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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mav (talk | contribs) at 04:04, 6 August 2003. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

For older discussion, see:

"Vote"

Actual votes (Done by people for themselves)

Categories:

  • Unsure
  • Keep
  • "Severe rewrite or delete" (mix of views under this header)
  • Delete

Delete

  1. My vote -delete - Kat 17:52, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  2. delete --Zundark 19:24, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  3. delete - Hephaestos 19:50, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  4. Delete --Menchi 03:54, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)
  5. Delete - not enough verifiable data.—Eloquence 23:04, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)
  6. delete - MB
  7. Frecklefoot - delete
  8. Delete. --Wik 23:32, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  9. delete -- Daniel Quinlan
  10. Delete. This content belongs in the User namespace. quux 19:55, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  11. Delete. --Robert Merkel 08:12, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  12. Delete. -- Imran 11:22, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  13. Delete. -- But we need a policy with some guidelines making a standard. Rednblu 16:48, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  14. Delete. -- Agree with Rednblu. A policy on this is going to necessary in the future. SpeakerFTD 18:00, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Severe rewrite or delete

  1. Edit á la GWO, move to user namespace, or delete. -- Viajero 10:26, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  2. 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.
  3. Koyaanis Qatsi - I like GWO's idea above. (though with the noted complaint that it's shamefully immodest to write an article about oneself when all one has done is vanity publish a few books, that doing so opens oneself to a flood of criticism that a vain person is unlikely to accept, and that furthermore I doubt Boyer is or will be especially noteworthy)
  4. 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)
  5. Severe rewrite (returning to something similar to Tim's original article) or else delete. Jwrosenzweig 18:29, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  6. I agree with GWO, although I wouldn't have put it as harshly. I was unaware of the mass of inappropriate links (such as links from the "Year in Film" pages) and redirects; these should be removed. -- Stephen Gilbert 01:27, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  7. I would keep open the possibility of an eventual deletion. In the mean time the article should be extremely concise. What I do feel very strongly about is that this kind of thing should not be decided by FPTP (or even majority) voting. Well, at least I dislike the idea profoundly. We need a standard that can be a guide to decisions like this later as well. Having to repeat a heavy process like this every time someone makes a page about themselves in wikipedia is untenable. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 09:55, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

Keep

  1. Keep. -- Jake 04:10, 2003 Jul 31 (UTC)
  2. 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. (comment moved to end)
  3. Martin - keep
  4. Keep - Derek Ross
  5. Keep, wikipedia is not paper. I believe that Boyer is a real person, doing real artwork cf. [1], [2], [3], [4] -- and also Boyers own page, [5]) -- the problem is the obscurity, not the non-factuality. And that is only a problem if the article is massive linked and/or if spce is severly limited. -- till we *) 23:53, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC) (discussion moved to end)
  6. Keep Tim Starling 09:32, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)
  7. Keep; this article is OK and his works should be noted here but there should not be individual articles on his works. mav 10:12, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  8. Keep sannse 10:44, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  9. Keep FearÉIREANN 16:13, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  10. keep Camembert (I tend to agree with 172 and mav)

Mixed views

  1. Angela is back to being unsure. My change of vote previously was a kneejerk reaction to the creation of the Katherine Jacobson page. My biggest worry if the page is kept is that it sets a precedent for future auto-biographic pages. It's not so much the Boyer page I object to but huge number of useless redirects and links related to him. If there was a category for don't care about the main one, but get rid of all the sub-articles, I would vote in that.
The following articles currently link to the article on Boyer: Surrealist Subversions, and Carl Benjamin Boyer.
There are also lots of talk pages, and the redirects (currently on VfD). I don't know how I can fix the links from talk pages... I could go move discussion here, I guess, but people might get narked... :-/ Martin
I was including things like tailgating spinster and octopus frets when I said I wanted sub articles deleted, even though they are currently redirects. Angela
Carl Boyer shouldn't be deleted in any case; he's seems to be just who the article claims, and he's written real books that are sold through normal channels [6].

