Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dale Hample


 * 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 Spartaz Humbug! 17:20, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Dale Hample

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

delete-No notability, no evidence of it JJJ999 05:22, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, no sources to satisfy WP:V. meshach 06:01, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment What are you talking about? There might be a problem with notability, but noone's suggesting that the guy doesn't exist —  iride scent   (talk to me!)  15:57, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * He has to do more then exist. He has to have verifiable sources that demonstrate that he meets WP:N. meshach 16:40, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete: Per verifiability. Also, NN.  - Rjd0060 15:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, per nom. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:09, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions.   —Espresso Addict 21:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete There might be something there, but at this point there is no evidence at all. --Crusio 22:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep I'm surprised people say there isnt anything without even checking google scholar--there seem to be 3 or 4 books he has written plus about 30 peer reviewed journal article. I'll add it in more detail tomorrow. DGG (talk) 04:38, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I temporarily removed a laundry-list of publications from this article last week, as it was dominating the article to such an extent that it was becoming an indiscriminate collection of information; if anyone thinks it should be restored, by all means do so. I am deliberately not commenting on whether this should be kept or deleted as, while he certainly seems notable within his field, I'm not able to judge whether the field is so specialised that notability within it is not sufficient. Despite bordering on a breach of AGF, I think it's necessary to point out that the nominator has a lengthy history of apparent bad-faith AfD nominations of debating-related material, which has been raised at AN/I in the past - see, ,  ,  for example. —   iride  scent  17:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I have restored the books written & edited, and the peer-reviewed articles and omitted the conference proceedings & papers, which was originally put in =just as Iridescent says- as a thoughtless copy & paste. I have also added that he is editor, not merely on the editorial board, of a major journal--which normally counts a good deal for academic notability. Not all associate professors are notable--it depends on the publications and scholarly record. His seems very substantial. "Rhetoric" or "Communications" is a very broad field as I see it, and notability in this is certainly notable. DGG (talk) 18:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, John254 00:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I change my vote to Keep as per DGG. The article needs cleanup, though, the list of publications is not really necessary. --Crusio 20:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Reply- I have no such history, and half the stuff you've discussed is not even debating related (RD Reynolds? WTF?)  This is not a debating related article anyway, it is about some professor, who also apparently does rhetoric classes.  I have no idea who he is, or what influence he has on debating (if any), in point of fact I've never heard of him.  I nominated this because merely being an academic isn't sufficient.  Every academic has a few publications at least in some journal or another, almost all of them are on one board or another.  There is nothing really specific or sufficiently noteworthy for him to be added to Wikipedia.  I mean, if he was Editor of the NY times, he'd be a notable figure.  "Some journals"... come on.  the two main "Journals" he is editor for are not even on wikipedia, which is the first hint of notability right there.  the Journals are not notable, but he is?  Here is one of these "journals", it lacks even its own webpage as near as I can tell, http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/03637751.asp, rather it is hosted on some other site.  And on it we see it is published 4 times a year, and the group who publishes it has 7000 members... yeh, it's right up there with the Monash Debating Review... pfft.  And this is even funnier, they are actually calling for contributions from the public here: http://www.natcom.org/pubs/CM/policyCM.htm, only someone with no concept of journalism would consider this to be a professional publication.JJJ999 01:05, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, every academic has a few publications-- the average in most fields is about two articles, in some fields a book instead. Not many in the humanities have as high a number as this -- 42 peer reviewed articles and two books. Many academics are on an editorial board or two, and that is not by itself notable--but being editor of a journal is another matter & is a position of both prestige and power. Most academic journals in the humanities are published 4 or 6 times a year & 7000 members is pretty good in the specialized areas of the humanities. The T&F web site is the site for the publisher of the journal, which is where most journals have their web sites. Most of the notable journals are not in WP yet- like other areas in WP they are being done according to the number of interested editors, not the intrinsic importance. We don't have nearly enough editors for fields like this.  "some professor", "also does rhetoric classes", are terms of denigration, not argument. And, most tellingly I have no idea who he is DGG (talk) 02:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Annoyed Reply- those are not terms of denigration, merely facts. He is just "some professor", he does "some rhetoric classes" according to this article (almost no details given) and I definitely had "no idea who he is".  I now have some idea who he is, and that is some middle of the road academic.  My father is not an academic, and even he has 3 books, and credit or chapters in others, and plenty of papers.  