Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frances Fox Piven


 * 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. General consensus indicates that the subject meets the criteria at WP:ACADEMIC. Page is currently indef. semi-protected and PC-protected. In addition, the current revision differs largely from the tagged (for AfD) version; as a result, WP:HARM likely no longer applies. (non-admin closure) Guoguo12  --Talk--  02:38, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Frances Fox Piven

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Dr. Piven is an academic. She has also been the target of Glenn Beck, who really, really dislikes her academic work. This is making Dr. Piven's life rather unpleasant. There's a discussion at ANI about our article about her. A representative of Dr. Piven's has been trying, on her behalf, to blank the article down to a CV. Her discussion of her reasons is at User talk:Fannielou. She's currently blocked for making legal threats, so while she is sorting that out, I'm bringing this article to the community's attention. Does Dr. Piven's work as a scholar meet WP:ACADEMIC? Or, alternately, does the fact that Glenn Beck has targeted her make her someone who meets Wikipedia's notability criteria? Should the article be kept with details about the Beck controversy, stubbed as per her request, or deleted entirely? FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 23:47, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep just based on the Glenn Beck obsession. This makes her newsworthy in the sense that people who either listen to Beck, or read about Beck's attacks on her (and there is plenty of non-Beck mainstream coverage of the latter), will want to go to a neutral source like Wikipedia and read about her.  We have a lot of things that Wikipedia is not for, but this is something that Wikipedia *is* for.  NawlinWiki (talk) 23:53, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep – Looks like she passes for WP:ACADEMIC (not to mention her extensive bibliography and awards won) well before the very recent circus that has been going on. –MuZemike 23:57, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete based on BLP principle of "do no harm" (consider death threats being received by subject, etc), plus request by subject. No opinion about WP:ACADEMIC or GNG, which I don't see as particularly relevant to this situation.  It doesn't bother me if there are notable people in the world who aren't the subject of WP articles if there are other convincing reasons to not have the article.  If we really feel we have to document the obsessions of Glenn Beck, we can put the info about his Piven crusade into the article about Beck himself.  71.141.88.54 (talk) 00:08, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. First and foremost, do no harm. This poor woman is in an extremely unfortunate situation, and has requested her information be removed. Dayewalker (talk) 01:00, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sadly keep The Subject is some one I admire greatly, I think her flame war with GB should be kept to minimum and smacks of WP:RECENTISM and extremely WP:UNDUE for a career of her length. American Sociological Association Career Award for the Practice of Sociology is no small achievement and throws her way over the line of WP:ACADEMIC to simply delete. While do no harm is our principal the simplest thing is to abide by WP:RECENTISM and WP:UNDUE remove portions of the article that violate them. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 01:03, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Though I sympathize with anyone on the receiving end of Glenn Beck's obsessions, I am old enough to remember Frances Fox Piven's work going back at least 43 years. Simply stated, she is a notable figure in history.  This article should be kept not based just on her work as an academic, but primarily as a prominent social and political activist of what used to be called the "New Left".  A Google News search shows that she has received in-depth coverage in reliable sources consistently, year after year, decade after decade, since at least 1967.  Wikipedia is not censored, but at the same time, we have to comply with policy on biographies of living people.  The article should be kept but protected, and undue coverage of Beck's unhealthy fascination with her should be trimmed way back. Cullen328 (talk) 01:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep-although I feel for the subject, she definitely seem notable enough for inclusion here, but it definitely needs to have an eye kept on it where BLP violations are concerned and due weight given to her tiff with Beck..  He  iro  01:20, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Highly notable academic, Beck controversy received significant coverage in NYTimes within the last month. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 01:27, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Publisher's blurb states, "Frances Fox Piven is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at The Graduate Center, CUNY", so she meets guideline 5 of WP:ACADEMIC. Her work makes her WP:N. The positions she has taken make her a lightning rod, and, unfortunately, that lightning has struck in the form of Glenn Beck. Some of her positions have been taken out of context: her subtle description about nonviolent protestors using violence, for example. The death threats are troubling, but the tiff with Beck does not seem notable, WP is not a diary for talking heads, and the whole controversy surrounding Beck should be removed. I would keep the article, but delete other information that is not relevant such as her religion. Although she wants her marital status suppressed, a marriage to coauthor Cloward would be relevant. Glrx (talk) 01:57, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep: Clearly notable for both academic work and now (very regrettably) in