Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stanley Aronowitz bibliography

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 merge to Stanley Aronowitz. There's good consensus here that a stand-alone bibliography is not justified. Opinion is divided whether this should be deleted outright or merged to the parent article.

Per WP:ATD, I'm going to give the nod to merge, but note that everybody who argued to merge, qualified that it should be a selective merge. I'll leave it to whoever does the merge to figure out what's worth merging and what's not, but the gist of this is that it should only be the most significant works. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:56, 19 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Stanley Aronowitz bibliography[edit]

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Article PRODded with reason " WP is not for posting lists of publications except of the most notable people (like Einstein). A short bibliography (with, say, 5 entries) with the most important selected works (as substantiated by independent sources) can be included in the article on this academic. All academics publish, but we don't need a completely list of publications for every one of them." Article dePRODded by creator who posted a long rationale on the talk page. I'll be interested to learn whether the community thinks that any person who passes WP:PROF (or WP:GNG for that matter) should have such a split-off bibliography article. I stand by my PROD, hence: Delete. Randykitty (talk) 10:08, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bibliographies-related deletion discussions. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist ^{(Speak quickly)} _{(Follow my trail)} 10:16, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist ^{(Speak quickly)} _{(Follow my trail)} 10:16, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist ^{(Speak quickly)} _{(Follow my trail)} 10:16, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - First, I believe we all agree that Mr. Stanley Aronowitz is a notable Acidemic with a justifiable article here on Wikipedia. As such the inclusion of his bibliography incorporated/embedded on his page would not be questioned. Which leads me to my Keep opinion on this WP:SPINOFF bibliography/list of Mr. Aronowitz works. Lists, tables, and other material that is already in summary form may not be appropriate for reducing or summarizing further. If there is no "natural" way to split or reduce a long list or table, it may be best to leave it intact, and a decision made to either keep it embedded in the main article or split it off into a stand-alone page. In looking at the Professor’s bibliography we see that he is a prolific author penning or majorly contributing to over 200 works. As we can see here, [1], his works are considered important and cited 1,000’s of times. If we were looking at just 5 or even 10 pieces I would just say Redirect and Merge to the main article. However with over 200 pieces, my opinion is we would be over burden the main articial, which than makes a case for a stand-alone piece. Many may say just shorten the list to those works that have been cited over a 1000 times. Others will say, lets include pieces that have been cited 500 or more, and on and on and on. My gauge point, for a piece to be considered passably notable, is when an article is cited 50+ times. In Mr. Aronowitz case, that would be 50+ separate article, books, papers. Which I believe justifies a stand-alone piece. Thanks for listening. ShoesssS ^Talk 13:33, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment We have thousands (if not tens of thousands) of articles on notable academics. All have publication lists of dozens of articles at a minimum, if they're nearing mid- or end-career, likely 100 or many more. Should we include on WP those publication lists of all those thousands of academics or leave that to the specialized databases that exist? --Randykitty (talk) 22:22, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. Someone has gone to a lot of work here to create an extensive bibliography on a notable academic. It's valid and sourced material. But Mr. Aronowitz's notability does not extend to every one of his written works. This separate list seems overly promotional and (to Randykitty's point) way out of balance to what we typically include for other academics. --Lockley (talk) 20:45, 1 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I don't understand what is meant here by 'notability extending to all written works' and why this would have something to do with the overall notability warranting the existence of a separate bibliography WP article. Let's take for instance an example I raised in my original contention: Slavoj Žižek is an academic with his own bibliography WP article, and he has also published a great number of works, some of which have received acclaim in academic circles, some of which garnered wider acclaim and praise, and some of which have received neither. Yet, the relevance of Žižek's bibliography WP article has gone unchallenged so far (as far as I'm aware). The same set of conditions I've laid out above apply to Stanley, as well. But one not need limit oneself to the case of Žižek to see how 'notability not extending to all written works' should not rule out the existence of a bibliography WP article. Take for example the article Works of John Betjeman, a featured bibliography article. This article includes in the bibliography the text Lament for Moira McCavendish, a "Undated, but c. 1958–59; booklet, limited to 20 copies" - a work with likely limited notability given that it was limited to 20 copies; and yet, Betjeman's bibliography WP article is a featured article. Further, there is no such rule in the notability guidelines in the WikiProject Bibliographies that speaks at all of 'notability extending to all written works.' Also, the purpose of separate bibliography articles is not to promote certain scholars above and beyond others, but simply because the scholar in question has so many publications that they can't be contained in their eponymous WP article, so I feel like this point obfuscates the discussion at