Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Emily Willoughby (2nd nomination)

Emily Willoughby

AfDs for this article:

• Articles for deletion/Emily Willoughby
• Articles for deletion/Emily Willoughby (2nd nomination)

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

• How to contribute
• Introduction to deletion process
• Guide to deletion (glossary)
• Help, my article got nominated for deletion!

Emily Willoughby (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This article was submitted for deletion in May 2021. The reasons given were that the article fails WP:PROF and WP:GNG. This is clearly the case, since that time no reliable sources have been added. In the old afd there were 10 deletion votes and 7 keep votes, however, 2 of the keep votes were from anonymous IPs with no editing history. I am suspicious about that, I am not sure why the article was kept as "no consensus" but the issues clearly remain. This person is not notable enough for biography article and it is not possible to write a biography about them other than a few lines because independent reliable sources do not exist. Four of the sources cited are the International Society for Intelligence Research that might be the only thing they are actually notable for in regard to proper sourcing but it is debatable if the International Society for Intelligence Research is a reliable source, using it four times seems undue weight.

The other sourcing I find deceptive, for example source 1 Terakado, Kazuo (2017). The Art of the Dinosaur. PIE International. pp. 159–177 is not an independent source but a book which Willoughby contributed her artwork to. Source 11 is a deadlink and doesn't look like a reliable source. Source 12 is just a book she has contributed to. There are no academic reviews of this persons work. As for the article history itself, the article looks like it was created by a sock but even if it wasn't, the self-promotion is obvious as they have edited their own article. It looks like this person is desperate to get Google traffic to their books with a Wikipedia article. As for conflict of interest it must be noted that Captain Occam (Willoughby's partner [1]) who was banned from Wikipedia for promoting racist pseudoscience has also edited the article. I see here conflict of interest, lack of independent reliable sourcing, self-promotion and other violations of Wikipedia policy. I believe the article should be deleted. Psychologist Guy (talk) 01:06, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

• Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2022 August 19. —^{cyberbot I}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 01:18, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
• Delete. While Willoughby looks to be a promising scientific illustrator and early career scientist who has achieved some notice for her art, the significant coverage in secondary sources is lacking, no matter how highly her art may be regarded by paloeoart enthusiasts. The only news coverage I found was this 2013 human interest profile in The Times of Trenton, of the type of local news coverage you'd expect for a high school valedictorian or any other "local resident does interesting thing" article. Having art published in books and journals is commendable, but doesn't in itself equate to notability, just as not every costumer, boom operator, or animator on a major film warrants an article, even though their efforts contributed to a notable work. I do not however see the supposed "self promotion", COI-editing, or SEO gaming, as the edits made by those with supposed connections are minimal and conservative (full disclosure, I have made more edits to the article than the other two combined). What I see instead is over-enthusiastic "dinofan" type writing, which unfortunately affects several articles on paleontologists and paleoartists, where 'biographies' quickly become indiscriminate lists of species named and/or illustrated, relying heavily on primary sources (see e.g. Luis Rey, John Conway, Gregory S. Paul and Darren Naish). Dinosaur fans really like dinosaurs, and think naming one or drawing one is just about the most amazing thing anyone can do (even if it's a routine part of a job). Many academic biographies need scrutiny for this type of gushing. --Animalparty! (talk) 02:49, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
• Delete Per my previous reasoning last AfD. There's simply not enough reviews of her work in reliable sources to qualify for WP:NAUTHOR, the only notability criterion she'd remotely qualify for. Clear fail of PROF as a postdoc and GNG for general lack of reliable sources about her. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:23, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

• Weak Delete. What is everyones thoughts on this article passing WP:ARTIST? I feel like she is really close to passing bullet point 3 with her work but because of her field she might not get additional recognition. Dr vulpes ^{(💬 • 📝)} 03:36, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Meh, Bullet point 3: The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors Willoughby was widely cited an as an inspiration by many amateur paleoartists on twitter, but I think "peers or successors" generally denotes professional artists. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:41, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

    That's fair, it was kind of a gray area for me and I just wanted to be sure I wasn't misreading anything. Dr vulpes ^{(💬 • 📝)} 18:57, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Academics and educators, Artists, and Minnesota. --Animalparty! (talk) 04:54, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Visual arts-related deletion discussions. Netherzone (talk) 05:22, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
• Delete per reasoning by Hemiauchenia and others above. Aside: I should note that her association with Captain Occam has timely associations with current controversy involving her person. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 06:15, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
• Delete It doesn't look like WP:PROMO to me in it's current state, but in any case that could have been solved by clean-up and WP:DINC. However, she certainly doesn't meet WP:NPROF. WP:NARTIST is more of a possibility, but I'm not convinced she's at that level yet. WP:TOOSOON, as I said at the last AfD. -Kj cheetham (talk) 10:04, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
• Delete The most likely claim to notability, as others have pointed out, would be point 3 of WP:ARTIST. However, she does not pass, because her work is not the "primary subject of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews." Chagropango (talk) 11:29, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I think she's very much borderline in terms of WP:ARTIST criteria, but something worth considering as of this second time around is the recent controversy surrounding her views on genetic intelligence on race that have gone viral within the palaeo community. Given her anecdotal fame and respect within the palaeoart community, it could previously be assumed she'd increasingly meet these criteria as time goes on, making it tempting to "go easy" on the notability criteria. But now that a large portion of her primary audience base is no longer iterested in platforming or tolerating her, it seems very likely to me she will only become less regarded as important and less covered in secondary sources going forward. Her notability has probably peaked as we speak and will only go down, unless an unprecedented switch in sentiments happens to occur around the controversy. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 16:15, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment I'm not within the palaeo community, but I guess the other possible outcome is the controversy itself generates some secondary sources for WP:GNG, but I suspect they wouldn't be significant. -Kj cheetham (talk) 16:33, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
• Delete - for the same reason given in the previous AfD: she does not meet WP:GNG, WP:ACADEMIC, WP:AUTHOR nor WP:NARTIST. Re: the notability criteria for artists, she does not meet criteria #3 - there are no art historians, theoreticians or critics who have written on her work within the context contemporary fine art; nor does she meet any of the other criteria of NARTIST. Most of the article citations consists of non-independent primary sources. Netherzone (talk) 19:25, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 19:33, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
• Keep she is the co-author of God's Word or Human Reason? It is notable as per:

1. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/book-review-gods-word-or-human-reason-an-inside-perspective-on-creationism/
2. BLANCKE, S. God’s Word or Human Reason? An Inside Perspective on Creationism. Journal of Cognitive Historiography, [s. l.], v. 4, n. 2, p. 283–285, 2017. DOI 10.1558/jch.37809. Disponível em: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=139640280&site=eds-live&scope=site. Acesso em: 19 ago. 2022.

ADditionally she has contributed to various other books, as an artist, and WP:CREATIVE guides us that people are co-creators, it doesn't require them to get significant coverage, just the thing they co-created. If I udnerstand correctly she co-created Dinosaur Art II which is gets significant coverage here:

1. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/11/paleoart-and-dinosaur-art-2/544505/
2. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/the-scientific-palaeoart-of-dr-mark-witton/
3. https://www.nhpr.org/environment/2022-06-12/what-jurassic-park-got-wrong-and-right-about-dinosaurs

Her work is in commons here https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Deinonychus_ewilloughby.png and noted for being so here: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-birds-evolved-from-dinosaurs-20150602/

Her work also gets mentioned here: https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/paleoart-that-makes-fossils-come-alive/article34555441.ece and also here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/who-was-the-snuggliest-dinosaur-of-all

I don't think this makes the perfect pass at WP:ARTIST or WP:AUTHOR/WP:CREATIVE but I'm not an algorithm, I'm a human able to add up the various elements here and they give me an overall impression of someone whose art is notable, and her inclusion therefore is a helpful addition to the encyclopedia. CT55555 (talk) 20:12, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Most of those links, if they mention Willoughby at all, are passing mentions. Giving credit to an artist is professional courtesy, not significant coverage. Repeated interviews of a sheriff or fire captain about crimes or fires in their city don't make those professionals notable, even if they themselves have solved many crimes or extinguished many fires. I can find my own Wikipedia username mentioned in articles. This doesn't mean I'm notable. --Animalparty! (talk) 20:52, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