Opinions not expressed by vote

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:

Keep

  1. user:Pizza Puzzle-keep
  2. user:The Cunctator - keep
  3. user:Wapcaplet - keep (archive 1)
  4. user:wshun - keep (archive 2)

Delete

  1. 217.85.213.254 - delete (archive 2)

Unclear

  1. user:Anthere - delete or keep (it's hard to tell - archive 1)
  2. Daniel Boyer - Please do not tally my vote from extrapolations. I do not think it is appropriate for me to vote on this and I would like people to give this "vote" no importance whatsoever. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:34, 3 Aug 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)


Tally of actual votes, excluding interpretations of old discussion

  • Delete: 14
  • Keep: 10
  • "Severe rewrite or delete": 7

Hey Tim, I believe you undercounted "Severe rewrite or delete". I counted 5 from the actual votes section, not 2. I also think it's a bad idea to summarize any previous discussion and count those as votes. A lot of the facts, discussion, and debate postdate the older discussion. Note that there has been a tremendous shift from a majority of keep "votes" in the archive to more a recent majority of delete votes (which could be attributed to having more information on hand). If you count only actual "keep" votes, I only get 5. I also reduced delete votes to 11 (now 12) by the same token. By my count, delete to keep ratio went from 2:9 in earlier discussion (which were not actual votes) to 12:5 in actual votes. Please check my counting over as well. Daniel Quinlan 07:12, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

Okay, I will try to contact those users who have given their opinion earlier. And how about we convert this vote in a more standard format, so that it is a bit easier to count? (Yes, this is Tim Starling)
It seems to me that you (whoever you are, Tim?) are taking things to a new level. There have been many opinions given on this topic in other forums, but now you're contacting people who may be more likely to agree with you (who likes to admit they were wrong, after all?). Daniel Quinlan 00:40, Aug 3, 2003 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, Tim is contacting people who've previously expressed an opinion, regardless of what that opinion is, asking them to express their current opinion for the record, lest those opinions be ignored. That's entirely reasonable, in my opinion. Martin 01:20, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I contacted everyone on the list regardless of their opinion, and gave them the same message regardless of their stated opinion (except Pizza Puzzle). I was aware of the fact that more of those people were in favour of my position than of Daniel Q.'s, that's why it was me doing the legwork rather than Daniel. I still think it was a fair, reasonable action though. Besides, we don't have a policy on campaigning. I don't agree with this ([7], [8]) kind of behaviour, but it has been tolerated in the past. -- Tim Starling 23:53, Aug 3, 2003 (UTC)
Koyaanis and Jwrosenweig didn't use the magic D word, that's why I didn't count them in category 3. I missed someone else accidentally. Anyway, I won't count anyone below if their vote is unclear. People who are voting for "keep" are not saying that the article should be protected forever, editing is expected. Their opinions, therefore, are pretty much the same as mine or any of the other users in favour of keeping. In other words, I was categorising everyone on the basis of their preferences: (This is also Tim Starling)

Category 1

  1. Delete
    • Keep & edit as usual
    • Keep and redirect or greatly reduce

Category 2

    • Keep & edit as usual
    • Keep & redirect or greatly reduce
  2. Delete

Category 3

  1. Keep & redirect or greatly reduce
  2. Delete
  3. Keep & edit as usual

Bullets indicate that the category may be split as to which one of the pair is better.

-- Tim Starling 09:28, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

Note that one of these votes is from banned user Lir under his "Pizza Puzzle" alias, and thus shouldn't be counted. (I haven't voted, because I haven't made up my mind.)Vicki Rosenzweig
Wikipedia is not a democracy, we do not have one person one vote, and all votes do not count equally. Pizza Puzzle's doesn't count for much... but neither does the vote of an anonymous user (217.85.213.254). Leave them both in, and let people decide for themselves how much or how little weight to attach. Martin 01:20, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)


I don't think the "no banned users can vote" rule is going to be practical to apply because other people on this page may be banned users under other aliases. Angela 01:13, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
There's no such rule. Votes have no official status, except that we choose to grant them. Martin 01:20, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
No, the alias Pizza Puzzle would have to be banned first. --Jiang

Alternate format vote

I removed this. Seemed to be a dead end - only had copied votes, nobody bothering to update, etc. It's in the history if you care. Martin 14:47, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Spam magazine

The book received a favorable review in Spam magazine, a local zine in the writer's home town.

