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 merge to Stanley Aronowitz. There's good consensus here that a stand-alone bibliography is not justified. Opinion is divided whether this should be deleted outright or merged to the parent article.

Per WP:ATD, I'm going to give the nod to merge, but note that everybody who argued to merge, qualified that it should be a selective merge. I'll leave it to whoever does the merge to figure out what's worth merging and what's not, but the gist of this is that it should only be the most significant works. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:56, 19 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Stanley Aronowitz bibliography[edit]

Stanley Aronowitz bibliography (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Article PRODded with reason " WP is not for posting lists of publications except of the most notable people (like Einstein). A short bibliography (with, say, 5 entries) with the most important selected works (as substantiated by independent sources) can be included in the article on this academic. All academics publish, but we don't need a completely list of publications for every one of them." Article dePRODded by creator who posted a long rationale on the talk page. I'll be interested to learn whether the community thinks that any person who passes WP:PROF (or WP:GNG for that matter) should have such a split-off bibliography article. I stand by my PROD, hence: Delete. Randykitty (talk) 10:08, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bibliographies-related deletion discussions. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist (Speak quickly) (Follow my trail) 10:16, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist (Speak quickly) (Follow my trail) 10:16, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist (Speak quickly) (Follow my trail) 10:16, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment We have thousands (if not tens of thousands) of articles on notable academics. All have publication lists of dozens of articles at a minimum, if they're nearing mid- or end-career, likely 100 or many more. Should we include on WP those publication lists of all those thousands of academics or leave that to the specialized databases that exist? --Randykitty (talk) 22:22, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I don't understand what is meant here by 'notability extending to all written works' and why this would have something to do with the overall notability warranting the existence of a separate bibliography WP article. Let's take for instance an example I raised in my original contention: Slavoj Žižek is an academic with his own bibliography WP article, and he has also published a great number of works, some of which have received acclaim in academic circles, some of which garnered wider acclaim and praise, and some of which have received neither. Yet, the relevance of Žižek's bibliography WP article has gone unchallenged so far (as far as I'm aware). The same set of conditions I've laid out above apply to Stanley, as well. But one not need limit oneself to the case of Žižek to see how 'notability not extending to all written works' should not rule out the existence of a bibliography WP article. Take for example the article Works of John Betjeman, a featured bibliography article. This article includes in the bibliography the text Lament for Moira McCavendish, a "Undated, but c. 1958–59; booklet, limited to 20 copies" - a work with likely limited notability given that it was limited to 20 copies; and yet, Betjeman's bibliography WP article is a featured article. Further, there is no such rule in the notability guidelines in the WikiProject Bibliographies that speaks at all of 'notability extending to all written works.' Also, the purpose of separate bibliography articles is not to promote certain scholars above and beyond others, but simply because the scholar in question has so many publications that they can't be contained in their eponymous WP article, so I feel like this point obfuscates the discussion at hand. Joeyvandernaald (talk) 19:16, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - What I am still confused about in the arguments for deletion thus far is Stanley's assumed lack of notability, and further its basis in a set of non-existent principles for notability of an individual warranting a bibliography. In Randykitty's original argument and, from what I think I understand in their point above, to allow for Stanley to have a separate WP bibliography article would somehow open the flood gates for anyone to create a bibliography article about any academic with an existing Wikipedia article. Setting to one side the fact that here are already actual notability guidelines on the Bibliography Wikiproject that are fairly clear in regards to this sort of question, it's being assumed that Stanley doesn't meet some set of notability guidelines appropriate for a bibliography that don't presently exist. Given the points raised by Shoessss above, what principles of notability are those in favor of deletion actually using in assessing Stanley? Why is it that, to those in favor of deletion, Stanley is just one of an anonymous group of "thousands (if not tens of thousands)" of other academics when Stanley has entered into and made meaningful contributions in numerous debates across a number of disciplines, had at least one retrospective conference dedicated to his work, and written many influential books? Further, to say that academics regularly publish over 100 articles, books, edited volumes, etc. is at best extremely likely to be discipline-dependent (also determined by gender, nationality, etc.) and at worst only hyperbole. Take for example, someone like Edward Said: in the article Edward Said bibliography, one can see that the listed works number less than 50 (if we believe this to be a faithful representation of his œuvre). Take as another example, the 2015 article by Kristoffer Rørstad and Dag W.Aksnes, who find that within the Norwegian Publication Database academics in the social sciences on average full professors are publishing 1.77 article equivalents per year; assuming that they continuously publish so robustly a thirty year career would yield sixty