Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/J. Paul Tanner


 * 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. A strong argument was made towards whether or not the subject could pass WP:PROF in the first week, but this was not followed up by subsequent comments. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  09:37, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

J. Paul Tanner

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References don't support notability. Possible WP:COI Fuddle (talk) 02:39, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 07:48, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 07:48, 13 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep: Very solid Google Scholar results (for the field) suggests that WP:BEFORE has not been followed. StAnselm (talk) 08:36, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * ?. GS h-index of 4 is not very spectacular, even for theology. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:10, 13 May 2016 (UTC).
 * I work it out as five, actually. But looking at his "Literary Structure of the Book of Daniel" article, for example, GS only records five citations of the work, but a glance at Google Books shows at least 8. (I have just finished teaching a bachelor-level course on the Book of Daniel, and we went through Tanner's article in class!) StAnselm (talk) 18:51, 13 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. The citation data is too low, even taking into account the nature of the field, and there is nothing else in the record (including the subject's own homepage ) to indicate passing WP:PROF or WP:BIO. No significant awards, elected academic society memberships/fellowships, no journal or book editorships, nothing else that I can see to hang one's hat on in terms of passing WP:PROF. Nsk92 (talk) 11:35, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
 * It's WP:PROF #1. Among other things, Tanner has made a "significant impact in his scholarly discipline" by his suggestion that the Gideon narrative is at the heart of the Book of Judges. StAnselm (talk) 19:38, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
 * That's a far cry from satisfying WP:PROF. just has a brief mention of Tanner, and  contains a one-paragraph discussion of his work by a single other scholar. To demonstrate "significant impact in his scholarly discipline" one would have to show much more that that, e.g. that his ideas have significantly influenced the field, become widely accepted, have changed the way that the scholarly community views a particular topic/issue, have been widely discussed at conferences, in other articles and books, or something of the sort. We don't have anything even remotely close to that here. Nsk92 (talk) 12:44, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep -- Citation indices are a poor reflection on authors for arts subjects; and theology is likely to be at the bottom end of even that. This is because the compilers of citation indices are not good at collecting data on them.  What StAnselm says, indicating that his work is being put before students, suggests to me that he is of some significance.  On the other hand, all the publications are merely articles in journals, as possibly not the most prestigious ones.  He has clearly been teaching in 3rd world countries.  People working there are perhaps less likely to be in the limelight, where they attract awards, etc.  Editorships probably depend on having time away from research or other work to undertake that role.  Peterkingiron (talk) 16:26, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
 * You are actually making a pretty good argument for deletion. Yes, citation indices are a poor indication of notability for humanities. But to keep the article one does need some substantial positive evidence of of satisfying WP:PROF on other grounds, rather than explanations why the subject's life circumstances might have prevented him from making significant impact on his field of study. Satisfying WP:PROF on citation data alone does not happen that often and requires very high citability. With top GS results of 23, 15, 14, 11, 4, that's just not the case here, however one wants to slice and dice the situation. That's why usually satisfying WP:PROF requires a combination of factors, and other things like awards, prestigious lectures, honorary degrees, editorships, etc, are taken into account. (By the way, no, one does not take time off, away from research or teaching or other duties, to undertake editorship duties for research journals). In this case the citability data is too low to pass WP:PROF on its own, and I don't see any additional evidence of satisfying WP:PROF. In fact, as you say, the journals where his work was published do not appear to be particularly prestigious ones. WorldCat only lists one book by him, 42 pages long,, also published by a minor publisher and only held by 17 libraries. Goggling the title of this book does not appear to produce hits for any published reviews of it, despite  the fact that the book deals with a fairly hot and controversial topic. Overall I am seeing very little here to indicate plausibly passing WP:PROF. Nsk92 (talk) 01:46, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

*Delete The hits I'm getting on a google scholar search are by him, not citations or discussions of his work. No hits at all on a news google or proquest news archive search. No hits at JSTOR. Just as Nom said.E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:08, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Your first claim seems very surprising and dubious to me. Clicking on the first result (Gideon), I don't see any works by him, only works by others citing his work. StAnselm (talk) 19:32, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep My error (s). I had begun by running quick searches on his name.  "J. Paul Tanner" brings nothing up on news searches. unusual.  even for a scholar.  His Wikipedia page lists articles but no books, and I somehow got the impression that he publishes as JP Tanner.   Searching google scholar under  JP Tanner, the first page seemed to confirm what the news searches showed since all JP Tanners were in other fields.  JSTOR search on "J. P. Tanner" produced 6 hits by chaps in other fields.  I stopped at that point.  I had not noticed your name, User:StAnselm, or I would have looked harder.  I know that you are knowledgeable about scholarship in this field. Mea culpa  I looked now have.  Ran "The Gideon narrative as the focal point of Judges" through JSTOR in quotations, I get one citation (Wilson, Stephen M.. 2014. “Samson the Man-child: Failing to Come of Age in the Deuteronomistic History”. Journal of Biblical Literature 133 (1). Society of Biblical Literature: 43–60. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.15699/jbibllite.133.1.43.) it reads: "For a discussion of this deterioration, see, e.g.,..." in SBL, so it's impressive.  Search on that  title in google scholar  brings up 13 citations.   Changing my vote.  A scholar's scholar - not a publicity seeker.  A notable scholar.E.M.Gregory (talk) 09:58, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment from nominator: I've been enjoying this discussion and I hope someone can summarize the final decision. I didn't know about WP:PROF so when I made the nomination all I saw was an article with references mostly by the subject, not about him, and an article that may have been written by the subject himself. I have no skin in the game, I'm just interested in the process and outcome.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   08:20, 21 May 2016 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete References by himself are not enough to establish his notability, and the citations are not high enough to do so.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:33, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Revisiting this. Here:  are the results of a google books search on "Tanner, J. Paul" .  To me, it looks as though he is being cited quite a lot.  It's a bit harder to search such a common name to see the degree to which his work  is discussed in other people's books (at least, for someone like me: I am no theologian) so I punched "Paul Tanner"  + Biblical into a books search and on page 1 of that search there are sentences : "In this section I lean heavily on J. Paul Tanner...",  "Paul Tanner summarizes...", " J. Paul Tanner says...", establishing that theologians and Bible scholars discuss his work, certainly they cite it a good deal.  IMO, this is what makes a scholar notable.  I still think keep.E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:18, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 05:00, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2016 May 29.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 08:17, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete at best for now instead as the article shows nothing noticeably convincing of the applicable notability, delete as I see nothing else otherwise convincing. SwisterTwister   talk  00:34, 10 June 2016 (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.