Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ralph Schoenman

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. Shimeru 07:48, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ralph Schoenman

Ralph Schoenman (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Article completely unreferenced, requests for citations meet a point-blank and rude refusal, citation tags repeatedly removed by another editor RolandR 23:17, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• Ludicrous. Article is copiously referenced. I removed citation tags all of once, because the nominator couldn't even trouble himself to identify statements that were disputed or otherwise needed citations (as this edit makes clear, he simply used a find-and-replace to place {{fact}} tags in front of every period, with the nonsensical result that he was demanding citations for both letters in the abbreviation "U.S."). --Michael Snow 00:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• No, the article is not referenced. It merely contains a list of 14 New York Times articles, unavailable to most readers, and with no link between statements in the text and the relevant articles. This is not referencing, it is a reading list. If the author is too lazy to cite references properly and in a way that they can be used, the article should be deleted. RolandR 00:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment are you seriously suggesting the NYT is not a usable source? It remains available in one form or another in libraries. DGG 01:36, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

• This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT 11:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Although inline citations are a much preferred referencing format, they are not the only method of referencing. This article is not just referenced but referenced with a highly reliable source (which I have reformatted for higher transparency). I agree to some extent with the nominator, in that a reference section at the end of an article really doesn't adequately show where each piece of information comes from, but in the absence of expressly changing policy, there is no deletion issue here.--Fuhghettaboutit 12:27, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• But although you have given the URLs (thank you), the articles still cost $4.95 each, and there is no indication which relates to what statement. So to check and follow up something in the article could cost $70! This is simply not acceptable, and without accessible references the article is not worth keeping. RolandR 12:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. That argument has no traction whatever and is not reflected in any policy that I know of. Books are less accessible than newspaper sources and are not deprecated because article readers must either purchase the book or visit a library (and not incidentally, any reputable library, at least in the U.S., has the New York Times on file). By your argument, the best sources are online and free only. We go by reliability of sources, not access of readers to those sources. I’m not saying that being easily accessible isn’t a good thing for sources, just that it can’t form an essential consideration for citation because many of the best sources are not online. Once again though, I agree with you that references are much better when they are systematically placed so any reader can see just which statements come from which references. That is not a topic that can be given its due discussion here.--Fuhghettaboutit 19:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep as per Fuhghettaboutit; the citations are from a reliable source and nothing to suggest inaccuracy or POV. Even if the sources aren't acceptable the subject is notable enough that the article should be rewritten, not deleted. - Iridescenti (talk to me!) 12:58, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete a novel synthesis from published sources. Please cite the secondary sources which back the overall content of this article, rather than a series of press clippings from which it was compiled. Guy (Help!) 13:02, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. This article really, really, really needs in-line citations. But that alone is not a reason to delete it. Michael Snow, you seem to be the primary researcher on this article. May we prevail upon you to just please in-line your citations to solve this problem? I don't see how synthesis is a problem. WP:NOR doesn't say you can't synthesize published sources. It says you can't synthesize published sources in order to advance a non-published argument. What non-published argument are you (Guy) claiming this article is advancing? Mwelch 18:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

  I'd be happy to discuss inline citations if people will do the simple courtesy of providing constructive feedback about what might be disputed or where specifically they are needed. I've already asked for that on the talk page and would love to discuss improvements to the article there. So far the effort has been directed more toward undermining and even, as here, deleting the content. It should not be surprising that this is not a productive approach. --Michael Snow 18:27, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

  • • Comment. I did glance at the talk page and didn't happen to catch a mention of in-line citations there, but I'll now admit my look was a very quick one so I might well have missed it. Apologies, if so. In any event, while I cannot speak for other editors, for my part, I'm not claiming that anything is "disputed", necessarily. It simply is very helpful for the reader to be able to tie which statement of fact in the article is tied to which source. As I indicated, I don't think the article needs to be deleted, regardless, but I do feel that if it is not too much trouble for you, in-line citations would substantially improve the article's quality. Mwelch 19:56, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

      You probably didn't miss it, but I think you were looking for something different than I meant. I'm referring to the discussion about references, where I asked what if anything was being disputed (constructive feedback on that topic, rather than inline citations per se, is the relevant antecedent in my comment above). I'm sure improvement is possible - I'd actually value having additional reliable sources much more highly than inlining the ones already there - but it's not like I'm pushing for featured article status, and it's certainly not seriously deficient in the way the "unreferenced" mantra suggests. --Michael Snow 20:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

      • • Comment. Agreed that "unreferenced" is unjustified for this article. I just changed the {{unreferenced}} template to {{nofootnote}}. Mwelch 20:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep References are provided. It is a great help if the creator of an article uses inline references to show which reference (and on what page) is the source for what part of the article, but lack of inline references per se is not a valid reason for deletion. Complaints about the cost of NY Times archives are completely invalid as a basis for deletion. I could just as well complain about the expense of travelling tyo some other city to consult an actual out of print print book, or the cost of buying a book. There is more to the world of scholarship than free online sources. Many public libraries allow full text access to the NY Times and other periodicals through Proquest. Edison 20:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment The question how how references should best be expressed in a matter for the article talk page, not here. WP has 3 current systems for citations, and all of them are acceptable--even though some (i.e. DGG) think they each have major disadvantages. The only fixed rule is to have them consistent within an article. Changing from one form to another is probably almost never worth the trouble--readers of WP will adjust to each of them. The rest of the world uses an even greater variety. DGG 05:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

• Following discussion here and on the article's talk page, I wish to withdraw the proposal to delete the article. It looks as though there is a consensus that the method of referencing this article, although strictly speaking within acceptable Wikipedia guidelines, is in practice less than helpful. I trust that the serious issues raised will be addressed, and that the referencing will be amended to make it more "user-friendly" and accessible. RolandR 14:13, 2 April 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.