Wikiquote:Votes for deletion/Tony Samara

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. BD2412 T 17:24, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Tony Samara

Lack of notability; conflict of interest; shameless advertising; see also AfD discussions at WP: [1], [2], [3], [4]. — Whaledad (talk) 02:26, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

• Vote closes: 03:00, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

• Delete per nom; clearly not notable.--Collingwood (talk) 06:47, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

• Keep In order to label the article as lacking notability, conflict of interests and shameless advertising the user would need to give clear examples so that the article can be improved. Pedro Bestler (talk) 16:31, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

• As long as the person Tony Samara is not notable and his quoted phrases are platitudes lacking any quotability value the article cannot be improved to a level where it is worth keeping. The issue is not as much with the article as it is with the subject. I know you are a Global Single-Purpose Account, otherwise I would tell you to pick a different subject (a truly notable and quotable person) and spend your writing time and energy on that. Whaledad (talk) 18:48, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

• I just found that (like on Wikipedia) this article has existed at least once before (created by User:Sud Ram) and was deleted for the same reason (lack of notability: [5]. This appears all to be part of a concerted, unrelenting marketing campaign by Samara's inner circle. Whaledad (talk) 19:47, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
• Delete Spam. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:01, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
• The User Whaledad seems to not be neutral and seeking deletion of several articles without specific groundings. I would like to ask for a more objective person or user to address the deletion situation please. Also, saying spam seems to not address the situation. Please look thoroughly into the notability of Tony Samara online before judging without any groundings. Thank you. Pedro Bestler (talk) 21:49, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

• There is no issue with my neutrality. There IS an issue with YOUR neutrality: [6] "Pedro Bestler is one of the small group of volunteers closest to Tony Samara." - Whaledad (talk) 21:52, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
• "Please look thoroughly into the notability of Tony Samara online before judging without any groundings." Or... you could provide evidence about it yourself. Instead, you've directed the majority of your comment about individuals, and not the article itself; the onus is on you to provide a rebuttal to the charges that he's not terribly notable, and you haven't done that.
  As an aside, I stand by my comment about this being spam, since it's apparently your only purpose on Wikimedia Foundation projects; the intentions of the article author always weigh into my assessments at VfD. Sorry if it seemed like I was too brief with my assessment, but when your intentions are so blatantly biased, I didn't feel it necessary to be terribly verbose. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:58, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
• Tony Samara was interviewed earlier this year by BBC, Hay House Radio and then later on on CBS Radio amongst dozens of other radio stations online and offline. His articles have been featured in many magazines and publications. He has published 4 different books with conventional publishers in countries like the UK, USA, Portugal, Czech Republic, Serbia, Croatia, Germany, Latvia, Spain and France. Since he is from Europe this is where he is receiving at the moment more recognition but with the use of internet people in the USA are find more and more about him. In 2011 he was featured in two different documentaries and interviewed on national TV in Slovenia and Croatia. He has a lot of followers on twitter and facebook. These are only a few facts and I would surely be able to mention more. Thank you for your consideration. Pedro Bestler (talk) 06:57, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

• Please provide links to these interviews and books. (not trying to pick apart what you're saying, just pointing out that just saying stuff doesn't really count as actual evidence) EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:00, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
• The links to the books can be found here http://tonysamara.org/lang_en/booksUK.htm. The interviews links are http://www.hayhouseradio.com/show_details.php?show_id=149&episode_id=8126&schedule_id=69515&episode_type=0, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b019lxj4 and http://sky.radio.com/shows/a-moment-of-change-w-sherry-gaba/. Pedro Bestler (talk) 08:13, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

• All of Samara's books are self-published, a few interviews, don't mean much by themselves, The "national television" broadcast turn out to be a recording by Studio 12, of which it is not clear that it was ever broadcast. The "2 documentaries" were simply commissioned by Samara; not clear they were ever broadcast anywhere. The "Sky Radio" mention is also commissioned (read: paid advertising; [7]). Pedro, your ONLY activities on Wikimedfia around the world is trying to get visibility for Samara, before you it was Sud Ram, and before him it was Samara himself. It's time you all stop this project. Whaledad (talk) 11:33, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
• Tony Samara's first book is published in English, Portuguese, Czech, Serbian, Croatian, German, Latvian, Spanish and French, later in the year in Romanian. Second and third book will come out this year in English by a mainstream publisher called In the Garden Publishing (USA), 4th book is printed in Croatian already with a mainstream publishing house. Non of these are self published. Tony Samara appears 3 times in the British Library catalog. Tony has been interviewed by Slovene and Croatian national TV. CBS Radio interview was an invitation by Sherry Gaba (the host of the show) and I have emails that prove so. The two documentaries were not commissioned by Tony himself and he was invited to participate in them. Tony Samara has never had an account in Wikipedia. I don't consider this a project but rather a Wikiquote page. Pedro Bestler (talk) 15:27, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

• "Tony Samara has never had an account in Wikipedia.": I beg to differ: List of Wikipedia contributions by user:Tsamara. (This also shows that you guys have been at it since 2005!) Whaledad (talk) 16:03, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

• Username tsamara does not prove that that is Tony Samara. I will not repeat again that Tony Samara never had a username on Wikipedia and has much more complex work to attend to. If you actually believe that he would use his time to create and account and learn the code and the way to create articles in Wikipedia you are really far removed from the truth. He is an author and spiritual teacher and has no interest or time for such Wikipedia matters, sorry. Pedro Bestler (talk) 22:14, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

