Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Per Bylund (2nd nomination)

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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 — insufficient non-trivial reliable sources presented which establish the notability of the subject. Given the checkered history of this article, I would urge anyone with an inclination to trying to write a new article to make a judiciously sourced version in their userspace, then submit it to deletion review. As always, I can provide copies of the deleted article. --Haemo (talk) 20:59, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Per Bylund

AfDs for this article:
Per Bylund (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

I am nominating this article for deletion once again per Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2008 February 16. On that page I explained why this article should be deleted. Rather than write all that again, I'm just going to quote myself:

"The notability of this topic has not been established. The admin who closed the discussion, User:Nihonjoe, claims there to have been multiple, independent, reliable sources. Asked to do so several times, he was unwilling to say exactly which sources he was referring to. He ended the discussion by accusing the editor who approached him, User:Slarre, of being POV and being on a personal vendetta (a clear violation of WP:AGF, BTW; for the whole discussion see User_talk:Nihonjoe/Archive_30#Per_Bylund).

"Several links to external websites were provided in an attempt to establish notability: Bylund's CV, several articles written by Bylund himself ([1] [2] [3], [4], [5], [6]), a blog, a dead link, three extremely brief mentions in the Swedish media ([7], [8], and [9]), an article in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, which briefly cites Bylund's master's thesis, advertisement for a book he contributed to, his personal website, and a list of grad students at the University of Missouri. These links quite clearly do not establish notability. Most of those sources are not third-party. The few that are are only very brief mentions of Bylund and therefore are not enough to establish notability."

I'd also like to point to JzG's comment on the DRV page: "trout-slap anyone who makes an evidence-free !vote". So, please, do not vote keep without pointing to a specific source that establishes this article's notability! Hopefully, this time, the admin closing the discussion will actually take the time to read it and will disqualify any votes that aren't backed up by real evidence. Carabinieri (talk) 01:51, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • If the subject's notability isn't established by the references, then he's not notable. A lot of people have tried to improve the article, but the fact that Bylund is not notable won't change, no matter how much the article is improved.
  • Keep. Per original closing admin and per article refs. Extensively published and refered to in other papers per Google Scholar. I don't see anything wrong with the outcome the first time around. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Halfmast (talk • contribs) 05:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • You did a Gooogle Scholar search on Bylund and are voting keep based on that?!? Most of the hits there clearly refer to a different P Bylund. Besides, keep votes can only be considered, if they point to evidence of the subject's notability.--Carabinieri (talk) 11:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please don't pre-empt what the closing admin may consider establishes notability. Not your call. Also please don't imply I failed to consider there may be another P. Bylund. You have no grounds to support that. It's interesting that you say "most of the hits..." and not "all of the hits...". I don't know what search terms you used, but your remark seems to suggest both of us found some publications and citations for him.Halfmast (talk) 05:06, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. It has occurred to me that perhaps we ought to request assistance from a speaker of the Swedish language to confirm any notable third party sources. I also have trouble finding any for this article, but this may be a result of language barriers. If Per Bylund has had any notable coverage as the organizer of the Walks for Capitalism, or such, perhaps news sources from Sweden can be found. Of course, I believe this would be an example of acceptable canvassing. --Cast (talk) 05:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'm not a fluent speaker but I can get the gist of things. Of the three "Swedish media" sources above, the first indicates he is in a pre-election debate of some kind with a journalist (podcast?); the second says he is "[well]-known from last winter's Walk for Capitalism" (but it's a letter to the editor, discussing his participation in some sort of salon/dinner; and the third he is briefly interviewed among several other people. His quote is along the lines of "We want to show that capitalism is the strongest system." If the narrator calls him the organizer (I am not disputing that he is, only whether he is known for it), I missed it. --Dhartung | Talk 09:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You are very much mistaken if you think Bylund's notability is as an academic - the man has not even finished his master's degree for goodness sake. Please strike your misguided deletion rationale. скоморохъ 19:41, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please read the above discussion carefully. In this discussion I see a couple of mentions of a Google Scholar search, by Halfmast and Carabinieri. In fact, Hamfast's assertion of notability is explicitly made based on a Google Scholar search. There are also mentions of a the Journal of Libertarian Studies article, that cites Bylund's master's thesis. So academic notability is at least a part of the discussion above. (I would certainly not have brought up the issue of academic notability otherwise). My point was precisely to state that Bylund is clearly not notable academically, and that his notability, if any, has to be established on other grounds. Nsk92 (talk) 20:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is equivocation - being "an academic" and having "academic notability" are non-identical properties. Bylund's claim to fame is certainly not as an academic, i.e. WP:PROF. His scholarship and punditry are another matter, and they do contribute towards establishing notability. скоморохъ 13:01, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am not aware of the difference between notability as being "an academic" and having "academic notability". What exactly is this difference? In particular, as far as I understand, notability for scholarship is the same as notability as "an academic", so the requirements of WP:PROF would seem to apply. I totally agree that notability for political punditry is another matter, but it does have to be established, and established separately. A reference in a scholarly journal to his masters thesis would go towards notability as an academic (but a single such reference is certainly not enough to establish such notability), but not towards notability as political pundit. The latter would have to be established by references to conventional mass media sources, rather than scholarly journals. Nsk92 (talk) 14:24, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]