I removed this as unverifiable. Did anyone find a reference for it? Martin 15:38, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Two points: 1)What would you like me to do to verify this? (Spam magazine is not on the World Wide Web, the popularity of which its existence pretty much predated.) 2)It confuses me why mention of the negative review of The Octopus Frets was removed. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:45, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I removed the negative review of The Octopus Frets as part of an overall edit to make the article more concise and relevant. The mention of the review in particular was removed for two reasons: 1) it is most unusual to include verbatim quotes of negative reviews in any encyclopedic article, and 2) its inclusion implied a degree of relevance and notoriety that did not, on the whole, seem justifiable. Unlike reviewers, who see it as part of their job to pan irrelevant, unimportant, and poor material, encylopedic works traditionally just drop such subjects.
And no, you don't get any credit for including a negative assessment. That didn't have the effect of providing relevance, balance, or NPOV; after all, any artist, good or bad, has critics. What is called for is factual information about the scope of interest and scope of distribution for your works. Kat 17:06, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
If it's not verifiable, that's fine - it just can't go in the article. Martin 19:48, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Put it on your User Page?

Hey folks, I just want to get your opinion on my comments at Wikipedia_talk:Auto-biography, where I ask why we don't put self-promotion on your userpage and link to it from serious articles if needed. --Nelson 18:27, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

That's a silly idea, IMO. When people click links they expect to be taken to an encyclopedia article, not someone's wikipedia homepage. If someone doesn't deserve an article, then they don't deserve links to their wikipedia homepage from articles. If they do deserve an article, then they should get a proper article.
Besides, Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising - and that includes homepages. Martin 19:48, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Well, what I meant is that would be a way people could "vote" for somebody to have a proper article, in a sort of Googly way. If there are a lot of links to the person's userpage from other articles, then maybe it's time they got something "real". Until then, perhaps Boyer and people who want articles on themselves ought to make their pages article-y, as a blueprint for what they might be like if they are made into official NPOV articles. Then, if the person doesn't like the NPOV article on them, they can speak about their objections on their userpage (which they could link to from the article), instead of getting into an edit war. --Nelson 19:56, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I also disagree with your suggestion that you can't advertise on your userpage? I guess depending on how obnoxious you are about it, it could be inappropriate, but if I want to put up a line about, say, how my webhosting company is the greatest in the world, I don't think that should be deleted or anything. It would just be tasteless to do the equivalent of a full page ad on it.--Nelson 20:15, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I guess what I'm arguing for is a division of Wikipedia into a strictly NPOV space, i.e. the regular encyclopedia, and the POV user space, where you can self-promote without fear. Remember, Wikipedia is not paper, there is infinite space. If you're not interested in material, you don't have to look at it. As long as you don't get POV material when you're expecting NPOV material, it's OK. If anybody actually finds Boyer's work important, like perhaps it has influenced some other artist, they can link to Boyer's user page from that artist's article, and as long as the link is clearly to a user page the reader knows what they are getting into. I think POV material may have a place in Wikipedia, and that place may be the user pages.--Nelson 20:18, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is not a provider of free webspace. It is not a hoster of personal essays. Your user page should be focused on building an encyclopedia. Tell us about yourself, so we have a greater understanding of your biases, your knowledge, and your experience. Add a picture, so we can connect better with you as a person. But always remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and we may delete anything that does not help us in achieving that aim.
I don't believe this article is particularly biased, so I do not believe it should be deleted for being "POV". If you would like to say specifically where you feel it is biased, please say. You may also wish to add a NPOV dispute header. Martin 22:35, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I guess the existence of the article seems POV, and I thought this might put an end to the controversy. --Nelson 03:44, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The Score

Here's what we have for evidence of Mr. Boyer's published works.

Surrealist poem in the form of a poster called Blair House - apparently unpublished, I was unable to find any evidence of publication

I object to you calling "Blair House" "apparently unpublished." What would you like me to do to verify, mail you a copy? --Daniel C. Boyer 16:34, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Film, a 3 minute short titled The Erotic Life of the Eskimo in 1994. I was unable to find any independent corroboration. A directory entry at www.filmmakers.com gives the 3 minute running length. Boyer apparently supplied the entry, which is inconsistent as it lists a $75,000 budget and distribution on five double reels for 3 minute film with a cast and production staff totalling three people.

