarily the constraint of the non-biased editors here who lean over backwards in the interest of fairness. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:00, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I've edited the article substantially, per Snow's recommendation, to remove information for which there were no reliable sources. There's still more to go, but a lot of the cruft and questionable claims have been cleared away. BenedictineMalediction (talk) 15:24, 12 February 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.