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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Valitchka

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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. Barkeep49 (talk) 22:38, 19 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

James Valitchka

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James Valitchka (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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I've spent some time digging into the article subject's accomplishments listed in this article. It looks very impressive, and I'm sure he's a fine person, but I have come to the conclusion he is not notable. The "Diamond Awards" are given out by a local private education program. The Barack Obama award is also from them and has no connection whatsoever to actual Barack Obama, they also give out Bill Clinton, Ghandi, and Oprah Winfrey awards, to name just a few. The other awards are not notable either, the Ottawa Civic Appreciation Award is the only one that does not appear to originate from a private company of some sort. The novel he wrote when he was eight was published by a vanity press. The next one, a novel dealing with race relations supposedly written by a nine-year-old, was published by a company called "Rainbows are Everywhere" that I can't find any information on. I don't know about the rest, can't find them at all. Once you piece it together this reads like his mom made it to make her kid look good. It's all well and good to be supportive of your kid but we don't have to play along with this and pretend any of it is really notable. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:20, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:20, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ontario-related deletion discussions. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:20, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I found several in-depth news articles on Valitchka, none of which are used in the article but appear to meet WP:BASIC.[1][2][3][4] That said, the coverage seems to be based on the precocity factor. Does that make him notable enough for an encyclopedia article? I'm ambivalent. Schazjmd (talk) 22:49, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Alphonso, Caroline (2005-07-02). "'I am really just a kid like you'". The Globe and Mail. Toronto, Ont., Canada. pp. –2. ISSN 0319-0714. Retrieved 2021-05-12.
  2. ^ Campbell, Jennifer (2005-11-17). "10-year-old author turns life's experiences into bestsellers". The Ottawa Citizen. Ottawa, Ont., Canada. pp. –1 Front. ISSN 0839-3222. Retrieved 2021-05-12.
  3. ^ Kostiw, Tanya (2009-01-30). "Obama meeting inspired Appleby College student". Oakville Beaver. Oakville, Ont., Canada. p. 1. ISSN 0834-6798. Retrieved 2021-05-12.
  4. ^ Inwood, Damian (June 12, 2005). "Book-smart boy wonder". The Province (Vancouver, Canada). p. 85.

References

My concern here is that the press coverage was all stage-managed as well. It isn't all that hard for a determined person to pitch a "human interest" story about a supposed boy genius and get some coverage. I feel like if a nine-year-old was really writing compelling novels about race relations it would get a lot of attention and the book would be in print somewhere. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:36, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that's why I couldn't make up my mind. I didn't feel confident in the repetition of "bestselling" in the articles without any corroborating details (in what market, when, which book) either. Schazjmd (talk) 00:06, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty sure the "best-selling" thing is a straight-up lie. Wouldn't it be a huge news story if a self-published book by a child was a best seller? They would have had to front the cost of 10-20 million copies. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:37, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, without prejudice against recreation if somebody can write something better than this with the genuinely reliable sources. I recall engaging with this article before — I thought in fact that it had been deleted before, but it turns out I just revert-warred for a couple of days 13 years ago with the subject when he tried to turn it into a piece of advertorial self-promotion instead of a proper encyclopedia article. But that does demonstrate that there has been conflict of interest editing here which indeed leaves real doubt about whether everything in it is actually true. The problem is that the strongest notability claim (bestsellerdom) is entirely unverifiable (I'm having no better luck than anybody else above), and the listed awards are not major literary awards (GG, Giller, Griffin, Writers Trust) that would clinch "inherently notable because award" for a writer, and the overwhelming majority of the footnotes present here are unreliable primary sources that are not support for notability at all. Is it possible that somebody could genuinely do better? I don't know, but I won't say never. Is this good enough as is? Not by a long shot. Bearcat (talk) 15:15, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This article's history has an appalling number of obvious throwaway WP:SPA socks, including a new one today, adding more no-name awards, positively gushing praise about him, and making melodramatic edit summaries [1]. If this is deleted I would suggest WP:SALT also be applied, whomever this is they are extremely persistent. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:17, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: based on Bearcat's reasoning above = notability has not been demonstrated, the gushing praise and puffery based on unreliable sources has made it impossible to separate fact from fiction in this mess, and the continuing sock puppetry is doing the subject no favours. Melcous (talk) 20:45, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Beeblebrox and Melcous. No notability established, self-promotion slick.--Darwinek (talk) 00:46, 15 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete clearly looks like self-promotion. If anything in the article were as good as it sounds, then clearly he would have been picked up by a reputable publisher. --hroest 01:09, 16 May 2021 (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.
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