Talk:Chicken John

OrinR 16:47, 14 October 2007 (UTC) said:

Untitled

Seems like there's been a lot of positive and negative hearsay going on for this particular page due to the upcoming election... if you're making an edit, make sure to cite your sources or it will be removed.

Significance?

Why is this page in Wikipedia again? I know Chicken John has attempted to add pages for himself in the past, at least once it was deleted. Every San Francisco election seems to have one joke candidate; this one had several, and Chicken John came in 5th among them. Did every one of them get a wikipedia page? Naming his failed business and "art" ventures doesn't seem to add much significance to him either, and the only "references" provided are to his own self-created websites. Recommending for speedy deletion, as soon as I can figure out how. SteubenGlass (talk) 00:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Are you attacking this guy or are you attacking the page? Even with WP's high threshholds of notability, I think it would be hard to argue "Chicken" John does not deserve a page. This article is badly written, and I see you've done nothing to improve it. For starters, from the pov of Joe Public, it should probably simply mention that he's an independent agitator for the arts, who's clashed publically with Larry Harvey over the direction Burning Man (quite notable) is going. GG Allen is (notorious) in the punk world and Chicken's been closely connected to him. SFGate.com lists 79 articles mentioning the phrase "chicken john" since 1995. Article needs work, but topic is not candidate for speedy deletion. Friarslantern (talk) 02:27, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not "attacking" anybody. I'm stating facts and following policy. (The emphatic-seeming double question mark was a typo, and has been removed as of this edit.) Please don't resort to mischaracterization. Wikipedia isn't my personal tool for grinding my axes; you shouldn't use it for that either. Incidentally: when trying to make the case in a forum that mandates objectivity, you shouldn't refer to the subject familiarly, referring to him in the same manner as a friend or personal acquaintance might (such as saying "GG Allen is (notorious) in the punk world and Chicken's been closely connected to him".) It betrays that you're a friend of theirs, and, on a personal note, makes the people who are in fact being objective angry, because they can see you're making them waste their time defending their arguments simply because you have a personal bias. And please remember, just because something or someone is significant to you, doesn't make it encyclopedically significant.

You are correct in your observation that I've done "nothing to improve it"; I fail to see why you have pointed this out, except to subtly try to impugn me somehow, as it's a non-issue. Why would I spend any time working on an article about a subject which doesn't merit inclusion in Wikipedia? This page has already been deleted once; no new arguments for the significance of the subject have surfaced, which makes it a candidate for speedy deletion according to WP:CSD.

Your other points are all distortions or mischaracterizations:

• Chicken John is a event promoter who promotes himself as some sort of "arts advocate"; I have not found a single instance of him doing something constructive to advance the arts beyond promoting his own for-profit events or his own personal visibility and public standing. You do a disservice to real advocates of the arts when you characterize him that way.

• Burning Man is clearly notable, but a lot of people who have engaged the festival and its organizers in various substantial ways over the years haven't merited inclusion in Wikipedia. If you're referring to Chicken John's insignificant "BORG2" project, it failed to accomplish anything besides making a lot of noise in a single specific social scene of a single city - hardly significant enough to matter in an encyclopedia way, and, in fact, it isn't mentioned in Wikipedia at all except on this page. Based on my informal survey of the people sitting around me in the cafe right now, even your average San Franciscan is unaware it ever even happened. So I fail to see how Rinaldi's name being attached to it lends significance to him.

• I've never heard of GG Allin (spelling per Google), but from what I've googled, and even this very article, Rinaldi was a short-term backing player, leaving within the band's very first year. Furthermore, Allin's later notoriety seems to be for his behavior, not his music, so Rinaldi's musical involvement briefly backing Allin during his early career doesn't seem to matter much with regard to Allin's subsequent notoriety. Your description of an early, very short-term member of Allin's backing band as being "closely connected" to him or implication of him as somehow connected to Allin's notoriety would seem to me to be further evidence of your bias.

