Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carmen Robertson


 * 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. The general pattern is very similar to Articles for deletion/Barbara Meneley, although here we have a marginally better discussion and a headcount that leans more clearly towards keep. Nonetheless, the editors who offer useful opinions (i.e., something more than "keep per User:Foo" or "delete per WP:Something") disagree in seemingly good faith about whether our notability criteria are met, and that's not something I can resolve by fiat.  Sandstein  19:42, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Carmen Robertson

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Notability not established by text or sources, which are mostly not independent. — swpb T 20:52, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:52, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Visual arts-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:52, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:52, 10 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete as WP:Too Soon. One book with 34 cites only on GS. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:48, 10 March 2016 (UTC).
 * Delete. The potential exists for notability per WP:ACADEMIC, and/or as a writer of non-fiction books, but the sourcing here is entirely of the primary variety and thus isn't adequate to demonstrate that. No prejudice against recreation in the future if she can be referenced better than this. Bearcat (talk) 21:53, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. Seems to have been a recent mass-creation of similar articles on artists from the same institution/area by several different SPA accounts all on March 8, 2016: see also Barbara Meneley, Amber Dalton, Leesa Streifler, Iris Hauser, Marsha Kennedy, Jo-Ann Episkenew, Marilyn Levine. There may be others. Agricola44 (talk) 17:08, 11 March 2016 (UTC).
 * Comment. This article, along with many others on seemingly non-notable individuals (several listed above), seems to trace back to Regina Art & Feminism Meet-up. All articles listed there should probably be examined. Agricola44 (talk) 17:15, 11 March 2016 (UTC).
 * Comment these are most likely first-time editors at that event: Art+Feminism sponsored events all over the world, . They shouldn't be pigeonholed as "SPA" for that reason. People come to these events, sign up and are tasked to write either about women artists or feminists. Unfortunately many newbies don't understand how to reference at first or how to establish notability. I'm not saying don't take a look at the work, but try to understand where they are coming from is all. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:03, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment. Please consider what you just said: "People...are tasked to write either about women artists or feminists". That is the (single) purpose. These editathons, in the end, will have been detrimental to WP because, rather than having a mission of building an encyclopedia (meaning an organized set of articles on encyclopedic toipics), their purpose is essentially political. That is to say the goal is to create articles on people that some group feels is under-represented, rather than letting the organic process of article creation happen naturally. The result, in many cases, is a raft of new bios on increasingly obscure individuals. This phenomenon and others like it (e.g. paid editing) are gradually reducing WP to an online directory. Agricola44 (talk) 15:45, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment what you consider "political,", I see as addressing a systematic problem with Wikipedia: the gender gap. And really, finding an area that's lacking in content is hardly political: it's good practice for an encyclopedia to notice what is missing! If the topics were about anything other than women, most people wouldn't bat an eye. There is a huge gender gap on Wiki. I write article about women and women's issues every week and I'm constantly gobsmacked by how many notable women have fallen through the cracks. Whether or not some newbies have written on topics that fail notability in some editathons does not take away from the fact that Art+Feminism has helped increased the body of knowledge about notable women for Wikipedia. If you doubt that, check out the results for just 2016 here. This convo is off-topic somewhat for the AfD, but your comment shows that you really miss the point of editathons completely. They do not decrease the value of Wikipedia in any way at all, but rather add useful content in areas that have been neglected. Missing content about women's issues/bios is a serious problem: we make up half of all humans living on this planet and should be better represented. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:39, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment I couldn't agree more with we make up half of all humans living on this planet and should be better represented. But how about concentrating your valuable efforts on notable women – maybe start poring over lists like requested prof bios that have plenty of ipso facto notable women lacking WP bios. Focusing on obscure people (women or otherwise), which seems to be par for these editathons, only moves WP closer to a directory. That is a plain fact, whether you acknowledge it or not. Agricola44 (talk) 16:56, 14 March 2016 (UTC).
 * Comment You hit the nail on the head, ! That's why projects like WikiProject Women in Red encourage editors to use curated lists. WiR tries to ensure individuals added to these lists are notable. I'm not sure what happened in Regina to create the problem we're seeing, but most editathons I've been a part of use curated lists, especially ones curated by museums and such. So I don't agree that editathons are moving us closer to being a "directory" at all: I think they are providing needed content including notable individuals. Hopefully Regina will learn from this issue and curate some curated lists for next year. Anyway, I think we're getting off topic, but it's a good discussion to have, maybe in another venue. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:09, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment. What happened in Regina is what seems to be happening more in general at these events. New editors, not familiar with our standards, are encouraged to write a bunch of articles on topics (usually bios) that they're interested in (usually because of boosterism, or an agenda, if you like) but which aren't actually notable according to our well-established standards and wind up having to be deleted. I think it is the responsibility of those folks running these events to do the filtering up-front, so that overworked contributing editors don't have to do the clean-up. Curated lists are great, if the curators know our standards. I'm not sure I see that that's been the case. Agricola44 (talk) 08:30, 21 March 2016 (UTC).


