Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sean Gabb

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 redirect to Libertarian Alliance (per Gregory's input and reading of other editor's views). If someone is still intent on getting this deleted rather than redirected, just leave a note on my talk page. (non-admin closure) Lourdes 04:23, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sean Gabb

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

Fails WP:GNG. Specifically, there is no evidence of significant third-party coverage (or third-party coverage at all). Obvious WP:SOAPBOXING—no attempt is made to establish notability, and the article is largely a description of the subject's political views. Two of the leading contributors to the article, User:Kentishresident and User:seangabb, have been noted on the talk page as having potential (and in the latter case actual) WP:COIs.

At my count, all but 4 of the 40 sources listed were written by the subject personally. Of these four, one is a (dead) link to the York University Alumni page, one is a list of "Council" members of an organisation called the Mises Centre UK, one is a link to the "Hodder & Stoughton website, and one is an archived article from the BBC website.

Of the remaining 36 sources: 27 are links to Sean Gabb's personal website (all of which are links to articles he has written—16 of which were written for the Libertarian Alliance, which he ran), 3 are to the diploma mill he helps manage, 3 are to the Mises Centre (which he helps manage), one is an obituary he wrote for The Independent, one is an article he wrote for FFE in 1992, and one is an article he wrote for a "journal" called "Free Life". The article references three academic articles published as book chapters, and one review (via his personal website). These do not establish notability (WP:NACADEMIC). The references (via his personal website) to the articles the subject wrote for the Birmingham Post and Gay Times are no longer available on either website.

As for the Hodder & Stoughton reference, no reviews are cited, and there is no evidence that Gabb's writing meets the notability criteria (WP:AUTHOR).

The only vaguely notable material here are the three lines he gets in this BBC article from 2005. Obviously, this alone does not establish notability. L.R. Wormwood (talk) 11:09, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 11:21, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 11:21, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 11:21, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 11:21, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 11:21, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 11:21, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Nom appears correct in his assessment. I checked refs and history and nothing checks out. Szzuk (talk) 16:09, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Nominator did a thorough job with the reasoning. Also checked refs and history as per Szzuk, and looked for references on his books: a libertarian blogger wrote the best review I found of one book, and I found two reviews of his first book published by the publisher, which don't appear to be all that quality sources. [1] [2] I'm a delete for now, but if this article is a keep, it's because he satisfies WP:NAUTHOR under his pseudonym, since there are some sources interviewing him about his writing. [3] SportingFlyer talk 02:19, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nominator's ample reasoning. -The Gnome (talk) 18:01, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Libertarian Alliance. I do not dispute Nom's masterful dissection of sources on the page as he found it. But I began, as is my habit in AfDs with some claim to notability (especially with controversial subjects as a politican who was most active a few years ago ), with a Proquest news archive search. There are quite a lot of hits. So I began to do an expand, source on his political activity. Do note that that the page appears to have been written largely as a PROMO vehicle for Gabb's ambitions as an historical novelist. Regarding the novels, I did find very brief, negative reviews of Conspiracies of Rome, which was published under the name "Richard Blake", but, despite the fact that he was backed by a major publishing house, he fails WP:AUTHOR. He was, however, a somewhat well-known political controversialist. If the article was pared down and diligently sourced, it might well pass WP:GNG. Feel free to ping me to reconsider if somebody undertakes that labour. Meanwhile, there is too much notability in discussion of him and his opinions (often in the form of political columns and coverage of people who viscerally hate him for advocating not only anti-EU politics, but of ideas such as making guns more widely available in Britain as an anti-crime policy,) , nevertheless, coverage of him and his ideas is too substantive for deletion. I therefore propose redirecting to Libertarian Alliance, where his primary notability appears to lie.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:56, 12 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nominator's reasoning. I can't find substantial coverage in reliable sources to justify existence by WP:GNG. Ralbegen (talk) 20:25, 14 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The basic problem with the page has been that the subject has used this page to advance his commercial interests which are his teaching activities and a reasonably succesful if non noteworthy series of historical fiction. This means that the non noteworthy elements of Sean Gabb's life have been emphasised, because these are the ways he pays his bills at the expense of his political activity, which does meet notability standards.

The least noteworthy element of his was his leadership, after Chris Tame's death, of the Libertarian Alliance which has recently changed its name to Mises UK. In the 1980s and 1990s this was a think tank that punched above its weight but I think even Mr Gabb would admit that it's not been firing on all cylinders for a while. However there has been another sense in which Sean Gabb has been quite noteworthy and that has been his appearances on media, and there have been quite a few - particularly television - almost all of them linked to the Libertarian Alliance and Gabb's senior position in that. These would argue for a redirect to the Libertarian Alliance page as suggested upstream, however there is one area where Sean Gabb was actually very influential and that was the Candidlist project.

The Candidlist project was a simple list where people who wished to be Conservative MPs in the early years of the 2000s were listed as to whether they were "Eurosceptic", "Europhile" or "?", backed in many cases by correspondence from the candidate themselves. This was notable for two reasons. Firstly the internet had arrived, but it's use in politics was still organisation home pages, discussion groups and conspiracy theories. Candidlist may not have been the first effective totally online UK political campaign, but it was one of the first. The second reason is that it had a profound effect on the Conservative Party as the Eurosceptic selection committees had a source of information on how pro-EU the candidates in front of them really were, so it was quite a bit harder to simply make the right noises at the selection committee. Some would be MPs dropped out and others never got that much further, and this had a longer term effect in that many people found it hard to get the first "hopeless seat" that they often needed to be bloodied before fighting a more hopeful seat. Although the Candidlist project was gone by the 2010 election it created an atmosphere where doctrinaire (rather than opportunistic) scepticism towards the EU was more acceptable among Tory MPs and was virtually compulsory amongst candidates. David Cameron, who was seeking a safe seat at the time, spent a long time trying to get a prized "Eurosceptic" listing on Candidlist - https://www.seangabb.co.uk/europe-the-gabb-cameron-correspondence/ ; this was talked about a bit in Michael Ashcroft's biography of Cameron.

There's a list of news articles mentioning Candidlist, albeit stored by the (resurrected) Candidlist server, here.

If Candidlist had made its mark in 2010 rather than 2001 then I'm fairly sure it would have had a (probably by now inactive) Wikipedia page devoted to it, due to it's perceived "behind the scenes" influence on the Conservative Party, but recentism is very prevalent on Wikipedia.

So I'd keep this page, but not for the reasons that the subject of this page would appreciate.

JASpencer (talk) 17:18, 15 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@JASpencer: Per this post on User:seangabb's talk page, can you confirm that you do not know him personally? L.R. Wormwood (talk) 17:58, 15 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I knew him, but last met him in person around eight years ago (and that itself was after a five year gap). I'm linked on Facebook, but he didn't ask me to "rescue" his page or anything if that's the allegation. The original edit in his Talk page was to explain that Wikipedia was not interested in what he was interested in, something I'd wish he'd kept to as I think that his political biography does meet notability standards (particularly on Candidlist), but his teaching or authorship or historical novels really does not. It must be noted that his political activism seems very much in the past, which is why there's little interest in that. JASpencer (talk) 09:53, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This looks like you're advocating an article for Candidlist? Do any of the sources you're referring to include substantial coverage of Gabb, rather than just Candidlist? Ralbegen (talk) 17:56, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what to make of this, so I've left a message on WP:BLPN. L.R. Wormwood (talk) 19:49, 16 March 2018 (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.