Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frederick Sontag

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 SNOW keep No !votes for deletion after several days of discussion, and the juxtaposition of editors !voting keep is compelling. Rewrite is indicated per discussion, and stubbification may be appropriate in the meantime, but the article stays. Jclemens (talk) 16:22, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Frederick Sontag

Frederick Sontag (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Not WP:Notable. The article only tells us two things about him. He wrote a book on the Unification Church in 1977 which attracted some attention. And he was the victim of a violent attack in 2000 which was reported by the LA Times. Other than that Kris Kristofferson says he's a good teacher. There is really no life story in this "biography." Borock (talk) 15:16, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

• Delete: highly questionable that he meets any of the criteria in WP:ACADEMIC, plus is a poster-boy for the explicit exception "It is possible for an academic to be notable according to this standard, and yet not be an appropriate topic for coverage in Wikipedia because of a lack of reliable, independent sources on the subject." Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 15:38, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

• Keep with complete rewrite: giving WP:DUE weight to Gale listing (The Existentialist Prolegomena: To a Future Metaphysics & The God of Evil: An Argument from the Existence of the Devil) and avoiding WP:UNDUE weight to ephemera (background to Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church, the stabbing or Kris Kristofferson). [(belatedly signed Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 07:58, 15 May 2009 (UTC) ]

• hmmm... Delete... I tried to save the page (which was started by a friend) but could not come up with any real substantial coverage of him in secondary sources. (That's WP:N) Steve Dufour (talk) 15:47, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Change to Keep I guess I'm not very good at saving articles. I see that more sources have been found and information added to the article. Steve Dufour (talk) 05:52, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• Keep: No one objected to this article until I linked to his Sun Myung Moon interview. I think the motive behind the delete initiative is to suppress factual information about the Unification Church. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed Poor (talk • contribs) 19:53, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

• I am not trying to do that. This person isn't notable based on the lack of in depth coverage in sources.Borock (talk) 23:47, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
• Probably because nobody noticed this article until you linked it. And I would point out Ed that you very rarely contribute verifiable "information about the Unification Church" -- which is why it is frequently suppressed removed, per WP:V. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 02:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
• I would also suggest that your tunnel vision on the UC aspect neglected Sontag's main claims to notability and almost got this article deleted. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 03:33, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• Keep, was able to find 17 news articles, as well as 361 hits in Google books, he's cited in at least 21 books on religion, and additional scholarly sources as well. Cirt (talk) 20:04, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Add some more sourced info then. Right now the article cites a review of his book and a news story on the crime he was a victim of, plus a mention in an interview of an ex-student in the college paper.Borock (talk) 23:47, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

• Delete: per Wikipedia:Notability. I don't think there's significant existing coverage on this professor that merit an entry in an encyclopedia.Dabackgammonator (talk) 21:22, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

• Keep with complete rewrite: After doing a little research I found plenty of information that makes this person significant.Dabackgammonator (talk) 15:44, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

• Keep. I cannot find a significant difference between this biography of a professor and the numerous other similar biographies on the WP. This individual has a number of publications and it is well sourced. This article appears to fit the criteria for a biography so I'm not certain why an AFD was placed on it. -Classicfilms (talk) 01:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: "I cannot find a significant difference between this biography of a professor and the numerous other similar biographies on the WP" = WP:OTHERSTUFF. "This article appears to fit the criteria for a biography so I'm not certain why an AFD was placed on it." This individual fails to meet WP:BIO#Basic criteria as "the depth of coverage is not substantial" and there is an insufficient multiplicity of sources to mitigate that shortcoming. There is no indication that he meets any of the criteria in WP:ACADEMIC. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 02:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

• Keep He wrote a lot more books than are currently listed, according to his entry at Contemporary Authors. The sources in the article establish enough notability for me. Zagalejo^^^ 02:51, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, the Contemporary Authors entry lists the following sources in its "Further Reading about the Author" section:

1. Commonweal, October 10, 1969
2. Library Journal, July, 1970
3. Christian Century, October 21, 1970 Zagalejo^^^ 04:07, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:40, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
• Keep An article in Gale's Contemporary Authors is notability, as a reputable selective publish encyclopedia.DGG (talk) 22:52, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Is that directory really substantial coverage in a secondary source as required by WP:BLP?Borock (talk) 22:53, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

The important thing to note is that the CA entry points to the existence of other sources (which probably aren't available online). And our article on Sontag already had a couple of additional sources, but Hrafn got rid of them. Zagalejo^^^ 01:30, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: I would note (i) that you have not added this source to the article DGG [I see that somebody else has added it -- but only for his birthdate.] & (ii) that the Gale entry concentrates on his The Existentialist Prolegomena: To a Future Metaphysics & The God of Evil: An Argument from the Existence of the Devil, and makes no mention of Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church, the stabbing or Kris Kristofferson (which is the substance of the article currently). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 02:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• It's possible that the "Sidelights" portion of his CA entry was written before the Moon book was published, and never updated afterwards. (The Sidelights sections shouldn't be thought of as comprehensive; some authors don't even have one.) Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church is in at least 1308 libraries [1], which is more than the other two books combined ([2], [3]), so from a common sense perspective, it certainly merits a mention in our article. The stabbing seems worth mentioning, as well. I won't argue for the Kristofferson connection, though. Zagalejo^^^ 21:15, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Right now the only three articles that link to this one are all about the Unification Church. It also seems to me that being the victim of a violent attack which sounds like it's close to attempted murder would be a notable event in a person's life. The Kristofferson link, although a minor item, could be worth mentioning since Kristofferson mentioned Sontag as a major influence in his life. Also both of these items are directly related to his career as a teacher. Steve Dufour (talk) 13:52, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: No one has mentioned the fact that (as the article states) he holds the title of Distinguished Professor. Apparently a judgement has already been made about him by his peers. Distinguished Professor states: "Distinguished Professor is an honorary title at many universities for faculty who are recognized by colleagues throughout the world as leaders in their fields." Rather than nominating the article for deletion, a better course of action would seem to be trying to find out what it was that led to his being highly regarded by those who voted to give him this distinction. Since his work is decades old it might take a little digging. -Exucmember (talk) 05:48, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• The reason that nobody has mentioned it, is that it is a very recent addition to the article (by myself), after most of these comments were made. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 06:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• Guess I might have looked back through the history, but it never occurred to me that an article could have been created about Sontag without mentioning that he was a Distinguished Professor! -Exucmember (talk) 01:31, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

• Keep - plenty of good reasons: see above. -Exucmember (talk) 01:33, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 00:00, 12 May 2009 (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.