Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Peter Swirski

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. Consensus is that this person passes WP:AUTH regardless of WP:PROF. (non-admin closure) Timotheus Canens (talk) 01:46, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Peter Swirski[edit]

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The article doesn't show any reliable sourcing for assertion of notability, and all I got on a Google search were lists of book reviews and bookstore hits. Fails WP:BIO, WP:GNG and WP:N at the very least. ArcAngel (talk) (review) 00:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. -- ArcAngel (talk) (review) 00:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep – That is the problem with these damn academics, notability is often hard to prove. However, in this case, it was somewhat easier. I was able to find references at Google Scholar as provided here [1]. In addition, there were a few references at Google News, as shown here [2]. And finally, as quoted from Google Books “…his novels and short stories have been translated into over forty languages and have sold over twenty-five million copies”, as shown here [3]. I believe this meets our requirements for inclusion. JAAG^Talk 02:01, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome new editor! It's Lem who has had the huge sales not Swirski, whose cites are tiny. Notability is not inherited. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:30, 1 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Thank you for your welcome and you are right to a point-out that the statement can be misleading. But reviewing an author for inclusion, one of the areas I believe we look at is who reviews the authors work (i.i Book reviews) and I have found that this particular author, Peter Swirski with concern to Lem, books were reviewed by the Star Tribune – The Boston Globe - Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service = Foundation – The International Review of Science Fiction as provided here [4]. The The Washington Post – International Herald Tribune – The Modern Language Review, as provided here [5]. The Age [6] Encyclopedia of World Biography – Extrapolation as shown here [7] plus many more. Hope this helps and Happy New Year.JAAG^Talk 15:32, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Per Jaag. Joe Chill (talk) 15:15, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:33, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. GS gives h index = 4. Nowhere near enough for WP:Prof #1. Other notabilty is not apparent. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:29, 1 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Keep: Y'know, I've seen putative failure of this "h-index" cited as deletion grounds a few times over the past few weeks. Quite aside from that the index is a widely criticized measure created for physicists (of which the subject of this AfD is not one), I missed the part where it was written as a valid measure of notability into WP:PROF, or by what methodology Xxanthippe is applying it here. I place significantly greater reliability on Jaag's research, the more so in that I can follow his links and review it for myself. Ravenswing 09:19, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- But we need to know, not whether he has done and published research (all professors do that), but whether his research has had a big impact, in order to justify a keep of the article according to WP:PROF #1. The h-index is very problematic, I'll grant, but when it is high it does show impact without requiring a lot of subject-specific expertise to interpret it. When it is low it doesn't show very much (maybe we're just not using the right database to find the impact) but it does mean that one avenue to convincing other people of a pass of WP:PROF is blocked. Jaag's analysis of who reviews the books is an alternative that I like better because it's less bean-counting, but in this case it seems to lead towards WP:AUTH rather than WP:PROF. Not that there's anything wrong with that. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:39, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yes, this seems like a case for WP:AUTH. Abductive (reasoning) 17:53, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep. It seems from the discussion above that he does not pass WP:PROF #1 but Jaag's evidence persuades me that we should take a much closer look at whether he passes WP:AUTH. Is he "regarded as an important figure or widely cited by his peers" (#1)? No, I think that's covered by the arguments against WP:PROF. Is he known for originating a significant new concept (#2)? The article argues for his "nobrow" concept but a Google scholar search for that word finds other earlier inventions of it as having more currency. Is his work the subject of "multiple independent periodical articles or reviews" (#3)? Maybe, maybe not. There is a review of his nobrow book in the Journal of American Studies but essentially all academic books get academic reviews; I think that should be counted in terms of WP:PROF rather than WP:AUTH since it doesn't really speak to how the book was received in popular culture. And there is a review in "International Fiction Review", a forum that is not significant enough to have its own Wikipedia article. And there's a review of his Lem Reader in Canadian Slavonic Papers (another academic journal) which is spammed across multiple Google news archive entries but again doesn't really speak to popular culture. He's mentioned in The Age but in a fairly trivial way; the article isn't really about him or his works. And he's also mentioned in "The Lem Chronicles", Boston Globe 2002, but again that article seems to be primarily about Lem. Does his work belong to many significant libraries (#4)? From Lowbrow to Nobrow is in 265 libraries, about par for an academic book; his others are similar or fewer. And #5 is WP:PROF again. So no criterion is really persuasive, but ultimately I decided on a keep because I think being an author of a half-dozen or so books from reputable publishers and that are of some interest to the general public should be enough for an article. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:43, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep - while it's doubtful he passes WP:PROF, it's seems like he might scrape by under WP:AUTH, which others have noted. Cocytus [»talk«] 03:47, 4 January 2010 (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.