Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Deviprasad Dwivedi

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. Unanimous keep amongst all !votes. Originally closed with keep, but the closer withdrew. Nominator disputed the first close and received a unanimous agreement in the deletion dispute that closure was appropriate. (non-admin closure) Vaticidalprophet (talk) 18:49, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Deviprasad Dwivedi

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Deviprasad Dwivedi (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Fails WP:GNG and WP:NBIO. His only relevance lies in being awarded the Padma Bhushan (which is a passing achievement even on national level), as suggested by the article itself. Fails WP:SIGCOV too as there are no "reliable secondary sources" that cover him. Not a single citation in the article is helpful and a simple google search does not yield a single source which covered him independently. Its ironical that they describe him as a writer when his whole bibliography is trivial. Average linguistics student write more often than him. This article may very well be worthy of being speedy deleted. Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 18:15, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 18:21, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Strong Keep (Author Vote): The fact that the subject of the article is a recipient of Padma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian award, is enough to accord him notability per WP:ANYBIO. Padma Bhushan has been awarded to only 1270 people in a country of 1.35 billion people and by any standards, is a major award. He has also received Padma Shri, which is the fourth highest Indian civilian award (3005 awardees so far since its inception in 1954).--jojo@nthony (talk) 03:37, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

WP:ANYBIO first paragraph- "meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included". Based on its standard, when wikipedia quotes "major award" then it implies that to be on a global level. And globally, Padma Bhushan is not even recognizable. Padma Vibhushan and Bharat Ratna maybe termed as "major awards" but Bhushan definitely does not. If it'd have been a major award, then he'd have received sufficient coverage, atleast locally, thus cancelling my point and passing the basic requirement for notability.

But we are not here to dispute whether PB is major or not. We are talking about the subject. And the subject is nor, even slightly, acknowledged neither is he, even locally, well-covered by any form of sources. None of his works have "made widely recognized contributions" towards any field. And it was very uncharacteristic of an experienced and respected editor like you to create an BLP category article with information cited by below-average sources. I'm confident that you know that TOI is not considered a reliable source but still, you've cited sources like Patrika News? And even in these trivial sources, he is not the "subject" of the article but just a "passing mention". One of the pdf's you've cited even crashed my device due to some virus it carried. I couldn't dare to open the other one. LOL! Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 06:23, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

@Pesticide1110: It is not in anyone's interest that we dispute about Padma Bhushan; I have been involved in many discussions in the past where editors from outside India disputing the notability of the Padma Awards while Indian editors strongly opposing them, citing the size of Indian population and the rarity of the awards compared to the population size. Coming to this article, the issue is that the subject's expertise and notability is in Sanskrit, an almost defunct language, nurtured only by a few institutions in India, and that too, only for academic purposes. Another reason why the sources are too few to come by, apart from the poor popularity of Sanskrit, is because Dwivedi is alive; in India, people get news coverage mostly on their deaths, unless of course, there are other reasons, positive or negative. I may be able to get more references if I go to the press coverage of Indian Republic Day honors of 2017 but it would not serve any purpose unless one agrees that the recipient of Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri is notable by virtue of those awards. That the subject has sat or sits in such boards such as the disciplinary committee of Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission, and the committee of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, and heads Kashi Vishwanath Temple are poor arguments, if the importance of Padma Awards are ignored.--jojo@nthony (talk) 07:50, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, it is the consequence of winning an award that makes one notable. India, howsoever bad state it may be in, is still a better place than any African country in terms of coverage. To be fair, i don't get what you're trying to imply with this reply. It just didn't make any sense to me. If the work's good enough, why won't it garner attention? Your own Arundhati Roy came out of nowhere and made a mark everywhere. She was not priviledged to be a member of these associations. One of my traits is that i only consider the subject. If the subject is good enough then howsoever worse the article may be, i'll help its cause. But the subject itself here is, for me, incompetent because he has done nothing so good as to receive any award. But that's not for me to decide. I can go on and cancel out every single point of yours as i'm in heavy advantage here but the thread has already become too long because of us. We should let others decide. Best of Luck Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 08:14, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

@Pesticide1110: I am sorry that my reply did not make any sense to you. I was just indicating that the notability of Padma Awards, and thus of the subject, is the main issue here; not the quality of the article, nor the references (otherwise, Wikipedia would not have allowed stub articles). Anyway, let others decide.--jojo@nthony (talk) 08:50, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Keep: Almost every single person who has ever received a Padma Bhushan has their own WP article. This is far more than just a “passing” achievement. This is not just a local society or industry award. In fact, there is a specific WP page just for the List of Padma Bhushan award recipients (2010–2019) and then separate articles for almost every single awardee. This alone suggests that Dr. Dwivedi is almost certainly notable if everyone else who received the award is notable. He also appears to have been a department head at a University aside from the other accomplishments listed. The country of India felt he was noteworthy enough to bestow one of it’s highest awards for his accomplishments, whether we think he was worthy of it or not.--Monteboat (talk) 07:43, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

I contend that this Keep vote is motivated by the fact that i also voted in favour of keeping Megan Smolenyak which was nominated for deletion by him. There have been incidents of almost every single award being awarded unreasonably to someone who did not deserve it. This could be one of those instances as well. Winning an award can never make someone notable. It's the consequences. That's why you'll always find "passing this does not guarantee notability" above almost every notability guideline. Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 16:23, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 09:04, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

