Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2013 February 26

Dănuț Marcu – Overturned to Keep. Further relisting/discussion at editorial discretion. Given the nature of this BLP I see no reason why anyone who wants to initiation a further discussion should wait. – Spartaz ^Humbug! 01:10, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.

Bad close of a contentious and approximately evenly-split AfD; should have been no consensus or relist. The closer of an AfD is supposed to discern the consensus of the existing (policy-based) arguments, not to choose sides. The close opinion glibly dismissed as "tenuous" a set of sources consisting of 17 independent and reliably published reviews of Marcu's papers, stating that they were plagiarized: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]; 5 editorials published in academic journals recounting Marcu's history of plagiarism as the reason for banning him: [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]; and 6 sources not previously listed in the article but brought up in the AfD mentioning him as a famous plagiarist [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28]. As a cheap rhetorical trick, the closer noted some bad arguments on the keep side but failed to note some equally ridiculous arguments on the delete side (e.g. that 17 separate incidents of plagiarism constitute "one event", that a review of a paper is the paper itself and therefore not a source, or that sources that happen to mention Wikipedia are tainted and cannot be used to source anything). This would all have been perfectly acceptable as a new opinion on the AfD, but is not a valid policy- and consensus-based close. Discussion on closer's talk page failed to yield any more clarification or change of opinion, so here we are. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:54, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Overturn to no consensus, which is what the debate clearly showed, with seven editors wanting it kept and six wanting it deleted. The closing admin made a key error in interpreting the debate and the relevant policy: "Some argue that he passes WP:PROF because he has published many papers" -- in fact, publishing many papers would never mean passing WP:PROF, and instead what some people argued is that he passed WP:PROF#C1 because his work was highly cited, with one paper cited almost 1,900 times (an extremely rare threshold). I also showed that this paper has not been retracted on account of plagiarism -- and as it was co-authored it is extremely unlikely it was plagiarized. One should not close an AfD on the strength/weakness of the argument when it is clear that one has misunderstood the argument. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 05:09, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Btw, talking about numbers, it was 7 editors supporting deletion, not 6.--Staberinde (talk) 11:34, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse - BLP that is practically fully negative of the subject should require very strong arguments for keeping. This persons notability was borderline at best, which makes deletion completely appropriate.--Staberinde (talk) 07:38, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Just to be clear, BLP policy is about removing unsourced negative information about living people. This doesn't mean "delete articles about living people". It also doesn't mean "remove well-sourced negative information about living people". And it certainly doesn't mean "protect people who're well-shown to be academic plagiarists from negative publicity". I see neither policy basis nor consensus to support the deletion. This wasn't one of Scottywong's finest moments.—S Marshall T/C 12:41, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn per nomination and per arguments by Nomoskedasticity and S Marshall, who raised good points about the function of BLP. I don't a have problem per se with closing against numbers and I've done it a number of times myself, but you need a more thorough close than this. Mackensen (talk) 13:30, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Article history restored for this DRV. - TexasAndroid (talk) 14:41, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment from closing admin - On the subject of this person being a notable plagiarist, I found Yworo's arguments in the AfD quite convincing. In my opinion, he successfully argued that the multitude of sources (including the ones given above in this DRV) are not secondary sources, and therefore cannot be used to establish notability. This is why I described the available sources to establish his notability as "tenuous", and primarily why I believe the arguments to delete to be significantly stronger than the arguments to keep, despite the voting numbers being approximately equal. ‑Scottywong| confer _ 14:52, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Ok, since you based your close on Yworo's comments, but made no detailed analysis of these comments, let me summarize Yworo's contributions to the debate for you:
  1. Claims that the article is an attack article, and a single event, without addressing sourcing
  2. Assertion that the subject "cannot meet WP:PROF if the papers aren't his", without addressing sourcing, and immediately refuted by Nomoskedasticity's comment that the high-citation paper does not appear to have been plagiarised
  3. Claims that plagiarism reports are not independent because they do not discuss the subject's biography
  4. Claims that sources that mention Wikipedia (a description that applies to one of the editorials) are circular and unusable even when the things they are used as a source for are not what they in turn cite Wikipedia for
  5. Repeated claims that the highly-cited work wasn't by the subject despite Nomoskedasticity's prior refutation
  6. Claims that published third-party reviews of papers, and journal editorials, are primary sources, and are self-published; the reasoning for the editorials appears to be an all-or-nothing approach in which a source that says a single word about what the source's author did (we are banning this author from this journal) is tainted and cannot be used as a secondary source for anything else it describes (the history of plagiarism), while I see no reasoning at all for asserting that the reviews are primary
  7. Claims that independent sources must be written by people who are not related to the publisher of the source (so, e.g., by this standard newspaper articles by professional journalists could not be reliable sources; again, this reasoning appears to apply only to the journal editorials) and dismissal of arguments against these claims as being irrelevant meta-discussions
  8. Absolutely no comments regarding the six sources turned up during the AfD that are neither paper reviews nor journal editorials
To me, this does not look like the sort of contribution that is sufficiently well-reasoned and policy-based to override so many other opinions in the debate. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:19, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You're misrepresenting and misunderstanding many of Yworo's arguments, just like you did at the AfD. Since I'm confident that any discussion with you will end up as an IDHT black hole, I won't waste anyone's time by trying to refute the points you've posted above. Suffice it to say, I don't agree with you, and all of the arguments necessary to refute and/or correct the above points can be found in the AfD.