 * Comment It is to be noted that a "CarmenRobertson" was an attendee at the Regina Art & Feminism Meet-up. Is there a WP:COI here? Are there others? Xxanthippe (talk) 02:07, 12 March 2016 (UTC).
 * Very weak delete - the article was apparently incorrect. Robertson is an Associate Professor not a full professor, making her claim to notability much weaker. I'm agnostic on this though as she does seem to be somewhat notable. Being a published author from a university press, while not automatic proof of notability, does at least suggest that they think you're worth commissioning a book from - but she only co-wrote that book and is not the lead author on the cover. I feel sorry about doing this to a new author, but I think this underlines the importance of considering what articles to create for these meetups. Blythwood (talk) 06:31, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete - Being an Associate Professor who writes two books and some articles isn't an autopass under WP:ACADEMIC. Fails GNG. Big trout for the failure to winnow the list of Regina Art+Feminism editathon proposed bios, the organizers of that event blundered mightily. Carrite (talk) 15:21, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. Author of a widely-reviewed book from an established academic press.  Gamaliel  ( talk ) 15:22, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Virtually all academic press titles are "widely reviewed" in academic journals and may be themselves notable. Very few of them are impactful in a way that lends notability to their authors. Still, I've got an open mind, a few of the many links would be helpful to review. Got 'em? Carrite (talk) 15:26, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry, did a database search. They're all paywalled.  There are some quotes from a number of these reviews on the publisher's website.  Gamaliel  ( talk ) 20:51, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Even if they are "all paywalled," there are still URLs. What are they??? Carrite (talk) 18:07, 13 March 2016 (UTC)


 * keep WP:NAUTHOR: "such work must have been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews.". Duckduckstop (talk) 17:38, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Your reasons? Xxanthippe (talk) 22:02, 12 March 2016 (UTC).


 * keep' As per immediately above Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 20:08, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Your reasons? Xxanthippe (talk) 22:02, 12 March 2016 (UTC).
 * see Worldcat "18 works in 32 publications in 2 languages and 1,313 library holdings" Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 21:18, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your helpful response. She has published stuff, but it has not been cited much. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:30, 18 March 2016 (UTC).
 * You have to manually count book holdings because WorldCat often includes other stuff. If you scroll down further on the link you provided, it shows 2 books with average holdings: the "Seeing Red" book with ~230 and "Clearing a Path" with ~100. Others further down are double and (mostly) single digits. The total is way below the number you quoted. Again, these are very average holdings. Agricola44 (talk) 14:12, 22 March 2016 (UTC).


 * Keep As per, and also she is in the news a lot. I don't think there is a COI just because she was at the same editathon, either. That's a stretch. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 21:56, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * If she is in the news a lot, produce the sources. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:59, 12 March 2016 (UTC).


