Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Harold E. Lurier


 * 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 no consensus.  Sandstein  08:03, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Harold E. Lurier

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No evidence is presented that this gentleman passes WP:PROF. Article cites precisely zero reliable independent sources. Guy (Help!) 09:35, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:46, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:46, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:46, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
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 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:46, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete. He does appear to have produced a good amount of work, but that itself does not confer notability. I could not find any evidence of significant coverage in reliable, independent sources, as required by WP:GNG. He also does not appear to satisfy any of the criteria listed on WP:PROF. -- Biblio worm   19:28, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: I encourage the closer of this AfD to look at my comment below and consider which arguments are more policy-based. Please recall that AfD closures are to be made based upon the strength of the arguments, not the vote count. -- Biblio worm   19:57, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete. I looked for sources and found several that (as self-published material) could be used to support the factual information in the article but don't provide much evidence of notability. He won a local teaching award and helped craft some local faculty policies but again that doesn't count for much. I think all we really have as evidence is moderately large (for an academic work) library holdings of one book, and two published academic reviews of the same book (only one of which I could find online). I don't think that's enough. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:54, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Very weak keep as a historian from the mid-20th-century whose contributions are still clearly being discussed. The number of book reviews is now up to three, but I think that's less relevant than the later book sources mentioning his work. I've struck my previous opinion. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:49, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * keep I don't want to overstate, like Eppstein and Biblio I can see that this is not a strong case. But I do want to point out that medievalists continue to argue about the original language of the Chronicle of the Morea, and to cite his work when they do..E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:39, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Came back to say that it can be useful to scholars coming across an argument by a scholar whose work they dont know to have an easy-to-find source like Wikipedia to tell them who he is. With guys who are still active, this is easy, even minor scholars have faculty pages.  But your faculty page dies with you.  It's a genuine function that WP serves and, since this page doean't seem to be a MEMORIAL, it seems harmless and even useful to keep it.  Just an opinion, not policy-based.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:05, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment. I'm quite surprised that this AfD is starting to turn toward "keep". I'll do an in-depth analyzation of this article compared to the individual criteria in WP:PROF: (1) The possibility that Lurier meets this criteria is very slim. Even if researchers of the Chronicle of the Morea do cite his work, the page states (in italics) that the field in question must be a broad field, and not a narrow one. The study of an individual chronicle seems to be quite narrow. Secondly, his award for teaching excellence appears to be an internal university award, which is expressly specified as not satisfying the criteria. Therefore, I do not believe that the subject satisfies this criteria; (2) No. If he had, it should be very easy to discover. (3) No. (4) The only books he has authored seem to be A History of the Religions of the World and The Emergence of the Western World, and they don't appear to be particularly significant in any way. (5) I couldn't find any information that would suggest this. (6) No. (7) No. (8) No. (9) He seems to have merely translated poetry, not written it. Conclusion: It seems here that the subject of this article fails all nine of these criteria, therefore failing the guideline itself. -- Biblio worm   15:39, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * At best Weak keep -- I have never heard of his two books. Books on general historical subjects (like these) are liable to become dated fairly quickly.  His translations may well be significant and it may be useful to retain a bio, so that people can know who the translator was.  However, my guess is that the citations are of the text that he translated and edited, rather than of what he wrote.  If he translated Greek poetry, I would have expected that to be published too.  Nevertheless for a large part of his career, he seems to have produced nothing.  Peterkingiron (talk) 16:08, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep - even though he was productive only in spurts, he seems to pass WP:PROF based on his citations that I saw online. Bearian (talk) 00:05, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * He has produced a small amount of works, true, but it still does not meet the standard set forth in WP:PROF. His only somewhat significant published work seems to be on the Chronicle of the Morea, and as I emphasized above, that field is not broad enough to satisfy criterion one even if his work had made a very large impact in that field. I am of course aware of IAR and am not attempting to wikilawyer, but I do not see anything at all remarkable about the gentleman that would justify his exemption from our inclusion guidelines. Otherwise we could do the same for almost any other person whom we feel it "does not do any harm" to have an article on. -- Biblio worm   14:20, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, –  Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 00:49, 7 August 2015 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: I would like to request that any admin who sees this on the new log not close it and leave it open for another seven-day period, in consideration of the new analysis I have presented above and which seems to be ignored. If there is no change after that period, then it can be closed. -- Biblioworm  (talk)  14:48, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep per scholarly contributions mentioned above —Мандичка YO 😜 01:36, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Biblioworm   (talk)  14:48, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete Others must be seeing things I don't see, because I cannot find any evidence to support keeping this page. His Chronicles translation does not appear at all in WorldCat, although WC does list a copy of his dissertation (held in 3 libraries), which appears to be the precursor to his book. I do find the book listed in the Library of Congress catalog in a Columbia U series . (But why does this not show in WC? No idea.) In g-scholar the book is cited 28 times. His other two books are listed in the LC catalog, but I can't even find them at Harvard, whose book collection is equal to LC's. His book "History of religions of the world," is self-published (Xlibris, Philadelpha). I don't see how this could support notability as per wp:academics. LaMona (talk) 17:22, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment My keep argument is that its is a modestly useful article, and that AFD ought not to be destructive of Wikipedia's usefulness. Lurier was a minor academic known for involvement in an academic policy debate and in a scholarly debate over a medieval text.  Individuals interested in either of those issues will encounter ihis name and it may be useful to them to be able to rapidly locate him by means of that article.  Since he passed away years ago; the article has no whiff of memorial, let along use of WP for promotion or politicized special pleading - there seems to me to be some use and no harm in keeping it.E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:30, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:NOHARM -- Biblioworm  (talk)  15:10, 19 August 2015 (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.