Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vince F. Postell, PhD

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 delete. -R. fiend 14:20, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Vince F. Postell, PhD

non-notable Nv8200p (talk) 02:10, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

• KeepJoaquin Murietta 05:13, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete average professor - no especial notability. Dlyons493 Talk 07:29, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
• Speedy Delete. Per CSD: A7 - No assertion of notability. Also possible hoax/and or attack. Placing the speedy tag.--inks^T 08:35, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Not a hoax, but NN either. The second result on Google is the Wikipedia page.--inks^T 08:38, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Inks, I strongly disagree that this is speediable. "I am a professor of X at Y" is an ipso facto assertion of notability, in my view, because the prominence of the individual is thereafter easy to verify. I don't think the average professor deserves an article, but he does deserve an AfD to investigate how notable he is. Xoloz 09:09, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure how "I am a professor of X at Y" is any more an assertion of notability than "I am a lathe operator at XYZ Engineering". It's just a statement of occupation and employer. Yes, it does increase verifiability, but there is nothing inherently notable about being a professor. MCB 00:42, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid I disagree. Thanks to the current culture of universities, almost every active (US, anyway) professor is publishing something in some journal, and it is easy as pie to search that out. In such cases, when there is a very high likelihood of an easy determination of notability at AfD, no claim with any degree of specificity and reasonableness needs to be speedied. Put simply, no single admin is God-like enough to know absolutely whether a prof. is notable; these are the sorts of cases which are fundamental to the design of AfD, in my view. More than one voice is a necessity. To directly address your analogy, a professor is more potentially notable than a lathe operator because it is a virtual certainty he has published some academic work, and it is likely he has published some book. Xoloz 13:46, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

But simple publication of books or journals is no indicator of notability. How is a book notable if it sells 4 copies, or a paper notable if published in an obscure journal? Perhaps if they said "has publised 400 papers, 30 of them in Nature, and 50 in Science" - that I would consider to be an assertion of notability. To me, simply being a professor, without further qualifying information is no assertion of notability, which is why I tagged it for speedy delete.--inks^T 04:30, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

For me, anyway, publishing a book is an assertion of notability. It doesn't mean you are notable, certainly, but it gives us enough evidence to evaluate quickly whether you are. Say the stub for the recently deceased M. Scott Peck started as, "He was a PhD who wrote a book." This is not something we need to speedy. Send to AfD, where someone will find out what book and (if they are a constructive Wikipedian, will update the stub. For Postell, he's nn, because nobody has found anything he's written, but suppose he had written The Existence of God Proved... you just won't know whether there is a major work lurking in somebody's background until several sets of eyes examine the thing. Xoloz 12:50, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

• Delete, includes opinion and non-encyclopedic info. Wouldn't be even a stub if stripped of those. PS. If this was rewritten/kept it needs to be moved to Vince F. Postell (without the title, per naming conventions). - Mgm|^(talk) 08:50, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Non-notable. utcursch | talk 11:23, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. non-notable71.28.243.246 18:04, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Having a PhD and being employed by a university does not make someone notable. Average Earthman 21:58, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete unless something more notable about this person shows up. Qaz ^(talk) 04:59, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete nn Dottore So 05:54, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete non-notable. Xoloz 09:09, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete as nn; see comment above. MCB 00:43, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete no need to mirror his cv. --Vsion 04:44, 8 October 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.