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. Bucketsofg 03:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Walt Sorensen[edit]

Walt Sorensen (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

This autobiography does not meet the Wikipedia policy on attribution, and does not have verifiable sources demonstrating the notability of the subject. TheMindsEye 23:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• This article does have verifiable Sources demonstrating the notability of the subject. See the following links for some of the publication information. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
  1) Walt Sorensen is one of only 6 photographers to ever be part of a cultural exchange in connection with West Valley City, Nantou city, and the Utah Cultural Celebration Center and was selected out of the 6 photographers to be the lecturing and lead photographer. 2) Walt Sorensen was recently accepted into the Who's who publication. (see references above)
  In addition to this Walt has also been published several times and has been in extensive gallery shows both individual shows and group shows photodude 00:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment on the "verifiable Sources": First link: website belonging to the subject of the article. Second link: article (asserting significance by Community College but hardly by encyclopedic standards) apparently written by the subject of the article. Third link: presents no information. Fourth link: website belonging to the subject of the article. Fifth link: presents no information ("This feature requires member log in please log in below"). -- Hoary 02:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• comment Hi TheMindsEye, I don't think we've met before, nice to meet you ^_^. Well anyways I don't see the Who's Who thing much, because I'm in there and you don't see me writing an article on myself, do you? The Photographers thing is interesting and I don't think Wikipedia has an article on this event and since it seems to be a major thing that many editors don't know about, I am currently putting these facts into my decision and I will be with you shortly. ^_^.Sam ov the blue sand 01:35, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak Keep After looking through other articles I've found no other information on that Photography thing and this info is information needed to add information about unknown things to the general readers, something an encyclopedia is commonly used for. With out that information I could care less about the article.Sam ov the blue sand 02:14, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete the assertions of N are not convincing: took part as one of a group of exchange journalists between two very small sister cities; first place in 2 Nevada state fairs; this is simply not a notable career as a photographer. No 3rd party sources besides the student newspaper of his community college--admittedly, a very well done student newspaper.DGG 02:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• • Comment:there are more 3rd party sources. but you'll have to find the books and magazines not listed here which are not available online, the links supplied include photos of one of those books. there are others Such as the national deans list for 2005 and 2006. As for DGG's comment "Not a notable career as a photographer" define your standards for such a career. If your putting a three year old career against say Ansel Adams, bruce dale, robbert cappa, or Charles O'Rear then of course it is not notable. if you keep it in context that walt sorensen is a local photographer in the second largest city in Utah, and with a 2 year old career was selected for an artist exchange then yes it is notable.photodude 16:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete for the reason as given in the nomination. Incidentally, this appears to be self promotion. The history shows that it's largely the product of work by User:Photodude, whose user page (at least in this version) presents waltsorensen.com as his own, and whose contributions have concentrated on Walt Sorensen and Business Resource Center SLC. We read in this version of the latter that in 2007 its "COO" [?] is Walt Sorensen, and that he was Selected for the 2007-08 International Biographical Centre, Cambridge Who's Who's publication. -- Hoary 02:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: The subject/editor has also begun a campaign to request votes on this AfD on his MySpace Blog. Text is replicated below to preserve it and because the blacklist filter prevents posting of the link. TheMindsEye 03:16, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  For those of you who don't know since last November I have had a wikipedia page. Today I discovered several things. 1 the page was vandalized. and 2) shortly after I fixed the vandalism, it was nominated for deletion. I'm sad about this because I don't think I have a chance in this white bitter cold world of saving the page. so I'm totally depressed and will soon drowned my sorrows in bubbely. If you have a Wikipedia account I ask for your vote to save my page if you don't have an account get one and add your vote. This is what I ask. There is only a 5 day window for this so please hurry.

  • Comment: The call for meatpuppets (or what appears to be such a call) is depressingly familiar in these affairs, and so is the allegation of vandalism. But when I look in the page history I see no vandalism. Incidentally, here is the "Cambridge Who's Who" thing. This particular "Who's Who" is not held by the library that I use. -- Hoary 03:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment:Yes there was vandalism, re-read the history I corrected spelling walther reverted back to walt, these changes were made by user 67.171.124.246 who claimed walt sorensen (photographer) was Walther Mathius Sorensen. I fixed it I just didn't flag it a vandalism. as for the meatpuppets thing/vote campaign on the myspace page... there is a total of 47 people connected to that page with 27 of those being bands and a total of 5 people who comment to the myspace page. out of those 5 people on a good day 1 maybe 2 of those fans may venture here and 1 may comment (1 person is not a campaign) kudos for spending time researching Walt Sorensen. photodude 16:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment: Speaking of the "Cambridge Who's Who," is it a reliable determiner of notability? Wiki has an interesting article on the Who's Who scam, and a Google search for "Cambridge Who's Who" +scam yields a fair number of hits (many more than you get for a search of "Walt Sorensen" +photo), but no real definitive answer. TheMindsEye 04:53, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • R U Joe King, Mr Eye? Or, as an answer to your question, hmm, what's the negative equivalent of "Does a pope shit in the woods?" I get the strong impression that being listed by the "Cambridge Who's Who" depends less on the kind of merit that gets you listed by a "Who's Who" of one of the varieties that libraries bother with, and a lot more on your willingness to donate a couple of sawbucks or whatever is the going rate. -- Hoary 06:19, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Comment: the answer to the question on who's who Merit vs money is money.photodude 16:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete, for the reasons listed by DGG. I don't see any real notability here, at all, just some fairly blatant self-promotion. Pitamakan 13:32, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• • Comment: as for the question of self promotion. all articles on wikipedia are created from one of three sources 1) the person or company the article is about 2) a PR firm or 3) a fan. it is still possible for any one of these sources to write a objective and Neutral point of view on the subject. it is content not the author that determines whether an article is self-promotion or informative.photodude 16:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response: Actually Walt/(photodude/166.70.88.70), you are wrong about this. A basic tenant of Wikipedia is the achievement of NPOV - Neutral Point of View. This cannot be achieved in an autobiography. May I suggest that you review several Wiki policies? Wikipedia:Conflict of interest explains how important NPOV is to writing an objective encyclopedia. Wikipedia:Autobiography is a guideline that explains the problem with autobiographies and how difficult it is to achieve NPOV when writing about yourself. Its a good thing to believe in yourself and to think that your accomplishments deserve widespread recognition. But if you really think this, then its only a matter of time until others acknowledge your achievements, and write an encyclopedia entry about you. I suggest that you wait for that to happen. TheMindsEye 16:49, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

