Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Catalin Barboianu


 * 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   delete. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 16:21, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Catalin Barboianu

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Prod declined by creator of article. A quick search didn't find anything to suggest a pass of WP:PROF (h-index of 3 or so), nor of WP:AUTHOR (holdings of his books in Worldcat are not significant). Ray Talk 13:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  Ray  Talk 13:06, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Comment: Since the category changed from Mathematicians to Technical writers, you should move this discussion in section WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Authors Cedib (talk) 12:23, 7 February 2013 (UTC) Keep: C.B. might not be an academic notability in terms of Wikipedia, but he surely is a notable author on gambling mathematics. Worldcat returns 10 of his titles in public libraries, many of them university libraries (among them, The Institute for the Study of Gambling, Nevada). I think the article should remain either in category Technical writers or Mathematicians. As counterexamples, see Mathew Hilger and King Yao, who have biographic pages and less exposure and credentials than CB.Cedib (talk) 16:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC) — Cedib (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions.  Ray  Talk 12:37, 7 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete for lack of convincing indicators of notability. I don't see Bărboianu meeting any specific WP:PROF criterion or a specific WP:AUTHOR one, regardless of a few books of his being in libraries.
 * About Matthew Hilger and King Yao, see WP:WAX. I agree, though, that both should be considered for deletion.
 * Also, is single-purpose account Cedib a slightly disguised variant of Cătălin Bărboianu? If so, he should inform us, per WP:COI. - Biruitorul Talk 18:58, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
 * reply Should I reply now by playing with the first and last letter of your username? I am sure we can find funny words. If this is your argument for deletion (because the other are not argued at all), Wikipedia should be proud of you.Cedib (talk) 12:25, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Right, except I have 100,000 edits across almost 7 years and many thousands of articles. You, on the other hand, have under two dozen edits in under two weeks, all of them, for some odd reason, related to Cătălin Bărboianu. It's not a shame to have a conflict of interest, but it should be declared if there is one. And no, my argument is that neither Bărboianu himself nor his works have garnered anywhere near the coverage in reliable sources needed to demonstrate notability under WP:PROF or WP:AUTHOR. - Biruitorul Talk 14:44, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete. I was unable to find any reliably published third-party reviews of his books that would let him pass WP:AUTHOR. The citation record in Google scholar is far too small for WP:PROF. And what else is there? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:19, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
 * PS See Articles for deletion/Probability-based strategy for a previous deletion discussion on the same subject that ended in a delete decision. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:10, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment: As his writings are technical/scientifical, what special reviews could you expect to find? In Authors Weekly or something? His books are on applied mathematics, not novels, the content is applied, not reviewed in top magazines. We talk here about a technical writer and not a novelist. Deleting the article with 27,000 Google returns and 7 university libraries with his books is insane. Cedib (talk) 07:13, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * For reference, 7 is a very low number for library holdings. Agricola44 (talk) 18:41, 12 February 2013 (UTC).


