Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Douglas Ousterhout

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 no consensus. I am not satisfied that a consensus has formed. There has been several in-depth arguments to keep, but valid points to delete and also a suggestion of a merge mean I am ultimately dissatisfied that it is reasonable to call this either way. The discussion mostly fizzled out in week two, so I see no advantage to an additional relist. KaisaL (talk) 03:12, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Douglas Ousterhout[edit]

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promotional. He did write a textbook and may be notable for that but i tried and failed to remove the promotionalism. A plastic surgeon's description of the operations he does is advertising for him. A newspaper's description of him as eminent is not reliably sourced, because only a scientific source will do for that,so its advertising for him also. Lack of notability is not the only reason for deletion. Borderline notability combined with clear promotionalism is an equally good reason. Small variations to the notability standard either way do not fundamentally harm the encycopedia, but accepting articles that are part of a promotional campaign causes great damage. Once we become a vehicle for promotion, we're useless as an encyclopedia DGG ( talk ) 05:50, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. There's nothing promotional at all going on here. The man is retired. But more to the point, that's a complaint about content. Here at AfD, we care only about notability, which can be established either by multiple reliable independent sources discussing the subject in detail or by showing that the subject should be presumed notable based on other criteria. We have both. He invented facial feminization surgery and he wrote the definitive books on the subject, Aesthetic Contouring of the Craniofacial Skeleton and Facial Feminization Surgery: A Guide for the Transgendered Woman, which appears to satisfy WP:CREATIVE. Google scholar reports his scholarly articles have attracted over 1200 citations, which also appears to satisfy WP:ACADEMIC. Finally, we have sources. The SF Chronical article [1] had already been cited but a Google search quickly turned up addition sources, including an Allure article [2] describing what he did in detail. This is an easy keep. Msnicki (talk) 06:32, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Citations depend on the field.Clinical medicine, especially in surgical fields, has a very large number of citations because 1/surgeons report individual cases and 2/in medicine in general, people normally cite everything possible on the subject, not merely everything that is significant. Total number of citations i particularly meaningless: what matters is the distribution. An accepted figure in that field,as suggested in fact by Garfield,who invented the technique, is at least one paper with over 100 citations; there are none of them here. DGG ( talk ) 18:25, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You're objecting that his top paper only got 92 citations not 100? Msnicki (talk) 00:57, 16 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Health and fitness-related deletion discussions. SwisterTwister talk 07:27, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. SwisterTwister talk 07:27, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. Msnicki (talk) 14:57, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Sources give only passing mention. None of the sources is about Ousterhout at all; they just include a quote or two from him. He appears only to have edited books (which does not meet ACADEMIC) rather than author them (which does meet ACADEMIC). Number of citations is not in ACADEMIC at all.Frumiousbandersnatch2 (talk) 18:16, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Passing mention? The SF Chronicle article is almost 1800 words and devotes paragraph after paragraph exclusively to him and what he does. The only paragraphs that aren't about him and what he does are there to give context, e.g., some brief sketches of a few of his patients and how he's changed their lives. At most AfDs, a brief mention is a sentence or two, not an 1800 word article in the Chron devoted to the subject.

Re: citations in WP:SCHOLAR, sure it's there: Wikipedia:Notability (academics)#Citation metrics. It just doesn't give a number. It leaves it up to us to consider. Msnicki (talk) 00:57, 16 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. As per nom. — James Cantor (talk) 13:18, 18 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:PERNOM. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 07:18, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. User:Msnicki, you are perfectly entitled to disagree with me (and any or everyone) in this or any issue. It is perfectly inappropriate, however, for you to retaliate by POV-editing the wiki page about me. I have indicated this at AN/I here, and on your talk page here. — James Cantor (talk) 18:25, 18 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm genuinely surprised by this reaction. Response here. I was trying to be nice. Msnicki (talk) 20:08, 18 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete another article on a non-notable surgeon.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:25, 18 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:JUSTNOTNOTABLE. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 07:19, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep notable surgeon per Msnicki. PaleAqua (talk) 20:00, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I have just added two book sources.[3] One is by a Pulitzer Prize winner who devotes a whole chapter to describing what Ousterhout has done to a patient named Mel. The other is by an assistant professor of sociology reflecting on what Ousterhout promises his patients, published by the New York University Press.

