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 keep. –
Joe (
talk) 12:18, 26 December 2017 (UTC)reply
Obscure conspiracy theorist, former officeholder and minor journalist; sourced mostly to his own publications
Orange Mike |
Talk 00:42, 19 December 2017 (UTC)reply
Delete We can't build an article on somebody out of their own writing about their opinions. I don't believe independent sources establish notability in this case.
PeterTheFourth (
talk) 01:07, 19 December 2017 (UTC)reply
Delete -- my thinking exactly. I posted on the topic at
Talk:Paul_Craig_Roberts#Major surgery needed?. Deletion, with a good doze of
WP:TNT, seems like the best option for this BLP: insufficiently notable conspiracy theorist and does not meet notability for fringe topics.
K.e.coffman (
talk) 01:23, 19 December 2017 (UTC)reply
DeleteNeutral -- In an attempt to save this article, I spent about an hour on each of two days searching for RS that supported notability and found nothing. Appears to be another person that wants to be famous for being famous.
O3000 (
talk) 04:07, 19 December 2017 (UTC)reply
With 45 refs and 60% of the text trimmed, the article doesn't look as bad. Don't know if it's notable.
O3000 (
talk) 21:52, 23 December 2017 (UTC)reply
Whoa I never heard of this guy, bit before my time, I suppose. But the gap between the impressive credentials/claims to notability on the page and opinions of editors is alarming. I started with the book. I like to assume good faith, but all I had to do was key "The New Color Line" + Roberts into a news archive search and up popped a book review in pretty much every major publication in the country,
Washingon Post, ]];
Wall Street Journal,
New York Times and many more, plus opeds by people who feel about Roberts more or less the way the editors weighing in above seem to feel. IJUSTDONTLIKEHIM is NOT a policy-based reason to delete.
E.M.Gregory (
talk) 18:54, 19 December 2017 (UTC)reply
It depends. As a former
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under Reagan, he may have enough coverage in 1980s news stories to pass
WP:GNG and qualify for a basic bio. But someone will have to do that digging and research. The article (as it is) mostly uses Roberts himself as a source. That will have to go. And the
WP:OR in the conspiracy theories section needs severe trimming. Roberts crank ideas don't get much notice by
independent objective sources, aside from one or two mentions, like
Salon. -
LuckyLouie (
talk) 19:24, 19 December 2017 (UTC)reply
Not very much digging, actually. Simple searches for "Paul Craig Robert" at WashingtonPost.com or NYTimes.com provide ample sourcing form which to build an article.
E.M.Gregory (
talk) 22:10, 19 December 2017 (UTC)reply
Keep certainly the self-sourced material needs to be removed. He looks to have been a mainstream, right-of-center guy who went off the deep end into conspiracy theories. However, that does not expunge his earlier career. Sourcing a better article can start with the long profile the
New York Times ran in 1984:
GADFLY WHO BITES PRESIDENT ON SUPPLY SIDE, Peter Kilborn, 6 March 1984.
E.M.Gregory (
talk) 19:37, 19 December 2017 (UTC)reply
Keep- As per
WP:POLITICIAN, he's held a national office. Assistant Secretary in the United States federal government is nothing to sneeze at. He was also an associate editor for The Wall Street Journal, contributing editor for the National Review (not a "minor journalist"
[1]), and, according to Woody Klein in
this book published by the University of Nebraska, is considered "the father of Reaganomics".
This book calls him the most ardent supporter of supply side economics in the Reagan administration. That's pretty significant. -
Indy beetle (
talk) 06:59, 20 December 2017 (UTC)reply
Weak keep per recent article improvements and the removal of self-citations. I still have some concerns that the article would revert to the prior,
WP:FRINGE cornucopia over time, but hopefully there will be more eyes on the article.
K.e.coffman (
talk) 20:30, 23 December 2017 (UTC)reply
Keep A weak example of a politician who meets
WP:POLITICIAN; however, it meets the threshold, imho.
Ventric (
talk) 17:32, 25 December 2017 (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.