Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sarah Austin

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 keep. (non-admin closure) Tim Song (talk) 22:34, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sarah Austin

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Non-notable individual. Fails notability requirement of having any significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject -- the only reliable sources mention the subject only briefly, in list-form, and the vast majority of sources are for the subject's own pages (website, blog, Youtube Channel, Justin.tv channel, Flixwagon channel, etc.) This page also has the trappings of being an autobiography. - Kitegenic (talk) 02:49, 20 December 2009 (UTC) — Kitegenic (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

Maintenance Note: This person is not related to Sarah Austin Barry and there has not been any prior AfDs for this person so I moved this back to first nomination status. --w^L^{<speak·check>} 02:32, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Since the article's history reveals three dozen people worked on this article over the past two years, the notion that it "has the trappings of being an autobiography" doesn't compute. Austin's show is sponsored by Virgin American Airlines, Perkett PR and TechCrunch. She has interviewed Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom, Richard Branson, Steve Wozniak and others. She has been seen on CNBC, CBS News and ABC News. I'm going to add a line about the book Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success (2009) which profiles her in a chapter of "success stories". Pepso2 (talk) 20:33, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: If there is a chapter in a major book dedicated to what she does, then that's enough to determine notability. I also doubt the validity of this nomination, being that it was created by a WP:SPA who registered the day of this nomination and only posts to about this nomination. --w^L^{<speak·check>} 22:07, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: To keep this as objective as possible, she is indeed mentioned on page 207/208 in the book Me 2.0 and you can view the passage here [1]. If that is enough for notability, then you can keep this article. I personally don't believe it is nor do I believe being a self-employed journalist and having interviewed major personalities is grounds for notability either. If this article is kept, the article needs to be rewritten to remove the vast amount of original research (again, the majority of sources link to her own pages) as well as severely toning down the editorializing ("In the tradition of Paul Krassner, she sometimes combines legitimate news coverage with personal journalism and prankster activities"). - Kitegenic (talk) 22:30, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote the line about Krassner because wearing Optimus Prime headgear to a McDonald's drivethrough is not something one would expect Katie Couric to do. So to compare Austin to Couric would be misleading, but Krassner rose to fame as someone who combined legit journalism, personal journalism, humor, hoaxes and pranks. Pepso2 (talk) 22:59, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - I have found enough reliable sources in regards to her positions with national TV shows as well as coverage by mulitple tech press agencies to determine that she at least marginally falls within the notability policy. As far as the WP:OR and WP:SELFPUB, AfD is not an alternative to cleanup. --w^L^{<speak·check>} 01:48, 22 December 2009 (UTC) (updated 02:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC))[reply]
Note: The article under discussion here has been flagged for {{Rescue}} by the Article Rescue Squadron.

Delete: This woman is certainly not deserving of an article. Someone above showed remarkable restraint in saying that this article "has the trappings of being an autobiography". I first discovered Sarah Austin when watching some ridiculously vapid coverage of 2009's Intel Science competition, and was astonished to find a somewhat lengthy, certainly autobiographical wikipedia article. Being an internet reporter does not place one in the lexicon of sufficiently relevant subjects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.120.136.45 (talk) 05:56, 22 December 2009 (UTC) — 208.120.136.45 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

Note:The above IP's only two edits to Wikipedia as of this post are the above and a vandalism post to the subject's article. --w^L^{<speak·check>} 10:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. —w^L^{<speak·check>} 06:39, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Some cleanup is needed, but I see a sufficient number of sources available on her to support notability.--Milowent (talk) 05:06, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as per Pepso2 and Milowent. People do not "deserve" or fail to "deserve" Wikipedia articles particularly on the quality of their work. A person may be notable for "vapid coverage". In this case there seem to be quite a number of reliable sources that discuss Sarah Austin in a more than passing way, although not in immense depth. (Unfortunately, some of these sources are subject to link rot, and finding more enduring versions would be worthwhile for contributors. I just removed a ref to ABC news that no longer went anywhere relevant.) The Nicholas Cifuentes article and the Dan Schawbel book seem particularly persuasive to me. Interviewing celebrates may not automatically confer notability, but it does contribute to it, IMO. DES ^(talk) 15:45, 26 December 2009 (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.