Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Albert M. Wolters (second nomination)

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 on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was superseded by new developments. The revisions that constituted the original article have been deleted due to copyright infringement. A new, rewritten version has been created to avoid this problem. If someone still wishes to propose deletion, the discussion should be restarted separately. --Michael Snow 23:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Albert M. Wolters

Previous vfd

This article was listed for deletion before. It was deleted. I summarily undeleted on WP:IAR. Why are we deleting articles about published authors who are full professors and experts on Nova? After a bit of a kerfuffle it was undeleted and VfD'd by spinboy, and I'm completing the nomination here. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 00:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)#

• Keep. Expert on the Copper Scroll, published (non vanity) author,for which we have a notability precedent. This ancient old guy you might have seen on Nova and want to read about (you know? like in en encyclopedia?) --Tony Sidaway^Talk 00:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete --Image:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy 01:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Could you elaborate? I notice that the previous thingie was set off by your accusation "Non-notable boring professor". Does boringness disqualify article subjects? (If so, then boringness to me would knock out everything about Star Wars, just for starters, though I accept that this is limitlessly fascinating for many.) Or is boringness only damning when coupled with non-notability as a professor? What would make a professor notable, anyway? (Luxuriant flowing hair, perhaps?) Pray enlighten us! -- Hoary 02:57, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• previous vfd was unanimous consensus to delete. Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 01:54, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • So it was. But have you actually read the article? --Tony Sidaway^Talk 02:00, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Self-evident Keep Snowspinner 01:57, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per the very fine Encephalon. - brenneman^(t)(c) 02:19, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I gave that argument a read, and I think its very interesting. I was almost convinced. But I thought about what it takes to get an article written about oneself. Media outlets are likely to write articles about authors who are interesting to the general public, not academics. So, people who are quacks, but loud about it are more likely to have articles writen about them than people who are importantly contributing to true scientifc advancement. On the other hand, regular living contributors to science don't often have articles written about them, just about their work. I like the ease of application of Encephalon's critera, but I'm afraid I wouldn't be happy with the outcome. Anywho, just my two cents. --best, kevin ···Kzollman | Talk··· 04:31, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I read Encephalon's argument as well. Not sure I completely agree much for the same reason as Kzollman above. In this instance, I vote delete, for lack of the notability of the professors work and for the professor. Nothing personal, I'm sure that he's a nice guy and his students and family adore him, but I fail to see the notability. BTW thanks to Encephalon for putting the Wikipedian Physician category on my user page.—Gaff ^{talk 07:48, 17 October 2005 (UTC)}
• Keep as notable religious expert with four published books to his credit.Capitalistroadster 02:34, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep - notable academic. Guettarda 02:37, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep as a notable academic. That is if it survives VfU, as always.Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 02:41, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • VFU is broken. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 02:46, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Mr. Sidaway, would I be right, in the spirit of WP:IAR, to vandalize your user page because I think you are disruptive, and wished to show you how painful disruption can be? Anarchy is a vicious cycle. If we really ignored all rules, this project would fail. I haven't been here that long, but when I first arrived, I found you to be a good admin of sound judgment, and I liked you. Your recent attacks have been depressing. Make your points (which are often good ones) with logic, not with with disrespect for others. I do hope WP does not become a land of George W. Bush-esque unilateralism. I am sad. Xoloz 14:04, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
      • Reply to the above is here. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 15:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete -- Earl Andrew - talk 03:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• keep good articles about marginal subjects. — brighterorange (talk) 04:19, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep NOVA's a good program, if they say he's good I won't question them. --best, kevin ···Kzollman | Talk··· 04:31, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete this content was already deleted, without challenge. If a new article, which shows something new (like listing writing about him, not just by him) than a different AFD result might be reasonable. Frankly, I don't like the citing of WP:IAR here. WP:IAR is about freeing individual wikipedians from mindless application of rules, not letting admins use their extra powers to do things, nobody else can do. --rob 04:38, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Deleted without challenge suggests that the system