Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kareem Amin

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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 delete as unverifiable. Sandstein 22:51, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kareem Amin

Kareem Amin (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Expired prod. I would delete, but the fact that his letters are kept in a museum gave me pause. Also, no google references at all of this person - but Kazakhstan is not well-represented on the Internet (aside from Borat!). Brought here for more discussion. Esprit15d(۝ • ۞ • ▲) 14:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions. —David Eppstein 16:38, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. I am completely unable to determine whether this is real or a hoax — the sources, if they exist, are too obscure. Fails verifiability. —David Eppstein 16:41, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Google is not the only way to fact-check. Just flag as needing expert attention, i.e. an editor able to visit the museum. Colonel Warden —Preceding comment was added at 17:15, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment. Supposing we do find someone to go to his museum and verify that it contains his correspondence. What then? We'll still only have primary sources, without any secondary sourcing that would allow us to assess notability. —David Eppstein 22:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Comment Couldn't we just ask someone at the museum if they can shed any relevant light? Michael Hardy 22:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment It is possible that an expert is needed, although I searched on JStor, Project MUSE, Project Euclid and found nothing. I would therefore question the significance of his "contributions to the fields of probability and mathematical analysis". I am verging towards delete, but I think we need a mathematical expert to help reach a decision. Mr_pand 18:39, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been posted to Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics. —Lquilter 18:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep - I feel we should keep this for a few WP:CSB reasons that suggest we should give a good bit longer time to establish notability. Amin worked pre-1990 which means that his work is less likely to be readily and easily documented on the Internet. Amin was Kazakh which means far fewer likely English-language sources. Finally, persecution by the Soviets clearly affected his professional career, meaning both that he may be less notable than he otherwise would have been, but also that it may simply be harder to track down sources about him. He had some scholarly relationship with Kolmogorov which is a big deal, so, I would suggest that we give him the benefit of the doubt and tag it needing more reliable sources. I pinged the mathematicians project to see what they have to say or if they want to take this one under their wing. --Lquilter 18:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I checked in history of STM (which doesn't have a lot of math but does have some), also MathSci, also an Eastern Europe history db; nothing. My guess is that there is no English-language literature on this guy and probably very little secondary lit on him period. I still suggest waiting longer than usual to give Kazakh experts some time to come through, but he may simply be not notable. --Lquilter 12:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
The claim that "persecution by the Soviets clearly affected his professional career, meaning both that he may be less notable than he otherwise would have been" is a combination of a political statement and a misplaced emotional appeal. Are we to include in Wikipedia the names of tens of millions of people who have been persecuted during Stalin's times on the grounds that they could have accomplished more then did had they not been arrested, exiled, or sentenced to death? There are other venues of presenting this type of information. Also, throwing around accusations of systemic bias instead of deciding the case on its merits is a bad form. Arcfrk 02:48, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Dear me. Try to relax. One, you have badly misconstrued me if you think I'm advocating inclusion of non-notable people because they were persecuted. Yes, I made a complex comment addressing notability in the context of persecution; I tried to indicate that it was a complex (compound) comment with "meaning both ... but also". I'm sorry my wording was confusing, but my statement acknowledged both that the allegations that he was persecuted (if true) may have reduced his notability; but even if he is still notable, they would also have reduced his, err, findability. You'll note that my very first sentence said keep to give more time to establish notability. (2) I'm not throwing around "accusations of systemic bias". (Which, kind of funny phrasing: It's not an accusation because there's nobody to blame; it's systemic....) I'm pointing out what I thought was fairly uncontroversial: that it's easier to find information on more recent subjects and on English-language subjects and that, of course, leads to systemic bias. Thus if there are reasonable claims of notability I'd suggest taking into account these factors and giving a little latitude in terms of trying to locate verifiable sources. --Lquilter 04:00, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
As a non-mathematician, that suggests notability to me. --Lquilter 19:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I would agree, but I do think that we need some reference. The editor who created this page has a total of 3 edits in his contribution history. Two are on this article, including its creation, and his third edit was add the proof of Kolmogorov's inequality to that article, and credit it to Amin. I was going to post an inquiry on his talk page, but I see that he already has a notice to this AfD. Hopefully, he will come here and provide some more info. --Ramsey2006 19:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Hopefully so. Lots of new editors don't know to include references, so that suggests to me, also, that we may want to be a little generous in giving this one some time. --Lquilter 20:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
further thought: I wonder if we can find this in Kolmogorov's original article/proof, wherever that was published? --Lquilter 21:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
    • I did some searches in Russian journals in which Kolmogorov published, such as Uspekhi Matematicheskikh Nauk, but found no results for Kareem Amin (I found where Kolmogorov published by looking at bibliographies from English/American journal articles that cited his works, although I haven't had time to investigate every avenue). I might do some more searching later...this detective work is fun! Mr_pand 21:54, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep per arguments above. --Cheeser1 19:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I have sent the following request to <heritagenet(at)unesco.kz>:
At <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kareem_Amin>, there is a discussion of whether the Kazakh mathematician Kareem Amin is notable enough to have an encyclopedia article at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kareem_Amin>. The people discussing this are finding very little information about Kareem Amin on the internet. If you can provide any relevant information, could you comment at the first URL above, and perhaps add some information at the second one?
Thank you. -- Mike Hardy
Michael Hardy 23:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete: subject not notable for (English) Wikipedia. Additionally, the entry contains opinionated and poorly documented statements of political nature (referring to "persecution") that are inherently non-encyclopaedic. The article itself is weasly on whether he actually published any mathematical works, but the main bibliographical databases for mathematics literature, Math Reviews, Zenralblatt der Mathematik, and Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik do not contain any references to him. This is a strong indication that he does not have any mathematical notability (most Russian mathemaics publications are covered by Jahrbuch pre 1942 and by Zbl and MR since 1940; one can also consult "Реферативный журнал. Математика" for Russian publications after 1952, but it's besides the point, cf. below). Taken by itself, having written letters to Kolmogorov would be a preposterous ground for claiming notability: for example, thousands of Fermatists had written letters to Hilbert with a purported proof of the Fermat's last theorem. Moreover, it appears that mathematics editors have a rather high standard of notability for mathematicians, and having published just any work is not considered sufficient for inclusion. If Kazakh wikipedia had an article on Amin, we could have used it to clarify the situation, although in the absence of any mention of a person in secondary English language sources, (s)he would still fail the notability test for the English edition of Wikipedia. (Sadly, it appears that the Kazakh wikipedia at present does not even have an article on Mathematics; it would be quite some time before it can be consulted for biographical details on mathematicians who lived and died decades ago.) Arcfrk 02:48, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment If you've looked in bibliographical databases, and I have searched mathematical journals, and we have not found anything, I think it is time for my "verging towards delete" to change to delete. Obviously not notable Mr_pand 10:50, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
  • delete per David Eppstein's & Arcfrk's persuasive arguments. Pete.Hurd 04:24, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
  • delete Unsourced, unnotable. Searching google I found nothing on this person, and I guess nobody else did, given the complete lack of references in the article. Odedee 08:57, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - I'm really impressed with the reasearch done here. Kudos to everybody!--Esprit15d(۝ • ۞ • ▲) 12:14, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
  • question Does the engish wikipedia criteria for notability require that secondary sources establishing notability be in english? For example, I've noticed that wikipedia doesn't have an article on Aborrajados (a Colombian side dish), and have thought about uploading a picture of one, and creating an article. I'm sure that I'll find dozens of secondary reliable sources in spanish, but not so confident about the same in english. --Ramsey2006 12:57, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I see that you've just asked the question that I was going to answer anyway! Nothing in WP:RS or WP:N says that English language sources are any better than others, or that anglophone subjects are any more notable than others. To follow Arcfrk's reasoning would be to introduce WP:BIAS Phil Bridger 13:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
  • thanks for the info --Ramsey2006 13:32, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
  • wait for a bit. We may get a reply to the email that Michael Hardy sent that would establish this guy's existence. They may know of secondary sources, perhaps not in english, that would establish notability. That notability may or may not be based solely on his mathematical work. If he does exist, and it is true that his letters are stored in the museum, that does suggest a possibility of notability, whether mathematical or otherwise. As for the article being poorly sourced, that is an understatement. We don't even know if we are talking about a real person yet, so declarations of notability or non-notability seem a bit premature. --Ramsey2006 13:32, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
  • grant continuance per Ramsey2006 -- no rush to delete; the AfD banner should be sufficient warning to readers not to accept the information uncritically. Sometimes fact checking takes a little longer. I would be a little bit surprised if information came out sufficient to warrant keeping the article, but it could happen. --Trovatore 22:01, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete unless references found before end of AfD. [1] says the museum has approximately 200000 items. If this person really existed then notability would take more than some stored letters. PrimeHunter 22:12, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Yes, there seem to be a lot of items in that museum, which claims to be the largest in central Asia. I think we have to take into account the reputation of this museum and their policies and standards. If basically anybody can donate something to the museum and then claim it is kept at a museum as a mark of notability, we ought to be more skeptical about this whole thing. As someone else also pointed out, corresponding with famous mathematicians is no sign of notability. A lot of non-famous people correspond and talk to famous mathematicians. That is an important function of being a famous mathematician. --Horoball 00:31, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment My email to <heritagenet(at)unesco.kz> has now bounced with this comment:
<heritagenet@unesco.kz>: connect to mail.unesco.kz[213.211.74.197]: No route to host
It's not the museum's email address. Their home page had no email address as far as I could tell, but it was a subpage of a subpage... (etc.) of one that had that email address. I'll see if I can find something else. Michael Hardy 02:14, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete or userify No claim to notability here. The possible ones are (a) he got extraordinary grades and (b) he was deprived of his career in the Great Terror. (There seems to be also a proof of Kolmogorov's inequality using martingales, which is cracking a walnut with a sledgehammer.) Millions of people have extraordinary scholastic careers; I went to school with someone who had an Ivy League doctorate at 20, but he doesn't have a WP article, yet. Most of the Soviet Union were on the fringes of the Terror. It may well be that he did something truly notable, which is why I suggest userification; but until it turns up, why is this in article space? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:58, 15 November 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.