Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alexander Rotenberg

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 delete. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 01:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alexander Rotenberg

Alexander Rotenberg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Not a notable person. DavidCBryant 13:15, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. A Google search for "Alexander Rotenberg" + torah got 177 hits, many of which duplicate each other. A search of Google Scholar showed no hits at all for math papers. This person is not notable, and this biographical article should be deleted. This article also promotes a book entitled And All This is Truth, so WP:SPAM may be applicable. DavidCBryant 13:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Book listed appears to a be a self publication (website) and is not listed in Israel's national library catalogue [1]. No reliable sources providing attribution in the article, and there appears to be some heavy promotion going on for this book (see [2]).--Fuhghettaboutit 14:13, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Notable in the Bible code community. His name appears alongside Eliyahu Rips in many cases. As hokey as the field may be, it is notable. --Infrangible 16:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Of course willing to consider further evidence. Can you cite some examples of independent reliable sources providing non-trivial treatment of him as a subject, or other evidence meeting WP:BIO? The fact that he is mentioned in passing in an unsourced statement in bible code, and simply as a study partner of someone else who has an unsourced Wikipedia article, is not very substantive.--Fuhghettaboutit 16:58, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

What I think we need are either reviews or significant mentions by other better known scholars. This is not exactly an easy subject to judge for N. DGG 02:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment. The subject is Biographies of living people. What's so tough about that, DGG? The article claims that AR is a mathematician, but he's unpublished. That's notable? How? DavidCBryant 12:16, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Obviously is a mathematician in a somewhat specialized sense, even if that is the closest word to describe him.I might choose "numerologist" The general idea behind the N rules for academics is more N than most of the others in the field, and this is not a field where the ordinary sort of publications and faculty positions seem to be applicable. The standards that apply are the ones in this special subject. It further is obviously afield with different groups, who consider their group N, and not the other guys, so selecting any one is inherently POV. This is not that uncommon in some non-science areas. I do not see how BLP is relevant--he meets BLP. Based on what is being said, DGG 08:26, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep because there are obviously factions involved, and choosing between them would be POV. If someone is opposed by what seems to be a POV faction, that makes a very good argument for keeping it. NPOV applies to choice of articles as well as to what is said in them. DGG 08:26, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm afraid your argument is not making a whole lot of sense to me, DGG. Just because a non-notable researcher is part of a faction does not make him notable. Not having a bio for every non-notable researcher is not POV. Also, I don't see at all why the subject is "obviously afield" with groups that consider other groups non-notable. It seems to me even obvious that those with particular POVs are well aware of who the big players on the opposing sides are. Just as obviously, not everyone is going to be a big player. How is your argument (whatever it is) related to the notability of the subject? For example, how does the existence of factions change your earlier statement about requiring some reviews or significant mentions of his research for notability? --Chan-Ho (Talk) 10:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: I'm not sure whether Rotenberg's name "appears alongside Eliyahu Rips" because Rotenberg is such an influential figure himself, or whether there is a large dose of self-promotion here (by User: Iser.unl). I think any claims to notability because of reasons like "I know Rips" or "I worked with Rips" ought to be viewed skeptically. By the way, Brendan McKay edits Wikipedia (as User: McKay) and should have a good idea of who is a notable Bible codes researcher. Why not just ask him? --Chan-Ho (Talk) 20:44, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
• I was asked for my opinion. I don't want to vote on this. Rotenberg is a small player in the Torah codes business. People familiar with the Israeli codes community know of him. Mostly he is known because of one example about the sons of Haman. He isn't mentioned in the books of Katz and Satinover that claim to trace the history of the codes. His book, which I have, shows "Lavi P. Enterprises" as a distributor not a publisher, so I guess it is true that the book is self-published. A large part of the article appears in that book or on its cover. I couldn't locate any mathematical publications of his in Mathematical Reviews unless he is the "A.R. Rotenberg" who published in Russian in the 1970s. McKay 02:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions. -- David Eppstein 03:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Can it also be listed at Judaism?DGG 08:26, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• I'm curious what DGG means when he says "The general idea behind the N rules for academics is more N than most of the others in the field …" Doesn't this imply a sort of relativism that would automatically make a "notable" person out of the lone "researcher" in a "field" that nobody else in the world views as meaningful? What sort of a standard is that? DavidCBryant 18:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Why is he being referred to as an academic? Nothing in the article or in his book says that he is an academic. McKay 01:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

If you mean, why should he have been listed as such for deletion sorting purposes: Because the first thing the article says about him is that he's a mathematician, and someone whose primary identification is as a mathematician is generally a type of academic. And because even if he's that rare kind of mathematician who's not a really an academic, he still is reasonably likely to be of interest to the Wikipedians who watch that deletion sorting category. But if you mean, why should he be evaluated according to WP:PROF rather than WP:BIO, I don't know, because I'm not convinced he should be. —David Eppstein 05:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

WP BIO should trump WP:PROF. As I see it, WP:PROF is intended to try to specify some objective criteria in an area that might otherwise be hard to judge.

Factions-. In any field,there's a certain tendency to consider the people who agree with us more important than the other guys, who by definition have a lesser understanding of the subject or else we'd be on their side. Thats why there's a bias that needs correction. I don't say it happens always, but a determined effort to judge a particularly idiosycratic scholar NN is at least capable of being based on COI. If he is a leading exponent of his position, he's N. And if he were the only exponent of his position, yes, he would be all the more N. And if he were the only worker on the subject, and the subject were encyclopedia-worthy for intrinsic or popular interest, he would be N. I accept DavidCBryant's logic. If he were the lone worker in it, he would be N. if the field is N. DGG 07:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment Notability is not subjective. The Flat Earth Society, living on our generally spherical earth, are a bunch of nutty, delusion kooks spouting banana talk, but they are worthy of an article because they are written about in multiple, independent reliable sources, and not because they go against the flow of sanity. Likewise, the notability of one of a small group of exponents of flat earth belief is judged based on his own write up in multiple, independent... and not because the field of adherents of that belief is small.--Fuhghettaboutit 12:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletions. (Per request by DGG) -- David Eppstein 05:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Could someone identify a few key independent sources for this individual's notability (not counting his own books or private web sites) on this page? Thanks. --Shirahadasha 05:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • (Personal attack removed)
• Delete this guy, he is just not notable. There are thousands (tens of thousands probably) of Jewish professors who have published all sorts of stuff, and it even lands up on the web, but that does not make them notable enough to warrant Wikipedia biographies. (Is this guy even a professor?, sure doesn't look like it.) Similarly, this person is not famous or notable in the Jewish or Orthodox world, regardless of the claims as to his ancestry or activities. There are millions of Jews with famous ancestors and tens of thousands of rabbis who do lots more, but they are not notable to be worthy of Wikipedia biographies. IZAK 05:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Author of a self-published book and coprogrammer on a program that's not sufficiently notable for its own article don't seem like enough to me. —David Eppstein 18:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete as per IZAK, non-notable and not academic. --Buridan 16:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete unless properly referenced from reliable sources to establish notability. No there yet. NBeale

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.