User talk:Daniel C. Boyer/undelete

For older discussion, see Talk:Daniel C. Boyer/Archive 1, Talk:Daniel C. Boyer/Archive 2 and Talk:Daniel C. Boyer/Archive 3

"Vote"

Note that this page has been on VfD twice now... :-(

Actual votes (Done by people for themselves)

• My vote -delete - Kat 17:52, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
• delete --Zundark 19:24, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
• delete - Hephaestos 19:50, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
• Delete --Menchi 03:54, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)
• Keep. -- Jake 04:10, 2003 Jul 31 (UTC)
• Keep. 172 08:55, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC) there are plenty of obscure entries on Wiki; this is just receiving attention because he's a user. That's what makes it a unique sourcebook.
• Martin - keep
• delete - MB
• Keep - Derek Ross
• GWO - keep, but leave in little doubt to readers that Boyer is an extremely obscure figure, and that his invented techniques and vanity-published books are neither important or influential in the artworld. If Boyer insists that these assessment are insufficiently neutral, delete.
• Koyaanis Qatsi - I like GWO's idea above.
• Frecklefoot - delete
• Unsure - Angela - I'm not sure I have a strong opinion on this article, but I do object to a number of other Boyer-related pages like The Octopus Frets and Octopus Frets. Just one article on him might be acceptable, but it isn't just one article. There's also the danger of creating a precedent if this one is allowed. Angela 18:21, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
• Revert. Tim Starling's original article seems good to me [...] Jwrosenzweig 18:29, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
• Kosebamse - either rewrite totally to make it short, concise, NPOV and free of Boyer's contributions , or else delete. What's more important is to achieve a universally accepted policy to disallow vanity pages disguised as articles. Kosebamse 18:56, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
• Delete. --Wik 23:32, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
• Edit á la GWO, move to user namespace, or delete. -- Viajero 10:26, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
• delete -- Daniel Quinlan

Summary of opinions not expressed in "vote" above, but rather in talk pages, mailing lists, etc. (Not listed here by people themselves). Read their exact comments to see what they said:

• Tim Starling-keep
• Pizza Puzzle-keep
• keep - Jakenelson (presumed)
• The Cunctator - keep

Opinions from archive 3 (as above):

• Cimon avaro - delete

Opinions from archive 1 (as above):

• Mav - keep
• Anthere - delete or keep (it's hard to tell)
• Wapcaplet - keep
• Stephen Gilbert - keep

Opinions from archive 2 (as above):

• wshun - keep
• Boyer - keep
• 217.85.213.254 - delete

I may have missed some. And some folks may have changed their minds... Martin 09:27, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I have added some missed opinions. I oppose the whole, interpreting other peoples opinions, because it is subjective, and they may change their mind after reading the new information. MB 15:44, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)

Tim's version

Tim's version is informative without being effusive about an artist who is (for the time being) a minor figure internationally. This allows the Wikipedia to remain a source of information that exceeds what you'd find elsewhere, without giving disproportionate coverage to Daniel. Of course, if Daniel persisted in returning the article to its current excessive size, I'd switch to "delete". Just my opinion. Jwrosenzweig 18:29, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

While the current size of the article may be "excessive" (I am not arguing that it is not) it must be noted that the bulk of this size is the "merges" of The Tailgating Spinster, "Donnelly" and The Octopus Frets, not done by me. What I'm saying is that I've been guilty of expanding the article, but the bulk of the blame lies elsewhere. --Daniel C. Boyer 20:04, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't aim to give proportionate coverage. We have a big article on homophobia and several articles on anti-Semitism, but little on sexism. Anyone trying to judge the importance of subjects based on their Wikipedia coverage is going to be sorely dissappointed. Martin 18:48, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Regarding Daniel's post, I'm not fully up on every portion of the discussion here (I'm new, and figure I can be of more use fixing stubs and things), so I'm not trying to accuse you of self-aggrandizement: hope I didn't come across as rude. I've tried to keep an eye on the discussion though, and am trying to offer what I feel is a good compromise. Regarding Martin's post, I completely agree that Wikipedia doesn't currently offer proportionate coverage. I disagree, however, that this wouldn't be a good goal. If, long-term, Daniel's entry was twice as long as, say, that of Claude Monet or Pieter Brueghel (choosing names out of the air: I've no idea how long their articles are), that would bother me.

