Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fengbo Zhang

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. the issue of verifiability not adequately addressed by the links provided J04n(talk page) 16:10, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fengbo Zhang[edit]

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There are no reliable and independent sources in the article, and a google search does not show anything that would indicate reliability. It might well be the case that there are many sources in Chinese. But something about this article is fishy. The lack of English language, although the article claims that he was a visitor at Harvard and the NBER and is a senior vice president at Citigroup. The tone of the article. The many wikilinks in other articles that lead to this article, see [1]. In fact, if my hunch that there is something fishy about this article is correct, it will be necessary to clean-up quite a few other articles. See for example this article about a self-published book by Fengbo Zhang, Analysis of Chinese Macroeconomy. Pantherskin (talk) 16:15, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~Speedy Keep~~ I am having trouble understanding the grounds for nomination. I did a google book search and found almost all of the books referred to in the article, a google scholar search founds much discussion of his work, and the references in the article link to real sources. Analysis of Chinese Macroeconomy is not self-published, it is published by People Press, China, a major publisher. Please withdraw the nomination. Francis Bond (talk) 16:47, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am more than happy to withdraw the nomination if you could actually provide reliable and independent sources. Google Scholar does not show any discussion of his work, contrary to your claim. The references in the article link to googlepages, blogs and wikis. Google book search shows some of his book, alas they are self-published (i.e. by Xlibrins or by Fengbo Zhang himself). Pantherskin (talk) 17:24, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies to Pantherskin. I have looked further, and while the Analysis of Chinese Macroeconomy is not self published, the other books do seem to be, and I could not find any supporting evidence. The Citistar reference is only to a web page, and seems to refer to a Frank Zhang not Fengbo. In addition, most of the wiki-references seem to come from a single use User:155ws. So, I change my vote to speedy delete. Francis Bond (talk) 05:42, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Frank Zhang may be a pseudonym for Fengbo Zhang. It is common for Chinese who come to America to change their name to something more familiar.X20Deepx (talk) 18:38, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

