Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andy Lehrer

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 no consensus. MBisanz ^talk 02:39, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Andy Lehrer[edit]

Written by subject himself. Claims to have been suppressed by mainstream scientists, has been banned in the past for sock puppetry and personal attacks (relating to pages Bengalia and Bengaliidae). Notability is doubtful, except that there have been dismissive reviews of his self-published work on the family Bengaliidae that he has proposed. Shyamal (talk) 04:48, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 12:20, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 12:21, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 12:21, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep~~Delete~~. Could not find enough to establish notability under WP:PROF. Does not seem to pass WP:BIO either. Low citation impact. Most widely held book in libraries currently in less than 20 libraries worldwide according to WorldCat.--Eric Yurken (talk) 16:33, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I have conducted an analysis (brief) of the new species discovered, and am now convinced of notability. Changed recommendation to “keep”. Thanks Frank Pais - indeed, the article needs development not deletion. Note: I corrected the indentation of Mista-X recommendation so that it is not missed by the closing admin.--Eric Yurken (talk) 00:04, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Couldn't find a thing in any peer-reviewed journals. Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 21:25, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
STRONG KEEP - There is a wide wealth of content written by Mr. Lehrer in various journals available on Lexis-Nexis. His academic contributions are highly specialized, and demonstrate a unique knowledge that is arguably not possessed by many of his scholastic peers. We can help develop this article into something beautiful. It mustn't be deleted. Frank Pais (talk) 16:28, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The only thing is that there are a very large number of people who describe species and notability of species authors is linked to the notability of the species (although species are automatically protected from deletion). Would also note that there are a number of Wikipedia editors who have better publication records and have described new species. If just content in any journal counted, one could produce an equally long list for every university staff member. Shyamal (talk) 02:10, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

STRONG KEEP - As per above. --Mista-X (talk) 19:53, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I did a Google Scholar and found:
- 20-odd articles by A Z Lehrer. Only 1 was cited elsewhere, and only once - and that was in another of his own articles, which he uploaded to Wikimedia.
- This review of Andy Z. Lehrer’s book on Bengalia, which concludes "It must be treated with the utmost caution and circumspection" - ouch!

I think there are 2 reasonable courses - delete, or include the conclusion of the book review, with ref of course. >-) Philcha (talk) 08:30, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, the article lacks sources independent of the subject that establish notability. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:20, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

delete no reliable sources to establish notability. It basically looks like a web host for this guys personal bibliography at the moment.Bali ultimate (talk) 01:40, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. We recently had a deletion discussion on an article where species’ discovery was the main claim of notability. We kept the article. It seems to me that the problems with this article call for revision tagging rather than deletion. After all, we are debating notability here, not how well written the article is.--Eric Yurken (talk) 01:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is little trouble in supporting the keep of Ludwig Carl Koch. The trouble in this case is that there has not been any substantial species discovery that has been widely cited by third party sources. It is more of taxonomic revisions, and many of the genus names and the new family that has been proposed has been dismissed. (The review is in fact more damning, suggests that the subject does not understand conventions in contemporary taxonomy, the ICZN code etc.) The subject has been waging personal-attacks against entomologists that he thinks are detractors. This is an autobiographical note and there are no reliable sources, nor is there any mention of his notability in any third-party source. This is quite different from the case of long dead scientists. Here is the very carefully worded summary of his work as described by a third-party source unconnected to him http://www.zmuc.dk/entoweb/sarcoweb/sarcweb/workers/Cur_work%5CLehrer.htm and you can decide how many on the rest of this list http://www.zmuc.dk/entoweb/sarcoweb/sarcweb/workers/Cur_work.htm should be considered notable. The most similar case I can think of is actually Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Raymond_Hoser but in that case the subject had arguably become notable by attracting media attention which provided "independent third-party" sources. Shyamal (talk) 02:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep sufficient publications to show he is one of the major figures in his subject. That other workers in the field disgree with some of his work--or even most of it--is not all that uncommon among systemic biologists. The very object of a major publication in taxonomy (called a "revision" or a "monograph" is to re-arrange all the previous classification everyone else has done. The quote from the review is selective. The conclusion is in full: "Although describing many new species and creating the foundation for a rational taxonomy of a species-rich genus, LEHRER’s work ‘Bengaliidae du Monde (Insecta: Diptera)’ is an incomplete work that masquerades as a full taxonomic revision. It must be treated with the utmost caution and circumspection." One could just as easily have quoted the first part and used it as positive. Presumably this controversy will be judged by the general opinion in the field. Obviously, there's a great deal of editing to do, but that's another matter. DGG (talk) 03:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I will assume that this takes into account that the suggestion by User:Dyanega "as far as I have been able to determine, all of his publications cited here and elsewhere are either self-published directly ("Fragmenta Dipterologica"), printed by a publisher who has no peer-review requirements ("Pensoft Series Faunistica"), or printed in a journal that has no peer-review requirements ("Entom. Croat.")." (from User:Dyanega on the Talk:Bengalia#Familiarity_with_what_WP:NPOV_means) Shyamal (talk) 04:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since it meets the Zoological Code requirements for publication, it's published. This is one of the few fields that does have a standard. Basically the argument against this article is that he is not a particularly competent scientist, but that doesn't make him not notable--this is not one of the things we are supposed to be judging. If we started judging people by the intrinsic quality of their work, afd would be interminable.. DGG (talk) 05:44, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed that it meets ICZN criteria to qualify as a published description. But there is still no policy that grants automatic notability for authors of species. The notability per WP require independent third party citations for it. The contents of the article are completely WP:OR. There is little scope of improving this article if there is no reliable source for any of the biographical information. Compare the case of an author (Ramana Athreya) who has described just one species (as an amateur and in a rather obscure journal). Shyamal (talk) 06:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per Shyamal's research and per Eric Yurken's original reasoning, which still seems sound to me. Not every taxonomical classification imparts notability to the taxonomist; WP:ACADEMIC requires peer recognition of a greater sort than has been demonstrated here. If, indeed, Lehrer is a Galileo unappreciated by modern science, well, 22nd-century Wikipedia can celebrate his sacrifice and curse our ignorance. Willing to change my mind if Frank Pais can show me more notability than currently exists in an article consisting entirely of WP:OR and WP:PUFF, but simply having a publication record doesn't confer notability to me. THF (talk) 15:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
delete ISI h-index = 4, I see no reliable sources supporting a notable impact on the scholarship of his peers. I'm not moved by the argument that notability is inherited from the automatic notability of his study organism. I know *lots* of scientists that totally non-notable, but have described many new species. Pete.Hurd (talk) 23:14, 26 January 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.