Talk:Roderick T. Long

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 27 February 2008. The result of the discussion was keep.
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[edit] Notability

Per discussion at Charles W. Johnson (philosopher): Roderick Long is not best known for being a blogger. He is the editor of the Journal of Libertarian Studies, he has books that are the subject of critical review, he is a Senior Faculty member of a notable institution with a focus that is congruent with his area of scholarly expertise. He has published numerous articles, lectures, etc. at Mises.org and LewRockwell.com, both notable in their own right. DickClarkMises (talk) 06:17, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I concur. скоморохъ 19:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
as far as i can tell, he doesn't meet wp:prof. his book about rand isn't notable, and the jls isn't very important. Bob A (talk) 17:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
The JLS has had previous editors who were notable (Murray Rothbard and Hans Hoppe), and publishes the work of many notable people. See Journal of Libertarian Studies. Notable people have written about Long's work. DickClarkMises (talk) 18:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
i didn't say it wasn't notable, i said it wasn't very important. who are those people? are they independent reliable sources recognising long as a notable scholar? Bob A (talk) 18:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Why would the encyclopedia be better off if this article was deleted? If you can't answer that question, I am not going to discuss this with you further. If you want to nominate this at AfD, go for it. It will be kept. If you have a good-faith reason for this article's deletion, I am all ears. DickClarkMises (talk) 19:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
The question is whether there is enough discussion of the subject in independent sources to ensure verifiability of the claims in the article. Thus far, all of the references in this article are from other Mises scholars, except for the Stallman citation. And the Stallman article doesn't actually mention Long aside from the title. The fact that Mises scholars all cite one another doesn't prove that they're all notable. And if our only sources of information regarding Long are from sources with close ties to him, there's a real question about whether it's possible to produce a balanced article. Binarybits (talk) 19:32, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm afraid we need a more substantive objection. Where is the controversial content about which you are concerned? It isn't clear to me that the article contains any particularly controversial assertions. What am I missing? DickClarkMises (talk) 19:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Also, you are incorrect about the number of non-LvMI citations. There is an Auburn University faculty bio. Auburn and LvMI are wholly independent entities. That means that there are two non-LvMI citations in the article's current version. DickClarkMises (talk) 19:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
If I wrote an entry about my girlfriend's cats, there wouldn't be any controversial content in there either. That's not the point. The point is that verifiability requires the existence of multiple, independent sources. With the exception of the Stallman bio, none of the sources we cite are independent of the author. Auburn is independent of Mises, but it's obviously not independent of Long. If we considered a faculty member's university bio to be an independent source, then every college professor in the world would be notable. Binarybits (talk) 20:59, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
But by that standard, Wikipedia notability would be harder to acquire if you were published in many different venues within your area of discourse, since there would be fewer "independent" entities from whom to take reliable sources. Long doesn't have any control of the content of Mises.org, Independent.org or Auburn.edu. The sort of independence you would require isn't applicable here. If there was some controversial claim being made, it would have to be substantiated by independent, reliable sources. Here, for the purposes of examining notability, we need only see that Long is notable enough to be commented on by other individuals who are themselves notable for contributions in the article subject's area of discourse. The cited sources are not blogs, wikis, or other informal forums of uncertain authorship. DickClarkMises (talk) 21:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
i agree with binarybits. long is only well known within the austro-liberal clique. outside of that, i can't find any sources showing that he's a notable philosopher. Bob A (talk) 00:09, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Now you are making a judgment about the notability of "the austro-liberal clique"? C'mon, your argument is blatantly POV--making a judgment about the merits of an article subject based on your own subjective opinion of the size and prominence of the associated school of thought. According to Wikipedia:Notability, "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject including (but not limited to): self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, autobiographies, press releases, etc." An institution which has published material from an author may still be an acceptable source for works about the subject by other authors. Unless it is clear that the sources being cited are publicity, advertising, or self-published by a party other than the subject of the article, I think your argument is spurious. By all means, nominate it to AfD if you want--I am confident that it would be kept, and I would very much welcome an official community consensus on this topic. DickClarkMises (talk) 00:31, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Shall we have a procedural AfD then, and consider the question of notability settled by the result? I don't think we're going to find the kind of wholly-independent sources discussed above for these biographies any time soon. What do you think Bob? скоморохъ 00:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
well, yes. i was actually intending to do that right before you posted. Bob A (talk) 00:44, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Right, that's settled then; Long is notable, according to consensus. скоморохъ 17:11, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Molinari Institute

It would be nice if there was some discussion of the notability issue in instances like this—a question raised before details get slashed out of articles. The Molinari Institute and Society are among the few scholarly organizations dedicated to any sort of anarchist thought. The annual Symposia at APA draw good scholars, seem to be well attended and well thought of. The "Heritage of Dissent" archive is valuable source for anarchist materials, including more conventional individualist and mutualist writings. I don't share Long's enthusiasm for some of the figures the Institute focuses on, but in my work as a historian of anarchism I use the Institute's library regularly. Libertatia (talk) 17:24, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

sources? i don't even know what "apa" means. how do those things relate to the molinari institute and society? Bob A (talk) 19:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
You seem to be rather consistently judging the notability of things you know nothing or next to nothing about. Libertatia (talk) 21:10, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I believe Libertatia is referring to the American Philosophical Association, the trade body for professional philosophers in the U.S. I would encourage you to be a little less gung-ho about pressing your point of view when you do not feel you understand the nuances of the topic. скоморохъ 21:20, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

This discussion is misconceived: notability is only relevant for the topics of articles i.e. in this case Dr. Long. The content does not need to be notable per se. The Instutite seems to be a non-trivial element of Long's activism/philosophy, and thus belongs. The only reason we might want to remove material regarding the Institute is if it consituted undue weight in the article. I do not think this is a risk at this point. Regards, скоморохъ 19:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

i still think the passage should be removed, but at this point it's turned out to be much more trouble than it's worth. Bob A (talk) 22:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Skomorokh is correct that Notability only applies to article topics, not article content. The Molinari Institute efforts are related to Long's area of notability, and so should be included in an encyclopedia article about Long. DickClarkMises (talk) 01:12, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sources and searches