Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Lutz

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 of the debate was keep. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 00:38, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mark Lutz

Non-notable. TerraFrost 02:35, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. Full prof., author of three books on economics + no reason given for deletion. Is this nom a joke? -- JJay 02:43, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not laughing. Being a full professor is hardly a reason for having a wikipedia article. None of my professors - many of whom have several books published - have wikipedia articles. Why should this one?

I mean, serriously, the most notable thing about this person is that he's the brother of someone whose notable. Being the sibling of a notable person hardly merits a wikipedia article, and neither does this person.

As for why I didn't give a reason... I thought the non-notability of this article was self-evident. I guess I was wrong.TerraFrost 02:50, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment: First, I think you should write articles on your professors, because we need more articles on academics. Second, I don't know anything about Professor Lutz's brother, but I do know that Lutz's books are sold through Amazon and B&N [1]. That's good enough for me. -- JJay 03:09, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I suppose every author who has a book for sale at both Amazon and B&N should have a wikipedia entry, too? Even if no articles currently link to them, as is the case with this article? TerraFrost 10:14, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

That there are links to an article may speak in its favour, although not without exception, but the lack of such links may just mean that the area has so far been overlooked. I am sure there ar more links to any random pokemon figure than to Lutz, but that is just a result of some people's obsession with dedication and hard work on such matters, not an indication that the pokemon character in question is more important to the world at large. Tupsharru 10:29, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

If people are passionate enough about something seemingly benign to frequently edit it [2] and link to it, it seems reasonable to assume that people are going to be passionate enough about it to read it. This is not the case with this article. No edits for months on end. Until this vote for deletion.

One of the explanations I've seen thrown around for the John Seigenthaler debacle [3] is that factually inaccurate information tends to go undetected in low traffic articles, and this article, in case you haven't noticed, is a low traffic article. TerraFrost 10:51, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

That is an obvious problem, which at some point (soon I hope) will be remedied by moving new articles, as well as hopefully old articles displaying certain characteristics, into a holding area for fact-checking and cleanup, but it is not really an argument for deletion. Seigenthaler may not be as significant as the whole scandal has made him look, but the reason the article was little edited and the murder allegations went undetected for so long was not his lack of notability. Tupsharru 11:39, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Although I suppose it doesn't really, now, I believe the above does constitute cause for deletion because I believe that having no article is better than having a factually inaccurate article, and as I've already attempted to show, an article with as little traffic as this one is ammong the most likely of articles to have factually inaccurate information. It doesn't enrich the experience of most wikipedians (ie. it doesn't add anything), either, due to the low traffic this article garners. So, basically, I don't believe it really adds anything and I believe it actually has the potential to do harm, since it is, as I said, among the most likely of articles to have factually inaccurate information added to it (and since factually inaccurate information can, I believe, be harmful). TerraFrost 23:47, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Then you should change your reason for nomination from "not notable" to "not enough people edit this article". --Quarl 01:10, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Aren't "not notable" and "not enough people edit this article" pretty much the same thing? Imho, if and only if an article is notable will it be a hub of activity. This article is not a hub of activity, and thus, pursuant to the previous statement, it isn't notable. Of course, since this guy passes per the "Professor test", I suppose further discussion ought not necessarily take place here, but rather, in the talk page for the "Professor test"... TerraFrost 07:49, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

No, "not enough people edit this article" is very often just a result of systemic bias. I also think your argument confuses notability with current fame or celebrity status. A few weeks ago I created a stubby article on the Collège de Montaigu in Paris, a college where Erasmus of Rotterdam, John Calvin, and Ignatius of Loyola were students. Nobody had created that article in the previous five years of Wikipedia's existence, and nobody has edited it after me. Would you say that an educational institution which (at least partly) educated three of the most important individuals of Early Modern European history is non-notable? In a hundred years, Erasmus, Calvin, and Ignatius of Loyola will still be considered among the most important people of European history, while many of the favourite hockey players of today and everything having to do with pokemon is likely to be long forgotten. I'm not saying Mark Lutz is another Erasmus, and I may be wrong about the pokemon, but I think you get my point. While we have a systemic bias favouring Western over non-Western topics, there is also a systemic bias disfavouring many Western classical and academic fields, except in some small areas where we have a few dedicated users. Tupsharru 09:57, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

TerraFrost, since you (perhaps still) think the two are the same, but at least some of us don't, I still recommend you change the nomination to avoid the appearance of trying to mislead. —Quarl ^(talk) 2005-12-31 00:28Z

Just add it to your watchlist. -- JJay 00:09, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. But I believe this is a stub that should be expanded & Refs cited. Drmandrake 04:31, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete if unsourcing continues. --Apostrophe 08:23, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Being a full professor is notable (unless it is at some pretend academic institution like Bob Jones University). Lutz is also the author or editor of several books and numerous articles in academic journals. I think requiring references for every article and edit would be a good idea, but we should not start to selectively purge those articles which are really among the easiest to verify and where verification is practically as easy as nominating on AfD. Tupsharru 10:29, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable. --Quarl 11:04, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: This needs to be moved to Mark A. Lutz. There are links to a Mark Lutz (actor) and there is also a Mark Lutz who writes computer books. Mark Lutz should be a dab page. Tupsharru 11:39, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep - from content on the page - looks like notable enough to me.
• Keep. Passes the "professor test" in WP:BIO. May even qualify as an author depending on whether his books sold more than 5,000 copies. Movementarian 14:27, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep per all the above. My opinion on university professors is undergoing a shift. Wikipedia keeps most porn stars. We keep every elementary school that teaches the alphabet. Why does a professor emeritus with full length published books need to fight for space? Durova 18:28, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. It's a good article about a topic that will be interesting and useful to at least a few people. Logophile 01:16, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, plenty of publications and certainly worth keeping. Stifle 01:59, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. From WP:BIO: The professor test -- If the individual is more well known and more published than an average college professor (based on the U.S. practice of calling all full-time academics professors), they can and should be included. Mark Lutz is a college professor but, in my opinion, he is above average because he is a professor emeritus, so he "can and should be included." — MATHWIZ2020 ^{TALK | CONTRIBS} 01:32, 30 December 2005 (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.