Me too. The only qualification I'd add is that the information available about a major figure might be less than a minor (I think Lautreamont is a major figure but there is almost nothing known about his life), but perhaps the practical aspects of this could be worked out somehow. --Daniel C. Boyer 20:41, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

If our goal is to disseminate knowledge, then part of that goal ought to be, in my opinion, giving people a sense of perspective about the relative importance and influence of people and ideas, both past and present. Just my two cents--I'm glad of the dialogue. Jwrosenzweig 20:24, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that it's very difficult to objectively determine importance. I mean, I think Luke Rhinehart is important, but lots of people will never have heard of him. Was Al Gore important, or will he become just a footnote in history? A person could spend a lifetime just deciding whether William Shakespeare or Albert Einstein should have a longer article...

Still, your suggestion might well be a good compromise. After all, we've reduced the size a fair bit already - maybe it should be reduced further? Martin

Martin, I apologize: I must not be communicating well. I'm not suggesting that we carefully control article length to ensure that Shakespeare has 17 more words in his entry than Einstein. I just think it would be nice if Shakespeare's entry showed a depth and detail in accord with his status as one of the English language's greatest playwrights (perhaps its best), and that to take greater care and more detail with, say, a semi-successful playwright who launched four or five well-received local plays in Seattle in the 1990s (however well they may have been received) would not be a wise decision. It may well be that you disagree with this point, but I want to make clear that I'm not calling for a hierarchy of lengths. Only some sense of proportion. And I may very well be in an extreme minority. Thanks for supporting my suggestion about Daniel's article. :) Jwrosenzweig 21:46, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I believe these are excellent points. Kat 22:19, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No need to apologise - I was just pointing out a potential issue. You might care to read Wikipedia:Replies to common objections#Systematic_bias, which addresses this problem of uneven contributions, though in a more general way. Personally, I agree that proportional coverage would be a nice achievement... but when I think of ways to go about deliberately attaining it, they scare me.

For example, here you suggest deleting content to render the article proportionate - but I think Wikipedians might not like having stuff they've worked hard on deleted, and the most disproportionate coverage is where it's a real labour of love. What you gain in proportionality you might lose in completeness and hard feelings.

Like I say, it scares me - so personally I prefer to cross my fingers, close my eyes, and hope it'll all work out alright in the end. Mind you, we do have reasonable articles on Pieter Brueghel the Elder and Claude Monet? Of course, they need work... Martin 22:47, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Opening the floodgates

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)

Boyer didn't create this article. As Tim has told you already. Check out this edit by Tim, in which he stubs it.

Boyer has edited it, and has created other related articles, and has added links to it. But Tim Starling created this article.

Got it? :) Martin 18:16, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I didn't say THIS article, I said AN article. This article was essentially created by him, b/c it was a consolidation of many other articles he created about himself. So by AN article, I meant any and all articles he started about himself. Is that clear enough? MB 18:34, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)

Much clearer.

Mind you, the current version is as much the work of Kat as anyone... Martin

Vapa gallery

The gallery http://www.vapa.com/gallery/danielcboyer/ and subsequently the site vapa.com has been down for 3 days.

BUT, I was able to find this information using a google search:

Visual art

... vapa.com will provide artists with free web page building tools to develop

their own personal online gallery within the vapa.com community colony. ...

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe it was argued that this article should not be deleted, b/c he has an online gallery? BUT, anyone can make an online gallery, lets all go do it! Oh, but wait, the site's down, darn, I can't put my UML diagrams up :(.

Where was this argument made? I'd like to state that I completely oppose it. Having an online gallery, an extremely common thing for an artist, should not be the sole criterion, and should hardly be one of the criteria, for having an article on the artist in question. --Daniel C. Boyer 20:04, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

---

I would also like to bring up another question for discussion, do we want to create a precedent for anyone to create an articles about themselves? Are we going to say it is alright as along as the information is contained with-in a Your name here article? Or should we say, "it's alright for anyone to make one article about themselves as long as they don't get out of hand and make articles about every obscure thing they ever did?" Or are we just going to say "who cares, we won't run out of room, it makes no difference!?"

I for one am striving to make wikipedia a source of reliable, and relevant material, and I strongly oppose (as you all already know) anyone writing articles about obscure parts of their personal life. Daniel is advertising himself on wikipedia {Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections#Advertisers}, and therefore, if this article (and other articles about him) are to be kept, we need to follow our own rules and edit the article for a neutral point of view, which means deleting praise and adding any "dirt" available. MB 16:27, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)

Co-operation

"keep, but leave in little doubt to readers that Boyer is an extremely obscure figure, and that his invented techniques and vanity-published books are neither important or influential in the artworld. If Boyer insists that these assessment are insufficiently neutral, delete."--GWO

I find it increasingly clear that Boyer does not wish to cooperate in the creation of a neutral article that is respectful of relevance and perspective. He continues to criticise attempts to make a good, fact-based article and has not answered legitimate questions about the scope of distribution of his work, such as the numbers of copies distributed or the in-print status of his books. Perhaps he considers this entire discussion to be some sort of existential statement, experiment, or game.

