Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marek Kukula

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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. Going with the keeps here. Please improve the article. Missvain (talk) 23:56, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Marek Kukula[edit]

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Marek Kukula (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Doesn't pass WP:PROF and WP:GNG does not appear to be met. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:17, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Other commenters have provided adequate sourcing to pass the GNG, however I agree that the article should still be deleted as we cannot write a meaningfully complete biography due to lack of coverage of his conviction. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:15, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:17, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Astronomy-related deletion discussions. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:17, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:17, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Here is his Scopus citation profile compared to that of 104 of his extended* coauthors:
Total citations: avg: 7326, med: 2809, Kukula: 1478.
Total papers: avg: 140, med: 113, K: 24.
h-index: avg: 37(!), med: 31, K: 17.
Top citations: 1st: avg: 531, med: 324, K: 410. 2nd: avg: 360, med: 172, K: 241. 3rd: avg: 279, med: 144, K: 114. 4th: avg: 230, med: 122, K: 110. 5th: avg: 201, med: 111, K: 96.
So, strong but not outstanding in his field, especially for someone publishing for so long.
*Paper cutoff: 6. I analyzed the 44 direct coauthors of Kukula, as well as the 66 authors of his two most frequent collaborators' 3 most recent papers (to offset bias toward people publishing in the 90s, since they will have accumulated far more citations). JoelleJay (talk) 00:15, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • weak keep. would fail a pure WP:NPROF test as shown by JoelleJay but as Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich there is additional press coverage with over 140 press articles including in-depth profile in the Guardian [1], coverage in the BBC [2] [3] etc. There is also this story about a conviction for child pornography (though from the Sun). --hroest 00:35, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • FWIW , this AFD is here because of on RS/N a point was raised that his conviction was noted only by deprecated sources Sun and DM, and is surprising no other RSes discuss it given how frequently he was quoted prior to the conviction. A question on whether he was notable was raised there. --Masem (t) 03:32, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • The issue is likely to do with general press coverage of paedophilia-related content. Unless its someone notable (in the small n sense) with a reasonably high profile, sources like the Guardian or the BBC dont routinely engage in the sensationalist reporting that tabloid-style press (Sun, Daily Mail) count as their bread'n'butter. For the Guardian to cover this for their readers, he would have to be significantly more famous than he is already. I'm saying Keep based on his academic credentials, but the upshot is there will likely need to either be an exception for the Sun/DM use in his article for that specific claim, as its verifiable via primary sources (negating the usual depreciated argument of routine inaccuracy), or agreement not to include the material as undue. Only in death does duty end (talk) 06:26, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • The piece in The Guardian is certainly SIGCOV, but the others likely wouldn't count towards GNG (although the Easter one would probably partially count toward NPROF C7). From my own search it does look like he is frequently consulted on varied astronomy topics (I'd count the astrophotography articles as one source), so I'll change my !vote to weak keep as well. JoelleJay (talk) 03:42, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I raised the possibility at RSN that he's not actually notable, on the theory that a child pornography conviction is a notable event for a notable person, so if the event wasn't written about in reliable sources then he's not actually notable. As others have noted, if we keep the article we're in a weird position. Mackensen (talk) 11:15, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • He was notable before his conviction; notability is not temporary. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:55, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Pigsonthewing, I'm not convinced that he was. In any event, if there are insufficient reliable sources to write a complete article, then we probably can't have an article. Mackensen (talk) 14:29, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Analysis of his citation indices and NPROF is irrelevant; he meets GNG. He was Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:55, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Keep per these changes and the additional sources found in the wayback machine that support them.
I actually had to sleep on this one.
On the one hand, this guy's position was absolutely notable, and that notability absolutely extends to him as a result. As far as WP:BIO goes, that's a clear and unambiguous answer.
On the other hand, half the existing sources at his article failed verification, and no more sources (other than from deprecated outlets like the Daily Mail) were available.
