Squeezing one more out and How to delete a page on Wikipedia

It all started with a mess of newspaper articles that I just can't get myself to recycle.  I just finished up James Underdown's Wikipedia page and have some leftover articles I didn't use.  I don't like just filing things away somewhere as I doubt I will get back to it anytime soon, usually it just gets covered up with more stuff.  Well reading through one article by the Chicago Tribune from 2007 I was struck by some really great quotes by the author of the article Larry Potash.

I had used one of the quotes on the main psychic page, but I want to use more of this article.  Pure gold, and I hate to just toss it.  Thankfully I found the article on-line so you all can follow along.  This is an example of working backwards.  Start with the noteworthy article and then try to find a place to put it.

I had used the beginning of the article for the psychic page.

Concerning the television psychics, James Underdown states that testing psychics in a studio setting is difficult as there are too many areas to control, the psychic could be getting help from anyone on the set. The editor controls everything, they can make a psychic look superior or ridiculous depending on direction from the producer. In an Independent Investigation Group IIG expose of John Edward and James Van Praagh they discovered that what was actually said on the tape day, and what was broadcast to the public were "substantially different in the accuracy. They're getting rid of the wrong guesses... Once you pull back the curtain and see how it's done, it's not impressive at all.

But love this part.

Psychics don't seem to rely on their "powers" to detect their own cancer -- they go to the doctor, like the rest of us. They don't predict when the train will arrive -- they look at the train schedule. And even psychics (along with everyone else) can guess correctly now and then. But under scientific scrutiny, and incorporating statistical probability, no psychic has met the test.

When producers see that psychics aren't making the grade, I fear they may lower the bar in their testing methods or simply elevate the psychics' performance through creative editing.

In the end, the psychic phenomenon you see on TV will only be an illusion, much like it is in real life.

Great isn't it?  But where to put it?  I can't add more to the psychic page, that would just be too much, besides I would really like to quote him, and that is Really too much.

So I reread the article again and realized that its about a TV show called America's Psychic Challenge.
 Do they have a Wikipedia page?  Yep they do.  (while searching for this page I found another one Paranormal Challenge I'm going to save that for another blog I think).

Looks like the winner from the first (and apparently only season) was Michelle Whitedove, who is not noteworthy enough to have her own Wikipedia page BTW.  ("yes" I guess I am turning into a bit of a snob, but it seems to me that someone who can communicate with dead people should be changing the world of science as we know it) Looks like she won $100K so maybe she is just being really frugal and making the money last?

This page seems to be neutral enough, but a stub.  So what to do?  Is it even worth the effort?  I'm sure you know the answer already, of course it is relevant.  If it is on Wikipedia then even if they receive zero hits, it still needs to be done.  Tomorrow might be the day that it receives thousands of hits.  Actually this page gets about 1,000 a month.

Noticing that there is a wiki hyperlink to this person Jackie Barrett who was the runner up.  More on Jackie later.

Now I'm reviewing the page more in detail.  I think that the present tense should be changed to past tense.  Also note that this is here List of prizes for evidence of the paranormal and no one seems to have noticed or cared.  Looking at the discussion page someone in 2008 wrote that they edited to eliminate the awful pro-bias of the article.  And someone in 2010 removed a link to a broken URL.  That's all the conversation going on there, so I don't feel any need to write there with my proposed changes.  Doubt anyone would get back to me in a timely manner.

So after playing with it for a bit here is what I came up with. 

Reporter Larry Potash writing for the Chicago Tribune states that paranormal reality shows like APC are cheap to produce which means we will probably see more of them. Potash contacted James Underdown from the Independent Investigation Group IIG who says that the TV set is a horrible place to test a psychic. There are too many things to control, you can't know if the psychic is receiving help from an audience member or someone working on the crew. Potash believes that psychics are not so psychic when the cameras are off, they "go to the doctor... look at train schedules" just like everyone else. Psychics sometimes do guess correctly, "but under scientific scrutiny, and incorporating statistical probability no psychic has ever met the test". He worries that when producers see that the psychic isn't showing spectacular results, they may lower the testing bar or "elevate the psychic's performance through creative editing". Underdown states "Once you pull back the curtain and see how it's done, it's not impressive at all."

This is Wikipedia, if you can write this better please do so, won't hurt my feelings at all.   I took the same citation from the psychic page, changed the access date to today (because I did access it).

On to Jackie Barrett's page.  Yikes!  The discussion page says that this is written like an advertisement, boy is that true.  The citation that states she has worked with law enforcement is from her own blog.  Another reference is to her website.  There is a critical heading, but it is empty.

