Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Baruch Halpern


 * 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 Keep Fram 10:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Baruch Halpern

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Doesn't assert notability. I tagged it for notability on August 4th, and it hasn't helped. I'm guessing putting it up for AfD will have one of two outcomes: Either someone notices it and can establish its notability, or we gather consensus that the subject does not, infact, meet WP:BIO User: (talk • contribs • count) - Review me! 07:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * DELETE Doesn't meet WP:PROF.  All academics publish-- there's nothing remarkable about that.  In fact no notability is even asserted, so it even qualifies for SPEEDY under CSD A7. OfficeGirl 07:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Fails WP:PROF. The subject in question has not published any significant and well-known academic work. -- S iva1979 Talk to me 07:47, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Retain Notability is judged by citations, and Halpern is cited frequently enough. Cited, that is, in articles in scholarly journals, not on the internet. It's really frustrating trying to write about an esoteric academic subject like OT criticism while using a populist medium like the internet as your basic notability platform - a scholar has to be dead to be famous, or so close to death as to ready for the embalmers, before anyone's heard his name. So you'll find William Albright on the internet, (he's dead and famous, and, unfortunately for him, badly outdated), but hardly a word about contemporary living scholars in the prime of their career, like Halpern, Athas, and Rofe. Yet it's Halppern, Athas, Rofe, and others of that generation who are doing work and publishing books these days - Albright, as I said, is dead. Even Van Seters is treated in Wiki as if he's new and contemporary and a bit suss, when in fact he's been around for close on half a century. Anyway, please hold off on poor Mr Halpern till I have time to fill him out a bit. PiCo 08:21, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Am I allowed to vote twice, on opposite sides? Anyway, I've changed my mind. Not because I think he's not important, but because I have higher priorities than updating his entry. I'm trying to write profiles of major contemporary OT scholars, and there are people more important than Halpern to spend time on - I want to do the major minimalists first, and Halpern is an anti-mimialist, so I'm afraid I don't want him, although his "David's Secret Demons" is indeed an important book, both about the biblical David and as a shot in the minimalist-maximalist war. PiCo 08:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment You can "vote" twice, since this isn't a referendum per se, meaning that the opinion getting the majority of "votes" doesn't necessarily match the outcome.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lilac Soul (talk • contribs) 10:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * If you change your mind in the middle of an AfD discussion, it's best to strike out the part of your earlier recommendation you no longer espouse. Use the ... strikethru function to do this. For example, Comment displays as Comment . --Metropolitan90 03:03, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete. Non-notable bio. Keb25 09:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions.   —David Eppstein 16:55, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete as per Keb25. --Crusio 19:21, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom.--Yeshivish 16:50, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep One does not get to the position of chair of a major department (or major program,) at an important research university like Penn State, without having done notable work. The article needs merely to be expanded to show it more clearly. I note a totally inadmissible reason for deletion given above: " I want to do the major minimalists first, and Halpern is an anti-mimialist, so I'm afraid I don't want him,"  this is a frank admission of POV prejudice. DGG (talk) 02:19, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per DGG - chairs of major departments are almost always notable - and per the excellent arguments made by PiCo. The arguments PiCo subsequently made for deletion are very poor - if you don't want to expand it yet, it can be left as a stub for now -no need to delete it. Iain99 09:28, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom.--Miamite 08:33, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete WP:VERIFY, WP:PROF--AmerHisBuff 09:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per nominator--Truest blue 17:50, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, the article is a stub that needs more work, however the subject definitely meets WP:ACADEMIC which is easily demonstrable by looking up the publications listed on his  web page and seeing the ample book reviews just on the latest book from The Jerusalem Post, U.S. News & World Report, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Shofar, Theological Studies, etc. -- M P er el  21:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment There seem to be arguments on the basis of whether his viewpoint is correct or not--surely it should be clear that this is entirely irrelevant--the question is whether he is notable, right or wrong. WP is not the judge of academic disputes. If his books are widely reviewed, i think that shows him notable.DGG (talk) 04:05, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletions.   IZAK 04:54, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per User:MPerel and it's only a stub and should be given time. IZAK 04:54, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. Department chair at a major university with a significant publication record. Meets WP:PROF easily. I really don't see any problem here or reason for this AfD. --Shirahadasha 00:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Unlike the prior poster, the poor quality of the present article is enough reason for the nomination.  It is severely lacking in article text - but is marked as a stub.  I see in google searching more than enough evidence of notability.  For a quick snippy quote of significance, this will do: "Yet Halpern, a scholar well known for his often brilliant and radically innovative views, was surprisingly conservative in his own conclusions."  This quote is from page 131 of Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? by William G. Dever.  It demonstrates notability in his field as assessed by an independent and reliable source.  GRBerry 05:41, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The relevant deletion policy criterion asserted is that "subject fails to meet the relevant notability guideline", so incompleteness or poor quality of the present article is not a basis for deleting as long as the subject is notable. Poor quality articles can be improved. I'm not suggesting that the nom is bad-faith, merely that the subject is clearly notable per policy; a department chair of a major university is extremely likely to be regarded as a "significant expert" etc. per WP:PROF. Best, --Shirahadasha 13:35, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Here is a decent source for building the article, just not from the online version as the middle 40%-50% of the content isn't available online. Google books partial replicaton of What Are They Saying About The Formation of Israel by John J. McDermott has about two pages on Halpern's theories on pages 61-63.  There also are plenty of scholarly articles referencing his work, but I don't have free access to them myself.  This wouldn't be a source for this article, but does show that Halpern is considered an important part of the current academic debate (link is to a writing by a person near one extreme of the current debate).  This is a blog by a college professor showing one of Halpern's books was used as an academic textbook in his course at Xavier University of Louisiana.  By now I've established that the subject meets at least points #2 and #3 in WP:PROF.  But to ice, the cake, This shows that he has been one of the heads of the digs at Tel Megiddo (other sources show him still a leader of those digs through at least 2004), and work resulting from those digs will meet both criteria #3 and #4 in WP:PROF.  GRBerry 17:04, 12 September 2007 (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.