Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joshua Maponga

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. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:18, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Joshua Maponga

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Semi-advertorialized WP:BLP of a writer and activist, not properly sourced as passing inclusion criteria for writers or activists. As always, neither writers nor activists are automatically entitled to have Wikipedia articles just because they exist, and have to be shown to pass certain specific inclusion criteria supported by WP:GNG-worthy third party coverage about them in real media -- for instance, you don't make a writer notable enough for a Wikipedia article by sourcing his books to themselves as verification that they exist, you make a writer notable enough for a Wikipedia article by sourcing his books to third-party coverage about them (book reviews, etc.) as evidence that they have been externally validated as significant by somebody other than their own publisher.
But three of the eight footnotes here are the books being referenced to themselves on GoodReads or an online bookstore, one more is one of those crap "celebrity net worth" directories that aren't reliable sourcing, and the footnotes that do come from real media are all short blurbs, or articles that just quote him as a provider of soundbite on a topic, rather than substantive or GNG-building coverage.
Nothing here is "inherently" notable enough to exempt him from having to have much, much better referencing than this. Bearcat (talk) 16:35, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Authors and Zimbabwe. Bearcat (talk) 16:35, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - pretty extraordinary claims based on poor coverage. Please ping me if you find anything better. Bearian (talk) 18:00, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Bearcat: @Bearian: Thank you for your feedback. I understand the concerns about the sourcing and notability of Joshua Maponga. I’ve made improvements to the article and would like to address the issues raised:

Improved Sourcing

:

I’ve removed unreliable sources such as GoodReads, online bookstores, and "celebrity net worth" directories.
I’ve added new citations from reliable, independent sources (leading publications in three African countries - Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe) that provide substantive coverage of Maponga.
Citations currently at 12, will be adding more.

Further Improvements:

If additional sourcing is needed, I’m happy to make further improvements. I’ve also applied tags such as improve citation to indicate areas where more work is needed.

I believe the article now meets Wikipedia’s standards and should be retained. If there are still concerns, I’m open to applying additional tags (e.g., notability) rather than deleting the article entirely. DownTownRich (talk) 00:41, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Doesn’t meet WP:GNG notability guidelines. I vote delete. Go4thProsper (talk) 00:39, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Agree with above. Easy call to delete. Go4thProsper (talk) 00:48, 13 February 2025 (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.