In a sense, yes. They briefly mention her. Because they are about the works, but that is what WP:CREATIVE calls for = the work to be notable. I quote The person has created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work or collective body of work. In addition, such work must have been the primary subject of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews (emphasis mine) CT55555 (talk) 20:57, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Actually search for "Willoughby" in those links, they do not mention Willoughby in any detail so would fail to be used as biographical information, there is simply no content to be added here. How can we have an article with no in depth sourcing? Answer us that. How can we build an article on passing mention? The only mention in text of Willoughby in this review you cited [2], says "radiometric dating and the age of the Earth (Willoughby, Chapter 3)". This was a book that Willoughby contributed a single chapter to. Nowhere does Darren Naish review Willoughby's contributions to the book. So what would the point of adding this source be? Likewise this piece [3] in Quanta Magazine only mentions Willoughby in a footnote at the bottom of the article "June 4, 2015: The dinosaur silhouettes in “The Incredible Shrinking Bird” graphic are based on the following illustrations: Monolophosaurus by Jordan Mallon, Deinonychus by Emily Willoughby, and Velociraptor by Matt Martyniuk." How or why would this reference improve the article? The same with the article in The Atlantic [4], search for "Willoughby", she is mentioned only once. This is what the article says "the artist Emily Willoughby notes in Dinosaur Art II: not a direct route going anywhere, but, rather, a messy bundle of approaches". Yes that is it, how does that one odd line show that Willoughby is notable? Or how could that reference be used on the Wikipedia article? None of the sources you listed give any biographical information about Willoughby. Doing a Google search to find any old link that mentions her name does not make her notable. Psychologist Guy (talk) 21:01, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Comment A reminder from slightly higher up on WP:NBIO than WP:CREATIVE: People are likely to be notable if they meet any of the following standards. Failure to meet these criteria is not conclusive proof that a subject should not be included; conversely, meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included.. -Kj cheetham (talk) 21:05, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

I respect that. I'm not following this like an algorithm saying she must be included because of that. I'm considering that, plus the various other factors as a whole, going by what I think is the spirit of the guidelines, not the technical details of it...informed by WP:5P5 CT55555 (talk) 21:16, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm disregarding the seemingly demanding "answer us that", the implication that you can demand things of me, and that you're speaking on behalf of a group, but please let's go easy on each other here.

I think these links demonstrate that the works she co-created as notable. That is what WP:CREATIVE calls for, that is the only point I am making. CT55555 (talk) 21:14, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

@CT55555, I have a lot of respect for your work as an editor but you are misinterpreting the CREATIVE/NARTIST guideline. Netherzone (talk) 03:28, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm happy to learn. Where do you think I'm going wrong with my logic? CT55555 (talk) 03:35, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your valuable comments. For the books, my understanding was she only one of five authors for God’s Word or Human Reason? and it was unclear to me how big a contribution she had to Dinosaur Art II, hence I wasn't 100% convinced if that counted as "major role in co-creating", but there is some weight to it at least. Her work being on commons doesn't really count for anything, especially when uploaded by the subject. There are some mentions in independant sources, but I wasn't convinced that her contributions had enough coverage (especially if she didn't do a large fraction of the piece of work). Her images are certainly used by others, but that's more run of the mill for her professional to me. -Kj cheetham (talk) 12:09, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

I am reconsidering my !vote. Partly waiting to see what @Netherzone says in reply above. CT55555 (talk) 14:44, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm at a conference/festival thru the weekend. If I find time to do a source analysis chart I will post it. Netherzone (talk) 23:50, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

I have not read Dinosaur Art II, but if it is anything like Dinosaur Art then Willoughby is a featured artist who was interviewed by the authors, not an author of the book. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 18:13, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

As full professor in biology, I second the statement that Willoughby's co-authorship of the book "God's Word or Human Reason?" defines notability. The significance of the book is reflected in a good number of thoughtful reviews on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Word-Human-Reason-Perspective/dp/1629016381 Friedrichwsu (talk) 22:02, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately Amazon reviews do not hold weight. I think the reviews for Shortcuts to Mindfulness: 100 Ways to Personal and Spiritual Growth (Auman, 2014) look just as thoughtful... Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 22:21, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Friedrichwsu, your full professorship holds no more weight than any other editor here. For a better understanding of our criteria for notability for writers, you might want to read WP:AUTHOR. Amazon reviews are not the same as a review in an independent reliable source. Amazon "reviews" are user-submitted content with no editorial oversight or peer review. Netherzone (talk) 05:35, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

• Delete. She may become notable in the future, but she isn't there yet. "local resident does interesting thing" sums it up. Athel cb (talk) 08:25, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
• Delete - Per the notability guideline, A topic is presumed to merit an article if: 1. It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG) listed in the box on the right; and 2. It is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy. Based on my search of the WP Library, my online search, and sources identified in this discussion, it appears WP:GNG and SNGs are not sufficiently supported, and this article should be excluded per WP:NOT, because it would otherwise essentially be an advertisement due to the limited secondary coverage of her and her work at this time. For example, her illustrations appear in the 2014 National Geographic source noted above, but the source does not discuss her work directly. In the 2018 SciAm blog noted above about Dinosaur Art II , the author Darren Naish is not independent (e.g. "As with the first volume, I was scientific consultant, and assisted Steve [White]") - this does not support WP:NBOOK notability. The 2022 NHPR source noted above states "For older readers, or anybody who loves a good coffee table book, check out Dinosaur Art II, which features a number of excellent paleoartists" in a list of recommendations - this does not support WP:NBOOK notability. In the 2021 Hindu source, she talks about her own work, although there seems to be some limited support for her WP:BASIC notability as a paleoartist. Similarly, in the 2017 Atlantic source cited above, she is quoted as support for the article commentary about paleoart generally, not her work primarily. With regard to God's Word or Human Reason? An Inside Perspective on Creationism, Darren Naish also writes the 2018 SciAm blog book review, which includes content such as "(UPDATE: BUY SIGNED COPIES DIRECT FROM THE AUTHORS HERE)" and mentions her twice ("Kane and co-author Emily Willoughby realised – clear and comprehensive response was warranted" [to the Creation Museum] and a mention of the chapter she wrote) while directly discussing the work of other co-authors in detail. Stefaan Blancke in the Journal of Cognitive Historiography includes commentary such as "the contributing authors [...] take creationism seriously. [...] as former creationists, they fully realize the significance of religious beliefs in people's lives. [...] This is wonderfully illustrated by the short life stories of the authors that follow each of the chapters." Overall, there is some independent secondary coverage of her work, but per our guidelines and policies, we do not seem to have enough at this time to support an encyclopedia article about Willoughby, and it does not improve the encyclopedia per WP:IAR to serve as a promotional medium for artists and authors who have not yet received GNG or SNG levels of coverage. Beccaynr (talk) 16:33, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
• Delete. Per my reasoning in the last AfD, and per the excellent arguments above regarding the shallowness of sourcing and promotionalism. JoelleJay (talk) 01:22, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

  What a coincidence that this "delete" campaign started after false accusations on social media regarding some of her art, and completely bonkers statements about her scientific work. This delete campaign is a witch hunt, plain and simple. 64.180.15.95 (talk) 17:42, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Sorry bro but the accusations are actually all true if you look into them, but whatever is on social media is irrelevant to Wikipedia, the fact remains her bio fails WP:PROF and WP:GNG and there are other issues at play, per policy the article should be deleted. It's the lack of reliable sources that her article should be deleted it has nothing to do with a witch hunt. Psychologist Guy (talk) 19:16, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Actually, no, they are not true: The ignorant and misguided demonization of a behavior geneticist. Markjoseph125 (talk) 01:18, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I was not aware of any controversy around her in the first AfD, and do not care about it one way or the other in this one. All that is relevant is whether she passes one of our notability guidelines, and she does not. JoelleJay (talk) 01:35, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Markjoseph125, whyevolutionistrue is a blog filled with personal opinion, not a reliable source for Wikipedia. Psychologist Guy (talk) 17:18, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Not true, not accurate, not fair. Yes, some blogs are like that, but Dr. Coyne is a well-respected professor of evolutionary biology at a major universe, with an impressive list of publications to his name. Furthermore, he provided reasons why the attacks against Emily were misguided; in brief, her scientific paper showed that intelligence is partially heritable. This should surprise absolutely no one who is not a creationist. She didn't even talk about race. Prehistorica made the woke jump from "intelligence is partially heritable" to "By now a lot of you are aware, but for anyone in the dark, paleoartist Emily Willoughby is involved in “research” that is directly tied to eugenics, racism, and classism.