This is quite a conundrum, where by one standard (holding the position he held), he's met our notability guidelines, but by another (significant coverage in independent, reliable sources), he fails. But at the end of the day, practicality must rule out. Without the source coverage provided by him meeting GNG, we simply don't have the ability to write a proper article. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:50, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
MjolnirPants I see the point but notability is not temporary, either he is notable or not. If he was notable before the CP conviction, he is still notable now. Worst case we cannot mention the CP conviction since no RS exist. --hroest 14:37, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hannes Röst, If you saw my point, you'd not have responded this way. For that matter, I'm fairly sure that if you'd so much as read past the word "Delete", you'd not have responded this way.
    We lack the ability to write an article, because we lack the sources to do so. That was the point.
    Objections of "but he's still notable" are not only explicitly acknowledged in my second sentence, but are addressed and shown lacking in my concluding sentence. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:51, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • MjolnirPants, I'm guessing Hannes and I are approaching this from the NPROF C7 perspective, rather than from GNG. Academic bios are rarely fleshed out with biographical details the way regular bios are since they don't need to demonstrate direct, in-depth SIGCOV. So while I would agree with you in any other case that technically meeting notability doesn't demand an article if we can't find much material on someone's personal life (although try telling that to NSPORT AfD participants...), for an academic just discussing their important research and professional pedigree is considered sufficient. JoelleJay (talk) 15:21, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • JoelleJay, I suggest you go over the sources and try to work out what we can say from that. this will get you started, though I have to warn you: only the first 26 results have him in the byline. Of the 6 papers he's written with over 100 cites (in astrophysics, where important papers regularly accumulate well over a thousand citations), he's the lead author of only half, and none of the leads on the other half have articles of their own.
        The fact is, the only reason this guy was notable was because of a position he held.
        If we had the sources to write an article about him, I'd be all for keeping it. I'd even support the mixed-use of primary sources (court documents) and those deprecated sources to add to the article about his conviction. But we don't even have any indication he's ever done any important research, and barely enough to summarize his pedigree. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:57, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • this will get you started
          Thanks but I am very familiar with his citation profile and those of astrophysicists in general, and obviously agree with your assessment of his C1 notability. However, the coverage Hannes found and what I turned up myself demonstrate he is frequently quoted in conventional media as an academic expert in a particular area. Since academic bios are usually woefully sparse on biographical details due to NPROF being the governing notability guideline, what we have for him from the one SIGCOV article and his limited research footprint, coupled with his providing expert opinion in dozens (hundreds?) of internationally-recognized RS articles (The Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine, BBC, The Telegraph, The Independent, Financial Times, National Geographic, New Scientist) spanning at least 16 years is actually far more than the standard academic page. JoelleJay (talk) 16:26, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
          • Yes, this is what I also see here: compared to other academics, there is far more literature about him and if you look at WP:NPROF it becomes clear that we can write an article about him even from non-independent sources as long as we establish notability. I suggest MjolnirPants look at WP:NPROF and common practice in academic articles. --hroest 16:30, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
          • JoelleJay, I found those as well. There's one or two where he's quoted extensively, which is decent attestation of notability, but still ignores my point: He could write thousands of volumes about astrophysics and we'd still not know a single thing more about him. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:34, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
            • MjolnirPants, yep, and that's the unfortunate thing about NPROF articles. I don't like it either, but that's what Wikipedia has decided to do for academics. He's got way more mainstream coverage than most tenured professors so that's at least something. JoelleJay (talk) 18:25, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
