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 No consensus, defaulting to Keep, since there are no BLP issues. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:44, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

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Subject lacks notability, and is not widely-recognized in any of the areas asserted in the article. The article claims the subject is best known for writing a play which received minor coverage from two indie sources, and has a twitter page with 8 followers. Generally, many of the sources constitute self-promotion and/or possibly paid material, such as a play review. However, whether or not these sources were indeed self-promotional in nature is moot, as the subject does not meet the test for notability that would be expected of a notable playwright. Upon searching for the subject's work, one of his performances was seen on youtube, which was not very well attended or widely viewed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIHqAmNTSH4). Sources for activism notability include a youtube video with 48 views of the subject walking down the street during an occupy protest, and some insignificant coverage.)). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Esoteric10 (talk • contribs)

• Delete His play on the Appalachian Trail might be notable (although that I am doubtful of) but he clearly is not.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:35, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Criteria for notability: "People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." indie sources are not mentioned, just that the sources be independent. Similarly Wikipedia Does Not Care How Many Friends You Have: "the number of fans, followers or "friends" (in the Facebook sense of the word) the subject of a biographical article has accumulated is brought up as an argument. **This information is irrelevant** and citing it ought to be considered an argument to avoid."

There are not "Two indie sources" one of the many cited sources is the Appalachian Trail Conservancy ^[1], which is the national non-profit which oversees the entire Appalachian Trail. That's not Indie, that's an American Institution. There is also an Interview on the Manhattan News Network ^[2], which is local television for New York City, the youtube views are irrelevant because it's just a copy of the broadcast which went out to a city of more than 9 million people. Another source is the Associated Press^[3], not Indie and even if it was as previously stated "Indie" is irrelevant, it's independent published secondary sources which is the criteria which has been met. Subject is also mentioned in an article on Salon by Natasha Leonard^[4]. Subject has print publications via Smith and Kraus Publishing and the play was produced by The American Theatre of Actors on 54th Street. Another source is from the blog of Rogue, the lead singer of the Cruxshadows and another source is a press release featuring a quote about Subject by Edward Tyll a famous radio personality who's been around for decades. Another source is Huffpost Live^[5], which is nearly network television. ^[6]

Also, if you look at the edit history of the page, this position has been backed up by multiple independent wiki editors, when Esoteric10 put it up for speedy deletion multiple times ^[7]:

• {|"(cur | prev) 22:23, 19 April 2016‎ Adam9007 (talk | contribs)‎ . . (16,372 bytes) (-15)‎ . . (Undid revision 716096021 by Esoteric10 (talk) Article credibly asserts significance. It's a lower standard than notability.) (undo)
• (cur | prev) 21:32, 19 April 2016‎ Esoteric10 (talk | contribs)‎ . . (16,387 bytes) (+15)‎ . . (participating in the occupy movement and writing screenplays does not pass the test for noteworthiness.) (undo)
• (cur | prev) 05:05, 18 April 2016‎ Fouetté rond de jambe en tournant (talk | contribs)‎ . . (16,372 bytes) (0)‎ . . (→‎Journalism) (undo)
• (cur | prev) 05:05, 18 April 2016‎ Fouetté rond de jambe en tournant (talk | contribs)‎ . . (16,372 bytes) (+4)‎ . . (→‎Collaboration with Rogue) (undo)
• (cur | prev) 05:03, 18 April 2016‎ Fouetté rond de jambe en tournant (talk | contribs)‎ . . (16,368 bytes) (-1)‎ . . (speedy declined, makes credible claim of significance) (undo)"

Finally, The criteria for notability for creative professionals is:

• "The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors."

Yes. Edward Tyll^[8], Kentucky State Poet Laureate Gurney Norman^[9], Rogue of the Cruxshadows.^[10]

• "The person is known for originating a significant new concept, theory, or technique."

Yes. Wrote the First Play About the Appalachian Trail.

• "The person has created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work or collective body of work. In addition, such work must have been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews."

Yes. Multiple independent periodicals and reviews ^[11]

• "The person's work (or works) either (a) has become a significant monument, (b) has been a substantial part of a significant exhibition, (c) has won significant critical attention, or (d) is represented within the permanent collections of several notable galleries or museums."

Yes. The play running for three weeks at the American Theatre of Actors is a "significant exhibition" as are the readings at Dragon*Con.

You can't reasonably argue that someone who's covered by the Associated Press, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, Salon, The Huffington Post, is in direct collaboration with a major international rock star with hundreds of thousands of fans worldwide who topped the International Dance Charts over songs by Madonna and Beyonce in 2005, hiked the entire Appalachian Trail and participated with distinction in a major cultural touchstone like Occupy Wall Street isn't notable. Also, subject meets all the criteria for notability for creative professionals.

