Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fred Donner

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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 Speedy Keep per WP:SNOW Non-admin closure. → AA (talk) — 13:33, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fred Donner

Fred Donner (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

No content, no sources, and no evidence of any notability Yahel Guhan 02:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

A full professor of Near Eastern History at the University of Chicago, which is a leading institution in that field. Has published two major monographs on early Islamic history, as well as a translation of a volume of the history of al-Tabari (one of the most important early Arabic historians), published a large number of articles in reputable journals and is a journal editor himself. His c. 500 page The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981) was called "a major contribution to the understanding of early Islamic history" by the reviewer in the International Journal of Middle East Studies 1983, p. 577. Checking the Swedish National library catalogue I note that all three of his books are available in 3 or 4 leading research libraries.[1]. (That's all from about five or ten minutes of searching.) If we can have an article on every professional baseball player in America, we can have one on Donner too.
Since then, he's been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. I've sourced the "major contribution" review and the journal he edits. If the problem of "no sources" pops up again, I can recommend the highly specialized tool I use to find them. Thomjakobsen 03:09, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I like your style :) - Rocket000 05:48, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak Keep passes the WP:BIO test for an academic. JJL 03:15, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  • At least Weak Keep.Changing to Keep per my more detailed findings in comment to Crusio below. Full professor at prestigious university, recent Guggenheim fellowship, editor of an academic journal (tho' not a good sign that I can't persuade their website to load; Google cache: [2] ), author of two books, one with highly reputable publisher with at least one independent review. Google Scholar finds little evidence of citation (The Early Islamic Conquests 1981 book gets 13), but this might well be the specialised nature of the field and the age of this book. [ETA: See Further comment below for better link to citations.] Sources have been added to the article. Willing to change my mind if further information uncovered, but I think at very least this article should be given some chance to develop. Espresso Addict 03:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Comment A Guggenheim fellowship is not so exclusive that it would appear to inherit notability. And two books in almost 30 years seems to be a small productivity for a humanities scholar (where book -not journal- publishing is the main form of publication). Unless one of those books made more impact than just one review, I don't think this confers notability either. As far as I can see, notability still needs to be established. --Crusio 04:09, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  • There's also a third translated book. The Early Islamic Conquests certainly made an impact -- it was reprinted as recently in 2005 [3]; from the Google hits it seems to be set reading for several university courses eg see [4]; it's described as "Donner's magisterial Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, 1981)" in a 1992 recent book review (of another work)[5]; it's also referenced in our article on Islamic conquest of Persia. Another review of the original publication is here, but it requires JSTOR access: [6]; I strongly suspect there were many reviews of the original publication, but Google is failing to uncover them. Espresso Addict 04:41, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Further comment: Much better search here [7] which finds 49 mentions on JSTOR for Early Islamic Conquests; a quick look at some of them seems to establish that this is indeed a fundamental text in this area. Espresso Addict 09:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep passes the [WP:BIO] criteria. ShowerSugar 05:38, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Speedy Keep per Thomjakobsen. - Rocket000 05:48, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep as per Espresso Addict (thanks for digging up that stuff!) --Crusio 07:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Speedy Keep per Thomjakobsen. --Martin Wisse 13:02, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. WP:SNOW, anyone? ITAQALLAH 13:18, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Islam-related deletions. ITAQALLAH 13:18, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Speedy Keep. Notability is not temporary and this was established in the previous AfD which resulted in keep. → AA (talk) — 13:25, 2 October 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.