Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Achal Prabhala (2nd nomination)


 * 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. Absent any evidence of in-depth coverage of the person themselves, bar a large amount of vague waves at Google hits, I don't think it's possible to close this in any other way. Indeed, one of the Keep comments directly on the Hindu and NYT sources, one of which was written by the subject themselves and the other is the very definition of "passing mention". No doubt this will go to DRV; you don't need to notify me. Black Kite (talk) 17:00, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Achal Prabhala
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Despite the assertions made in the prior AfD for this article in 2011 (the overall quality of which I am quite unimpressed by), this "researcher, activist and writer" does not meet the requirements of WP:GNG, WP:BIO, WP:AUTHOR or WP:NACADEMICS. Being a member of the WMF's Advisory Board does not confer notability. —  Scott  •  talk  23:37, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * "Confer" means "bestow", and wp:notability is not bestowed. " does not confer notability" is a truism.  Unscintillating (talk) 13:18, 22 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions. §§ Dharmadhyaksha §§ {T/C} 13:17, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. §§ Dharmadhyaksha §§ {T/C} 13:17, 4 February 2014 (UTC)


 * There are two lengthy articles that cover the subject at The Hindu and NYTimes. He also has authored many articles for Outlook India. §§ Dharmadhyaksha §§ {T/C} 17:31, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The Hindu article is an interview feature written by the subject himself. The NY Times article is about alternative methods of knowledge gathering for Wikipedia and features, inter alia, about half a dozen paragraphs about a video he made. He himself is briefly described in two sentences. Having authored some magazine articles also does not mean he reaches the thresholds set in the guidelines I referred to. —  Scott  •  talk  19:00, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The Hindu interview article is a feature written by the interviewer; not the interviewee. Although interviews are considered by some people to be sort-of-self-published-types, the publisher is an independent party who thought it important enough to interview the subject and then get it published. So isn't that good enough that some paras are written only about his work? Authoring only magazine articles may be wouldn't have been all that notable. But the combo pack here seems like one. (Don't know why many editors have given their disclaimers in the previous AfD. I will also follow them and note it that i have no idea who the subject actually is. Coming to know about him being associated with India Chapter of Wikimedia only through this AfD.)§§ Dharmadhyaksha §§ {T/C} 04:19, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that you are incorrect. The Hindu article is written in the first person, and no additional author is credited. WP:GNG specifically excludes this sort of piece from consideration by requiring sources independent from the topic. Even if it had been written by a member of the newspaper's staff, a single piece is not sufficient to pass the requirement of multiple sources set by WP:BASIC. —  Scott  •  talk  16:02, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Tending to delete Keep Hmmm, it's very borderline. This person clearly does not meet WP:NACADEMICS. And, in my opinion, he just fails WP:GNG.--Dwaipayan (talk) 19:57, 5 February 2014 (UTC) Several sources were presented in this AfD discussion (detailed below by other editors). I think these sources prove that this person meets notability criteria.--Dwaipayan (talk) 21:36, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete as failing WP:GNG. Of all the places to keep borderline articles, BLPs associated with WM is not the best place to start. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:20, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I imagine the "Find sources: "Achal Prabhala" – books · scholar · JSTOR · free images" is meant to actually encourage people to search, to check people notability and to improve the article. I tried it and worked a bit on the article (i didn't check everything online because i got bored, and please consider to give my native Italian English some further edit). Achal Prabhala is a major expert in copyright in Africa, open educational resources and access to medicine in South Africa and India. He is unique in his cross-continental African Asian expertise and he is a well-know writer for cultural journals with quite touching reviews both on his writing (the best one I found is from the New York Times) and on his research. I agree that being in the Wikimedia Foundation advisory board doesn't make a person notable, but it makes sense to presume that a person is selected for an advisory board if he/she is notable (and it is quite impressive to observe the difference of quality in the articles based on the member's country of origin, if they do have an article). I don't particularly like Prabhala, but he is defiantly notable and it is pretty impressive to browse his work and to find it praised in an unusual big number of reviews for such niche topics. --Iopensa (talk) 00:02, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * While I appreciate your good intentions, that article now reads like a curriculum vitae. None of what you refer to causes him to pass WP:NACADEMICS or WP:GNG. Sorry. —  Scott  •  talk  01:52, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The closing