What is most unfair about this whole business is that the Wikipedia editors who care about factual, relevant content are being expected to root out enough evidence to debunk Boyer's assertions one at a time. Instead, the onus should properly be on Boyer to substantiate the relevance of his work.

Kat 17:44, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This is the height of hypocrisy considering that without bothering to root out such alleged "evidence" you have edited Daniel C. Boyer with factually inaccurate information based on nothing more than you own jumping to conclusions. What about you and your lack of interest in a "fact-based article"? --Daniel C. Boyer 19:42, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think most everyone here understands this, but the question is, what do we do about it? Should we ban Boyer from wikipedia, should we put a soft-ban on his articles since he insists on removing NPOV contributions from others? Should we delete articles about him? Should we create some sort of boiler plate? I know one thing, we definately need to follow our own rules on advertisers, and "edit the article for a neutral point of view, which means deleting praise and adding any 'dirt' available." I for one will be adding a "dirty" section on his dark-side here on wikipedia. MB 17:56, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if you would point out which NPOV contributions I have insisted on removing. However this may be, however, I believe in the interests of fairness you should point out the POV and inaccurate contributions I have complained of. --Daniel C. Boyer 19:42, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This is the essence of a POV (anti-Daniel C. Boyer). Clearly, in the interests of NPOV both relevant praise and "dirt" should be included in Daniel C. Boyer. Your admission that you think you should delete praise and only include "dirt" may be an argument for calling you an "Annoying user." I would like someone other than me to pay attention to this avowed un-NPOV procedure.

Interestingly, I included "dirt" on The Octopus Frets by mentioning the Danielle Nierenberg review that described it as "better left unread" but this was then deleted by others. Whatever my other failings have been, I think I deserve a certain amount of credit in terms of NPOV by not attempting to hide an extremely negative assessment of my own book. --Daniel C. Boyer 19:42, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Daniel, these are not my rules for dealing with advertisers, these are the wikipedia's rules towards people like you who insist on advertising on wikipedia. Please read Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections#Advertisers. These rules are structured this way for exactly this reason, to prevent people from advertising on wikipedia, which is what you are doing! If you can't see this, you are either ignorant, or stupid. MB 20:32, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)

I have looked at these. They do not say anything like this. They do not specify that only "dirt" (whatever dirt you can find, even, presumably, if it is not relevant) is to be included in an article, whatever article, but nothing positive about the subject; this would be pursuing a POV agenda. If an article is to be NPOV you cannot declare a priori that all your subsequent contributions will be the inclusions of dirt and the stripping of praise from it. You must analyze both for their appropriateness. If you can't see the bias you have admitted to, you are the stupid one. --Daniel C. Boyer 20:37, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I would like to point out once again that I included dirt on myself in Daniel C. Boyer and that if Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections#Advertisers's standards are to be followed, Nierenberg's review quote should be restored. -Daniel C. Boyer 20:48, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Daniel, and I quote "The third form [of advertising] is normally dealt with by editing the article for a neutral point of view, which means deleting praise and adding any "dirt" available." Now, of course the article is refering to companies, advertising products. But you are essentially advertising a product, yourself, and your art. And unless you are creating the art for free distribution, I concider your posting advertising. Now, if someone else had posted this information, we might not have had a problem. Although, someone may still have eventually found the article, and said "wait a second, this doesn't deserve inclusion in wikipedia", and then posted on VfD. MB 21:10, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)

Michael, Daniel - I wrote the current version of Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections#Advertisers - edited from a previous version from an unlogged in user - it never existed a month ago. It wasn't intended as a rule, or even a guideline - just a reply to an objection non-Wikipedians raise from time to time - that's what the page is about, right?

