User talk:Daniel C. Boyer/Article deletion

Arguments against inclusion in the main space

• verifiability :
  • The article fails the verifiability test, as it will likely it would not possible to verify the content and validity in 10 years of time. Verifiability will put extra burden on editors in 10 years time. Counter argument : if the article is verified this year, why should it have to be verified in 10 years ?
  • The article may not be independently verified

• Expandability : The article will always stay a stub, and as such Useless
  • Counter argument: The article is not a stub now

• Not encyclopedic

• Is Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not
  • "Mere vehicles for testing anarchism."
  • "Neither encomia/fan pages, nor critical pans. Biographies and articles about art works are supposed to be encyclopedia articles."
  • "A vehicle for advertising. We don't need articles on items just because a contributor is associated with them. However, commercial links are certainly OK if they can serve to identify major corporations associated with a topic, as in Finishing school."

• Is autobiographical

• Is self promotion

• An encouragement for other people to do just the same, if we allow one exception to the rules

Biography standards

Criteria for inclusion : relevance now or in the future ?

I would delete this article but it does raise the point of how "important" is a person for an article to br written about them? -fonzy

I would think a reasonable test would be: In 100 years time will anyone without a direct connection to the person care about the article ? --Imran

I just made up Wikipedia:Criteria_for_Inclusion_of_Biographies Kat 22:17, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Verifiability as a key criterion for inclusion ?

I have nothing against Daniel Boyer, and in fact we should be grateful that the first case where we seriously have to examine the biography standards of Wikipedia is one of a user who has always made an effort to be cooperative and to follow policies. The simple fact is that we do not have clear policies on the matter yet.

As I have already explained on Talk:Yoism, the key criterion for inclusion in Wikipedia should be verifiability. Not just today, but tomorrow or 10 years from now. If we cannot realistically expect that the claims in an article will be verifiable within that timeframe, we should probably either shorten it accordingly or remove it. We are here to collect knowledge, not to be a claims repository.

While it can be argued that claims made by Daniel himself could be trusted because he does, after all, know best what he has done in his life, this argument is weak. Firstly, we do not know that we are indeed dealing with Daniel Boyer, or not merely someone who has taken up this identity and now tries to prove its existence purely by means of Internet publications (unlikely, but stranger things have happened). Even if it is Daniel, he could be doing this as a kind of surrealist experiment -- we do not know his intentions.

This is a knowingly false and beyond bizarre claim. I am more than willing to discuss the possibility of mailing to anyone any of these "Internet publications" so as to verify their existence. Most of my activity is conventional art exhibitions (with the exception of the Web Biennial 2003, sponsored by the Istanbul Contemporary Art Museum; and the Mixed Media V International Exhibition at . Gallery, which are online exhibitions). --Daniel C. Boyer 16:34, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

So it is generally important that the claims made in an article can be independently verified. Mr. Boyer's most relevant works, however, have no substantial circulation. Tailgating Spinster has a press run of 50 copies. That precludes the book from being held by a significant number of libraries and even makes it difficult for Wikipedians to get a copy.

SUNY Buffalo library now has a copy. --Daniel C. Boyer 19:52, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I am about to sign a book contract for a book with an initial run of 3000 copies, and I don't expect anyone to write an article about me because of it. Similarly, there is no independent evidence for the content or even existence of Boyer's films -- sites like filmmakers.com are open portals where everyone can submit content. The International Union of Mail Artists strengthens the above cautious warning that this may be a surrealist experiment -- "everybody who is active in mail art and hears about the Union can become a member just by saying so." Everybody can call themselves "Grand Master" or "CEO" of the IUOMA, as Boyer does. Very surreal indeed.

The International Union of Mail Artists is not a surrealist organisation, and I object to your flagrant abuse of the word "surreal." --Daniel C. Boyer 16:34, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Up till now, I've been considering verifiability NOW, but Eloquence raises a good point about considering verifiability in ten years time. I think my instinct is to let people in ten years time worry about whether something is verifiable in ten years time, because they'll be able to find that out more easily. If in ten years time there's no verifiable information any more, then at that point the article can be deleted easily enough.