admin might want to consider by Iopensa on Dream Focus's talk page: I obviously think the articles is a "keep" but I am not sure I should state it on the AFD; I have no COI but I know this person. —  Scott  •  talk  22:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Internal controversies. Yes. As you see I didn't add my opinion in this delation process, I never hided that I know Achal Prabhala (I met him at Wikimania) and as I wrote above "I don't particularly like" him. I think "knowing him" and "not liking him" is a topic in this discussion and the closing admin might want to consider also this. But Wikipedia articles are not about liking or not liking. A "controversy" session in the article could acknowledge the fact that this person and his work have generated debate in the Wikimedia community; I think this is a relevant information (which needs of course sources). But from several comments it seems that "knowing him" and "not liking him" are influencing this discussion; they should not. --Iopensa (talk) 12:43, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep Passes WP:GNG and WP:AUTHOR #3 multiple book reviews. -- Green  C  16:55, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Withdrawn for personal reasons. I know it will close Delete anyway. This is due to an editor whose involvement here I won't work with and for my own peace of mind. -- Green  C  08:54, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The article has many poor sources that should be removed (first 20 or so). However there are also many solid sources that establish Achal Prabhala as a notable author per WP:AUTHOR. An author is notable based on reviews and/or articles written about the authors works, per clause #3:
 * The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, that has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews.
 * I highlighted "co-creating" because he is one of three editors in most of the books under review or mention. The reviews and/or commentaries of Achal Prabhala's works are as follows:
 * Mail & Guardian (Lagos), July 2006
 * New York Times, February 2008
 * The New Age, March 2011
 * New York Times, August 2011
 * Sunday Guardian, August 2011
 * Sunday Guardian, November 2011
 * Sakal Times, November 2011
 * The Hindu, December 2011
 * Bidoun, 2012
 * The Hindu, 2012
 * Free Press Journal, 2012
 * Afternoon DC, February 2012
 * Live Mint (Wall Street Journal), March 2012
 * New Indian Express, March 2012
 * The Hindu, March 2012
 * The Sunday Guardian, April 2012
 * DNA India, April 2012
 * Mid Day, May 2012
 * The Hindu, July 2012
 * Live Mint (Wall Street Journal), December 2012
 * The Book Review (India), January 2013
 * IP Watch, October 2013
 * This is 22 sources though there are some more. I don't believe adding more will help since we usually are OK with 4 or 5 sources - either the sources count or not. If they are ignored than a rules-based reason would need to be given for discarding AUTHOR clause #3 and/or these sources. -- Green  C  05:56, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * That's a very nice selective reading of WP:AUTHOR, but you skipped over the key phrase a significant or well-known work. This anthology he co-edited may well have received several reviews, but it is neither significant nor well-known, as a brief visit to Google will demonstrate. —  Scott  •  talk  10:34, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually this is how the rule is always applied in AfD, it's not "selective" it's standard. The "significant and well-known" is of course evidenced by the existence of the reviews, how else could it be, we determine notability by the existence of the sources, of which this has many. The alternative is we give our personal opinion, and of course that will get nowhere since it's completely nonobjective and biased by the desired outcome of the AfD. You can't just ignore all these reliable secondary sources that have paid attention to this author's works. --  Green  C  17:18, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * That is absolutely not what "significant and well-known" means. "How else could it be"? How about - frequently referenced in other volumes? The subject of literary replies or analyses? Stated as inspiration for subsequent works by different authors? Frequent occurrence as a topic of discussion by non-specialist readers? You've got none of that. Just a few book reviews scattered over the period of less than a year. "Significant and well-known" is Principia Mathematica, The Lord of the Rings, Das Kapital, The Blind Watchmaker, In Search of Lost Time, On the Origin of Species. —  Scott  •  talk  17:47, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Scott, your argument supports the point: a book is notable when its been the subject of attention by multiple reliable sources, and that's exactly what these sources are. You seem to be cherry picking and setting a high bar saying it must this or that type of source, meanwhile choosing to ignore the sources that exist. It amounts to an WP:IDONTLIKEIT for book reviews, these are reliable sources and that is what counts. --  Green  C  19:22, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * No. It's not an "I don't like it" argument. You're still ignoring "a significant and well-known work". Having a dozen book reviews does not convey notability; there is a mandatory requirement, given by the very guideline that you quote, for demonstrable significance of the work in question for which the reviews exist. That is something you can't provide, because this book is neither significant nor well-known. —  Scott  •  talk  19:46, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * They are "well known" as evidenced by "a dozen" TWENTY-TWO sources that discuss them, which BTW is far beyond what most books get. You seem to be ignoring those 22 sources and twisting the rules around in such a way that you personally get to decide what is notable or not based on your personal literary tastes. You set an arbitrary barrier so high that only the likes of JRR Tolkien and Karl Marx are notable - a classic straw man argument and logical fallacy that would exclude 99% of what already exists on Wikipedia. -- Green  C  01:48, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * That's still not what "well-known" means. Since you seem to have taken exception to my random selection of titles, perhaps you would prefer some examples of well-known books in the English language by Indian authors: The Guide, Rich Like Us, Such a Long Journey, A Suitable Boy, The God of Small Things. That's just fiction; no doubt people familiar with academic literature would be able to provide examples of genuinely well-known non-fiction. Out of your list of sources, I count 11 as reviews of one book (the Quest anthology). 11 reviews does not make a work "well-known". When you put the title of a well-known book into Google, search results for it do not start puttering out on the second page. By the way, the 2008 piece in the NYT is a blog post that says "Prabhala, (whom I’ve known for years)..." - immediately disqualifying it as an independent source. —  Scott  •  talk  10:37, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Apparently "well known" is whatever you have decided it to mean. And since you want this article deleted, you have set the bar high enough to keep the article out. Rather we use the existence of multiple reliable sources to determine notability, it's the only fair and objective way to do it. --  Green  C  16:55, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Well-known is a common English phrase that bears no relation whatsoever to the weak statement that you're attempting to distort it into. If having a dozen reviews made a book well-known, we would have thousands more article about books and their authors than we do today. —  Scott  •  talk  17:36, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Having 22 sources is extremely unusual in literary AfD cases, that is why I vote strong Keep, most authors don't have this kind of coverage. You've set an arbitrary bar for inclusion so high that Wikipedia would struggle to have even a few thousand author articles. Notability is determined by objective information: the sources. That is not "weak", it is only weak if we turn away from objective sources of information. If there were no sources than the next best option is informed opinion, like you are making, but in this case we do have sources, and they should not be ignored. -- Green  C  21:38, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Again, you're misrepresenting the guideline. Quote, again: a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, that has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews. See there? A work. The criterion is having produced at least one work that is significant or well-known, which has been multiply reviewed. The work that has the most sources from your list is "The Best of Quest". Those sources - I numbered your list - are 5-11, 13-15, 18, & 20. Not 22 sources: 12. Some of them are multiple sources from the same publisher. When you count those together, the grand total of distinct origin sources for that book is: 8. It's not even double figures. Claiming that the book is "significant or well-known" is absurdly far from the truth. —  Scott  •  talk  23:18, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

(I have removed the BLP-violating post of this editor who, for the record, voted delete. Fram (talk) 13:26, 26 February 2014 (UTC))
 * — Indileaks (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that have little to do with our notability guidelines WP:GNG and WP:AUTHOR #3 multiple book reviews. Apparently this person has enemies. -- Green  C  03:38, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ‑Scottywong | squeal _ 04:46, 19 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete He is a Wikipedia foundation consultant. Having an article on him just makes Wikipedia more self-referential. I also have to say that he and people who make arguments like him do not understand the idea behind "no original research". There are lots of ways people can publish information, but Wikipedia should not be the forum where it is first made public.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:42, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * A biased argument. If you disagree with his views it should not be part of an AfD rationale. See WP:IDONTLIKEIT. -- Green  C  21:38, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * But I didn't say we should delete because his views are wrong. I said we should delete because he is not notable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:39, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * See WP:AUTHOR #3 and the 22 sources listed above. -- Green  C  03:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete. Scarcity of significant independent coverage of the person to demonstrate his notability Staszek Lem (talk) 18:24, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * See WP:AUTHOR #3 and the 22 sources listed above. -- Green  C  21:38, 20 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete. Although a prolific writer, the subject does not seem to have yet made much impact on others. Too early. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC).
