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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. While the vote tally between delete/keep is roughly equal, the arguments to keep are not convincing. Some argue that he passes WP:PROF because he has published many papers, however it has been shown that many of his papers were plagiarisms, which therefore artificially inflate his academic importance. Others argue that he is notable as a plagiarist, but the reliable secondary sources provided to support this claim are tenuous at best. ‑Scottywong| verbalize _ 00:29, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dănuț Marcu

[edit]
Dănuț Marcu (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)
(Google scholar author results)

Fails WP:GNG only 2,770 results hits on google. Fails WP:PROF with but 69 hits on GScholar. Darkness Shines (talk) 19:05, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:45, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Google search is flawed due to rare Rumanian accents in the name. Never been an attack article - the person's notability is tied to his academic misdeeds, so naturally much of the article describes those and how they have been addressed by the academic community. Regardless of the number of misdeeds, your reading of WP:PROF seem biased to me. An individual publishing over 300 math articles many in reputable journals is surely notable, regardless how many of them are plagiarism. This is the same as footballer playing over 300 games in a big league, regardless of his goal percentage. Mhym (talk) 20:32, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • That would only be a good argument if the article actually covered his career and publications independently of the plagiarism reports. The article doesn't cover anything but these reports. It has no list of publications, no progress of his career, no biographical details, family, etc. While a subject must be notable to be kept, the reverse does not apply - we are not required to keep an article on an individual even if they pass WP:PROF if there are not sufficient sources to write a proper biography and/or if there are other problems revolving around our BLP policies. Yworo (talk) 20:39, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • The "plagiarism reports" are RS which are not only those, but also describe editors communication with Marcu, his history of publications, his claims to have published over 300-400 articles, etc. If you feel a minor expansion is warranted to adhere with WP:DUE, go ahead. But there should never be deletion based on your feeling that the negative in the article exceeds positive, and thus vio of WP:BLP. More arguments are needed. Please explain. Mhym (talk) 20:52, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • WP:CIRCULAR is also involved. For example, this source used the Wikipedia article as one of its sources. This source itself has then been used on the article, which WP:CIRCULAR prohibits. Other sources may have also used Wikipedia as one of their sources, I haven't had time to look more deeply into this. Even should the article survive AfD, any sources which refer to Wikipedia as one of their own sources would have to be removed. Yworo (talk) 21:49, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Provisional Keep under WP:GNG provided that this curious plagiarism story is fleshed out. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:59, 18 February 2013 (UTC).[reply]
  • Comment I confess to being the person who brought this case to the notice of the regulars at the BLP noticeboard. I am uneasy about this article, because the subject is prominent and notable solely because of the plagiarism controversies surrounding him. I have looked at and can confirm that the MathSciNet reviews linked in the pre-discussion version of the article (behind a paywall) do basically declare the author guilty of plagiarism. Although the case against this author is extraordinarily strong, the mathematics community doesn't have any formal process for declaring somebody guilty of plagiarism beyond the opinions of individual reviewers and editorial boards. I feel a bit uncomfortable having this article here on this basis because of that, but not strongly enough to offer an opinion either way. RayTalk 00:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There appears to be a clear pass of WP:Prof#C1 found by Nomo. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:26, 19 February 2013 (UTC).[reply]
How so? The work does not appear to be by the subject, so Prof#C1 is moot. Given the situation, I would expect solid proof that each work being counted toward WP:PROF was actually written by the subject and not plagiarized. A number of journals have formally retracted all the articles published under the subject's name. We can't count retracted articles or citations to retracted articles, can we? Yworo (talk) 00:45, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, we can't, but these bizarre occurrences go to increase WP:GNG. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:18, 19 February 2013 (UTC).[reply]
I feel the same uneasiness and can put the problem into words. The notices published by the reviewers and journals are primary sources. What we need are secondary reliable sources which give us an objective overview of the situation. We don't have those independent third-party sources that I can see, only reports from people somehow involved in the situation, if only as reviewers or editors. We need a source that takes a step back and reports objectively on those primary reports without having been involved in any way. That's a standard BLP sourcing requirement. Yworo (talk) 01:19, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree with your interpretation. The papers published (plagiarized or not) are the primary sources. Anybody who cites or comments on them is a secondary source. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:25, 19 February 2013 (UTC).[reply]