I don't know if that would be appropriate; I've not heard a good argument for the deletion of articles the claims in which have already been verified to be reverified and reverified. What is the reason for this and doesn't this run the risk of making Wikipedia reflect an ever-shrinking body of knowledge? And who is to tell about verifiability in ten years' time? What standards are we using for making this supposition? --Daniel C. Boyer 19:52, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

In terms of verifiability now, I consider sigg3.net (mentioned in archive1, I believe) to be good independant verification for Boyer being a real person, and for the film Dead Man.

This is my opinion. It shouldn't necessarilly stand in the way of redirecting this page to Boyer's user page. I'm not going to edit war over it, but neither am I going to change my opinion just because it's unpopular. Martin 00:51, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Sigg3.net is just another weblog -- if I were to create a fake identity, promoting it on weblogs would be the first thing I would do. Even if Sigge Aamdal is not in on the joke and the movie The Dead Man is in fact real, we still lack information about its availability, content etc. Unless Sigge can elaborate on that, we're back where we started. —Eloquence

(cutting in) So you can see the level of nearly psychotic bizarity of claims that has been reached, that I am actually Sigge Aamdal, and so forth. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:34, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Where, precisely, does it say that you are Sigge Aamdal and vice versa? --MTR (严加华) 18:30, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

As for verifiability in the future, Wikipedia articles should remain in as consistent a state (without requiring constant updates) as reasonably possible. Allowing articles of which we know that they will probably not be verifiable within a given timeframe puts a burden on future editors to re-check and remove these articles. But future editors will assume that articles have already been verified and in most cases just update them as needed. Keeping articles like this therefore creates the risk of gradual "information rot" -- content that can no longer be verified and that nobody bothers to look at. —Eloquence

I don't understand the argument here. Once something is verified (given that it is and this is not ignored or overlooked), why does it have to be verified again and again? The only argument would relate to something that was not verified, either because it could not be, because people didn't feel like doing it, or there was some reason for not doing so. But if something were verified in 2003 why would it have to be verified in 2013? If it was possible to verify it in 2003 but for some legitimate reason it were not possible to verify it in 2013 should it be stripped from Wikipedia? The end result of this would be an increasing burden on editors to reverify and reverify information, and when the natural course of time makes some facts unverifiable, a shrinking and shrinking Wikipedia within these past articles even as information grows in the future "present." --Daniel C. Boyer 16:34, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

But we have a place to put highly fleeting information about Wikipedia users: user pages. Search for Daniel Boyer -- the second hit that comes up is not the article about him, but his user page. And this is all that should remain in Wikipedia.—Eloquence 01:23, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

I created verifiability to try to nail this idea down a touch. Martin 22:28, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Expandability : Usefullness as a criteria for inclusion ?

Even if particular facts can be verified now, it is unlikely that they will remain verifiable 10 years from now. So there is a substantial lack of verifiable information, but the article fails another test: Can it be reasonably expanded into something useful, or will it, after the removal of all unverifiable information, be an "unfixable" stub? It appears that the latter is true.

My offer to Daniel would be this: Put a copy of "Tailgating Spinster" online under a free license. If it's of any interest, and mirrored on a few sites, it will probably remain on the web, and we can at least give a summary of the book and its author on this page. Other than that, there's simply not enough useful data for a Wikipedia article. These simple rules -- verifiability and expandability -- are in my opinion enough to settle most questions like this.—Eloquence 00:10, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

Rejected. This assumes that all information needs to be online, and this is an assumption for which I've not seen the slightest support or even argument. What are you even trying to say? Why is the book itself not adequate evidence of its existence? Why is an author constrained to make copyright licence decisions based on your laziness? Unanswered, unanswered, unanswered. There are already 458 pages on the Web on The Tailgating Spinster anyway. --Daniel C. Boyer 19:52, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Criteria for exclusion : because is not encyclopedic but is Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not

Eloquence and Martin,

For me, the issue of factual correctness and neutrality is almost completely separate from whether the page should be deleted. I beleive the page can be made factually correct and neutral, but that does not affect my view on whether it should be deleted because my reasoning for why it should be deleted is primarily based on other criteria:

