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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 keep. –Juliancolton | Talk 05:25, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Robert Boylestad

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Robert Boylestad (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Subject requests deletion (OTRS 2009032610045579). No personal opinion. BJTalk 01:12, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete I see evidence that the books he wrote are notable (high number of editions, widespread usage, references in other works). But I see not a single Reliable source written about him as an individual, to the point that it would be hard to write an article that was more than a stub, that met the criteria of WP:Verifiability. Two very brief news mentions, not public access: http://news.google.com/archivesearch?um=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=%22Robert+Boylestad%22&cf=all. I would have no problem with deletion here. If people really want to keep the material, it seems more appropriate to have articles about the books, not the author, especially since one of the books is co-authored. Cazort (talk) 01:34, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Although the person in question has participated in the writing of a couple of textbooks, I see no sources that would support an article about him as an individual. Fails WP:BIO, and his request for deletion merely reinforces my opinion. Deor (talk) 03:15, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is claimed that this content is sourced to the very books that it is about. Clearly, that isn't the case. I strongly suspect that it is a previously unpublished analysis of these books, being written directly into Wikipedia by a Wikipedia editor. And I further suspect that the reason for that is, as above, that there are no actual sources documenting this person's life and works, to work from. I've looked too. I didn't find any either. It appears to be impossible to write a verifiable article, free from original research, on this subject. Delete. Uncle G (talk) 05:22, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Needs sources, but the textbooks he's written seem to be notable, so the author is, methinks. ErikTheBikeMan (talk) 16:01, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • How are you proposing that those sources be found, when no such sources appear to exist? "Needs sources." won't just conjure them, magically, into existence. And how are you proposing that a biography of this person be written, when there are no sources for doing so? Please cite one or more sources documenting this person's life and works. Indeed, please cite one or more sources, outside of publishers' advertising blurbs, documenting the books themselves. Please show how even this content can be reliably and independently sourced. Uncle G (talk) 19:23, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- — LinguistAtLarge • Talk  05:26, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep. His existence as an (emeritus) professor at CUNY is sourceable (I just added a source for that, and removed some seemingly unsourceable material) as is the wide use of his textbooks. Seems to pass WP:PROF #4. There may not be a lot beyond that that we can say about him, but I don't see why we should need to. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I normally am not in favor of deleting stubs just because they are stubs but it is sounding from the discussion above that this article will end up a WP:Permastub--after all, the man is retired, so it seems doubtful more material will come in. The one good source for this page is written in detail about Boylestad's book, but mentions nothing about him as a person. The book, it is hard to dispute, is notable. I see a lot gained (esp. since he has requested deletion!) and little lost by deleting this page and creating a page for the book. Cazort (talk) 14:43, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But there's more than one book. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:05, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's so important how many notable books he's authored...as it is that there are sources covering him as an individual. I have seen many bio's of living persons deleted in cases where there was much more direct coverage than in this case. Especially, again, since this guy requested deletion, it seems outright cruel to argue to keep the page when people are deleting pages with more coverage left and right. Cazort (talk) 00:13, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's important that there's more than one book because, if there were only one book, we could suggest redirecting to an article about that book, but with more than one that doesn't make sense. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:33, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we couldn't cleanly redirect, but that doesn't make him any more notable as a person. The issue I'm most concerned with is that there there is extremely sparse material in reliable sources offering any sort of biographical information. Do you agree with my comment above that this will probably end up as a permastub, and just think it's ok to keep such an article? Or do you see some genuine potential for expansion here? Cazort (talk) 17:38, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any rational reason for deleting permastubs. They still contain some useful sourced information; why is it a problem that there isn't a large amount of information all in one place? —David Eppstein (talk) 23:20, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Definite keep Notability of a professor is defined in WP:PROF. The principal notability would be the textbooks, and that is quite enough. There would be the wide use implied by the multiple editions, and especially by the translations, which are usually a good sign of the wide use. . The various editions are, as expected, in hundreds of libraries. The review in THE is a joint review by a UK reviewer of several US textbooks--the reviewer liked Boylestad's book the best, which is of some weight. Assistant Dean is most definitely not a major administrative job--it's about as low in the hierarchy of Deans as you can get, and does not imply that he ever was a a full professor at Dartmouth and of course, professor at a community college is not equivalent to professor at a university. If someone has the exact listing in the ASEE directory, and could put in a quote in the article or talk page. it would help. WP:PROF was devised to deal with situations like this, and had been well accepted. What counts is a person's professional life, not his personal life. Authors of professional textbooks are notable as authors of notable professional textbooks. The expressed desire for information about him "as a person" is irrelevant--the point of an encyclopedia is that it talks about what is notable. supposing indeed there were two or three paragraphs on his childhood, for bios such as his we usually remove most of it--who his parents names are, and where he went to elementary school, in a bio like this usually is a sign of puffery. . The part that would help is the part actually relevant to his professional career, which is where his degrees are from. There's no reason not to have a stub indefinitely, though there will presumably be an obit somewhere to fill it in eventually. Why the subject wants deletion is beyond my understanding, but he's over the bar for marginal notability. This is a case where OTRS disclosing some information would help. I hope it is not the fact that he had at least the final part of his career at a community college that is taken to indicate he could not be professionally notable? DGG (talk) 01:22, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Here are the ASEE directory entries in question: [1] [2]. They don't say much. But they do indicate that your "final part of his career" comment is inaccurate — he was at Queensborough before he was at Dartmouth. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:27, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Maybe he considers it a bad idea to entrust the maintenance of this page--effectively his personal CV in the guise of an encyclopedia article--to the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Regardless of his reason, shouldn't Wikipedia honor the deletion request of a person who has been the subject of no biographies outside of Wikipedia? 160.39.213.97 (talk) 04:44, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • The standard for notability is not having a biography,, but having sources for something notable: in the case of academics, that amounts to famous, not just notable. If we honor requests we shall have bio articles for all the famous people, and for those notable but less famous who approve of their article--sort of like a Who's who. And that's the end of NPOV, at least for BLP. DGG (talk) 16:27, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • I said nothing about notability, so I don't know why you brought it up. In any event, Wikipedia's notability standard at wp:n supports my view that without independent significant coverage of this person--i.e., a biography--Wikipedia should not have an article on this person. More, Wikipedia's notability standard actually applies whether the subject is "famous" or not, and whether the subject requests deletion or not--so if Wikipedia applies the standard consistently there will be no imbalance problem (what you inaptly call the "NPOV" problem). 160.39.213.97 (talk) 20:32, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In Europe and India, University professors teach only graduate courses at graduate centers. The meaning in the US is different - A full professor also teaches undergraduate and graduate courses. Many teach just the undergraduate classes. Teaching at a community college is as good as teaching the 1st 2 years of undergraduate classes. An institution in the US without graduate courses may be called as a university or a college may have graduate courses.

