Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Emma Maree Urquhart

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 based on the arguments, which are in turn based on the references provided. As has been indicated in Martijn's comment, if appropriate reliable references are forthcoming in the future, recreation and/or undeletion can of course be considered. Nick (talk) 00:58, 28 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Emma Maree Urquhart

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

Something about this one feels really, really wrong. The majority of the sources are to sites that Urquhart controls herself. The article was first posted in 2005, when she was just fourteen. I've looked for reviews of her books; they're all on crowdsourced sites like Amazon and Goodreads. There's some media coverage of her, yes, but... it feels like it's all been done as part of a publicity scam. And in fact, that seems to be the sort of thing that her publisher does/did a lot of - they seem to be nothing but another vanity press, scamming and lying.

Consider these blog posts from people involved in the book trade, analyzing the Urquhart thing:

In light of these analyses, the various mainstream-media articles fall to pieces, as do the concomitant assertions of notability. I consequently propose that this article be deleted. DS (talk) 02:37, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and if this goes, then the article on her book Dragon Tamers should go as well. DS (talk) 02:44, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Well... the problem is that even if there's a question of her legitimacy as far as scams go, if we do get enough coverage as a whole she might still pass notability guidelines. We can't really rely on the blog posts because they're self-published and as such, we can't entirely verify everything. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:04, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I've cleaned out the worst of the puffery, which is likely due to one of the previous editors being the author herself. It probably could have been speedied as a promotional page, but there is an assertion of notability here so I'd like this to get a more full look. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:12, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. This is a borderline delete, since I did find mention of her in this book, but the issue is that the book mention is in passing and the sources on the article are really the only sourcing we have in general. If we had a book review then I'd be more comfortable keeping this, but we just don't have the coverage here. It doesn't help that the Aberdeen source could be considered local due to the closeness of Iverness to Aberdeen. It's a bit frustrating since the claims in some of the articles assert more than what I can actually find, so if anyone can find sourcing then I'd be much obliged. If more coverage is found, then these pages will need to be watched like a hawk to ensure that it isn't reverted to the more promotional versions. Since the other page (Dragon Tamers) hasn't been officially put up for AfD, I've redirected it to the main page for the author. On a side note, while we can't take the blogs as RS, they do question the legitimacy of the claims made by Urquhart's initial publishers, which is what makes me question the claims made in some of the various articles such as the TV series option and so on. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:24, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Essentially all she's known for is the Dragon Tamers series. If we were to think in terms of whether or not the books would pass GNG, it would pretty obviously fail them. Book notability can sometimes be more strict, but even by BIO standards Urguhart kind of falls shy of overall notability. She's close, but not really as close as she should be. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:26, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm... Urguhart's own website goes against the claims of 50K published, and a blog post by her seems to hint that most or all of anything Aultbea Publishing has stated is false or should be taken with a shaker of salt. That definitely pokes more than a few holes in the sources we do have. Since I now have more concrete proof to back up what's in the blogs (since this one is by the author herself), I'm changing my vote to a firm delete. She also lists the blogs above, which helps back up their claims since it's not just them saying these things. I feel for her and I wish we could keep this to help her out since she got a raw deal, but she just doesn't pass notability guidelines. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:33, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Proof of Wikipedia:Notability (people) As you surely can see a lot of the edits done on this page were by myself. Is there any way to check sales and website traffic to see what sort of influence she has compared to other pages? Or even traffic to this one page? Is anyone looking for this page?

Reviews only being on crowdsourced sites:

I seem to recall an interview on This Morning too on ITV but can't find a link to it anywhere. Granted not ALL reviews of the book some are more news but you get my meaning I'm sure.