• It fails to be encyclopedic.
• It is Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Quoting that page, the items that apply the most, Wikipedia is not:
  • "Mere vehicles for testing anarchism." (perhaps we should extend this to also include surrealism)
    • Would you please explain yourself? Mere abuse of the word "surrealism" does not explain what you mean. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:34, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  • "Neither encomia/fan pages, nor critical pans. Biographies and articles about art works are supposed to be encyclopedia articles."
  • "A vehicle for advertising. We don't need articles on items just because a contributor is associated with them. However, commercial links are certainly OK if they can serve to identify major corporations associated with a topic, as in Finishing school."
• The material is autobiographical.
• The material is self-promoting and advertising, this even includes negative reviews. As they say, any press is good press. For an artist trying to gain recognition, bad press may even be preferrable.
• The material utterly fails the 1000-person test.
  • This is utterly false and might even be a lie. To say that all the information on me available to Wikipedians (the material on my user page, in Daniel C. Boyer and the references I and others have brought up in our discussion of these issues) does not clearly show that it passes the 1000-person test is a serious stretch probably motivated only by a POV against me. If it were a 5000-person test I really think someone who argued against it on this basis might have a point. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:34, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
• Allowing this page in any form (article or redirect) will fail to discourage other people to promote themselves in a similar manner.

If we accept the compromise of allowing any Wikipedian to create just one biographical article about themselves, then too bad for Wikipedia and our users.

Daniel Quinlan 01:06, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

There are already several biographical articles that people have written about themselves - I don't understand why this is such an awful thing. To address your points above:

• what does "encyclopedic" mean? I suppose it's meant to mean something worthy of being in an encyclopaedia, but as it's the very question of what is worthy of being in an encyclopaedia that we're discussing, this would seem to be circular.
• this is a biography - it's not an experiment in anarchism or in surrealism, and I can't see why you think it is.
• it isn't a fan page, it isn't a critical pan. It appears to be neutral.
• I don't see how this is any more advertising than, say, Microsoft Windows - if it said "Boyer is wonderful" or "Email so-and-so to buy this piece" then I'd agree with you.
• An autobiography is somebody writing about themself, which this, on the whole, is not. Even if it were, I don't accept that is necessarily a problem.
• your claim that it fails the 1000 person test is rather bold - it seems perfectly possible to me, given the scope of his exhibiting, that Boyer passes the 1000 person test.
• your last point assumes that it has been shown that article such as this need to be be discouraged, which it hasn't.

So long as everything has been verified, I can't see anything wrong with this article. --Camembert

Policy is not set in stone. Policy pages such as Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not are for the most part, the opinions of just a few important people. Lengthy, high-profile discussions such as this one set a precedent that overrides any previously declared policy. Especially in this case: I'm impressed at the exceptionally high turnout in the voting section above. -- Tim Starling 04:45, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

I agree with that, which is why I added reasons not listed in policy (or the guidelines, if you prefer).  ;-) Daniel Quinlan 07:17, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

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What could be done if the article is included ?

Rewrite the article for proportionality

See Talk:Daniel C. Boyer/Article size proportional to fame : Discussion over rewriting the article to make its length proportional to coverage

Rewrite the article to avoid conflict of interest over autobiography

See Wikipedia:Auto-biography for a discussion over rules to respect when writing over self

Warning note to the reader

A note on GWO's suggestion above: I think that if this article is not deleted, it should definitely be mentioned (since it is about him) that there was a huge controversy on wikipedia about whether or not he should be allowed to create an article about himself. Then mention that this provides precedent for others to do the same. (Open up the flood gates ;) MB 15:46, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)

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to move

Just delete? Not particularly important. Maybe Kat's comment could be moved to the top of that Katherine Jacobson page?)

Getting outraged over an obscure surrealist poet is certainly a good way of making yourself look foolish. You're right: Boyer's edit to 1993 in film was not acceptable. That's why it was reverted. If you feel Boyer's behaviour was grossly unacceptable, you should express your feelings on his user talk page, and try to reach an understanding with him that he will not do so again. If you cannot do so, request that he be banned, by emailing user:Jimbo Wales. Martin 22:41, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Nah. I give up. I'll just join him (link to article now at User talk:Daniel C. Boyer/Katherine Jacobson) --Kat 23:36, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)