She also believes, or is at least indifferent to, the myth that intelligence has a racial component."

This is simple character assassination. Markjoseph125 (talk) 19:04, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Psychologist Guy's statement about the whyevolutionistrue site is true, accurate, and fair, as a matter of Wikipedia policy. XOR'easter (talk) 19:12, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

• Comment Jerry Coyne is sending people here. [5] If there are readers willing to argue her cause on Wikipedia, I’d urge you to jump into the fray. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:45, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
• Keep. Wikipedia supposedly has a neutral point of view. This is the very last site on the internet where we should be allowing Twitter-style lynch mobs. As the *only* reason she is being considered for deletion is political, it must be resisted. Of course, the "notability" squib is mere misdirection; as pointed out above, this is a witch hunt, pure and simple.Markjoseph125 (talk) 18:12, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

The timing is very convenient, but if one wants to dismiss the argument against notability as "mere misdirection" surely you should come equipped with actual counter arguments that this doesn't hold water? What exactly makes her notable and the arguments she isn't incorrect? LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 18:32, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

As you say, the timing is "convenient" (I would have said "suspicious"). I will let others argue the "notability" red herring (I would only say that it would be a trivial exercise to find hundreds or even thousands of other articles on Wikipedia that would not meet notability criteria. Unless it's some teenage kid putting up a page about himself, it's just not a major issue). You didn't address the point that this is just a Twitter-style lynch mob, and that said cancellations are already common, and becoming routine. Accusations suffice to prove guilt (can you say Joseph McCarthy?). This simply needs to be resisted, because once the mob lynches one victim, they just move on to the next one. Remember: Orwell's 1984 was a warning, not a playbook. Popping a paper into a memory hole, updated for the electronic age, is deleting someone's Wikipedia page for any and every reason, making Emily or whomever into an unperson, with its concomitant chilling effect on free speech.

Amusing comment posted by someone on Jerry Coyne's blog: "it’s ironic eh? She is notable enough for the woke anti-racists on twitter to take note of her and cancel her as an illustrator and as a researcher. But she is obscure enough in both art and science that the same cancellers can then migrate over to wikipedia and argue for deleting her page there. In between those two positions there is some insight into how trivial her transgressions must be." Markjoseph125 (talk) 22:24, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

There is no cancellation going on here. Deletion of a Wikipedia page does not make someone an unperson. I am a person, yet I do not have a Wikipedia page. Conversely, people cancelled by social media can and often do have Wikipedia pages. I find the alarmism that is quickly descending upon this routine deletion discussion to be very alarming. Yes, I say routine, because, despite the unfortunate timing of the current discussion, as an outsider you do not notice the fact that dozens if not hundreds of Wikipedia pages are deleted every single day for a myriad of reasons. The central notability standards that are being used to assess Willoughby's article are not different from those used to assess any other biography of a living person on this website. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 22:34, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

I think WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is relevant here. Willoughby is not the first palaeoartist whose article is being considered for deletion, nor the last, and yet I would be surprised if this same level of canvassing and off-site vitriol occurs for any others. I am finding that the majority of the pitchforks are indeed coming not from inside but from outside the barn, especially now that the Article Rescue Squadron is somewhat diminished. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 19:31, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

@Markjoseph125, comment on content not on contributors. Do not attack other editors with whom you disagree by calling them "Lynch mobs" or accuse good faith editors of acting out of a "political" agenda, or call them "cancellers". Please read No Personal Attacks WP:NPA - it is WP policy. Netherzone (talk) 22:47, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

I understand. I also note that a fair number of others have noted that the attack on Emily is politically motivated. And that this all started with a very clearly politically motivated tweet (the one by Prehistorica). And that a couple of lines up, one of the pro-deletion people referred to me as an "outsider," implying my ignorance of Wikipedia.

There are thousands of Wikipedia articles on subjects less notable than Ms. Willoughby. I only had to click the "random article" link once to find this one-line article: Grömbach. Markjoseph125 (talk) 01:28, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I apologize. However, you must realize 1) that you entered this discussion after Jerry Coyne's post and made reference to it; 2) that you referenced your contributions in the comments of Coyne's post; 3) that you immediately made comments upon entering this discussion that - I quote the editor you are replying to - engaged in personal attacks on others in the deletion discussion, contrary to standard site policy and etiquette; and 4) that it is possible to simultaneously not support the vitriol against Willoughby on Twitter and also to engage in a standard policy procedure on Wikipedia which recognizes the unlikelihood of there being sufficient coverage in reliable secondary sources to establish her notability as an artist. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 02:55, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

@Markjoseph125 A couple of comments about the existence of the Grömbach page. First, it's a category error to compare notability of people and places. The guideline for the notability of geographical entities, WP:GEOLAND, states that "Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable, even if their population is very low." Clearly that's not a criterion one can apply to a human being. For Willoughby, one needs to establish Wikipedia-type notability as a person/scientist/illustrator. Second, in any case, pointing to the existence of other articles is a classic "argument to avoid" in deletion discussions - see WP:OTHERSTUFF. An article may be created at any time by someone without the scrutiny of the community. In addition, editors are bound by policy, not by the decisions of a small group of editors on any other content page. This isn't case law.OsFish (talk) 05:35, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Sorry for the category error. I actually wondered about that when I commented. I skimmed the notability criteria, didn't see anything unusual, and didn't realize that there was a separate set of criteria for places.

But, I still wonder. After all, every single person who ever played major-league baseball, even if they only played one game, has a Wikipedia page. Is Rugger Ardizoia, who pitched two innings for the Yankees in 1947, in his only MLB game, really notable? Or Bill Batsch, who had one pinch-hit at-bat for the Pirates in 1916? They both have Wikipedia pages.

While I sort of understand the points that have been made about notability here, it's a simple fact that Emily was co-author of an important book, and now has published a scientific paper. That should be enough. I see the notability criterion as a way to weed out the self-promotion, the vanity pages, and the advertising, not to keep out people that might or might not be just on one side or the other of a line which really is not all that well-defined. Markjoseph125 (talk) 19:15, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

We actually had a giant discussion a few months ago about the wiki-notability criteria for sports people, with the general conclusion being that they should be tightened up. It will take some time for cruft from earlier generations of Wikipedia — articles based on a single line in a database, and the like — to be cleared out, but the process is underway. XOR'easter (talk) 19:25, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

@Markjoseph125, those are questions that are constantly debated on the WP:NSPORT talk page, where I and many others have been working to raise the bar for sportsperson inclusion. While demonstrating WP:GNG coverage has always been required for these biographies eventually, we have recently substantially tightened all athlete bio criteria such that any presumption of notability for any reason was eliminated, merely participating in a professional game does not indicate sources are likely to exist, all sports articles must have a source of SIGCOV cited, and evidence that a subject meets GNG must be much stronger than vaguewaves to unnamed offline sources. We are now working our way through the tens of thousands of athlete stubs created under laxer standards, and you're welcome to join in with policy- and guideline-based reasons to delete these pages. JoelleJay (talk) 19:34, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

• Keep. She easily passes any notability test. Her name has 30,400 hits in Google. The associated pictures are her art. The 'woke' fanatics are after her. Some anti-Science, anti-fact crazies are after her. That is what this is really all about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pschaeffer (talk • contribs) 20:35, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

  @Pschaeffer - google hits are irrelevant. If you believe they easily pass any notability test, then for your vote to be a !vote, you need to specifically point out the sources that meet the criteria you think they pass. Additionally, indicating that every person who has !voted delete above is an "anti-science, anti-fact crazy" is also not a good route to take. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:13, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

• Keep. The academic subject of this discussion appears to be notable enough in her field of paleoart, as she has had illustrations published in books and the prestigious journal Nature. Paleoart seems to be a niche profession, so it may be hard to find a universal criterion of notability in it. As some people have pointed out above, this academic has been the subject of a social media controversy recently, and as such we must keep in mind the possibility that many people are motivated to erase this page for this reason instead of notability per se. If that is the case, this would not be an acceptable reason to delete her page. Gandalf 1892 (talk) 21:52, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment WP:GNG is the universal criterion of notability (for Wikipedia). -Kj cheetham (talk) 22:17, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

