Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Potok

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. I find the argument (supported by consensus) that there's no coverage on the author to be most persuasive. Daniel (talk) 12:04, 12 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Richard Potok[edit]

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Delete: this is a fairly blatant resume-style promo page for otherwise non-notable subject. Quis separabit? 22:38, 2 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions. lavender|^{(formerly HMSSolent)}|lambast 00:12, 3 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. lavender|^{(formerly HMSSolent)}|lambast 00:14, 3 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Richard Potok has a GScholar h-index of 3. Law is however a very low citation field, the average h-index of a (full) law professor being 2.8 according to LSE, which he exceeds. He does, however, certainly satisfy GNG and WP:AUTHOR, with multiple periodical book reviews. His book "Cross Border Collateral: Legal Risk and the Conflict of Laws" has been reviewed, in particular, at (2002) 50 American Journal of Comparative Law 877 [1] and at (2002) 25(1) University of New South Wales Law Journal 260 [2]. (This means that the book is also idependently notable under the criteria for books). There may well be other reviews. I haven't looked further, as I have seen enough. James500 (talk) 14:19, 3 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, generally speaking, book reviews are treated as giving notability to the book, but not to the author unless the author is also extensively discussed in the review. I can't view the American Journal of Comparitive Law link as it's dead for me, but the UNSW one only discusses him in passing (noting he's UNSW alumni), and is arguably not completely impartial in any case. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 10:56, 4 July 2015 (UTC).[reply]
(1) This link or this one or this one may work better than the one given above for the American Journal of Comparative Law. (2) WP:AUTHOR says nothing about the book reviews discussing the author instead of the book, and the consensus alleged above does not exist. It is clear that any attempt to distinguish between coverage of the book and coverage of the author, as regards notability of the author, is manifest nonsense, since the book is nothing more than the author's thoughts committed to print. Critical commentary on a book is critical commentary on the author, on his thoughts, his ideas, his opinions, on the contents of his brain, that being what the text is. It is not something that is genuinely distinct from him so that it can't contribute to his notability. That is like arguing that the handle of a bucket isn't part of the bucket because it has its own name, and we can point to it an say "that's a handle". That's just not a valid argument. A person's ideas are part of that person. If a person is only notable for one book, and nothing else, we might prefer to redirect him to an article on the book for practical reasons, but it isn't because he isn't notable. (3) The periodical articles are required to be independent, not "impartial" (ie neutral). That will exclude ones written by the subject or by an employee or other person under his direction and control. It will exclude something written to promote his book by the publisher. We might exclude something written by an employer if it appears that they are advertising his services to prospective clients. But the university no financial or legal relationship with him as an alumni that I can see. The fact that he was an alumni of that university appears irrelevant. It is too tenuous. It is not sufficiently proximate. We might as well allow "six degrees of separation" as an argument against the independence of all sources. On top of that the review was not even written by the university, it was written by Peter Willis. The description of Willis in the first footnote does not say he is employed by the university or mention any other connection. And the review is not entirely positive. In any event, I doubt that "independent", which seems related to notions of integrity, was ever meant to exclude a publication like the University of New South Wales Law Journal. (4) Even if we doubted the independence of the UNSW review, there is another review at (2002) 49(03) Netherlands International Law Review 416 [3] (note: you need a subscription to Cambridge Journals Online to read this review, or its abstract, but an extract comes up in GScholar on a search for potok+"cross border collateral".) So the requirement for multiple periodical articles is still satisfied. And there may still be more. James500 (talk) 01:28, 5 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:55, 5 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:56, 5 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Too promotional and although his notability is argued to be because of his book, he fails the WP:AUTHOR test. Thousands of books are published and hundreds are reviewed every year and most authors and most books are not notable enough to warrant an article. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:25, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The basis of notability is the level of coverage, not elitism. The total number of books published or reviewed is irrelevant. We are not here to say "we'll only accept the top 0.1% (or whatever) of textbook authors no matter how much coverage there is" for the sake of doing so. We are NOTPAPER and have no reason to do that. If a book has two reviews it is notable (and this one might satisfy TBK as well), and if it is notable, it will pass the lower test of significance in AUTHOR. Serious scholarly works, and their authors, tend to be notable. And they should be. There would be something seriously wrong with society if they were not. James500 (talk) 03:37, 11 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - The author clearly fails WP:GNG and WP:AUTHOR. There's no coverage on the author, and notability is not WP:INHERITED. The book has been the subject of two academic reviews, and thus just barely passes WP:NBOOK. Under the circumstances it should be considered to move the more important part of the info on the author to an article on the book. On a sidenote, I'd like to suggest to James500 that they follow the guidelines on discussions: please indent (instead of bulleting) your replies. Kraxler (talk) 15:40, 11 July 2015 (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.