Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neel Burton

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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. W.marsh 14:06, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neel Burton

Neel Burton (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Non-notable figure; autobiography; advertising Valproate 20:54, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Delete per WP:BIO and WP:SPAM. STORMTRACKER 94 21:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment He has apparently authored a medical textbook, Clinical Skills for OSCEs, used by medical students taking their practical exam and I am wondering if he is then likely to be notable in a similar way to Wikipedia:Notability (academics), Example one, An academic who has published [...] a widely used textbook [...] is likely to be notable as an author... --Malcolmxl5 21:29, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep and stubify to remove spam. Meets with notability for academics, per above, and I highly suspect Psychiatry is a widely used textbook as well.--Sethacus 02:37, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
  • delete the books are not notable . Psychiatry is not a major textbooks: it's only 181 pages long ; appropriately, it is held by only 34 libraries out of the hundreds of medical schools. Clinical skills is in only 31. This is below the level for a widely used textbook. Writing elementary textbooks and review books for medical students is not significant authorship. This isn.t notable work in any subject, academic or popular. a writer of a whole series of widely used review books for exams--maybe; a writer of two little ones like this--nonsense. we shouldn't just "wonder" if someone is likely to be notable or "suspect" that something is a widely used textbook, we have sources for notability, like worldCat. DGG (talk) 04:08, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletions. —Espresso Addict 11:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak keep. Clinical Skills for OSCEs is ranked 33,530 at Amazon.co.uk [1] & Psychiatry is ranked 85,681 [2] and has received one or two independent reviews, which suggests that they are widely used textbooks, even if not widely held in medical libraries (DGG, is your library listing international?). Espresso Addict 22:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
I use worldCat, it includes the UK universities & many elsewhere--the holdings listed for Clinical skills are 4 Canadian, 9 US, 7 UK/Ireland, 1 Europe other, 9 Asia/Africa/Australia. It's easy to tell, as if you enter where you are, they come out in order of the geographic distance from there --it does not include most public libraries outside the US and Canada, though, so wouldn't have been valid for an non-academic book of UK interest. DGG (talk) 16:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Note that there was a recent AfD where an Amazon ranking of 17,746 (for a book about as old as Clinical Skills) wasn't persuasive, though that was for the book rather than the author. --Groggy Dice T | C 17:29, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Espresso Addict 22:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep as per Expresso Addict. Edward321 05:19, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, KrakatoaKatie 21:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment (in response to Groggy Dice above). I'm not sure that Islam and Terrorism: What the Quran Really Teaches About Christianity, Violence and the Goals of the Islamic Jihad is a sufficiently similar type of book to act as a comparator. Espresso Addict 22:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. The subject's sole claim to notability is to have written a popular course book. That would suggest the course book itself should be the topic for the article rather than the author. And for the book to be notable we would need reliable sources showing that the book has been significantly written about. WP:BK expressly forbids situations where "self-interested parties advertise or speak about the book", such as book sellers like Amazon. Also, as we all know, WP:BIG is not an argument to use in AfDs. Where is the claim to Neel Burton's notability - and where are the reliable sources to back up that claim? SilkTork *SilkyTalk 22:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
  • comment It would have been notable to write a really major textbook--it is another to write a less than 200 page "book" covering all of psychiatry and a exam review book--which is all he has accomplished. I'm sometimes partial to academics but this is below the bar. DGG (talk) 02:54, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak Keep popular textbook--certainly we can't review its merits based on page length. JJL 13:38, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. No independent secondary sources discuss the person or either of the books he has written. If the textbook is popular, please show evidence. (Amazon reviews are not sufficient) --SmokeyJoe 13:49, 25 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.