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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William Woodward (psychologist)

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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 his notability as an academic, even in the context of the controversy, has not been established by the comments -- Samir धर्म 01:48, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

William Woodward (psychologist)

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Completely non-notable academic. Only claim of notability is that he teaches that 9/11 is a US conspiracy in his psych classes. However, he fails the criteria at WP:PROF. This article was created as part of a campaign by User:Striver to create stubs for a zillion different non-notable conspiracy theorists and their books. Many of his articles have been deleted through AfD or are in the AfD process. GabrielF 02:35, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This point ought to be explained clearly somewhere for future reference. I often read the argument "this prof is notable because he edited a book". Now, as people familiar with academic circles can all confirm, this is very much commonplace and definitely not a sign of notability. Tons of conference proceedings or books gathering a series of articles on a given topic are published every year and all have two or three editors whose job is to run the peer-review process. This is an important task but it is a technical one and I have personally attended conferences in which the cited editors include students who were generous enough to help with that job. Bottom line is: being the author of a book published by a prestigious academic press is indication of notability, being the editor means that there are other academics who are grateful you volunteered for the job. Pascal.Tesson 20:46, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Counter comment any academic with 30+ years of university work has that much citations on scholar google. I got a university position two years ago and look [1]. Pascal.Tesson 06:49, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Counter-Counter Comment Write "Finite Minoid analysis of WTC destruction using a semigroup of homomorphistic rodents carrying explosives" and start filling in Pascal Tesson. A background in Cold fusion may help. Publish your theory in a blog so as not to attract peer review and don't make conspiracy accusations or BYU will suspend you. --Tbeatty 07:08, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, if I wrote that paper, Striver (talk · contribs) would fill in my entry. :-) Pascal.Tesson 07:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Academic achievements seem to be well under the bar for notability, but when you add in the controversy, can he squeak in? According to the article, he was singled out for fairly harsh criticism by the state's governor. IMO this debate should probably focus on whether the amount of controversy is notable, and not just on whether he's a notable academic (he's not). My Alt Account 18:09, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The interesting part of this article is the response that this person has engendered. Having a governor and senator calling for the end of tenure is quite notable. JASpencer 18:28, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Delete WP:PROF says in part "Similarly, an academic involved in significant current events is likely to be notable as a person under the general WP:BIO guidelines." I don't see adequate evidence that he meets WP:PROF without that sentence. The relevant part of WP:BIO is "The person has been the primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person. (Multiple similar stories describing a single day's news event only count as one coverage.)" While we have two reliable independent sources, they appear to be a single day's news event. Thus, WP:BIO is not met. Failing both, deletion is appropriate. GRBerry 01:36, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Fails WP:PROF. Not a notable academic by Wikipedia standards. Number of citations on Google Scholar is low, and includes books he edited. And as Pascal Tesson points out above, editing a book is a far cry from writing a book (and there's no citations of authored books for Woodward here). Class controversy is not quite a storm in a teacup but is certainly not encyclopedically notable to justify an article on Woodward. Brief mention in the Scholars for 9/11 Truth article would be ok. Bwithh 01:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep even if he was not notable as a scholar, wich i contest, the controversy that has made him cited in large newspapers alone makes him notable.--Striver 13:06, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep has recieved decent press coverage and has been published multiple times, I think that suits [[WP:BIO}}. . . --mathewguiver 14:07, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is not a news database... and just about all academics get published multiple times (that's why we have WP:PROF).Bwithh 14:48, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize if my nomination of this article came across as being in bad faith, but that was not my intention. If you look at the 9/11 "Truth" Movement articles on wikipedia you'll see a gazillion stubs of people and books who are not notable. For example, books that are owned by fewer than forty libraries in the world, films that are released only on the web to almost no press coverage, individuals who have no claim to notability other than a few one sentence quotes in newspaper articles, etc. How could any of these articles ever become encyclopedic and NPOV? It is entirely reasonable for a user browsing this section of wikipedia to feel like we're promoting, legitimizing and popularizing complete nobodies who have a viewpoint many find offensive. I have no problem with Striver personally - his contributions to articles pertaining to Shi'a Islam seem to have been highly praised - but I don't want wikipedia to become a soapbox for every self-promoting nobody with an idea.
As for this specific article, please remember that we're talking about an academic who fails the "professor test" (i:e is not any more notable than the average professor). The only way this article might be encyclopedic is if the controversy is encyclopedic, but will anyone remember it a few months from now? Although it just started a week ago, a google news search for "William Woodward" reveals only 35 unique articles related to the controversy, with a number of these being very brief mentions, blog posts and letters to the editor. Nobody will remember this guy in a month. GabrielF 23:32, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

*Keep per Gamaleil--Pussy Galore 04:01, 11 September 2006 (UTC) indef banned for trolling[reply]

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.
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