There is absolutely no criteria for deletion. Subject is notable and the article credibly asserts significance. Plankhead (talk) 03:38, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Addendum Just to answer a few charges here:

• " Generally, many of the sources constitute self-promotion and/or possibly paid material, such as a play review."

Theatre reviews are not paid for, and though quotes from them can be used for promotion by subject or subjects company independently, they were not used for promotion in Subject's article, they were simply used to establish credibility and notability, as reviews are one of the criteria for creative professionals notability.

• "one of his performances was seen on youtube, which was not very well attended or widely viewed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIHqAmNTSH4)"

This is a performance at The Flea Theatre ^[12] performed by the Bats, their resident acting company. A second source backs this up ^[13] This is the standard production level for that company and an off-off-broadway 99 or less seat theatre could easily have been considered "well attended" as well as fulfilling the criteria the notability criteria of significant exhibition due to the Flea's prestige.

Youtube video only used to source the existence of the play, as it is not listed on Subject's website.

• "Sources for activism notability include a youtube video with 48 views of the subject walking down the street during an occupy protest, and some insignificant coverage.}"

This youtube video is an archive depicting an arrest via a prominent OWS livestreamer. Views do not matter because Wikipedia Doesn't Care How Many Friends you Have. It is used to establish the time that the arrest took place and involved another activist^[14] and backed up with NYS legal documents surrounding the case^[15]. It is not simply "walking down the street" and other sources for Activism include The Associated Press, Metro NY, Salon, The Star Ledger, Valley Free Radio, and the KKRP broadcast of the Cecily McMillian interview inside Rikers Island. None of which can be considered "some insignificant coverage". Penitentiary^[16] Plankhead (talk) 18:02, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Note: this user is the creator of the article and likely the subject of the article himself. We need some more unbiased eyes on this article, please. Esoteric10 (talk) 07:57, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Per the original nominating post.^{[note 1]} The rationales provided by the poster above (who is presumably the subject of the article) are wholly inadequate to meet the general test for notability. See: WP:GNG. Also, is there stated policy against the subject of the article that is being nominated for deletion being able to vote on keeping their own article? Seems like a bit of a conflict of interest to me. Esoteric10 (talk) 06:51, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This user is the CREATOR of the article. He at least has a vested interest in keeping the article, but more likely is the subject of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Esoteric10 (talk • contribs) 20:55, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Request Speedy Keep^{[note 2]} 1) User Esoteric 10 cannot vote a second time and cannot "Delete" or vote "Per nomination", let alone both Because Esoteric10 IS the original nominator. You can't vote to agree with your own vote (see Misc. Advice) ^[17]

2) User Esoteric10 has now accused me of being the Subject. This is ridiculous, look at my edit history, I've been around for years ^[18] Esoteric10's accusation is a violation of Assume Good Faith.^[19]

3) There is no stated policy against an author of an article voting on their own article. It's patently ridiculous to put an article up for deletion and refuse the author a voice in the process. Also votes are mostly irrelevant as Wikipedia is Not a Democracy and votes themselves are not the primary criteria for deletion. The criteria is "Does X Article conform to the rules" which, as I have established, it does. Votes are only one way with which Administrator's judge consensus.

3) Since my own Good Faith has been called into question, I'll point out that nearly all of Esoteric10's edits are far-right libertarian, anarcho-capitalist, bitcoin^[20] etc. as such, they have a vested political interest in taking down an article about an anarcho-communist, and in fact has been the only one trying repeatedly to take it down since the 17th.

All of this together: the objection to only minor sources while ignoring major ones, the failure to properly tag the initial nomination followed by voting for and agreeing with that same nomination, the User History and the repeat attempts at taking down the article in multiple ways along with the violation of AGF have demonstrated Esoteric10 to be behaving in Bad Faith^[21] as such, I request a Speedy Keep.Plankhead (talk) 18:07, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This user is the author of the article. It's not a leap to assume he is also the subject of the article.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Esoteric10 (talk • contribs)