When we have such solid sources supporting notability, the WP:ATA !votes to delete seem surprising. Are these other individuals actually examining the sources in an WP:NPOV fashion or are they working an agenda? Msnicki (talk) 21:42, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. As with the previous sources, both of these again provide only passing mentioning; neither provides in depth coverage. Indeed, the sources are not actually about Ousterhout at all, they are about facial feminization (when discussing their transitions, some patients name their surgeons). The gratitude is understandable, but it does not demonstrate notability for WP's purposes:

In the one by the Pulitzer Prize winner, the author was trying to understand her father's transition to female (i.e., the author was not an expert in trans issues). The book is searchable on Amazon, and searching for "Ousterhout" revealed three hits, all on the same page. It quotes a former patient, Mel, who says:

“'I wouldn’t have done the surgery if I couldn’t have the face,' Mel said. 'I could never be a clown. If I’m going to be seen in women’s clothes, I’m going to be genuine. I had one of the best facial surgeons in the country, Dr. Douglas Ousterhout'." (I'm not a fan of someone saying that trans folks who can't afford facial surgery are "clowns," but that's neither here nor there regarding notability.)
Then: “I’d look up Ousterhout on the Internet and find before-and-after photographs of his patients, YouTube promotional videos, and patient testimonials to his magic touch.”
And finally, the passage cites a blog by another former patient, Diane, who wrote, “Dr. Ousterhout will try to improve your appearance so that you feel that you fit back into society as the person you want to see in the mirror.”

Happy patients are all well and good, but neither customer testimonials, nor their blogs, nor mentions of those blogs by non-experts establish notability.

In the other book, Saving Face: Disfigurement and the Politics of Appearance, I again searched on “Ousterhout” which found 10 mentions. Of those, 6 were in a footnote or a citation in the reference list. (Again, citations are fine, but do not establish notability.) The remaining 4 hits were:

A quote from a former patient’s blog, which says, “Many thanks to Douglas Ousterhout [FFS surgeon] for understanding and caring…” (p. 83). All well and good, but, again, patient testimonials do not indicate notability.
“In a pamphlet distributed by FFS surgeon Douglas K. Ousterhout…techniques of facial feminization are described in detail” (p. 88). Fine to cite Ousterhout’s pamphlet for the information about FFS, but the bar for PROF is higher than that.
“Ousterhout asserts that…skulls of men and women differ in both shape and size” (p. 89). Again, fine to use Ousterhout as a source of the statement, but it does not establish notability on Ousterhout’s part.
“Ousterhout suggests a sliding genioplasty” (p. 90). Ditto.

Whether user:Msnicki is conveying the content of these sources faithfully or with excessive spin-doctoring is better left up to other readers.

— James Cantor (talk) 12:48, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If it takes this much space to summarize these two "passing mentions", they clearly were not passing mentions. Anyone is free to examine the four sources I rely on, SF Chronicle (1800 words), Allure, In the Darkroom and Saving Face, to verify these are sources discussing the subject and what he does at length. None is offered in support of WP:SCHOLAR (support for that is found in the citations for his scholarly work) nor as support for any medical claims. They are offered as evidence that multiple reliable independent secondary sources have written about him in detail, which is all it takes to establish notability at AfD. Everything else is a content question to be taken to the article talk page. Msnicki (talk) 14:42, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't summarize anything. I provided the mentions in their entirety, so that readers could assess your claim that an RS "devotes a whole chapter to describing what Ousterhout has done." I also recommend folks read the sources for themselves and decide whether testimonials on blogs from satisfied clients counts as detailed coverage. — James Cantor (talk) 15:59, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please identify which of the four sources I rely on you think are blogs. Msnicki (talk) 16:04, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say your sources were blogs; I pointed out that the sources you added were themselves merely reiterating client testimonials on blogs. — James Cantor (talk) 16:12, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that these clearly WP:RS have decided to report and discuss material they found on blogs (however unreliable that material may be) does not make these sources unreliable. It makes them WP:SECONDARY. They are both reliable sources. One author is a Pulitzer Prize winner and the the other is an associate professor in sociology. Both publishers are similarly reliable. Moreover, they do not just "reiterat[e] client testimonials", they offer their own reporting and thoughts, which is the essence of a good secondary source. Not every sentence has to have Ousterhout's name in it to count. Msnicki (talk) 16:45, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I've added[4] two news sources, NBC and SFGATE about his residence in the famous Mrs. Doubtfire home. Msnicki (talk) 15:40, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think one can find a better illustration of scraping the bottom of the notability barrel. Living in a house that appeared in a movie does not a notable person make. Indeed, there is little (if any) evidence that the house itself is notable, nevermind its current owner. — James Cantor (talk) 15:59, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It could be worse. At least it's not an ambiguous quote in a tabloid story, remarking that self-identified shemales "change their stories".[5] Msnicki (talk) 16:28, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as promotional. Surprised it has survived this long. Coretheapple (talk) 23:24, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Even if true, that's a complaint about content, to be dealt with on the talk page. At AfD, we care only about notability as defined by WP:GNG, which asks that there be multiple reliable independent secondary sources discussing the subject. Those sources exist. Msnicki (talk) 23:52, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Promotional articles are deleted all the time. However, one way of dealing with it is to merge Facial feminization surgery, as suggested by the editor below. Coretheapple (talk) 03:29, 21 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

merge and redirect to Facial feminization surgery His claim to fame is having pioneered that surgery but we really don't have enough on him for an article outside of that achievement. The target article is pretty bad; I am working on fixing that and will mention him there as a pioneer; that fact is very well sourced. Jytdog (talk) 00:16, 21 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's a possibility. Hey, what a coinky-dink to see you here. Coretheapple (talk) 03:26, 21 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Jytdog, you've done a lot of really, really good work on both the FFS and Ousterhout articles. I argued that we concern ourselves here at AfD with notability, not content, and obviously believed the sources were there to satisfy WP:GNG. But others have argued that it was promotional and you argued there wasn't really enough to report.

