Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Qian Nairong

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 keep. Appears to meet WP:N Wily D 09:26, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Qian Nairong

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Is this linguistics professor sufficiently notable? The article doesn't really show it, but this is not my area of expertise. Mild delete at the moment. --Nlu (talk) 23:55, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. There is in-depth coverage in The Global Times. Granted the Global Times is an offshoot of the People's Daily, the official communist newspaper, but I presume this is a nonpolitical topic. There is some coverage here. Going to Google Books and searching for his name, I see many books citing his works (the uniqueness of the name helps). Books from strong publishers such as the Oxford University Press. Going to Google scholar, I see many publications by him (linguistics related), and commentary on his works, for example here. He seems to be an expert on the Shanghai dialect, and the citations are to his various treatises on the subject. He is a department head at a major university; I would say that is about the same as a "named chair." Just searching in English gets us many citations to his work; obviously there must be much more in Chinese. Churn and change (talk) 02:35, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Yes, as a linguist of Shanghainese (and the other Wu languages) he's a pretty significant scholar, kinda wrote the "standard" grammar description, was one of the guys who reconstructed and classified its phonological history, etc. He's a pretty established academic (of the "will get a big in memoriam volume of essays some day" kind), and he's a fairly popular "public scholar", blogger, public lecturer, etc, famous for his preservation efforts for traditional Shanghainese (trying to preserve the old phonology, mostly. "New Shanghai" is quite different in pronunciation from the "Old Shanghai" and "Mainstream Shanghai" of older generations). So, there are lots of third-party sources in Chinese, hard to see how he's not notable enough. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.166.7.155 (talk) 14:49, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:44, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:44, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Churn and change. There's been sufficient coverage in reliable sources (Global Times and Language magazine at minimum), and he appears to be frequently cited by peers. Meets WP:GNG. WP:SCHOLAR is a little more problematic, because I don't think he is a "named chair" (that's not the same as a department head). But it doesn't need to meet both of these guidelines. --Batard0 (talk) 05:11, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there is an exception for countries where named chairs are uncommon; a department head is a reasonable substitute. But, yes, I think that discussion is academic. Churn and change (talk) 05:23, 24 October 2012 (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.