 * Keep. Her book Seeing Red is in over 800 libraries, according to WorldCat, and has also been the subject of multiple independent periodical reviews, in venues like the American Historical Review, the Canadian Journal of Communication, and Studies in American Indian Literature].  I believe that alone would be enough to deem her notable under Wikipedia author criteria, but I've also added note of her past presidency of the Native Heritage Foundation of Canada, her work on the editorial board of the Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, and her forthcoming solo-authored book from Michigan State Press.  I've also refocused the lead paragraph of this article, so it now better states what she's known for. JohnMarkOckerbloom (talk) 02:14, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The book may well be notable. The author pretty clearly does not meet GNG. Carrite (talk) 18:04, 13 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep --ChristopheT (talk) 04:05, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep Good citations. I see no need to delete. --Chittah (talk) 04:14, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
 * that you participate in this discussion tells a lot about the mentality. as organizer of the event, as one who did not warn about the consequences :( --ThurnerRupert (talk) 16:34, 13 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete, created at an editathon at the unversity of regina, where carmen robertson herself was there. a new book coming out soon which needs promotion. this stinks. she should be wikipedian, not get an article. WP:Too Soon --ThurnerRupert (talk) 09:32, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Wiki indicates she attended, and added 954 characters to Ruth Cuthand. She was being a Wikipedian. Being at an event where someone else writes about you is not a COI. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 15:04, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
 * if this is legally a COI or not is not important. it is unnecessary shading too much bad taste on the whole story. it damages other similar style events. honestly, i consider such behaviour as bad character. from the organizers, from persons there, and carmen robertson who seems to approve this as she was on the list and there. at the end of the day it damages the reputation of carmen robertson. which i find not fair because she might be one of the nicest and competent persons on this planet. this is not worth it. if she has a spine and her edit was not just a one day joke, she could come here and say "just delete it." --ThurnerRupert (talk) 16:09, 13 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep, per Duckduckstop and JohnMarkOckerbloom. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 09:55, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep, per JohnMarkOckerbloom. Arthistorian1977 (talk) 10:26, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment - "Keep, per vacuous ILIKEIT comment above" does not carry much weight at AfD. We have yet to see the (canvassed) generic "Keep Per Above" voters provide a single substantial published source of presumed reliability dealing with the subject of this piece. What we can agree upon is that the subject has written two books and that the publisher has released blurbs for them. We are still sitting at the zero mark for sources counting towards GNG. So, let's see some URLs or at least admission that this is an organized ILIKEIT campaign for a piece started by the Regina Art+Feminism editathon due to the ineptitude of organizers who failed to check the notability of proposed subjects or to instruct participants about WP's notability rules. This is a clear and obvious Delete unless multiple published sources can be mustered. Carrite (talk) 18:03, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete There lacks coverage about *her* specifically in multiple reliable secondary sources - however, I do think that the book that her and her colleague wrote does deserve an article about itself due to the amount of reviews (Seeing Red: A History of Natives in Canadian Newspapers). But, does the coverage of the book mean she does pass notability guidelines? IMHO, writing abook doesn't make you automatically get a Wikipedia article. For the record, I could care less if she was at the edit-a-thon. Missvain (talk) 18:31, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete, I do not see that this meets WP:GNG or WP:ACADEMIC. Many of the sources included as of now are self-authored, or fail WP:RS for other reasons. I'd like to say, however, that accusations other "delete"-voters have made ( and ) are counterproductive. Nearly everything we do in the Wikipedia world is experimental to some degree. Perhaps it is true that the organizers of this particular edit-a-thon could have done some things differently; but if so, that is not a reason to vilify them. Making an effort to bring new contributors to Wikipedia is commendable. If there are problems, the best courses of action are to correct them and to try to avoid them in future events. Pointing fingers and questioning motives accomplishes nothing worthwhile. -Pete (talk) 20:18, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep Her book Seeing Red has had plenty of coverage. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 01:06, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:PROF on her book Seeing Red -- we've had a number of discussions about the library holding levels for an academic book to count for WP:PROF#C1 in the humanities -- is it 100? 300? 500? People have set different levels. But I've never seen anyone argue that 800 isn't sufficient.  Remember that subject notability guidelines such as WP:PROF are explicitly alternatives to GNG; GNG does not need to be fulfilled if WP:PROF is fulfilled.  -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 01:15, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. Does not meet WP:AUTHOR. One notable book does not make a notable author. Two or more usually does. For WP:PROF, being an authority in one's field requires a sustained body of work, and this is not present. (That's why most associate professors do not meet the standard.) For GNG, the sources are not sufficiently discriminating.  I recall a very early educational assignment at a US university, where the class was asked to create articles on the professor's colleagues in his own department. Some of them were -- correctly-- judged non-notable, and I gather the outcome was not happy.  DGG ( talk ) 06:50, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep, per WP:PROF "1. The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources", based on representation of her work in Google Scholar, the number of scholarly citations for Seeing Red, and the fact that she is prominent enough in her field to serve on the editorial board of the Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, published by Cambridge University Press. In combination, to my mind these points demonstrate significant and international (she is Canadian) impact in her academic discipline. --Andreas JN 466 13:45, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you should recheck these statistics. GS indicates the entire body of her work has a grand total of 15 citations. Sorry, but editorial board is also not sufficient – this is still very much the fodder of the "average professor". Agricola44 (talk) 15:50, 14 March 2016 (UTC).
 * Citation counts are not accurate or important in the humanities -- I know that you're aware of WP:PROF Agricola so won't point you there, but this specific point is mentioned there. Library holdings are much more important. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 17:48, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Of course, but I didn't raise the argument. I only responded to it ;-) I would guess these citations are indeed accurate. They're just not that important here. I agree that the most salient driver is her book, but the gigantic case law precedent on PROF is clearly ≥ 2 such books, as DGG reminds us above. Keeping bios like this is a clear trend towards eroding notability standards so that WP eventually becomes just a big directory. Maybe that's what we collectively want though. Agricola44 (talk) 19:09, 14 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep - per Michael Scott Cuthbert,  Andreas. Additionally the essay (WP:Too Soon) being cited early in this conversation is not a Wikipedia policy. It should not be treated as such in discerning what is a viable article to include or not. Ckoerner (talk) 15:08, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep per Andreas. --Rosiestep (talk) 03:48, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. I am not seeing any evidence of notability under WP:GNG.  I was claimed that the book "Seeing red" makes for an automatic pass under WP:CREATIVE because of how impactful it was in the field.  However, that book only gets 35 GS citations, which makes claims of its significance rather unlikely.   S ławomir  Biały  10:33, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. Meets WP:NACADEMICS #1. While Seeing Red won three Saskatchewan Book Awards, it was not her only book. She also wrote Mythologizing Norval Morrisseau (2016) and has edited/contributed to Clearing a Path: New Ways of Seeing Traditional Indigenous Art (2009) and The Routledge International Handbook of Intercultural Arts Research. The sourcing for this article has been improved dramatically since its nomination and I invite the closer to reject !votes based on the circumstances of its creation. gobonobo  + c 13:54, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * With an h-index of 3, she really doesn't even come close to meeting WP:PROF.  S ławomir  Biały  14:34, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's fair to expect an academic in a relatively small and specialised academic field (indigenous people) to achieve the same sort of h-index a physicist, say, might achieve, where the pool of journals and papers covering the topic area is several orders of magnitude bigger. All WP:PROF asks us to look at is whether the academic has made a significant impact in their discipline. To my mind it is quite clear that she has. Andreas JN 466 12:46, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I do not think this comment accurately gauges the difference in citations between the social and natural sciences. Of the papers that I have written, for example, the only one in the social sciences, which was probably the least important, has garnered the most citations.  I have published in mathematics and physics.  So that interpretation of social sciences as a more rarefied discipline, than (say), the mathematics of stochastic processes in Hilbert spaces, does not seem to reflect reality.  A google scholar search for "sociology of indigenous peoples" gives a quarter million hits, many of these have thousands of citations, and even more have hundreds.  The top cited papers are comparable in citation numbers to a comparable google search for "stochastic processes in Hilbert spaces".  So, I find it very difficult to accept at face-value the argument that sociology gets a pass on WP:PROF because it is a low-citation field.   S ławomir  Biały  14:05, 16 March 2016 (UTC)


