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.
This list appears to be an original synthesis and not covered in reliable sources (edit: and hence not notable). IRWolfie- (talk) 12:30, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, on notability terms rather than synthesis terms. bobrayner (talk) 12:44, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify my thinking: Usually a "synthesis" problem is when somebody puts a few different sourced pieces of content together in an article to advance an overall position which isn't actually supported by one of those sources. That's less of a problem with list articles; if you wrote a List of Jewish sculptresses it would be sufficient to have a different source identifying each person as a jewish sculptress, and it doesn't matter if there are no sources which cover the entire list in one place - as long as you're confident that the concept is notable generally (based on some source which discusses jewish sculptresses as a group). If one individual list item is founded on synthesis, delete that item instead of the whole list.
Here, I think individual list items could be synthetic, but not the general concept. Rather, the general concept isn't notable. Particular professors might be notable in their own way, but they get their own articles for that. The concept of "UK professors of complementary medicine" itself fails the GNG. bobrayner (talk) 12:53, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry. I realise that nitpicking over the exact boundary between synthesis of a concept and notability of that concept is like counting the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin. bobrayner (talk) 12:55, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Everybody knows that the answer is 42 and any heretic who tells you that the answer to this hugely important question is different should be burned at the stake!! --Guillaume2303 (talk) 13:10, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A little :>, the reason I said synthesis was that the lack of coverage in reliable sources for the concept of UK professors of complementary medicine is what makes the combination of sources in the article an original synthesis, it also makes it not notable at the same time, I've edited my initial comment accordingly. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:05, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think I see what you mean now, if the list is notable it's an allowable synthesis. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:24, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Sorry for my flippant comment above, I just couldn't resist :-) I agree completely with bobrayner's analysis: not notable as a subject. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 13:40, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I note that most of the people on the list are not notable enough to have their own articles. Maybe this is a way of sneaking them into Wikipedia anyhow? --MelanieN (talk) 14:28, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep The existence of 'professors of alternative medicine' could be styled as a new and interesting (troubling?) trend. I agree with Bobraynor's analysis re: synthesis. lws (talk) 06:16, 28 April 2012 (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.