I do not know how emeritus professor is defined in a community college. I suggest contributors adding more stuff to this article. In summary, there is no difference whether someone is teaching KG classes or graduate classes. They all amount to some kind of teaching and this guy's teaching experince is well acounted. I'll stick to my vote - all roads go to Rome. --Athos, Porthos, and Aramis (talk) 01:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Emeritus merely means retired; from the directory listing he was Full Professor. From the LC catalog, he was born in 1939. DGG (talk) 16:06, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks.

--Athos, Porthos, and Aramis (talk) 22:46, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • keep meets WP:PROF. Is clearly accomplished in his field. Can OTRS maybe get some permission from the individual to explain why he wants it deleted? Without any data in that it is very hard to evaluate whether that desire should be given any weight, and if so, how much. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:24, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • To conflate accomplishment in the field with notability, as wp:prof does, is a fundamental error. The publications of an accomplished academic can and should be used to source articles about the topic/s of his publications. If Wikipedia were a repository of CV's, the publications could also be used to source a CV for that person. What an academic's publications can't be used for, though, is to source an actual encyclopedia article about the academic. And "no sources-->no article" is a basic principle, or so I thought, at Wikipedia.

      It's one thing for Wikipedia to play host to a bunch of academic CV's. In most cases, the only harm is to Wikipedia itself. But where, as here, the subject of the CV requests deletion, there is harm both to Wikipedia and to the subject, whose wish should be respected. 160.39.213.97 (talk) 14:50, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. As noted by David Eppstein, and this search meets WP:PROF criterion #4 (significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions). Citation impact also indicates notability based on WP:PROF criterion #1 (significant impact in scholarly discipline, broadly construed).--Eric Yurken (talk) 02:50, 18 April 2009 (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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