Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rebecca Brown (Christian author)

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. Spartaz ^Humbug! 12:14, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Rebecca Brown (Christian author)

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BLP with incredibly weak sourcing, consisting of USENET posts, web comics, unattributed and unpublished PRIMARY material, etc. Does not meet WP:AUTHOR or GNG. Tgeairn (talk) 15:03, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 15:30, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. I did some quick research, and can find only various Christian blogs that mention this woman, most of whom seem to not think very highly of her. I couldn't find even one reliable secondary source that covers any of her supposed "best-selling" books. LHM^{ask me a question} 16:15, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete As per nom. A few mentions on assorted blogs but that's about it. Fails WP:GNG with no significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject and fails WP:AUTHOR no multiple independent periodical articles or reviews about her. Theroadislong (talk) 16:21, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete for lack of coverage, much less significant coverage, in reliable sources. Fails WP:NOTEBLP fails WP:AUTHOR. The book The Gifts of the Body (Harper-Collins, 1994) is by a different Rebecca Brown. --Bejnar (talk) 18:43, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I agree with Tgeairn. Two of the current sources are self published and the third is a comic strip that is not RS does not mention the BLP as author. Even if it did it would still not be notable. Same as other editors, I also was unable to find any RS on this BLP. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 20:28, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per above - No evidence of notability, Fails GNG. –Davey2010 • (talk) 20:34, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Not notable per above. Despite having been a watcher of this article for several years, I cannot disagree with the above arguments and would not be upset if this article was simply deleted.Legitimus (talk) 21:50, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete fails GNG. - Cwobeel (talk) 23:22, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note: While this article is based on lousy sources (although I will quibble with those who say that a comic book is inherently one of them; had it actually contained the information that it was based on Brown's stories, it would have been a perfectly fine source for the claim it was supporting), there are better sources to be found on her. I leave it to others to evaluate if they are good enough, but here are a couple of the strongest ones Google Books finds:

Nelson's Illustrated Guide to Religions, published by Thomas Nelson (a major Christian publisher) - if the page is kept, there is useful information here.
Lure of the Sinister, published by NYU Press, which I assume is a university press. --Nat Gertler (talk) 02:50, 29 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Neither of these sources offers significant coverage of her. LHM^{ask me a question} 03:28, 29 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it depends upon what one considers significant. Lure of the Sinister pages 196–198 contains a great deal about her delusions; and Nelson's Illustrated Guide to Religions page 616 shows why she lost her medical license. But overall they don't add up to significant coverage. --Bejnar (talk) 06:03, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Starting from the links in a Watchtower page that I decided was not RS, I found she has quite a few mentions in books, particularly on the impact of US evangelicals on the "deliverance" movement in Africa and in African diaspora communities, and at least two news mentions about her books and speaking. I created a Reception section using these, but could doubtless have found more book references, especially - I see above that others have. I believe she meets GNG and that the article now demonstrates that. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:21, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mere mentions like that in African Christianity: Its Public Role and Exporting the American Gospel: Global Christian Fundamentalism don't add much. The coverage in the Jamaica Gleaner is much more substantive, although it still seems to me that the total does not add up to the level of WP:NOTEBLP or WP:GNG coverage required, but YMMV. --Bejnar (talk) 15:49, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, multiple mentions, especially stating that the subject is well-known, in demand, or sells unusually well contribute to a claim of notability under the GNG or under WP:NAUTHOR, item 1. I had a look at the Medway book, The Lure of the Sinister, which does indeed devote several pages to her, and added it as a reference on her birth name and being a former physician; it also further documents the popularity of at least one of her books. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:38, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I need to point out that the actual PFO article at the Watch the Tower page is based on is from a real published journal that is housed in libraries and is considered reliable enough for the very books quoted above to cite it as a source. It should not be confused with the USENET post reprinted on the Answers in Action site.Legitimus (talk) 10:35, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete not sufficient sourcing to warrant an article Snuggums (talk / edits) 19:38, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep ~~Weak Keep~~ When I submitted a BLP for help, I did not intend for the article to be deleted, but offending material to be vetted. I think there are enough references (barely) to warrant an article stub, but if the consensus is delete, I am fine with that. Basileias (talk) 05:02, 2 October 2014 (UTC) Changed per Tomwsulcer's findings.[reply]
Keep. Coupla things don't add up. First, here's her book on Amazon: notice that it has 405 customer reviews. That's four hundred and five customer reviews, meaning, people are reading her books, maybe even buying them, casting spells to get them free from Amazon and doing devilish curses if they're late in coming. Sheesh. Another thing: her Wikipedia page, around here since 2008, gets 100 pageviews per day. There's some interesting commentary at RationalWiki. Another view in The Escapist online magazine. Some discussion here, plus mention here, some discussion here in a fringe publication, she's discussed here. So, what to make of all this? She's not mainstream, but kind of an occult splinter-offshoot Christian with a take on Satanism and witches that allows her to appeal to people who believe in that stuff, and she gets a lot of readers, but probably isn't taken seriously by mainstream media, and isn't taken seriously by mainline Christian press or churches either, so it is somewhat hard to find references that us Wikipedians will see as reliable (her relatively common name 'Rebecca Brown' makes searching rather difficult -- I used filters (such as "Satan" OR "demon" OR "Christian" OR "occult" OR "devil") to winnow out the other Rebecca Browns out there. So if she's deleted here at Wikipedia, it will be because Wikipedians don't regard her viewpoint, in which she says things like we must take up the power and authority that we now have through Jesus Christ and ‘cleanse ourselves’ of ‘filthiness’ or demons, as a valid viewpoint, and I think we need to keep her in Wikipedia, but say she's fringe-y.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 20:30, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Tomwsulcer for digging those out. Would you say that WP:NFRINGE covers this? If so, do these sources (or any of the existing ones) meet the bar there? Tgeairn (talk) 18:13, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: in addition to the number of reviews on Amazon, note the sales data. It is in the top 10,000 sellers at the moment, which, given that it is a a decades-old title, is impressive and suggests real ongoing interest. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:48, 4 October 2014 (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.