Film, The Dead Man (1993), starring Jason Choo and Amy Richey - apparently a student work due to timing (Boyer would have been 21 or 22 years old). No corroboration available. Given that it predates the 3 minute short listed above, it would seem doubtful that this is a feature-length work.

The Tailgating Spinster -- According to Marc Snyder at Fiji Islands Mermaid Press, this book was indeed published with a net press run of 50 copies, of which "about 15" have been sold so far.

The Octopus Frets: political poems -- I could find some corroboration of publication, an outfit called "Black Swan Publications" in Chicago lists it as a book published by another publisher (who they do not specify), that they resell. A page count is not specified and I could find no reviews.

If you would like further corroboration of publication, check out the catalog listing for The Octopus Frets in the VanPelt Library at Michigan Technological University, search for The Octopus Frets in The Portage Lake District Library catalog, Tutt Library at the Colorado College &c. Furthermore, if my actually mailing the book to someone will help, please feel free to e-mail me and ask me about doing so. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:34, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
As I have noted elsewhere, The Octopus Frets is listed in Abebooks and the Library of Congress catalog as well. --Daniel C. Boyer 15:35, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Is anyone besides me feeling any sense of outrage yet? These are *all* vanity published works of limited scope. The Wikipedia has been conned. This man is a charlatan. This is not self-promotion. This is patent nonsense. Listing his birth in 1971 in film for a 3 minute short? Listing the short in 1993 in film? Boyer is trying to make fools of us all.

Kat 20:30, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

HELLO, this is the point I have been trying to get across for a long time. I will make no claims to his intentions, because they would just be assumtions. I for one appriciate some of his contributions. However, when a contributor starts contributing articles about themselves, they have over steped their bounds. MB 20:46, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)
A note about The Tailgating Spinster, FIMP has a book club which could easily have equaled the 15 copies sold. Maybe we can inquire as to how many were sent to book club members? MB 21:32, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)
Marc seems like a great guy and was helpful with a fast response. I for one hate to involve him any further in this kerfuffle. Besides, I doubt that the book of the month club figures would change anyone's mind. But, his e-mail address is on his web site so you can contact him yourself if you wish. Kat 21:43, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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)

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--at Katherine Jacobson. --Kat 23:36, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I changed your sig. Like I changed Boyer's, a few dozen times. Just so you don't think I'm singling you out... :) Martin 23:28, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
It wasn't a sig, it was just intended to be a link, which I have restored, along with a sig. Kat 23:36, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Why this page should be deleted

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

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)

have happened). Even if it is Daniel, he could be doing this as a kind of surrealist experiment -- we do not know his intentions.

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. 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)

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)

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.
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.
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)
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.
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)


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 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)

Self-submission

Keep, wikipedia is not paper. I believe that Boyer is a real person, doing real artwork cf. [9], [10], [11], [12] -- and also Boyers own page, [13]) -- the problem is the obscurity, not the non-factuality. And that is only a problem if the article is massive linked and/or if spce is severly limited. -- till we *) 23:53, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)

Uh, there are dozens of such sites, all of which Boyer himself has submitted his material to. No proof of significance whatsoever.
General comment on how it works in art (for offline as well as online exhibitions) (with exception of invitationals, which I've only been in one of): the artist himself has to send out slides, or submit work digitally. No website, no gallery, no exhibition, and very few publications, are going to go door-to-door: "Do you have any art you'd like to show at our gallery? Do you have any art you'd like to post on our website? Do you have any art you'd like to submit to our publication?" I'd be most gratified if anyone can point out to me what is the significance of an artist "himself... [submitting] material to" something. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:34, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)


Nah -- I don't want to start a discussion here (in a voting list), but at least [14] and [15] don't look like self-contributions, but rather like small artistic communities, magazines, what-evers, that display Boyers work. And I also believe that the list of exhibitions on his website at [16] is genuine and not a fake. So I come to the conclusion, that Boyer is a real, living artist, but indeed a rather obscure one (like most real, living artists). I see problems in self-promoting via wikipedia, but I don't believe we should exclude artists because of not being famous. -- till we *) 00:16, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