The book appears still available for sale for the public and collectors:

and selling:

In various countries:

http://www.amazon.de/Dragon-Tamers-Emma-Maree-Urquhart/dp/0954934067

She appears listed in other wikis:

I think this really just needs an experienced hand to write it up properly (not me :P) I can doubt the genuineness of some of the edits to date but not the need for the entry. DavefaceFMS (talk) 07:05, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, Daveface, because her publisher turned out to be scamming lying filth, any news story about her which relied on what her publisher said has to be discarded as a source. Any news story which was about how amazing it was that she was a young author has to be discarded as a source. She sold fifty thousand books in less than a week? Well... no, she didn't, not really; that was more lies from her publisher. The book is still available for sale on various sites? Yes, no one's doubting that the book physically exists. She appears on other wikis? That's absolutely worthless in terms of references; in particular, the second one you listed is a Wikipedia mirror site. That list of links you provided -- did you actually look at them? I'll grant that the "read 500 books" review is authentic, but it's a blog post by a tween girl who launched a project in 2008 to read 500 books and then abandoned it after barely a dozen. DS (talk) 12:02, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DS I looked though each but not in great detail I'll admit. I can see how you take any information from the publisher as being false, so should the question at the moment not be to go along the lines of {{cleanup-biography}} and try to find more valid sources of real information before just deciding to remove the content all together. Clearly based on view count the page is being looked for and viewed. DavefaceFMS (talk) 12:21, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There may be pageviews, yes, but by who? By people genuinely interested in learning about Ms Urquhart? By people who saw her name on one of the many Wikipedia lists to which you added her, and wondered "who's that"? By people who clicked 'random article' ? By software bots? By you? The answer is that there's no way to know, and that it doesn't matter anyway; despite the fundamental connections between popularity and notability, the two concepts are separate and distinct. As for tagging this article for cleanup... that's essentially what this AfD is, with an added note of urgency: if, within the next week or so, no one can find anything better than the deeply-flawed sources already present in the article, then the article will be deleted. The best I can find is a blog post by Victoria Strauss (on 'Writer Beware', the site that Strauss ran with the late AC Crispin) that includes Ms Urquhart on a list of those who were victimized by Aultbea Publishing and mentions the worthless publicity buzz that (based on Aultbea's lies) briefly surrounded Ms Urquhart. And there's a similar article in the Scotsman (via archive.org), briefly mentioning Ms Urquhart as an Aultbea victim while referencing Grumpy Old Bookman's dissection of Aultbea's lies. This isn't something personal, Daveface: if you can find something to support Ms Urquhart's notability, I'll be totally okay with that. Genuinely surprised, but totally okay. I'm even open to withdrawing this AfD if you can convince me. DS (talk) 14:04, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty much what they said above. The problem with the links you gave us is that none of them are usable as a reliable source. No merchant link will be able to show notability, as nowadays with the ease of publishing (self-publishing, minor publishing, and other types), having a book in print means pretty much nothing. It can sometimes help keep someone from getting speedy deleted based on the publisher, but it doesn't mean anything in the end. As far as reviews go, those only really count if they're done in reliable sources. Generally speaking, anything on a social media site or crowdsourcing site won't count towards notability, as in most cases they're places where anyone can post and have little to no editorial oversight. While there are some exceptions, the type of reviews we look for are in places such as newspapers and the like. You can get reviews on places such as trade papers ala Publishers Weekly, but those alone wouldn't really keep an article and even then some of the trade reviews like Kirkus Indie don't count because people pay for them. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 03:39, 20 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Scotland-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:38, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:38, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as non notable author. -→Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 16:06, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. So, everybody has been had. We can't turn to what are usually reliable sources because it has been made sufficiently clear they are pretty much all poppycock. What we are reliably left with, is that this is a woman who wrote a book when she was 13, and basic biographical information. Is that sufficient for a Wikipedia article? I'd say it isn't - though it could make for a fascinating magazine article. Lacking that, we can't really do anything other than delete the article for now. Without prejudice to re-creation as new sources might turn up, in which case we should be really careful with them, but might still conclude the subject is notable though. At this point however we have nothing left to write an article about. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 19:53, 19 April 2014 (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.