Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jeffrey Mishlove

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 delete, WP:IAR here, the article is completely unsourced, see WP:CITE and WP:V, the keep votes looks to be in a WP:ILIKEIT or I heard of him view so discounted, if the article provide enough reliable sources it can later be recreated. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 02:47, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jeffrey Mishlove

Jeffrey Mishlove (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - (View log)

reads like a resume, the subject appears to have edited the article from 208.13.131.55 (talk · contribs), does it meet WP:BIO? WP:V? A Ramachandran 04:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep and Wikify, the only person to receive a PhD in Parapsychology in the US seems to be notable (the question is if this is also good publicity for the Colleges involved) Alf photoman 19:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep and cleanup. It is vanity right now, but it could be a useful article. There is enough in it to establish notability assuming that the claims this individual is making are true. --64.230.127.40 04:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep and cleanup. I've heard of this guy, and I'm not deeply involved in his subculture. He's written a couple of books of some note. The subject meets the notability threshold, in other words; the article just needs to be re-written. BTfromLA 07:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• delete His claim to be the only person is not supported by the evidence. According to Dissertation Abstracts, there are at least 44 other people with theses on this subject. (searched under parapsychology as a word in the citation or abstract) Not all of them are PhDs, not all are US universities, but the majority are. He is not even the first: there was one at the University of Oklahoma, 1977, 7815383AAT . (As for the reputation of the schools, many of the theses are anthropological, some are slightly disguised , and a few seem to be by believers.) I have adjusted the article for accuracy in this respect, but this lends a certain amount of doubt to the rest of it. The Psychology Today article is RS, but not enough for notability. The strongest claim to notability is the television program. I can find that the show exists, and that tapes of individual programs are cataloged by a few libraries. Everything else about the show seems to derive either from sources linked to the subject, or blogs. DGG 01:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Any dubious material should be removed if can't be confirmed. But the inclusion of unsourced material is not grounds for deletion of the article--you've satisfied yourself that his TV show exists, his books are real (I have seen "Roots of Consciousness," which is a sort of encyclopedia of the paranormal--several titles by him are listed at Amazon.com) and he lectures around the country (I frequently see his name posted as a featured speaker when driving past the Philosophical Research Society building, here in Los Angeles). I think he's clearly notable enough to merit an article. Also, though I'm not up to doing the research to get to the bottom of it, it may be that his claim about the PhD is that he actually received a degree in parapsychology, as opposed to writing a thesis about the parapsychology to earn a PhD in a discipline like anthropology or sociology. If that's the case, then his original claim may well be true. BTfromLA 02:06, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Well that really would make him notable, because UC Berkeley does not have such a department. Only US university that does is Duke. He must have materialized the department temporarily. Diss Abs specifies the field as "Psychology", but they use whatever subject term the author of the thesis used. So he didn't claim parapsychology at the time. They have many theses on line, but his is too early. Now that I think of it, the courses which use his textbook are probably his own, because that's what he teaches in his university. Having a TV show and publishing books makes one notable only if the show or the books are notable, and there is no independent sourced evidence for that, about either of them. His name as a featured speaker on the building of his society/university is not exactly 3rd party evidence. The evidence about his notable list of speakers is on the site for his show. He also has a long list of stations that have his show, and he himself has said it, but nobody else. So what is he notable for, exactly?DGG 04:10, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

He is notable as an author and media pundit on parapsychology and related topics. He is a long-established and fairly widely published figure in that field (while it may be dubious to consider parapsychology as a "field," there are organizations, journals, etc., devoted to it, so I think we need to give it the benefit of the doubt as far as inclusion in Wikipedia goes). The Wikipedia threshold for notability is low, compared to a conventional encyclopedia. One doesn't need to be an historic figure to make the cut. We need to guard against his self-edits being used for deceptive or self-promotional purposes, but that doesn't mean deleting the article. BTfromLA 08:38, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I cannot vouch for the credibility of this, but for whatever it's worth, here's an online image purported to be Mishlove's actual Doctoral degree in Parapsychology, with a little description of who was on his committee, and how it was possible for him to create such a degree through an interdisciplinary program that Berkeley offered at the time. BTfromLA 09:14, 20 January 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.