Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hassan Kamel Al-Sabbah

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. Most of this article plagiarizes Dr. Youssef Mroueh's "The forgotten genius: the impact of Hassan Kamel Al-Sabbah's inventions in North Ameica." In order for the entry to exist in this form, the copyrights for the aforementioned work need to be released for use under the GFDL and attribution to the author made explicit in the article. El_C 00:37, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hassan Kamel Al-Sabbah

I nominated this article for deletion because it does not cite sources. I have not been able to locate any sources myself. It has been marked for cleanup since April 2006 and for lack of sources since October 5, 2006. Gerry Ashton 18:52, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

In view of the sources that have been added since the article was nominated, especially the patents found by User:Oakshade under a spelling variation of Mr. Al-Sabbah's name, I now believe the article should be kept. --Gerry Ashton 02:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Violates two of the three cardinal content policies Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. For over six months the article was tagged for work and no one came and did the work. I foud mentions of this fellow and he was probably a real person, but there's no way for us to verify that he really did all the things this article claims. An assertion of notability is not the only factor. If an article doesn't cite its cources, it doesn't belong on Wikipedia. OfficeGirl 20:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

*Delete. unless someone can come source this material. Paul August ☎ 22:54, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep After doing some research, I've changed my mind. Paul August ☎ 21:54, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment It appears that since this person died in the 1930's, there aren't going to be alot of web resources on him and I'm guessing the sources of this article have come from books. But I did add one web source from Today's Outlook Magazine, a middle eastern magazine. It might not confirm everything in the article, but it does verifiy notability [1]. --Oakshade 03:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep This scientist seems to satisfy WP:N easily. Although the authors didn't cite sources, I don't think they were making all of this up. Per above, I added one outside source which does confirm the general importance of this person. --Oakshade 03:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Seems notable; already a well-built article--67.183.114.179 06:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Delete I read the Today's Outlook article differently. If these inventions were spectacular, as the invention of arc welding or solar power cells would be, they would have said so. Is the TO article describing a notable person? On balance, probably not; is there somewhere like Technology in Lebanon, where this can be merged? Septentrionalis 19:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

In science, not everyone is going to invent the wheel or the computer. Science is always a collaborative effort. And innovation always uses elements of previous innovations. For instance, this inventor created components that eventually evolved into the television (you'll notice there is no definitive "inventor of the television") Putting aside all the porn stars on Wikipedia, I think these things are not only extremely notable, but important. --Oakshade 19:33, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

How do you know this inventor created components that eventually evolved into the television? There is no citation for this "fact". --Gerry Ashton 19:43, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the author made the article up and I think most people agree with that. As these are not controversial statements, I'm perfectly comfortable in waiting for someone to cite some sources, probably from a book (remember those?). --Oakshade 20:22, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The inventions remain unsourced; and probably unsourceable. Septentrionalis 00:01, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Nobody is saying that those points of the article are currently unsourced, but I strongly disagree that this scientist biography is unsourceable and that the editors made this person and his achievements up. This article is very detailed and put together. I'm guess this information came from books which were the primary sources of scientific knowledge before the internet age. --Oakshade 00:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

If you have a book, cite it; until then, these inventions are unsourced and unsupported. Septentrionalis 19:54, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Per WP:AGF and common sense, I seriously doubt the editors made this person and all the detailed achievements up. Your position seems to now be "If the article is true, he's notable, but prove it's true." Like I said, I'm perfectly willing to let editors expand this article of this historic scientist and cite references regarding the articles' details. --Oakshade 21:16, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

No, my position is that there is no source whatever for his having made these discoveries. Without one, they should go. Whether he is notable without them is another question; on which I will yield to consensus. Septentrionalis 15:30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

 AFD relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
 Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks, Yomangani^talk 16:04, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Per [2] establishing notability as an inventor(during a very important time for invention in general). A person who died in the 30's will most likely be more in books than web, has anyone tried looking him up in a library? The article makes claims of notoriety, and this citation demonstrates that an outside source agrees. However the information recently re-added REALLY needs citation, because I checked his name and solar cell on google and only got wikipedia mirrors. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 18:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I find no obituary for him in the New York Times for the year 1935. I'd think he might have had one if he was considered notable at the time of his death. It's more than possible that I'm searching for the wrong transliteration - if anyone can suggest a better one I'd be happy to try again. -- Bpmullins | Talk 20:44, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Delete keep (but it needs references) I congratulate the nominator for following good procedure. Marking for cleanup, waiting to get improvement and then nominating for AfD when it has not improved. The article lacks sources, the only notable aspect is 70 patents, but none of them appear notable enough to mention in detail. Given their background they sound a bit like my own father, and they too deserve to be remembered, but wikipedia is not the place!--Mike 23:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

As requested by Oakshade, I've had another look at the entry. If all that is mentioned is true (and I can't be sure from the article) then this guy definitely deserves an entry just for his shear work. If the article can substantiate that "The original solar cell was invented and tested by Mr. Al-sabbah in 1930", even with a patent number, then there's no question about keeping the entry. However, I couldn't find him in google (was the internet invented in 1930?).--Mike 00:19, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• It can't. See solar cell for the solar cell of 1883; Timeline of solar cells on Nikola Tesla, Edward Weston, and William Coblentz for patents before the First World War. Septentrionalis 05:47, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• Note to Closing Administrator A couple of days after this AfD began, a user deleted a majority of the content in this article citing that it wasn't sourced. It was correct to insert a r&s prod but totally inappropriate to delete during an AfD as it could unduly influence editors opinions. In case the user deletes again, here is the full version ->[3]. --Oakshade 23:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Clearly, it will surprise Oakshade to learn that editing articles under AfD is encouraged. Since removing the unsourced exaggerations means the article is less likely to be deleted, I don't see his beef. The hyperbole about the inventions still has no sources; some of the claims therein are patently (as it were) false . Septentrionalis 05:42, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
    • It seems a surprise to Septentrionalis that during an AfD editors need to know the existance of most of an article so they can improve it. --Oakshade 06:07, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
      • The purpose of AfD's is not to improve articles; but to decide whether they can be improved. As it happens, removal of unsourced "information" is one of the ways WP does improve articles. Septentrionalis 06:38, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
        • I noticed you deleted most of the article again (even after sources have been added) and called the editors work "trash." That appears to be a direct violation of WP:No personal attacks. --Oakshade 07:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
• Major Verification Update Is everyone sitting down? Well, after checking the US Patent website, I found nothing under "Hassan Kamel Al-Sabbah" or even "Al-Sabbah". But I got suspicious about the highly Anglofied nature of the US in the early 20th century and did a search of just "Sabbah" and found a TON of patents in the 1920's and 1930's by "Camil Sabbah" or "C. A. Sabbah" all related to electric currents and television transmission!! Here's a link to the rough list of US Patents from that period by just searching Sabbah" -> [4]. (after you click on the specific patent number, on the next page click "images." I had trouble viewing the imgages on Firefox for the Mac but had no trouble with Safari (Mac).) Needless to say I have inserted a bunch of these into the article. I'm tired now. --Oakshade 01:48, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
• New Update Oh my. I've found the source for almost the entire contents of the article. [5] It's an essey written for a middle eastern magazine called Noor Al Islam. The Wikipedia article (except for the few editors additions) is mostly copied from this essay word for word. While the subject does seem notable, this entire article might be a copywrite issue. I went ahead and inserted the reference citation into the article, but I'm going to leave it up to consenus as to what to do about this. --Oakshade 09:32, 10 November 2006 (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.