does not work - keeping it deleted for that reason, rather than on the basis of merit of the article, seems to be overly bureaucratic. Guettarda 06:38, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, as the minimal discussion that preceded the first deletion tells me this wasn't given due consideration. Seems to be a mildly notable academic expert. --Michael Snow 04:55, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, though it's close. The article is informative and well written. The problem is that it doesn't establish notability. Though some would disagree, I believe that a typical college professor is not notable enough to justify inclusion here. Are Mr. Wolter's publications of ongoing scholarly relevance? That is, have they been used as references in other works? Are they of general interest (Nearly all college professors publish books, but many are only purchased by their students and colleagues)? If Mr. Wolter is indeed a notable individual, the reason for his notability should be called out in the opening sentence. The present opening sentence states that he is a college professor. Tony Sidaway opines above that Wolter is an expert on the Copper Scroll. If so, the article should say that; it does not at present. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 06:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Appears to pass the "average professor test" easily. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:56, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete First, by definition, almost all academics are specialists about something; it's in the job description. This fellow's publication record and teaching history do not make him stand out above the vast number of other professors who are toiling away at their specialties. If community consensus decides that we need to have bios of every professor who has published books in their chosen field of specialty, sobeit, but I am unaware of such a consensus. Second, looking at his publication record, I am at a loss to understand the appeal to his supposed authority. Wedge, Eerdmans, Paternoster Press? These are not academic publishers of any repute; they are specialty (one might venture fringe) theological publishers with significant ideo-theological bias. His one academic publisher, Sheffield Academic Press, barely makes it above the bar. A google search for a review of his works returns no peer review of any significance that I can find. But more importantly, Tony Sidaway's decision to ignore unanimous - unaninmous - consensus last time and cite WP:IAR as a justification looks a lot to me like a blatant and outrageous arrogation of authority. It is frankly arrogant summarily to undelete this and then do nothing more, by way of explanation, than declaim "hey this guy was on TV! he has to be notable! You got it wrong." What's the point of the entire AfD process if one admin can arbitrarily decide to reverse consensus - unanimous consensus no less - and then hide behind a ruleset based on a clear misinterpretation of the subject's authority. Not only should this be removed (again), I think that the admin has provided grounds for censure and should be stripped of any power to meddle in the AfD process. Dottore So 07:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Ignore all rules is certainly something that requires extreme arrogance, and can sometimes lead to censure. I've no problem with that. I think I did the right thing because this way we end up with a worthwhile article that would certainly have remained deleted (see arrogance). I also don't like the idea of using the word "consensus" to describe the five or six editors who typed "delete" without adequate explanation in the previous AfD. They obviously just voted "delete because I hadn't heard of the guy and I find professors boring". --Tony Sidaway^Talk 09:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
    • It's important to note, that ignoring the rules wasn't needed to make a *new* substantially different article for the same professor; better explaining his signficance. If he's as important as you say, and there's ample sources to verify this, than it should be straightforward to write an original article on him (based on verifiable external sources, and not on old content). So, the question isn't whether the professor was worth ignoring the rules, but whether the time saved by re-using previously rejected content was worth it. Essentially, I am saying, on this matter, you should have stayed within the same limits, that a non-admin would have to stay within. --rob 10:12, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm not saying you're wrong here, but the argument that the article could be rewritten strikes me as somewhat ad hoc. As we can see, the article is believed by a substantial majority of those who have looked at it in this new vote to be a perfectly acceptable one. It follows that it doesn't even come close to being a candidate for deletion. Dottore So's suggestion below that thos e who voted delete in the previous debate may have done so because Józef Tadeusz Milik doesn't have an article also strikes me as blatantly ad hoc. The problem here is not so much that AfD occasionally deletes articles that are obvious keeps, but that VFU flatly refuses to do anything about the matter. Hence my intervention. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 10:59, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