The "rules" for NPOV are at wikipedia:neutral point of view, which I've studiously avoided editing! Martin 20:55, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

So what you are saying is that we lie to our critics to get them off our backs? If we don't deal with the "third" case this way, then why does it say we do? MB 21:10, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)

Pardon my intrusion into this debate, but I think it should be noted that the "rule" Martin wrote looks very much like a description (and not a prescription) to me (it states "normally dealt with", which I, at least, take to mean that this is the way Wikipedians usually react), and not at all misleading. Accusing Martin of lying, it seems to me, is both incorrect and unkind: he's attempting to clarify something that's becoming a serious point of contention. This all is not to say that the deletion of praise and addition of appropriate "dirt" isn't the best response to an advertisement. Only that the debate seems to be edging towards real hostility, and I don't see any need for this. Just one Wikipedian's opinion, Jwrosenzweig 21:52, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think we should create Wikipedia:Warning, Wikipedian's are very protective. MB 22:08, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)

Heh. No worries, Jwrosen, but thanks for intervening. Mbecker and I just kissed and made up on our respective talk pages, so we'll be ok for 24 hours. :) You've got my position down pretty well, though - I was trying to say "this is what we tend to do" rather than "This is what we MUST do! Every time!". Also, it's slightly simplified. I'm going to tweak it a little, because it's probably misleading... Martin 22:33, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

---

Deletion

In light of the ongoing and fragmented discussion, how shall we best make a decision on whether or not to delete the page? Kat 19:56, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I suggest we postpone the decision and focus on finding a general policy about pages like this one. Once that's achieved, we'll have a guideline for Boyer's page. I seem to recall there was some initial discussion on a page of its own yesterday, but I don't remember the name. My vote for such a policy is clear: eradicate the vanity pages (see my comments on what is now Talk:Daniel C. Boyer/Archive 3). Kosebamse 20:30, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I believe you are referring to Wikipedia Talk:Auto-biography. Somewhere there must be a conversation about the 1000 person test and other article appropriateness tests, though I know not where. Kat 20:44, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

That's the page I was thinking of. I'll add my thoughts there. Kosebamse 21:38, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The autobiographical roots of the article, and the related articles, is only part of the trouble. In fact, I think there is a fairly wide consensus that an accurate, relevant, NPOV, well-referenced article about Boyer would be welcomed, or at least tolerated--despite Boyer's involvement with the article. It is for this reason that I made my earlier edits to the article. It is becoming clear that arriving at an accurate, relevant, NPOV, well-referenced article is going to be difficult, at best; maintaining such an article may prove equally difficult. In that light, perhaps the decision need not be postponed until the Wikipedia Talk:Auto-biography matter is resolved. Kat 04:03, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

---

Daniel Quinlan: Earlier in this discussion, Martin stated that "Boyer didn't create this article". On Talk:Daniel C. Boyer/Archive 2, Tim Starling stated:

I think it went something like this: In Feb 2002, 141.219.44.92 created Daniel C. Boyer as a one sentence stub. In March 2002, it was moved to User:Daniel C. Boyer by user:Stephen Gilbert, by cutting, pasting and manually redirecting. Daniel expanded the user page. In April 2003, I replaced the redirect with a 5 sentence stub. Daniel then greatly expanded it, and started his campaign of increasing his visibility in Wikipedia by whatever means possible.

141.219.44.92 is a machine named patpc4.lib.mtu.edu located at Michigan Technological University in Michigan, US; User:Daniel C. Boyer has been edited by these class C subnets (this only shows the times when editing was done by someone not logged in):

count	subnet	current block owner
14	141.219.44.x	Michigan Technological University, Michigan, US
11	24.213.34.x	Charter Communications, Michigan, US
6	65.174.34.x	Copper Country Interm School, Michigan, US
4	141.219.41.x	Michigan Technological University, Michigan, US
2	24.236.179.x	Charter Communications, Michigan, US
1	193.253.200.x	Wanadoo Interactive, France

That another article was created over a year ago and swiftly replaced with a redirect doesn't change the fact that this article was created by Tim, April 2003, with his five sentence stub. Subsequently edited by a bunch of people - to the extent that I doubt you'll find a single sentence here which is wholly Boyer's work. Martin 12:34, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

STOP!

Look, all of this continued arguing is pointless. The fact is, a few months ago, Daniel created a bunch of articles about himself. Then, Tim consolidated them all into one article about Daniel. I don't know his motivation for simply not deleting them. Maybe he didn't realize they were created by Daniel? Maybe he was giving him the benefit of the doubt? I don't know. However, the fact remains that this all started because Daniel created articles about himself. It is really irrelevant who created THIS article, because it all started with the articles Daniel created. Is that clear? So, if someone says "This article was created by Daniel himself" it is essentially true, because this article would not exist if he hadn't created the original articles which were moved here. OK?! Now, lets move onto the problem at hand. I think everyone involved here (that is still paying any attention), should head on over to Wikipedia:Auto-biography, and throw in their two cents on the talk page. MB 14:22, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)

No, you're still wrong. Tim created a five sentence stub on Boyer. I consolidated all the articles into one article. We're different people. :) Martin 15:27, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)