• Do you really want to call In the Garden Publishing mainstream? The currently have 4 writers with 4 more "coming soon"! That's not even close to maintream. Whaledad (talk) 19:34, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
• If you know about publishing companies you would understand that there are 8 writers, 4 of them with contracts to publish books hence part of the house already with books in the production pahse. In the Garden Publishing is a company that is starting now and to thrive on a competitive environment like the book publishing industry is surely not the easiest in the times that we are living now. Perhaps you are not aware of but what is called mainstream publisher means that it is a conventional publishing house rather than a company where authors can self publish books. And this was the point as the user above was saying that Tony Samara's books above were all self published when he has 9 books published by mainstream publishers in the UK, Portugal, Czech Republic, Serbia, Croatia, Germany, Latvia, Spain and France and 3 books in production to be released later in the year in Romania and the USA, also published by mainstream publishers. Pedro Bestler (talk) 07:54, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

• For what it is worth: w:Tony Samara deleted today for the 4th time (and now salted to avoid repeat performance): [8]. Key reasons same as at the start of this discussion. It was also established that mr. Bestler is a SPA (EN, DE, NL; WP and WQ) with a very clear COI. Whaledad (talk) 02:28, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

• On the discussion page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tony_Samara_%283rd_nomination%29 the user _W^\|/_haledad (Talk to me) started digging up my past and my life and stating all sorts of things which are actually not true about me and Tony Samara. My privacy has been exposed and I was not even the target to focus on on this article. According to this article on Wikipedia this is defamation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_law. For this reason I have asked already for that information to be deleted from the discussion page in question and that the situation is addressed in an ethical way so that the appropriate consequences are applied to the user _W^\|/_haledad (Talk to me) for this unacceptable sort of behaviour. Pedro Bestler (talk) 14:22, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

  Behavioral issues on Wikipedia are outside of our jurisdiction; this is Wikiquote, not Wikipedia. However, you've definitely opened yourself up to greater scrutiny by continuing to push a specific agenda across both sites; while an actual invasion of privacy would be a bad thing, near as I can tell, all he did was put together pieces of information from publicly available sources, and he wouldn't have had cause to do so without your edits. You've gotten yourself into this hole. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:08, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

  I did not open myself to any claims and did not give my consent for them to be put up on Wikipedia by user _W^\|/_haledad (Talk to me). If you read this article you will see what I mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation. Defamation is now allowed and hence why the statements need to be removed from Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tony_Samara_%283rd_nomination%29. (talk) 10:15, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

• Mr. Bestler, again: all I did was expose your lies where you claimed you had no conflict of interest re. the Tony Samara article, by proving (using publicly available information) that you are actually a distributor for Mr. Samara's Theriaca potion in at least 9 countries. And I also exposed that you (as a member of his inner circle) wrote favorable review about Mr. Samara's books on Amazon.com under different names.

But as you insist the discussion here should be about Tony Samara and not about the person contributing his articles all over Wikimedia sites, let me then now expose Tony Samara himself as the fraud he is:

When looking for reviews of Tony Samara, two website appear: Review-daily.com and my-review.net. Both of these sites provide "review for pay" services:

• The first site in its review of the Tony Samara Humanitarian Alliance writes things like: "I also realized that it is a wonderful electronic creation that is exactly as it describes." and "[...] is not a cheaply made device that you will have to handle like it will break at the slightest touch." These seem odd statements when reviewing an alliance, right? Well, searching for each of those phrases it turns out that a lot of reviews (169!!) on the site contain the exact same text. Make this a total fake and fraud.
• The site also sports an ad for High Paying Jobs on Facebook and Twitter, in other words: they are actually paying people to spam favorable messages on products and organisations on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media sites; and we know that many marketers see Wikimedia as another Social Media site. I bet if you closely examine the Facebook and Twitter comments on Mr. Samara's accounts you will find a lot of them just as fishy as the reviews here.
• The second site suffers from the same problems: "[...] is now a right-hand assistant for me. They offer a huge discount compared to the other services available in this category.": 366 hits! The same ad with link to paidsocialmedia.com.
• Note: these sites don't post these reviews for free. Somebody has to pay to get these things posted. In this case either Mr. Samara himself, or somebody in his inner circle with a vested interest.

So, Mr. Bestler, how much more lies and fraud do you want me to expose with respect the Tony Samara and his organisations before you give up your marketing campaign on Wikimedia? Again: no privacy has been violated as I rely only on easy to find public information.

_W^\|/_haledad (Talk to me) 01:00, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

• I have to say that I find your false accusations amusing but weird at the same time. Besides being unaware of the links that you mention, Tony Samara and the Humanitarian Alliance are not products and did not create such reviews as it would be obvious if you would know anything about how the Alliance works and its purpose. If I was you I would refrain further to create lies and false accusations as that is not only defamation but degrading for your own image as an editor on Wikimedia. It looks like the liar is you and perhaps you were the one creating such reviews and then blaming it on me and Tony Samara, that is pure ridiculousness and the lowest ways to create defamation. I leave it for the intelligent people to access the truth as with your ridiculous accusations and assumptions you are not able to see beyond your own belly button. Pedro Bestler (talk) 18:34, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• Delete. Not sufficiently notable. (Promotional efforts do not indicate notability, they merely show a desire for notice. Listing with a non-notable niche publisher does not indicate notability.) Wikiquote is not a venue for promotional activity. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:24, 25 September 2012 (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.