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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 no consensus to delete. Defaults to keep. W.marsh 18:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

David Salo

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David Salo (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

First, I'm having trouble categorizing him. Is he notable because he's a linguist who happened to work on a hit movie, or is he notable because he worked in the film industry as a language consultant? The one extant independent, reliable source (the Detroit News article now redlinks) suggests the latter but doesn't demonstrate the extent of notability required by WP:BIO for creative professionals. On top of that, only 10% of the content of the article is supported by the source; the remainder is some combination of unverified and possibly original research.

In September, discussion was started in the talk page about the dearth of sources, and none have come forward. The article was prodded today, and I agree with the message used there (other than that I'd say "nearly devoid"): "This article has remained devoid of reliable sources for nearly a year. The fact that even supposed "scholarly reviews" of the subject's work lead to Yahoo!Groups posts implies he does not satisfy notability guidelines." Fails WP:BIO criteria for creative professionals, fails verifiability. —C.Fred (talk) 05:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is it required to fit in only one of those categories? Why can't someone be notable for a combination of reasons? Why can't he be notable, for that matter, for reasons that WP:BIO fails to exhaustively list?
Can you be very specific about what facts you believe are unsupported assertions? Remember, WP:RS and WP:V are meant to uphold the idea that everything in WP is something that the user could, if they felt like it, verify by using some other source. You're not being specific about what it is you think is possibly false about the article.
As for the scarequotes on "scholarly reviews" and Yahoo!Groups, the poster in question might not realize that said Y!G is a moderated forum specifically for people who study this sort of thing. So I fail to see what the problem with such a source is exactly.
Are you or are you not asserting that some of the claims in the article are or may be false? Please explain. Sai Emrys ¿? ✍ 05:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reluctant Delete - The subject has a very low level of notability, hence the low level of verifiability. Also per WP:BIO and WP:PROF the article doesn't seem to stand up. With regards to Yahoo Groups, regardless of it's moderation (who by, to what standards ie/ low notability) it's still fails WP:EL and has a distinct smell of WP:COAT about it... Shot info 06:28, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
All of what you cite (including WP:NN) are general guidelines, not rules. WP:EL isn't even that, it's a *style* guideline. And you haven't explained how it has anything to do with whether some particular fact(s) (which ones?) in the article are or are not verifiable. Sai Emrys ¿? ✍ 08:55, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Feel free to add your own Keep vote if you feel that the article is worth keeping. Your comments are not going to make me change my opinions. But even better, how about you improve the article? Shot info 09:49, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is supposed to be a *discussion*, not a vote. As such, I am trying to get at what seem to be the flaws in your argument, so that either they dissolve as being unsupported, or are better explained and therefore more convincing, rather than being a vague "I don't like it". Sai Emrys ¿? ✍ 20:42, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Being the "world's leading expert on [Tolkien's elvish languages]" is by itself a valid assertion to notability. So is being a linguistic consultant to the Lord of the Rings, due to the importance of linguistics in that work (remember that Tolkien was a linguist too). He also has published a book on the subject with quite a few scholary reviews[1], as well several scholary articles.[2]. As for secondary sources, he has been covered by several major media outlets, including the BBC, the AP, Fox News, the Daily Herald, the Chicago Sun Times, the Saint Louis Dispatch, and the Boston Globe [3]. To me he seems to fulfil WP:N, WP:RS and WP:V--victor falk 08:53, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep As an amateur Tolkien linguist myself I must say that David Salo is one of the names that keep popping up all the time. If I'd have to name the persons with most renown in the linguistic society focused on the languages created by Tolkien, Mr. Salo would definately be on the list. He has also published a book A Gateway To Sindarin: A Grammar of an Elvish Language from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings already mentioned by victor falk, which should alone be enough to keep him in Wikipedia. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 10:36, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - the book and the film work satisfy notability in my opinion. Carcharoth 10:48, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Info - I don't edit (or vote on) this article, so just some information for consideration: The 'missing' Detroit News article was actually an Associated Press piece printed in hundreds of newspapers and thus can still be found on many other sites. Different articles can be found here, here, here, and in various other places. Also, his IMDB page lists four credits (the movies and a tv documentary) - which could also be confirmed or sourced to the productions themselves. Finally, the "Yahoo! Groups" site with the reviews is moderated (and some of the reviews written) by the linguists entrusted with Tolkien's unpublished papers on Middle-earth languages. They are, like Salo, widely recognized experts in the field - though of an 'opposing camp'. --CBD 12:44, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep He has had enough media coverage to be considered notable. Epbr123 15:18, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Clearly notable as an author and scholar and for his work on the "Rings" movies. -- Mattinbgn\talk 21:54, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Although he has authored his first book, there is insufficient material on him (including the aforementioned verifiable source material) to warrant an article. His role as a consultant on Jackson's LOTR has garnered some publicity, but as the AfD poster notes, it is not clear how much of this is due to the notoriety of the films. If more editors would come forward to contribute material, it might be appropriate to keep this article, but otherwise I think that the existence of an encyclopedic article is somewhat premature for someone as relatively early in his career as Mr. Salo. Banazir 01:10, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

