Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Williams (geometer)

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 Change to article about book "The Geometrical Foundation of Natural Structure: A Source Book of Design". — Sebastian 07:06, 13 December 2009 (UTC)~~ [reply]

Correction: The result was delete. I am sorry about any inconvenience this causes; after a discussion at User talk:SebastianHelm#Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Williams (geometer), I am now convinced that it was not a good idea to try and force such a major change of topic onto this article. Since considerable effort has been put into this article I will be open to incubate or userfy it on request, so that it can be reused for an article about the book. — Sebastian 17:26, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: There are 81 articles linking to Robert Williams (geometer), most of them are references to the Source Book of Design. I really hate doing that, but I have to remove them with AWB now. I will post the complete list on the talk page so that it can be reused if the article about the book is created. — Sebastian 17:56, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Robert Williams (geometer)

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Contested prod. No evidence of notability. So-called "references" are just a list of Williams's work, not citations. The entire "Biography" section is totally unsourced. I had tagged the page with {{unreferenced BLP}}, but this tag was subsequently removed by the article's author. Sławomir Biały (talk) 01:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:49, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete and salt: No showing of notability and, even worse, the subject of the article appears to be a FRINGE mathematician who invents his own vocabulary. —Finell 02:09, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: The subject seems to be active in research, but I'm not seeing evidence that the requirements specified in WP:PROF are met. A non-trivial mention in a secondary source would help. There are a large number of links from other articles, but these can be discounted since they have doubtful notability themselves and the links are from references section coming from his authorship of The Geometrical Foundation of Natural Structure: A Source Book of Design. The book is used as a factual reference only and is not an indication that the author had a significant role in discovery.--RDBury (talk) 03:27, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The Geometrical Foundation of Natural Structure. A Source Book of Design is a classic reference book used by applied geometry people such as crystallographers and structural chemists. Input from applied mathematicians and the like would be useful. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:39, 6 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]
weak keep. The might a potential of WP:OR or even uappropriate promotion and the article might require an critical overhaul. You may even question his notability as mathematician or architect, however looking at his book publications the notability as an author/writer seems to be a given for me (at first glance).--Kmhkmh (talk) 07:21, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or redirect ~~Keep~~. Although Williams' academic achievements are limited, his influence as the author of The Geometry of Natural Structure has been profound. The recent appearance of its fourth incarnation (the first was in 1969 [1]) speaks for itself. He is notable as a writer about geometry, although possibly not as a geometer per se. -- Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 22:12, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am now convinced by David Eppstein's argument below - the book may be notable but the biography is not - vote changed accordingly. -- Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:35, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. The third edition (there are now four) was published by Dover Press, a high prestige science publisher. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:32, 6 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]

