Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Warren_Chaney References

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. WP:SNOW The Bushranger _{One ping only} 07:46, 13 December 2015 (UTC) reply

Warren Chaney

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This one is going to be a bit difficult. At first glance at Chaney's article, you'd think that he was quite obviously notable. However if any of you have been following along with the Chaney stuff, you’ll be able to pick out the issues quite easily. For those who haven’t, here’s a basic background of what’s going on. For a more in-depth explanation, you can see Rhododendrites’s page about everything at User:Rhododendrites/Chaney.

Long story short, we’ve had a few sockpuppets come to Wikipedia to add information about Chaney. The major issues, however, is that almost all of the sources in his articles are unusable. Most of them are primary and many do not seem to actually exist in any place other than official websites for Chaney. Several of related articles have been brought to AfD and multiple people have questioned whether or not many of his claimed accomplishments actually happened.

For example, the articles have claimed that Chaney created a docudrama in 95 ( America: A Call to Greatness) with an extremely large and well known cast of various performers that includes Charleston Heston and Mickey Rooney, among others. Yet a search for sources brings up almost nothing to substantiate that this ever aired. There are things from Chaney claiming that the film aired and that he was filming, but not anything about the airing itself. That’s extremely fishy, given the amount of star power in the film as there’d likely be something out there. The same thing can be said for a TV series he supposedly wrote and directed for the military in the 50s. The series went on for over a hundred episodes, yet there’s barely even a whisper of its existence outside of things Chaney wrote himself.

The sources in Chaney’s article are very much the same. The vast majority of them are primary or go to Chaney’s website. A search for many of the sources doesn’t seem to show that the publications exist or wrote anything. I’m aware that it can be difficult to find sourcing that was pre-Internet, but the almost complete lack of sourcing makes it fairly difficult to really assert notability here. The only places that seem to really back him up on any of this is one newspaper, the Kentucky New Era, which is local to Chaney, and when they do claim some of his past accomplishments they’re always quoting Chaney and some have pointed out that they’re always saying about the exact same thing – which can mean that they’re just quoting the same press material that he’s put out and may not be doing any actual research into the claims. Few other places have covered him, unless you count the news stories about his legal issues relating to stock fraud.

There is some coverage for his film The Outing and I can find some reference to one or two of his works in various places, but the references aren’t really in-depth enough to firmly assert notability. At the same time there’s a huge issue with verifiability. There’s more than enough reason to suspect that a large portion of the claims could be a hoax and that this might have been something he’d been claiming for a while. Is it a hoax? I’m ultimately not sure, but there’s a very strong argument to be made that many of the claims here are either a hoax or they’re so overly inflated that they’re as good as a hoax. The only thing we can really guarantee is legit is the horror film he put out, The Outing. So the problem here is that even if we could assert notability for Chaney, there’s still too much in question here. I made a draft article, but even then we can’t guarantee that the claims are legit. I’m arguing for us to delete this article and leave it deleted until we can actually 100% verify that any of the claims are legit. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:13, 12 December 2015 (UTC) reply

See the following related AfDs for more information:

I'm also going to ping the following people since they can help explain anything that I may have left out. Again, while at first glance Chaney may appear notable, there's an extremely strong argument to be made that the majority of these claims are a hoax, to the point where we really can't trust anything that isn't through an extremely, extremely reliable source. Something that also adds on to the difficulty level is that these pages were made in 2011 and while there are some sources that mention these things, many of them were published after these articles were written, so we can't trust those either. I'm also going to ping the following people since they can help explain anything that I may have left out. @ Permstrump:, @ CactusWriter:, @ Dbrodbeck: @ Rhododendrites: @ Stevietheman: Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:18, 12 December 2015 (UTC) reply

Delete. For all of the reasons Tokyogirl79 said. I have more to say, but for now, the bottom line is that there's no notability when you take away all of the self-published articles and sources that based their information on interviews with Chaney (e.g. Kentucky New Era) or self-published articles (mainly Wikipedia, IMDb and americamovie.org). What's more, the user who created this article was told about the existing violations numerous times by multiple different users since it was first published in 2011. However he used deceitful tactics to evade detection as he made edits that further violated known policies and backlinked this page to many other articles and external websites based on fictitious claims of notoriety, medical expertise & credentials, fame and success. The confirmed sock puppet accounts were probably the least disruptive of his surreptitious edits that span across numerous articles on Wikipedia, including other BLPs, as well as all over the internet. Permstrump ( talk) 06:35, 12 December 2015 (UTC) reply
Delete per nom and the other posts above. A number of editors have put in a ton of work on tracking down all of the ins and outs of this. It is possible that all of their work could be gathered and a page created at Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia as a guide for others to learn how to track down things like this. It would also be a fitting record for those that have put in so much commendable effort. MarnetteD| Talk 07:24, 12 December 2015 (UTC) reply

