Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bob Howard (academic)


 * 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 no consensus defaulting to keep. Mixed on whether subject meets ACADEMIC. ansh 666 01:09, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Bob Howard (academic)


Non-notable academic. No achievements disclosed unless being the brother of a prime minister and voting for the opposite political party makes him notable. Part of a series of spam articles by whose primary work is to flood WP with articles on people from Newington College such as generic artists such as Ian Porter (commercial artist), members of social clubs such as Deuchar Gordon, and generic public servants such as Warwick Cathro, and local council members such as Aubrey Murphy (mayor). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adsfvdf54gbb (talk • contribs)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. —Syrenka V (talk) 23:27, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions. Longhair\talk 02:30, 1 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete - fails WP:GNG and WP:ACADEMIC. Not notable. -- Longhair\talk 06:08, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Really? Does criterion 8: "The person is or has been the head or chief editor of a major, well-established academic journal in their subject area." no longer apply? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:59, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete - I cannot see anything that makes this subject notable. Aoziwe (talk) 12:56, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 21:52, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete does not meet our notability guidelines for academics.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:19, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. Clearly notable as a former editor of the Current Affairs Bulletin, as a current member of the executive council of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, Australia’s oldest think tank, and as a Fellow of Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS) at the University of Wollongong. His brother and voting passions are irrelevant even though the press report on them and the same would be true if his notable brother Stan had a bio on Wikipedia. In bringing this AfD and supporting its call for deletion all involved should read closely Guide_to_deletion and Deletion policy. Castlemate (talk) 00:13, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Academics are judged on their research notability eg research papers, new theories, awards etc. Simply being on a state-level committee (of a dozen ppl, which is around 100 committee members across Australia doesn't mean anything). Adsfvdf54gbb (talk) 03:57, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete I fail to see required claims and sources to establish that this person is notable. 104.163.154.101 (talk) 00:21, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Suspicious activity. This last 'vote' has been cast by an editor who joined Wikipedia a few days ago to support the activities of the nominator Adsfvdf54gbb (talk). In a sock puppet investigation the nominator admitted that they were a past editor but refused to say when, where or how. The last time this sort of attack occurred against the creator of this bio was 2007 and the person responsible was who has long been blocked. Castlemate (talk) 19:31, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep: editorship of Current Affairs Bulletin (a journal published by the University of Sydney, so of good repute) satisfies WP:ACADEMIC. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:52, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
 * The fact that a journal is published by a university does not mean that the editor(s) is/are automatically notable. Many journals are edited by undergraduates. Secondly, I checked the online archives and most of the articles are 3-4 pages and don't even say which uni the author is from, hardly typical of a serious journal article. Adsfvdf54gbb (talk) 12:24, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   06:57, 8 December 2017 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete- Not notable as per nomination.--Rusf10 (talk) 15:53, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
 * please can you explain why point 8 of WP:ACADEMIC, discussed above, does not apply? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:57, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I assume you are referring to him being "a former editor the current affairs bulletin." The source does not say he is the head or chief editor, just an editor (there are probably more).--Rusf10 (talk) 15:04, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Every source that lists him as editor lists him, and only him, as the editor at the time. Or do you have evidence for your supposition?  Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:14, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment - I could find no academic works published by Howard, nor any citations from the Bulletin since 1998. It ceased publication June 1998. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rhadow (talk • contribs) 20:16, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. ceased publication is irrelevant. we do need to clarify the position, but that's no reason to delete the article.  DGG ( talk ) 20:59, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment Contrary to what was claimed above, the editorialship that this individual held is not the type that leads to notability for an academic.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:22, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. Can't see much for WP:GNG. As for WP:NACADEMIC, the guideline specifies a "major, well-established academic journal". The Current Affairs Bulletin appears to be, from what I can tell, a fairly minor publication (it seems unlikely to be notable itself, in fact). Frickeg (talk) 10:15, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   14:48, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep He objectively meets Criteria #8 and arguably meets # 3 of WP:Academic. I don't understand the assertions to the contrary and, therefore, I see nothing that meets the criteria for deletion. LargelyRecyclable (talk) 03:49, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. Clearly notable as a former editor of the Current Affairs Bulletin, as a current member of the executive council of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, Australia’s oldest think tank, and as a Fellow of Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security. WP:Not paper.  The history of the original editor of this article is an Ad hominem fallacious argument. 7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 13:09, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I was all ready to close this as a keep, following DGG's comment and taking into account that the "delete"s aren't too specific, but looking over the article and the sources again I am just not convinced. #8 of NACADEMIC is met only if the journal is indeed notable, and that is not yet proven; neither is it proven that ANCORS is "a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association". So, sorry, but I'm going with delete. Drmies (talk) 21:51, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
 * User:7&amp;6=thirteen, are you serious? Of course that's fluff--"he's a noted researcher": what does "noted" even mean? Who noted him? How could such a vague statement stand, and where are the secondary sources that confirm this? The "reference" was his faculty page! We should not just jot down people's interests based on their own say-so; rather, it takes secondary sources to verify those statements. So yes, fluff. Drmies (talk) 00:52, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: There is almost more information in the wiki article on the subject's family than on the subject himself, which would offhand seem to be a sign of either poor wiki-article writing, or lack of notability. On the other hand the very common name makes for great difficulty in researching him, and, in addition, the article creator has previously proved to be not very good at article creation or researching. Rather than dismiss this article out of hand, I would recommend allowing WikiProject Australia to improve it, and see if they can come up with more targeted sourcing (given the common name) and notability. SunChaser (talk) 05:54, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. The term "major, well-established academic journal" in clause 8 of WP:ACADEMIC does not equate with, nor logically imply, notability in Wikipedia's technical sense (WP:N). A journal's status as "major" can be established by reference to citations, impact, and editorial policy, even if we can't find sources specifically about the journal, such as we would need to write a Wikipedia article about it. We can't confirm the impact of Current Affairs Bulletin quantitatively through, e.g., SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), as we could for a contemporary journal; but we can observe that in Google Scholar, it's easy to find scholarly citations to Current Affairs Bulletin, although it's not easy to find accessible full text for this journal that ceased publication in 1998.
 * As to very short articles, lack of indication of affiliation, etc.: Current Affairs Bulletin underwent a change over its history, from its origin in 1942 as an educational publication for the lay public or to educate soldiers, to its later role as a journal. Compare early issues from 1949 or 1951 with articles from 1995 or 1998.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 13:27, 20 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete -- I don't see this meeting WP:ACADEMIC. Current Affairs Bulletin is not a significant publication; I don't think editorship here would confer notability under PROF, and there's nothing better. Accomplishments are not significant; does not meet WP:ANYBIO. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:32, 21 December 2017 (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.