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. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 00:27, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Roy Godson[edit]

Roy Godson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Fails WP:G5 (article author is blocked sock of editor topic banned from editing political biographies) as there are no other contributions, except technical and tiny fixes. wumbolo ^^^ 15:51, 3 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Washington, D.C.-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:22, 3 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:23, 3 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep appears to meet WP:NAUTHOR requirement #1 ("The person...is widely cited by peers or successors") based on this Google Scholar search. His book "Dirty Tricks" is cited by 91. Many of his other writings and writing with co-authors are heavily cited as well. --David Tornheim (talk) 09:30, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  @David Tornheim: I didn't say that the subject isn't notable. It should be deleted as it fails WP:G5. wumbolo ^^^ 09:59, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is fine to punish the editor for violating our rules, but I see no need to delete the article unless there are clear problems with it. If there are serious enough problems that you want to take it off-line, could it be sent to WP:AfC? Actually, sending it to AfC looks like sending it to the graveyard... --David Tornheim (talk) 10:08, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Meets WP:NAUTHOR easily. I don't think it makes good sense to delete an article on someone notable just because it was created by a blocked user. Papaursa (talk) 17:34, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  @Papaursa: what you think is irrelevant when a Wikipedia policy disagrees with you. wumbolo ^^^ 17:37, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your point, but I could copy the exact article that's there and post it as my creation and it would be perfectly acceptable. The article was written in early June 2017 and the author was just blocked this month. So the article was valid and then suddenly wasn't--even though nothing about it had changed. What about "notability is not temporary"? For the first time I'm going with WP:IAR. If this article is deleted I request the closing admin to post it as a draft under me. Papaursa (talk) 17:49, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Papaursa: the article was invalid the moment it was created, because the sock had been topic-banned for years. wumbolo ^^^ 18:13, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I hadn't checked the SPI discussion, but it appears you're right that the sockmaster had been topic banned. I understand that my personal opinion is secondary to WP policies, but keeping an article on someone notable seems to be in keeping with WP's stated goal of being an online encyclopedia. It seems you agree that he's notable. Papaursa (talk) 17:19, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, Nom is correct about WP:G5, and, at a glance, this dore apper ot have been aproblematic, POV sock. However, Godson is a notable foreigh policy guy and WP:G5 also stipulates: "This applies to pages created by banned or blocked users in violation of their ban or block, and that have no substantial edits by others." So I added substantive edite: a list of books sourced to scholarly book reviews. Article needs improvement.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:38, 20 October 2018 (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.