Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Edward R. Dewey

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 of the debate was keep AmiDaniel (Talk) 04:24, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edward R. Dewey

Please see also related past AfDs on Harmonics Theory, Cycle synchrony, and past CfD on Category:Cycles, and see current AfDs on Cycle theory/Cycles Research Institute/Unified Theory of Cycles and Edward R. Dewey.---CH 04:04, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

This really is a question of the purpose of Wikipedia. Dewey is not notable; 10 ghits[1]. The most notable thing about him is that he asked $350 1955 dollars for a correspondence course, and may have gotten it. [2]; but do we want to include this as a warning and public service? Septentrionalis 15:17, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. That search brings up 223 unique ghits for me once I enclose his name in quotes (many more without). (Fewer if we discard Tomescruft and Wikipedia mirrors, of course.) The issue comes up once again, though, of whether Google is a good tool for assessing notability of people whose careers preceded the internet. I say not very. · rodii · 17:26, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

• Weak delete Do we need every quack numerologist? Septentrionalis 15:17, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment:No, but it's good to keep the famous ones. --C S (Talk) 11:36, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Most likely a non-notable crackpot. It seems very difficult to verify claims that he worked for the US government. You might want to mention this AfD somewhere, though. I've mentioned it on the AfD for Cycle theory, which should result in more discussion here. --Philosophus 15:55, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep Article could be improved but he did publish a number of books [3] Dlyons493 Talk 16:37, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

• That search returns zero hits for me. · rodii · 16:57, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

• (after edit conflict) Oops, clicking the related searches link brings up 17 books, most self-publshed pamphlets but a couple not. · rodii · 17:03, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what the problem is - works OK for me but maybe its cached. Its Just an amazon.com search for Edward R Dewey which returns 6 titles. Dlyons493 Talk 17:01, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep if it can be properly referenced. I have put an "unsourced" tag on the page. Tyrenius 16:47, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep and clean up. I detest the profileration of cycle articles, but if the claims of this article are true and can be sourced, he seems notable enough. If not, well, not. If the article strays too far into his pseudoscience, it should be cleaned up, not deleted. · rodii · 16:57, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep Due to authorship of several books, some self-published but others published by Holt, a real publishing house still around today, and publishers of books by Thomas Pynchon, Salman Rushdie, and many others. As with all similar articles, care must be taken so that Wikipedia doesn't seem to be advocating Dewey's positions. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:12, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I get 664 for '+"Ed Dewey" +cycles' similar number for 'The Foundation for the Study of Cycles' the long running institute Dewey founded. This cycle stuff may or may not be nonsence, but it has been one of the major fields of study in economics for the last century and Dewey seems to be an important figure in that study. --Salix alba (talk) 20:25, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep notable and verifiable per WorldCat, see the article's talk page. Thatcher131 22:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep but needs crazy massive editing, every sentence in this article has a qualifier! I mean, look, either he worked in the Roosevelt administration or he didn't. --Deville (Talk) 00:18, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Comment: First, please see the associated AfD on Cycle Theory. Motivated by my contribution to that, I completely rewrote the this incredibly awful version of Edward R. Dewey to this version, which includes a section sketching some things which the modern theory of dynamical systems have to say about (valid) notions of cycles, precisely in order to demonstrate the sharp contrast between a mathematical theory and Dewey's vapid numerology. We are in a pickle here, because while I do not feel that Dewey is notable for his accomplishments in life, he may be notable as a kind of posthumous hero of a somewhat noisy contemporary crank organization. To wit, a passionate fan called Ray Tomes has been enthusiastically championing Dewey's loony obssesive claim that "cycles are present in everything which has been studied" for many years in UseNet postings, and more recently their websites and now at Wikipedia, where he or persons apparently belonging to his organization have created a half dozen or more extremely cranky articles, including Harmonics Theory, and more recently Cycle Theory and some others. For that reason it may be that conclude that two things are required of WP:

1. an article which:
   • contains only verifiable biographical information (if any can be found--- Deville, the reason for the qualifiers is that all information about Dewey which I could find on the web appears at one of Tomes's websites, and cannot be considered as independently unverifiable until reliable, independent, and unbiased sources can be found),
   • points out that so-called Cycle theory and Harmonics theory promoted by Tomes are not theories at all,
   • points out that in the modern theory of dynamical systems, a real theory of mathematically defined notions of cycles can be found, and then some dynamical systems contain no cycles whatever,
   • point out in particular that Dewey's alleged claim that
2. continual monitoring thereafter to revert cranky pro-Tomes POV-pushing edits.

I am of two minds about this because I dislike the idea that simply by being very noisy at (among other places) the WP, some crank can promote himself to notability, but on balance I tend to think that creating and maintaining a balanced article which points out specific problems with Tomes style pro-Dewey propagandizing may be a good idea, as a service to our readers. ---CH 02:43, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep and protect and nominate for featured article It's perfect in its current form e.g. "apparently an economist who allegedly worked in the Roosevelt administration" -- I wouldn't change a thing! Ewlyahoocom 05:08, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. He appears to be a notable person. I found this article, which suggests to me he is of importance historically. For example, it states that Dewey wrote three chapters on cycles in Ellsworth Huntington's book Mainsprings of Civilization. Also mentioned is his role in research for the government. --C S (Talk) 11:36, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

• weak delete. In order for this article to satisfy WP:RS, it needs to be based on references other than the web site of the Cycles Theory crew. --Christopher Thomas 23:48, 2 May 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.