              • JoelleJay, I would like to point out that Wikipedia may very well decide that the sky is orange, but that will not change the fact that the sky is actually blue. Similarly, we're right back where I started with my initial comment: I actually agree with you that this guy meets the minimum requirements for notability, but we're nonetheless incapable of writing an article about him, because he lacks sufficient coverage. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:27, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, this is the case for like 90% of our articles on academics. The fact that he has one SIGCOV article on him puts him waaaay ahead of the majority of NPROF-based bios. What you are arguing would essentially require GNG sourcing, which is explicitly bypassed for academics because they're unlikely to have the IRS SIGCOV needed to build a biography in any other discipline. I do think C7 is one of the looser criteria and is more prone to elevating people who aren't actually academically notable, but that's an issue to be resolved at NPROF, not at AfDs. JoelleJay (talk) 00:42, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Once again, you're missing my point. If we don't have the sourcing to write about him, we can't write an article about him, all we could do is list a few facts on a page. If there are academics out there who have articles that are just lists of a few facts, or brief descriptions of their specialties, then they, too, should be deleted. We're supposed to be an encyclopedia; not an academic directory. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:22, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • MjolnirPants, I agree with you wholeheartedly, but what I'm saying is that NPROF explicitly allows anemic articles on academics to exist because they don't receive significant coverage themselves (or even of their work). Deleting such articles is not supported by any guidelines because the community decided scholars deserve recognition even if a biography can't be written on them. JoelleJay (talk) 23:12, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm not disagreeing with that. What I'm saying is that it's process wonkery (Note: I'm not accusing you of wikilawyering, you are clearly engaging thoughtfully and in good faith here, It's just the most relevant essay to the issue,) to have such a situation as this. The community decided, in effect, to treat WP as an academic directly in some cases, which undermines the core principle that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; the article should be a bio, and we can't make it a bio, but we have a policy that demands something.
        It's a conflict between Wikipedia's core principles and a Wikipedia policy, which the core principles should always win, per WP:IAR. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:47, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I think that we have WP:SIGCOV. The Guardian has published an in-depth piece on him, and interviews solely involving him have been published in the journal Astronomy & Geophysics as well as on The BBC. His position also seems to have been noteworthy, being that he served as the Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Regarding the concern of being able to write an article about him, there are sources that we can use to describe his work outside of his role as the Public Astronomer. Even if it will take a lot of digging, I think it can be done. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 04:51, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete pending more significant recent coverage in reliable third-party sources. This AFD is a spinoff of an RSN thread where it was claimed that his career was ended when he pled guilty to possession of a particular crime, but apparently the said crime and the said career-termination were only reported in unreliable (deprecated) tabloid rags. If a basic fact about his life and career cannot be written on Wikipedia because it has only been covered in unreliable and potentially fabricated sources, and no reliable sources whatsoever can be found to either confirm or disprove these claims, then he doesn't meet GNG, per the Benta precedent. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:15, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Per Hijiri88. Better no article than a bad one that can't be complete per BLP rules. (t · c) buidhe 09:18, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete. Unless we can adequately source the conviction, our article is going to present a seriously misleading portrait of him. The case for academic notability is borderline enough that I think we're just better off without. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:30, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The Delete arguments above seem to make zero sense? They keep going on and on about a conviction, which is irrelevant, since that's not the source of his notability. Either he is notable or not, period. And there are a lot of sources discussing and involving him, rather high quality ones too. Here's some examples:
The closer should dismiss any votes made above that don't make an actual deletion argument. SilverserenC 21:22, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It is not irrelevant that we apparently cannot get the article to comply with WP:NPOV. That takes precedence over GNG. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:41, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Your issue seems to be that you can't find a good source to cover a crime the subject has committed. Not being able to cover that isn't a violation of NPOV and in no way overcomes GNG and notability. SilverserenC 21:50, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In any normal biography a career-ending criminal case (at an age too young for retirement) and conviction would be a significant part of the life story. There is no real controversy whether it happened. We are merely prevented from reporting on it because of our strict sourcing rules. But not reporting on it creates a significant gap in the story that misinforms people who come here looking for information for whatever reason. When an article would misinform because it is unbalanced, that unbalance must be fixed, per WP:NPOV (which, let me remind you, is policy, unlike GNG which is merely a guideline). There may be multiple ways of fixing the unbalance but in this case the simplest would seem to be deletion. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:56, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
So your argument is that if a notable person ever commits a major crime that ends their career (or gets them put in jail for life), but that event isn't covered by RS, then we should delete their article despite them being notable and having plenty of RS coverage prior to that point? Is that an official thing we should add to notability guidelines on how subjects can lose notability by becoming criminals? SilverserenC 21:59, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@David Eppstein: If there's no real controversy whether it happened, we in some way have an implicit agreement that the sources we have seen are reliable for that fact, no? If that's the case, then I'd point to the language on WP:DEPS as providing a way forward: Deprecation is not a blanket retroactive "ban" on using the source in absolutely every situation...reliability always depends on the specific content being cited, and all sources are reliable in at least some circumstances and unreliable in at least some others. Would it possibly be permissible, then, to sparingly include the sources we have seen with attribution on this specific topic? I feel like that would get around the issue of the content gap while also respecting current community consensuses. In particular, the RfC close on The Sun doesn't use the language of deprecation explicitly, though I'd be very cautious about extending this to details other than the conviction occurring itself. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 22:45, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
we in some way have an implicit agreement that the sources we have seen are reliable for that fact, no? No, we do not. What we have is an agreement that non-notable (or perhaps "semi-notable") individuals are more likely to have their names dragged through the mud by unreliable tabloids than legitimately notable public figures whose crimes will be reported in reliable news outlets. If you think this person is notable and the accounts given in these tabloids are reliable for the information they provide on this affair, why are The Guardian and The Times not covering it, in your opinion? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:28, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, what are you even arguing here? That the incident in question didn't happen since we have no actual reliable sources covering it? Because i'm fine with agreeing with that. If all you have is the Sun and the Daily Mail covering something and it's absent from literally everything else, we probably should question its inherent factual nature. SilverserenC 23:37, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is the only compelling argument for deletion -- that by excluding unsourceable but major negative material we are presenting a non-neutral POV. But to me it seems kind of ... hypocritical? to on the one hand say we trust the reporting by these sources enough to believe it would go against policy not to include the content they report, but at the same time assert they are too unreliable to trust for us to cite them. I do think it's valid to consider what we'd do if the subject was unambiguously notable -- and whether NPROF C7 and/or GNG need to be reevaluated if they're catching people who aren't significant enough for the media to report their major transgressions. JoelleJay (talk) 06:16, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • If the subject were unambiguously GNG-notable, I imagine that the less-sketchy news sources would have covered the criminal case. Instead, I'm guessing after deciding that the borderline notability of the case makes such coverage scandal-mongering, they just suddenly stopped mentioning him at all, not unlike what would happen here if we deleted the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:40, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • David Eppstein, yeah, that's what I think happened too. However, I also feel he meets C7 (rather than GNG), and given academics don't generally receive SIGCOV I do wonder if we even should expect such coverage to appear for NPROF-notable people. And if you don't agree he meets C7 (I don't see it invoked often by itself so haven't developed a great feel for consensus), if you want to expound on that I'm always open to adjusting my priors. JoelleJay (talk) 20:52, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Not being able to [simultaneously comply with two of our core content policies] in no way overcomes GNG and [other] notability [guidelines] Is... is this a joke? I think such a statement, if unrecanted, may be grounds for a block, as it implies either a failure to understand how Wikipedia works or a willingness to publicly pretend not to. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:28, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I am disagreeing with it being a violation of NPOV in the first place. Not including some event in someone's life, especially when it doesn't have anything to do with their notability AND isn't covered by reliable sources anyways, isn't a violation of NPOV. Our articles are only meant to cover what is included in reliable sources anyways. SilverserenC 23:35, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Our articles are only meant to cover what is included in reliable sources anyways That assumes that topics on which we have articles will be covered in all the relevant detail in reliable sources. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:51, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And if the articles are notable from what is covered by reliable sources, then we included what is covered therein. Notability and NPOV are not reliable on what the reliable sources don't cover. Who would even get to determine such a thing if we did include that? That would be OR entirely if no reliable sources are covering it. SilverserenC 02:55, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, for the love of... has this turned into one of those "removing content based on discussion between Wikipedians constitutes OR" non-discussions? Did you seriously just invoke OR in relation to the argument several editors have used for deleting this page? The first paragraph of Wikipedia:No original research explains why this is wrong. Discussion between Wikipedians as to whether and why reliable sources have not mentioned this person since early 2018, and deciding to remove potentially outdated coverage based on the conclusion of said discussion, is the opposite of OR. You have been on Wikipedia for more than ten years, so your needing to have this explained to you is quite unbecoming. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:11, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Removing specific content in an article on a notable subject is not the same as deleting an article on a notable subject entirely. We can have discussions on not including specific content in an article via things like WP:DUE as well. But that is not an argument to make on an entire article. How would you use DUE to remove an entire article on an acknowledged notable topic? That's not how it's meant to be used. That's for inside article content, not the entirety of the article. That's the difference here between what you're arguing and what this discussion is actually about doing. And, honestly, your personal attacks are getting tiring. SilverserenC 04:25, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
an acknowledged notable topic Please show me where either myself or any of the other delete !voters has "acknowledged" that this topic "is notable"? The fact is that both GNG and all the other subject-specific notability guidelines are just that: guidelines. Maybe in 2009 or 2018 the notability of this subject would have been assumed pending evidence to the contrary, but now we are using our editorial discretion to judge whether the subject can be reasonably assumed to meet our notability standards now that he has apparently been found guilty of a crime and the only sources that are reporting on it are those that deliberately search out such stories to the delight of their voyeuristic readership. You said above that the closer should dismiss those of us who are making well-thought-out and reasoned arguments based on the circumstances and our policies and guidelines, but it seems to be you who are the one ignoring our points in favour of some bizarre strawman argument and an insistence that GNG is always clear-cut and always constitutes a bright line meaning that, if we would have assumed notability at some point in the past, we cannot use our judgement based on more recent developments to decide whether said assumption would have been wrong. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:50, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Per Mjolnir's vote up above, "On the one hand, this guy's position was absolutely notable, and that notability absolutely extends to him as a result. As far as WP:BIO goes, that's a clear and unambiguous answer.".
And now you're just saying we should dismiss and ignore all notability discussion, including the GNG itself, to rule on something unrelated. And the entirety of the unrelated thing is that reliable sources have decided to not write anything about a crime the subject committed. And, because they didn't write about said crime, that means we shouldn't have an article on the person. Maybe instead we should be arguing that, without reliable sources backing up the claim, that the Sun and Daily Mail are just lying and the event didn't happen? We certainly have no reliable sources to show that it happened, which is kind of the point. Why should we even acknowledge it happened if we have no evidence it did? SilverserenC 05:13, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Silver seren, I should point out that the next sentence in my comment is necessary for context. My point was that, while he may have met one standard for notability, he did not meet another, more important one, and the more important one should be a necessary standard for any article, because failing it leaves us unable to write an article. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:37, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also disagree with you on that he doesn't meet that secondary requirement. The Guardian article, for example, goes into a decent amount of detail about his life and career. We have enough to write a decent article. SilverserenC 17:13, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Silver seren, Just from that Guardian article, can you tell me what year he was born? Can you tell me what town he grew up in, or what his parents did? Is he Jewish? Danish? English? French? Can you tell me where he got his PhD? When he got it? What his primary topics of research are? Has he ever been in a relationship with a notable person? Does he have children? What year was he hired by the Royal Observatory? Why was he let go from that position? When was he let go?
      I understand that it's not fair to limit you to a single source, so go ahead and check all of the sources provided here, and then try to answer those.
      Those are all questions a reader might have, and which an encyclopedia should be able to answer. If we can't answer them, then we shouldn't have an article. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:54, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • So you're claiming that any biography article where we don't have personal life details and only career details should be removed from Wikipedia? I notice you had to be very specific on saying Ph.D., because we know both where he got his lower degree at and what in and where he did his post-doctoral work at. We do know what his Ph.D. was on and where he conducted his research at. Like I said, even on his educational background, we have enough detail on his life. We may not have every single detail, but we have plenty. SilverserenC 18:10, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Silver seren, Yeah, I am in fact suggesting that we can't write a bio without enough info to write a bio. I mean, that's exactly the sort of thing WP:NOTCATALOG was written to address.