That's not a bad idea - Rhododendrite's page could probably be a stand in for all of this since there are so many pages out there. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:35, 12 December 2015 (UTC) reply

Comment. For what it's worth, this is what I've got. The local coverage includes [1], [2], [3], and [4]. Reviews that mention him by name include [5], [6], [7], [8]. There are a few trivial mentions on Google Books that are not really worth highlighting, but you can do a search there yourself if you're curious. And, if you check Chaney's Wikipedia article, you can see a bunch of primary sources. NinjaRobotPirate ( talk) 08:44, 12 December 2015 (UTC) reply
Delete This whole WP:WALLEDGARDEN is fascinating as an academic exercise, but nothing in the Chaneyverse is notable. Indeed, some of the stuff, such as Magic Mansion seems to be an outright WP:HOAX. If we take out all of the haoxy content we are left with very little. Subject is not notable. Dbrodbeck ( talk) 11:17, 12 December 2015 (UTC) reply

Comment most of his books listed in the article, the vast majority, are self published using names that sound like real publishers. So he'd throw the word 'Oxford' or "Harcourt' to make them sound like academic publishers. But, they aren't they are his personal vanity presses. Dbrodbeck ( talk) 13:21, 12 December 2015 (UTC) reply

Delete and WP:TNT isn't strong enough, as this is a resume built from a web of deceit. Previous arguments are sound, although I would note that the supposed TV series Magic Mansion "aired" in the 1960s. In the final analysis, this person is not notable, and won't be until the press widely reports on this hoax he (and possibly some close associates) perpetrated against the Wikipedia and entertainment databases (and beyond). Perhaps in the end that is the notoriety he has sought. Anyway, I have to say that in my 11 1/2 years of being a Wikipedian, this is the only biography where I initially thought "this is too fantastical to be true" but with such an overwhelming presentation of citations, I was feeling blown away at the prospect of peeling this fat onion. Thankfully, what has developed is an intelligent, persistent crowd-debunking of this walled garden. I may have more to say as this proceeds. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk •
Work} 12:30, 12 December 2015 (UTC) reply
Delete and Salt per WP:BLP policy and a failure to meet our core principle of verifiability. I agree with Tokygirl79's nomination statement. Although there are a few accomplishments by Chaney that can be verified, the lack of significant coverage in independent reliable sources will not pass the general notability requirements. Furthermore, the systemic seeding of dubious (if not outright fraudulent) Wikipedia entries by SPA accounts over several years has created problems of Circular reporting. And the creation of hyped, promotional and self-published outside sources by Chaney or associates has probably poisoned the well for reconstructing a future page on Chaney. For that reason, I would suggest Salting the article so that an administrative review would be necessary before any page is recreated. — CactusWriter ^(talk) 18:37, 12 December 2015 (UTC) reply
Delete more or less per Tokyogirl79. This is a complicated one, but the closer one looks, the more this is an exemplary WP:TNT scenario. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:05, 12 December 2015 (UTC) reply
Delete the article is incredible. As in not credible. Sources either fail Verification, don't exist, are utterly unreliable, or exaggerated. I've looked into this enough to endorse nuking any article identified as part of the Chaneyverse. The socks involved in creating these articles have been actively deceptive. NOTHING related to these articles can be trusted without skeptically scrutinizing each source in detail. The work that has gone into manufacturing this Chaneyverse is staggering. Alsee ( talk) 00:48, 13 December 2015 (UTC) reply

I think that salting is an excellent idea. I'm not opposed to an article about Chaney at some point in the future and heck, I already have a stub in my userspace. However the actions by the SPAs (be they Chaney, someone he hired, or someone else entirely) have pretty much stripped him and almost every source out there of any credibility as far as we're concerned. I don't even know that we can trust the local paper because there's a little bit of a COI there since most local sources want to say nice things about someone from their hometown. Ideally they'd have done their research and verified everything, but honestly... we can't guarantee this, especially since they're really the only place that's actually talked about any of these accomplishments. That sends up a huge red flag. I suppose we can always try to contact the military organization about the show and see if they can verify it, but that will take time. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:01, 13 December 2015 (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.