Primary means, and I quote "Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved." Any report by an editor or publisher about the 'event' of a submission and what determination they made is self-reporting. We need outside third-parties reporting on what the editors and reviewers did, not them reporting on themselves and their own decisions and determinations. Yworo (talk) 05:43, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as a famous plagiarist and restore the well-sourced material attesting to his status as a famous plagiarist, that was stripped from the article by the nominator. This has already been discussed at BLP/N as the talk page clearly attests, and the sourcing found adequate there, so I have to interpret this as a bad faith nomination. The idea that any negative reporting must be removed as an "attack page" would lead to absurdities like stripping our article on Hitler down to "Hitler was a german politician" and then proposing it for deletion for not making a claim of significance. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:23, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, the nom nominated it before there was much response at BLP/N. I was watching already... I was not the nominator. Yworo (talk) 02:27, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I appear to have misread the history; I have struck the inappropriate parts of my comment, and apologize to you and Darkness Shines for the misinterpretation. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:28, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I would still like an answer: when a journal editor publishes a paper, they have acted as a third-party publisher. When they publish a notice about an event they have been involved in, that notice is both WP:SELFPUB and WP:PRIMARY. I have no objection to keeping the article if it were based on proper independent third-party reports. It is not, however. Yworo (talk) 02:35, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's incorrect. As Xxanthippe says, the papers themselves are the primary sources in this regard. The journals are reporting on what the author did (plagiarized). Nomoskedasticity (talk) 05:29, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, they are reporting on what they themselves did - namely rejected the papers, made a judgement of plagiarism, and banned the author. Even the reports of what the author did aren't acceptable, because they are the self-published accounts of people who work for the journals. They are not independent of the publishing entity, and fall afoul of WP:SELFPUB, even though the journals are perfectly acceptable for the third-party papers they publish. We could not use information about a living person from an editorial section of the same journal, for instance., especially negative information. These notices are essentially editorials, not the publication of material written by parties independent of the publisher itself. Yworo (talk) 05:35, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Independent" means independent of the *subject*, not independent of anyone who has any actual knowledge of the subject. To do otherwise would be to force our articles to rely only on sources written by ignorami. What kinds of articles could we have then? Your standards of independence are absurd. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:27, 19 February 2013 (UTC)'[reply]
No, sorry, it means that author of the material must be independent of the entity which publishes the material. That's why we don't allow self-published material - the author and the publisher are the same entity. In this case, the published material is not by the subject. The material published was written by an employee of the publisher. Not independent publication. A paper published in a peer-reviewed journal has been peer reviewed. Who has reviewed the editorial content produced by the publisher itself? No one. Yworo (talk) 07:03, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This directly parallels how we treat court documents. We don't source directly from the judgement, we source from news reports of the judgement. There has been no coverage of these judgements in any news reports or by anyone one step removed from the process. The Wikipedia editor is sourcing directly from the primary sources in which the action (i.e. determination and ban) was taken, rather than a neutral third-party report of what occurred. Yworo (talk) 07:15, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
''author of the material must be independent of the entity which publishes the material" -- what? So if a reporter is employed by a newspaper and the newspaper publishes an article written by the reporter, it doesn't meet our standards? There is even greater independence in the case of journals, because for academic journals the editors and editorial boards are not employees of the publisher. Sage Publications publishes a large number of journals, the editors for which are employees of universities. It's not the publisher that is producing content here. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:16, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If the reporter is reporting on his own actions or those of his paper, then yes, it's not an independent report. Everyone who is affiliated with the publisher is not independent of the publisher. Could Hearst papers be trusted as a source about Citizen Kane? The sources are reporting on the editorial decision of the editorial staff of the publication itself, and they are written by the same parties which made the determinations and decisions. Those determinations and decisions have not been vetted or even reviewed by any independent entity. Don't you get that? Yworo (talk) 07:18, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You are confusing journals with publishers. Again, the publisher has not produced any content. In this one, the content produced by those academics would have been reviewed by the legal department of Springer, at a minimum. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:35, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that's a meta-discussion about a meta-discussion, which should be enough to convince some parties that we would be in the wrong to publish a biography which consists of nothing but negative information about something which has never gone before a court of law. Yworo (talk) 07:38, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete — for intractable WP:BLP problems regarding plagiarism because multiple reliable mainstream sources don't indicate he's notable for that reason, and I think this borderline-at-best BLP will remain problematic indefinitely. (Correct me if I'm wrong. And I insert "mainstream" for the magnitude and import of the label "plagiarist"). There may be individuals who are notable plagiarists, notable hoax perpetrators, and notable scammers, but even if it were true, I think we're still far from that threshold here. That said, the reliability of scholarly results has been called seriously into question. I'm impressed with the Google Scholar results, but given this subject's specialty and assuming there's some question as to any credit, I take issue with the reliability of the citation numbers and index. That said, where's the genuine biographical coverage? WP:ACADEMIC criteria are secondary, not the be-all-end-all; the truly encyclopedically notable will have a modicum of solid biographical coverage out there. JFHJr (㊟) 03:47, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Wikipedia takes no position on whether the subject has committed plagiarism. It just notes reliable sources that allege that he has. These are enough to pass WP:GNG. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:04, 19 February 2013 (UTC).[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Romania-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:49, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:49, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
But he also clearly passes WP:PROF, particularly #1. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:46, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ya but we cannot really go with PROF is all his stuff was pinched and is being withdrawn by the journals. Darkness Shines (talk) 13:49, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I addressed that point above, [5]. It's tempting to believe that if someone has plagiarised something then they have plagiarised everything, but it's not true -- not even of my students... Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:51, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Answer:no. E.g., Barack Obama is well known as a politician, but does not fall under BIO1E because he is actually well known for multiple achievements as a politician. John Wayne is well known as an actor but does not fall under BIO1E because he is actually well known for multiple achievements as an actor. Similarly, this subject is known for multiple instances of plagiarism. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:02, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Apparently not. I haven't seen a reliable journal, magazine, or news source discussing any of these instances alone or in aggregate. I haven't seen any indication that someone reliable other than the original publisher, who is bound to release a statement on its own retraction, has reported on the 1E. I've also seen no in-depth biographical coverage for a BLP. JFHJr (㊟) 14:58, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I know this AfD is getting long and so it's understandable that someone might miss something, but here's one I indicated above: Horace Judson, The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science, Harcourt Trade Publishers 2004. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:46, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
While that is presumably a source mentioning the plagiarism, the next question is depth of coverage. A book about fraud is going to describe many non-notable incidents of fraud in the same way that a book about blogs is going to describe a lot of non-notable blogs. WP:INDEPTH points out that a source that uses an example to highlight a type of event in a general manner doesn't make the example notable. Ken Arromdee (talk) 05:29, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm loath to engage in a meta-discussion. More on point, the WP:42 problem is that a single such source is insufficient, no matter how in-depth the treatment. In this publication, though, this subject clearly isn't the primary focus. Several such sources might make a case, though. I'll change my vote here or participate at deletion review if several (multiple) sources name him as a particularly prolific or otherwise notorious plagiarist. JFHJr (㊟) 05:41, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Read this article then. Quote: "The same "author" had succeeded in publishing plagiarized texts in other journals, such as, e.g., Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai Informatica, Computer Science Journal of Moldova and Journal of the Indian Institute of Science. The Graph Theory White Pages listed eighty papers published by Marcu in the period 1990-2003, and he was classified in 10th position in the list of the authors with most journal articles." Mhym (talk) 08:22, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I answered that one below. That is from one of the journals he submitted a plagiarized article to. They are only reporting on his plagiarism in other journals because he submitted a plagiarized article to them first, not because his plagiarism in other journals is independently notable.
It's not an article, either; it's an editorial, and it's not peer-reviewed like articles are. Ken Arromdee (talk) 03:02, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is illogical. If a newspaper publishes a story about an incident, we cite it. Newspapers are not "peer review", why have a different standard for research publications? The article is signed, and the authors and the journal are credible. This is enough for WP:RS. As for another issue - are you saying that having broken a story, this prevents a publication from being impartial, i.e. blacklisting it in some sense? I at loss with this twisted argument. But regardless, follow numerous MR links in the article. They are from Mathematical Reviews. Are they also non-RS? Mhym (talk) 09:47, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If a publication broke a story involving themselves, this does indeed prevent them from being considered impartial for that story, even if an update to the story goes on to mention someone else.
Furthermore, when you ask if sources are WP:RS, you are confusing WP:RS with notability and NPOV. Notability requires significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Being a reliable source is not by itself enough to establish notability, since a source can be a reliable source but fail to have significant coverage or be independent.