Request Speedykeep Speedy Keep subject passes WP:GNG and nominator is clearly vandalizing for personal reasons. The nominator knows the subject personally and is using this as a way to antagonize the subject. Its a small, petty attack. Pitiful, really. NoLifeKing17 (talk) 03:14, 2 May 2016 (UTC)NoLifeKing17NoLifeKing17 (talk) 03:14, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment And now we have a sock-puppet problem. This is getting absurd. the only unbiased vote who is not a brand new account and has not edited the article before voted to delete. This article has no business existing, end of story.Esoteric10 (talk) 07:51, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Please open a sockpuppet investigation against this user if you believe there is a sockpuppet problem using the procedures outlines in WP:SPI. Plankhead (talk) 16:18, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Speedy Keep The article subject in this article is covered significantly in numerous and multiple reliable sources WP:RS including local and national coverage. Therefore the subject easily passes WP:GNG and should be retained as an article on wikipedia. The threshold of notability has been crossed. Fouetté rond de jambe en tournant (talk) 20:16, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment There is no universe in which this article is a speedy keep. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Esoteric10 (talk • contribs) 21:04, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Reply If you are trying to accuse me of "vote collusion" because I chose to vote as speedy keep that is a very serious charge with no proof or diffs. You need to strike out and retract that nonsense ASAP, because I consider that statement by you Esoteric10 a personal attack! Fouetté rond de jambe en tournant (talk) 21:56, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Hey everyone, I hope I'm doing this right. I'm Brenton Lengel, the subject of this article. I recently got a series of Facebook messages from someone I know claiming that he was trying to take down my wiki article, and basically laughing in my face about it. Here's screenshots of the conversation with his name redacted: http://imgur.com/a/YBWEb

I don't know if this has any weight since I'm the subject of the article, but since I see people are talking about conflicts of interest, I figured this might be relevant information.

Either way, thanks Plankhead for making this article about me! I'm really flattered — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.56.37.241 (talk) 22:13, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It has zero weight, because regardless of my personal feelings about you, you are not noteworthy enough to have your own wikipedia article. Sorry. I guess you shouldn't have been that guy who makes a wikipedia article about himself and boastfully shares it on his facebook page. Esoteric10 (talk) 04:56, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2016 May 2. —^{cyberbot I}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 00:52, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Speedy Keep The subject in this article is covered by multiple reliable sources WP:RS Therefore the subject passes WP:GNG and the nominator has an admitted COI Stockton22 (talk) 00:55, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Speedy Keep The article itself cites multiple international sources including Salon, The New York Times and Al Jazeera. The subject unambiguously meets the criteria in WP:GNG. Zwilson (talk) 01:04, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. While the article cites many good sources, for the ones I checked, they only are tangentially about him or don't even mention him at all, but rather about people who he's worked with or things he's done. His play verifiably is not the first work of drama about the AT. ^{[citation needed]} Bearian (talk) 15:10, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Please verify the above claim because the Appalachian Trail Conservancy says it is the first work of theatre about the AT^[22] also, while there are some sources which are tangential, these are used to establish specific facts about the subject, usually relating to his political activities, which are relevant. The Fifth Column interview ^[23], The Episode of the Narrative Breakdown ^[24], The Flea Theatre Interview ^[25] and the Episode of Let them Talk ^[26] are all good sources, indepented of subject and each other, and directly about the subject and his work. Plankhead (talk) 19:11, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Speedy Keep this is ridiculous, there are plenty of great sources and the nominator admitted they were just doing this because they personally disliked the Subject. 24.206.185.87 (talk) 21:35, 11 May 2016 (UTC) editor has no other contributions to Wikipedia other than this !vote.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 02:05, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete -- The most reliable sources provided don't actually mention the subject at all, or are only passing mentions. The only sources that really cover him specifically are blog posts, press releases, and the subject's own web site. Very few of the "speedy keep" commenters appear to really know what that term really means--it's for nominations where the subject very obviously is notable (which, even if my own assessment is incorrect, is most assuredly not the case), or for which the nomination was indisputably in bad faith (debatable, perhaps, but not indisputable). Moreover, most of these "speedy keep" !voters have relatively few edits in general or in AfD discussions in particular. (To be fair, the nominator doesn't have a long editing history either.) Regardless of the motives on either side here, the article itself does not appear to meet the notability guidelines for biographies. --Finngall ^talk 22:15, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I think the reason people are voting speedy keep is the facebook admission of Bad Faith on the Nominator's part. It's easy to miss but I don't see how bad faith isn't indisputable after Esoteric10 messaged Subject with "You Mad?" and then proceeded to admit his motivation was over political differences.^[27] Esoteric10 even confirmed it was him who sent the messages in this thread. Steene01 (talk) 17:38, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - The sources in the article are of three types: trivial mentions, non-reliable, or non-independent. Searches did not turn up anywhere near the coverage needed to pass WP:GNG (News - 1 trivial mention; Highbeam, Newspapers, and Scholar - Zip; a couple of trivial mentions on Books). In addition, what brought me to this particular AfD discussion is that one of the folks who is !voting keep has begun to canvass for other keep !votes. While checking out a talk page of someone on my watchlist, I came across their request to come here to try to save the article. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 02:05, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Obvious keep and a verified trolling nomination - David Gerard (talk) 12:05, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'm still going through the sources to see if the subject is indeed noteworthy and determine how I'll vote. But I have a question. Does Esoteric have any evidence that the creator of the article is also the subject? This is a claim he makes repeatedly. Given that writing about yourself is a conflict of interest and is something that is strongly discouraged on Wikipedia, if said evidence exists then it should be presented. Otherwise, repeatedly making said claim is purely speculative and amounts to personal attacks and poisoning the well. Alexander Levian (talk) 16:30, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep(or Speedy Keep if that is indeed correct) So, I don't know if my vote counts, because I joined wikipedia because of this page (I'm glad I did and I do intend to stay if that helps). Full Disclosure: I'm a fan of Subject. We aren't personal friends or anything but I used to listen to his radio show and I've seen two of his plays. I saw the article shared on social media and thought "oh cool!". Later I saw the repeated takedown attempts and thought they were trolling or vandalism and so I made an account. I've stayed out of this because I'm new, and I kinda put my foot in my mouth on the talk page, (for which Plankhead set me straight). I see alot of people getting stuck on the Salon and New York Times sources. But these are not the primary sources that the article rests on, they're just incidentals (Salon is proof of Subject's relationship with the Yippie Museum and his self-identification as an anarchist, NYT is proof of the Museum's closure.) The article stands with or without them. Stuff like the Fifth Column Interview, The Narrative Breakdown Episode, the MNN interview and the Associated Press "Who's Marching" ^[28] story talk directly about the subject and his plays and those are the sources that are repeatedly linked. This coupled with Esoteric10 going on facebook to taunt The Subject^[29] and Esoteric10's admission to it in this very discussion(scroll up)confirm a troll nomination/Bad Faith and unless wikipedia has a rule that the only periodicals that count are the New York Times and similar publications, I think this is a very obvious keep. Plus Huffpost Live spends some time talking about Subject and his plays and politics and that's got to be up there with at least Salon.^[30] Steene01 (talk) 17:20, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep The article seems to be properly sourced. I really don't see any issue. The request for deletion seems to have been done solely for personal reasons [1]. The person making the request has poisoned the well by repeatedly asserting that the page was created by the subject (an act that is strongly discouraged on Wikipedia). I asked for some evidence of this a few days ago but no response has been given. I see no evidence of that the page was created by the subject and I see nothing wrong with the sources. If someone would like to present a better reason for deletion, I'm all ears. But until then, I think the article should stay. Thank you for your time. Alexander Levian (talk) 18:12, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - Well, this is quite the horrific mess, as I guess you'd expect from the numerous comments that appear jumbled up above. The nomination appears to clearly have been made in bad faith for personal reasons that aren't relevant. When it comes to the page itself, however, I find myself in agreement that while there are a lot of citations these appear to almost always be either quick, side mentions (an article about X just refers to Lengel, not going into that much detail about what's he's done) or publications that go into helpful detail yet aren't likely reliable sources. He's clearly a personally accomplished guy, yes, but 'notability' in the Wiki context isn't a function of talent or achievements, just of proper sourcing. I'm going to add that, from reading Lengel's own statements in the Imgur.com link, it appears that he takes exactly the right attitude about these things: he has his own life while a page is just a page. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 05:36, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Additional references note:

The Deseret News article is at http://deseretnews.com/article/765602123/Who-is-marching-in-Charlotte-to-protest-the-DNC.html as well. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 17:35, 18 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - While going through the sources, I googled one of the print magazine articles and came up with this: seems Independent, Non-Trivial, and Reliable to me: [2]; Steene01 (talk) 22:17, 18 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. NewYorkActuary (talk) 21:01, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. NewYorkActuary (talk) 21:01, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. NewYorkActuary (talk) 21:01, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, for now at least for now. As an uninvolved Wikipedian, this nomination has become a mess. I cannot follow all the deleted/redacted votes and extensive quoting from the edit history. As for the article itself, it appears to be a standard article about an artist. Some of the awards for his works appear significant, showing that his work is regarded as having some quality. The article should at least be provisionally kept, perhaps trimmed significantly, and if necessary, be relisted for deletion at a later time when it is no longer attracting apparent fans. --Zfish118^⋉talk 02:39, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - I've looked at a few references, and they establish notability to my standards... that is, they are from reliable sources, and they make sufficiently significant mentions. While I haven't seen a single article specifically about him, the artist, independent of his works... well, that's not really a reasonable expectation for an artist. They're always going to talk about the work first. The standards for an artist is whether he has a significant number of works, each of which are notable. He meets the standards. Fieari (talk) 05:40, 30 May 2016 (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.