 * Delete - As others have noted, Barboinanu could qualify for inclusion using criteria for academics or authors, but the criteria for neither of these guidelines are met. With repsect to his writings being technical and exempt from reviews, I would still expect to see some coverage about the utility of these books in coverage about poker. -- Whpq (talk) 17:48, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment: We are not debating here about the content of his books. Criticizing content leads me to the idea that you have an interest in deleting the article rather than improving Wikipedia. Besides, looking over the biographic articles Whpq created, there are many of them eligible for deletion in terms of notability - see for example Meredith_Anne_Gardner       Cedib (talk) 06:45, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Reply - I fail to see where the contents of his book are being debated. You asked the question "what special reviews could you expect to find?" and I answered.  As for my motives, I request that you review WP:AGF and retract the accusation that I "have an interest in deleting the article rather than improving Wikipedia". -- Whpq (talk) 12:47, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Reply - Inquiring about the utility of his books in poker (?!) is at least strange, since the fields of his books are far wider, passing through all casino games and pure math. I said "leads me to the idea...", so it is a supposition, not an accusation, therefore there is nothing to retract.Cedib (talk) 18:50, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Reply Supposition versus accusation is semantic hair-splitting. As for the books, no sources have been offered, no reviews have been offered.  So regardless of content, or scope of the works, they don't provide any sort of indication or support for the inclusion of Barboianu in Wikipedia. -- Whpq (talk) 20:09, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Reply There are reviews in Casino City Times (By Howard Schwartz, well know gambling book reviewer), but I did not find relevant to put them in the article, the article is about CB and not the content of his books.Cedib (talk) 07:59, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete. Lots of red flags, such as the misleading claim that the subject worked out the probabilities involved in the major games of chance – which should replace "worked out" with "re-derived", as these results have been long and well-established. Subject has no published papers in WoS, which would be extremely unusual for a notable mathematician. Subject has written lots of mass-market books, but institutional holdings barely register: Texas Hold-em book 4, the roullette book 3, draw-poker book 5, gambling probability 20, odds book 5, and Texas hold-em odds 6. I think these observations are rather conclusive. Agricola44 (talk) 14:50, 11 February 2013 (UTC).
 * Comment If you were familiar with the field of gambling probabilities, as you implicitly pretend, since you make such review on the literature of this specialty, you should know that probabilities cannot be "re-derived" (it is a senseless term in this context), but just computed in specific probability fields. You should also know that the first book on Hold'em probabiliities was Mike Petriv's "Hold'em Odds Book" in 1997, which presented probabilities of this game from player's point of view (for events related to player's own hand) in strategic context. Barboianu's book "Texas Hold'em Odds" from 2004 was the first book presenting also probabilities for opponents' hands, extending the range of the gaming events to measure to the full coverage (it was a full collection of odds), and his last book on Hold'em (2011) also presented the mathematical model of the strength of a poker hand in strategic context, being unique in this respect. Barboianu is the only mathematician who worked out the probability formulas for Draw Poker, and the results were presented in his book "Draw Poker Odds" from 2006. Can you point to other resource for these results with full coverage for this game (draw poker), since you pretend that "these results have been long and well-established"? If you cannot, then your argument is not only wrong, but intentionally misleading. The author published collections of probabilities with full coverage for the games in study. Even if such results were "well-established" (but they were not; the range of the gaming events attached to a game is huge, from thousands to tens of thousands), CB would still have the merit of putting them together in the books he wrote. I remind you that his books were merely written as guides for the players, and not for other mathematicians or academic audience, so there is no reason to see them published in academic environment. You still contest his notability as mathematician, while nobody sustained it, not even me. The CB article is in the category Gambling writers, so all your "arguments" fail. If you were to leave you comment simply as d-e-l-e-t-e, with no other "argumentation", that would have been more fair. Cedib (talk) 16:14, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment. The "gaming literature" is enormous and well-established and important works by many notable authors, e.g. Epstein or Thorp, are widely held by institutions, e.g. WorldCat shows Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic with ~1400 holdings. You make enormous claims, yet the standard resources that are typically used for assessment (WorldCat for books, WoS or GS for papers) very clearly do not bear these out. Indeed, there aren't even any sources in the article that even establish whether these claims are true! For example, if these claims were true, one would expect that these accomplishments would have been "noted", especially because this is a topic of enormous interest outside of academic mathematics. Again, such is evidently not the case. Continuing along this line places the burden of proof on you, not on others to disprove your claims. Agricola44 (talk) 18:00, 12 February 2013 (UTC).
 * Reply. Indeed, Epstein and Thorpe are the classics and their works were published in the 70's, respectively 80'. In the last decade, gambling mathematics developed and gained a large audience in the gambling communities, and CB is one (if not the most) notable contributor and author in this field. Per your argument, we should not list any other person in a category except the classics. If so, Wikipedia must state clear quantitative criteria to be met for inclusion, regarding the number of library holdings and the like.Cedib (talk) 08:11, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry my friend, you still haven't got it. WP aims to have work on all notable topics (operative word being "notable"), not just the classics. There are no precisely quantified laws, only guidelines that are backed by fairly well-established conventions. It seems we are all in fair agreement in identifying CB's body of work. The problem is that this work has not been sufficiently "noted", e.g. by being widely held, being widely cited, or being widely reviewed or acknowledged as being important in some sense – and this is especially so, given the fairly impressive claims that are being made by you (the primary author of this article). What makes the situation even more tenuous is that the article has lots of unsourced information with no supporting WP:RS – this is a major no-no for BLPs. My advice to you would be to stop debating the panel here and instead find and add documentation to support the claims in the article. Otherwise, it will likely be deleted. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 13:59, 13 February 2013 (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.