Jameswsperman

Welcome to Wikipedia! I have tagged your contribution James W. Sperman for deletion, with an explanation in the deletion notice. Please do not write about subjects that are close to you in Wikipedia. Please review Wikipedia's guidelines on writing autobiographies and on avoiding conflict of interest. Thank you. Pan Dan 14:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi Pan Dan (and possibly others)

I opened the original Pink Taco in May 1998. I have added a link to Harry Morton's wikipedia article, since it supports that the opening date of his first Pink Taco was in 2000. Even if it's somehow not acceptable to reference Morton's article, it seems that such a thing is easily verifiable from other sources, so I don't really understand the claim that it is original research. (A quick search turned up an interview with Morton from 2006 in which he states that his first restaurant opened 6 years prior (whereas mine had opened 8 years prior); I'll add this link as well.)

I've already supplied links to articles about my Pink Taco restaurant/bar that are clearly dated to summer 1998. That my Pink Taco was open in 1998 (two years before Morton's) is thus easily verifiable.

I'm also unsure about the claim that I'm not notable. "The Pink Taco" name is incredibly famous, and I'm the one that invented the concept, opened the first store, and originally put the name in the nation's consciousness. It dominated the local media for months in the Manhattan area and was picked up nationwide. My personal name might not be famous, but the Manhattan Pink Taco sure is--particularly in Kansas. Infamous, almost, for those in the 25-35 age bracket. Most of these folks, from my experience, assume that Morton's Pink Taco chain is simply a continuation of my own company.

In fact, I strongly think that the wikipedia entry for "Pink Taco" needs to be edited to reflect the publicly verifiable fact that I opened the original about 2 years before Morton opened his first one in Las Vegas. I haven't (and won't) do it myself due to the obvious conflict of interest, but I do feel that a neutral 3rd party should do so after doing any necessary fact-checking. At a minimum, users need to be given the option of whether to choose my original or Morton's later (and eerily similar) version.

Finally, I'll scour back through the article and try to winnow out any further things that may be viewed as non-verifiable opinion. I honestly wasn't trying to cause any trouble.

James

James, thanks for your response.

I guess there are really two questions here. First, does Mr. Sperman opening the Pink Taco warrant a mention in the article Pink Taco? I would say the answer is, only if reliable, third-party sources have already noted some connection between Sperman's restaurant and Morton's. I have found no such sources on Google and you have cited none. That Sperman opened his restaurant before Morton opened his may be verifiable; that one had anything to do with the other is original research.[1]

Second, does James W. Sperman himself warrant an article? The answer is, if Sperman himself has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial, reliable, third-party sources. Without such sources, there is not enough source material to write a comprehensive, neutral, verifiable encyclopedia article. Please see the meaning of notability on Wikipedia.

So it seems to me that the answer to both questions is no.

Regarding the deletion of James W. Sperman, if you still believe the article should be kept, please be aware that you (or anyone) can remove the deletion tag to prevent it from being deleted. However, I (or someone else) may still list the article on Articles for deletion to invite other editors to recommend whether the article should be deleted or kept. If a consensus to delete is reached there, the article will be deleted. Pan Dan 12:36, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I am an interested editor coming in from the Pink Taco article. Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) says that a company is notable if it has been the subject of several secondary sources providing nontrivial coverage about that subject, including newspaper articles. The Sperman Pink Taco has the potential to do this, since there were links posted to a couple letters to the editor and a response. While these do not establish notability, it certainly means that the newspaper and other media outlets were aware of the restaurant, and may have published something about it. If notability is established through multiple nontrivial coverage in reliable secondary sources, then there is good reason to split the article into two, one about Sperman's restaurant and the other about Morton's. After that there is no need to note a connection between the two, if no evidence supporting that connection can be found. (Please also see my comments on Talk:Pink Taco) Copysan 17:45, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I like Copysan's suggestion at Talk:Pink Taco. I would then support a merge/redirect of James W. Sperman to Pink Taco (Manhattan, Kansas) (or whatever the article would end up being called). Pan Dan 18:17, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest

If you have a close connection to some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred from the tone of the edit and the proximity of the editor to the subject, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:

1. editing articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with,
2. participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors,
3. linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam);

   and you must always:

4. avoid breaching relevant policies and guidelines, especially neutral point of view, verifiability, and autobiography.