Every serious academic has a book, every serious professor has dozens of peer reviewed articles.  Rick Kuhn is a good analogy for "bottom tier professor".  He is crazy marxist professor at the ANU of no notability, who has a self hosted page which discusses why Marx and Engels thought bird patterns were relevant to communism.  In other words, a nutter.  Yet he has more books than this guy, and probably as many papers.  The important question is the sorts of journals he is published in, and the number of copies these books sell.  In the absence of any evidence of notability for either, he fails.  You have to provide the evidence, not me, because you claim he's notable.  Nothing in a preliminary scan of his works indicates he is, and I await proof to the contrary.  7000 is a pitiful number for a supposed major journal, and that's 7000 members of the sub-org who runs it (no mention of what token fee they pay), lord knows what the circulation of this quarterly magazine which has to call to the general public for material is.  To give you an eg, here is an awful, totally unnotable academic, who would never qualify for a serious page here.  http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/rick/pub.htm  Anyone with knowledge of this guy will tell you he is totally crazy and unnotable, yet there is his CV.  All academics do is write articles, 40 is hardly an impressive #, you need to show they are notable articles or journals.JJJ999 03:07, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment JJJ999, I understand your surprise. People who are not in academia often under-/overestimate what scientists do and the importance of their stuff. 7000 subscribers for a scientific journal is huge. There are very few journals that have as many subscribers, most count them in the hundreds, not thousands. That doesn't mean only those hundreds read the journals: many of these subscribers are libraries and most academics have access to almost all important journals in their fields. As for the number of articles, 40 peer reviewed articles is actually quite a lot. DGG seems to be better acquinted with the humanities than I am (I'm a life scientist), but I can assure you that many scientists will be happy if they finish their careers having published that many papers. As for editorial board positions, I actually think they are more important than DGG asserts. Take my field, Neuroscience. The Web of Science lists 200 Neuroscience journals. Say all have about 30 board members, that gives about 6000 slots world wide. Many of the more prestigious scientists will be on more than 1 board, sometimes even dozens. So if I say that there are 4000 neuroscientists that are on at least one board, that's probably an overestimate. I don't know how many neuroscientists there are world wide. But you get an idea if you note that the (US) Society for Neuroscience annual meetings attract about 35,000 participants. There must be a couple of hundred thousands neuroscientists in the whole world, so only about 1% of all neuroscientists are on 1 or more boards. I bet the situation is similar in the humanities. So if this guy is on 10 boards, that's pretty notable.... --Crusio 07:09, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, I just don't agree I'm afraid. As for comparing this to neuroscience... you guys keep giving generalistic replies about "in other fields this would be alot" that just get away from the point, you need to show that the journals or articles he does are notable, not that they theoretically could be if he was a neurosurgeon... I await this proof, but it isn't coming.JJJ999 00:32, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Crusio's point here is that people in the medical sciences typically publish a greater number of papers than in other subjects. This many papers for someone in neuroscience (not neurosurgery, by the way--that's a different profession) might well be notable--but for the humanities, its rather sensational. DGG (talk) 06:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * a) At no stage have you shown there is a circulation of 7000, rather the (non-notable) body which hosts the website claims to have 7000 members (whether they pay or not is unclear).  There is no evidence the magazine even sells 7000 copies per year, nor if that is 7000 for all 4 issues, or 7000 per issue, there is no evidence you have provided.
 * b) Even if there were, 7000 per issue is a pitiful circulation, and would not be sufficient to attain wiki notability.  You need to establish who are on these boards, that they are notable, and/or that his books were notable enough.  You have not done that at any stage despite my requests, and despite clear evidence that he is less published than a crackpot from a mid-tier uni in Australia.  The arguments made by your friend are pure assertion, or utterly irrelevant.  Reason magazine provides all their content free on their website.  They are a niche magazine dealing with Libertarian ideals.  they have a circulation of 60,000- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason_magazine,  "Scientific American (informally abbreviated to "SciAm") had a monthly circulation of roughly 555,000 US and 90,000 international as of December 2005.[1]".  How bout the rest of the science market?  From wiki I notice the following science magazines (the ones I found which listed circulation, also dwarfed it.  "National Geographic magazine won the American Society of Magazine Editors' prestigious General Excellence Award in the over two million circulation", Popular Science gets 1.6 mill circ (http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=%22Popular+science%22+circulation&meta=), The Sketical Inquirer has between 50K and 120K apparently... "Seed" magazine, a new one, has 105,000 circulation. Where is the evidence this is notable?  