ReaderofthePack

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Old COI/UPE issues related to The Pacific Between

Latest comment: 1 month ago6 comments2 people in discussion

Hi, I've been trying to clear out notability-tagged novels for a while and recently stumbled upon The Pacific Between (and its author, Raymond K. Wong). This situation sort of reminds me of the Escapist Dream/Louis Bulaong thing, so I wanted to ask for your advice before I take the article(s) to AfD.

Both articles were made by an SPA (Maestrowork) in 2007 (Pacific Between, Wong), who had also uploaded an apparently public domain by-author photo as well, so I would have to suspect COI/UPE. His page is incredibly undersourced, and refers to him as "award winning", apparently due to the IPPY Awards, which are tagged for notability, promo content, and apparently are listed on Writer Beware (by you): Independent Publisher Book Awards § Criticism. Another SPA removed mentions of fees the awards charged in 2020: diff.

The only review I found for Pacific Between was a Kirkus Indie review from a 2017 re-release, over a decade after this article was made. I typically deal with just WP:NBOOK not WP:NAUTHOR, but I think the author & even potentially the award articles are dealing with some promo/COI/UPE issues and I'm not sure what the best way to address them is. ScalarFactor (talk) 22:32, 4 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Kirkus Indie is the outlet's pay to play model, so a review from them won't establish notability. The only barrier to that is the person's wallet and willingness to shell out cash. And you're right in that the IPPY award cannot establish notability either, as it's a vanity award. Basically, they have a ton of categories (per their website, over 100), not all of which appear to be available at the same time. Participants shell out between $80-99 per award submission and if they want to apply to more than one, they are paying per category. The "winners" don't receive any sort of physical award or certificate - if they want to receive anything physical they have to pay for it. Even downloading the digital art for the award for your book cover requires payment. I know you weren't considering it as usable, but they're one of the vanity awards that really just irks me because they take advantage of the people they're supposed to celebrate.

Nothing substantial came up in a Newspapers.com search. All I saw were a few papers mentioning the IPPY award, but it was more of an offhand "local person does good" type of deal. Nothing that could establish notability.

With Google I found a little bit. There's a Publisher's Weekly review. I did find one with January Magazine, however they are heavily pay to play. Just to get a database listing you have to pay, which is quite telling. FWIW I don't think the PW review is paid for, but the site threw up a paywall when I tried to access so I can't be 100% on that. Still, no article is going to be kept solely by a PW review.

I would say that the book article could be nominated for deletion. I'll look into the author. He's definitely puffing up his roles in TV, as his role in SATC was an uncredited role as "shopper". That's usually a sure sign that someone is probably non-notable. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 14:21, 5 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, go ahead and nominate him as well. Totally non-notable. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 14:24, 5 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

I will absolutely support you in the deletion discussion. The guy's main claim to fame is the "most beautiful people" list, however it isn't something that would give notability in my opinion. The one for 2010 shows that it's more something they do as a local "attaboy/attagirl" for people they want to give support to. One of the people they named is a cancer survivor who runs a local chapter of a cancer support group. Now, the people on the list do sound amazing but it's not really something Wikipedia would see as noteworthy. The articles were likely done by a marketing company, as there's one out there with the same name. It's quite telling that they called his role in SATC a "featured" role instead of saying that he was a nameless extra. I would wager that most of his characters are probably extremely minor walk-ons or extras.

He has just enough to where I wouldn't say that he's a clean speedy candidate, so AfD is the best avenue for this. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 14:31, 5 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

I can't verify any of his stage roles. The only one that might be him is the King and I one, as there was a Raymond Wong who performed as an extra as "Royal Child" for a 1997 cast. I can't guarantee that is the same guy. There are also false positives for the composer of the same name. I have to assume that his roles were all in small, likely non-notable productions. For all we know, they were college productions. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 14:39, 5 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks a ton for helping me look into this. I'll open the AfDs later today. ScalarFactor (talk) 18:31, 5 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thoughts on paid reviews for verifiability purposes?

Latest comment: 25 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Since you have thoughts on the subject, thought I'd ask you. They are obviously unusable for notability, but I recall a case where there was an author who had written several notable and reputably published nonfiction books, and then self-published a novel, which was only reviewed in Kirkus and PW's paid programs. I wanted to include a sentence about it in the article, but the only sources that mentioned it were the paid review outlets. I wonder if that would be an issue - do you think these paid reviews are unreliable, or just lack independence? PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:02, 10 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

I would bring this up at RS/N. They might be OK to use, but I suppose a better question is why use them to back up claims of existence when we can just use the book itself for that? Or if the author has an official website and a bibliography page, you could use that instead. As long as you have the basic info such as author's name, title, date, publisher, and ISBN, you can just use the book itself as a citation. I've done that for things like the publication section of a book article before. The ideal would be that we'd have tons of (non-paid for) RS, but for really basic claims like this a primary source is fine. The exception of course, would be for books where there's some level of controversy about its existence, however that's going to be a relatively rare event.

Anywho, this would be a question for RS/N. My fear is that it would muddy the waters over time. You'd have some arguing that the source is usable for establishing notability because it's in other articles or, probably more likely, people using them to puff up reception sections as paid reviews are typically favorable. Not always, but often enough that this is part of the reason they're often not usable. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 12:00, 11 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

My impression is that you just deleted a page mirrored elsewhere

Latest comment: 22 days ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Good morning! I was working on Draft:Hoodoo divination when you deleted it. Please consider looking at the link: https://navymule9.sakura.ne.jp/Hoodoo_spirituality.html

I was about to decline the speedy. Give it a second look. I'm often wrong, but the previous page history makes me question proper order: chicken or egg? BusterD (talk) 12:24, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

@BusterD: The draft was created on March 20, 2026 and Wayback has an archived version from August 2025, so the website predates the draft. Did you see something different? I'm willing to restore if so. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 12:29, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the second look. I appreciate your judgement. BusterD (talk) 12:32, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

No problem! Always better to be safe than sorry! ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 12:51, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply