RationalWiki:Articles for deletion/Jonathan Kane

Jonathan Kane | Result: Keep

Jonathan Kane (edit|talk|history|protect|delete|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Delete

recreated this article from a redirect. I now believe it is best to delete the article as Kane is not notable for anything apart from co-authoring a single book on anti-creationism, there is also the issue of some Wiki drama involving Kane and Smith that everyone here is fed up with reading. The Wiki/Wars drama is not relevant to RationalWiki. It's obvious to me that Jonathan Kane is the pseudonym Shuichi Tezuka who has written for Quillette and other right-wing magazines as there are a lot of give away clues but Kane denies this and doesn't want to be linked with other identities. As there are no other references linking him to such accounts then he probably should be cited. He's likely also the blocked Wikipedia user Gardenofaleph. I agree that there are no other sources identifying him as these other names so it would be our own research to try and link him to these other online pseudonyms. As far as I know the only other name he admits openly to using the blocked Wikipedia account Captain Occam but the Wiki drama is irrelevant to RationalWiki. The Emily Willoughby article should be kept but I believe this one should be deleted and redirected back into the Willoughby article. Johns (talk) 17:07, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Keep

1. The article is mostly fine other than the creationism stuff, it should not be deleted and we should not be bullied into deleting or whitewashing it. Strong Keep. A somebody. (talk) 17:16, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
2. I concur with A. somebody. Also Kane is notable to some extent for his Quillette work and overall involvement with racialist pseudoscience. My vote is a tentative "keep." Carthage (talk) 17:26, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
3. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 20:23, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
4. You're so fucking stupid, Johns. I've never seen an AfD more full of shit. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 22:34, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

   The points I have raised are valid. It's obvious Shuichi Tezuka for Quillette is Kane but there is no way to prove it because we have no independent references saying that pseudonym is him. Although this website tolerates original research, when I write a biographical article I believe it is best to cite secondary sources to verify controversial or important information and keep it as accurate as possible. It's not possible to show with independent sources that Kane is Shuichi Tezuka or his other online identities. This means removing most of his article apart from his creationist work which would then be a boring article. Johns (talk) 23:16, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

   Well, at least we're agreed that the Tezuka material needs to be removed, and nobody seems to be arguing against that conclusion. Based on the votes thus far, it looks like this article probably won't be deleted, so I'll make the necessary change shortly. --Tetrapteryx (talk) 21:03, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

5. Changed my vote to keep, just entirely remove the Wiki drama and outdated race drama and keep it as an anti-creationist article which is on-mission and better sourced. Johns (talk) 11:20, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Goat

1. Just a note that Mikey has already tried socking this up. I am willing to protect this AfD if the socking continues, as I actually want this to be a productive discussion and not the sockfest that these AfDs inevitably turn into.

   As for the case itself, I am mostly ambivalent but it shouldn't be deleted just because it attracts trolls; Mikey will be here regardless of whether this stays or not because he has no life and he should really be disregarded in discussions like this. Regardless, this article (and the similar Emily Willoughby one) rely a bit to much on Wikipedia drama and other forum posts for my liking, and they don't seem to have much of a public presence beyond that. Perhaps the Emily Willoughby article can be merged into this one and it can be streamlined, but I'm not the biggest fan of the article in this state. Plutocow (talk) 01:33, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

2. I am also ambivalent about this article, but am confident that the RW community can make it better. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 02:35, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
3. I'm ambivalent too. We don't bow to trolls and we don't delete articles just because their subjects don't like them. But this person just seems to me to be an ex-racist and ex-creationist who isn't really notable. (He isn't regularly on TV or radio. He isn't a YouTuber with millions of subscribers. He doesn't have a weekly newspaper column. He isn't even a bestselling author. He doesn't have much of a platform to promote good or evil.) And I really don't want to give the subject the opportunity to turn his article into a puff piece for self promotion. Spud (talk) 07:57, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

   He is not an 'ex-racist' he is a current racist. A somebody. (talk) 17:04, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

4. I'm the subject of this article, so maybe my opinion will be discounted for that reason, but I should comment on the suggestion that this article downplay my anti-creationism work while focusing on the fact that I was involved in the Wikipedia "race and intelligence" drama in 2010. If that ends up being the outcome, it's likely the YEC organizations will eventually use this article to discredit not just me, but also the other anti-creationism authors who cite me. My anti-creationism writings are extensively cited in The Rocks Were There by Downard & Wheat, and professional "creation scientists" have cited my writings to concede I was correct on certain points here and here. I'm one of the two or three most-cited anti-creationist authors on the origin of birds. Please make sure covering a 13-year-old Wikipedia drama is important enough that it's worth providing further support for the creationist claim (as routinely made by by Jerry Bergman) that opponents of creationism inevitably are racists. --Tetrapteryx (talk) 23:21, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

   I think you have a better shot at attempting to edit the article yourself and trying to get consensus than hoping that it will be deleted, at the rate this AfD is going. Rabbitseatcarrots (talk) 13:44, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

   Kane has been warned off of editing his own article FTR. Carthage (talk) 13:47, 26 July 2023 (UTC)