publications, with half of those examined publishing less, irrespective of the notability of said publications. Joeyvandernaald (talk) 19:16, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that's fair - certainly the mention of the Žižek pertains to this, but unfortunately it's not really dealing with the other points I raised. I still don't think that this disproves Stanley's notability, or shows that he is sufficiently lacking notability to warrant a deletion of his bibliography. Joeyvandernaald (talk) 22:55, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's been quite a bit of discussion about this so far, in regards to notability and what counts for notability. Even the first comment deals with this point. Please see above. Joeyvandernaald (talk) 22:58, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hey Rhododendrites, I think you're right - Wikipedia isn't someone's CV, and I've already pointed out that not every notable academic has a long list of publications; in fact, statistically it's quite rare. Setting aside the fact that these arguments are kind of going in a circle, which I've tried to address above, the "we typically only include major works and/or notable works in such bibliographies, which can live in the biography itself" also doesn't seem to be empirically true. I've already shown that both Edward Said and John Betjeman, two authors notable enough to warrant a bibliography article, have works in their bibliography that aren't contained in their main article. If we were to add another, one could take an author like Michel Foucault, who despite having numerous notable works doesn't actually have each of the works in his bibliography contained in his main article. Further, this again is not a guideline or qualification laid out by a relevant Wikiproject so far as I can see (please correct me if I'm wrong on this!) Joeyvandernaald (talk) 23:08, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, SoWhy 07:04, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Joeyvandernaald, you're wrong, Rhododendrites is correct. I don't think I've ever seen an academic who met our notability criteria, who didn't have at least fifty publications. A hundred is not exceptional. Publishing is what academics do. If those publications are noted, it's what makes them notable. Heck, most academics who are not notable have a list of at least 50 publications by the end of their career. But here's another statistical fact: Most publications, even from notable academics, are hardly ever cited. That's why we generally only list the 3-5 most important ones. As an aside, this discussion is not about the notability of Aronowitz (if needed, that discussion should be had at the talk page of his bio), it is about his bibliography. I'm pinging DGG, a retired academic librarian, to get his expert opinion on this issue. --Randykitty (talk) 07:17, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Randykitty - In response to what you're saying here, I'm still not clear on two things: how can one continue flatly claim something like "a hundred is not exceptional," especially in the face of me presenting evidence numerous times to the contrary? Same with claims about notability that aren't featured in the guidelines you've cited; the guidelines say clearly, "several extremely highly cited scholarly publications or a substantial number of scholarly publications with significant citation rates" and yet there's no mention of a particular number (fifty or otherwise). Also, the guidelines are at best giving a bare minimum set of criteria; two of which I've presented above Stanley Aronowitz debatably meets. What's going on here? Second, I still don't understand how this isn't a debate about notability at least partially. If notability of an academic is a basic criteria for consideration of separate article for bibliography, and your initial contention was "WP is not for posting lists of publications except of the most notable people (like Einstein)," the question of notability has either been implicitly or explicitly brought into this several times. I'm afraid that this discussion has sort of devolved such that I'm raising questions and just being told 'no' rather than reasoned debate taking place. Joeyvandernaald (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nobody said that having a hundred highly cited articles was unexceptional. I said that 100 publications wasn't exceptional, not the same thing. And as has been explained multiple times here, it's not enough that an academic is notable to justify a split-off complete bibliography. Einstein and Darwin, sure. But not for the "average" notable academic. See DGG's comments. --Randykitty (talk) 20:18, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
For academics in a field where notability is attain by books, such as Aronowitz, we normally list all the books,. If there are many, we can separate the ones authored from the ones edited, which are usually a little less significant. I think it generally wrong to include book chapters and journal articles in these fields, for they are considered less important. We would almost never include books reviews and lectures. If the person is famous, which in general means people outside their field will know about them, we can be a little more expansive. For the very few who are world-famous possibly a separate article is justified.
None of this applies to people who are creative writers or artists or musicians or film-=makers, and the like. . There we follow the practice of their field and include everything significant, or in some cases everything, and if they are reasonably well-known, it may well take a separate article. Nowadays, such people often hold academic positions, but they should be judged by the creative work. (A few very rare people have had substantial creative and also academic careers.)
In this particular case, we have someone in a field dependent on books, and only the books should be included. He has written enough of them to make the notability very clear. All the other sections do not belong here. And I do not see the case for a separate article. DGG ( talk ) 08:46, 12 July 2017 (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.
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