Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Penelope Trunk (2nd nomination)

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. Black Kite (t) (c) 01:03, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Penelope Trunk

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Fails WP:BIO and WP:GNG: although the article has references, they do not provide the "significant coverage" required to demonstrate notability per guidelines. ukexpat (talk) 14:38, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. — I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 16:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. — I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 16:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. — I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 16:26, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Four of the seven references are to the subject's own personal blog. Her main "claim to fame" seems to be that she received brief (and somewhat limited) national media attention for Tweeting about her miscarriage as it was happening. She has published one book, but even it doesn't seem too notable, as it is barely in the top 300,000 for sales on Amazon.com.
In the "Works" section of this article, it lists:

Yahoo! Finance - hasn't published anything there in about 3.5 years
Boston Globe - hasn't published anything there in a little over 3 years
Bankrate.com - a search of the site returns no results for "Penelope Trunk"

Her only other apparent bit of notability is that she briefly (one season, 18 years ago) played professional beach volleyball under the name Adrienne Roston, but her career appears to have been pretty non-notable.
There's no small number of people these days who have blogs with small to moderate readerships and/or brief, unremarkable athletic careers. Is Wikipedia going to have bios for all of them?
--Entrybreak (talk) 16:57, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I did a little more research on her. She has also written some fiction under the name Adrienne Eisen that she first self-published to the Internet, and then published in book form through a vanity press. My feeling is that this still doesn't bring her up the level of notability that warrants a Wikipedia bio page, thus I stand by my vote to delete.

--Entrybreak (talk) 19:14, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The one independent secondary source reports only on her tweet WP:ONEEVENT. Otherwise, fails WP:GNG and WP:ANYBIO for lack of secondary sources offering significant coverage. Msnicki (talk) 21:14, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Published author and columnist, 760 Lexis/Nexis hits. Gamaliel (talk) 23:13, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Where is her column currently being published, other than on her own website? --Entrybreak (talk) 13:02, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know and I'm not sure how that's relevant. If being a columnist is significant to her notability, the fact that it's in the past or present is immaterial. Gamaliel (talk) 13:22, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nowhere in the guidelines can I find a provision that says that simply being a published author or a columnist is sufficient to establish notability. Lexis/Nexis hits are like WP:GOOGLEHITS and are also not useful. To establish notability requires reliable independent secondary sources WP:RS and there aren't any beyond the WP:ONEEVENT coverage of her tweet. Msnicki (talk) 02:06, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - does not pass WP:AUTHOR or WP:BASIC and other notability criteria, can't say there is much independent coverage of significance.--137.122.49.102 (talk) 16:03, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - doesn't matter if she publishes anything currently, previous publications count as well; published a second book recently; popular blogger and columnist and made a number of TV appearances and publications; according to page stats, an average of 15-20 people view the page every day, which means she is being googled for and presents some interest. --Anthony Ivanoff (talk) 06:08, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nowhere in the guidelines can I find any support for a claim that any of this means the subject is notable. See WP:POPULARPAGE for more on why page stats are not useful. Lots of people write two books, lots of people blog and lots of people appear from time-to-time on TV. But without reliable independent sources offering significant coverage, none of that is sufficient to establish notability. Msnicki (talk) 02:06, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Horribly written self promotion. No notability. Self referencing/primary sources. --Ktlynch (talk) 11:47, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep. Quality of writing in an article, or lack thereof, is not grounds for deletion. If people have a problem with that, then it can be edited. Likewise, the article might be out of date because it was deleted contrary to policy in 2009 until it was recently restored. Therefore, it simply needs updating. Moreover, notability is not temporary. It should be noted that most of the negative comments in the 2007 AfD discussion are no longer relevant. There are now lots of verifiable independent third party sources about Penelope Trunk, and she is certainly notable. She's a published author; Forbes named her site one of the top websites for women in 2011[1]; she is cited in and is a contributor to several books[2]; and has no shortage of Ghits[3]. Of the press coverage of her, there were significant pieces about in the New York Times[4] and The Guardian[5] (the topic relating to Trunk in the latter article garnered a great deal of coverage by major news outlets at the time).Agent 86 (talk) 19:49, 25 July 2011 (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.