You haven't provided anything, from a website, to circulation to evidence of even professionalism (one of them calls to the public for contributions... it reads like the local MacMuffin Rag. JJJ999 06:59, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment JJJ999, I think you fail to appreciate the difference between scholarly journals and periodicals aimed at a general public, such as Scientific American. Those journals have large numbers of subscribers. They are also affordable. Most scholarly journals cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year to subscribe to. Only some have reduced rates of anywhere between 50 and 200 bucks for personal subscriptions. They publish highly technical articles, in which only specialists in that field would be interested, not the general public. The WoK list consists of the most prestigious (and certainly notable) journals in the different scientific fields. They list over 6000 different scientific journals (and, yes, Scientific American is included, but ranks not very high). Knowing the scientific publishing world from closer up, I would be amazed if there were more than a handful of scientific journals with circulations above, say, 2000. Nature and Science, the two top journals in all fields, probably don't even come close to 100,000. In short, for a journal aimed at a general public a circulation of 7000 is indeed not verty notable, as you say. But for a scientific scholarly journal, that is enormous. (Some of the hottest journals in my field, neuroscience, count there subscriptions in the hundreds.... And they are definitely notable, with Nobel Prize winners on their boards and such). As for your comment hgher up about these jurnals "not even having their own websites", that is absolutely normal. Publishers have websites and list their journals on those sites. Taylor and Francis (and their imprint Routledge) are a very respectable publisher. The "call for papers" on the website of "Argumentation and Advocacy" is completely standard, too, for scholarly journals. It indicates which type of papers can be submitted. If you look at the editor's report, you can see that the rejection rate is almost 50% (20/45), which is rather high and indicates that this is a journal that gets enough submissions to afford them to be critical and only pick the best. As far as I am concerned, this discussion has gone on long enough. Let's close already and keep. --Crusio 10:50, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * and again- a) You haven't shown what the circulation or notability for any of his journals is, you just keep saying "if it is 7000, we might assume that is high", b)  Generalistic remarks like "7000 will often be high" tells us nothing about whether these specific journals are notable, the onus is on you to provide some sort of evidence for this, not more generalised replies from different fields, and c) The facts I present if anything indicate they are not serious at all, you cite 50% rejection as though it is a high number... anyone with the merest understanding of professional journalism can tell you it is not.JJJ999 11:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment JJJ999, I may not know much about "professional journalism", but I do know a lot about scientific publishing. Apparently, you do not. Cirtculation is absolutely NO indication at all about whether a scientific journal is notable, that is my whole point above. Scientists access journals through libraries, nowadays mostly through electronic web portals. So whereas I subscribe to only a few scientific journals myself, I follow a few dozen journals on a regular basis to keep up with developments in my field of study. 7000 Would be huge, but if it's just a couple of hundred, that would not mean that the journal is not notable. One journal that you heaped your scorn upon, Communication Monographs, is ranked 16/44 in the category "Communication", according to Thompson/ISI. That's very respectable and notable, the journal should have it's own page on Wikipedia if it doesn't have one yet. I am sorry, but your frequent references to "professional journalism" when talking about scholarly journals indicate that you are not familiar with scientific publishing. I gingerly suggest that you get familiar with the subject before commenting on it further. At this point I feel that this discussion is not very productive any more and this will be my last posting to this AfD. --Crusio 12:23, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep and cleanup. Notability looks ok, but only the important journal articles (if any) should be listed. -David Schaich Talk/Cont 01:31, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * In light of the above conversation, most of which occurred after I stated my opinion, I feel I should reaffirm my position, and also second Crusio's comments. Academic journals generally have a small number of (mainly institutional) subscribers.  Consider, for instance, this journal (which also does not have a Web site of its own), which charges over $6000 for yearly subscriptions.  Additionally, a publicly viewable "Call for Manuscripts" is not a solicitation of articles from the general public, as jjj999 has repeatedly claimed.  Consider, for instance, this Call for Manuscripts for a book series on computational science and engineering issued by SIAM.  I am also slightly concerned that the canvassing warning posted at the top of this page seems to have been added not because there was actually any canvassing, but as an attempt to discredit shorter comments.  This seems not to assume good faith.  Although Hample's field is not my own, a good case has been made for his notability.  -David Schaich Talk/Cont 17:03, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep; the article requires major cleanup, but should not be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Connor.carey (talk • contribs) 01:38, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. Not my area, but an Editor-in-chief of one journal who is on the ed board of ten more seems to meet WP:PROF criteria 1. Espresso Addict 21:31, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per DGG, it is my opinion that this person does meet WP:PROF guideline. Yamaguchi先生 02:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per all above. --S.dedalus 03:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * baffled comment- per all above? Per all above has not given any explanation of why this stuff is notable, and much doubt has been shown that it is.  This sort of one line vote is exactly why I place that notice, and I hope the Mod ignores it...JJJ999 03:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment "That notice" also asks people to "assume good faith". --Crusio 10:51, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, it's obvious, and unfortunate, which way this is going. Ugh.JJJ999 06:25, 21 October 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.