  Merely being published is not sufficient for wiki-notability in any field. XOR'easter (talk) 00:38, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

• Keep. There appears to be an ideological campaign against her. Why are the deleters so eager to get rid of her? Maybe this could be revisit after the current smear attack blows over. Roger (talk) 22:54, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
• Comment – (edit conflict) This Afd is mentioned in a blog post that came out today. Rather than link it, if interested search for The imminent cancellation of Emily Willoughby: a fight to remove her from Wikipedia and it will come up #1 (on g, d, or b). It completely misunderstands or misstates the Afd as willful 'cancellation' of material that Wikipedia objects to for political reasons. Responding there is probably a complete waste of time. That said, if there is a lot of media attention as various commenters have mentioned, it's worth considering whether the Afd might be tainted. I'm not sure if anything can be concluded from this, but examining the page views for this Afd (currently 550) and five other pages nominated around the same time, I found this: Elijah Long: 22, Rusty Edwards: 18, X-Cart 28, Anil Keshary Shah: 157, Anaëlle Rassoie: 12 page views. Mathglot (talk) 23:16, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

  Even though I argued to keep before scoring out my !vote, the outside influence here is obvious for all to see. There seemed to be consensus to delete, I'll say that even thought I didn't vote delete. It would be good to identify commenters who have no other AfD input CT55555 (talk) 23:18, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

  Oh, sorry for the duplicate reference; this is the same site Hob Gadling already referred to above; I didn't recognize it from the name. Mathglot (talk) 23:41, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

  See latest page views. (It was 1,203 when I looked; not sure how often it updates.) Mathglot (talk) 09:07, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

  Page views now at 2,203 (link above). The value seems to update once a day, early or mid-morning UTC. Mathglot (talk) 09:12, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

• Keep. The accusations against her are entirely false. The 'deleters' should do their research before believing in gossip. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7F:4406:3E00:953A:D9A4:B0D1:15F (talk) 23:31, 21 August 2022 (UTC)— 2A02:C7F:4406:3E00:953A:D9A4:B0D1:15F (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• Keep. I have no professional expertise by which to judge Emily Willoughby’s paleo-art. But as an African evolutionary historian, I have devoted a lifetime to exposing the irrationality of eugenics and the hidden motives of those who pursue this pseudo-science . So, I feel confident in saying that Emily Willoughby’s work is not what we should be expunging either from the academy or Wikipedia. In fact, we need to encourage more thoughtful, creative and intellectually adventurous women like Willoughby to enter the male-dominated fields of genetics and biology. Why? My latest book, Straightening the Bell Curve, exposes the unspoken masculine insecurities that drive this type of work. When looked at closely, eugenicists exhibit an odd preoccupation with issues like black athleticism, musculature and the National Basketball Association. In fact, one of the principal contributors to The Bell Curve, Canadian psychologist J. Philippe Rushton exposed the underbelly of this work when he blurted out in an interview that Whites had higher IQs because: “It's a trade off, more brains or more penis. You can't have everything." Any controversies that arise from Willoughby’s work should be vigorously debated. But her career should be encouraged, not snuffed out by those committed to combatting racism in all its forms. Conniehilliard (talk) 01:25, 22 August 2022 (UTC)— Conniehilliard (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

  The purpose of Wikipedia is to summarize established knowledge, not host debates or encourage careers. We document the careers of scholars who have already been influential in their field. Encouraging women to enter male-dominated fields of academia is, I happen to think, a noble goal. However, by its very nature, Wikipedia can only support that goal in a secondary or tertiary way, by providing information about women whose work in those fields already has demonstrable merit. XOR'easter (talk) 21:37, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Conniehillard, could you please share how you happened to find this AfD on your first edit? Thank you, Netherzone (talk) 04:51, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

• Equivocal Keep. Jerry Coyne did not exactly "send" me, but he certainly alerted me to the problem. Emily Willoughby has written for a blog that I help manage, The Panda's Thumb. All that said, I think the page is weak and unaccountably omits entirely her work on intelligence, which is presumably why the mob is going after her. I think a decision should not be taken in such fraught circumstances. As someone else has noted, there are plenty of other weak pages, and no one minds them. We should not let the mob have their way or even seem to have their way. Theopticist (talk) 01:42, 22 August 2022 (UTC)Theopticist

There is no mob here. Nothing unusual is happening here. I would be delighted to add further support to keep this page if we can establish notability (which I tried to do above). If something is missing, that's great news. We can improve the article. Now is the perfect time to do that. Please share any links that have significant coverage and are produced independently about her work. If you do so, I am certain we could persuade people to keep the article. If you want it kept, that is the way to do it. CT55555 (talk) 01:45, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I can't make head not tail of how to Keep or Delete. Sorry Theopyicist for using your 'reply' to make a comment here!

What an &%#$ dogs breakfast this system is - man, I thought the 'behind the scenes' was better - I can imagine so many coming here and leaving in disgust at the mess.

Anyway, of course Keep, but it won't matter, because the Delete HAVE come here for idealogical reasons. And THIS comment will get a comment itself, saying I am wrong blah blah blah, nothing unusual happening...so disingenuous. Say it all you want. We all know what's going on. Keep hiding behind your oh so obvious 'process' talk which will inevitably end in Delete being upheld. All according to Plan, I mean Process.

And so falls Wikipedia - now this is also tarnished and diluted.

Spare me the replies that are copy-paste of those above about 'this is about other issues' etc etc. Just leave it.

Thanks Theopycist - again, sorry for piggy-backing, but for newbs trying to navigate, it's so primitive here.

So for one of the posters, don't be suspicious of an IP address only - anonymous - it's an outcome of the crap system. I was about to post anonymous, but will create an account just for you. Ubernez (talk) 07:12, 22 August 2022 (UTC) — Ubernez (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• Delete A long comment this, but I think it might help. First of all, to those who have been directed here by Jerry Coyne via his blog or his appeal on Twitter, welcome to Wikipedia, or at least, what goes on behind the curtain in editing. I hope you stay and contribute.

Secondly, I'm afraid Professor Coyne has rather dramatically misunderstood the situation. This discussion is not about anyone's politics. The issue at hand is whether the topic of "Emily Willoughby" (the science illustrator/researcher) is, according to Wikipedia policy, "notable" enough to merit its own page. Politically controversial people are not "cancelled" from Wikipedia. (Think of a famous person who's been "cancelled". Go look at their wiki page. It's still there.) I'll explain what "notability" means on Wikipedia in point 5 below.

Thirdly, dispute resolution on Wikipedia is not done by voting, but by !voting. That is, we don't simply count votes. People need to put forward arguments based on policy. That is why you see regular editors here citing WP:this or WP:that in their explanations. They're linking to the policies regarding potential notability of people as article subjects. Please also note that as seasoned editors, they are not enjoined in battle with each other, but discussing civilly how the policy should apply here given the evidence produced thus far. This includes willingness to changing their mind if new evidence comes to light. Conversely, if someone says "delete" or "keep" but cites no reason according to policy, their !vote may simply be ignored by the administrator (person empowered) who closes the discussion. So please, if you have come here to !Vote "keep", please look for evidence to support your position. If we have better sources, we improve the encyclopedia. (Or you might change your mind after looking at the evidence and policy.)

Fourthly, the mere opinions of Wikipedia editors on who is or is not notable are irrelevant, regardless of who you might be in real life. Wikipedia requires the use of reliable sources. (Looking at some of the arguments already put: RS does not include Twitter comments or Amazon reviews.) So if you want to say that person X is a significant figure in their field, you need to show that such opinions have been stated in independent reliable sources, or that such recognition is reflected in major real-world awards and appointments. Experts are of course welcome on Wikipedia because they have command of the material and sources. But they can't pull rank or simply vouch for something. (For one thing, how would we deal with fake claims of expertise?)