And no, I don't accept the Mathematical Review references either. Asking whether they are non-RS is the wrong question; the question for them is whether they are significant coverage. Reviewers review things of even low notability, and ideally want to review everything they can, so no--this is like asking if a restaurant is notable because it gets reviewed in a restaurant review column. (Ask yourself, if the reviewers had instead said that he's an average writer, would that establish that he's notable for being an average writer? Of course not.) Ken Arromdee (talk) 00:28, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, if notability is an issue - this is really not hard to show (you are arguing against other "no votes". See e.g. [6], [7], [8], [9]. Do you know many "average writers" whose case is discussed so widely? Mhym (talk) 06:00, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete seems to fail WP:GNG. Also I consider it highly inappropriate to use WP:PROF to justify inclusion of BLP which is basically fully "yeah, that guy plagiarized a lot".--Staberinde (talk) 12:40, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. If for no other reason, I think that Yworo's reasoning does hold. Articles about plagiarism produced by the entity that determined that there is plagiarism are primary sources. It is true that that entity is a journal, but the journal is acting in a different role than usual when it is publishing the conclusions of its own editorial board. Primary sources are not acceptable for negative statements about living people; you need coverage in secondary sources. And there seems to be no other reason anyone wants this article at all other than the plagiarism. Ken Arromdee (talk) 21:35, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Again, you are not reading many MathSciNet reviews in the article and Zblatt links I posted above. They are clear third party sources and very much on point. Just because these links are by subscription, does not make them less WP:RS. Mhym (talk) 03:08, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that's a fantastically inapposite example. Jack the Ripper's identity was uncertain, but nonetheless has so much secondary coverage by reliable sources as a serial killer that biographical details are of course secondary. This subject's identity is known, but he apparently hasn't garnered any substantial coverage in reliable sources other than primary sources ( = publishers making retractions), which don't indicate any significance; neither does your apparent WP:IKNOWIT/WP:TRUE world experience indicate significance because the proposition that he's well known and watched for doesn't appear in any valid source. If due care for BLP and general rules is observed, there wouldn't be an article about this subject. JFHJr (㊟) 18:33, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know about him, but I'm going to assert that that isn't a secondary source. It's an update from one of the journals that he submitted a paper to, making it a primary source since it's a journal reporting on its own editorial decision. It's true that the update mentions his papers in other journals, but it only considers the other journals to be important in the context of investigating the plagiarism in its own submissions.
A source may be primary in one respect and secondary in another. In this case it is a secondary source about the person in question. It is not a new theory. The editor's decision is based on their finding of fact, and these findings are definitely secondary. - Altenmann >t 04:06, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If I report how someone kicked my dog, and update it by pointing out that he also kicked someone else's dog, that doesn't count as a secondary source showing notability for him kicking the other person's dog. After all, I only care because he also kicked mine.
It also seems to be listing plagiarists because it believes that listing plagiarists in general is a good thing, which would seem to violate WP:INDEPTH (since it's using examples of an event to highlight a type of event).
Wikipedia is not for exposing evildoers. Just because he did bad things doesn't mean they belong in a Wikipedia article. Ken Arromdee (talk) 02:49, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
When a journalist investigates something, including personal observations and interviews, then publishes it in a reliable place, we cite it. It might be a primary source by some standards, but by long established Wikipedia practice we treat it as a secondary source. We also regularly cite newspaper editorials, hopefully with attribution, for the opinions they contain. I don't see this as any different from the editors of a journal publishing their observations about papers they have received. The key requirement is the reliability of the publication process. There is nothing in the primary versus secondary divide that tells us not to use such sources. Zerotalk 04:18, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
First Hitler, now Jack the Ripper, which world famous murderer will be brought up next in argument about including this obscure Romanian plagiarist? This would be humorous if we weren't dealing with BLP here.--Staberinde (talk) 12:41, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You are either missing the point or being deliberately obtuse, it's hard to tell. Of course he's not as notable as H or JtR — very few people are. The point of bringing up those examples was not to compare their notability, but to point out that some of the arguments being used against the article on Marcu could equally well be used against them, in order to show off how absurd those arguments are. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:10, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Only points those comparisons had was massive trivialization of BLP. Like seriously, saying that practically fully negative biography about living person with borderline notability is okay, simply because same is done on biography of world famous murderer from 19th century who is only known by a nickname? Huh?--Staberinde (talk) 14:11, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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