Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charles H. Baker Jr.

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 keep. - Mailer Diablo 12:20, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Charles H. Baker Jr.

Charles H. Baker Jr. (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Fails WP:BIO, "Creative Professionals" section, WP:V concerns. Cool Blue^{talk to me} 00:33, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

• Weak keep on the condition that author provides sources. Based on the text, this person could satisfy the first criteria, i.e. "regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by their peers or successors.", and possibly second to last, "has won significant critical attention." --Darkbane ^talk 01:01, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep although he looks like a non-notable author at face value. If it is kept, the closer should create a disambiguation page associated with Charles Henri Baker. YechielMan 05:22, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. I've searched Google Books, A9, and Google News Archive, and failed to find anything but trivial mentions of Baker, his books, or Derrydale Press (e.g. Popped Culture: A Social History of Popcorn in America mentions him once; The Steak Lovers Companion mentions a Baker-published recipe in passing.) Non-notable author Bartle Bull of the non-notable book China Star praises A Gentleman's Companion as "that 1939 classic of global bartending" in his preface, but this doesn't seem like a reliable source. --Dhartung | Talk 06:42, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
• CommentsYou didn't do a very good job! I ran the same search in Google News Archive and found a full biography in the Miami Herald from 2002, and a review in Time magazine. How did you miss that? You can't just read the first few, and you have to run all variations of a person's name. How you craft the search in Google is paramount. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 19:19, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
• Comments Why are you surprised to not find so few references there to books published in 1945? Its best to go that time period and search. He was reviewed many times in the New York Times Book Review but you have to search in the NYT archive online, and its not indexed by Google pre 1980. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 19:48, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
• CommentsPlease note that his most famous works are being re-published by the still-extant Derrydale Press. See Amazon.com for http://www.amazon.com/Jigger-Beaker-Glass-Drinking-Around/dp/1586670506/ref=sr_1_1/102-2060220-5614516?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179795388&sr=8-1

Additionally, his life and work merits note on many culinary and cocktail history websites, including epicurious.com and foodandwine.com. A Google search for "Charles H. Baker, Jr." AND "Gentleman's Companion" yielded 80 hits. My desire in wanting to see this entry kept is that there is very little biographical information about the man despite the fact his work is gaining greater recognition from the food and beverage world today than any time in the past 50 years.

• Reluctant weak delete - As far as I can tell, all but three of those "sources" are unacceptable. Most are (a) primary sources and (b) public documents such as census returns etc that say nothing other than "he lived in this town" or similar. Of the other sources two or possibly three (it's hard to tell) look to just be laundry-list catalogue entries etc that happen to mention his book as one of a number of others. The two apparently legitimate sources - the Washington Post review and the New York Times Book Review review, maybe just push him over the bar of "a body of work which has been the subject of multiple independent reviews", but very weakly. I do, however, take issue with this nomination; this was AfD'd two minutes after creation whilst a potentially valid article & still being worked on. The nominator has a long history of doing this and I wish they'd stop, as it's starting to push WP:BITE to the limit — iridescenti (talk to me!) 17:22, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
• Comments I think your confusing sources used to verify facts and sources used to denote notability. Not everyone in the census is notable, but notable people's biographies can use the census to verify facts of birth and parentage. There are reviews of him, and his writing in the Washington Post, the Miami Herald, and the New York Times, because those two have archives online. Google news archive also has about a dozen others. The quotations from each are included. Notability is determined by trusted sources like the Washington Post and the New York Times, and which authors they choose to review. Wikipedians don't bestow notability, third parties do by voting with their coverage. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 19:15, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Ample sources are provided to establish notability. The fact that Baker did most of his work before the Internet era limits ready access to those ready-to-click sources we'd all prefer to see. As stated at WP:N#Notability requires objective evidence and does not generally expire, "If a topic once satisfied these guidelines, it continues to satisfy them over time." The multiple, independent, reliable and verifiable sources provided establish notability. Alansohn 19:46, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Article has improved significantly since it was originally nominated. Also as per User:Alansohn, a 1930s food/drink writer who died 20 years ago should not have their notability defined by Googlehits (or variations thereof). --DeLarge 09:28, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

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.