Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Peter Carruthers, philosopher

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 keep. John254 00:46, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Peter Carruthers, philosopher

Peter Carruthers, philosopher (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

non-notable vanity page Notecon (talk) 19:53, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

— Notecon (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

NOTE I have moved the page to Peter Carruthers (philosopher) to standardise the disambiguation notation. OlenWhitaker • ^{talk to me} or _don't • ♣ ♥ ♠ ♦ 23:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC) 23:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

• Keep but rewrite and move to "Peter Carruthers (philosopher)". I disagree with the nom. He is a university professor, and the author of several books. POV needs to be removed but it meets the notability guideline I believe. PeterSymonds | talk 20:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
• Speedy keep. Silly nomination by a single-purpose account. The first few Google Scholar hits add up to over 1000 citations, as I pointed out when I removed the prod tag. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:14, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
• Speedy keep. Plenty of evidence of notability in the article, plus all the hits in Google Scholar, makes this look like a frivolous nomination. Klausness (talk) 22:47, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
• Keep (would probably even support a speedy keep). The article needs work, but the subject is clearly notable. A quick Google Scholar search shows a substantial number of highly cited works by Carruthers and the h-index is unusually high for someone working in a humanitarian discipline such as philosophy. The nomination is obviously incorrect as stated, as this is clearly not a vanity article. Nsk92 (talk) 03:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
• Keep per above (in hopes of invoking WP:SNOW) Pete.Hurd (talk) 05:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
• Keep per the above comments Dreamspy (talk) 09:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
• Keep Carruthers' peers include Papineau, McGinn, Chalmers, Rosenthal, Dennett, Fodor.. and so on... all of whom have personal wikipedia entries. (82.24.202.128 (talk) 14:20, 19 March 2008 (UTC))
• Delete. No independent sources. No secondary sources (about the subject, not the subject’s work). All content is OR (mostly) or (what’s left) directory information. The fact that this person is the author of significant material does not excuse the fact that there is no evidence that anyone has ever written about this man (as opposed to the subjects he writes on). Also note that the biography is not linked from any mainspace article. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:29, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. You could say for just about any biographical article that the sources are about the subject's work rather than the subject. In most cases it's the work that makes the subject notable. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you, but in fact it is exactly SmokeyJoe's point that in his view (I think a rather unconventional one), a BLP article, in order to satisfy WP:N, must cite sources that write about the subject himself rather than about his work. See the discussion at Wikipedia Talk: Notability (academics)#Time to make the merge. Nsk92 (talk) 11:34, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Well I'm not looking forward to the tens of thousands of AfDs that we're going to get for all the actors, musicians, athletes, politicians etc, whose articles are based on sources about their work rather than what their favourite colour is. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:06, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, fortunately there only a Snowball's Chance in Hell that consensus will emerge that we discard WP:PROF in favor of SmokeyJoe's suggested alternative, so we don't have to worry about the tens of thousands of silly AfDs that would result. Pete.Hurd (talk) 19:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Whilst biographical work about an individual is indicative of some notability, be in positive or negative, I disagree with SmokeyJoe's opinion that one can conclude that lack of biographical reference precludes notability. (Mark Pharoah (talk) 12:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC))

While he is definitely notable in a real-world sense, he fails wikipedia-notability. The article relies on the subjects official website, and appears to have been written entirely by a single author who claims to be the photographer of the subjects official photograph. There is clearly an independence and a conflict of interest issue here, and although I’ll note there is no sense of abuse here, it doesn’t look good. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

To answer some of SmokeyJoe's concerns here: The article does not so much, rely on the subjects official website, as use it as the clearest non-technical appraisal of the subject and his work - for the benefit of those who are not fully versed in the philosophy (and who do not wish to delve further). As the author of the article, I wanted to address an anomaly, namely that the vast majority of Peter Carruthers' contemporaries have personal Wikipedia entries whilst the subject, who is one of the most significant philosophers of our time, did not. Until writing this entry, I had never been in contact with the subject, either professionally or personally, and he and I have little of significance to gain by its entry. Conversely, those who have an interest in the philosophy of consciousness will be particularly interested in this philospher and his contributions. Specifically, where does this subject fail wikipedia-notability in a manner that is distinct from the entries of, for example, Michael Tye (philosopher), John Searle, or Fred Dretske? (82.24.202.128 (talk) 00:17, 22 March 2008 (UTC))

"article relies on the subjects official website" I don't want to belittle the importance of WP:COI (which is a "behavioral guideline. [...] that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception."), if the claims are uncontroversial, and there's no real doubt as to their veracity, how is this a deletion threatening issue? Per the nutshell of WP:V "Material challenged or likely to be challenged [...], must be attributed to a reliable, published source". Even if this is WP:COI, I think it still satisfies WP:V. If "it doesn’t look good" means it ought to bode ill for retention, then I disagree; if it means "it gives the appearance of being a flimsy WP article" then I don't really disagree. Pete.Hurd (talk) 22:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

• Keep " The fact that this person is the author of significant material" is exactly what notability is about. The high citations are the 3rd party evidence, as 3rd party RSs.DGG (talk) 09:30, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

This page has been moved to Peter Carruthers (philosopher).

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.