Fifthly, specifically about this proposed deletion. The issue is not whether Emily Willoughby exists and works as a science illustrator/researcher. It is whether she is notable enough as a science illustrator/researcher to merit a page. The basic policy is the general notability guidelines which require significant coverage in independent reliable sources about her. These guidelines are very general, such that over the years, the editing community has developed more specific policies to apply in specific cases. Here, the policies on academic notability WP:ACADEMIC and artistic notability WP:CREATIVE appear to be the relevant ones. Each lists a range of criteria the subject would normally need to fulfill at least one of which to reach notability. The problem that those !voting delete have (myself included) is that in our judgement, she doesn't appear to meet any of them. (She may do in the future, of course - no deletion is a permanent deletion). Regarding WP:Academic, the only thing that remotely resembles notability are points 2 & 3 with her association with the International Society for Intelligence Research, but it simply isn't one of the top academic societies in that field and their student prizes don't count as major. To quote policy, it's not like a National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society. Regarding WP:CREATIVE, no one has yet produced evidence of notability in the required form: independent reliable sources describing her as having significant original impact or influence. There need to be independent reliable sources on the topic of Emily Willoughby, illustrator, talking directly and subtantively about her work and its impact. Passing mentions are not enough. Having her work published is not enough. Mere google hit numbers are not enough. (Imagine how Wikipedia could be manipulated if we weren't stricter about this sort of thing).

To conclude, I want to emphasise to those visiting, via Professor Coyne, the editing side of Wikipedia for the first time, please stay and help to improve the encyclopedia. It's fun and serves the community. In this instance, please bring evidence that would satisfy the policies on notability. The more well-sourced material, the better. OsFish (talk) 03:06, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Delete. This discussion is timely, and as one of the people who strongly wanted to keep the article the first time it was nominated for deletion, I cannot say that I am invested in its continued existence any more. I agree with many of the points made above: her art, while arguably influential by some metrics, is not the subject of many secondary sources, and her research is unremarkable beyond an insular and incredibly controversial subfield of genetics. An open request to any more Coyne subscribers wanting to influence this discussion: complaining about "the woke mob" isn't doing you any favors to support claims of an apolitical perspective on the situation. You all share certain views of Coyne's, some of which may be objectively correct and well-supported while others may be subjective opinions without as much factual merit as claimed. I should also share our guidelines for meatpuppetry and how it is inappropriate in any AfD discussion: "A close variation is the "meatpuppet", people recruited from outside Wikipedia to try to alter the result of a discussion (for example, if your article about a web forum is up for deletion and you post a call for other forum members to "help keep our website in Wikipedia")." Simply put: don't do it. Willoughby will survive not having a Wikipedia article, it's a very minor thing in the grand scheme of things. Not having a Wikipedia article is far from the biggest current threat to her reputation. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 03:22, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

"Not having a Wikipedia article is far from the biggest current threat to her reputation." I think this statement discredits you directly.

Regarding your "meatpuppet" accusations, I will remind you that the people who read Jerry Coyne's blog are on average a select subset of the general population, disproportionately scientists and intellectuals. Calling these people "meatpuppets", again, is tantamount to discrediting yourself twice in the same paragraph. Orgrosu (talk) 08:51, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Using the usual vocabulary (and explaining it in the same contribution!) discredits nobody. Read OsFish's explanation. If it's too long for you, here is a shorter version: You need to give actual valid reasoning, based on Wikipedia rules, for keeping the article. Otherwise, your contribution is just noise that will not be taken into account.

If you are a "scientist and intellectual", you should be able to make a solid case for your position. If you don't do that, but instead use empty rhetorics like "mob", as others have done here, you are wasting your potential as a "scientist and intellectual", and it simply does not matter who you are; you could just as well be a forum insult bot.

The goal of studying is to learn how to arrive at a conclusion by valid reasoning. The goal is not to earn a degree that gives your conclusion (which you arrived at by whatever means) more weight in the eyes of impressionable people.

Coming here and trying to "vote", without having any valid reasoning behind it, and attacking people you disagree with, is typical meatpuppet behaviour. So, put up or shut up. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:54, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Replying to Orgrosu here, I think it's by no means incorrect to argue that the twitter thread which started Willoughby's "cancellation" is much more consequential to her reputation than this article, which had an average of only 7 daily pageviews before the controversy erupted.[6] Both her detractors and supporters can agree on that. "Meatpuppet" is a specific piece of Wikipedia jargon which appears to apply to this situation, and is not meant to be a crass insult towards Coyne and his fans. If you want to demonstrate your (or Coyne's) supposed intellectual superiority in this discussion, you should start by making any points towards why this article in particular is worth keeping. Complaining about "the woke mob" (and other statements along those lines) isn't an argument, it's just a complaint. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 14:59, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling I refrained to vote because I don't have the level of expertise necessary to assess whether the scientist in question achieves the customary notability standard. Two items however raised my suspicion about this deletion proposal: the phrase I quoted, which is clearly derogatory, and the timing - in the context of her being attacked on social media. The word "mob", again, in this particular context, is an apt description. Amusingly, your "empty rhetoric" is just that.

@Fanboyphilosopher Here's my point:

If I have to choose between having articles up about people of questionable notability, or having Wikipedia purged by activists, parsimony, common sense, and general alarm about the future compel me to choose the former. Orgrosu (talk) 22:50, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Have you entertained the possibility that, had you and other readers of Coyne's blog not entered this discussion based on his call to arms, the word "meatpuppet" might never have been used in the first place? Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 23:00, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Can you explain, pray, what you find wrong with me taking part in this discussion? Orgrosu (talk) 23:02, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Might I suggest that it is because "recruiting people (either on-wiki or off-wiki) to create an account or edit anonymously in order to influence decisions on Wikipedia is prohibited"? Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 23:40, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

My username _is_ my name. So I am not allowed to influence decisions on Wikipedia, but _you_ are? What's the reasoning? Orgrosu (talk) 08:05, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Here's the thing. As many of us have pointed out, canvassing - asking people in a non-neutral manner to join an editors' discussion (on deletion, on a behaviour issue, on policy changes etc) - is against the rules. That principle is part of a whole culture of encouraging neutrality and policy-following that enables the encyclopedia to survive. Also against the rules is incivility. That doesn't simply mean no insults, it also means assuming good faith on the part of other editors. If such rules were not in place, the project would have collapsed years ago.

Now, if you had all turned up to argue politely for keeping this article according to Wikipedia policies and with reliably sourced evidence, people would still be annoyed at the canvassing, and it would have to be noted by the closing administrator, but there would be much less aggro. However, that's not what you've all done. Instead, you've turned up in an openly partisan manner armed with what is, frankly, a conspiracy theory about woke editors trying to cancel people from Wikipedia for which you have, and this really needs stressing to followers of a critic of pseudoscience, zero evidence. (Professor Coyne seems to have imagined it.) When people ask these new editors to make arguments according to long-established, open, clearly-stated policies about which people and topics do or don't get a Wikipedia page of their own, almost none of you respect that and instead suggest it's part of the same, unevidenced "woke" conspiracy. (Ironically, given Professor Coyne's stance on the issue, the only reference any "delete" editor has made to the issue of "correct" or "incorrect" views has been to policy about not giving undue weight to creationism as a fringe view.)

Of course we're going to kick back against all that. We're here to build an encyclopedia, not take part in culture wars. If or when Emily Willoughby satisfies the criteria for inclusion, she can be the topic of an article. That's it, really.

And seriously, if you want to stay and help improve the encyclopedia, please do so. Just respect the rules of interaction among editors. They've worked pretty well so far. OsFish (talk) 01:05, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't think there is any reasonable rule that I might have broken. If not trusting the editors on this was being uncivil, then I am guilty of that. I have however been clear why. Most of the time a soldier should indeed follow orders, however there are cases when they shouldn't. I considered this to be such a case. Also, quoting things such as "canvassing", "meatpuppeting", are simply thinly veiled suggestions that I should not be part of the discussion. Why exactly should that be? I offered my argument, and I'll offer it again: it is prudent, especially when people suspect foul play, to refrain from deleting the article. Just don't. Revisit the decision later, when the situation will have cooled. Simply the amount of (charged) discussion speaks to this. Orgrosu (talk) 08:42, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

That reasoning does not make any sense in the Wikipedia context. When articles are up to deletion, anyone can come and say "I suspect foul play", and all the reasoning for deletion is null and void and the article stays? That's silly. Deletion is decided based on sound reasoning, not on fantasies. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:45, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

@Orgrosu: This will be my last reply to you in this AfD.

1. Despite repeated requests that you address the substance of the AfD - that this topic is not notable enough to merit its own article - I'm afraid you have contributed nothing to that discussion. You have made zero reference to any of the notability policies let alone offered evidence that the topic meets any of the criteria therein. When people refer to the question of whether someone is here or not to build an encyclopedia, it has a concrete meaning: are you trying to improve content? Thus far, you haven't tried. That can always change, but it's up to you, not anyone else.