*Keep, not being funny, but 'seems a bit fishy' isn't a criteria for deletion. The sources aren't great, but you can request a translation of the Chinese ones. Lot's of g-hits, which without trawling through them all seem to suggets notability. I think it's more a candidate for tagging and research than AfD, unless you can point out something more definite that's wrong with it?--ThePaintedOne (talk) 16:56, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The lack of sources, the promotional nature of the article and the many wikilinks inserted into other articles, the fact that the deletion tag was removed by a newly registered account. But what makes this article fishy are the claims that cannot be verified. Senior vice president of the Citigroup, but there is no Fengbo Zhang at Citigroup. In fact a look at the homepage of this individual is instructive ([2]). There is a claim that he was a keynote speaker at the China Finance Summit, but the link to the summit shows that he is not in the long list of speakers. And so on. Pantherskin (talk) 17:24, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Delete people more knowledgable than I in this area have looked into this in some detail below and concluded the citations required at not there, so I'm switching to delete. However, it's a marginal case and I'd go back if better citations were provided.--ThePaintedOne (talk) 07:15, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:06, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:07, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete until sources for this article are rock-solid. I can't find more than find 2 cites in GS. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:19, 10 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Speedy Keep I managed to find all of the books as well. As already mentioned, Analysis of Chinese Macroeconomy is published by a major Chinese publisher, so he seems legit. It is difficult to find non-Chinese language sources for Chinese scholars, and I am satisfied with what's there. Perhaps some areas of the article could be developed, but that is no reason for deletion. X20Deepx (talk) 01:36, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that the books exist is irrelevant. Notability does not depend on how much a person has published but on how much their work has been noted. In this case there seems to be almost no cites to the work at all. We also need to examine whether the article on the book Analysis of Chinese Macroeconomy is properly sourced. Are there any independent sources? Xxanthippe (talk) 02:44, 10 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Yes, please check these: here for a page of newspaper articles from the Economic Daily, here for published Japanese newspaper articles, and here from the People's Daily. X20Deepx (talk) 19:42, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Delete Looking harder I could find no solid references beyond the first book. The lack of evidence for major claims suggests that this page is not just not notable but factually incorrect. Francis Bond (talk) 05:42, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The subject is linked to the article on Chinese economic reform and appears at first blush to be notable. An editor objecting to the content, tone, style, or structure of this article is free to make changes and then defend those changes with verifiable references. Article deletion would be improper. TreacherousWays (talk) 16:01, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is linked. It is linked from many articles. And "Dr. Fengbo Zhang introduced Western Economics to China, provided methods and theory for Deng Xiaoping leadership promoting economic reform and decision-making." is certainly a claim to notability. But the problem is that there is no source that actually supports this claim. The same is true for many other claims in the article, claims that should actually be easily verifiable with English language sources (i.e. senior vice president at Citigroup, visiting scholar at NBER and Harvard, chief economist at Takenaka etc.) What suggests that even those claims were one could maybe assume that only Chinese language sources exist, are probably not factual either. Pantherskin (talk) 16:56, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - The problem I see here is verifiability for the claims of notability is not satisfied. Although there are reference links sprinkled throughout the article, they are all links to wikis, user submitted profiles, or user created sites (like google sites) which is hosting content of unknown provenance. The article makes extraordinary claims such as "Dr. Fengbo Zhang introduced Western Economics to China for top economic decision-making." which aren't supproted by reliable sourcing. And given the interest in China's economy, should generate some sort of coverage about him in the English language either in business press articles, or academic journals. Yet there is absolutely none, which as the nominator phrases it, "...something about this article is fishy." And I would agree. It might be hoax, or it might be a case of self-promotion and exaggerated claims of accomplishment. It might even be the absolute truth. As stated in our policy on verifiability, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth; that is, whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." It may be true, but I cannot verify it. -- Whpq (talk) 18:05, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please check my post at the bottom for sources. X20Deepx (talk) 19:42, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. A promotional and strangely unverifiable article. Most sentences in the article could use their own [citation needed] tag, and the sources that are listed are often bad (blogs and wikis). We could stub it down to its verifiable core: "Fengbo Zhang is a Chinese economist, the author of Analysis of Chinese Macroeconomy. But is that much worthy of a separate article? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:20, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I took a closer look at the sources, and there are many published newspaper articles describing the subject. Look here for a page of newspaper articles from the Economic Daily, here for published Japanese newspaper articles, and here from the People's Daily. Someone with native Chinese and Japanese should translate them. These sources, however, are definitely solid. X20Deepx (talk) 18:38, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment, hmm, my keep vote has been steadily drifting towards delete as I've been watching the discussion. But these do look like they are decent sources, assuming they say what they claim to say. I think it would be useful to have a skeptical chinese/japanese editor have a look at this to make a call on whether they establish notability.--ThePaintedOne (talk) 20:23, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment I looked at the Japanese articles, and they provide solid support that he entered Kyoto University graduate school. Unfortunately the copy is not good enough to read the entire article for most of them. The one on the top right covers more ground, including graduating from Kyoto and publishing the macro-analysis book, however, it is not clear where the article comes from (it is basically an interview of Dr Zhang). None of them provide support (that I could read) for the claim that he was the first PRC citizen to receive a Ph.D. in economics from overseas. Francis Bond (talk) 00:58, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Even if he were, that would not make for notability. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:43, 11 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

- - Comment a search on gov.cn shows only three pages are mentioning the economist as a doctor. The first result is a news mentioning a vice city major visiting his unnamed parents to celebrate holidays, so he must be a famous guy to make news for his parents. There is no in-depth coverage of him from reliable sources on the edu.cn domain. There are too many quotes from unreliable sources, some with misleading names, some others from personal web sites, making the article looks like a marketing campaign [[.--Skyfiler (talk) 17:32, 15 February 2011 (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.