Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James D. Montgomery

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 (no consensus). We have a slight majority for deletion, but not a consensus, and I find Mangojuice's and Capitalistroadster's arguments as sensible. Recommend adding info on that award to the article. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:01, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] James D. Montgomery

At the risk of incurring yet more accusations of bad faith, harming Wikipedia, wantonly dishonest nominations, vandalising, etc... we bring another contested prod to AfD for consideration. Prodded as this article lacks information on the notability of the subject, as per WP:BIO and deprodded as article describes notable work and subject has significant Google Scholar presence. Subject receives some 56 hits on Google Scholar, although counting for the duplication from bibliography listings as well as links to extraneous material not germane to the subject (such as [1], [2]) the overall count is lower. Montgomery did, however, win the James_S._Coleman_Award which, with 30 hits on Google, is not necessarily notable, hence soliciting consensus at AfD. Eusebeus 16:49, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

• Speedy Keep, bad faith nomination, prod nomination does not even present a prima facie case for deletion, putting the lie to the nominator's stated motives for his crusade to delete articles on academics. Also accessory Wikistalking and WP:BITE violation, since the original prodder has been targeting new user Tseeker's contribution for deprecation, disregarding the terms of the consensus deletion policy. Monicasdude 17:08, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Yet another Speedy Keep opinion by Monicasdude that makes no coherent argument why this should be speedily kept, other than a basic attack on the nomination. Nothing you've stated comes even close to Wikipedia:Speedy keep unless you are trying to argue WP:POINT, in which case you could have just stated that. I'm not trying to be incivil here, but this is getting a bit silly.--Isotope23 18:53, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
    • No bloody kidding. I can only hope that Monicadude's ongoing contributions to AfD discussions are given at least as much credence as those of first-time anonymous IP contributors. Delete per nom. RGTraynor 20:17, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Yeah, no kidding. The nominator has said over and over that he's making these nominations regardless of their merits, just because he has some undocumented, unverified, unsourced concerns that the deprodding process is somehow screwed up. He provides no evidence, and made no effort to engage in discussion on the relevant pages. That's a paradigmatic WP:POINT violation, and nominating an article for deletion without a good faith basis for believing it meets the deletion policy criteria is by definition bad faith; that the nominator's indiscriminate actions affect the good and bad alike is hardly a sign of good faith. If I nominated for deletion every article created in the one hour period that's 5-6EST/4-5CST/3-4MST/2-3 PST, claiming it was my belief that most edits during that time came from the US and came from insomniac trolls, vandals, and POV-pushers, there wouldn't be anybody defending my good faith, for good reason. Eusebeus's claims don't hold any more water. Monicasdude 22:42, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
        • And so your solution is to respond to WP:POINT violations with a slew of WP:POINT violations of your own? I'm sure you know the old saying about "two wrongs don't make a right"...--Isotope23 00:41, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
• delete No notability claims. "Average professor," honestly doing his job like all of us. `'mikka (t) 18:09, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per WP:BIO. Subject does not meet the professor test in my opinion as exceeding the "average professor" with 15 articles, 5 working papers and 6 reviews [3].--Isotope23 18:53, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, borderline notable academic. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEMES?) 19:18, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. Batman2005 20:03, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, one of his papers won the James Coleman award (for an outstanding article in Sociology) in 1999. [4], which makes me think he meets the WP:PROFTEST, specifically, criterion 4. Mangojuice 20:12, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
• Weak delete Obviously not a speedy keep. There are pros and cons and AfD is the place to discuss these. I'd have no problem with it being kept either. Dlyons493 Talk 20:35, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and expand. Notable enough for mine. The nomination makes an excellent case in itself for retention on the article namely the Google Scholar results and the prize. He has won a prize in sociology and has inward links from a couple of articles notably the Mathematical Sociology article. Capitalistroadster 20:57, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Note--The fact that this article is linked to from Mathematical Sociology or [Category:Lists of social network researchers] is not a surprise--they were created on the same day by the same user. -- Scientizzle 18:53, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I placed the prod tag on this and a few other similar pages because, simply, while this professor may be a fine researcher does it merit an encyclopedia article? No solid notability was claimed in this article, just a very brief biography. I don't appreciate insinuations by User:Monicasdude that any of this was "bad faith"--I used the prod tag on only a small number of these type of articles in an effort to be "good" faith. James D. Montgomery, Lucy Suchman, Christopher Winship and Scott Boorman were only a few article creations by User:TSeeker that were each simply small biographies of academics with no strong assertions of notability. In retrospect I should have contacted User:TSeeker about these edits.

I am an academic myself, so I fully recognize how these researchers may be important, but generally non-notable. I personally think WP:PROFTEST may be too lenient (8 criteria seem ~equally weighted, but I think they're inherently unequal: there are a lot of mediocre scientists with a large volume of published data, for example, and many awards sound important but mean little to anyone outside of a particular field). I gladly open this up for debate because, as a community, the larger desires of the Wikipedia community should determine academic notability. I just don't think every principal scientist at every institution ever needs an article... -- Scientizzle 21:03, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Even though every Pokemon character gets one, every musician with two albums gets one, as does every professional athlete and every freaking TV program in a major market gets one? Why not? The project, after all, has as its goal documenting the sum of human knowledge, and there's no shortage of cyberspace. If you're that concerned with mediocrity, why not start with the Jackie Collins, Kenny G, According to Jim, and Craphonso Thorpes of the world, not to mention Air Force Amy and all those Big bust models before turning your attention to people who actually make positive contributions to human knowledge and culture? Monicasdude 22:49, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

That is a fallacy. Two wrongs do not make a right. If you feel that Wikipedia would be improved by these articels not being included, then by all means nominate them for deletion and demand consensus. A distaste for popular culture on an editor's own part does not justify applying that bias when the community's consensus has spoken otherwise. It is a vital fact to remember that at Wikipedia we must work toward consensus; doing bold things is encouraged, but that is only as long as it doesn't go against the will of the community as declared by consensus. Please consider these things in the future, and we can all keep cool about these disputes. Kuzaar 02:24, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

You've missed my point entirely. I don't reject the community consensus on notability. I accept the low bar it sets. I object to the refusal of a relatively small but quite active and vocal groups of editors to accept that consensus as it applies to certain subjects, particularly knowledge workers, creative artists, and figures outside American-Western-European-based cultures. I think the extensive creation of articles relating to those subjects by a very large number of editors is a much clearer demonstration of consensus than the actions of the relatively tiny number of editors who work incessantly for deletion. We have gotten to a cultural state where "Gee, I never heard of this" seems to be a good enough excuse to nominate something for deletion, RATHER THAN raising legitimate issues on the talk page first to see if anyone can help improve the article. There's a real sickness in the process, and, in terms of encyclopedic goals, it's ludicrous. It drives away new editors. It offends the subjects of articles, many of whom could be valuable contributors. And it continues to expose the project to public embarassment. Monicasdude 03:02, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I think my reaction to your surprisingly vitriolic comment has been handled well by Kuzaar and Hirudo. I think you're conflating different issues here: this isn't about "mediocrity" (I doubt Montgomery is a "mediocre" scientist)--you seem to have willfully misinterpreted my statement above. I simply meant that having a large number of publications does not a good scientist make. (My arguments for and against portions of WP:PROFTEST are being crafted now & I will share them soon...) Additionally, as I tried to suggest above, you are conflating "importance" with "notability." These are often correlated, but certainly many examples exist in which one is prominent while the other is missing. Often it's difficult to define either, kind of a Potter Stewart-esque I know it when I see it, but poular culture (with its random Pokemon characters) is generally defined by its notability without importance, while scientific endeavors often suffer from a lack of notability despite their broad importance. Maybe this isn't "right," and we should inform the world of the work of good, but unknown (publicly), scientists...that's why I think this is a good thing to debate! -- Scientizzle 00:50, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I think you've missed my point almost entirely, and you've missed an important point on notability. As what appears to be the most broadly accepted, if not consensus, treatment of notability here says, A topic has notability if it is known outside of a narrow interest group or constituency, or should be because of its particular importance or impact. It is an extension of the notion of prominence for biographical articles. It differs, however, from fame and importance; while all articles on "famous" and "important" subjects are notable, not all notable subjects are famous or important. And, given the sheer number of articles from thousands of editors which are created according to these principles, there's much stronger evidence that this represents consensus than the contrary behavior of a relative handful of editors who participate in the AfD process. "Policy is what we do" is an imperfect guide, but it's better than "Policy is decided by whoever yells the loudest." Monicasdude 02:45, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I read your point loud and clear. Montgomery is not "known outside of a narrow interest group or constituency," and therefore the impetus to show that he "should be" falls upon those who would vote to keep. The strongest argument is that he won an award--one that is, clearly, also not "known outside of a narrow interest group or constituency" (should it be?). His July 2005 CV shows 14 published articles (2 more in progress), 6 reviews and 5 working papers, all since '89. That's not a lot, but it's (naturally) only a single quantitative measure with no reference to quality. Low Google hits & Google Scholar results, too...I don't think a strong case exists for Montgomery's notability. -- Scientizzle 18:53, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep as I believe the cited award provides notability. However the article sorely needs expanding (I'll tag as such) and the award must be listed on the article, not just the AfD discussion. Gwernol 23:28, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. I believe that this article doesn't meet WP:PROFTEST. The award is not notable, and therefore doesn't show that this professor has high quality or well known work. DarthVader 01:05, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete No Vote. Will change to a keep pending the article's expansion and explanation of notability. Kuzaar 02:24, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Mangojuice. The problem with the proftest is that we scientists are too self-effacing. Mostly we want to do our work, get grants, write papers, and get recognized in our field, and wikipedia doesn't fit our image of what recognition looks like. I worked with a man who was on the cover of Science with the discovery of the year one year and he's not in here, for heaven's sake. I would rather have a high citation count or a low grant score than a wikipedia article. But at the same time I think it is objectively true that an academic with one peer-reviewed publication has contributed more to human existence than any pokemon character or Gundam Wing mecha (speaking not of the overall value of the game or manga but of the desire to have separate articles for each separate morph of each monster). Maybe we scientists should start standing up for ourselves! I'm sorry for making a fuss. I'll sit down and be quiet now. Thatcher131 02:46, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Just because Wikipedia is already infested with over-detailed articles about transient pop culture topic doesn't mean we should lower the standard to match. Yes this article is definitely more worthy than for example Bulbasaur, but I don't think it's enough -- Hirudo 05:20, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as article have no sources, and does not explain why his models are important within his field of work! Bjelleklang - talk 01:28, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
• keep Per Mangojuice. I'm not convinced the award is notable, but a cursory examination makes it look plausibly notable and so would like to erre on the side of caution. JoshuaZ 02:29, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
• abstain I can not determine anything here, which might normally lead me to vote delete, but Eusebeus has a run of very poor deletion nominations, so my vote must be abstain. JeffBurdges 13:09, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Why should we be the first people to write about this guy? I've linked his vita on the article, and I don't see anything compelling. Melchoir 07:21, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
• comment while there isn't anything here to sugges that the subject meets WP:PROFTEST some of the recent ADF noms in this category make me nervous, and so I will withhold my vote. The proftest is a very high bar. If "more important than the average actor" or "more important than the average band" were that standards for other bio-like articles then a lot of cruft would go. There are over a million schools in the US alone, if each one gets an article, then WP:PROFTEST seems an overly severe standard for scientists and other professional researchers. There is nothing wrong with PROFTEST, it's simply out of step with other WP standards of notability, where more inclusionist editors have sway over notability standards. Pete.Hurd 04:58, 30 April 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.