the wider public sphere. I believe a properly-handled BLP serves a positive purpose rather than causing harm, providing a purely factual counter to the muck elsewhere on the web. Rostz (talk) 02:00, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Meets WP:ACADEMIC and probably meets WP:GNG for her activism alone, without considering her academic standing. The article definitely needs watching for BLP issues, but it shouldn't be deleted. — Gavia immer (talk) 02:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep / snow keep. Piven clearly merits an article; the issue here is essentially giving due weight to a recent campaign of harassment by a prominent shock jock; I'm thinking about one sentence, though if coverage of her work is much expanded (to at least 1 good-sized para per decade), two might be OK. Rd232 talk 02:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Unfortunately for the subject, she seems to meet WP:GNG. Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 02:56, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. She is notable in her own right as an academic and columnist, and secondarily so due to focus by Glenn Beck. I sympathize with her and her wish not to be here but this is an encyclopedia and I am sure we strike a balance between our need to inform and the BLP concerns. Jonathanwallace (talk) 03:17, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep seems renowned.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:07, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I cautiously weigh in as the person who represents Piven and her wishes that this entry be deleted. My more extended comments can be found somewhere in this confusing matrix of Wikipedialand.  There are factual errors even here in the discussion among you all that suggest your lack of knowledge about the subject will make it difficult for you to police the entry properly.  For example, the two best known works of Piven and Cloward were written before they were married in the early 1980s, so the argument that her marital status should remain is not persuasive - you obviously don't know when she married Cloward, so how does it bear on her authorship with him?  Respectfully - Piven was well into her thirties at the time of the rise of the New Left and scholars of the movement do not consider her a member of it.  In fact, while the New Left on college campuses turned from civil rights to opposition to the Vietnam War, Piven was on the faculty of the Columbia School of Social Work engaged with the welfare rights movement and issues of community organizing.  Another inaccuracy in this discussion - how do you know Beck dislikes her academic work, it's not clear he isn't just a performer in a role.  In fact, he has never demonstrated any familiarity at all with her considerable body of scholarly books and articles.  He has used her in the fairy tale he and his handlers have created to scare the crap out of people.  To my knowledge, and I follow this stuff closely, he has never once referred to any of her scholarly work - he has read parts of one or two articles she has written for The Nation, and that's it.  My point is, if you well-meaning and diligent people can't get the facts straight, how can you be trusted to ensure neutrality?  Allowing a grossly incomplete record to stand as something else destroys whatever neutrality you think you're policing.  These are frank and pointed statements on my part which some, I'm sure, will find offensive.  I hope that is not the case, but this is a troubling matter, and I stand by arguments I make elsewhere that your need to inform, whoever you all are, if that is your rationale, should never outweigh a living person's wishes to be excused from your community, especially when Wikipedia itself has served as a reaffirming source for some of the distortions about Piven.  Lori Minnite. Lorraine Minnite 06:12, 14 February 2011 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fannielou (talk • contribs)
 * Since you seem to know all of this stuff about her, would you know where the correct information you refer to would be contained in a reliable, citable source? Or even better more than one source. You can post links to this information on the talk page of the article for editors to peruse in researching the article. Instead of merely criticizing our competence so far, help us make the article better and more accurate.  He  iro  06:50, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I second that. Consider for a moment the potential for using a well-written, well-sourced and neutral Wikipedia entry as a tool against the ludicrously misguided Beck campaign. You don't need to write it (WP:COI issues would arise anyway), but by providing good sources on the article talk page, others might surprisingly quickly achieve this result. Rd232 talk 09:48, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - we have been unable to take care of the article and as per wp:do no harm and the subjects wishes imo we have lost any perceived right we might of thought we had to host an article about the person. The more we continue to allow the living subjects of our articles to be negatively portrayed through our articles the more WP:OPTOUT should be considered a right and not a request. Off2riorob (talk) 12:14, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:OPTOUT was a failed proposal, and would not be applicable in any case ("If the subject of a Wikipedia biography does not meet our 'Public Figure' criteria ..."). Rostz (talk) 13:05, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete As per User:Off2riorob, Unless this article is indefinitely protected it should just be deleted. The current practice of repeating every controversy about a person, that a 3rd party manages to get repeated in newspaper, on that persons article is outrageous. It simply give a manipulator of the media the ability to spread trash across wikipedia. John lilburne (talk) 15:03, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. Even if the policy seems to support keeping, this is one of those rare occasions when we should ignore all rules in favor of basic human decency. Piven has been the subject of a concentrated hate campaign that has resulted in death threats. If the AFD fails, and we absolutely must have an article on her, the Beck crap should be trimmed down to maybe three sentences (Beck repeatedly criticized her, she received death threats as a result, she responded in Guardian's Comment is Free). One good source to use might be Campaign and election reform: a reference handbook (2008) by Utter and Strickland; there's a good bio of Piven in this book starting on page 181. Unfortunately not all of this section is available on Google Books. *** Crotalus *** 16:41, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep the article and edit it within the constraints and expectations of our encyclopedia. We might as well shut this whole place down if we need to delete an article everytime someone outside wikipedia takes an interest.  My suggestion on the content is that the article be pared down to something resembling a CV and a small section on the recent issues with Glenn Beck's insane fixation be written.  Keep in mind that the presence of absence of a wikipedia article will not influence the threats Ms. Piven is getting from nut-jobs.  Where the article is wrong or overly focused on recent events, it should be fixed, but we can't win by giving up. Protonk (talk) 17:14, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep, the notion that an article on Professor Piven could be deleted is preposterous -- Protonk is right, it would be more plausible to shut the whole thing down. Since the delete voters are not even attempting to argue that she is not notable (and she quite obviously is, per several criteria of WP:ACADEMIC as well as other standards -- she was PRESIDENT OF ASA, ffs), I would say this one can be closed as snow keep.  I'm tempted to comment further on the delete votes but probably could not do so within the bounds of WP:CIVIL.  Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:19, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Refer the user to Contact us/Article problem/Factual error (from subject). The Wikimedia Foundation may wish to delete the article or place it under WP:OFFICE.  If they make no such determination, then Keep, but permanently s-protect or even fully protect it for a time to allow a neutral and well-sourced article to be created.  There is plenty of pre-Beck notability, though obviously Beck's attacks should not dominate the article (nor even be referenced beyond at most one neutrally-worded sentence). --B (talk) 19:52, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Switching to delete. I cannot reconcile the idea that we should do no wrong with a !vote to keep this article.  If Wikipedia is not capable of maintaining vandalism-free and bias-free articles concerning living persons, which we are not as evidenced by the failure to fully implement not just pending changes, but also other features of Flagged revisions to ensure that only peer reviewed BLPs are published, then we should not be publishing biographies where the subject requests removal.  Too many biographies are written under the theory that "if it's sourced, it's appropriate", which is utterly silly.  So unless this biography can be written under strict controls (which is not the Wikipedia way of doing things), it should be deleted.  I remind the closing admin that per WP:DPAFD, "Discussions concerning biographical articles of relatively unknown, non-public figures, where the subject has requested deletion and there is no rough consensus may be closed as delete." --B (talk) 04:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I am entirely supportive of the idea that BLPs should be maintained properly, and this one is now permanently on my watchlist. But DPAFD does not apply -- she is a very public figure, and it cannot be said with any plausibility that she shuns publicity.  Quite the contrary: for several decades now she has written for the wider public (not just for other academics).  Permanent semi-protection will help; if that is insufficient, then implement pending changes on this one per IAR.  Nomoskedasticity (talk) 09:05, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  —Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Subject preferences and the difficulty of maintaining a proper balance of topics in a BLP would be valid considerations in a borderline case, but this is not a borderline case. Giving Beck and his followers the power to shut subjects such as this one out of Wikipedia would itself be a violation of WP:NPOV. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:45, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. Per article subject's request. While she is fairly notable, I believe she is not so notable that it is unreasonable to delete the article, as she has apparently asked. While this would not be my decision otherwise, I think it's merited in this case. If it is kept, I recommend permanent semiprotection, or even full protection in the stubbed form advocated by the subject, in this case. I also ask that those voting "keep" watchlist the page, in order to continually revert the WP:SPAs parroting Glenn Beck on her biography. Sχeptomaniacχαιρετε 22:27, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. With a GS h index of around 30, a Distinguished Professorship, many honors and collections of her papers by a university she passes WP:Prof by many miles. Often, when such clear passes are brought to AfD, there is some grumbling about time being wasted, but there are extra issues involved here. The current version of the BLP seems NPOV, I suggest it be fully protected for a year to give the kooks time to move on to something else. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC).