        If the article will consist of nothing but a few scant details about his work and education, then what point does it serve, except as an alternate CV? I mean, we can't even write about what was arguably the most notable (and if it's not, it's without a doubt the second most notable) event in his life.
        Also, you may want to revise your statement about his post-doc work, because that Guardian article pegs him as doing post-doc work for 13 years following his degree, and makes it clear they didn't tell us all the places he did so. You may know what all of those positions were, but I certainly don't, and I've gone so far as to check his linkedin while looking for sources on him. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:48, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The article was created (via AfC) in 2015 and the page views show it bumbling along nicely - median daily pageviews 5, the occasional day of 80 or 100, and a short-lived peak (max about 270) in 2018. His notability was not challenged until now. It is being suggested that we delete the article because of something which has only been reported in deprecated sources. If the Mail and Sun aren't good enough for us to use as WP:RS, then information from them, which no other newspaper has apparently found worthy of comment, should not be being used to delete an article. Yes it's a horrible crime, but the article should survive without mention of it if we have no reliable source. He's written a couple of popular science books, which I've added to the article. There are probably many, many other biographees in Wikipedia, both BLPs and historic, who have ghastly skeletons in their cupboards, irrelevant to their notability, which no interested editor has come across and added to their article. PamD 09:40, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Also found a medal award and followup Q&A profile in Reliable Source, added. PamD 09:56, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep No credible reason is being offered as to why these specific reports, especially given the lack of any contradictory information, cannot be assumed to be inaccurate. Celebrity tittle tattle, it is not. The man was obviously considered important enough for a biography before his conviction, and no credible reason is being offered as to why that was a mistake, or why deletion after the fact would be a sensible way to deal with the paradox that has arisen. At worst, Wikipedia can indeed host an incomplete biography, and it would be, by definition, neutral, if the reason for the ommission of this conviction was that you didn't believe that information to be accurate or significant. That is obviously ridiculous, as paradoxes tend to be, so mentioning it on the assumption it is accurate, is the sensible course of action. Not least since no serious claim can be made that Wikipedia is able to do more harm to this man that isn't already being done by the existence of those reports. Should he ever succeed in a Right To Be Forgotten action, then obviously things could be reconsidered. Mr Happy Shoes (talk) 09:42, 30 May 2021 (UTC) {— Mr Happy Shoes (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
  • Keep The Guardian piece is sufficiently indepth about him, we can write a biography from that. Our Daily Mail and Sun policies (small p) are clearly wrong in this case, and result in us not writing about his conviction, but we do the best we can. --GRuban (talk) 11:22, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Someone above suggested that Kukula's associates may have deleted mentions of him from their websites etc after the court case. I had a feeling this whole discussion reminded me of something and remembered overnight: Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, whose job was to rewrite history to remove all mention of "unpersons". Should Wikipedia be going down that route? PamD 07:11, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Royal Observatory removed Marek's employee profile, their press release announcing his appointment, and funnily enough, even the job advert. But it is worth noting they haven't taken down pages like this, so if they were trying to 1984 him, they didn't do a very good job. And of course, the missing pages were in the Wayback Machine, and they included some of the details mentioned above by Mr Pants regarding what he would like to see in a Wikipedia biography, so I have added them. The rest would seem to he trivia, for example, who really cares where he was born? Is it relevant to his astronomy? It doesn't appear to have prevented him travelling or getting good jobs, unlike a serious conviction. The main question remains, what is Wikipedia going to do about the paradox wherein the only important things that apparently can't be added to this biography, are the date he left his most noted career role, and the reason why. The most absurd way to deal with that, would indeed be for Wikipedia to 1984 him. Mr Happy Shoes (talk) 19:01, 2 June 2021 (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.
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