I'm willing to stand corrected on the book but so far I've only seen some nice words with nothing to back them up. Please read WP:PROF, show how the subject meets the criteria given there, and back up your claims with evidence. For example, if the book is so highly regarded then find some published reviews to back it up and note it here and in the article. --RDBury (talk) 22:58, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:Author may be the appropriate category here. Library holdings would be useful. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Keep His magnum opus gets 178 gscholar citations a good number especially for someone treading outside the beaten path. 253 worldcat libraries hold the 1979 Dover edition [2]. Evidence for WP:PROF or WP:AUTHOR.John Z (talk) 22:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. If, as looks likely, the article is kept, then I suggest that it be stubbed and its author warned about BLP until sources on the subject are found. Given the lack of notability of the subject, however, it seems very unlikely that reliable sources will be ever be found for the biography section. Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:43, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete due to the complete lack of sources for anything about him. Regardless of whether or not he passes WP:PROF or WP:AUTH, we can't have an article if we can't say anything that is verifiable and reliably sourced. There does seem to be some notability for his book The Geometry of Natural Structure, so per WP:BIO1E it might be reasonable to have an article about the book and to have this title redirect to it, but even in that case we should rely on reliable sources (published reviews of the book) for anything in such an article. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:17, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, per David Eppstein. The only thing that seems to provide a claim to notability is the book The Geometry of Natural Structure and even there the evidence is somewhat indirect; all the biographical info in the article seems to be entirely unverified. It might be appropriate to have an entry about his book (provided one can find independent reviews of it), but not about him. I agree with DE that in this case WP:BIO1E considerations should prevail. Nsk92 (talk) 00:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete There is no evidence of significant notability. We are told that "his influence as the author of The Geometry of Natural Structure has been profound", but we are not given citations to any evidence supporting this statement: the same applies to the unsupported statement that his book "is a classic reference book". We are told "looking at his book publications the notability as an author/writer seems to be a given for me (at first glance)", but notability in Wikipedia's sense is established by significant independent coverage, not by the appearance of the subject's own work, quite apart from the unreliability of a "first glance" impression. We are told that one edition of one of Williams's books "was published by Dover Press, a high prestige science publisher", but that comes nowhere near to being relevant to Wikipedia's notability criteria: no matter how prestigious the publisher, we need independent coverage by someone other than the author and publisher. Many significant publishers publish a wide range of publications, including some by non-notable authors. I have myself seen books from Dover by very obscure authors. After the article was proposed for deletion with the statement So-called "references" are just a list of Williams's work, not citations, there has been a concerted effort to produce plausible looking "references" for the article, but none of them really stands up to analysis. For example, one sentence is given a "reference" to a paper by Kelvin, but that paper was published 81 years before the fact to which it is attached as a citation: the "reference" is not a citation supporting the assertion to which it is attached, but merely an external link to a paper on a connected topic. Two of the references given are merely citations for a statement as to what Williams himself regards as his most important work, which cannot conceivably be regarded as independent evidence of notability. One of the citations is to one of Williams's own works. One of the references is given merely in support of the statement that Williams's work has been cited frequently, but the fact of having a citation to a work is not significant independent coverage. (The same applies to a comment above about numbers of citations.) In short, the references given do not give any evidence at all of significant coverage in reliable independent sources, nor even in unreliable independent sources. I do not know whether Finell is right in suggesting that Williams is "a fringe mathematician", but there is no evidence, either in the article or above, that he is not. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:40, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep. I get the distinct impression that the subject is notable although sources are hard to find. His work is widely cited, both in academic papers and books such as CRC concise encyclopedia of mathematics suggesting that he may well pass WP:ACADEMIC. If the claims here are true, and his main work is as important as is claimed, then there seems to be a good case for inclusion if sources can be found to satisfy WP:V.--Michig (talk) 18:05, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Firstly, "I get the distinct impression that the subject is notable although sources are hard to find" is not a criterion for keeping under Wikipedia policy: we need verifaible sources, not somebody's impression. Secondly, nothing in WP:ACADEMIC can possibly be interpreted, as far as I can see, as meaning that being cited quite a bit establishes notability. Instead we have such criteria as "The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level", and "The person has held a major highest-level elected or appointed academic post at an academic institution or major academic society", and "The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources" (my emphasis) etc etc, and Williams does not satisfy any of them. Thirdly, in answer to "If the claims here are true...", the "claims" in question are made on a web page promoting Williams's work for sale: Wikipedia requires independent sources. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - His book The Geometrical Foundation of Natural Structure. A Source Book of Design is an actively referenced book, original and unique. There are too many Robert Williams for an intelligent google search anyone interested in the author. My only question is content. I don't know what content there ought to be about people on Wikipedia. For instance, I helped expand a biography on another geometer, Magnus Wenninger, equally unnoteworthy in the wider culture, but was the right person in the right time to help expand a subject and got published. Robert's original book stands equally unique, and worthy. Again, I just don't know what "personal" details are important. I can't defend ANY personal biography beyond a single sentence "<Mr. Smith>, born ...., is notable for ....". Tom Ruen (talk) 03:11, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I am not sure what "actively referenced" means, but there are many works which are "original and unique" but completely un-notable: that is not a criterion for inclusion. As for the number of Robert Williamses being too big for a Google search, it is perfectly easy to use more specific searches, such as "Robert Williams" "Catenatic Geometry" or "Robert Williams" "Hierarchical Structure", or "Robert Williams" plus the title of one of his books, or even something as general as "Robert Williams" mathematician, etc etc. I have tried a dozen such searches, and found plenty of promotion of Williams's work, but no substantial independent coverage. In any case, Wikipedia requires actual citable and verifiable sources, not just someone's feeling that there may perhaps be sources out there somewhere, but they are too difficult to find. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It has been pointed out before that there are 178 GS cites for the book that are independent and verifiable and 253 worldcat library holdings. Xxanthippe (talk) 11:26, 10 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]

I think you may be overplaying your hand a bit. Google cites are one thing insofar as they indicate that the subject is possibly notable enough to have been covered substantially by independent reliable sources. But they do not automatically confer this notability on a subject. Does one of these 178 GS cites have a biography of the subject, or at least something that could lead to an encyclopedia article? If the answer is yes, then it should be stated. If not, then from WP:V: "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You misunderstand the notability criteria for WP:Prof. GS cites are not expected to contain biographical information. Please note the quote "Many scientists, researchers, philosophers and other scholars (collectively referred to as "academics" for convenience) are notably influential in the world of ideas without their biographies being the subject of secondary sources." from here. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:40, 10 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Perhaps you misunderstand my post. Nowhere in WP:PROF is there a "Google scholar" exemption from the requirements of providing sources for a subject. While it is a fair indicator that there may be such sources, search engine scores are not prima facie evidence that an article should be kept, as you seem to believe. Rather there must be available sources that say something about the subject of the article: we do have WP:V to consider as well (which is what I quote), and this is policy. Sławomir Biały (talk) 02:07, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Xxanthippe says "It has been pointed out before that there are 178 GS cites for the book..." Yes, and it has also been pointed out before that "nothing in WP:ACADEMIC can possibly be interpreted ... as meaning that being cited quite a bit establishes notability". Presumably Xxanthippe read that but forgot it. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:15, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Being cited quite a bit is the most commonly used criterion for academic notability here. WP:PROF, Notes and Examples 1 :"The most typical way of satisfying Criterion 1 is to show that the academic has been an author of highly cited academic work" (Criterion 1 is "The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources.").John Z (talk) 17:54, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sources are still needed, whatever the particular search ranking is. It is unfortunate that misunderstandings about the proper application of WP:PROF seem to be so widespread. It may need to be taken in hand. Anyway, something that has been systematically overlooked in this deletion discussion is that 178 Google cites for a scientific book is hardly a staggering figure. Among the better-cited works on my own shelf, Foundations of Differential Geometry (a book that still lacks a Wikipedia article) gets well over 3000 citations on google scholar. On the more obscure end, even the book "Geometric function theory and non-linear analysis" by Tadeusz Iwaniec and Gaven Martin gets 266 google scholar hits. (I do not think the latter is notable enough for an article, nor do I believe its authors are.) If, as has been claimed in this AfD, the subject of the article is "extremely influential", then it is really not a lot to ask for some sources. Once again, to quote WP:V policy: "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." So... are there sources or not? Sławomir Biały (talk) 00:01, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[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.