Accounts used solely for blatant self-promotion may be blocked indefinitely without further warning.

For more details, please read the Conflict of Interest guideline. Thank you. RJASE1 ^Talk 02:52, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi again,

I was just reading through the notability standards, and here's what I think. If Morton had never opened his own chain, I probably would not meet standards. Now to be fair, I've got newspaper clippings from about 3 dozen stories directly about me as an adult (excluding the 'wiz kid' newspaper stories about me as a precocious youth), spread out from 1998 (Pink Taco) to 2000 (Domino's fundraising) to 2002 (Kansas State University fundraising) to 2006 (Philosophy talk at KSU). 5 of these were front-page stories (3 in Manhattan Mercury, 1 in KSU Collegian, 1 in Wichita Eagle). In searching online, I can find 7 stories from the 1st group, 2 from the 2nd, 1 from the 3rd, and 1 from the 4th.

But I do not claim that makes me notable. In fact, I would actually argue that that stuff by itself does not make me notable.

However, the fact that Morton's company is continuing to keep the Pink Taco name and concept in the public consciousness does make me notable. As with any inventor, it is the continued importance of his invention that makes him notable--even if he is no longer involved with it, and even if a later popularizer can truthfully claim that he re-invented the thing with no knowledge of its predecessor. [Although it's obviously fishy whether Morton came up with the concept entirely on his own or heard about the Pink Taco either directly or through someone else (or saw some of my Pink Taco brand merchandise).]

So to summarize: since I was clearly the original inventor/creator of the Pink Taco restaurant/bar concept, and since this same highly unique and identifiable concept is and will continue to be extremely notable, then I am notable as its original inventor. Jameswsperman 03:05, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but did you read the guidelines on conflict of interest and autobiography? You shouldn't be writing about yourself - if you forgive me saying so, it makes you look vain and foolish. I suggest you add any inputs you may have to the talk page of the affected articles for neutral editors to include, rather than writing the articles yourself. RJASE1 ^Talk 03:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I didn't read those guidelines before originally writing the article. I just now did, though, and was getting set to remove all but the directly relevant Pink Taco section. Again, I'm sorry and didn't mean to cause any trouble. I was just seeking disambiguity and went overboard with adding more stuff to make it look like what I had thought a wikipedia article was supposed to look like. [Practically my entire experience with wikipedia has been checking on people (such as Bush, Gore, Hefner, Shaq, etc), which is why I included that 'by the numbers' section. Those were all things I've seen on such pages, and I thought it was standard or expected if available.]

The very nature of the problem is what required me to be the one to write the article.

How would the general public know to write an article disambiguating the 2 distinct Pink Taco companies, when the very problem is that the general public thinks it's all the same company? So I think this is a rare case when it can be acceptable to write about something close to oneself (while exhibiting the "great care" highlighted in the wikipedia policies on such exceptions).

Anyway, I have removed everything that I thought might be disagreeable.

I would suggest this procedure. RJASE1 ^Talk 03:54, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of James W. Sperman

I've nominated James W. Sperman, an article you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but in this particular case I do not feel that James W. Sperman satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion; I have explained why in the nomination space (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and the Wikipedia deletion policy). Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James W. Sperman and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of James W. Sperman during the discussion but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. RJASE1 ^Talk 17:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Username

There was some discussion as to whether your username meets our username policy at WP:RFCN. The result of the discussion was to allow your name. GDonato (talk) 21:27, 8 June 2007 (UTC)