2. You HAVE broken a rule. Professor Coyne and all those who responded to his call have broken an established rule against organised campaigning. You know this, because you have been told directly, with quotes from the rule, and given a link to that rule. It is not good to pretend you haven't.

3. "Suspicion" of foul play is, without evidence, meaningless on Wikipedia. We have processes to address foul play. The thing about them is, assertion of foul play by any editors must be backed by evidence of some kind. You have presented zero evidence. To repeat: the idea that we're trying to "cancel" someone because we're "woke activists" is a conspiracy theory proposed by someone who, despite all their undoubted scholarly achievements, doesn't understand how Wikipedia works. We don't cancel people here. It's not within the rules. At worst, we have barely civil arguments about how to reflect published criticism of a notable living subject - which often bloats an article, but never ends with deleting it.

4. Because the "keep" votes of people coming from Professor Coyne's blog haven't engaged with policy on notability, there isn't a heated discussion of the issue in hand. !Votes which simply ignore policy can in turn simply be ignored. To repeat from point 1: you've got to engage with policy and cite evidence. This isn't a strict head count. No matter how much all of you think Emily Willoughby is a wonderful researcher and artist, real world, independent, reliable sources and organisations have not sufficiently caught up with that. The proper Wikipedian response is: if such sources and other real-world indications of sufficient notability are not there (yet), then, sorry, no article (yet).

5. I have been replying to you and making comments in the hope that in explaining how Wikipedia works with evidence and policy and so making clear to you what your task is if you want to influence events, I might convert one or two new visitors to being Wikipedians. Clearly with you I've failed. I hope I haven't with others.OsFish (talk) 12:49, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

The only "mobbing" going on here is from canvassed activists who are not here to build the encyclopedia. Without the canvassing, very few who watch the list of academics at AfD would've been aware that there was anything controversial going on with her and would've evaluated retention solely based on Wikipedia notability. You can even verify for yourself that almost all of the delete !voters here and at the first AfD are just regulars at deletion discussions in general (or ones related to paleontology/art/women/academics specifically) and essentially are agnostic to any external circumstances surrounding the subjects; certainly you can't argue any of them were brought in to the prior AfD by any agenda. So your claims of some concerted effort to "cancel" or "purge" Willoughby for "woke" reasons are totally off-base. JoelleJay (talk) 00:14, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

@User:Orgrosu: I also lack the expertise, so I did not vote either.

So, "mob" is an apt description for people who, using sound reasoning, discuss whether a person is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article, but "meatpuppet" is not an apt description for people who turn up in that discussion without a clue and without any reasoning, but with preconceived notions on what this is about, because someone else told them to do it?

That one does not fly. You should read Faith vs. Fact to find out how discussions are supposed to work. (I liked it a lot.)

Not having a Wikipedia article is far from the biggest current threat to her reputation is just a true statement. Most post-docs are not notable enough for a Wikipedia article, and not having one is not a big deal. See WP:ACADEMIC. See also this article on Panda's Thumb for a similar case. Here is the deletion discussion, with Creationist meatpuppets. From creationists, that sort of thing is to be expected, but Coyne should be better than that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:42, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

"far from the biggest threat to her reputation" implies there are bigger threats to her reputation. It's hard to know what other threats you had in mind, and in the absence of them being mentioned (or otherwise well-known) I hope it is easy to see how someone can interpret this as a smear.

The word "mob", which I haven't brought up, but simply defended it's use, was referring to what is happening on social media, which is the context for all this and the only reason for being concerned by the deletion of some post-docs' page.

Someone above mentioned trusting the editors. Well, we are editors, aren't we? If we're not, explain why. If we are, why shouldn't the trust extend symmetrically? @JoelleJay was suggesting he's here to build the encyclopedia and Jerry Coyne's readers are canvassed activists. Orgrosu (talk) 09:18, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

I thought the biggest threat was what is happening on social media. The problem here is that you people conflate that with what is happening here. This would be understandable if the deletion !votes did include personal attacks at Willoughby, but they do not. The conflation is all just imagination of Jerry Coyne, and of whoever put him on to it, and the people who come here the fight the deletion are just acting on faith (or gullibility, to use another word for the same thing).

If Jerry Coyne's readers had brought forth valid reasons why the article should stay, that would have been very welcome. The point is that they are just making noise. I am also here because I read this on WEIT, but I know how this works, and most of you people do not. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:45, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

She. And are you disagreeing that you are canvassed activists, or that you aren't here solely to prevent this article's deletion? Again, none of the 10 delete !voters at the first AfD had any knowledge of her work beforehand, but every single one of them came to the exact same guideline-based conclusions delete !voters in the current AfD have been arguing: that she (still) does not meet NPROF, NARTIST, NAUTHOR, or GNG. Meanwhile, the keep !voters in this AfD have been casting aspersions about the motivations of other editors and have yet to produce a single guideline-backed reason to keep the article. AfDs are not decided on head counts, so no matter how many people Dr Coyne sends here, if there aren't valid arguments to keep it the article will be deleted. JoelleJay (talk) 20:04, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

• Comment - I will refrain from voting here, but it needs to be noted that this article was last DRed long before the current controversy, and it was only saved by palaeontology-oriented editors (including me), but even then it only amounted to 7 keep votes against 10 deletes. Non-paleo editors did not and still don't recognise notability, simply based on existing guidelines, not due to whatever is happening to the subject now. So all these drive-by editors crying foul about the motivations for this DR really need to go back and look at the first one and defend this article in accordance with the relevant policies instead of hand waving about censorship and "wokeness". It doesn't help the case at all, rather the opposite. FunkMonk (talk) 14:50, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I think something needs to be said here about how the cogs of Wikipedia process turn - that is, usually they do not until someone takes the initiative to make it so. And, indeed, here they are turning, regardless of whatever motivations the original nominator for this second nomination may have had, and so it is appropriate to participate in the due process. I, as I suspect is likewise the case for many previously active editors involved in this discussion, do not think the pursuit of optics relevant to the improvement of the encyclopedia. Indeed, they have also triggered a much-needed re-evaluation of articles throughout our own project. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 15:01, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree. I had a brief look at the discussion on Professor Coyne's blog, and I was very struck by two things. First, the impression a lot of people had there that Wikipedia is some sort of centrally directed project with people in charge promoting some sort of concerted bias, when it's quite the opposite. Literally anyone can edit, which means there is no central direction. I had thought that was very well known, but apparently it isn't. Which leads me to the second thing: they therefore don't understand the architecture of Wikipedia that allows for the production of - as many of them openly appreciate - very often high quality material they find indispensable. It's not a free-for-all. It's a rules-based, rather bureaucratised process that has developed to promote cooperation and reduce conflict among around 100,000 regular editors/44 million registered editors. There are lots of rules and policies and conventions that exist to take the heat out of disputes. It's what lots of people wish Twitter was: you're not allowed to sound off about what you reckon without providing evidence, and if you handle evidence badly, you lose, and if you're abusive, you can be sanctioned, and you can even get banned, and all of this not by a single central authority, but by the community.

Which leads to two points of incomprehension when they've contributed here to this AfD. One is that they don't realise they are triggering policies designed to protect the encyclopedia against organised attempts to corrupt content. It does matter that a lot of people who've never or barely edited before suddenly turn up all on the same discussion after being encouraged to do so off-wiki. Meatpuppet is a term used on Wikipedia precisely to describe such users. They should ask themselves - is it really so weird that a globally dominant project like Wikipedia has policies and practices to prevent partisan manipulation from the outside? The other point is that when regular editors beseech them to argue in accordance with agreed policy, many have decided that it's a smokescreen. They don't appear to realise that reliance on policy is key to the project. It hasn't occurred to them. Although I endeavour to be civil, I would suggest to some of the visitors from Professor Coyne's blog that they need to reign in their sense of superiority. They don't know it all about how Wikipedia works. They should be polite, and when regular editors welcome them and explain openly what's required to get decisions to go their way, they should, you know, listen. No one has put an argument for deletion based on political views. It's all been about policy, and every regular editor has been keen to direct the new users to these policies. OsFish (talk) 16:08, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

There is a bit of disingenuity in your comment. Yes, it's kind of true that "Literally anyone can edit" but then you add "which means there is no central direction." Well, no. There are moderators. People who can semi-protect articles, or ban/block users. So, we may all be equal, but some are more equal than others. I'm not against oversight, and I've reverted my share of vandalism, but pretending there is no central direction won't wash.