        • One reason we see things differently, is I'm not admin. This seems to be the flip side of another admin deleting an article despite the AFD result, and also doing "speedy deletes" outside of WP:CSD. It seems fundamentally unfair for just some wikipedians (e.g. admins) to be able to do this stuff, while the rest of us, sit on the sidelines and watch as admins fight it out. Wikipedia will be radically altered if admins regularly overuse their special powers to have superior control over what content wikipedia will and won't have. --rob 11:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Maybe they voted delete because other more central figures to the Copper Scroll like Józef Tadeusz Milik, who did the original translation, btw, have no WP listing and they figured this inclusion was arbitrary and below the threshhold. Also, as it stands, it looks very much to me like a straight c/p and hence copyvio from his [webpage]. Dottore So 10:46, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Very strong, obvious Keep, though needing clean-up. Logophile 07:36, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Published author, guest on a popular TV show, significant biographical information available... seems notable enough to keep. While it's true that every academic is a specialist in some field, because of his particular field and his appearance on TV, he may be of interest to a significant number of non-specialists. --Clay Collier 08:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. The excessively brief and superficial discussion on the previous nomination was nothing short of scandalous, and the insistence upon preserving the deletion because of the "process" is ludicrous. We are here to build an encyclopædia, not to construct more and more arcane methods of filtering out any content not already known to a minority of people who haunt the Deletion pages. I too read the contention by Encephalon that an author of a notable book does not himself become notable until someone else writes a book about them: what kind of twisty-little-passage logic is that? —Phil | Talk 08:34, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: Can't decide whether he's notable or not. Depends on whether a TV appearance makes you more than an 'average professor'. However I'd just like to opine that the fact that this discussion is so much more lively than the previous one justifies the use of WP:IAR, though perhaps, at worst, it might have been "right decision, wrong reason". --Last Malthusian 08:58, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, seems to be notable. — JIP | Talk 09:01, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, notable author: his Creation Regained has been translated into several other languages including Dutch, Afrikaans, Korean, Japanese and Russian. The book is a key document in what has become the reformational movement. He is also an expert on the Copper Scroll SteveBish 09:12, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep --Ryan Delaney ^talk 09:34, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. If such an article is considered deletable, it's time for us all to pack up and go home now - David Gerard 09:52, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, previous deletion was based on the idea it was a vanity article. Current version clearly establishes this person is a notable scholar in the field of the Dead Sea scrolls'. So the earlier votes no longer apply. The earlier deletion was entirely in process, but mistakes should be corrected. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:56, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Actually the previously deleted version was substantively identical; it also showed that Wolters had published his translation of the Copper Scroll. The participants in the previous debate were clearly asleep at the wheel. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 10:04, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, notable scholar and author. Creation regained got several editions and translations, cited in scholarly works. --Pjacobi 10:27, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: I voted delete on the last AfD because I don't think the average college professor is notable and this one is perhaps only slightly above average. You can make your argument to keep the article without insulting the users who disagree. -- Kjkolb 11:19, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Comment - on the whole "average professor" - no, most professors do not have book(s) published; most focus on teaching and are employed by community colleges or small liberal arts schools. The "average" professor at a research university is by no means "average" - s/he has had to publish entensively to get tenured. As for appearing on NOVA - not a lot of university professors ever appear on national television, let alone something like NOVA. So, as long as the criterion for notability is someone who is more notable than the "average professor" (using the US definition of the term professor), this guy appears to clear that hurdle with ease. Guettarda 14:00, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Good article. Xoloz 14:04, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. This should be obvious. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ | Esperanza 14:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Insufficient debate in last AfD, not paper, yadda yadda. Plural publications are sufficient notability. Haeleth 14:21, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete to respect the result of the previous AfD. Indeed the current page is speediable as a recreation of validly deleted content, and was only undeleted to allow discussion on WP:VFU. DES ^(talk) 15:06, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Please check your facts. Splash restored and then deleted Albert M. Wolters at 18:46. I undeleted it under WP:IAR at 18:52. Zoe deleted it again with a personal attack in the deletion summary at 00:14. Snowspinner undeleted it at 00:33. Fvw deleted it again at 00:55. Finally Snowspinner undeleted it at 01:05. By this time someone had been a afd tag on it and so I had completed the nomination. So the article has been undeleted and is undergoing a second AfD, which it will almost certainly pass. Good. Errors are made, and when that happens no weight of bureaucracy should be permitted to stop us correcting them. This is an encyclopedia, not a social club. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 15:28, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Just because it seems odd for me to restore and delete inside a minute: I did it to drop the content in User:SteveBish/Sandbox per that user's request. I had hoped that this action might be a compromise between what I supposed would be Tony's reflex undeletion and keeping it completely invisible. Clearly I must temper my optimism or be more creative. -Splash^talk 16:26, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep -Walter Siegmund 16:18, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Bicycle. android79 16:23, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, as above. Trollderella 16:40, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep This is clear and convincing evidence that AfD AND VFU occasionally make mistakes. Ignore all rules has been successfully applied to improve the encyclopedia. Wikilawyers who value process over the end product should try not to take this personally, and then if they're still upset over this, reconsider whether they're actually helping create an encyclopedia or not. Unfocused 16:50, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Could you please explain in what way this proves that VfU makes mistakes? VfU wasn't given a chance to work because it was short-circuited, and the discussion there currently favors the same result as the discussion here. It's impossible to tell for sure now, but it seems that it wasn't actually necessary to ignore the rules in this case. --Michael Snow 18:47, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep per sidaway. Jesse 18:03, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Vanity page; non-encyclopedic, non-verifiable. Fuller explaination on its Talk page -- Corvus 18:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Keep; independent information on Mr. Wolters does seem difficult to come by, so the argument that he might fail a WP:V test is tempting. The article does contain its share of nonverifiable vanity-style fluff at this point as well. But, my opinion, it's still a keeper. I'll add my two cents on Tony's move: it fell well within proper behavior. These AFDs with no real discussion are always suspect: it's supposed to be a consensus-gathering discussion, not an up-or-down vote. When there's no discussion, it's a good thing to have an admin go look at the page in question and see if the article should be re-Afd'd. Although if I were he, I would have abstained from voting after doing so. No big deal though. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:54, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • The problem is that it's more than just fluff/vanity taken from the prof. The critical text in the article "...also done work on the Dead Sea Scrolls, in particular the Copper Scroll, which is a list of buried treasure (probably taken from the temple in Jerusalem in New Testament times)." was lifted from the prof's freewebs page, wasn't put in quotation marks, and wasn't attributed to the professor. The tone of this AFD seems to be that the first-round AFD'ers didn't bother doing their research. In fact, the article's author didn't do their research, and the undeleter didn't do it. If this prof is worthy, then go and do the research, find the independent reliable sources, and make a genuine substantially different article. --rob 19:21, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep this fine article. This is such an obvious keep as to baffle. Agree entirely with Tony's rationale and with Un's comments. Censure Dottore So for personal attacks.--Nicodemus75 19:17, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Basta. How is what I said a personal attack? I am critical of the admin's behaviour which, although I am in the minority here, I think can legitimately be interpreted as pushing the envelope when it comes to a consensus-driven, comunity based site. Dottore So 20:07, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Absolutely. Your criticisms didn't come close to being a personal attack, and if someone breaks the rules as I have done it would be a bit odd if nobody came out and made some pretty trenchant criticism. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 20:33, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• COPYVIO. The text, with only minor changes, is lifted from the professor's personal website. Thanks to rob for identifying the source. Dragons flight 19:34, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Actually, to be fair , Dottore So spotted it first. I didn't spend the time yet, to see how much is the same or different. I just noticed the one glaring example. --rob 19:49, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
    • It appears that Snowspinner has fixed the possible copyright problem. Thanks, Snowspinner. Unfocused 20:20, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
      • To avoid any taint of copyright infringement, I have ditched all versions of the article prior to Snowspinner's rewrite. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 20:29, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Comment whatever the result of this AfD, Wikipedia, and especially the contributors here, can be very proud of the intelligent and open way the whole thorny matter has been handled on this page. Intellectual engagement, courtesy and understanding have been the order of the day. AndyJones 20:41, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: I don't have a problem reopening the AfD, but I resent the personal attacks on those who voted delete in the original nomination. -- Kjkolb 20:50, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Good article. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 22:12, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Notability established. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:39, 17 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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.