Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Haleh Ghoreishi

Haleh Ghoreishi

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No evidence at all of passing either the general notability guideline or the guideline for academics. There are four references, but one is her profile on the web site of the university where she works, two make only passing references to her, and the other one is a page saying that she won a prize, but how notable the prize is is unclear. I can find no significant independent coverage of the prize. The amount of independent coverage of Haleh Ghoreishi is very small for an academic. Everything I have seen is entirely consistent with the hypothesis that she is a perfectly ordinary and unnotable academic. (Note: Verification of information is made more difficult by the fact that her name sometimes appears as Halleh Ghorashi rather than Ghoreishi.) JamesBWatson (talk) 17:52, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep She is the holder of a named chair at a major university, and thus meets WP:PROF. This is way more than a "perfectly ordinary" academic. The ordinary academic is not a full professor in the most prestigious university in Holland. She has published several books, and at least a dozen peer-reviewed articles. This is considerably more than the "perfectly ordinary" academic. The publications show her an expert in her field. I added some of them to start with. DGG ( talk ) 18:37, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

DGG has made me wonder if she may be more notable than I at first thought. However, at least some of DGG's reasoning is flawed. The fact that she has published "at least a dozen peer-reviewed articles" is certainly not an indication of notability beyond the typical academic: many research students have published half a dozen peer-reviewed articles, and a seriously notable academic can is very likely to have published far more than a dozen of them. Nor is having published several books a guarantee of notability: there are many people who have done so, but are not notable by Wikipedia's standards. Thank you, DGG, for adding mention of some of her publications, that is certainly helpful. However, her own publications do nothing to esatblish notability, as we need publications about her, not by her. Unfortunately "professor" means different things in different parts of the world. A professor in one of the traditional universities in Britain, for example, is a very senior position, whereas the title "professor" in many American universities applies to quite junior university lecturers. Holding "a chair" is also a variable qualification: in some universities that indicates that the person is a head of a major department, in others no little more than that they are a couple of steps above the lowest rank. In this case she was an "assistant professor" until the Participatie van Vrouwen uit Etnische Minderheden created a "chair for her as part of its campaign to increase participation of immigrant women. How far that chair represents an acknowledgement of her academic importance and how far it represents that she was considered the kind of person they wanted to encourage is unclear. In such a case the way to decide is to look for substantial independent coverage. I have had no difficulty finding coverage of the fact that she hold that chair, but I have not managed to find anything that indicates that that chair is significant. The expression "full professor" exists in America, but I have never come across it in the context of the Netherlands, so I can't say what it entails, if indeed it is a translation of a recognised expression. There is still not a single source cited in the article which is independent of her and gives substantial co0verage of her, as opposed to just mentioning her or being by her. I do acknowledge that, in light of what DGG has said, it is possible that she is more notable than I at first thought, but I still can't find the sort of substantial independent coverage of her academic career that would confirm that she is. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:03, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep ~~Comment~~: This is the hardest Google search I've ever made in AfD discussions. JamesBWatson has rightfully observed that the different spelling of the name didn't help. The Encyclopedia of women and Islamic cultures has showed up in a search for "ghorashi halleh" but I definitely have no way to verify the content if her name was in it. It will be very much appreciated if someone who has access to this book can verify. Thanks in advance. Pmresource (talk) 22:43, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Based on the sources that Drmies gave, this is a keeper. Pmresource (talk) 05:57, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:43, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I can't find anything on GS, GB, GN. Can anybody else? Xxanthippe (talk) 02:14, 30 October 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Keep. JBW, I've moved the article: Hallah Ghorashi is the way to go, as suggested by her coverage in the Dutch press. See this search, for instance. I've added a VPRO reference to the article that beefs up the biography a little bit. I'm kind of tired of BLPs, so I won't do much more to the article, but let me note this:

I'm not sure her particular named chair makes her automatically notable, but it's certainly more than a regular prof job.

It seems to me that she generates plenty of coverage in the Dutch press to say she passes GNG. Her inauguration was widely covered, for instance (some more hits for that here.

I can't judge the impact of her work since I haven't looked for reviews in the academic press (Crusio is really, really good at that sort of stuff) and for impact in the news media, but I'm confident that she doesn't even need to pass WP:PROF (though I guess she will) in that particular sense given her general newsworthiness. In all, she's a keeper, I'll go to bat for her, and I'm proud to claim her as one of us, haha. Drmies (talk) 02:17, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The first source given is by her, not about her and so does not contribute to notability. The second group of sources are rather feeble, some are about different people with the same name. Others look like the sort of stuff that university public relation departments put out routinely. Xxanthippe (talk).

Look again. I've added sources from VPRO, a long interview with Intermediair (which needs an article, BTW), an article from the Reformatorisch Dagblad, and a pretty significant mention (a couple of paragraphs) from Trouw. I'm not sure what groups of sources you're talking about; I assure you that the references I added are from utterly reliable and independent sources, and they're about the same person--who clearly is recognized as an expert, a voice to be listened to, in the Dutch immigration and integration debate. Drmies (talk) 03:05, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, she was listed as one of the most powerful women in the Netherlands. Drmies (talk) 03:11, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The sources that I found to be inadequate were from your Google search here. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:13, 30 October 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Well, take out the home sales and the LSU graduation and you have a number of very decent sources, all of which attest to her professorial position, for instance. That in itself is enough for the GNG--how often do you find such widespread mention of a professor in the newspapers? Drmies (talk) 03:32, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. A clear pass of both WP:PROF and WP:GNG. The fact that most of the sources are in Dutch is irrelevant. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:40, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Thanks to the doc for removing any doubt. ^Bongo_matic 05:01, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]