• Keep. Not seeing any arguments to convince me that the Padma Bhushan is insufficient to confer notability per ANYBIO. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:55, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
• Delete Weak keep. I'm not seeing any significant coverage of the subject. Being briefly mentioned in (mostly unreliable) sources does not mean the subject passes GNG. – DarkGlow (✉) 12:10, 12 January 2021 (UTC) After points made by Tachs, I am withdrawing my deletion vote, and replacing it with a weak keep. This article needs work, but there is notability scope here. – DarkGlow (✉) 14:09, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@DarkGlow: The main question here is not of coverage, but if Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri, the third and fourth highest civilian awards of a country like India with a population of 1.35 billion people make their recipient notable. These awards, instituted in 1954, have only a total number of 4275 recipients so far. The awards are given by the Government of India. Both the awards have multiple Wiki pages attached to them, which indicates their importance. My rationale while creating the article was that a person, who has won both the awards must definitely be notable, an argument supported by WP:ANYBIO.--jojo@nthony (talk) 13:47, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Tachs: Per WP:SIGCOV, there are only passing mentions of Dwivedi online. I'd recommend working on the article in a draftspace, since there is certainly scope for an article here. And, only 4275 recipients? That's a lot of people... – DarkGlow (✉) 13:52, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@DarkGlow: 4275 recipients from 1.35 billion people, spanning 67 years. One may compare it with 'Queen's Honors' though the latter covers significantly less number of people. If a person is notable by one norm, we do not need to check WP:SIGCOV. Further, WP:CONTN suggests that notability is not based on the content of the article; the article is likely to get more editor attention along the way, in the case of BLPs, definitely after the demise of the subject.--jojo@nthony (talk) 14:04, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Tachs: Then that's a case of WP:TOOSOON. Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 15:26, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Pesticide1110: It seems that we are missing the point again. I was mentioning about the notability of the subject as the recipient of two major Indian civilian awards. Even if the article is deficient content-wise (that's what the editor implied, he stated, "there is certainly scope for an article here"), it does not affect notability (per WP:CONTN).--jojo@nthony (talk) 17:26, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Your point is that he is notable per WP:ANYBIO and my point is that passing 1 criteria of it does not overrule blatantly failing WP:SIGCOV, WP:GNG and WP:SNG because the latter ones are basic notability criterions rather than additional ones. This viewpoint is agreed here. Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 02:00, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

@Pesticide1110: If you do not want to consider WP:ANYBIO, consider WP:NACADEMIC which states (as point #2) The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level. The subject of this article has two major national awards (the third and fourth highest in his country) in the category "Literature and Education". Anyway, this discussion is dragging endlessly and I would rather utilize my time elsewhere. Thanks.--jojo@nthony (talk) 05:07, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

I doubt that Padma Bhushan can be considered an academic award (awarded by a notable foundation or trust) based on the specific criteria guideline on the same page. I need some admins to sort this out cuz im not sure. Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 15:44, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Comment: I came here from Village Pump (policy) discussion link. It seems true that as Pesticide1110 says, from article or sources which I went through, it is not clear exactly for what awardee has been awarded. May be even lack of significant coverage can be an issue.

But still two of comments of Pesticide1110 in this discussion more than strange. I don't know why passes judgement "...But the subject itself here is, for me, incompetent because he has done nothing so good as to receive any award....". There are example in this world where noble peace awards are awarded just in anticipation that some one will do some thing, and M.K. Gandhi never getting an award in spite of significant coverage..."

An author or an activist can always get an award for books or activism or whatever other qualities sans proper media coverage, May be Pesticide1110 knows the fellow personally and may be in his personal view his accomplishment is not important enough, but I don't know how does that gives one moral right to take potshots.

Similarly Pesticide1110 seems to present his best attitude with comments like 'your PDF did not open lol', I suppose Wikipedians can do better than this.

Thanks Bookku (talk) 14:08, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

@Bookku: I can see what you are trying to imply here. Regarding the pdf stuff, i can not really understand why you think that i was being disrespectful (or similar). That pdf really brought virus alongwith it as detected by my anti-virus. Adding "lol" was somewhat natural considering how over-cautious i am to not download a file just because it poses a threat. And i have put many points until now to justify why i branded him "incompetent". My brother is an author and he has written 19 books. We both agree that he has a long way to go to become even a "good writer". Unlike Deviprasad whose books are only published because he is an educator in Sampurnanand University (the publisher of all of his books), my brother has got his books published by different publications. So what makes this subject who has written just 4 or 5 books a writer? But somehow he has received Padma Bhushan for literature and education. Sums up India for me. See this - RTI exposes Padma awards. This is around the same time the subject got his award and the subject was a Union Public Service Commission member as well. I have done extensive research on the subject since the past 2 weeks (and so can everyone else) and i've come to the correct realisation that the subject does not deserve an article when so many authors (who have written many books compared to him) are denied an article everyday because they "do not pass GNG or SNG". What remains is to prove it. And i'll keep digging more information out for my case till i am allowed to do so. Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 15:30, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

@Pesticide1110: May be expressing your PoV is valid at personal level or may be @ other social media too, but what I mean to say is commenting as per policy about significant coverage and availability of refs should be more than enough. One can have personal PoVs whether Trump did any thing or not or Obama did some thing as much of a noble peace prize but Wikipedians are usually supposed to refrain from passing out personal opinions. Actually I don't have Phd in rules and I don't expect others to have one but I had a feeling that comment was from personal opinion/feelings and that seems to have come true from your comment. ThanksBookku (talk) 15:46, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Bookku I have a bad habit where my sympathy for one turns into hatred towards some other person. But we all have flaws. Jojo is a great editor and i respect him very much. It was a great disappointment to me that i'll get his article deleted but now it does not seem that the humongous effort i put into this will yield even a tiny effect. That's it. Up to whatever all of you decide. Pesticide1110 ^{Lets wrestle!} 16:15, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

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.