More obscure

Out of interest which entries are more unimportant/obscure ? (said anon)

You'll find an interesting selection at September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack/Casualties. Including a few under-fives, whose major achievements include being born, gurgling a bit, and dying. Martin 17:52, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I believe that most of the individual articles had been moved to http://sep11.wikipedia.org/. Mentioning an individual on a list on a page is much different from having an article on them, and given the importance of the event of 9/11 the individuals involved gain importance. --Imran 18:16, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Nope - 'fraid not. Many still have individual articles, and only a few were ever moved over, AFAIK - those who only had tributes. Martin

There are two ways to select new things to write about: top down and bottom up. The "top-down" approach is an attempt at completeness, where users start with broad categories and drill down, and also write lists and work through them systematically. The 9/11 casualties are an example of that. The "bottom-up" approach is where a person contributes very specific knowledge, that only a small part of the community is interested in. For example, a person writes about their home town or suburb, their favorite computer game, or even themselves. Unlike a conventional encyclopedia where only the top-down approach is appreciated, both approaches are valued in this encyclopedia. This is because our large pool of editors means that the bottom-up approach can yield significant amounts of useful information.

If you want entries which are similar in importance to this article, you should look for other ones created in the bottom-up style. For example, Ebor. They're hard to find because they're poorly organised. -- Tim Starling 00:18, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)


Redirection

Due to the double standard concerning Kat's creation of a page about herself, I have used the same standard used on her page on this page. I hope you all understand the hypocrisy here. MB 03:00, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

Kat's case is rather different, since:
  1. She created the page, not me
  2. She created it to make a point about this article
  3. There isn't somewhere around 9 to 14 Wikipedians arguing that she's important enough to have an article about her.
But if you're going to make it a redirect, please finish the job by delinking it from all the other articles. It's not appropriate to have a link from an article redirecting to the user namespace unless it's clear from the context that it's a user page. -- Tim Starling 03:07, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)
Will do, first thing in the morning. Bed now... MB 03:22, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)
I had a look, and there are four other linked articles; I think it's clear from context in all of them that it's a user page. - Hephaestos 03:31, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I disagree that Kat's case is any different and that it even should be treated differently.
  • There are also apparently literally hundreds of (now) user pages that redirect in the same way as Kat's.
  • Boyer originally created the page, even if you (Tim) restored it, and Boyer responsible for all of the self-aggrandizing activity that led us to here. If Boyer didn't create the original pge and link to himself (whichever version) a bunch of times, I sincerely doubt you (Tim) would have restored it as a stub.
  • We don't quite have 9 or 14 Wikipedian's arguing that Daniel C. Boyer is important enough to have an article, just that they don't want it to be deleted outright.
Redirecting the page does at least seem to resolve the stalemate for now, and to attempt to be completely fair, it is probably a reasonable compromise given the current status of the votes (although I still think it should be deleted, of course) and also the fact that it has been done so many times in the past. Now that I've said this, I'm sure I'm just inviting someone to revert MB's change. (I'm not sure compromise is in many Wikipedians' vocabulary, here.) It does give us the option of addressing the other user redirects as a whole if we want to discuss and debate those outside of the context of Mr. Boyer — thank goodness. Daniel Quinlan 03:55, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)
There were a few articles where it wasn't really clear. I just fixed them, check my contribution list to see what I mean. There's also lots of double-redirects (and those weird redirects with the boilerplate text). I've left them for now, so that it's not too hard to fix if someone wants to revert this article. They'll probably be deleted eventually anyway.
I agree that redirecting looks reasonable at this stage. Perhaps we barely have the numbers for a short stub if you add the two categories together, but it's pretty close.
As for all your other arguments, we've been through them all before, I don't think there's anything more to be said. As I've said before, the reason I created my stub was partly because of Daniel's self-promotion, but not at all because of his previous creation of Daniel C. Boyer, which was actually created before the user namespace existed, just like Maveric149. -- Tim Starling 06:59, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

Similar Pages

Will Jen Besemer, Ronnie Burk and Franklin Rosemont also be deleted? They seem comparable to this to me (except that the persons themselves haven't edited them, but maybe that's the point...). I don't like this being redirected, by the way - either the guy should have an article or he shouldn't (I don't see any reason why he shouldn't) - as such I've put the article back. --Camembert

Franklin Rosemont should be kept, he seems to be a relevant figure in American Surrealism. The other two should be deleted.