 * See WP:AUTHOR #3 and the 22 sources listed above. -- Green  C  03:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete Just writing stuff (even a lot, depending on how you count things) does not confer notability. There is no real substance here unless we stretch NAUTHOR, RS etc well beyond the usual bounds. - Sitush (talk) 02:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * See WP:AUTHOR #3 and the 22 sources listed above. -- Green  C  03:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I've already seen it, thanks, but Scott is correct. - Sitush (talk) 08:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep Based on large number of reviews found of his work, proving without any possible doubt he is notable. Reliable sources giving coverage is how you judge notability, not how many Google hits something gets, or whether you personally heard of them or not.  Honestly now, how is this not clear?  WP:AUTHOR 3. The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, that has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews.   D r e a m Focus  20:20, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I guess you didn't actually read the preceding conversation that I had with your "Article Rescue Squadron" colleague, because you're doing exactly the same thing, ignoring the parts of WP:AUTHOR that don't suit you. —  Scott  •  talk  22:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * If their work is reviewed, then its "significant" or "well-known" enough to be reviewed. That's how these things are determined, not by how many Google hits they get.   D r e a m Focus  10:02, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * No, that's completely wrong. We do not have an article for every person that's ever written a book that's ever had a review, which is what would be the case according to your incorrect understanding of significant or well-known. —  Scott  •  talk  15:20, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I've been in a lot of AFDs over the years, and this is in fact what always happens. Every book that gets reviews in reliable sources does in fact qualify for a Wikipedia article, and if their work is notable enough to be reviewed, the writer is notable enough to meet Wikipedia standards for an article.  This is honestly the first time I've even found an AFD where people didn't understand this.  The person and their work have significant coverage in reliable sources to pass WP:GNG and WP:AUTHOR.    D r e a m Focus  17:04, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Such extraordinary claims need extraordinary sources. Let's see them. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:25, 22 February 2014 (UTC).

(I have removed the BLP-violating post of this editor who, for the record, voted delete. Fram (talk) 13:26, 26 February 2014 (UTC))
 * Keep Coverage in just two independent sources can be sufficient to establish notability. The 22 sources listed by Green Cardamom represent abundant coverage. Not seeing how even the most desperate interpretation of WP:GNG could allow deletion. I also find myself convinced by Dream's analyses of WP:AUTHOR.  FeydHuxtable (talk) 20:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep I looked at an article in The Hindu and one in the New York Times, and have confirmed that these are in depth and show that this topic has attracted attention from the world at large and over a period of time.  Therefore the topic meets WP:GNG.  There is plenty of reason for concern about this topic trying to undermine our core content policies, but Wikipedia is not censored.  Unscintillating (talk) 13:47, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * What you you mean, "trying to undermine our core content policies", and what has censorship got to do with anything? —  Scott  •  talk  14:11, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * — Whoo-this (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * I filed this AfD on the basis of our policy on notability. I totally reject this SPA's fantasy comment about me and disassociate myself from the entire post. —  Scott  •  talk  12:17, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * We now have two users that have a single edit each, here at this AFD,, both most likely the same person based on their writing style and content of their post.   D r e a m Focus  12:48, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Procedural comment: I have just removed and rev-deleted the posts of two single-purpose accounts for serious violations of our BLP policy. These users are User:Indileaks and User:Whoo-this. Due to the system of reversion-deletion, this means that a large number of unproblematic edits by other editors here also appears struck-out in the record. The result of their edits is still visible here, and at first glance there were no (or certainly not such blatant) BLP problems with their posts. My action here indicates no support or opposition to either side of the debate. Fram (talk) 13:33, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep, notable, and knowledgeable subject.  Occult Zone  ( Talk ) 07:01, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
 * WP:ITSNOTABLE. - The Bushranger One ping only 13:18, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 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.