Here is the person who wrote the page.  23:01, 24 November 2007 Lyndela (talk | contribs) (4,529 bytes) (←Created page with ''''Jackie Barrett''' (White Serpent) is a psychic medium, spiritual healer, author, and humanitarian.[[http://www.mylifetime.com/on-tv/sh...')

The next edit is from someone who wants to have it deleted the same day it was posted.  23:05, 24 November 2007 Tiggerjay (talk | contribs) m (4,540 bytes) (Requesting speedy deletion (CSD A7). using TW) (undo)

Then right after that there is this edit.  23:21, 24 November 2007 Irishguy (talk | contribs) (4,310 bytes) (removed speedy, reference cleanup. Notability asserted) (undo)  

I'm going to look into it a bit further and see what was going on.  That seemed to be happening really quickly.  Well Irishguy has retired, but he lists all the pages he created and Jamy Ian Swiss was one of those pages.  Interesting, and he is the person who removed Jackie Barrett's page from deletion.  Tiggerjay, is into editing anything Disney and edits here and there.  The page creator is Lyndela, who does not have a editor page.  

Looking over the page again I note that there are only 5 references.  One is her personal website, one is her blog, one is a video that no longer exists, one is a reference on a website showing that she has been on a ghost hunt and lastly the only credible one is the reference to the show America's Psychic Challenge.  And LOL just clicked on that link and it does not exist anymore.  Boy it sure helps to check out the references they leave.  

So as far as I'm concerned this page should be deleted.  She is getting 100-400 hits a month.  Not very noteworthy for someone who is psychic.  Now how to delete a page?  No idea. 

Took me awhile to find this instruction page.  Guess you all are going to be following me through this process.  It says that there are 3 steps.  Leave this template {{Tfd|{{subst:PAGENAME}}}} on the discussion page you want removed.  Okay so far so good.  


Next I follow a link and put this at the top of the page


{{subst:Tfd2|TemplateName|text=Why you think the template should be deleted. ~~~~}}

Here is what I wrote. 

Template:Jackie Barrett

Template:Jackie Barrett (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs|delete)

The page has only 5 sources One is her personal website, one is her blog, one is a video that no longer exists, one is a reference on a website showing that she has been on a ghost hunt and lastly the only credible one is the reference to the show America's Psychic Challenge that she was on and the link is broken. This person does not fit Notability standards. Her one claim to fame is that she was the runner up on the aforementioned APC, the winner of that show and the other contestants do not have Wikipedia pages. The show host John Burke does not even have a WP page.
(sorry this is my first attempt at asking for a deletion, I see that it is in red when I preview my edit, but can't figure out how to fix it, I'm trying to do it just like the Big Sky one below)Sgerbic (talk) 05:49, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Here on this blog it looks like the links are all in blue, there when I click preview there is a lot of red.  I tried over and over and could not figure it out.

For my future reference (and possibly yours) here is the html of what I wrote.

 ==[[Template:Jackie Barrett]]==

{{Tfd2|Jackie Barrett|text=The page has only 5 sources}} One is her personal website, one is her blog, one is a video that no longer exists, one is a reference on a website showing that she has been on a ghost hunt and lastly the only credible one is the reference to the show [[America's Psychic Challenge]] that she was on and the link is broken. This person does not fit Notability standards.  Her one claim to fame is that she was the runner up on the aforementioned APC, the winner of that show and the other contestants do not have Wikipedia pages. The show host John Burke does not even have a WP page.

(sorry this is my first attempt at asking for a deletion, I see that it is in red when I preview my edit, but can't figure out how to fix it, I'm trying to do it just like the Big Sky one below)~~~~



Now I have to go to the user page who first launched the page and let them know what I'm doing.  Lyndela does not have a user page, but I went to the discussion page for her non-existent user page and left the message that I have requested its deletion and why.  It appears that I went to the right place because the other time in 2007 someone left her the same message (but more official).  

At no time did Lyndela respond.  Wonder if she has done any editing other than this page?  I clicked on the "contrubutions" next to her user name on the history of Jackie Barrott's page.  Here is what I got.  Looks like she has only made three edits in total. 


 Pretty interesting page that user page.  Put any editor's name in that box and you can see all the edits they have been making.  


So now I'm done.  We have been learning together tonight. All this just because of a few sentences from a newspaper article I wanted to squeeze one more edit from.   I'll report back on what happens to the deletion of Jackie Barrett's page.  




