Talk:John Michael Greer

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notability and self promotion[edit]

This article seems to be designed solely as self promotion by the subject. First, the editor who created this page stopped adding anything to Wikipedia six years ago - soon after this page was created - and two other articles started by this editor were deleted. Second, there are no sources except two anonymous websites, and another which no longer exists. Third, it has a long bibliography but no page numbers, so it amounts to a list of books about druidism rather than Mr. Greer, and thus a bibliography which is unconnected to the subject. Fourth, the article gives a list of the Greer's podcasts and websites. Finally, people do not get Wikipedia articles just because they have a blog, or give themselves non-titles like "cultural critic" or "historian of ideas." I would propose the article for deletion but I suspect Mr. Greer himself, or persons connected to this celebrity wannabe, would swoop down to object.Catherinejarvis (talk) 21:51, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Greer cares to be a celebrity, whatever that means. I recognize he is one of the notable voices in the "peak oil" movement (as the template shows), and deserves a basic neutral bio for that alone. In actual content, I agree the current bio is just promotion and the links and books ought to be severely pruned, but I'll leave that to people who like to cut things, and have clearer ideas than me for what belongs in proper bios. Tom Ruen (talk) 22:57, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think he is notable, but where in this article are the basic facts of his biography? Where was he educated? Where has he been employed, or self-employed? How have his writings been received by the 'mainstream' world? What of his contributions to gardening? Some of these questions are answered here, http://aoda.org/grove_bios.html -- subject to corroboration, of course, through some more objective source(s). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.25.115.38 (talk) 03:54, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A cursory check seems to indicate that the books in the list with blue-linked ISBNs are authored or edited by John M. Greer, so he is at least a fairly prolific writer. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 19:05, 23 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Second deletion effort[edit]

This article has already been deleted once, based on the subject's lack of notability, but has apparently been restored as if the reasons for deletion did not exist. This article is simply self promotion, a puff piece in which Greer uses his own sources as citations. The Druid website, for example, showing him a grand master or grand wizard or whatever title he gives himself. The use of meaningless words like "cultural critic" and "historian of ideas" further shows why this article should be deleted. Everyone on Earth could call themselves a cultural critic but they do not get Wikipedia pages.Catherinejarvis (talk) 21:42, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Your AfD nomination is incomplete. You need to create the page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Michael Greer (second nomination) with your reasons for deletion. I'd recommend starting over and using Twinkle so that all the templates and notices get done automatically. You might also want to nominate cultural critic and history of ideas for deletion to if they are meaningless. Note that being a puff piece is not a valid reason for deletion, since it's surmountable if the criteria for WP:GNG are met. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The only linked deletion discussion I could see, for the AfD notice that was recently removed, had a consensus to delete: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Michael Greer. Why is this here? Was it just recreated? I'm going to look more deeply at the history here, but unless someone can show a good reason why this was deleted I'm going to delete and consider salting. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 20:27, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That was dated 2013. That's hardly "recent". If you would like to start a new AFD, no one will stop you. --Jayron 32 21:06, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

John Michael Greer has 49 published books to his name (according to Amazon, some may be repeats). I haven't read any but they appear to be substantial. He was also the head of a national religious organization until very recently and apparently has founded another. Apparently he is prominent in the national peak oil discussion. Sounds "notable" to me. And why should this article not include a complete bibliography -- that is the least I would expect if I were trying to find out about the man. Why should someone have to resort to Amazon? --Tom Yelton (talk) 15:48, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Sourcing issues[edit]

There is going to have to be some cleanup as I'm seeing a lot of sourcing to blogs, which are not third-party, WP:RS sources. While it's acceptable to have some quotes from the subject themselves, this article right now is overly-reliant on non-RS sourcing. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 20:05, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Meditation[edit]

Hello John Michael Greer. My name is Jason and I'm new to Facebook, but I have been a great admirer of yours for a long time! I was hoping you could give me some advice on meditation. I have recently begun studying Golden Dawn Hermetics and I was wanting to know if you think it is going to be a problem for me as I am unable to meditate very well... can I expect to be capable of making any real progress in GD magic with very limited meditation ability? 120.21.132.70 (talk) 08:57, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

ask him on Magic Mondays 158.228.64.46 (talk) 01:33, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Scholarly References are now being added[edit]

Hey all: I came upon this page after having been interested to scroll through the wikipedia page titled List of autodidacts. I did not find Greer in the list — and was very surprised because in this century his published books (not self-published) have been referenced by many bloggers who are well-known in the peak oil, overshoot, and societal collapse subject areas. I understand that wikipedia standards require journalistic and/or traditionally published book or journal article references, so I just started using google scholar to find some. Fortunately, my first search for Greer's well-known concept of "catabolic collapse" was referenced in a chapter by an academic philosopher of science in a scholarly book — and that scholar has a good wikipedia bio page: Jerome Ravetz. So that qualifies. And that was the small set of edits I made to this article today.

Personally, I don't have an interest in bringing this page up to wikipedia standards, especially not in doing any deletions in those vast lists of titles by Greer. After I made my edits today, I finally looked at this Talk page and was horrified by the vitriol of the person who tried twice to delete this bio page. This is exactly the reason why, while I feel I have important work to do in continuing to reputably improve the concept pages in which I am very knowledgeable (I am a published author, but an autodidact myself, while qualifying to be on Researchgate), I am really wary of doing anything on a bio page. I recently went into the bio page of Jem Bendell and updated it and made it fair. Bendell agreed with my edits, though he did not recruit me. I decided to do it myself because the concept page he is most known for, Deep Adaptation, led me to his bio page, which I then judged as needing improvement. Finally, I am so adverse to wikipedia bio pages of living persons, that when somebody tried to create one for me, I told him to remove it immediately. He did. I much prefer to have people "google" me to find all my published works that way. Cbarlow (talk) 14:08, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]