Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Martin Meenan

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. Courcelles 07:16, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Martin Meenan

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

Unable to find any reliable sources verify the contents on this unreferenced WP:BLP, noes not pass WP:CREATIVE or WP:GNG. Based on the article I suspect he has written a school play or two and his students honored him with this article, which would be nice but does not meet our notability guidelines. —J04n(talk page) 01:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Poetry-related deletion discussions. —J04n(talk page) 01:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Northern Ireland-related deletion discussions. —J04n(talk page) 01:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. —J04n(talk page) 01:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —J04n(talk page) 01:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete it looks like the situation isn't quite as dire as Jo4n makes out, but neither is it good either. Appears to have written a short film in 1995 and some of Baldi (radio), though it's of course possible that's someone else of the same name. Basically, he appears to be just what the article says he is: a schoolteacher who does some writing on the side. And there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever, but it isn't enough to get in an encyclopedia. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 02:04, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep. Anyone can hold a job and claim to be a writer, but Martin Meenan has a better claim that most people. Everybody's Gone appears to have scooped an award at the Chicago film festival (unfortunately I can't fully verify this), Baldi (radio) was a major series on radio 4 that ran for five years (although Meenan only contributed three episodes over three years) and a Google search suggests he's written other plays that appeared on Radio 4's Afternoon Play. Not hugely impressive, but I'd say he scrapes it. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 08:31, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: no sources (and 'Find' hits seem to be mainly for an unrelated Martin Meenan, and offer no insight into this one), and no indication that he's done anything relevant to WP:CREATIVE. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 11:54, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand why you think the Ghits are probably of an unrelated Martin Meenan. The vast majority relate to a writer of radio drama. It's not unusual for writers to write for more than one medium (in this case possibly short film and radio), and perfectly normal for radio drama writers - even writers with a series of successful works under their belt - to have day jobs. I know that that notability has to be verified, but neither do I think we should by default assume any evidence of notability is probably of someone else. Happy to consider any other evidence either way. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 18:21, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because I'm fairly sure he's not a Massachusetts politician (which is who the two news hits & one of the book hits are about -- I don't generally look to closely at web-hits, as they're too-frequently unreliable). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 18:24, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

True, but this article from The Times is about a writer, as is this article in The Guardian. Whether that's enough is up for debate, but those sources are as reliable as you can get. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 18:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would dispute your characterisation of either piece as an "article" -- they are both simply a newspaper's 'radio picks of the day' (with, in each case the Meenan radio play being only one of two picks). The first only mentions Meenan in passing, though does give a short (and enthusiastic) review of the radio play. The second again only mentions Meenan in passing, but only gives a short, three sentence, thumbnail of the radio play. "Significant coverage" this ain't. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 04:05, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: No, this isn't the politician Marty MeeHan, who was a congressman from my state for over a decade. That being said, I agree with Hrafn, and am trying not to get increasingly testy with the tendency of Keep proponents at AfD to presume that the GNG (which clearly and explicitly states that sources must describe the subject "in significant detail") kicks over for any casual mention of the subject's name. Look: a 5000-page review of a play by the most prominent literary critic alive and published on the front page of the New York Times, describing it as the greatest work ever penned by mortal man, does not support the notability of the author if it doesn't discuss the author in significant detail. Period. If it doesn't, the reliability of the sources do not matter. The length at which it discusses the derivative work does not matter. Allegations that he may have won some kind of award don't matter. The duration of a show for which he wrote a couple of eps doesn't matter. Without sources which discuss Meenan - not his works - in significant detail, an article on him cannot be sustained. Ravenswing 16:48, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The only thing I could find to attest to his playwriting abilities was this, which mentions him only trivially. And without some sort of national award or other recognition for his grammar school teaching, that also doesn't do anything to show notability. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:59, 22 November 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.