Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gerry Stahl

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. (non-admin closure) — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:51, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Gerry Stahl

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Gerry Stahl (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Cannot find secondary sources for it. Does not meet notability. Manic Monk (talk) 20:27, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 20:55, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

• Keep. Article needs cleanup and better sourcing but he appears to pass WP:PROF#C1 by his many highly-cited publications (even in a highly cited field) [1]. Nominator does not appear to have even considered our academic notability guidelines, as the nomination statement only addresses GNG-based criteria. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:22, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
  • PS as founding editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning he also appears to pass #C8. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:42, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Delaware-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 21:39, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

• Keep per David Eppstein. Article needs sourcing, but subject does merit an article based on WP:PROF#C1. Ajshul 😀 (talk) 22:04, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
• Keep with over 10k citations in total and 18 papers with 100+ citations passes WP:NPROF, even in a high citation field like CS. Also, secondary sources are not required for the article since its an academic. --hroest 02:06, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
• Keep. Authored two books with over a 1,000 citations as well as many well cited papers [2]. --Eostrix  (^{🦉 hoot} _hoot🦉) 10:00, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
• Delete: Fails GNG. Whatever other notability guidelines exist, they still need to be verified through significant, reliable sources. The article is nearly 10 years old with no actual sources listed. Delete, anyone interested in keeping the article can draft space it until they add enough citations to qualify for notability. Macktheknifeau (talk) 16:16, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
  • For WP:PROF, the sources do not need to be independeent, so GNG is irrelevant. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:29, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
    • PROF Criterion 1 specifically requires "independent reliable sources". Macktheknifeau (talk) 17:08, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
      • That means independent sources that cite his. You see the little number "Citations: 11507" in the upper right corner of https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=P3igc9gAAAAJ? Those are 11507 sources, mostly independent and mostly reliable, about Stahl's work. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:40, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
      • @Macktheknifeau: Please see the General notes that are written for exactly this purpose: "Once the passage of one or more notability criteria has been verified through independent sources, or through the reliable sources listed explicitly for this purpose in the specific criteria notes, non-independent sources, such as official institutional and professional sources, are widely accepted as reliable sourcing for routine, uncontroversial details." As David points above, notability cannot be established by the subject itself (eg me claiming to have 10k research papers citing my work) but through independent sources and verifiable sources (we can go in and inspect each of these 11507 to check that they rely cite Gerry Stahl), *then* we can use non-independent sources to write the article. This is common practice for academics. --hroest 21:22, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
        • You still need to cite the sources. The article has no independent sources. Delete, and if anyone wants to keep a draft of the article, they can feel free to do so, improve the page and then ask for it to be republished. Macktheknifeau (talk) 04:30, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
          • You still need to read WP:DINC and WP:BEFORE. AfD is not about cleanup and notability is not about what's in the article now. In fact, the main reason I haven't put effort into improving the article yet (as I often do at AfDs when it becomes obvious that the articles are notable but need cleanup) is your intransigent attitude insisting incorrectly that the cleanups must happen before the article is kept. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:09, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
          • here is the independent source, nowhere in WP:PROF does it say that the sources need to be cited in the article. Please read WP:NPROF. --hroest 18:25, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
• Keep Passed WP:NPROF and WP:DINC. -Kj cheetham (talk) 11:24, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
• It clearly fails WP:NPROF as it needs "as demonstrated by independent reliable sources". There is not a single paragraph referring to the subject in what can be considered independent reliable source. May be it exists and I couldn't dig it up, then please post it before concluding the discussion. Which is the gist of what Macktheknifeau also was saying.

This decision is going to impact more than this page's keep or delete because throughout Wikipedia there are articles on academics that are almost in the same area of study and others too that are not notable as perWP:NPROF. The keep on this page can be taken as sure call for all academics in the world with a home page in a university or even a personal website to make Wikipedia into LinkedIn. Manic Monk (talk) 13:11, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

• Manic Monk on what is this perspective based? We currently have a lack of notable academics in Wikipedia, some of the most prominent and widely-cited academics do not have articles in Wikipedia while many singers, artists and athletes do. Can you please explain how this article fails WP:NPROF and please be specific since it clearly passes WP:NPROF#1. --hroest 18:17, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
• here is your independent source, unless you can explain how the subject was able to influence Google to manipulate this page. Please read the notability guidelines on WP:PROF which were specifically designed and adopted with consensus after several embarrassing incidents where people used exactly this kind of argument to delete articles about notable people. If you have issues with the rules, please discuss them at the appropriate talk page of WP:NPROF, that would be the right place to change the rules. --hroest

A list of works or researched he's published isn't a reliable, independent source for notability in the same way that a list of books an author has written isn't. Yes, he's a well known academic. No, that doesn't make him inherently notable. Significant Coverage in Multiple, Independent, Reliable Sources. That's the only guideline that matters. GNG is not a hard bar to pass, it only needs two clear examples. Macktheknifeau (talk) 03:54, 21 March 2021 (UTC) 18:22, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

There is explicitly no need to pass WP:GNG if WP:NPROF is met. -Kj cheetham (talk) 10:50, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

exactly, GNG does not apply here, how hard is this to understand? Nobody argues that this person passes GNG, the argument is that they pass WP:PROF. --hroest 00:45, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

• hroest Google scholar is only an index and a list, it does not say anything. Not an independent secondary source that is reliable but its lists may have articles that meet independent reliable sources. Of the several citations listed there not one paragraph could be gotten of the subject so far, still trying. This is due in part to the citation gaming that goes on that is necessary for academics especially in some fields like that of the subject. The argument that there are too many pages for artists but too little for academics is not that good to keep poorly sourced and not notable academic pages. It is very alarming actually that to match the numbers with the numbers of articles on artists the criteria will be reduced Google scholar that will give the scenario of Wikipedia being the new LinkedIn. On a related note google searches, and not what shows up in searches, can be used in the same way as criteria for making up pages in wikipedia for anybody. Macktheknifeau and

• citation counts are *not* the same as Google searches, they are one (among many) measures of an academics impact on their field. I don't see how keeping the current policy for academics will turn Wikipedia into the new LinkedIn, especially as the standards in WP:PROF are relatively strict. Again, if you like to change current policy then this should be discussed at WP:NPROF and its discussion page. --hroest 00:45, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

One paragraph mentioning the subject from any one of the articles indexed by google from out of a reliable source. Until then it should not be passed. This decision will affect Wikipedia very severely. Manic Monk (talk) 03:48, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

• come on, please do your research before making an argument. Can you please explain how keeping the status quo will "impact Wikipedia severly" exactly? --hroest 00:36, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

• Keep. It seems his books have been highly cited, so despite below-average Scopus/WoS-indexed article citations (compared to coauthors/etc.) I think his scholarly impact has been established. JoelleJay (talk) 02:55, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
• Keep More than 11k citations in google scholar is enough for notability. Also, its not that academics need to have secondary source mentions per WP:NPROF for being notable. Chiro725 (talk) 09:04, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.