Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elizabeth Ewen


 * 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 ~ trialsanderrors 07:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Elizabeth Ewen


Stuart Ewen recently wrote articles for himself and his wife, Elizabeth Ewen. He looks to be maybe notable; she doesn't. Self-written (or, in this case, spouse-written) articles are a red flag, for starters. She doesn't seem to pass WP:PROF. Two of her four books are collaborations with her husband. The one book she wrote alone, "Life and Culture on the Lower East Side, l890-1930" looks like your typical academic tome. For an academic with a 30-year career her publishing record looks average at best. Ewens's claim to have "significantly defined the fields of American Studies" is unsourced and seems unlikely given her publication record. Herostratus 04:34, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep She has 4 books on Amazon over a 21-year span: However, the article is desperately in need of a rewrite. Orderinchaos78 04:48, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete - Fails WP:PROF, lacks any sources, and the language seems to aim pretty well towards the target of vanity, and seeming that it appears to be written by her husband 1.3 of WP:COI seems pretty applicable here. -- wtfunkymonkey 06:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete WP:COI as per nom.  SkierRMH, 07:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Conflict of interest, something User:Stuartewen has been warned about before he started writing the article. --Lijnema 10:39, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Memmke 10:46, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. Even an impartial, well-written article (which this isn't) would fail WP:PROFTEST. -- Fan-1967 13:22, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Her position of "Distinguished Teaching Professor" at a major university university establishes notability in the academic world. She has written numerous scholarly books which have received lengthy and favorable reviews in scholarly journals and the New York Times. She has also published numerous articles in scholarly journals. Edit boldly and do any needed rewrites. How on earth does the fact that she and her husband co-authored books make him notable but not her? The book with several reviews ( I only added a few of them to demonstrate notability) was not co-written with hubby. Edison 18:33, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I did edit the page a lot. I moved stuff around and made the Publications section. But all I could do was re-arrange; I can't pull notable achievements for her out of the air. I would dispute that we ought to have articles on Distinguished Teaching Professors as a default, and more than on every lawyer who made partner at a major law firm or whatever. And SUNY is large but it's not CalTech or Harvard either. Her husband is notable (maybe) because he has other accomplishments of his own, writing several books on his own including one that apparently made a little noise and doing a bunch of other stuff on his own, thus garnering a few interviews in third-party publications. As far as I can tell, she's written exactly one book on her own: Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars: Life and Culture on the Lower East Side 1890-1925, which is published by the New Feminist Library, and that sure sounds like the kind of dry academic research made into a book that all tenured professors are expected to write as a matter of course. Herostratus 21:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Valrith 22:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak keep if rewritten. Articles written with an apparent of conflict of interest should be slashed back to a stub in any case. However, I think there might be enough third-party sources to build a small article. I don't mind putting the article on the clock and revisiting an AfD in a few months if these references don't materialize and if the article is as poor as it currently is. Also, the innuendo that co-authoring a book with one's husband is essentially enjoying a free ride is shameful. Pascal.Tesson 05:03, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete, or merge into Stuart Ewen. They don't both need an article and he appears to be the only one of the two that meets notability (and that barely). Also conflict of interest problems-if they were that notable someone besides them would be writing that article. Seraphimblade 07:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. The proposed guideline at WP:PROF is too restrictive. JamesMLane t c 00:44, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Merge - WP:NOT but collectively they probably have enough 'notability' to count. Pete Fenelon 00:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong delete for both of them fails WP:COI. Self-authored bios are repugnant to the purposes of Wikipedia. Surely if they were notable some brown-nosing graduate student would have written an article about his or her favorite professor. -THB 20:19, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. The book reviews establish notability. --TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 11:38, 26 November 2006 (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.