Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aubrey Burl


 * 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The result was withdrawn. Non-Admin Closure. --SkyWalker (talk) 05:29, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Aubrey Burl

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

no notability shown. no coverage in independent sources needed to satisfy wp:bio Oo7565 (talk) 19:51, 24 November 2009 (UTC)


 * i withdrew this Afd sorryOo7565 (talk) 02:16, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Speedy keep A very famous person in the field,with multiple well-known books, All that is needed is some refs to the multiple articles about him and his work in the GNews search listed conveniently above. I started with one. 87 more to go. Then there's GScholar etc.    DGG ( talk ) 20:18, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 20:47, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. DGG said it, the subject easily passes both WP:BIO and WP:PROF with explicitly stated claims to notability mentioned in the article and supplied with references. Extensive newscoverage of his work in conventional newsmedia, as googlenews search shows, as well as a book honoring his work (item 2 in the references section). Nsk92 (talk) 22:30, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep: Per DGG. Joe Chill (talk) 00:27, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete: insufficient third party coverage to establish notability. If he has "multiple well-known books" then the article should be sourcable to WP:SECONDARY reviews of these books rather than the WP:PRIMARY works themselves. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 02:43, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * there are a few dozen such reviews in the GNews results, including the one I added.   DGG ( talk ) 03:49, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It is odd then that the article continues to contain no information about the reception of Burl's work, only a short and florid NYT compliment about Burl himself.
 * I just added a dozen reviews in academic journals (three of them Nature) of half a dozen of his books. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:02, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Citing refs to reviews for the bare existence of books in the bibliography does little to improve the article. Do none of these reviews actually say something useful? HrafnTalkStalk(P) 04:06, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. They go on for between a paragraph and two pages about the books. Here for instance are some selected quotes from Ritchie's Nature review of From Carnac to Callanish, which fills a whole page: "Burl's The Stone Circles of the British Isles has rightly become a classic of archaeological presentation, outlining different types of monuments and making an assessment of their dating evidence and social context. In the intervening years he has continued the study and has not avoided the discussion of such controversial issues as complex geometric shapes and the potential significance of astronomical alignments in the positioning of sites within their landscape. The present volume takes a more disparate group of monuments, linear settings of upright stones, stones in rows and avenues, and creates order where none had existed before." That's only a little over 10% of the review, but I can't copy and paste from it and it's tedious to retype so you'll have to follow the link to read more. And in any case, it is a gross abuse of AfD process to use it to push obviously-notable but stubby articles to be improved. On top of which, by first requesting reviews and then rejecting them as not good enough because their contents are not detailed within the article, you appear to be moving the goalposts. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:44, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Commenting on the use you made of the reviews that you yourself made an issue of is hardly "moving the goalposts". And an expectation that sources be added to 'improve' the article, rather than as refspam for already verifiable points is hardly unreasonable. My 'Delete' opinion was made before the bulk of these reviews were added. I will probably be changing this opinion based upon new information -- but how quickly, how grudgingly, and whether to 'keep' or 'weak keep' will depend on whether the new sources are reflected in the article. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 05:10, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * While we're pointing to vaguely related guidelines, let's try WP:AGF. I didn't add those references to the article to verify that the books exist — the ISBNs already given should be plenty to that — but to provide pointers for readers and future editors to read more about the books than we do or should write within the article. As for your refspam tag, I find it inappropriate and badly written: spam should only be used to refer to promotion of material that is not sufficiently relevant to include in an article for non-promotional reasons, and that's not the case with these reviews, which are all signed, published in reliable sources, and nontrivial. As for whether the footnotes go to a section entitled "References" or something else, I care little, but I've renamed it to be "Notes" to reflect the fact that as you say some of the things in it are not actually references for the content of the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:26, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. Per NsK.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:07, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per DGG and NsK Martin 4 5 1  (talk) 03:12, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  -- Martin 4 5 1  (talk) 03:15, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per all of the above. As well as passing WP:PROF I think he passes WP:AUTH with his many books, several of which have multiple published reviews that are now linked from our article. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:02, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Seems like there's plenty of material to work with. Zagalejo^^^ 05:25, 25 November 2009 (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.


 * Keep. Does appear to be notable on above information. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC).