Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thomas Wellock

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 JERRY ^talk _contribs 05:27, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thomas Wellock

Delete No notability proved. The only sign of notability given in the article is an award, even there is no evidence that the award itself is notable. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 08:30, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as per nom. non-notable docboat (talk) 10:29, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~ Weak keep- only three journal articles, two books and one book chapter published - I am surprised he made it (very recently) to full professor with just that. Pundit|utter 15:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Doesn't the fact that he made it to full professor with so few publications make him notable for that fact? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Phil Bridger (talk • contribs) 20:48, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to comment: barely meeting the typical academic standards is definitely unusual, but I don't think it is that distinctive. However, with two books published and an award, I don't see much harm in keeping him - I believe Wikipedia is a bit more stricter on scholars than on musicians, in general (scholars e.g. rarely are in the spotlight of popular press, which makes it much more difficult to find third party coverage). Changing sides then. Still, adding independent sources mentioning wouldn't do any harm, and would satisfy the requirements. Pundit|utter 23:02, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - DGG has expanded this article and I think it is in accord with WP:Notability (Academics). Johnfos (talk) 07:53, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:12, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The WP:PROF guideline (and yes, I realize it is only a guideline) does not seem to be able to support this particular professor. I'll especially point out one "caveat" that says:
"It is possible for an academic to be notable according to this standard, and yet not be an appropriate topic for an article in Wikipedia because of a lack of reliable, independent sources on the subject. Every topic on Wikipedia must be one for which sources exist; see Wikipedia:Verifiability."
We don't seem to be able to find independent sources that verify Mr. Wellock's notability in his field. At least I can't. Happy to retract my deletion if anyone else can find anything notable. Keeper | 76 22:43, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment In looking for online references to my most recent book, I came across this discussion of my significance/insignificance. This whole process is quite new to me. Scholars tend to denigrate Wikipedia, but I have to say that I am quite impressed with the amount of energy and diligence being put into discussing my entry. I don't really mind whether I get deleted or not (I'm surprised I was added in the first place), but as an outsider I am interested in what seems to be the crux of the issue here, notability and independent sources. I don't have some big award to validate my work (few do). So it seems for most scholars their notability would come down to how often they are cited by others. How much is enough? I don't have access to the usual citation indexes and Google Scholar is very incomplete, but I checked for citations of me in books that use Amazaon.com's Search Inside feature (it is easy to use but also very incomplete). My first book was cited by 17 other scholarly works. Is that notable? I haven't a clue. How are Wikipedians figuring this out for each discipline? Perhaps if there were clearer guidelines, you folks might not have to expend as much time on these discussions.

By the way, Pundit's comment about my being a full professor might be correct in Europe where attaining that rank is a much bigger deal than in the U.S. In the U.S., two books is more than enough for a full prof. at a teaching institution like mine (my teaching load is more than twice that of a prof at a research institution). In fact, I know plenty of profs at research institutions like Berkeley who have only one book. Sorry if this entry is too long, but I am a newbie. 71.94.183.70 (talk) 18:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC) Tom Wellock wellock@charter.net[reply]

I concede, I was measuring by the research university's standards, and from these in the US I am familiar only with the pretty demanding ones, which definitely may affect my judgment. Also, I believe that standards for scholars in Wikipedia are a bit too strict. Being cited is definitely a good indicator and I believe that Wikipedia may be lacking a specific policy on academic references (these would probably fall under general third party sources, but I believe that references are more worthy, after all e.g. 10 interviews/stories on a will-be singer in local newspapers should perhaps be worth significantly less than one quality international reference in an article in a top-tier journal).Pundit|utter 23:17, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep. Reviews of his Critical Masses book appear in Choice (December 1998), Perspectives on Political Science (March 1999), H-California (August 1999), American Historical Review (October 2000), and Technology and Culture (January 2001). This seems like a good level of review for an academic book such as this (I would have expected one or two published reviews; five seems high) and seems to satisfy the minimal level of third-party sourcing needed for Wikipedia. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This is where differences in fields of expertise comes into play. Frankly, five reviews for a book on U.S. history is the bare minimum that I would expect("Critical Masses" actually had more than ten). But you couldn't expect that of, say, a Russian history topic. There are probably less than ten possible English language journals that might do a review of such a book, and some of those won't do a review simply because they can't find someone to do it or they don't receive a copy from the publisher. So, expect fewer reviews for non-U.S. history books. Tom Wellock wellock@charter.net

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.