In summary, I don't believe that someone who was co-author on a single highly cited paper is likely to be notable. And, I don't believe that the available sourcing establishes Marcu's notability as a plagiarist. That's all I really have to say on the subject. ‑Scottywong | verbalize _ 19:11, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I take your comment as an implicit admission that you got it wrong in saying that the argument made to keep per PROF is that he "published many papers". If you're now going to consider it in terms of being highly cited (which is what the guideline actually says), then you'll have to look beyond the single paper. My point about the single paper was that it shows that he didn't plagiarise everything, so it's not sensible to dismiss the thousands of citations on the basis that he plagiarised a few things. If you now have a better understanding of PROF, then you'd need to admit that you got the arguments wrong in these terms. If you're not prepared to do so (as your comment seems to indicate), then others should be. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:30, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, there was no implied admission that I "got it wrong". ‑Scottywong | communicate _ 19:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. Who is supposed to have claimed that who else admitted what? —David Eppstein (talk) 19:54, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's a response to me. He is now doubling down on his misunderstanding of PROF. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:56, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks. I've reordered the comments to make it clearer what he was responding to. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:59, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Since you didn't like my detailed summary, let me put it to you more briefly. The point of the AfD is not "is Marcu a plagiarist" (that's well established) and should not be "does my interpretation of our technical rules on sourcing disallow this particular source" (missing the forest for the trees); it should have been "is Marcu *famous* for being a plagiarist". The six sources in question directly address this question. Yworo never did. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:34, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse per the arguments made at the afd. Darkness Shines (talk) 17:26, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have any views on whether the administrator properly interpreted WP:CONSENSUS? Mackensen (talk) 22:28, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I know of no surer sign that the close is wrong than the closing administrator choosing to re-fight the AfD during DRV. Further, if we're going to talk about tenuous positions, then I'd say arguing that articles in peer-reviewed journals discussing the subject but not written by the subject are probably not primary sources. Even if they are (for the sake of the argument), WP:PRIMARY states quite clearly that primary sources may be used "to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge." I would have expected a close which turned in part on this question to make at least some reference to policy. Mackensen (talk) 22:40, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
WP:PRIMARY also states that "extra caution" should be used in case of BLPs. But more importantly, primary sources simply cannot be used for establishing notability (its actually even mentioned in leading paragraph of that same section).--Staberinde (talk) 11:46, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to keep per nomination and David Eppstein's thorough itemized response to Yworo's arguments. Mhym (talk) 22:43, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus close or a possible relist. It is clear that the closer picked a side, rather than evaluating the informed opinion of editors (many very longstanding) on the page. FWIW, I still don't know how I think this one should have gone down, but it's pretty clear that there was nothing like a consensus among the editors on the page. Ray^Talk 15:40, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to keep as per Eppstein's well-founded arguments. There is a technical problem with this Deletion Review. Although I had contributed to the AfD I only found out about this DR by accident. I suggest that notice of a DR should be put on the AfD, which will be on the watch list of all participants. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:41, 1 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]
- There is a notice there, and had been for almost two days prior to your comment. [29]74.74.150.139 (talk) 03:40, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for info. I don't understand why I missed it. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Overturn to keep Bad close; Looking at it charitably, the closers desire to remove an article about someone where there is negative material prevented him from realizing that the necessities for such sourcing in BLP policy were fully met here: the sources are multiple RSs and the negative matter pertains directly to his field of importance. There was also a total misunderstanding about secondary sources. Articles in peer-reviewed journals are good secondary sources for the subject being discussed, and the work of others than the author. (They are not themselves good sources for the importance of the work of the author, but that's more a question of self-published than of being primary. The references in other papers to the work of the subject are excellent secondary sources, and taking account of their number is a much more objective standard than we have in most fields. DGG ( talk ) 02:35, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn per Eppstein's and DGG's sound analyses. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 16:59, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I'm struggling with the combination of WP:PROF and WP:NOTTEMP. The argument made seems to be that he no longer passes PROF because he has since been found to have cheated. So, does Lance Armstrong no longer pass WP:ATHLETE because he cheated? Had he not cheated, he would possibly never have attained the results that made him notable, nor the associated coverage for that matter. My point is that, on the basis his work, he did (once) pass PROF and was notable. I get that his notability was a direct result of dishonesty, but doesn't that just make him notably dishonest? Stalwart111 23:08, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:10, 4 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

WP:PROF: "This guideline, sometimes referred to as the professor test, is meant to reflect consensus about the notability of academics as measured by their academic achievements."

Should plagiarism be regarded as "academic achievement"? I personally disagree, although I guess its arguable point. Also WP:NOTTEMP is an essay.--Staberinde (talk) 09:59, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, that's true, but it expands on WP:N#TEMP; a policy. I suppose my thinking is that it was considered an academic achievement, though the achievement is now tainted by his cheating. Stalwart111 10:35, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.