 * it seems most are ok with keeping the book, so i moved the article to Seeing_Red:_A_History_of_Natives_in_Canadian_Newspapers - but did not edit yet as i am not sure if you'd agree with this. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 14:40, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment This has been deployed as a Redirect. This good faith pre-emption, looking for possible common ground, doesn't yet answer the fundamental questions here because it is not clear where the implied edits are taking this. The underlying idea of non-notability is sometimes stated as "preventing degeneracy toward a mere directory". Looking at what may logically remain after possible upcoming "de-larding" edits, do we not paradoxically end up with a shelled-out decontextualized directory-type stub? Or are we keeping the same general contextual content and just running the train on a renamed track with the same passengers aboard? Can you please explain what you have in mind in broad terms, so that we can consider this proposal? FeatherPluma (talk) 20:06, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The book has only 35 cites on GS. This is totally inadequate for an article. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:19, 21 March 2016 (UTC).
 * Although I do not fully relate to the reliance on a particular GS cite count, I suspect the central thrust of what you say is right, Xxanthippe. But I think you should also take into account how this idea was given birth energy by previous commentary on this page. I would like to provide ThurnerRupert adequate time and space to explain or to reconsider (maybe reverse the redirect/rename?) the proposal. FeatherPluma (talk) 02:42, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I've moved it back. While redirection is a viable outcome, that decision should be made by the closing administrator based on the consensus here.  We are, of course, free to create an article on the book separate from this discussion.  The Interior  (Talk) 18:18, 21 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep It's a borderline keep, but a keep nonetheless. My go to source for CanLit is Canadian Literature (journal) - generally, if they cover something, it's of significance to Canadian writing (review here).  We've got a selection of independent sources - no "slam dunk" coverage - but cumulative coverage.  I disagree with the assertion that GNG must be met with coverage outside reviews of her work.  Many notable authors are covered primarily in the context of recently published work.  The Interior  (Talk) 18:23, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete - Not enough in-depth coverage to meet WP:GNG, and as been pointed out above, doesn't appear to meet any of the niche notability criteria either (e.g. PROF).  Onel 5969  TT me 12:30, 22 March 2016 (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.