Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dan Goldstick


 * 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. No arguments for deletion besides the nominator (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:25, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Dan Goldstick

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)


 * Delete I don't feel that Mr. Goldstick measures up to the criteria for notability. The article formerly consisted primarily of what bordered on an advertisement for an as-yet unwritten book; as of now, however, the article consists almost entirely of a list of papers he's apparently written (all of which are 17 years old or older) and includes no citations whatsoever (Is the page original research, I must ask, seeing as nothing is cited).  Mr. Goldstick's sole claim to notability seems to be occasional runs for the Canadian Parliament; however, I do question whether repeatedly running for office and never gaining more than 200 votes in the process is worthy of a page.  It -might- be worthy of a redirect of some kind (perhaps to his party's page, since he apparently either is or was on the committee there), but he doesn't seem to merit a page of his own. Tyrenon (talk) 01:28, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 *  Delete  per nom. This person fails WP:BIO, WP:PROF, and WP:POLITICIAN. The lack of reliable sources in this Google News Archive search means that his candidacy for the Parliament was not notable. Cunard (talk) 04:38, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Changed to keep. Per David Eppstein's comment below, since Goldstick is covered in several pargraphs of two books, he passes WP:BIO. Cunard (talk) 07:23, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  —David Eppstein (talk) 05:17, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. He clearly fails WP:POLITICIAN but I have found some sourcing for his academic biography which I have added to the article. I'm not yet convinced he passes WP:PROF but I'm not convinced he fails it, either, and there are several paragraphs of material about him in two books which may be enough for WP:BIO more generally. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:55, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment While those are interesting references, three things do concern me: First, they're 'in-house' references (that is, both books are published by the University of Toronto's publishing arm; this isn't a disqualifying point, but it's worth noting); second, not being able to access the books from here, from what I can tell the books have at best limited circulation (the $70 sticker price I got for one of them suggests that it is a book used by at most a small number of classes at a college or two); and third, one of the books (Minerva's Aviary) appears to amount to the University of Toronto letting a professor publish an in-depth study of the school's philosophy department. Neither source strikes me as non-credible; the fact that they were published by a university's publishing arm takes care of that.  However, it does beg the issue of notability still, though I'll say that the article is -much- improved from where it was earlier.Tyrenon (talk) 07:21, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with all your points. There's a reason I only left mine as "comment" rather than an explicit "keep" !vote. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:23, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Would this be a reliable, third-party source about Goldstick and his research? Cunard (talk) 07:33, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, I think that's workable. I'll take that as a good third-party source (which is what I was shooting for; see my comment below for an explanation).Tyrenon (talk) 20:25, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * keepthis is a tough notability claim to verify, his books might not be the best case, nor is his direct citation count, what i found interesting was in which major debates he was cited and i think that gives his case legs in wp:prof because a few fairly major professor address his positions directly in a few major philosophy debates, such as the problems of inference, etc. I think this indicates though that people in the know, know that he is notable enough and has made contributions that have changed the debates and thus the field. --Buridan (talk) 11:46, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. He's known somewhat in Philosophy in Canada; the Communist Party stuff is really only notable inside Toronto. Hairhorn (talk) 11:57, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - I do find find at least one evidence. --Status quo not acceptable (talk) 15:31, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions.  -- kelapstick (talk) 20:16, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 00:00, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:PROF. Publication of that many papers in high level philosophy journals is academic notability. Unfortunately the available citation databases, including Google Scholar, do not cover philosophy adequately, especially for the period concerned. .  As for the book, U. Toronto is a high level academic publisher, and does not primarily publish work from its own university.  I am not sure whether or not he is notable as a political figure, but that's not necessary. DGG (talk) 01:39, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment My concern was more that the particular books were published -by- the university covering topics related -to- the university, which feels a bit dodgier than if it were either an outside source covering him, or a UofT source covering someone somewhere else. In short, I'm not knocking the UofT publishing house, just worried that if almost everything is internal then someone less notable might get preference because a professor who's a friend wrote the book or somesuch (particularly a relatively low-circulation book; a university publishing a book on the history of their own philosophy department just naturally begs a little bit of scrutiny just as a self-entry here, even by a genuinely notable person, would require a little more scrutiny than normal).Tyrenon (talk) 20:25, 23 May 2009 (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.