Talk:Greg Pickersgill

Improving the Greg Pickersgill page

A number of external, third-party references have now been added to the page though it is true that more need to be added; especially to mitigate the "[clarification needed]" flag. It is my aim to rectify this in the days ahead.

In the meantime I propose that these amendments are sufficient for the Deletion Proposal to be removed. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 07:06, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

@Perry Middlemiss: None of the refs added look like they'd contribute towards GNG/NBIO: Fancyclopedia appears to be WP:UGC; gostak.org.uk is obviously non-independent; TAFF, efanzines.com, The Fanatical Fanactivist and worldcon.org.uk are simply passing mentions (and I question their independence and reliability as well). Ljleppan (talk) 07:57, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

The programme books and/or progress reports for both the Worldcon and the Eastercon where Greg was a Guest of Honour ought to have profiles of him. Possibly also whichever con he went to as a TAFF delegate might have one too. Most of these should be online. For example the Interaction Programme Book is at https://fanac.org/conpubs/Worldcon/Interaction/Interaction%20Program%20Book.pdf#view=Fit. It profiles Greg on pages 35-47. Such material should count as in independent source as the convention committees that put together the conventions pick people not on the committees as their guests. They chose him as a person deserving of being honoured. He obviously did take part in the event. But Nobel Laureates give lectures as part of the process of being honoured. Obviously the committee will have known Greg personally but the likes of Isaac Asimov and Brian Aldiss would have been known personally by members of the committee who picked them. That's part of the nature of the field. And if you look at Worldcon and the list of Worldon guests linked from there, both talk about being a Guest of Honour as a form of lifetime achievement award. Peter cohen (talk) 15:52, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

@Ljleppan

As the other contributors here have described, science fiction fandom had its origins in the USA and Britain in the 1930s and now has a 90-year history, and Greg Pickersgill has been part of that history since 1968. In that period he has published fanzines, created bibliographies, and curated a large reference collection of fanzines which are a resource for many historians of the field. Hence his recognition as a Worldcon and Eastercon guest, and his status as an expert in the history of fanzines.

I believe that hardly anyone outside the field of US/UK science fiction fandom is qualified to judge Greg's notability, particularly regarding the following two criteria:

"The person has received a well-known and significant award or honor, or has been nominated for such an award several times; or

The person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in a specific field."

I join the others in requesting that your remove the deletion proposal; if not, I expect one of us, or other Wikipedia editors more familiar with the subject will do so, in order that the page can be kept live while any further discussion, if needed, is conducted in the Articles for deletion discussion area for this page.

Bill Burns

Eastercon and Worldcon Guest of Honour, publisher of the eFanzines.com website, recipient of eleven Fan Activity Achievement Awards. Ftld (talk) 22:15, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

@Ftld: I disagree with your assertion that Worldcon guest of honordom would count as "a well-known and significant award or honour". For example, even awards such as OBE do not necessarily count for it. Second of all, as the start of the "Additional Criteria" section under WP:NBIO says, meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included: as explained at WP:BIOSPECIAL, even if the subject did pass one of the "additional criteria", failure to also pass the "basic criteria" (which is basically just WP:GNG), means the subject should be merged to an appropriate article.

Regarding I believe that hardly anyone outside the field of US/UK science fiction fandom is qualified to judge Greg's notability this is extremely not how Wikipedia works.

I'll give you few days to look for WP:GNG/WP:NBASIC level sourcing before taking this to AfD. Ljleppan (talk) 14:57, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

I still believe this page, and its subject, will pass the notability criteria. SF Fandom is a legitimate area of interest and it can only be fully understood by reference to events that take place and of the people who comprise it. Greg Pickersgill is one of the major figures in that field, and, as such, deserves his own page which describes why that is so. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 22:10, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

If you believe they pass the notability criteria, then all you need to do is to show that they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject and I'll be happy to drop this matter. Otherwise, this boils down to simply stating the subject is notable, which is an extremely unconvincing argument in a notability discussion context. Ljleppan (talk) 06:22, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Removal of flags

I have now removed the Notability and Reference flags from this page as I now believe, with the amendments undertaken over the past week or so, that this page now no longer requires them. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 02:03, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

The sourcing continues to be rather bad, so I've reinstated the {{blp refimprove}} and {{notability}} tags. The "Interaction Program Book" is hardly "intellectually independent" with some authors going as far as calling him a "friend" in the text (note that that's not the only problem). Similarly, the SFE 1) includes Pickersgill as an author 2) thanks him for his contributions and funding and 3) has the article on Pickersgill authored by David Langford who at least rises concerns about a COI through his work with Pickersgill. The concerns raised above for the other sources also remain. Ljleppan (talk) 06:06, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I also find it "odd" that people in a community of like-minded individuals might regard each other as friends, but that is what happens in such groups. An author is asked to write an appreciation of a subject generally because they have a direct appreciation and knowledge of that person's work. I don't believe it take much of a stretch to acknowledge that they also "like" them as well. if such appreciations were to be disallowed then any obituary written by anyone other than an "enemy" or completely detached person would be disallowed.

The fact that Pickersgill has written for the SFE does not, in any way, diminish the independence and credibility of this reference work. If that were the case then anyone who wrote for it (Dave Langford, John Clute, Peter Nicholls etc) would be barred from having any references to the Encyclopedia on their wiki pages, beyond the fact that they wrote for it or edited it. Similarly for any other encyclopedias and their contributors.

I have removed the reference to "substantial" and replaced the other unsubstantiated statement as identified.

Again, I put the point that this page now has quite a number of references to reliable independent sources with little in the way of contentious material. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 04:03, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

It has now been over a week since I made these ccoments on the current state of the page but have received no reply. I therefore propose to remove the flags. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 00:51, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I support your actions. I think there is a clear consensus on this page about what constitutes notability within the field of SF fandom and also that reliable sources include Worldcon programme books and most certainly the SFE. Ljeppan's objections re the SFE are absurd and show a profound misunderstanding of the field and how the field works. There's no point in continuing the discussion here. They can start an AFD if they want where more people who are outside SF fandom can have a say and therefore consensus there might be different, but I think the consensus on notability among people who frequent this page is clear. Dronkle (talk) 11:45, 15 August 2023 (UTC)