If you're interested try searching these sights for published materials. You could also try searching Per Bylund to see what work he does have published.

http://www.expressen.se/1.481850 http://www.expressen.se/1.561360 http://www.kvp.se/ledare/1.683575/hysterin-kring-klimatet http://www.sr.se/podradio/xml/sr_valpodd_tidig.xml http://www.svd.se/dynamiskt/ledare/did_2182453.asp http://www.svd.se/dynamiskt/brannpunkt/did_2152763.asp http://www.erixon.com/2/blogg070610.htm#10 http://svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp...lid=puff_534036&lpos=extra_0 http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/20_1/20_1_7.pdf

You will have a hard time locating his radio and tv appearances as they aren't located on Corporate news networks, as what tends to happen with Anarchists.--58.170.122.71 (talk) 06:56, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • This is exactly the kind of vote I was referring to which deserves a trout-slap. Please either point to secondary sources which prove the subject's notability or strike your comment.--Carabinieri (talk) 21:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I would really like to see some specific arguments, with references to reliable sources, as to why this guy is a notable anarchist. I have some libertarian simpathies myself, but I would like to be given a good reason to keep this entry other than the abstract desire to avoid systemic bias. I must also say that I am uncomfortable with the Swedish sources being mentioned. This is English-language portion of Wikipedia, and most of us cannot read Swedish (not to mention cannot understand a radio interview in Swedish). I would really like to see some English language sources, please. Nsk92 (talk) 21:55, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
With respect, a reference does not become invalid just because it is in a language you don't speak. Halfmast (talk) 05:13, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not quite correct. The issue goes to verifiability, and WP:N specifically addresses the usage of non-English language sources, see WP:RSUE. I don't see that the requirements of WP:RSUE are followed here. No quotes and translations from non-English sources are provided. WP:RSUE also says: "Where editors use non-English sources, they should ensure that readers can verify for themselves the content of the original material and the reliability of its author/publisher." That is simply not possible with radio/tv interviews unless some kind of a transcript provided by a reliable source is available. Nsk92 (talk) 11:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Founder of anarchism.net [10] (The site ranks second of 2 million in Google search on "Anarchy" per Google's notability engine.) Quoted by Free Republic [www.freerepublic.com/~theraven/]. Quoted by Brussels Journal [11]. Widely carried by many notable anarchist and libertarian publications e.g. Strike the Root [12]. Founding editor of the Libertarianskt Forum (Libertarian Forum), a radically libertarian anthology published annually in Swedish [13]. McAdam Report [14] Halfmast (talk) 05:25, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is better, but not good enough yet for me to change my vote. The Free Republic reference is not to an article in a Free Republic but to a userpage for a participant (called Raven) in Free Republic discussion forums; hardly a reliable source, per WP:RS. If substnatial evidence of notability of the cite anarchism.net is provided, I would be inclined to change my vote. But looking at the text of anarchism.net, I don't see third party reliable sources cited there, so that article itself is a good AfD candidate. The Brussels Journal reference is solid. Don't know what to make of McAdam Report as a reliable source. Strike the Root seems to be OK. Nsk92 (talk) 11:24, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete Certainly not notable as an academic--as a grad student he's still on the very fringes of the profession--it would take much more than his masters thesis to be quoted in a scholarly journal, by our usual standards it would take several major books or several dozen journal articles, all published by responsible publishers, some of them quoted dozens of times in peer-reviewed journals, to show distinction in the field. The question is whether he is notable as a nonacademic political writer or pundit. It takes more than a few interviews or web publications to do it. If he's founding editor of a forum, that might be notability, if the forum were very notable, which has not been shown. Any language source would do, but I do not see any to the point. DGG (talk) 08:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. /Slarre (talk) 15:48, 22 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, notable on existing evidence. (1) I'd heard of him, from LRC. (2) Municipal councillors are on the edge of political notability, (3) but become unarguably notable if they have weekly local coverage (as Bylund claims without contradiction in the former AFD). (4) This coverage needs time to be delved; (5) Anglophone bias has made delving difficult. (6) But specifically, three proven news mentions is another point; (7) maintaining a best-in-class website for 10 years is another; (8) collaboration with several other notables is another; (9) 23 articles on LRC is another, (10) and they are heavily quoted. (11) A journal citation is another. (12) And that is more than enough to admit the plethora of self-publishing for noncontroversial points like CV. (13) The many different reported cases of activism, editing, writing, combined, make one more point of notability for me. (14) He appears in about 10 different WP articles already. (15) Plus, he looks a lot like Victor Laszlo. John J. Bulten (talk) 17:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What is LRC? Nsk92 (talk) 18:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'd guess LewRockwell.com Murderbike (talk) 23:25, 24 March 2008 (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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