Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Megan Smolenyak

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.

Megan Smolenyak (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Appears to be written by user with same name as subject's public relation's manager with significant COI, multiple prior concerns over a year ago suggesting resume-like, fails

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 02:01, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 02:01, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Delete per
  WP:NAUTHOR. Netherzone (talk) 02:42, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]

Comment - If there is any doubt as to the promotional nature of this article there are now six links to book sales websites. Netherzone (talk) 23:21, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Netherzone: The six links to the book sales websites has not been added by the article's author who is accused of having COI. Many of them were added by me and that was only to cite the book and prove that she is the author of those books. P.S. I cited Penguin random house and Amazon because the description they have put on the sales page has some useful information about her. If other editors think that those citations make the article promotional, then please tell me. I'll try to replace them. Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 05:27, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Pesticide1110: hello, yes they seemed promotional. Not the sort of sources encouraged on WP. best to remove them for article credibility. Netherzone (talk) 05:38, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Netherzone: Don't worry, this issue won't last long. Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 05:41, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Netherzone: Have a look. I've only let Penguin random house and Barnes and Nobles remain there because they cite a piece of information which, if these sources are removed, will be unreferenced. P.S. They are reliable. Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 07:42, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong Keep: Just going through the 11 citations given in the article, i can say without any hesitation that the subject is notable. No research is needed. She is one of the center of attention of all the articles cited from various sources like NY Times and Huff Post which rarely covers personalities who are not notable. Other than that she has accomplished a lot as suggested by the "Awards" section which i'll certainly cite within a week. Even if she does not pass
  WP:NACADEMICS as well. This is the strongest keep i can ever vote. Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 17:03, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Keep Per Pesticide1110's comments 9H48F (talk) 19:01, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete This is overly promotional rubbish. Also, the indications this was created by the individuals PR manager is in and of itself enough to delete the article. People should not be allowed to buy their way into inclusion in Wikipedia.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:36, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Whether this article was written by a paid contributor or not should be of no consequence to whether the subject is notable and passes inclusion criteria. While paid contributor created articles are not necessarily encouraged they are also not expressly forbidden. I get that some editors here are adamantly and staunchly against paid contributions. I actually believe some are just anti-everything they don't care about but that's another topic in and of itself. If that's the case then get the policy changed. The article is adequately cited by reliable sources and Megan is discussed significantly as the primary subject of these independent pieces. She passes
  Talk) 20:53, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]

Tsistunagiska Exactly. This was the point i was looking for someone to put. Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 01:20, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

• Comment Being new here, I have found this exercise to be instructive and have tremendous respect for all editors given the time this took to figure out. In any case, I think my views are clear so this will simply be a comment. I agree with the earlier commenter that a paid author is discouraged but not forbidden nor takes away from potential notability. But I also sympathize with the other commenter about the promotional aspect. But still ask yourself, would this article have ever been written if her likely PR manager had not started it? This is not a content issue or attempt to clean up the article more appropriate for Talk. We now know the awards section and claims of finding “thousands” of soldiers by the original author was inflated. The issue here is about what we, as a community, define as notable or encyclopedic. This subject has done some good work with the family trees of a limited number of famous people and it should be noted that credit was given to her in those respective biographies through citations including Obama and his wife. But is she, herself, really notable and deserving of her own article by
  WP:AUTHOR standards? There are only a small handful of articles that covered her work. Is that significant coverage? Her own articles in Huffington cannot be considered coverage of her. Her books were never widely reviewed (or reviewed at all) save for a mention here and there, the groups/websites she founded have been dormant for years and were never really significant when active and she has no major awards to speak of other than a single meritorious mention (even the “Bo Peep” award is from an old fringe Listserve group reborn on Facebook). Furthermore, the number of citations does not establish notability. None of this is to say that she has not contributed to the betterment of society because she has or takes away from her accomplishments. There are clearly “notable” genealogists including an entire National Genealogy Hall of Fame of which few members have WP articles (I’d actually work on those if I had time to continue learning how to edit) but I understand not everyone can be on that list. Of course, not everyone should be on WP, either. In the end, this article just looks like a fancy resume exploiting the WP platform.--Monteboat (talk) 19:23, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• @Monteboat: agreed that COI/UPE is problematic to NPOV, contributes to wikispam and misuses the encyclopedia as an advertizing platform. I must admit, tho, what puts a bit of doubt in my mind is the nomination itself, and please don't take this the wrong way, but as a new editor, how did you learn so many WP-specific acronyms, embedded external URLs, and links to policy in your very first edit on the article Talk, and then figure out how to create a perfectly formed AfD on your sixth edit ever? Maybe I'm just slow but it took me many months to figure out this stuff. Netherzone (talk) 00:06, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Netherzone: The question i wanted to ask but did not ask. I was okay with him being precocious but just wanted to know what led him to start his editing with AFD nomination of this article. @Monteboat: She is superior to every single genealogists in the aforementioned hall of fame. NYT best selling author described him as the greatest american genealogist. I didn't get why you said that her coverage is not sufficient. She is the subject of 2 NYT, Washington Post etc. articles. Her coverage exceeds expectation to be honest. Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 05:08, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@

WP:AFDHOWTO if you just follow the instructions and copy and paste, took me a few hours to learn. I invested that time because I felt strongly enough that this page does not meet the standards of notability, at least not yet. But please be realistic. She is obviously not superior to the greatest genealogists as voted by her own society. Two NYT articles and 6 books ranked in the 100s to 1000s in their respective field (at least by Amazon.com standards) does not elevate one above genealogists who have made major contributions such as the pedigree chart, written hundreds of scholarly articles or have their work archived by research institutions. Her own peers have not recognized her as the greatest and such comments by others are obviously hyperbole for marketing purposes. But then again, I don’t think that’s the standard we need to meet. The only question for the community is if she is notable for this encyclopedia and that was the intent of this nomination.--Monteboat (talk) 05:01, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

• WP:HEY and should be retained as constructive contribution to the encyclopedia. Netherzone (talk) 17:26, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• Netherzone The “significant coverage” of two NYT articles was there at the beginning and there have been no notable content additions except citations. In fact, what has changed is the content removal of the previously misleading awards and removal of the inflated achievements that were used to support earlier Keep comments. I’m not sure how showing fewer accomplishments and removing misleading content by the alleged PR manager is now a stronger argument to Keep. If two NYT articles buys you a spot in WP, we set a low bar for inclusion here. At the end of the day, I guess we just disagree on the definition of “notability” and “significant coverage” a grey zone to be sure, and that’s really what this AfD is about, much like many others.--Monteboat (talk) 01:52, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Monteboat, I stand by my !vote to retain the article. Netherzone (talk) 01:57, 13 January 2021 (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.