hand. Joeyvandernaald (talk) 19:16, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - I'm going to reproduce my original extended contention to the PROD here as I feel like it makes some points which haven't really been taken up in the discussion thus far. "User Randykitty wrote that "WP is not for posting lists of publications except of the most notable people." First, this appears to be on the surface demonstrably false. Wikipedia features numerous list-class articles featuring publications which belong to no notable person whatsoever. For example, the Bibliography of fly fishing is not by any one notable person and yet it is a list-class article of note. Second, if the contention is in regards to notability, the grounds for notability of stand-alone lists should be assessed based on the set of qualifications set out for them, not on the person who the list is about if the person has their own Wikipedia article. Deletion on these grounds begs the question of whether or not Stanley is a notable person. Stanley in fact has his own Wikipedia article, whose notability has not been challenged; so to assert that the present article should be deleted because Stanley is not a notable person is incorrect. Randykitty has written as well that "A short bibliography (with, say, 5 entries) with the most important selected works (as substantiated by independent sources) can be included in the article on this academic." I would encourage Randykitty to examine the Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies section on Author bibliographies, which lays out guidelines for what is appropriate for author bibliographies. The guidelines state, "the author should be notable and have a Wikipedia article. If there are fewer than 10 works attributable to the author, they should be included in a bibliography or list of works section within the main article." So if one agrees that Stanley is a notable author, which, by virtue of his having an uncontested Wikipedia page, one can argue that he is, and because Stanley has more than 10 works (according to biographies written about him, he has more than 200), a separate bibliography can reasonably be created for him. Further, while Randykitty argues, "all academics publish, but we don't need a completely list of publications for every one of them" my rebuttal would be that not all academics have as a unique and voluminous a publication history as Stanley. If one looks at the present article as it exists so far, one can see that Stanley has published in both the academic and popular press, as well as written and edited numerous books. Yes, all academics publish, but Stanley's output in breadth and depth is exceptional by most any academics' standards, which is why the present article was created. Last. one need not look very far to find other academics and minor authors with bibliographies on Wikipedia whose standing in the scientific community (to take the example that Randykitty has raised) is lesser than Albert Einstein. One example is Slavoj Zizek bibliography, which actually fails to conform to the standards laid out by the Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies more so than the present article." Joeyvandernaald (talk) 19:16, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - What I am still confused about in the arguments for deletion thus far is Stanley's assumed lack of notability, and further its basis in a set of non-existent principles for notability of an individual warranting a bibliography. In Randykitty's original argument and, from what I think I understand in their point above, to allow for Stanley to have a separate WP bibliography article would somehow open the flood gates for anyone to create a bibliography article about any academic with an existing Wikipedia article. Setting to one side the fact that here are already actual notability guidelines on the Bibliography Wikiproject that are fairly clear in regards to this sort of question, it's being assumed that Stanley doesn't meet some set of notability guidelines appropriate for a bibliography that don't presently exist. Given the points raised by Shoessss above, what principles of notability are those in favor of deletion actually using in assessing Stanley? Why is it that, to those in favor of deletion, Stanley is just one of an anonymous group of "thousands (if not tens of thousands)" of other academics when Stanley has entered into and made meaningful contributions in numerous debates across a number of disciplines, had at least one retrospective conference dedicated to his work, and written many influential books? Further, to say that academics regularly publish over 100 articles, books, edited volumes, etc. is at best extremely likely to be discipline-dependent (also determined by gender, nationality, etc.) and at worst only hyperbole. Take for example, someone like Edward Said: in the article Edward Said bibliography, one can see that the listed works number less than 50 (if we believe this to be a faithful representation of his œuvre). Take as another example, the 2015 article by Kristoffer Rørstad and Dag W.Aksnes, who find that within the Norwegian Publication Database academics in the social sciences on average full professors are publishing 1.77 article equivalents per year; assuming that they continuously publish so robustly a thirty year career would yield sixty publications, with half of those examined publishing less, irrespective of the notability of said publications. Joeyvandernaald (talk) 19:16, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest you have a look at WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS... --Randykitty (talk) 14:06, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's fair - certainly the mention of the Žižek pertains to this, but unfortunately it's not really dealing with the other points I raised. I still don't think that this disproves Stanley's notability, or shows that he is sufficiently lacking notability to warrant a deletion of his bibliography. Joeyvandernaald (talk) 22:55, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Insufficient notability for this length of bibliography. Xxanthippe (talk) 11:33, 8 July 2017 (UTC).[reply]

