Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rajan Zed (2nd nomination)

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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. Jayjg (talk) 02:39, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Rajan Zed

AfDs for this article:
Rajan Zed (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Unnotable WP:BIO, already deleted in February 2007, recreated in violation of WP:RECREATE in July 2007. Apparently a Wikipedia:Autobiography. See article talkpage for more details. The one bit of notability this is based on is the "first Hindu prayer read in the United States Senate". It is of course perfectly fine to mention this in the Hinduism in the United States article, but it is clearly not sufficient for a biography article on the person who happened to read that prayer. WP:COI accounts are Rajanzed (talk · contribs), HBoulette (talk · contribs) and 75.14.204.8 (talk · contribs). dab (𒁳) 11:08, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Neutral. I think the individual's notability, weak though it may be, is verifiable, and we have sources that verify it. But the rest of the article is vaguely autobiographical-sounding, with some weasel words (I didn't know we had a "dubious" tag!) and some other issues. If we copyedit down to the core notability claim, it's a three-line stub article. Which works, if that's the consensus, but the COI issues raised by the nom are troubling. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 13:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • no, we don't have any sources on Rajan Zed as an individual. We have lots (80k!) of google hits about the "acclaimed Hindu statesman Rajan Zed". The reason for this is that this guy is a spammer, and the Wikipedia article is part of his campaign of self-promotion. Nor am I the first person on the internet to note that this man is on an all-out narcissistic spamming-spree [1][2][3] But we do not have any independent references about Rajan Zed. We just have media coverage on the first Hindu prayer in the US senate, which is WP:DUEly covered at Hinduism in the United States and nowhere near what would be required for a bio article. --dab (𒁳) 16:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • But even that was preceded by another priest at a joint session of Congress in 2001. So, while technically correct, the statement within the article portrays the topic incorrectly. The statement was added in this edit by an IP who was spamming many articles with this. And yes, delete, this doesn't pass WP:BIO, BLP1E at best. -SpacemanSpiff 20:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • amazing. All this hype about the "historic first Hindu prayer" turns out to be a fabrication. The historic first Hindu prayer was read to the joint Congress in 2000, and Zed was only the first to read a Hindu prayer to the US Senate sans the House of Representatives, six years later. --dab (𒁳) 11:59, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of this article will be not be very wise as it will question Wikipedia’s credibility and raise doubts about its religious neutrality. Rajan Zed is one of the most prominent leaders of Hindus in the world, besides being renowned for interfaith dialogue. Just try searching for “Rajan Zed” on Google, Bing, Yahoo and you will see thousands of hits. Just on Bing, it shows 701, 000 hits, and many of these are from the prominent publications worldwide, like New York Times, and in various languages of the world. Why the allegation of self-promotion when almost all the religious organizations and religious leaders of the world have either media-relations people on their staff or they outsource it to public- relations/communications/media-relations companies. Moreover, criticism (right or wrong) of a leader of such a high stature as Zed is almost certain. Actually, Wikipedia should enlarge this article to cover all of Zed’s achievements after thorough search. This link gives Zed’s brief bio: http://www.asianamerican.net/bios/Zed-Rajan.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.253.66.140 (talk) 04:46, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • please see WP:RS. There are thousands of google hits on Rajan Zed because Rajan Zed spends much time generating google hits. What we are looking for is independent coverage, not press releases, not to mention online spam. Rajan Zed is not "one of the most prominent leaders of Hindus in the world", he is not a leader of Hindus at all, he is a Hindu American who likes to issue press releases about himself. I get 176 hits on google news. All of these are just about stuff Zed "said" in random press releases about random issues loosely connected to religion. Now see WP:BIO: "A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject." Emphasis mine. In a report including the statement "Rajan Zed said that India's youth looked up to the cricket players as kind of role models"[4] Zed is not the subject of the report, the subject being a sex scandal surrounding some cricket player. We do not have a single independent source which has Zed as its subject as required in the notability guideline. Still looking at google news, subtracting those hits containing the modest self-designation "acclaimed Hindu statesman", I am left with 24 hits, most of these unnotable outlets like "Digital Spy", "Merinews" or "Gaea Times (blog)". The dozen or so remaining hits from quotable news sources simply concern the US Senate prayer, which is already duly mentioned at Hinduism in the United States. The asianamerican.net link you cite does indeed have Zed as its subject, but it is not independent. Asianamerican.net is a website that invites "Professionals, entrepreneurs, business owners, scholars, and others who are United States citizens or permanent residents with Asian ethnic backgrounds" to submit their biographies. It follows that the biography you point out was written by Zed himself and accepted by asianamericans.net based on his being a US citizen or permanent resident with Asian ethnic background, which is hardly sufficient to warrant a biography on Wikipedia. Unsurprisingly, it also has Zed's hallmark "acclaimed Indo-American and Hindu statesman". Mr. Zed also has the gall to decorate his biography with "He is listed currently in Wikipedia" after he had personally created said listing himself. How full of yourself can you be? Mr. Zed quite apparently has no idea what the word "statesman" means, nor does he seem to be aware that "acclaim" usually implies acclaim from third parties, not acclaim showered by oneself on oneself. --dab (𒁳) 11:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Rajan Zed is highly respected Hindu leader at world stage. Removing article about him will be a big loss for Wikipedia. He was invited by President of European Parliament (EP) for a meeting to discuss Hindu issues and promote interfaith dialogue during European Year of Intercultural Dialogue (EYID), which was the first major formal visit of a Hindu leader to EP during EYID. Various other world religious leaders who visited EP as part of EYID include Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew, Dalai Lama, Grand Mufti of Syria and Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. This is just one thing among many of Zed’s achievements. In addition to wonderful work in various aspects of Hinduism, little research will tell you about Zed’s remarkable efforts in the areas of inter-religious relations, Roma, environment, etc. Please consider augmenting this article to mention his multidimensional activities to bring the world together. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.94.186.74 (talk) 15:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

yes, Mr. Zed. You wouldn't believe how many people I've met who thought they were somebody important because they once shook the Dalai Lama's hand. Fame doesn't propagate by handshake. --dab (𒁳) 09:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Last year I attended an annual event at the Durga Temple in Virginia where several prominent Hindus received rewards. Rajan Zed was one of them. The others were from Europe and India, so it wasn't just for American Hindus or a program created by Mr. Zed to give himself an award. The event was considered important enough to be covered by an Indian TV station. HBoulette (talk) 17:43, 8 January 2010 (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.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Rajan_Zed_(2nd_nomination)&oldid=1090005322"