Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sebastian Rupley

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 (no sources about his work) - Nabla 15:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sebastian Rupley[edit]

The article contains two (possible) assertions of notability: a) The person is an editor for a major magazine; b) he is covered on CrankyGeeks. In my opinion, a) is not a secondary source and b) is not independent, with S.R. being something like a co-publisher. Thus the subject fails WP:BIO due to lack of secondary coverage. Sent here as part of the Notability wikiproject. --B. Wolterding 14:28, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep and expand I've never seen, so far as I recall, an AFD nomination longer than its respective article. I did a search engine test and found more than 100,000 Google hits, and about 200 citations on Google scholar. I'm not willing to work on this further, but there might indeed be a case for notability. YechielMan 00:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Since September 2006, no one else was in fact willing to work on this further (i.e. to add secondary sources), the notability warning has been on since then. Also, Google hits do not establish notability. --B. Wolterding 12:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and expand Those GS hits are interesting--some are his columns in PC--GS apparently includes that as a scholarly journal, which is news to me; the majority are citations to his patents, even mentioned in the article. DGG 05:34, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm not convinced that the Google scholar hits support notability. If S.R. were a scientist, and PC Magazine were a scholarly journal, then maybe 200 hits would show that he is "widely cited", and this is a criterion for notability by WP:BIO. (Still, just counting search engine hits is a dubious argument.) In this case, however, the hits just show that PC Magazine is popular and widely known. That makes the magazine notable, not its editors. As for the patents, what are "his" patents? I only found patents that cite an article of his. --B. Wolterding 12:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- - Question Exactly where does it say only scientists who write in scholarly journals are considered noteworthy enough for articles on Wikipedia? Wow! This is entertaining. KP Botany 21:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note that I did not claim that "only scientists who write in scholarly journals are considered noteworthy enough [...]". I argued that citations to an article have a different meaning (towards notability of the author) when that article is published in a scholarly journal, vs. that article being published in a mainstream paper. --B. Wolterding 10:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

" If S.R. were a scientist, and PC Magazine were a scholarly journal, then maybe 200 hits would show that he is "widely cited", and this is a criterion for notability by WP:BIO." Then why say, "if he were a scientist?" What precisely does that have to do with anything, that he isn't a scientist? Nothing, this is not scienapedia. And how do hits for this particular editor just show that the magazine is popular? The current editor of Vogue has her own page, and she's not a scientist, and Vogue isn't a scholarly journal. I'm trying to understand your arguments, and they don't really make sense, because they don't appear to have much to do with this article. Not being a scientist is not a criterion for dumping a biography in Wikipedia. KP Botany 15:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Look, all I was saying with that statement is: Because he does not publish in scholarly journals, one should not judge his notability by his hit count on Google Scholar. We should just look for secondary sources as described in WP:BIO. (And no one came up with any of them, yet.) As for the Vogue editor, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a valid argument. --B. Wolterding 16:06, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Except frankly, that's what everyone is basing their deletes upon, your assertion that he's not in Scholar. Why did you even bring this up? So, you're relying upon your initial assertion that his being an editor for a major magazine is not a secondary source as a reason for deletion? Well, Tony LaRussa's being the general manager of a baseball team is not a secondary source, either. What does that have to do with anything? Bats aren't tigers. Oranges aren't glaciars. I am really not following your nomination at all, and I don't think your replies are helping. None the less, your arguments that he's not in Scholar where you don't expect to find him seems to be carrying weight--good grief. KP Botany 16:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, KrakatoaKatie 00:12, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, nothing in Google Scholar supports real notability. --Dhartung | Talk 06:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Not notable. Yes he writes articles, and article-writers quote him(Google news Google web). But these and Yechiel's Google scholar search turn up no reliable 3rd-party sources we can use to write an article about him (or his work). Pan Dan 17:31, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
comment' as I thought everyone knew by now, that is not the only way to attain notability not everything in the newspapers is notable, and vice versa. Notability is within a subject. applied computer people determine what counts for notability among among applied computer people, and so on. Articles citing a person are a secondary source, just as book reviews are. Since most people in science and applied science cite each other a good deal, we rightly require (and have here) more than the 2 or 3 citations that would be enough if they were book reviews. DGG 05:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Of course a lack of newspaper coverage doesn't imply non-notability. Coverage in any kind of reliable source is enough to show notability. The problem here is that even the Google scholar hits (including articles written by applied computer people, which you emphasize) turn up nothing non-trivial about him or his work. A list of citations to his work doesn't make an encyclopedia article. Pan Dan 10:39, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete on the grounds that nobody has shown interest in improving the article since it was tagged as sadly needing improvement almost one year ago. That isn't an official criteria, but it should be.Garrie 06:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment after 8 days at AfD, the article is still only one line plus two external links.Garrie 06:04, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment There is NO criterion that says short articles are deleted--what precise length do you think articles have to be? This is the one that gets the most comments on the list serve, all of the deletionists who cry out, "It's short--it must be deleted because it's short!" Where are these criteria coming from? What's the deal?KP Botany 16:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If anyone thinks this should be a criterion, then it should be proposed at the Village Pump--our rules are subject to change if there is consensus. About six months ago there in fact was an attempt to change in exactly this direction. The policy proposal was called speedy deletion for unsourced articles -- "speedy" being somewhat of a misnomer, because the proposal was that anyone could tag an article and there would be two weeks to find at least the minimal two sources. The proposal was soundly rejected, and the comments were that in practice it would destroy the encyclopedia. DGG 18:27, 7 June 2007 (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.