There's been quite a bit of discussion about this so far, in regards to notability and what counts for notability. Even the first comment deals with this point. Please see above. Joeyvandernaald (talk) 22:58, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Wikipedia is not a CV or a personal website. Just about every notable academic has a long list of publications. Being notable for being an academic doesn't automatically mean a subject gets two articles. There needs to be some additional reason -- like some degree of historical notability or notability of several individual works. We don't have very clear guidelines for when it's necessary, but we typically only include major works and/or notable works in such bibliographies, which can live in the biography itself. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:56, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Rhododendrites, I think you're right - Wikipedia isn't someone's CV, and I've already pointed out that not every notable academic has a long list of publications; in fact, statistically it's quite rare. Setting aside the fact that these arguments are kind of going in a circle, which I've tried to address above, the "we typically only include major works and/or notable works in such bibliographies, which can live in the biography itself" also doesn't seem to be empirically true. I've already shown that both Edward Said and John Betjeman, two authors notable enough to warrant a bibliography article, have works in their bibliography that aren't contained in their main article. If we were to add another, one could take an author like Michel Foucault, who despite having numerous notable works doesn't actually have each of the works in his bibliography contained in his main article. Further, this again is not a guideline or qualification laid out by a relevant Wikiproject so far as I can see (please correct me if I'm wrong on this!) Joeyvandernaald (talk) 23:08, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, So Why 07:04, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Joeyvandernaald, you're wrong, Rhododendrites is correct. I don't think I've ever seen an academic who met our notability criteria, who didn't have at least fifty publications. A hundred is not exceptional. Publishing is what academics do. If those publications are noted, it's what makes them notable. Heck, most academics who are not notable have a list of at least 50 publications by the end of their career. But here's another statistical fact: Most publications, even from notable academics, are hardly ever cited. That's why we generally only list the 3-5 most important ones. As an aside, this discussion is not about the notability of Aronowitz (if needed, that discussion should be had at the talk page of his bio), it is about his bibliography. I'm pinging DGG, a retired academic librarian, to get his expert opinion on this issue. --Randykitty (talk) 07:17, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Randykitty - In response to what you're saying here, I'm still not clear on two things: how can one continue flatly claim something like "a hundred is not exceptional," especially in the face of me presenting evidence numerous times to the contrary? Same with claims about notability that aren't featured in the guidelines you've cited; the guidelines say clearly, "several extremely highly cited scholarly publications or a substantial number of scholarly publications with significant citation rates" and yet there's no mention of a particular number (fifty or otherwise). Also, the guidelines are at best giving a bare minimum set of criteria; two of which I've presented above Stanley Aronowitz debatably meets. What's going on here? Second, I still don't understand how this isn't a debate about notability at least partially. If notability of an academic is a basic criteria for consideration of separate article for bibliography, and your initial contention was "WP is not for posting lists of publications except of the most notable people (like Einstein)," the question of notability has either been implicitly or explicitly brought into this several times. I'm afraid that this discussion has sort of devolved such that I'm raising questions and just being told 'no' rather than reasoned debate taking place. Joeyvandernaald (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody said that having a hundred highly cited articles was unexceptional. I said that 100 publications wasn't exceptional, not the same thing. And as has been explained multiple times here, it's not enough that an academic is notable to justify a split-off complete bibliography. Einstein and Darwin, sure. But not for the "average" notable academic. See DGG's comments. --Randykitty (talk) 20:18, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think there's a simple rule, for scientists in a field where notability is attained by peer-reviewed journal articles, unless the person is famous (which we can roughly equate to Nobelist or the equivalent), the three to five most cited papers should be listed, because by the very fact of their high citations they indicate where the person's work has been most influential. There's one caveat--it's better to exclude review articles,which get abnormally high citations, and include only the ones that indicate original research. Sometimes there will be good reason to list a few others, for people active in more than one specialty. In any case it requires critical analysis of the GS or ISIS or Scopus records, and sometimes the original papers, to verify that the papers are those for which the person is the principal author, not student work highly cited because their advisor coauthor was famous. For famous people, one could goa little further, depending on field. For the very few really world-famous people,--Darwin, Einstein, etc. a complete bibliography can be justified, but for many of them, it may run to many thousands of entries. In general, for scientists below that level, I'd include it in the main article. It can even be the most important part of the article.