*Delete Salo is unfortunately only noteworthy for his verbal abuse of animals, hatred of figs, and his obsessive and unaccountable love for the movie "Dark Crystal." None of these seem particularly worthy of note. Sword n sorcery 01:47, 13 November 2007 (UTC) struck as irrelevant DGG (talk) 03:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete A pointer to IMDB would be enough. Although Medievalists have informally taken up the banner of Tolkien scholarship, anyone can call themselves an authority on Tolkien. (With mixed results, see David Day.) Quick: name the person who consulted on _Stargate_! Does that make them 'notable'?-55 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.173.132.221 (talk) 01:48, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I don't want to denigrate or downplay the work that Salo has done and is likely to do, but realistically, I'm not sure he's done enough to justify an entry. His major area of notability is his work on Jackson's LOTR movies, and they're getting further and further in the past all the time. Call me crazy, but somehow I can't imagine that his graduate work on Tocharian will spawn a bestseller and make him more notable. FeatherD 02:48, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
comment For a scholar, attaining a best seller is not necessary--he will merely need to become an important authority on the particular object of his study,. I agree he has not attained this status yet. DGG (talk) 04:38, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
comments Good point. I was comparing apples to oranges there. His scholarly notability is next to nil at this point, since Tolkien language students are all amateurs (doesn't that sound snide?), and he is not yet established as an authority in Tocharian. Which means that any notability stems primarily from the film work, and that is at best a one-line footnote. FeatherD 13:02, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
comments. Amateur scientists. Oh yeah, what a worthless bunch. It makes me think of guys like Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Fermat, Lavoisier... come to think of it, pretty much every scientist before the 19th century. If you think that "tenured = scholarly", you're wrong, wrong, wrong.--victor falk (talk) 16:14, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comment - the discussion above about his professional work is not relevant. The article has never been about his work on Tocharian, but always about his work on Sindarin. There are plenty of sources documenting this. The only question is whether there is enough for a stand-alone bio, or whether the material is best folded into a topic article. Category:Tolkien linguistic studies contains similar articles. See also the parent category Category:Tolkien studies. If all the Tolkien linguistics articles were merged into one article, that might start to get unwieldy. The point here though is that the only two realistic options on the table are merge or keep. If you delete, you still need a redirect for people who will search for information on David Salo, and the information here is verifiable. It is purely the location and extent of the coverage that should be in question, not whether to delete it all outright. Carcharoth 13:30, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think you nailed it: "It is purely the...extent of the coverage that should be in question." The article as it stands now is overloaded with analysis and unverified personal information, and that's what I object to as non-encyclopedic. Yes, I know, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but I think an article for Salo laid out more along the lines of Marc Okrand (Klingon) would be appropriate. If the consensus becomes keep and prune somewhat severely, I will support that decision. —C.Fred (talk) 21:52, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, that's the problem. It doesn't look at all overloaded to me. A short, but still informative article that only takes a few minutes to read. Needs more verification, but then so do lots of articles. Need for verification is not a reason for deletion, as I'm sure people here know (though I note you put "fails verifiability" in your deletion nomination). By all means feel free to edit the article more towards what you feel it should say, and remove any unsourced statements you are not happy with, but withdrawing your nomination might be best if you agree that deletion is not needed. Editing and merging can happen without involving AfD. And AfD shouldn't be used to threaten deletion as a way to force people to verify articles. That's what ref and fact tags are for. Carcharoth 00:53, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh, but the fact tags have been there for a while. So either the Community wishes the article not to be improved, or it doesn't have the information at hand. It is odd that there are many editors that have access to the pertinent information (above) who edit in projectspace, but are reluctant to edit in articlespace. AfD is what happens when a unreferenced article (ie/ one with ref and fact tags) kind of sits in articlespace for too long. Shot info 01:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And if I go and edit the article now, does that invalidate the 'delete' comments above? I've always been in favour of a period of editing being allowed before the AfD opens: "you have a week to improve this article before it goes to AfD". Trying to edit an article during an AfD is possible, but either ends up being a waste of time, or leads to a relisting, or leads to a DRV if the closing admin fails to notice what is going on (ie. the article improves after most of the comments have been made). Carcharoth 02:27, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, such a comment was placed on the article's talk page back in September, and nothing came of it. Finally a prod was placed on it, and when that was taken off, I sent it here. —C.Fred (talk) 04:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. I see some attempt is now being made to improve it. I added a reference to published review of the book. My point here is that most of the material is salvageable to be merged under other titles and topics. If I do that after the AfD is closed, I'm forced to either undelete to preserve GFDL when merging, or to copy the relevant material into other articles and breach the GFDL. And my point still stands - David Salo is a useful redirect, so why not preserve the article history at the same time? I still stand by my assertion that the only options here should be merge or keep. The alternative is to merge the material now (crediting this article in the edit summary) and also leave it here. At some point, a better overview article needs to be written on the field of Tolkien linguistics. As I pointed out above, Category:Tolkien linguistic studies would be the starting point for this. Piecemeal deletion of articles from that category impedes efforts to write such an article. Can you see the point I'm trying to make here? There is nothing wrong with the material in the article - it is just the location and presentation. It is quite possible the article should be about this person's work in the context of the larger field, rather than about the person. AfD is a very blunt (and frankly destructive) tool for dealing with the kind of rewrites and pruning and possible merges needed here. If you were impatient with the lack of progress being made, you could have looked around for help at one of the WikiProjects listed on the talk page. Articles are on watchlists, but if talk page posts get no response, why not try one more alternative before AfD? Carcharoth 11:45, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist? - since the last keep/delete comment above, the article has changed substantially, with numerous references added and some reorgansiation. See the changes here. I think this is enough to at least justify a relist or default to keep (if no consensus). Carcharoth 00:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It should be noted that a majority of the references added are dubious RS' and the current discussion is about how low we have to put the threshold of sources in order to "match" the low level of notability of the subject matter. In other words we are accepting mailing lists, SPS' and personal websites due to the nature of the subject matter, because the subject just isn't notable... Shot info 01:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I count six reliable sources being used: Wisconsin State Journal, Tolkien Studies (x2), Phoenix New Times, Tyalië Tyelelliéva, and David Salo (the source for a quote from David Salo, from a post to the elfing mailing list). The latter is acceptable because it is being used to source a quote from the subject himself. The Ardalambion reference is to an online publication of Salo's material, and the earlier Tyalië Tyelelliéva reference is also to a work by Salo. It is perfectly acceptable to uses sources like these to verify the works in question. That only leaves the reviews, three to a moderated mailing list, and the other one to a personal website that may pass the 'expert' clause. Given all this, how does deletion help here? Carcharoth 03:56, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep or merge-- "The topic of an article should be notable, or "worthy of notice". This concept is distinct from "fame", "importance", or "popularity" ". "The person must have been the subject of published[1] secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject".From WP:BIO.Tttom1 (talk) 16:48, 16 November 2007 (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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