Talk:Stephen Yafa

Problems with this draft?

​​​​​​​​​​​​​Calling all new draft critics... -- Yae4 (talk) 14:04, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

• Remove the Amazon links, namechecks, unreliable sources (e.g. Fox News, Austin fiber artists) and the like. This looks like garden variety resume padding, which is 100% normal for anyone who bills themselves as speaker. Guy (help!) 14:07, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

​​​ The one amazon link has been removed. What's the problem with WP:FOXNEWS? Did you actually look at Austin fiber artists' site? 501c3 with a board, association of Guilds; Announced Yafa's speaking engagement... and Who is more expert on a topic like cotton (fiber). As for "namechecks" have a look at Summertree and Three_in_the_Attic leads and infoboxes and see if you can guess where many of the statements and sources came from. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:08, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

• Listing not just the individual works but the individual articles and book chapters is padding. He isn't famous and therefore hasn't "gained fame."—S Marshall T/C 14:43, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Have a look at the sources supporting the "gained fame" statement and other lead statements (reviews, interviews, appearances, etc.). -- Yae4 (talk) 15:08, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

• I don't see any source that even remotely implies Mr Yafa is famous. However, I'm not willing to waste large amounts of my time reviewing this promotional article, so it's quite plausible that I may have missed something. You could fully overcome my objection, and meet our verifiability policy, by supplying an inline citation to the specific page or other place in a reliable source that directly and unambiguously supports the contention that he's famous.—S Marshall T/C 16:30, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

@S Marshall: Would it help to refer to Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#Creative_professionals number 3, or 1? (and see and Google Scholar)

You've claimed that he's "gained fame". You need either to verify that he's famous, or else remove that claim.—S Marshall T/C 18:29, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

• Comment I'm trying to figure out how Yae4's notification appeared in my notifications as I'm not seeing where I was pinged. Ah, there it is, we have a {{bcc}} template. Interesting. Anyway, concur with @JzG and S Marshall: above. Many of these sources may be fine for verifying certain facts, highlights, and anecdotes about the individual's life and career, but I'm not seeing any source which meets our definition of "significant coverage" about the subject. Has the screenwriter had a published biography about their life, appeared on CBS News Sunday Morning or 60 Minutes in an in-depth interview, or been interviewed in some other publication or broadcast? Those are the type of sources that we need in order to establish that the subject is notable. I'm not sure what the Fox News source was, but, presumably, it was not that it was from Fox News but was as JzG and S Marshall described above, just sources which aren't about the subject in a significant way. Doug Mehus T·C 15:20, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

  Okay, I looked at the Fox News article, yeah, it's as I suspected, it's not about the author. That may be helpful for establishing notability of the author's book (we'd still need more, and improved, sources for that, though), not him. Other than mentioning he's the author of the book, the article is about gluten-free diets. In order words, books can be notable but not necessarily their authors. Doug Mehus T·C 15:27, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

@Dmehus: Did you consider the C-SPAN and Illinois Public Radio broadcast interviews? -- Yae4 (talk) 20:22, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

It's hard to say. C-SPAN is a reliable source, but it's hard to say whether it's independent. I'm not sure if it's similar to Canada's CPAC in that it is owned by U.S. cable and telecom companies, but it may not be independent nonetheless. As for public radio, no, I would say no. Anyone can go on public radio. Doug Mehus T·C 20:32, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

@Dmehus: Maybe these can help: Book_TV and WILL#Radio. While they do have lots of cable or air time to fill, it's far from the case that "anyone can go on public radio." C-SPAN covers a lot of events each year, but it's a bit of an honor to have your book and appearance featured on the show, IMO. -- Yae4 (talk) 19:44, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: Yafa was interviewed and answered caller questions for around an hour on Illinois Public Radio, and he spoke at the university (mentioned in the interview).[1] He was given a lengthy introduction, spoke, and answered questions on C-SPAN.[2] His book and a lot of information about him were significantly covered in Time. [3] The Fox News article discussed a lot of info' about his wife and says several things about why he wrote one of the books.[4] He spoke in Austin and got a detailed write-up by a Guild of fiber artists, including his two most recent books and biographic info'.[5] Contrast this article with linked/related articles, Edward_Hume and Ron_Cowen; should these be deleted? We could also contrast this with numerous stub and start class bio articles started by commenters here, which don't come anywhere close to meeting a standard of being interviewed on 60 minutes or Sunday Morning. To pick a few: David_Money-Coutts, Julie_Ferrier, François_Angelier, and Brent_Cotter. Why the double standards? -- Yae4 (talk) 16:41, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

  Yae4, OK, now I think you are trolling. David Money-Coutts got full feature obituaries in the Financial Times, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Scotsman, to name but a few; he was the Queen Mother's personal banker and a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, second son of Hugh Burdett Money-Coutts, 6th Baron Latymer, Managing Director of Coutts Bank, the eighth oldest bank in the world and the seventh generation of the Coutts family to run it, and is featured in Debrett's as well as numerous books on the history of banking and finance.

  That's multiple objective independent-of-Wikipedia indicia of notability, including posthumous assessments by major establishment newspapers. Guy (help!) 17:06, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

The article was picked semi-randomly from your list of created articles. The article has only two sources (one paywalled), and is tagged with needs citations. I'm not disputing what you just said above; however, I'm asking why that article seems held to a different standard of sourcing. -- Yae4 (talk) 17:18, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Brent Cotter is one of my recent article creations, yes, but he is a Canadian Senator so there's presumed notability per WP:NPOL. You're welcome to nominate it for AfD, if you wish, but I think most elected or appointed politicians at the national level typically survive that. Personally, I do think our SNGs are somewhat inconsistent and I honestly would just prefer we had WP:GNG. Doug Mehus T·C 20:34, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

For notability, my understanding is that significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject exist, but that those sources need not actually be in the article. From WP:CONTN: "Notability is a property of a subject and not of a Wikipedia article. If the subject has not been covered outside of Wikipedia, no amount of improvements to the Wikipedia content will suddenly make the subject notable. Conversely, if the source material exists, even very poor writing and referencing within a Wikipedia article will not decrease the subject's notability."

As an example, we can refer to the conversation you and I had about CFAN. I was concerned about notability based on the current references I saw in the article. However, my concerns were assuaged when you showed me that better sources exist in books and papers (though they're not yet cited in the article itself, I think).

Of course, it is still generally nice to produce good articles rather than good articles in mainspace. Jlevi (talk) 20:39, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Requesting other opinions and help

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ FYI, Criteria for your bcc: Listed under Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography#Admin_members and at least a contribution in February 2020. Looking for opinions/help/suggestions on this Draft BLP from (nominally) independent, experienced BLP editors. Thanks or apologies in advance. -- Yae4 (talk) 18:05, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Umm... why have I and numerous other admins been pinged? (and why is a hidden ping even a thing?!)

This is not an appropriate way to ask for help. There are numerous talk pages and noticeboards available to you - Wikipedia:Questions and Template:Dashboard are good places to help you find the appropriate forum. If you have a question relevant to WP:BIOGRAPHY, you can post it on the project's talk page. --kingboyk (talk) 18:43, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

@Kingboyk: Because... as said right above, and the project's talk page seems inactive. -- Yae4 (talk) 19:05, 14 February 2020 (UTC)