Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brigham D. Madsen


 * 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. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 00:11, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Brigham D. Madsen

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Subject fails WP:GNG and WP:PROF. I asked the author of this article about it and they think it passes both. The subject was not in a named chair, has not received notable awards, is not the subject of multiple, independent, reliable sources. Most of the Google hits that come up are his own works plus some brief mentions. Chris Troutman ( talk ) 21:26, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 21:26, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Utah-related deletion discussions.  Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 21:26, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Does the nominator have a reliable source for awards from the Utah State Historical Society, from Westerners International, and from John Whitmer Historical Association not passing muster per wp:AUTHOR? A cursory glance at Google Scholar shows just one of his books, on the northern Shoshoni, is cited in 46 papers.--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 22:07, 28 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep - Nomination is embarrassing as evidence of a perhaps blatant ghettoization of Native American studies and religion studies on WP. (Indeed, there seems to be a systemic pattern of AfD closings' closings' failure to discount mere reflex !voting not founded per things outlined e.g. at WP:GOODARG [Eg "Adolf Hitler wasn't successful in his field of art. Not a notable person.]", with often the closer's coup de gras being even to bypass the basic premise of closings that lack of consensus within an AfD's argumentation defaults to keep.) But I'll not sidetrack myself here, either. Sorry. Note that wp:PROF itself says when a prospective subject is an academic writer whose works have been the subject of multiple reviews, the person is considered notable (this is not even concerning whether these books have received notable awards...speaking of sidetracking). Wp:PROF itself also says it does not supersede wp:GNG, which in turn says that a prospective subject need pass the hurdle of its having received non-trivial coverage in reliable sources.--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 21:50, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * PROF does not, so far as I can see, say the things you are falsely claiming. Please double-check. In fact, almost word-for-word. That's sloppy. If you're going to make some nonsense claim you could do better than just copy it out of some boilerplate word document. Also, thanks for calling me a bigot. I wrote the article about Sylvia M. Broadbent who studied three native languages in southern California as well as the Muisca people in Colombia, but you keep beating that drum that I'm persecuting academics that study Native Americans/ Amerindian peoples. When this AfD is over I'll consider taking the matter to ANI so you can start treating other editors fairly.  Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 22:15, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * wp:PROF: #1. "The person's research has had a significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources."
 * wp:PROF: #9. "9. The person is in a field of literature (e.g., writer or poet) or the fine arts (e.g., musician, composer, artist), and meets the standards for notability in that art, such as WP:CREATIVE or WP:MUSIC."
 * wp:PROF: "This guideline is independent from the other subject-specific notability guidelines, such as WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC, WP:AUTH etc. and is explicitly listed as an alternative to the General Notability Guideline."--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 22:22, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Despite the spirit of our times being Realpolitik and personalities, I prefer substance. Thanks. Please avoid these poor arguments: Arguments to avoid in deletion reviews. E.g.: Whether an award is an award: On point. Whether wp:PROF says what wp:PROF says: Ditto. That I copy'n'past myself: WTF!--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 22:27, 28 April 2018 (UTC)


 * keep. Reasonable notability is claimed here. Secret garden instead of laboriously typing angry rants could have improved the article in half that time. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:29, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep Madsen was a notable author of widely cited and often reviewed history books. One reliable source wrote "Idaho-raised historians Leonard Arrington and Brigham Madsen made major contributions to the intellectual and cultural life of Utah and the Rocky Mountain West as well as to their home state." Cullen328  Let's discuss it  23:39, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete Clearly does not pass GNG. The source that Staszek Lem cites is a paid-for, family created obituary in the Deseret News, it was not created by the news staff. His work overall just does not rise to the level of passing academic notability guideline one, so there is no sign of notability.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:53, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * This is a lengthy, staff-written obituary in the Salt Lake Tribune. Cullen328   Let's discuss it  00:14, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * cmt - In addition to the just-cited profile by Peggy Fletcher Stack of the S.L. Tribune after his death, Nancy J. Taniguchi published "In Memoriam: Brigham Dwaine Madsen" in the Utah Historical Quarterly, among other such tributes to this 20th-century scholar of various Western U.S. historical subfields.--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 00:25, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

keep Boompoint22 (talk) 06:31, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep influential and oft cited professor and author. FloridaArmy (talk) 00:03, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep influential author.  No purpose served in deleting the bio of someone who published 11 books, some of which went through quite a few editions. There are several quality obits available as noted. Legacypac (talk) 00:56, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep. Meets WP:GNG, therefore WP:PROF is irrelevant. In addition to the previously mentioned obituaries in the Salt Lake Tribune, Idaho State Journal, and Utah Historical Quarterly, his obit in Continuum, The Magazine of the University of Utah, while not entirely independent of the subject, credibly documents his academic and administrative work at the University, and states two of his books received best nonfiction book of the year award by Westerners International (admittedly not the most notable organization itself, but helps establish the niche prominence). Madsen's books have also received numerous reviews in scholarly journals (a JSTOR search yields over 200 hits in total), and not simple cursory, anodyne reviews: one reviewer writing in The Journal of American History notes: "Madsen has a tendency to repeat himself, and topics seem indiscriminately scattered throughout". With multiple secondary reviews of his works, credible testament to his role as educator and scholar, and over 7,000 library holdings on WorldCat there is adequate available material to satisfy WP:GNG and create a neutral, reliably-sourced article without any original research. We need not base this deletion decision solely on WP:PROF. --Animalparty! (talk) 04:33, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep. The books are sufficient to meet WP:AUTHOR. As for WP:PROF, For an historian, notability  is proven by the publication of academic books from major publishers. The problem here isthat many of the publications listed, though published by a  university press, are not necessarily academic books. Most university presses, especially state university presses in the US normally publish not only academic books, but books about the local area that may be indistinguishable from those of general publishers, often as  coffee-table books. (The university library I know best, Princeton, which collects exhaustively all academic books of potential interest, for this reason does not automatically buy everything from all university presses).  I have not examined this list in enough detail, but some seem to be of this nature; if all are, they would not meet WP:PROF.  DGG ( talk ) 20:42, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep. Prolific author and historian, a widely cited authority in his field of research and publication. Softlavender (talk) 04:11, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep: meets WP:NAUTHOR as a publishing academic. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:44, 2 May 2018 (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.