• The fact that a local event promoter, who additionally ran a ran a "mayoral campaign" as a publicity-seeking joke, had his name in his local newspaper 79 times in 13 years doesn't seem to be particularly significant, especially when you consider that fact that the vast majority of those mentions are of the "look at the wacky cast of characters who are running against the Mayor this year" or other variety of passing mention of his name, not articles specifically about Rinaldi or indicating that he's accomplished anything noteworthy. Furthermore, candidates in that same election who garnered two to three times as many votes and have more distinguished public service careers than Rinaldi do not have Wikipedia entries.

This is clearly a vanity page set up by Chicken John's friends. Chicken John is unknown outside the single social scene within which he promotes his events, and even during his joke mayoral campaign, arguably his highest visibility, he garnered only 2500 votes in a city of nearly 800,000, despite his dedicated publicity efforts. It should also be noted that the 2500 votes is similar to the number of subscribers on his small event-promotion email list, by his own quote. Replacing removed db-bio tag, as article is appropriate for speedy deletion.

I know Chicken John has a lot of friends and admirers locally, but please, remember that you can be friends with him, he can even be important to you or your group of friends, without pretending he's somehow encyclopedically noteworthy. "Publicity-hungry" does not automatically qualify as "significant". Please do not remove the db-bio tag again without factual justification. SteubenGlass (talk) 21:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

SteubenGlass, your allegations of other editors' bias may or may not be true, but I think a more pertinent issue now is your open display of hostility. You are quite obviously attacking Chicken. I use the name "Chicken" here not because I am a friend or associate or even because I know Chicken that well, but because that is his public name. Furthermore, by characterizing him as "publicity-hungry," and a "joke candidate," saying you've "not found a single instance of him doing something constructive", and that his "insignificant 'BORG2' project ... failed to accomplish anything," you are making statements heavily based on negative personal opinion. However, the existence of bias itself is irrelevant as concerns WP:CSD.

The specific policy you used to justify speedy-delete is A7, of which the relevant deletion criteria reads:

"An article about a real person ... that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability."

Clearly, this article does not meet that criteria. Framing it otherwise is the act of wishing it did. It is true that Chicken John only garnered 2508 1st-choice votes, and if he had run in a winner-take-all election of 800,000 that would perhaps be insignificant. However, since 149,465 ballots were cast, since the city uses multiple choice instant-runoff voting, and since Chicken never said he was seeking first-place, this is deceptive. Adding in 2nd and 3rd place votes his total was 11,912. That means Chicken had about 8% of San Francisco's electorate vote for him in some column (reference: SF Department of Elections - Election Results 2007). This is to say nothing of his unique high-profile conflict with the San Francisco Ethics Commission, stories in newspapers besides SFGate, the number of Google hits for his non-generic name, or the documentaries he is in (one where he is a central figure later winning "Best Documentary" in a film festival). I'd also like to note that you have failed to acknowledge the addition of 10 references with corresponding content that I've made in the short 5 days since your original request for deletion was put forward and declined. Significance is not in question—although I would agree with Friarslantern that this article should still be improved. But the option to quickly, quietly sweep it away because you dislike its subject is not in question.

I do apologize for being blunt, and I recognize that any opinions which you hold of Chicken John as a person might be justified. I hope my removal of the deletion tag has also been justified. If you wish to contribute, that's fine. Real consensus can be reached only if opposing viewpoints aren't discouraged, and I don't wish to discourage you. Citing reliable sources makes things easier. If you find reliable sources which criticize Chicken John, I think you should include them.

-OrinR (talk) 05:55, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I fail to see the relevance of this BLP. It is clearly an overblown promotional discourse. But yet it exists. Iconoclast.Horizon (talk) 05:19, 22 August 2012 (UTC) ÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑ I have to take issue with the way the word "joke" is used to describe Rinaldi's candidacy. I see no indicator that Rinaldi would have refused to serve if elected, which would seem to be the criterion necessary in order to qualify the candidacy as a joke, no matter how funny it make have seemed to no matter how many people. - Joshua Clement Broyles ÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