Wikiquote:Votes for deletion archive/Brandon Michael Sergent


 * 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: delete. —LrdChaos (talk) 14:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Brandon Michael Sergent
Not notable. Google turns up no hits on this spelling of the name, and three for "Brandon Michael Sargent" (all of which are from the same site, listing a family tree). I take the claims of the introduction as a claim to notability, and hence didn't speedy-delete the page. —LrdChaos (talk) 14:48, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Vote closed. Result: delete (seven votes to delete, no dissent). —LrdChaos (talk) 14:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete. —LrdChaos (talk) 14:48, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. ~ UDScott 16:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * delete--Sir James Paul 17:17, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. ~ Bsergent If philosophy is dead, then elitism killed it. If you can define "notable" in this context without using the "Appeal to Authority" I'd be very surprised. I publish an anthology of my essays next month (hardbound since inconsequential things like that seem to matter here), and I don't list my real full name when publishing online for privacy and harassment concerns. I did however post the quotes myself, and that seems to be against the rules, hence my delete vote. But for the record I think a person should have the right to claim their own words, especially in a consensus driven information repository. I think being honest about posting it myself is far better than underhandedly asking one of my readers to post it for me, but C'est la vie. 17:28 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Brandon, I appreciate your honesty. But if we had a dollar for every person who claimed their self-subject material was being unfairly targeted by elitists, we wouldn't need fundraising drives to maintain the Wikimedia Foundation servers. Almost invariably, such people haven't read any of our policies to find out how we define notability and why we use this as an inclusion guideline. In short, because we have no editorial board, we need some means for any reader to be able to verify the information added, which we do by insisting on reliable sources (e.g., publications from well-established, non-vanity presses). We have a notability threshhold to limit our articles to those people and creative works that may reasonably be researched by our non-expert editors (i.e., everyone), and the lack of reliable sources usually kills an article on both notability and sourcing grounds. This has nothing to with the logical fallacy of "appeal to authority", because we are not arguing a point of fact. These are project-chosen threshholds and guidelines, and they change over time to reflect the changing nature and editorship of Wikimedia. If your work does get published, and it achieves some notoriety by appearing in other media or doing well in the marketplace (whether economic or of ideas), you may have a reasonable case for notability. We don't necessarily shoot down self-quotation articles, but the standards for inclusion are awesomely high to stem the tide of unsourceable quotes added every day from non-notables like myself and most Wikiquotians. But ultimately we don't care who creates an article if we have no cited evidence of current subject notability. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:45, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Brandon, I didn't even notice that there was a connection between your username and the subject of the article (or else I'd have mentioned that, and likely added the vanity-warn template to your user talk page. My problem with the page was, and still primarily is, that there's no evidence that the subject (in this case, you) is notable. A Google search on your full name (the title of the article) turns up no Google hits at all; taking out the middle name provides 201 hits, but the results seem to indicate a college student (who are extremely rarely notable enough for inclusion in Wikiquote or Wikipedia) and an eBay seller. As Jeff said, if we have missed something, the best course of action is to point us to things that would provide evidence of notability (in the case of a "inventor, philosopher, transhumanist, and author", these would be things like published (but not self-published) books and the like). There's nothing wrong per se with creating a page for oneself, though the behavior is not encouraged. It's just that usually when people do it (and we're able to easily connect it based on the username), they aren't sufficiently notable to be included in a Wikimedia project. —LrdChaos (talk) 14:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete unless evidence of notability provided and quote(s) sourced. This is a very common qualification for deletion votes here, and editors who choose to provide such information, instead of complaining about policies or other editors, often find that VfD participants will happily change their votes to "keep". But the evidence must meet Wikimedia standards. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:52, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. He is an inventor, the holder of US Patent 5730709 for "a scratching device for providing relief for itching skin underneath a cast," but I don't think this alone makes him notable. As recently as last year he was attending Ashland Community and Technical college, where he received a scholarship, but again, I don't think this makes for notability. --Ubiquity 18:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * PS on Notability: I have been published (and paid for it) in numerous newspapers, magazines and books, and have appeared on radio, national TV, in a commercial film and on the Broadway stage. I have 16 patents to my name. None of this constitutes notability, since none of the people here would (or should) recognize my name in any arena. I'd love to have my own Wikiquote page, and even have a few good quotes to put on it (with sources!) but I restrain myself. If I want, I can put my quotes up on my user page, and you can do the same. --Ubiquity 18:10, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Ubiquity, nobody cares about your sixteen dumb software patents in clearly obvious idiocy like "simulating include files in javascript". I can't contain my laughter that you even bothered... oh right, you worked for IBM, which thinks everything is patentable.  I suppose that's where the term "patently obvious" comes from.  IBM and its fake-free-software motions have been a detriment to the community from day one. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.161.73.181 (talk • contribs) 09:18, 9 January 2007  (UTC)
 * There is no call to be rude, 67.161.73.181. Ubiquity was making a point that patents do not automatically confer notability. The primary means to provide notability evidence and well-sourced quotes is to cite reliable sources for quotes. If Brandon or other editors can provide them, the vote will likely change to "keep". If not, the article will be deleted, but this will not prevent a new article from being created any time in the future, if solid sources are included in the article and the subject has become notable. In the end, the sources are the way to ensure articles get a fair hearing. Rudeness can only undermine the case to keep (as anger and personal attacks are a common response by folks who cannot make a proper argument), and repeated incivility may get a rude user temporarily blocked. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 09:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. To those who lack notability, not having a page for their quotations may seem unjust. They feel that they're being singled out arbitrarily.  What they may not realize is just how many such pages are deleted by us in the course of our work here.  If we were to eliminate notability as a qualification, how many pages would we no longer be removing through votes or speedy deletions?  On any given day, I would estimate, we get at least ten new pages of this kind.  Multiply by the days of the year, and the result would be 3650 of these pages added  annually.  In the space of just a few years, unknown or slightly known people would form the majority of Wikiquote pages. At which point it could well be asked: who would still be reading them? The general public?  Many of the public come here to search for quotations whose sources they don't happen to know.  Would they remain if they had to wade through page after dispiriting page of word search results — reading quote after quote with no standards for inclusion or rejection?  And what of those who come here to add or edit notable quotations?  Would they keep contributing when they saw that this project had lost its purpose: to preserve the  memorable remarks of memorable people?  The internet is not exactly short of sites to post one's own quotations.  I sometimes can't help wondering, then, if elitists aren't perhaps the ones who are offended by those of us trying to do something different. - InvisibleSun 10:33, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * 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.