For academics in a field where notability is attain by books, such as Aronowitz, we normally list all the books,. If there are many, we can separate the ones authored from the ones edited, which are usually a little less significant. I think it generally wrong to include book chapters and journal articles in these fields, for they are considered less important. We would almost never include books reviews and lectures. If the person is famous, which in general means people outside their field will know about them, we can be a little more expansive. For the very few who are world-famous possibly a separate article is justified.

None of this applies to people who are creative writers or artists or musicians or film-=makers, and the like. . There we follow the practice of their field and include everything significant, or in some cases everything, and if they are reasonably well-known, it may well take a separate article. Nowadays, such people often hold academic positions, but they should be judged by the creative work. (A few very rare people have had substantial creative and also academic careers.)

In this particular case, we have someone in a field dependent on books, and only the books should be included. He has written enough of them to make the notability very clear. All the other sections do not belong here. And I do not see the case for a separate article. DGG ( talk ) 08:46, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect or selective merge to Stanley Aronowitz. I cannot fault the arguments that this person, while certainly notable, is not so notable that a separate article of their works is warranted. However, per WP:ATD, outright deletion is the wrong answer. Regards So Why 11:04, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Merge, selectively to the academic's article. As per DGG's comments, only the authored books should be included in a list on that page. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 13:18, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Selective merge book lists and redirect to Stanley Aronowitz, per DGG's argument above. My quirk is that I was bothered by the external links to the articles, which violates WP:EL, so removing the articles takes care of that. Adding collapsible lists for the different book sections can keeps them from dominating his article. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 23:44, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or highly selective merge. Clearly not in keeping with the spirit of WP:NOTEVERYTHING (and WP:WWIN broadly). Reading the proposal and the first few responses, I thought this might be a tough call--until I actually looked at the article. Clearly having this kind of indiscriminate collection of details on the publications of every mid-tier academic would be blatantly against longstanding community consensus on these matters; we only have lists that are even semi-comprehensive for the absolute giants of research and academics, and even then, only because their entire repertoire of work can be proven to be notable by way of secondary works which discuss them. This is a very different situation here; I'm sure this academic has his proponents, but I doubt he and his books are themselves the topic of enough sources to justify listing hundreds of his articles and books, especially given that, looking at his main article, I notice it is almost entirely (and thus inappropriately) sourced to WP:PRIMARY references. Borderline WP:SNOW on this one for me. Snow ^{let's rap} 08:45, 19 July 2017 (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.