The attacks on Dr. Coyne are uncalled for. Yes, there was one sentence in his second post that should not have been there: "If there are readers willing to argue her cause on Wikipedia, I’d urge you to jump into the fray." But no one's perfect, and in any case, this post was a follow up to his post wherein he called out the unwarranted attack on her by a Twitter mob.

Remember, this whole kerfluffle started, as even the people in favor of deleting the article have admitted, right after the Twitter attack. That means that (1) people from Twitter came over here first, to nominate the article for deletion, or (2) some of the people here who are arguing for deletion are doing so for political reasons, but are pretending it's procedurally based (a number of people here have indicated that is a serious possibility), or (3) by the most fantastic of coincidences, right at the time that the Twitter attack occurred, a Wikipedia editor with some knowledge of the paleoart scene happened to notice this article, and realizing that the person was not sufficiently notable, honestly nominated the article for deletion. Uh huh.

The idea that there is no political maneuvering (specifically, woke cancellation) going on in Wikipedia is untenable. In the general sense, it's a movement that is taking over many or most of the most influential policy/decision making instruments of our society, such as the universities (where you can't even be considered for a job unless you sign a loyalty oath DEI statement, many corporations, and major social-media platforms, resulting in such nonsense as libelously accusing a bakery of racism and renaming birds, all pretending to be "social justice". To think it's as pervasive as it actually is, but isn't affecting as influential a site as Wikipedia is, shall we say, improbable.

But here's a specific example (yes, it was raised by someone on Dr. Coyne's blog, but that's immaterial). I'm quoting the person, but I've checked the links: The best-known example of this principle, which Coyne posted about last month, was the “Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence” Wikipedia article. https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/07/25/more-ideological-distortions-of-biology-from-dawkins-and-from-an-article-on-pervasive-ideological-censorship-of-wikipedia-articles/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence_(2nd_nomination) In that case, it was widely understood that this was a notable subject that deserved its own Wikipedia article, and the article was deleted under the pretense that it would be replaced with a better article about the same topic. But now, two years after the article was deleted, it’s clear no one has any actual intention to replace that article.

Woke anti-semitism is hardly a secret (it's one of the many ways in which they resemble their extreme right-wing mirror images); all I'm trying to do here, though, is demonstrate that there is political pressure on Wikipedia. And it's very difficult to believe, in light of the timing of the request for deletion, that that is not the case with Emily Willoughby. Markjoseph125 (talk) 20:05, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

• Comment. To the folks arriving here via Coyne, I wanted to let you know that Coyne refused to publish my comment explaining that there is no woke lynch mob situation here. I left the following comment on his site, which Coyne chose to hide from you:

It is often the case that a Wikipedia biography lacks sufficient citations for Wikipedia's notability standards. There are many, many, biographies on Wikipedia that should not exist because the subject is not notable enough. Such an article may sit there for quite a while, largely unnoticed, until someone comes along to nominate it for deletion.

It is probably true that social media attention on Willoughby is what caused someone to nominate the article for deletion. But it is a whole separate question of whether she meets the notability standards for biographies on Wikipedia.

And it may well be true that, sans the social media storm, nobody would have bothered to nominate the article for deletion. But that doesn't mean the article deserves to be there, according to Wikipedia notability policies.

Sending people to the deletion nomination discussion is likely to have the opposite effect you intended. Wikipedians have a name for it -- canvassing -- and they hate it. Wikipedians are trying to decide, as impartially as possible, whether an article meets Wikipedia's notability policies. That process is disrupted by external canvassing, which forces Wikipedians to deal with random folks entering the fray who often have no understanding of Wikipedia policies. 2001:920:198C:83C:6368:537D:F8B4:5555 (talk) 15:32, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

It is strange to see all these complaints about an outside web side. Is WP open to everyone or not? Yeah, Wikipedians hate it when outsiders have an opinion. Roger (talk) 22:12, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

You do know that you yourself are as much a "Wikipedian" as everyone else here, right? FunkMonk (talk) 22:17, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

They are not complaints about "an outside web side": They are complaints about someone who has so little clue about Wikipedia that he calls a normal, everyday process "lunacy" and suggests his followers to write to the editor of Wikipedia, whoever he/she is [7], sending a gaggle of angry people who do not know the first thing about deletion discussions either, are not interested to learn them, and only disrupt the process. His own website (which is not a blog!) enforces "Da Roolz", but da roolz of another website can be ignored at will? --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:42, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

• Delete for failure to meet the wiki-notability standards for academics or artists. I could write an analysis at greater length, but I think OsFish has done a more than good enough job of that already. XOR'easter (talk) 21:22, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
• Delete. Being a postdoc is usually too soon to have achieved the scholarly impact needed for academic notability (as measured, for instance, by the citation counts in her Google Scholar profile). One reason for this is that it's difficult to disentangle her accomplishments from those of her more senior collaborators. In her case, there is one high-citation publication, in which she is in a middle position among a large number of authors; her first-author publications, while having some impact, are not yet at the level needed to make a convincing case for notability. Best-student-paper awards explicitly do not count towards academic notability; they are too low-level an accomplishment. Her creationist-apologist book has again many coauthors and so far we only have one dubiously-reliable deadlink website review; this is not the multiple books with multiple published reviews needed for notability as a book author. Even if she had borderline notability for either of those activities (which I don't think she has), the fringe nature of both her work on intelligence and creationism would call for a higher standard of in-depth sourcing of that material, clearly evaluating it as fringe, to satisfy Wikipedia's requirement for a neutral point of view. That leaves her dinosaur art. Although she is obviously talented, we would need third-party publications about this art, or its inclusion in the permanent collections of multiple notable museums, to satisfy our standards for notability as an artist, and again we have no evidence of that. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:45, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

• Delete. Per all of the above. Nothing else to say, except that I'm tired of microcelebrities getting hyped on the routine deletion of articles on barely better known microcelebrities and thinking they can bruteforce the AfD with the most naives of their community. It's happening on the regular now. Besides that point, I've independently checked it out, there is no way that, with the current documentation available online, this person reaches the level of notability desired for keeping her article up. I was gonna vote to keep it, to AfD it once for good in a few months when the controversy has dried up, to avoid bringing such attention on it, but now, I see no reason for not removing this article soon and clean (as well as those of other paleoartists, depending on the result of the discussion on the WikiProject Talk page, naturally). Larrayal (talk) 22:50, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

  DO NOT DELETE -- There is clearly a Twitter mob behind this unfair call for Willoughby's cancellation. See Eric Turkheimer's Twitter thread (in her defense) for details: https://twitter.com/ent3c/status/1558078849132466177 Bws92082 (talk) 00:56, 23 August 2022 (UTC) — Bws92082 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

  Neither your comment, nor the Twitter thread to which you link, makes an argument grounded in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. XOR'easter (talk) 01:17, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

  Bws92082, What is your evidence that any of the delete !voters are "Twitter mobsters" rather than good faith editors. Please focus on content not contributors, and review WP:NPA. Thank you. Netherzone (talk) 01:39, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

  As both Netherzone and Hob Gadling are becoming increasingly vitriolic, I'm not responding to them. I've stated my arguments for notability in my reply to OsFish above, and my arguments that there is indeed woke cancellation pressure on Wikipedia, and specifically on this article, in another reply (the long one ;-) to OsFish, also above. Maybe the arguments are insufficient. Maybe not. Markjoseph125 (talk) 20:13, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

• Keep. Because this seems to be a politically-charged case, let me first make the following disclaimers. I wonder by academics AfD several times a year, which is why I am here and I have no prior familiarity with the subject, nor her views, nor her supporters or critics. Neither was I invited by anyone to comment. That said, I will offer a different perspective from the comments above, but one that I have made before here at AfD. Namely, notability standards, as they exist in practice on WP, are actually much lower than their official descriptions represent because of the unchecked epidemic of special-interest editing that has resulted in too-many-to-count BLPs of non-notable people that happily exist on WP. Holding this one to a standard which thousands of other BLPs are allowed to violate is unfair and damages WPs credibility. For example, I would observe that Willoughby's citation tally of ~1600 is much higher than that of postdoc Vicky Forster's tally of ~300. Willoughby seems to have lots of other coverage, is published in the book world, etc. (as noted above), but Forster has no other real claim to notability. This suggests that Willoughby is at least as notable as Forster, whose BLP, though notability-tagged, still survives. In that sense, deleting this article would be contradictory. 128.252.172.29 (talk) 14:45, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

  Just because other articles exist doesn't mean that this one should. It's entirely possible that the Vicky Forster article would be deleted if attention were called to it, but that no one has bothered to call that attention yet. And even if we were comparing them, which we shouldn't, one number being bigger than the other doesn't mean there's a contradiction or inconsistency in any meaningful way. Overall citation numbers are not typically used in evaluating notability, for reasons that this case actually illustrates rather well: for example, being one of several dozen coauthors in the middle of an author list doesn't really indicate that one played a major role in the work. Our notability criteria for scientists are about recognizing people who are pioneers in their field, not junior code monkeys who happen to get coauthorship a couple times.

