Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aris Poulianos

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 Keep. Deathphoenix ʕ 03:45, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aris Poulianos

Relisting, has gone unnoticed for 5 days with no comments Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:54, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a biography case where "non-notable" directly translates into "unverifiable", and from there leads to WP:BLP problems. This article on a controversial/fringe scholar was first created as a totally uncritical glorifying text more or less plagiarised from this person's own vanity website. Then, other editors cut back on the vanity elements and added some critical material: apparently, a conference organised by this scholar was once boycotted by most of his colleages; he is engaged in continuous legal controversy over the licensing of his excavations; he has hardly been publishing anything except in his own self-published, non-peer-reviewed journal, etc. Problem is, the source for these critical elements is again just hints drawn from his own web material, and as such probably not reliable enough to stand up to WP:BLP criteria. No verification of either the positive or the negative material has been found from reliable external sources. As the choice seems to be that between unverified glorification and unverified criticism, I opt for delete as the cleanest solution. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. less than 1000 Ghits.--Jusjih 12:58, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Google Books search shows a number of references to him in published books, including a Lonely Planet guide and a number of other publishers. Seems notable enough, as a controversial figure. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:44, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Hm, good find. But the Lonely Planet quote just shows that Poulianos is visible enough through his local museum and his dominance over the excavation (somewhat of a tourist attraction) that popular tourist guide authors may become aware of him. But that still doesn't answer our fundamental problem: We sort of know he's controversial, but we have no reliable sources from the actual scholarly community actually describing what the controversy is. Of the other books Google brings up, one is evidently not from the same discipline (anthropology), another is simply a bibliography of work in the field listing him. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:30, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment: Might be worth keeping a little longer, to see if more info turns up. This is a pretty good example of an edge case where Wikipeida might be helpful for documenting that there is a hard to document controversy. Controversial/fringe scholars are usually difficult to find mentioned in secondary sources for much the same reason that literary scammers are - reputable journals avoid mentioning "unusual" behavior for liablity/credibility reasons. Persons working in the field might be usefully consulted regarding this individual, but information provided would fail under the No Original Research clause. Until this fellow manages to get himself into a neutral source (like a legal transcript) it is going to be very difficult to source properly. That said, the existence of the article may be usful in and of itself. 68.250.41.142 17:10, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Reply Greek Anthropology is about as far away from my own fields of expertise as one can get, but based on what I can see, a verifiable article seems possible. Google News Archive shows a discovery of his being documented by the international press 30 years ago, and a Google Scholar search brings 21 results. Remember that Wikipedia articles do not necessarily need to be based on scholarly sources (although these are preffered), just reliable sources. I'm sure a great deal of newspaper and magazine coverage exists which isn't on Google. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:54, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Neutral I can easily see why one would want for this to be deleted, but also I am remidned that Greek Anthropology is not likely to summon up many Google hits or many sources outside of a specialized library. This does not mean he is not notable, though. As Fut. Perf noted, it would be difficult to verify much of this information, but I'm not sure if that is reason enough for deletion. It seems to be more of our own insufficiency rather than his. The professor test comes to mind here. This guy is an academian, and if he stood in a lecture hall and spoke for 1 hour per week, he would otherwise prove to be more notable than the average professor. AdamBiswanger1 17:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - don't know much about the fellow, but a few quick searches on the Greek Google uncovered some juicy, not-adhering-to-NPOV pages.1 2 3 I'd therefore like to see the article stay (and be improved - it's a poor bit of writing at present), simply because anyone searching for a neutral portrait of him at present is going to struggle. --DeLarge 14:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: The pages you found are exactly what the original glorifying version of the article was based on - and it's still the only information we have about the guy. All the critical elements in the article were derived from reading 'between the lines' of just these same pages, which means they are just as unreliable as the rest. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:48, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
    • That seems enough, though. We keep the basic factual info in 1 -- birthdate, birthplace, educational background, etc etc -- and then briefly detail the controversies in his work from the other two links, without making any critical comment; "in 19xx Dr Poulianos proposed that blah blah. As a result of this controversial theory, blah blah happened." We don't need to pen a FA here, but if we're happy that he meets the notability requirements, I don't think we should exorcise the whole article. --DeLarge 20:13, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
      • I would have said the same, if it wasn't for the much stricter standards for verifiability forced by WP:BLP. That was the whole point. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:48, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
        • So you're disputing his birthdate and birthplace, for example, or the fact that he established the Anthropological Association of Greece? The AEE was founded by the man himself. As per WP:BLP#Using the subject as a source, "Information supplied by the subject may be added to the article if it is not contentious/it is not unduly self-serving/there is no reasonable doubt that it was provided by the subject". I think we're covered here in that regard. --DeLarge 08:02, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
          • Well, sorry for being obstinate :-) but... Of course the basic bio details aren't the issue. The issue is we lack reliable information about exactly the only thing that makes him notable, i.e. his controversial findings. Everything we have about that is in fact either "unduly self-serving", or in danger of being defamatory if not extremely well sourced. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:58, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep When you google search "aris poulianos" several good links show up. One says "The major excavations were made by the anthropologist Dr. Aris N. Poulianos, who spent many years in the caves." While another says, "Grecocentric anthropologist Aris Poulianos makes stronger claims than Angel about Greek "continuity", insisting on "the incessant biological continuity of ..." This link seemed good, www.ancientgr.com/Unknown_Hellenic_History/Eng/interview.htm
  • No, actually, that second page is part of exactly the same walled garden of extreme fringe, national-mysticism pseudo-scholarly websites and journals (grecoreport.com, "Davlos" etc.) that are the *only* witnesses to his work. It's a site that sports "findings" such as the prehistoric penetration of ancient Greeks into America, the identity of the Mayan language with Ancient Greek and whatnot. The first page is an amateur tourist description. All links from it are again into the walled garden. The only sign of light is that it lists some academic bibliography, some of which may represent the critical evaluation of Poulianos' claims. If somebody could go and check those publications, we would be okay, otherwise we still have: not a single reliable source. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:48, 10 October 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.