 * Keep. Seems that the subject conspicuously passes about 3 criteria in WP:PROF. There are articles on far more controversial individuals that are maintained perfectly well – admin tools are in place to do so. Fannielou is arguing the article's content above, not the subject's notability. If this article is deleted, it will not be for notability reasons, but rather (as David Eppstein observed) for reasons related to POV. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 23:34, 14 February 2011 (UTC).
 * Keep The proper response to protect a clearly notable person who has been unfairly attacked by the media is to make sure the article is accurate, with proper emphasis on both the underlying notability  and the media controversy. She may be more well known to the general public because of the attacks on her, but in terms of overall importance, her academic work remains and should remain the emphasis, but this is an editing question and can be discussed either at the article or the BLP noticeboard. . There are   two things that would be definitely wrong: one is to have an article on her which is negatively focussed, and the other is to omit her based on the public attacks. We do no harm if we have a proper article. We very much harm her and all others subjected to GB's attacks if we respond by deleting their articles.    DGG ( talk ) 23:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. Still thinking about this one. In the meantime, material such as "Criticism and threats" within an earlier version is much less about FFP than about the psychopathology of a section of the US mass media. -- Hoary (talk) 04:14, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - This Articles for deletion (AfD) discussion essentially can only be closed as keeping or deleting the article. Wikipedia is restricted by Five pillars from deleting this article for many of the reasons stated above. Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has the ultimate authority over all Wikimedia projects, including the authority to delete the article irrespective of the outcome of this AfD discussion. In the mean time, Wikipedia has numerous checks in place that work towards an article meeting content policy, including working towards presenting each point of view accurately and in context. A primary one is Volunteer Response Team. Wikipedian edits made in response to Open-source Ticket Request System ("OTRS") requests by the Volunteer Response Team are given priority (e.g., enforced) over non OTRS actions. Any serious issues you have with the article should be file via the OTRS system. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 16:09, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 17:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep. - No idea why this is even up at AfD. Carrite (talk) 18:47, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep When a national news commentator directly attacks a professor, that professor is clearly noteworthy, and the incident is clearly worthy of mention. Ray  Talk 23:14, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - putting the recent criticism from Glenn Beck et al aside, there are considerable reasons to think she's notable. I'm sympathetic to the subject of a biography's wishes to see it deleted, but only where it's a borderline case; this one isn't. (Indeed, it's worth noting we've had an article on her since December 2006, long before Beck knew she existed.) I would say that the article should be cut down to focus on her academic and social work, with as little mention as possible given to the recent unpleasantness; if vandalism and POV editors are a continued problem, pending changes and semi- or full-protection should be applied to keep this article in a fit state. Robofish (talk) 23:16, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - It's been established that subjects of Wikipedia articles such as Sally Boazman and Jim Hawkins do not get to veto content in, of the existence of, articles about themselves. The responsibility of the Wikipedia community is to ensure that WP:BLP is adhered to, and articles are written in such a way that they meet WP:NPOV. The mechanism for correction of errors has been described above, and that mechanism should be used where appropriate to do so. Mjroots (talk) 14:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. (And despite some laughable "keep" rationales and thoughtful, substantive "delete" rationales above.) FFP is not a public figure in the sense that she's not a celeb; the public doesn't care where she shops for clothes or takes a vacation. However, she is a public figure in being widely read and widely cited. (Certainly I read of her work before Wikipedia existed.) Yes, witchhunts are back in style in the US and she's the object of one. But this says little about her; and, if it is to go anywhere, it should go into the article on the witchfinder general. Her article should have as much protection as is needed, and for as long as is needed, to defend it against the gullible and unthinking. -- Hoary (talk) 15:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * KeepShe has been a public intellectual and one of the most visible American sociologists since the 1970s. Her books and writings have won many awards. Notability is not a serious question. The article simply needs adherence to the living-person biographies, and its talk page needs civility. Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 17:22, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * KeepPiven and her theories have been written about and critiqued extensively, not only as noted in the above comments. Piven and her work has been referenced and criticized in The American Spectator, the National Review, Wall Street Journal as well as author Stanley Kurtz's books. Pivens scholastic efforts and the relevant criticisms seem a pretty clear case of notability. -- 10stone5 (talk) 09:46, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep She is obviously notable enough to have a bio on Wikipedia.  She is also part of a current controversy.  To delete the article would be to allow a heckler's veto.  If this article didn't exist, it would be necessary to create it.Bellczar (talk) 04:56, 20 February 2011 (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.