I don't see why. Just because they don't seem relevant or interesting to you, doesn't mean they're not relevant or interesting to everybody. --Camembert
They're irrelevant to virtually everyone, that's why. Are you arguing absolutely every person can have an article? If not, tell us your standard and show how those persons meet it. --Wik 14:27, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)
No, that's not what I'm arguing - I'm arguing that just because people are irrelevant to "virtually everyone" doesn't mean they shouldn't get articles. Lots of people (particle physicists, 16th century priests, chess problem composers) are irrelevant to "virtually everyone", but that doesn't necessarily mean they shouldn't have an article. If you want criteria for inclusion... well, I'm making this up off the top of my head, but how about verifiabilty of facts, and an interest in the person by somebody not personally known to them (difficult to prove this, I know, but it seems a good guiding principal to me). --Camembert
Franklin Rosemont seems to be fairly well known, and his books seem widely available so I have no problem with him being included. Ronnie Burk is very border-line, with the only prominent incident apparently involving him being his assault on Pat Christen. As for Jen Besemer I can find little to no evidence of any interest in her, either within her specialism or outside it. --Imran

While I have nothing more to say about the Boyer page, we seem to have moved to another topic. I had seen the pages in question (Jen Besemer, Ronnie Burk and Franklin Rosemont) before and must admit to a degree of concern because they are stubs and because it is not clear whether they are encylopedic. The standard alternatives thus apply: allow time to see whether they become more than just stubs, consider redirecting to and merging with the logical parent topic (American Surrealism, I suppose) so as to have one good article rather than many stubby ones, or delete. I am unfamiliar with these topics, and so would be inclined to defer to Imran's judgement. -- Kat 15:12, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

What about Easter Bradford? RickK 03:04, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

What should we do?

Seeing as this has been listed for deletion for more than a week, and the offical vote is in favor of deletion, could someone other than me delete this page? There is really little point in continuing arguing about this particlular page. Let us delete this page and move onto the next. MB 15:40, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

