Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Randall Beer

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, defaulting to keep. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 22:04, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Randall Beer

vanity page for nonnotable college professor —optikos 17:11, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Please supply evidence that this is a "vanity page". up+l+and 08:48, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

The following vanity page demerits are earned by Randall Beer article. —optikos 03:44, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

2. The insertion of links that appear to promote otherwise obscure individuals by pointing to their personal pages. (Vanity links.) The books section advertises the wares, right down to noting the quality of the paper. The external references section is Randall Beer's personal webpage. The Randall Beer article acts as an advertising funnel to draw the reader in to the books or the personal webpage. —optikos 03:44, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

4. The insertion of any textual personal biographical information within an article which does not significantly add to the clarity or meaning of the article. (Vanity text edits.) The "was a professor at", "he moved", and "he is now" portions read more like an annual Christmas letter to friends and family than an encyclopedia article. "His primary research interest is" portion is an advertisement for his services. "He also has a longstanding interest" is additional advertising just in case the cognitive computing pitch failed to resonate with the grant-funder. —optikos 03:44, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

the best rule of thumb while determining whether or not any such edits may contain vanity materials, is to ask oneself, "Would this same type of material normally be found in a print encyclopedia?" So please open up to any article on a professor in a print encyclopedia and see if that print article has the "was a professor at", "he moved", and "he is now" blow-by-blow progression. See if that print article fails as Randall Beer article fails to assert that the referent person produced at least one ground-breaking discovery that makes the referent person famous. See if that print article itemizes in a hodge-podge way the referent person's detailed list of far-reaching curiosities that the referent person enjoys. The Randall Beer article fails this best rule of thumb test. —optikos 03:44, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Plenty of credentials to establish notability. --TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 03:20, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Agreed Tobyk777 05:29, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
  • comment Please list supporting credentials. Perhaps he publishes a few papers per year in academic journals. Perhaps he has published a book. But so have 10,000 other college professors over the years. I guess Wikipedia is a list of (rather short and stubby) CVs of all college professors now. Bring on the additional 10,000 articles! The real question is how well is he known outside his circle of friends, such as to the general public. Compare Randall Beer to Donald Knuth who has won ACM awards, C. A. R. Hoare who is well-known enough to the Queen to be knighted as well as earn an ACM award, Edsger Dijkstra who has a famous graph-theoretic algorithm named after him as well as being the epicenter of the anti-GOTO campaign as well as earning the Turing Award. Contrast that will Randall Beer's article which generally says "I have moved. I find this list of topics interesting. (with the implied: Please grant fund my future research on these topics over at the new institution.)" There is a world of patently obviously difference between notable professors and non-notable professors. —optikos 13:55, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete until notability is established. All academes are required to publish. Doing so does not make them notable.  :) Dlohcierekim 21:28, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. The first three hits on Google Scholar have over 200 citations. I don't know his field, but that would be a LOT in mine. Mangojuice^talk 14:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Mangojuice. The "all academics publish" argument is really of no value. One could use the same argument with any other group of people. "Played so-and-so many games, bah! He is a professional baseball player, that's what he is required to do." up+l+and 18:25, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

There's a higher bar for professional sports team selection than for being academic, and its silly to throw out the idea of relative degrees of academic notabilty altogether. Just getting a PhD or even a Master's means that you have published academically and have a high chance of being cited (I have a master's degree thesis which has been published by a major university and in a leading industry online magazine (with an Alexa rank of ~8,500). The research has recieved coverage in a Canadian national newspaper and a couple of US regional newspapers. It's also been cited in at least two published books, one by a leading academic and another by a mainstream journalist, as well as being cited in several other academic papers, including one published by a leading law school. I've also co-authored an article for the Harvard Business Review. Does this citation/authorship record make me notable? Definitely not.) The "all academics publish" argument is not as simple as you state it - another key part of the argument is that much of what is published is not academically or encyclopedically notable. Bwithh 16:08, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

That is a straw man argument. I have never argued that "being academic" should be the bar for inclusion or even that all academics who have been published should have articles. Being a 20-year old selected for a professional soccer team and playing a couple of seasons before retiring into obscurity is currently enough to get an article in Wikipedia. That is not an achievement comparable to what is usually required to be appointed to a professorial chair at a university, or what most professors achieve over a lifetime. I will admit that I am more familiar with Northern European universities, and I realise that in the U.S. almost any teacher at a tertiary institution is a "professor" of some kind, but I think allowing articles on full professors at major American research universities is usually reasonable. By "major research universities" I mean institutions internationally known for their research and having doctoral programs in most fields. I'm not very familiar with Indiana University Bloomington, where Beer works, but I believe it qualifies. up+l+and 17:24, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

An academe's publications need not be sufficient to meet WP:PROF Ball players play ball. Academes do not routinely publish books that are read beyond academia. :) Dlohcierekim 22:26, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow your argument. There is nothing inherently notable about playing ball. And publishing books read beyond academia is not necessary to be notable as an academic; what counts is publishing books or articles influential and widely cited in one's field ("regarded as an important figure by those in the same field" in the words of WP:PROF – looking at citations is one of several ways to determine that). up+l+and 08:48, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

What evidence is there that Randall Beer is particularly widely cited - i.e. substantially more than average? Bwithh 16:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

As Mangojuice already pointed out above, "the first three hits on Google Scholar have over 200 citations". up+l+and 17:24, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, published author and cited academic. Kappa 08:13, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Delete Substantially fails WP:PROF. Being published and being cited is insufficent for encyclopedic notability. Bwithh 16:09, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, being published and cited is irrelevant unless a claim that he is more notable than the average professor is made. --Kuzaar^-T-C- 16:13, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Article does not establish importance. Indrian 15:35, 12 September 2006 (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.