comment Difficult, yes, but not impossible. This is one of the many articles that show how difficult it is. There are, unfortunately, also many articles in WP begun as autobios and never checked independently, or with no third-party sources--all well worth deletion--or, possibly, upgrading That they can be upgraded is shown by the many respected WP articles begun as autobios--and were then carefully checked and references added if necessary by independent editors. We need to go article by article, just as we are doing now. DGG 23:13, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

comment before I wrote the article I made sure to read all the guidelines about creating such an article. I understood the difficulty of the issue, the downside is many editors believe it can't be done. but as DGG beautifully put many well respected articles started as autobios; thank you DGG. I hope for the article to stay and for other editors to contribute as they feel they should. The downside for this article is most of the information about it is in hard copy, limited circulation or has limited reliance. This makes obtaining and citing 3rd party sources difficult, I also limited much of the information and references to only the details available online or that I made available. photodude 16:43, 2 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• delete sorry, they're right and after looking up the phtotgraphhy thing I've found it to be nonimportant.Sam ov the blue sand 19:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• COMMENT I fail to see how this would be construed as "blatant self promotion." I agree it's impossible to ever write a completely non-biased account of anything. Regardless of the topic, the author's individual preferences are bound to come through to some degree or other. If the article requirements constitute a third party as a ghost writer for any article to achieve true neutrality then the rules themselves are contradictory. I don't see it as whether or not this is "blatant self promotion" but what the overall intent behind the article is. In its own right the article displays very little persuasive structure one way or the other and instead focuses on listing a "travel log" of sorts in the subject's progressive history with verifiable sources. As for the insinuation that the subject could buy his way into the Cambridge Who's Who book, I'd like to see the college photography student with funds capable of making a noted donation. If you can prove that this article was written with the intent of feeding the subject's ego, market familiarity, and/or pocket book and not simply as being a documentary and something that others may be referred to for informational purposes, then I will vote for deletion as well.--RedJaron 08:41, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Response: Sorensen/photodude himself has said above the answer to the question on who's who Merit vs money is money. This particular "Who's Who" is merely a business: you give them the money (probably not much), they stick you in their book, they hope that you will then shell out a couple of hundred bucks (really) for a copy of this book. When not taking photos, Sorensen is working in some Utah company that photodude suggests is doing pretty well; I'd guess that it pays enough to finance expenses such as this. -- Hoary 09:33, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

comment All who's who, including Mariquis, the answer to merit vs money is money before merit. Some will not include nominees without someone shelling out for it; and others include the nominee then try to get them to pay, to get their own copy of the book, certificate and lapel pin and other knickknacks. As for Sorensen working for a Utah company, he is an on staff photographer at the company with a title that sounds like he does more. Pay is competitive for such a position. The who's who only has relivence so much as nominations are third party which identifies merit. Cambridge who's who does not have a self nomination which some who's who do.photodude 23:21, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment (i) It is not true that all editions of books that carry the title Who's Who do this. And even if it were true, that would not make the case for keeping an article on Sorensen (aka yourself) more persuasive. (ii) The company for which Sorensen works (you work) is small, so it's hardly surprising that he is (you are) a (the) staff photographer there. -- Hoary 23:42, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment can you name a who's who that doesn't do it? In my searching I haven't found one.photodude 02:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Local artist, not notable, Cambridge who's who is not even Marquis, and is not related to the prestigious Cambridge Univ. Press. --Bejnar 03:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

comment Many people only notable in a local or regonal area have articles on them; such as mayors, city council members, artists, teachers, business owners, etc.photodude 23:32, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Can you name some people whose notability is comparable to Sorensen's (your own) and who have articles? -- Hoary 23:42, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The point of my comment was notable local interests are still qualified for articles. The issue of local notability vs larger notability has brought up several times in this discussion. The issue can be resolved by categorization. All notability on a subject falls into at least into one of the following areas: local, regional, national, trivial, popular and historical etc. “Notability is not synonymous with "fame" or "importance".” Fame or importaince is something many wiki editors confuse notability with. "A topic is notable if it has been the subject of at least one substantial or multiple, non-trivial published works from sources that are reliable and independent of the subject and of each other.”

as for the notability of Walt Sorensen as an artist, I shall quote from Wikipedia:Notability (artists) “notability as an artist is defined by the notability of his/her art. Notable art is: b) A piece acquired by government (national, state or major city) and put on public display.” Under this guide line Walt Sorensen has 6 notible art pieces. The 5 pieces that were displayed durring the Nantou are part of a permanent collection on public display in the Nantou city hall. The Last piece was a photograph of West Valley City including the E-center in West Valley City, this piece was commisioned by West Valley and 2 Prints were made of it. One is on public display in the Nantou Taiwan city hall, the other is on Public Display in West Valley City’s City Hall. Thanks for getting me to look this information up, this should be added to the Walt Sorensen article photodude 02:16, 5 March 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.