Since then, you've completely rewritten the article. You've turned the Ousterhout article into a pretty good article about him and how he invented FFS. I think your changes should satisfy arguments it was promotional and perhaps your argument as well that there just isn't enough to report.

Would you now be willing to reconsider your own !vote and change to keep? Msnicki (talk) 17:31, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! The content I added here was just copied from content I generated at the FFS article and it works fine there; there is no need for a separate article on him. Jytdog (talk) 17:54, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.
1. Guthmann, Edward (2006-04-26). "Facing facts". San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on 2016-06-26. Retrieved 2016-06-26.
  The article notes:
  Ousterhout, who practices at the California Pacific Medical Center's Davies campus on Castro Street, is widely considered the country's foremost facial feminization surgeon. This is because of the cranial and maxillofacial techniques he developed to change the shape of the skull. Unlike most plastic surgeons with their standard menu of tummy tucks, eyelid lifts and rhinoplasties, Ousterhout, 70, brings skills he acquired at the Center for Craniofacial Anomalies at the UCSF Medical Center, where for 25 years he was head surgeon and worked on children born with severe skull deformities. In 1998, when HMOs reduced reimbursements for skull surgery ("I wasn't going to be able to afford my practice"), he switched to female feminization surgery full time.
  ...
  For $22,000 to $40,000 -- roughly twice the cost of sexual reassignment surgery -- Ousterhout's patients undergo as much as 10 1/2 hours of surgery. They remain in the hospital two days after surgery, then transfer to the Cocoon House, a bed-and-breakfast facility run by two nurses in Noe Valley, for eight days of convalescence.
  Eighty-five to 90 percent of Ousterhout's patients are transgender. Ninety-five percent come from outside the Bay Area. "I have one patient who wants the surgery so badly," he says. "She's in a coal-mining town somewhere in Kentucky and she says, 'I don't dare dress as a female where anybody can see me. Literally, I'll be killed.' And she's probably right."
2. Kron, Joan (2015-06-12). "A Look at Caitlyn Jenner's Facial Feminization Surgery". Allure. Archived from the original on 2016-06-26. Retrieved 2016-06-26.
  The article notes:
  Facial feminization is an aggressive remodeling of every aspect of the facial skeleton. A mere face-lift won’t do it—saws are involved, along with burrs to whittle down bones. A typical operation can last up to 12 hours. But for the patients, it’s worth the risks, the pain, and the high five-figure price. “As a transgendered individual, perhaps nothing is more vital to you than having a body that matches how you feel,” wrote Douglas K. Ousterhout in his 2009 book, Facial Feminization Surgery: A Guide for the Transgendered Woman (Addicus Books).
  Semiretired now, Ousterhout is the San Francisco plastic- and cranio-facial surgeon who pioneered the specialty in 1982, after his first transgender patient asked for help. “Dr. O. has done more than 2,000 of these surgeries,” says his associate and handpicked successor, Jordan Deschamps-Braly, who did not do Jenner’s surgery.
  ...
  In the 1980s, facial feminization was uncharted territory. To plan his first operation, Ousterhout, who had devoted 25 years to pediatric birth defects, first studied the 1,500 human crania in the Atkinson Skull Collection at the University of Pacific School of Dentistry, comparing male and female bone structure. His work eventually became the basis of a whole new surgical specialty. We don't know exactly what procedures Jenner underwent, but the following is Ousterhout and Deschamps-Braly’s menu of the most important feminization procedures—and a tiny snapshot of what’s involved. (Warning: What follows is not for the squeamish.)
There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Douglas Ousterhout to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".
Cunard (talk) 02:04, 26 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per sources identified by Cunard. SJK (talk) 07:35, 26 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 10:51, 26 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per focused, non-incidental coverage in reliable, bylined, secondary sources. The article is somewhat poorly written, and could use more encyclopedic style, but AfD is not cleanup. I find arguments that reliable secondary sources are not allowed to themselves use what we consider to be unreliable sources as their own sources to be unfounded, and against WP policy. Reliable secondary sources are perfectly allowed to go to primary sources for their information, and in fact SHOULD do so. Reliable secondary sources are perfectly allowed to evaluate and selectively integrate from sources non-independent to the subject, and in fact, should do so. Multiple reliable bylined secondary sources are all that is required to establish notability, and we have that. We not only have WP:BASIC, but WP:GNG, and WP:SCHOLAR as well. I must !vote keep. Fieari (talk) 07:12, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per !votes by Fieari and Cunard. Ceosad (talk) 19:22, 27 June 2016 (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.