This just in from a WP editor... 

You chose the wrong deletion method. (Not a surprise. There are a gazillion of them) WP:TFD is Templates for deletion. You were wanting an article deleted. So you wanted one of the three deletion systems that can delete articles. WP:AFD, WP:PROD, and WP:CSD. Those are Articles For Deletion, Proposed Deletion, and Speedy Deletion. The one closest to the TFD that you tried to use is AFD. Your TFD debate was removed from TFD soon after you entered it, but was started as an AFD discussion for you. (Wikipedians can be quite helpful when they want to be. :) ) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jackie Barrett is the link to the full AFD discussion.

For future reference, the differences in the three article deletion methods are: CSD is Speedy deletion. It is for extremely limited criteria. If the situation does not exactly meet one of the CSD criteria, then speedy deletion *cannot* be used. OTOH, it is the fastest criteria. Admins like me can apply it at will if we find an article that we think meets the criteria. And anyone can tag for speedy deletion, and an admin will deal with it fairly rapidly. This is what you saw in the older history of the article you want deleted. Someone thought that the article met a speedy deletion criteria, tagged it as such, but someone else (usually but not always an admin) came along and disagreed and declined the CSD deletion.

In this particular case the reason was Notability. The bar to avoid speedy deletion is much much lower than the bar to avoid it in a full debate. An article really only needs to assert notability in some vague way to avoid speedy notability deletion.

Next deletion method is WP:PROD. Prod is intended for uncontroversial deletions. You can use (almost) any reasoning in your PROD deletion request. The key though is that it only takes a single protest of a PROD deletion to invalidate PROD deletion for that article. PROD is thus fairly simple, but if anyone disagrees, they are free to remove the PROD deletion notice.
Last is AFD. Articles for Deletion. This is where you launch a full deletion debate on the article. This is what you tried to do with your deletion attempt. Except for using the wrong system, I think you made a pretty good deletion argument. :)

There are also deletion systems for Templates (WP:TFD), Categories (WP:CFD), Redirects (WP:RFD), Files/Images(WP:FFD), and Misc (WP:MFD). I likely missed a few in this list. So there's no real surprise that you missed the correct one on your first try. :) - TexasAndroid (talk) 21:40, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

 
UPDATE on Jan 9, 2012

Today is clean out my computer day.  Went to Facebook and realized that there are "hidden" messages there that I have never seen.  One was from Jackie Barrett (who is calling herself Joanne, but posting from Jackie Barrett's FB account)

Here is what she told me the responses...

Sept 25, 2011

"Hello, I am writing you in regards to Jackie Barett's wiki page it has come to my attention that you have marked the page for deletion I would like to address this. If you are not aware Jackie is the author of 2 published books , holds both a captains badge and FBI badge for her work she has done on cold cases, on the tv show Medium P.I the captain of cold cases Sean Crowley of NYPD stated that Jackie has worked with him on hundreds of cases. She also was featured on AE special titled the Amityville The Final testament , has appeared on an episode on WE tv Secret Lives Of Woman. She has a long list of media appearances so to correct you in your statement that the only notable apparance was Americas Psychic Challenge you are not correct in this statement. So for future reference before trying to delete an informative wiki page about a person that is notable you should research further. Thank you Joanne"

my response today...

"Just now noticing this Joanne (or are you Jackie?)

Wikipedia does not do all the work looking for the citations. If the notoriety and citations are not on the page then the page has to be deleted.

The problem is that the page was not informative. You can't just make these claims on a FB message page, there must be evidence of what you are saying.

Also all discussions like this one should be done publicly on the deletion page (which is now closed) or on my talk page on Wikipedia.

I would love to see this captians badge and FBI badge. Is there a URL that can prove they exist? If so it will be the first time I've ever heard of a psychic receiving some kind of recognition from the police."

Her response...


"Well you obviously have not done your research have fun policing wiki lol"

As usual the psychic is making a claim that they can not (or will not?) back up.  People have to understand that on Wikipedia and when trying to make a claim elsewhere you have to back it up.  Some seem to think that the burden to prove something does not exist relies on the skeptic.  Why can't they understand this?  If you are making a claim, then it has to be backed up in order for it to be taken seriously.

I don't want to have a back and forth with this person who isn't even clever enough to hide her identity on FB.  Maybe I should look into this Sean Crowley of NYPD person?  Here he is now as a PI.  It gets more interesting, here she is appearing with Crowley for some radio show.  I'm thankful that Jackie/Joanne brought this to my attention.