Talk:Kerry Trask

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Notability[edit]

I'm trying to establish notability here. The biographical information is tough to confirm through a third party source, I'm finding a lot of references in UW literature. I'll post the links here as I find them and perhaps some notes about each one. I am finding numerous references in state press to Trask in regards to his campaign for state assembly. I will post those too, as well as anything else I can find.IvoShandor (talk) 17:05, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Possible sources?[edit]

Bear with me, some of these are kind of sketchy.

The Free Press, college newspaper for UW-Manitowoc. profile on Trask, pages 1 and 6.
Augustana U. Faculty Newsletter, a brief biography in an event announcement in Augustana University's Faculty Newsletter.

IvoShandor (talk) 17:29, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wisconsin press coverage of state assembly campaign:

[1], mentions him in passing, info in this article was culled from his website, he didn't respond to their questionnaire.
[2], Milwaukee JS, passing mention only.
[3], Winona Daily News, AP article - same passing mention.
[4], Fox 11, same AP article.
[5], GB Press Gazette, same AP account.
[6], Wisconsin Radio Network, this one contains a bit of meat on his positions during the election.

IvoShandor (talk) 17:45, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

These are less than neutral but could be used to verify basic biographical information if notability can otherwise be established, which I feel this article is on the brink of that fine line. We'll see where this work leads, if I can save the article, I will. IvoShandor (talk) 13:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

[7], Macmillan publishing - one of Trask's publishers, breif bio
[8], UW-M, faculty listing, confirms his professor emeritus status
[9], Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters (Trask is a fellow) - bio surrounding speaking event announcement - IvoShandor (talk) 13:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Hoi Ivo, excellent job. Well, if it is a matter of notability, one could be generous or not. With academics, I tend to be generous. I would say that if you (or someone else--like the original contributor) find a couple of book reviews (can't remember if I looked for them or not), maybe with JSTOR or something like that, then notability per WP:PROF should be a given. He was only interim dean--usually deans are 'automatically' notable. Interim dean + dep. chair for 13 years, that's not automatic, I think. The sourcing, as you said, is problematic, and from your references related to his campaign one can only confirm that he was a former professor, but that's not even necessary to prove, in my opinion, given the university's confirmation (even if that's not a third party).
  I would say scrap the rest of the family, try to verify birth date and place (was that in the early version?), and add reviews if you can find them--when that's done, most or all of the tags can go and notability ought to be established. Good luck, and let me know if I can help. Oh, one final thing: even if he is not notable and the article is deleted, your efforts were not in vain, and I for one appreciate them. Drmies (talk) 16:43, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So reviews of his books then? Just entered as further reading? I cut his family's first names out, but maybe I can go ahead and cut all of that. There was a lot of fluff here, probably done by the article's subject or a campaign hack, I'd vote the latter. Anyway, thanks for the thanks. I will keep working on it, I'll go ahead and cite what I can and drop the tags when done. Thanks for the tips. IvoShandor (talk) 16:56, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Check this out. Now, if you need a job (are you a Calvinist?), many of those academic journals are redlinks, and Fire Within, in my opinion, deserves its own article. Notability is not an issue anymore per WP:PROF. Oh, you see I added those journal references as footnotes to the book titles, so I'm basically using them as verification that a. the book exists and b. it is worthwhile mentioning, since it was reviewed. Later, and thanks again for alerting me to the article, Drmies (talk) 17:07, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Very excellent. Great edit summary. I greatly appreciate your initiative and assistance. I will take a look at the red links and add Fire Within to my red links, and my reading list (I came on the article because I like to work on the Black Hawk War stuff and have his book about it). IvoShandor (talk) 17:14, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That last edit of yours looked good, I think it's nice and condensed now, devoid of fluff and irrelevancy and all around not a bad article. I'm tempted to remove the BLP unsourced tag since the few biographical details remaining can be confirmed through so many other, albeit not entirely third party, sources. A brief look on a few of the other publications reveals that at least a couple do indeed exist, but that's all they do. The additional television programming that needs citation also exist, but as with a couple of the monographs I can only find internet confirmation that they exist. That is to say nothing of those that don't show any search results in Google, scholar, web, whatever. I am tempted to just remove those still requiring citation. (statement I made copied from [[10]] talk page, because it's relevant here) IvoShandor (talk) 18:08, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]