Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Rowbotham - Wikipedia

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, default to Keep. Walton^One 20:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Rowbotham (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Author of a couple of books on a subject for which he is not obviously qualified as an authority, published by a press which is so small that I cannot find its website; the publisher's address is 2 Home Farm Cottages, Sandy Lane, St Paul's Cray. I think this is a verys mall specialist publisher. There are a couple of thousand Google hits for Michael Rowbotham, but most of them seem to be alternative lifestyle forums or user-editable directories, many of them selling the book. What there is not, is any evidence of discussion of him or his ideas in the professional or academic journals related to his field. Tagged for notability and sourcing omnths ago, and never fixed. Guy (Help!) 17:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Leaning towards delete I hate to be wishy-washy, but this one is a tough case. He purports to be a financial expert but has no formal training. Is he an academic? If so, he fails WP:PROF on pretty much all points. Is he famous? If so, he still appears to fail WP:BIO. One reference I was able to dig up was speaking at the House of Lords [1], but does a single appearance grant notability? While not a valid measurement of the issues, his books have mixed reviews, some reviewers citing lack of data or other fundamental flaws [2]. There's simply not much external evidence to grant him any kind of status beyond possible fringe theories Yngvarr 19:05, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Very weak delete. There do appear to be a few sources on this person and his work, and if people can source this I may well change my mind. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HisSpaceResearch (talk • contribs) 19:18, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• For related discussions, see Debt-based monetary system (AfD discussion) and Debt money (AfD discussion). Uncle G (talk) 20:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Question. I see that this is up for a PROD, as well. Shouldn't that PROD now be be deleted, in favour of the AfD process? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:49, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  Certainly a PROD on an AfD'd article with a keep vote should strike the prod tag; the point of prod is to keep things out of AfD debates. --- tqbf 21:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Very Weak keep: my only reservation is that this keeps popping up, and I'd prefer to have an article where the text is controlled and watched for POV editing rather than popping back up in two months. At least the current article makes clear his lack of distinction as a monetary thinker (and moderate distinction as an unbalanced polemicist).--Gregalton (talk) 20:57, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per new search, appears in The Guardian and Financial Times. --- tqbf 21:45, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  Comment --- not a fan of the reasoning in the nom, either: notability isn't determined by who published your book, and AfD is not the cure for unreferenced articles on notable subjects. --- tqbf 21:47, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep on the basis of notable coverage in the Guardian & FT. I also noticed in my Gsearch that he once addressed the House of Lords? May not be in WP:BIO, but it works for me! Shawn in Montreal (talk) 23:08, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. About the speaking at the House of Lords bit, he did not address the House of Lords, he addressed a meeting of a private organization that was held at the Palace of Westminster. There may have been MPs present but this was not addressing the legislative body itself. --Dhartung | Talk 00:16, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment.: This meme about him addressing the House of Lords is constantly reiterated to emphasize his notability; thank you for clearing this up. I note that his mention in the FT does not appear that notable: it's in a light "business profile" of "Tim Smit, the social entrepreneur behind the vast domed glasshouses of the Eden Project"; the context is pretty clear, Mr. Smit is taking the piss (as they say) of the former head of the BoE: "He has asked Eddie George, who lives in Cornwall, to read The Grip of Death by Michael Rowbotham. The former Bank of England boss could find this polemic against the world's debt-based economic system rather unflattering." Basically at the level of sending a gift subscription to Vegan Living to the head of the sausage factory. Just for others to consider when determining "notable coverage." Article is here for reference, but it's thoroughly uninteresting and only has that throw-away reference to the subject at hand.--Gregalton (talk) 01:14, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - not sufficiently notable. The only article that can be said to represent serious coverage is the Guardian one, and that isn't enough for WP:RS. 'Michael Rowbotham' only gets 6,000 hits on Google, which is fairly low for an author/academic; he seems to fail notability to me. Terraxos (talk) 16:22, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• weak keep - it makes a change to see a borderline article that is written by a critic rather than "his mum" or him. Notability can come out of controversy... but its the books and the refs that do it. Victuallers (talk) 19:11, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Delete. The man is not notable. He has written two books, his credentials are non-verifiable, and he's espousing fringe theories. Zenwhat (talk) 15:12, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  Comment --- an article that serves no purpose but to publish original fringe theories is a candidate for deletion. An article about a person who himself espouses fringe theories is not. Having non-verifiable credentials is not grounds for deletion --- it's grounds for cleaning up the article and stripping the credentials out. --- tqbf 21:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Per WP:HEY. --Sharkface217 21:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Useless without the sources, I'm afraid. Guy (Help!) 01:36, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Unsourced, weasel-worded biographical article about a real person = Delete. ^Dlae│_here 21:37, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And offers little info about the guy. ^Dlae│_here 21:40, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. WP is to document notability, not enhance it: this guy isn't anywhere close to notable, nor is there the sloghtest evidence to indicate otherwise. --Calton | Talk 02:20, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. I looked at tqbf's Google news search list (27 Dec.), and added a few of the refs to the article. I haven't read the "subscription required" refs., but I'm happy that there are sufficient independent sources to show notability.  —SMALLJIM  17:14, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. See also Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Debt_money, which is related.  —SMALLJIM  17:32, 2 January 2008 (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.