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.
Delete per nom. Only 40 hits on UK Google [1], the lead one of which is this Wikipedia article and the preponderance of which are mirrors of that article. As it turns out, his claim to be a "man of letters" is that he wrote many letters to the local newspapers. RGTraynor 19:46, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. This might be someone else, but some John D. Mackay appears to have a memorial lecture according to this. --Wafulz 20:02, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep. Yes JDM does indeed have a memorial lecture named after him, because in Orkney he is seen as true Orcadian for publicly advocating the return of the islands to Norway after 500 years in pawn to Scotland. This is, of course, the reason that Mais oui! wants him airbrushed out of Wikipedia, because this Orcadian does not suit Mais oui!'s Scottish POV agenda. 81.153.151.63 20:47, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - the above anon IP logged on to Wikipedia for the first time today, and is already targetting users? Looks suspiciously like a stalking horse. RGTraynor 21:05, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The BT anon will most likely be the former User:Mallimak, but he's perfectly entitled, if it is him, to edit anonymously. As it stands, the article fails to make much of case of Mackay's notability. He's mentioned in passing in Peter Narvaez's The Good People, and it appears from this that he did rather more than just write letters to the local paper. Some of his papers given to to the School of Scottish Studies at Edinburgh Uni. What was written about them when they were gifted? I expect something was. There are some signs on google scholar of him being quoted as an expert on Sanday. If I wanted this article to be kept, I'd be toddling over to Stromness, or more likely Kirkwall, to the library to look through their archives for stuff on John D. Mackay. The link Wafulz found states "He delighted in the ensuing publicity, with journalists from several countries coming to Sanday to photograph him with his Siamese cat, Ho Chi Minh." That rather suggests that there are, if someone can find them, non-Orcadian sources on the subject. On the whole, he seems likely to meet our notability guideline. Of course, if after a decent interval there are still no sources in the article, then I'd have to change my mind. Angus McLellan(Talk) 21:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep, though the letter was widely publicized in Europe as the article stands we have problems with WP:V and lacking citations, both of which would normally make me tend to delete Alf photoman 21:41, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per norm, writing a letter to a newspaper does not make you notability worthy --Barrytalk 22:57, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
beg to differ, if the letter gets quoted in papers all over the continent it sure is notable, else nobody would bother Alf photoman 23:18, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep memorial lecture and quoted letter is good enough for me ... but the article needs citations. Abtract 23:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep we have to make allowances for the difficulty in sourcing mid- 20th c. articles as compared to current ones, and I think this is V sufficiently DGG 03:19, 22 February 2007 (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.