  If the project overall isn't living up to its standards, then we need to work harder to meet those standards, not lower them to the point where they're already met. Advertising and promotional content exists on Wikipedia, despite our policies against it; should we just accept that as the standard that exists in practice and give up? If bowing to "special interests" and keeping trivial fluff is bad for our credibility, then shouldn't we delete this article tout de suite? XOR'easter (talk) 15:19, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

  First, Willoughby seems to hold a legitimate PhD (dissertation here), so using words like "junior code monkey" is incredibly demeaning. Second, as I mentioned, Willoughby seems to have lots of other contributions, whereas Forster does not, so your GS-only strawman is invalid. Third, I used Forster only as an example to illustrate a larger characteristic about WP, namely that there are gross differences of standards to which articles within the same class are held. Panelists here !voting Delete are (either knowingly or unknowingly) requiring this article to clear a higher bar than tens of thousands of other WP academics BLPs. The Vicky Forster BLP I just quoted is a conclusive counterexample refuting your claim that PROF is "about recognizing people who are pioneers in their field". Again, these are the kinds of blatant contradictions that hurt WP credibility and make it seems politically-driven. 128.252.172.29 (talk) 16:06, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

You keep talking about politics, but how do you explain the previous[8] deletion request from before this controversy even began? FunkMonk (talk) 16:14, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Again, anytime the "not a ballot" notice appears, it means someone already in the discussion has sensed that politics (small "p") are afoot, almost always on the "keep" side (as they seem to be here), since AfD adversarially positions the article on the "delete" side. It's why I gave a disclaimer at the beginning of my entry. The 1st AfD has nothing to do with this, as far as I'm concerned. Indeed, I didn't even look at it. Thanks. 128.252.172.29 (talk) 16:20, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Err, yes, the first AfD does have a lot to do with this, because it proves that problems with the article were pointed out long before the current controversy, problems which have not yet been solved. The pre-controversy AfD got 10 deletes against 7 keeps (including mine), so it was inevitable a new AfD would come up again at some point, and here it is. FunkMonk (talk) 16:41, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

As a former junior code monkey and middle-of-the-author-list coauthor myself, I reject the idea that an accurate description of many, many CV items is at all demeaning. That's simply how academic careers begin — as "assistant bottle-washers", one might say — and it's one reason why the GS numbers you quoted are simply meaningless for the purpose at hand. I could have pointed to other reasons why Forster might be judged notable when Willoughby isn't, but that's not the point here. The existence of a page that happens not to have gone through a deletion debate is not a counterexample to our guidelines, because the community hasn't yet discussed how those guidelines apply to it. XOR'easter (talk) 16:37, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

No matter how you personally rationalize it, calling a woman a "code monkey" is offensive. I can't believe this sort of thing is tolerated on WP. 128.252.172.29 (talk) 16:55, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

If you want to complain, go to one of the drama boards. Since XOR'easter did not actually call anybody a code monkey except themselves, there is not much hope for any success. Can you please stop this diversion now? --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:35, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

• Reply to 128.252.172.29: Firstly, this case is not politically charged on Wikipedia. None of the delete arguments have cited any politics. None of the arguments claiming it's political on Wikipedia have provided any evidence of that. If crying "politically charged" without evidence were allowed in Wikipedia discussions to prevent decision making, it would be a nightmare. Secondly, and really crucially, we are NOT bound by the decisions or absence of decisions of other editors at the same level. Notoriously, such arguments are called WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS and are considered invalid. If you see another article that you think does not clear notability, the appropriate response is to flag it (as someone has done already in your example), giving those involved in creating that article a chance to make notability clearer before triggering a bureaucratic process like Article for Deletion. It is not to think that such articles will be useful in other discussions about notability. By the by, I recommend new editors look at the discussion you refer to so they can see what a proper debate over policy and sources looks like.OsFish (talk) 15:22, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

  Anytime "Not a ballot" notice appears, it obviously means there are political (small "p") forces afoot...and, of course I meant these politics are on the "keep side" (thanks for assuming otherwise). Predictably, you give the standard boilerplate advice of deleting other articles, but that doesn't really happen. The problem, in a nutshell, is very simple to describe: (1) Non-notable BLPs are created at a far faster rate by special-interest editors (editathons, wiki-eds, etc) than they can be policed by organic and general-interest editors. (2) The aggregate number of them now existing on WP is enormous and continues to increase. (3) This state of affairs constitutes a de facto standard of what the acceptable level of notability is on WP, irrespective of what WP policies and guidelines say. (4) It is unfair to judge the notability of Willoughby against a higher standard than what actually exists in practice. People who have given any meaningful thought to this understand such inconsistency was bound to arise because WP has no real mechanism to enforce uniformity. So, until there is a means to enforce notability at creation-time and to mass delete tens of thousands of non-notable BLPs, the rational choice is to judge articles at AfD according to the actual notability standards on WP. 128.252.172.29 (talk) 16:06, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

  0. It is clearly wrong to claim articles don't get deleted. People can look at the outcomes of articles up for deletion now. The discussion you cited where you argued for "keep" ended in deletion.

  1&2. To argue that bad material exists therefore we should tolerate it when we see it is an argument to abandon all standards. It's nonsensical.

  3&4. There is no such thing as a "de facto" standard of notability on WP. We don't do de facto; we do policy. This isn't case law. If you want Wikipedia to change that approach, you can't do it at this level of applying policy. You have to try and change policy itself with the full glare of the community on you.

  4. Yes, you're going to find inconsistencies on Wikipedia. It's a drawback of the model. The answer to that is not to lower standards. It's to work, and to work out, how to enforce those standards better.OsFish (talk) 16:20, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

  OMG, please read carefully: I said Non-notable BLPs are created at a far faster rate by special-interest editors (editathons, wiki-eds, etc) than they can be policed by organic and general-interest editors. Of course some are deleted, but there's no comparison to the rate at which they are created because the number of special-interest editors is far higher than the number of good people like yourself policing these articles. As to your other point, I think some eds are so conditioned to policy that they cannot see beyond. It's simple: the very existence of these zillions of non-notable BLPs means that the existence of non-notable BLPs is acceptable. That is a de facto standard. As usual, I fail to reach the congregation with the gospel, so to speak, so I'm retiting from this one. I'm sure we'll debate this again sometime. Thanks. 128.252.172.29 (talk) 16:28, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

  In addition to being an argument for giving up — the logic is the same as saying "corporate PR exists, therefore we should allow more of it" — this unfairly presumes that participants in edit-a-thons and the like cannot follow our basic policies and guidelines. Having narrow interests or wanting to contribute to a niche topic isn't bad. XOR'easter (talk) 16:59, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

  If you want to change the rules, Wikipedia talk:Notability is thataway. Until you succeed, we will continue using the current rules. Can you please stop this diversion now? --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:29, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

  I added the "not a ballot" template [9] after Hob Gadling noted "Jerry Coyne is sending people here" and linked to the website [10]. My hope was for the template to serve as a quick primer about our policies and guidelines as well as the general expectations for discussions related to articles nominated for deletion. Also, we do have a variety of ways to review notability after article creation, including New Pages Patrol and these types of discussions, according to actual notability standards. There can be differences in opinion on how to interpret the policies and guidelines, but these are our mechanisms to help maintain the integrity of the encyclopedia. Beccaynr (talk) 17:14, 23 August 2022 (UTC)