I don't see how the vote is in favour of deletion - I see 12 for deletion, 10 against deletion, one with mixed views and 6 to keep if it's rewritten (which to some degree at least it has been). --Camembert
Camembert, I see your point, but it seems to me that, regardless of what election system we propose using (first-past-the-post or runoff), MB is probably right. First-past-the-post would give the deletions the victory with a plurality of votes. If we decided to run off, I couldn't speak for other "severe rewrite or deletes", but in the absence of a severe rewrite, I imagine most if not all of us would choose deletion. I've not been here long enough to know how contentious issues like this one are settled (and I certainly am not a strong advocate for deletion), but the vote seems tilted towards deletion, and the debate has lasted for what seems (to me at least) a reasonable time. Just my two cents -- Jwrosenzweig 17:30, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)
My apologies. I've just viewed the article again (wow, there were some radical changes since the last time I looked), and it's been severely rewritten enough that I think I'd side with the keep crowd in the case of a runoff. Of course, the thing about Wikipedia is that anyone can edit that article back up to a level I'd be uncomfortable with, but at the point of this time-stamped entry, anyway, I wouldn't support deletion. (I think this goes to show that, the longer an issue is discussed at Wikipedia, the more confusing the discussions will become. :) ) Sorry for the contradicting entries. Jwrosenzweig 17:39, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Heh, it's a confusing issue for most of us I think :) To the best of my knowledge, there hasn't been such a contentious disagreement over whether to delete a page or not before, so there isn't really a precedent. Voting hasn't been much used as a decision making tool on the Wikipedia, and it's something people have very mixed views about - I know I'm not alone in finding "votes" like the above useful in assessing where general opinion lies on an issue, while at the same time being uncomfortable with using it as final arbiter on decision making (though of course, it's much easier to hold this view when the vote isn't going the way you want it to ;-).
Anyway, Rednblu might be right that some sort of standard about this would be good. Somebody has started Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies, so people might want to have a look at that and try to get something going there, and there's also something on this at the end of Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. --Camembert 18:54, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)
And there's Wikipedia talk:Auto-biography, too. Sorry if it's been mentioned before, this discussion is getting difficult to follow. Kosebamse 20:38, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Just to support Camembert regards votes - I've been reminded often enough that Wikipedia is not an experiment in anarchism... and that's true. Also, Wikipedia is not an experiment in participative democracy. All votes are opinion polls - it's just more obvious with some.
In cases where there's a close outcome, especially in cases like this one where neither side has a clear majority, we can't just ride roughshod over dissenting voices - we need to find a compromise, or a way out of the impasse.
One option would be to have a redirect here for the time being, and review the issue again in, say, August 2004, and see what people's feelings are then. Maybe then both sides will be able to reassess their old views and come to a new, deeper, understanding of the problem. Martin 21:15, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I don't think a redirect to the user namespace is a good idea as a long-term solution - if he deserves an article, let's give him an article; if not, let's delete it - but perhaps calling a halt for a month (a year seems too long, at least for starters) and putting in a redirect on a temporary basis (meaning the article isn't here, but also isn't deleted outright) might not be a bad idea. That's just my opinion, of course. --Camembert
I'll go with that. Let's review in a month. Martin 10:56, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Argh! Could we make it a redirect to user space (say, something like: User:Daniel C. Boyer/temp-bio with the last revision of the page to be found there? -- till we *) 11:03, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)
That would also work. Do you want to do the honours? Martin
I did it, but didn't thought about moving (can that be done across name-spaces?). So, now at User:Daniel C. Boyer/temp-bio (uncool name, I know) there is last content of the Daniel C. Boyer article and can be edited there. I put a note on top of the article that it is disputed and the redirect into user space should be reviewed in the beginning of september. Hope that's okay. -- till we *) 16:03, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

While the votes for a rewrite (and have not changed to keep/delete) I assume the people involved do not believe the article has changed sufficiently to warrant a change in votes. However the votes is close enough that I'd feel uncomfortable using it to make a decision one way or the other, perhaps this is an issue we should just get Jimbo to decide on one way or the other. --Imran 21:56, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I would have thought that a severe rewrite or redirect would be a solution satisfying both the "keep" camp and the "rewrite/redirect" camp, therefore it would be appropriate to add the two categories together. Declaring that it was an FPTP vote seems unfair at this point. If you declare it FPTP, but allow people to change their votes in view of this fact, then it becomes essentially a preferential vote anyway because I would expect people in the "keep" category will change to the "rewrite/redirect" category in the hopes of a compromise. I certainly would. Such a policy would just mean we have to go through the rigmarole of contacting everyone again.
It should be noted that the vote was only an informal one due to the lack of predetermined rules. The final decision must still be a consensus. However, I'm prepared to respect the outcome of the vote, and I hope everyone else is too. -- Tim Starling 00:19, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)
Actually, at least 4 of the rewrite votes would not be satisfied with the current version. GWO said "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." And most of the rewrite votes are agreeing with GWO. So, you can't simply add them together.
Why the hell not? I don't follow this line of argument at all. GWO
In fact, once a rewrite like this is done, the article is practically useless except for slander, so I would argue that these votes should be added to the delete votes ;). MB 15:45, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)
Well, slander would imply untrue, which would imply that Boyer isn't extremely obscure. But, its pretty clear that he is. So, to be honest, I resent the implication that I'm slandering Boyer. If Boyer doesn't like an article that accurately represents his position in the grand scheme of things, I'm sure there'd be no complaints if he deleted it himself. -- GWO
This is way off the point in any analysis as to whether this is slander or no. The subjective nature of someone or something being "extremely obscure" makes such a statement one of opinion and not of fact (there is no scientific measurement on the obscurity/fame scale), so defamation law does not come into play. --Daniel C. Boyer 20:07, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)
OK, slander was a bad choice of wording, but you get my point. The article would be pointless to keep if it said "he is not important at all, blah blah blah." Your vote was not just to keep the current article. It was to make it into a pointless and worthless article. I'm not arguing that the last non-redirect version wasn't pointless and worthless, but it would be much more obvious with your proposed rewrite. So if we did follow through with such a rewrite, it would once again be listed of VfD, b/c the subject matter does no warrent an article. MB 18:02, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)
Lack of a uniform measurement system does not mean something cannot be measured without resorting to opinion. For instance you could do it in terms of readership, citation, etc. For instance in terms of readership, which quartile do you think you fall compared to other surrealist authors ? --Imran 22:11, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Here is a pretty simple although not completely scientific test.
Here are some results of google searchs related to other surrealist artists, and Daniel:

  1. "Daniel C. Boyer" surrealism - 126 results.
  2. "Daniel Boyer" surrealism - 23 results.
  3. "Hieronymus Bosch" surrealism - 1,470 results.
  4. "Lewis Carroll" surrealism - 1,210 results.
  5. "André Breton" surrealism - 3,530 results.
  6. "Marcel Duchamp" surrealism - 5,450 results.
  7. "René Magritte" surrealism - 1,740 results.
  8. "Joan Miró" surrealism - 1,360 results.
  9. "Max Ernst" surrealism - 5,320 results.
  10. "Yves Tanguy" surrealism - 1,790 results.


Note that one of these artists doesn't even have an article. Yet Daniel C. Boyer does. MB 22:45, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

They're all also dead artists with a large body of work. Daniel C. Boyer is a young and basically unknown artist. He may be much discussed on Wikipedia, but only because he is the most egregious example of someone bolstering their own prominence via editing, he is merely the case that will set a precedent at Wikipedia. Nobody here is discussing his art itself, just whether or not it exists, can be verified, or is viewed as important. Hopefully, a precedent that serves to preserve Wikipedia as a source for neutral and factual information. Daniel Quinlan 23:15, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)
This is no doubt only the first of many arguments about self-promotional articles. If this precedent is to have any worth in settling those future disputes, there must be some objective guidelines that can be used as a baseline for discussion. I think MB's metric is a good start, but I also think there must be some consideration about the independence or stature of a source. For example, if Time Magazine wrote a cover story on Daniel C. Boyer tomorrow, he might merit an article, even absent additional sources. The independence and stature of Time Magazine might alone be enough.
My point is that we could definitely use a metric for verifiability (see Wikipedia talk:Verifiability), and so we should probably try to find one. It will not settle any arguments, but it will give people a concrete benchmark with which to frame discussions.
An example of the difficulties of this issues can be found by looking at Talk:Collage.
SpeakerFTD 00:16, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The content of the article

Quite seperate from the delete/non-delete issue, I'm concerned about the triviality of the content. For instance do the books or movies warrant a mention, given that they have a tiny readership/viewership, indeed most of Boyer's usenet posts probably have a wider readership, yet no-one has suggested listing all of them (yet). --Imran 21:56, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The movies are no longer mentioned in the article. They were removed a few days ago.
Oh, I added some info on the octopus. It wasn't a redirect at the time, so this seemed ok. Martin 22:23, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Assertion that The Octopus Frets is available in "Local libraries"

As I have noted in several places in Wikipedia, although The Octopus Frets is located in "local libraries" (I have noted the Portage Lake District Library and the Van Pelt Library at Michigan Technological University; it is also in the Houghton High School library), it is also located in Tutt Library at The Colorado College, the Library of Congress &c. This might be edited to reflect this. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:51, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Jimbo's opinion

Someone mentioned above that maybe we should ask Jimbo what he thinks. He seems to have responded to the issue here: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-August/005599.html. MB 17:52, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

---


This is obviously generic enough an issue to warrant Wikipedia:autobiography. See my comments there.

What's going on? Why has it been deleted? -- Tim Starling 03:25, Aug 6, 2003 (UTC)

I don't know, but I just restored the page. Jtdirl - why did you delete the page? Our policy on the matter clearly favors keeping a redirect and there was far from a supermajority in favor of deletion (14-10 in favor of deletion and 7 saying that a major re-write was in order). --mav 03:57, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)
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