Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alan W. Clarke

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 no consensus. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 00:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alan W. Clarke

Alan W. Clarke (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Notability? Faculty member at an obscure Utah school (a two-year college until recently) No especially noteworthy publications or books. Google search only references publications and advertisements for subject's law firm. Article reads like a CV. Wikipedia is not an obscure faculty directory. WP:PROFTEST Irene Ringworm 04:28, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

• This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT 17:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions. -- Pete.Hurd 19:58, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
• keep Certainly being a faculty member at a small college is not enough by itself for notability. But it does not actually prevent a person from being notable, and the publications listed are probably sufficient to show his stature, though not all of them are major law reviews. There is also his legal work; although it is not adequately documented in the article, it might be notable in its own right. I added an outside ref. DGG 03:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment It does make a difference when your chosen profession is law and you are not teaching at a law school, nor does your program have a noteworthy pre-law program. Again, look as WP:BIGNUMBER. Apparently his work is cited as a footnote (along with a dozen other articles) in a Ninth Circuit Court Guidelines document. Irene Ringworm 14:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• Weak keep - I can't tell how noteworthy his publications are, but they are numerous - Feeeshboy 07:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Please avoid these sorts of arguments as per WP:BIGNUMBER. Lots of publications does not make one notable. It is not uncommon for academics to have hundreds of publications. Listing a publication in THE INTERNET JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY on your CV suggests few notable publications. Irene Ringworm 14:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Neither argument to keep demonstrates notability. Both run counter WP:BIGNUMBER and appear to misunderstand that even minor academics (such as yours truly) may have dozens or hundreds of publications. Whether these publications are notable is another story - mine certainly are not, though they have been referenced and cited by several other authors. Please review WP:PROFTEST and WP:AADD when commenting on this article. Irene Ringworm 14:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
  • the expected number depends on the field. Every subject and every specialty is different. There is no numerical formula, but I find that numbers help guide the discussion. Faculty at law schools tend to publish a lot, but as mentioned he isn't at one. Some but not all of the articles are in good journals. On balance, I think he's N as a lawyer who also makes contributions to the journal literature in his special field. And I am not happy with the argument, hesnotasgoodasmeandimnotinWP. So this sort of sums up as a weak keep. DGG 01:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete -- no real assertion of notability. Does not pass WP:PROFTEST. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 21:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - A GoogleNews archive search shows he was an attorney in many notable high publicity death penalty cases. [1]. Writer for The Salt Lake Tribune also. [2] --Oakshade 01:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I'm not sure if we're reading the same google news search. Your link shows that Alan W. Clarke was part of a team of attorneys for a handful of medical malpractice lawsuits and one representing an appeal for a man who burned down a seafood restaurant - of the ten cases listed none appear to be relevant to the death penalty and none appear to be notable (as in argued before the Supreme Court). In the past two decades he has argued less than a dozen cases before appeals, circuit, and federal courts. And he wrote a single guest commentary for the Salt Lake Tribune in 2005 - he is not a staff writer. Are you willing to find more suitable notability criteria because your comments don't match your references? Irene Ringworm 02:16, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• I see what you're saying and stand corrected. But the Willie Leroy Jones case he was an attourney with [3] was very notable (New York Times article here [4]). And The Salt Lake City Tribune article is really him. --Oakshade 02:47, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I took a look at some of the Willie LeRoy Jones stuff - interesting case. But the writeup in the NYT is 250 words on page 18 - not exactly a high profile article. If anything Alan W. Clarke should be a footnote to an article on the Jones case rather than a separate article. Irene Ringworm 02:54, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually the New York Times article is 4,255 words [5] and, page 18, 1 or 118, that a Virginia story is in a prestigious New York based newspaper demonstrates heavy national interest in that case. --Oakshade 01:36, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Check again. The article is in "Late Edition - Final, Section A, Page 18, Column 4, 255 words " not 4,255 words. From my search of the NYT database he doesn't even appear to be mentioned in the article. [6] Furthermore, the only other places I can find mention of this Willie LeRoy Jones fellow is in exhaustive lists of persons sentenced to death (especially at anti-capital punishment websites) and in a few law reviews owing to peculiarities in the proceedings (different treatments for co-conspirators). Irene Ringworm 02:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, you're right. The comma got me. The New York Times comment still stands,though. --Oakshade 02:44, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. Doesn't seem like a 250 word article equates with "heavy national interest". Irene Ringworm 03:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• comment The place to put the new material is in the article. DGG 02:35, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Summary Here's a summary of the facts that have been discovered about Alan W. Clarkewhat we've agreed on so far:

• He is a lawyer by profession who has a non-law faculty position at a non-selective four-year college
• In the past two decades he has published about twenty papers, some in prestigious journals. None appear to be seminal works.
• He has been involved in unknown capacity Alan W. Clarke was one of three attorneys whose firms filed an unsuccessful stay of execution on behalf of Willie LeRoy Joneswith a death penalty case for Willie LeRoy Jones. Mr. Jones' execution was covered with a 255 word article in the 1992 New York Times. Alan W. Clarke was not mentioned in the NYT article.
• One of his papers was mentioned as "further reading" in a Ninth Circuit Court Handbook.
• In 2005 he wrote an op-ed piece for the Salt Lake Tribune

As far as I can tell, no one other than Alan W. Clarke has written even a short summary of Alan W. Clarke's work. He has not been referenced as an "expert" in even local media articles (other than his op-ed piece) and he hasn't even yet published a book. In terms of WP:PROFTEST, WP:ATT this still appears to be a no-brainer for delete. Irene Ringworm 02:16, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• What do you mean that Utah Valley State College is "non-selective"? And please don't give the impression of voting outside the nomination's statements. --Oakshade 05:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm simply saying that UVSC is not a "prestigious" university on the order of Ivy League schools or CalTech. In other words, one cannot argue notability on the basis of institutional association alone.

And I am not trying to give the impression that we are "voting". I am trying to sum up what we know so far to keep discussion on track. Our last thread devolved into a discussion of Willie LeRoy Jones and some NYT article that doesn't even mention Alan W. Clarke. None of this proves notability. What I am looking for is someone to provide positive affirmation that this guy is notable. From the facts that folks have dredged up on the internet he clearly is not notable in terms of any wikipedia policy, guideline or criteria. I am not interested in opinion or voting. I am interested in someone digging up an independent fact or article that this guy is more than a junior faculty member at a "pretty good" college, of which there are thousands in this country, few of whom are notable by wikipedia criteria. If someone can prove me wrong I'm happy to let him stay. Irene Ringworm 08:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I missed the part of WP:PROFTEST that states a professor must teach at an ivy league and a college like Utah Valley State College is of marginal academic value. --Oakshade 09:29, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying it does. There are some discussions on the talk page that propose that any Harvard professor, for example, is automatically notable, an argument with which I personally do not agree). I am trying to dissuade any argument of this fashion by explaining that UVSC doesn't quite fit in this category. Have you uncovered any further evidence of his notability? Irene Ringworm 09:42, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• • About different universities': it is really simple: a full professor at a major research university (or any major law school) is presumed to be encyclopedia-worthy, because nobody gets to such a position without having publish a major body of work. Associate professors at such universities might or might not be notable, because they almost by definition have published a smaller amount of important work, and Assistant Professors there analogously a only sometimes notable for the amount of work they have yet done.

At other universities and colleges, the standards for a full professor are somewhat lower, and that is why they are not considered major research universities. Individual faculty there often do major work, and then they are notable; but since not everyone has done so, we must also check the notability of the work. (but remember that he is an Associate Professor. and an associate professor at Harvard Law School might still not yet be notable). We use the ranks and the nature of the schools in order to avoid having to do OR ourselves to determine what the academic world thinks of them.

So being from UVSC is not a negative factor. There are excellent reasons why absolutely first rate people might choose to teach there, or at smaller colleges as well. It's just that we have to see something distinctive in its own right. I am not saying he isn't. I said "keep" at the start, and I continue to do so, because I regard his specialized legal writing as notable, especially the reliance made of it in the handbook for his Circuit. He is, in my opinion, a notable figure in the struggle against the death penalty, a very honorable choice of career. If it should happen the consensus doesn't think he's important enough yet, still he will probably do much more in the next year or two, and there's no prejudice against an article at that time.DGG 01:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

If you think that a single reference in the Circuit manual constitutes notability I won't try to argue with you. I would prefer to wait until he does more to add him to Wikipedia. Thanks for the clarification on the university issue - I think you explained my argument exactly. Irene Ringworm 04:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete in its current state; as a professor/lawyer, Mr. Clarke does not seem notable enough. It's possible he's notable as an activist, but no non-self published evidence of that is presented yet. (Obviously, if that appears, then keep, or allow recreation.) SnowFire 22:46, 12 March 2007 (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.