Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Janaki Bakhle


 * 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.  Sandstein (talk) 07:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Janaki Bakhle

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Contested prod. Academic with one book, which has been reviewed but doesn't meet the standards in WP:PROF; the subject, with dozens of others, of an attack piece by advocacy group Campus Watch, which is the only available independent source about her. Article contributed to, by among others, members of the sockfarm at Requests for checkuser/Case/Evidence-based. Please ignore WP:HOTTIE, as I am resolutely doing. Relata refero (disp.) 18:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, nn professor, article may be intended to disparage them. KleenupKrew (talk) 20:34, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. I think the book reviews in a variety of periodicals (two scholarly journals and one mass-market newspaper, The Hindu) establish her as a notable author. --Eastmain (talk) 00:00, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. The zionism controversy may be less important than her book and other scholarly work. The article would still be encyclopedic if the text and references about that controversy were removed. --Eastmain (talk) 00:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.   —Eastmain (talk) 00:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I put in the Zionism thing because Refero relato wanted to take the article down, and I thought that if I put up news articles the article would stay up. They really are trivial, and I would be happy to see them go. I am new here and I am  puzzled. After Relato Refero  tagged  Janaki Bakhle I went and looked at what makes a professor notable.  Whole bodies of work.  original concepts htat are widely cited.  stc.   then I looked around wikipedia.  Single episodes of Buffy the Vampire slayer have pages.  Newly-published novels.  Novelists with one novel out.  Art-house movies. Really insignificant Hollywood movies get whole pages.   Apparently every actor who has every appeared on screen and every player who has walked onto a major league field seems to have a page.  But professors have this long list of qualifications.  Obviously, I have a bit of an ax to grind.  But hear me out.  Professors write things that matter, even when those things appear exclusively in academic journals.  It can be useful to watch the young up-and-comers.  Useful for them to have pages so that when they pop into the news people can look them up.  And hten there is the double standard.  Professors are public figures.  Why do one-game ball players get their own pages, and people like Bakhle who is doing work that people pay attention to do not?   Can we talk about this?Butler stacks (talk) 00:28, 29 April 2008 (UTC)Butler stacks
 * Professors aren't necessarily public figures. Just taking a job that requires teaching and publication doesn't mean you have to put yourself before the world. One might really wonder if they are so important; their research is far more important in an encyclopedic sense than the people behind it. Furthermore, the basic rule is verifiability, with higher standards for people, to avoid libel and intrusions into libel. Most professors don't have much written about them. Ball players and movies do.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. An assistant professor with a single publication certainly fails WP:PROF. Her being one of the signatories of a petition that briefly made news seems to fall under WP:BLP1E, rather than establishing notability.  RJC Talk Contribs 00:48, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. WP:PROF is sometimes misunderstood. It states: "If an academic/professor meets none of these conditions, they may still be notable, if they meet the conditions of WP:Notability or other notability criteria, and the merits of an article on the academic/professor will depend largely on the extent to which it is verifiable." The book reviews arguably establish notability as an author. --Eastmain (talk) 01:15, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. I disagree about the book reviews.  If a book with a good press isn't reviewed, it is a complete failure; most academic books are reviewed in a number of outlets.  As such, I don't think it points to notability at all.  While one can fail WP:PROF and still be notable, it will not be as an academic; I don't see anything in the article that asserts any notability outside of academe.  RJC Talk Contribs 01:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * RJC writes that "I don't see anything in the article that asserts any notability outside of academe. "  but most of the people on wikipedia are not notable outside the narrow field in which they are notable.  To test this hypothesis, I typed in a common surname: Rogers.  Up came a long list of people I had never heard of.  here are a few I clicked on:         I am not arguing that these pages be removed.  Apparently somebody thinks it important to know that a young man named Charles Rogers played professional football for a few years. What I am suggesting is that the standards for obscure footballers and very minor television personalities are irrationally lower than for members of university faculties. Butler stacks (talk) 02:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)Butler stacks
 * Please be more patient and read what others write more carefully. He said that Bakhle was not notable as an academic, therefore her notability--or lack thereof--outside academia was important.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:11, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I take your point. But I continue to see something bizarre in a system by which this remarkable young woman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittney_Rogers is more notable than a scholar like Janaki.  It appears to me that the academic notability standards are badly out of line with standards of notability in other fields.  And do read my point.  Which is that almost everyone in wikipedia is notable only within the narrow field of endeavor within which they are notable.  I should perhaps qualify this by noting that my own Wikipedia page is flourishing and not in dispute, that is, there are disputes, ony not about notability.Butler stacks (talk) 02:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)Butler stacks
 * I fail to see why someone who has appeared within the public eye shouldn't be more notable than someone who has never sought the spotlight.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. Might I suggest that this is not the appropriate forum to discuss whether WP:PROF sets the bar too high?  That would instead be Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics).  We simply apply policies to particular cases.  RJC Talk Contribs 02:54, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Seems to be quite notable based on sources used within article.  Yahel  Guhan  04:50, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I suppose you mean FrontPage Magazine? or Campus Watch? -- Relata refero (disp.) 05:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * No. I mean the other 9+ very reliable sources within the article which prove its notability.  Yahel  Guhan  06:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Review "independent" and "about the subject", please. -- Relata refero (disp.) 06:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete – fails WP:PROF criteria and WP:RS. As an author, she is weak notable but that doesn’t give any reason for having an ency article. Let her prove more notability by writing more books so that we could consider it later. -- Tomb of the Unknown Warrior   tomb   10:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. A relatively junior academic who does not satisfy WP:PROF yet. The Columbia controversy regarding Israel investments, if sufficiently notable, can be covered in a separate article. Nsk92 (talk) 15:11, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete As per Ecoleetage (talk) 15:50, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, fails WP:PROF. Stifle (talk) 18:40, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete: Fails WP:PROF.  Otolemur crassicaudatus  (talk) 22:54, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Being on track for a successful academic career at a good university is not the same as passing WP:PROF, and it doesn't seem that she does yet pass it. As for signing a petition and being married to someone notable, I don't think they provide any notability at all. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:08, 30 April 2008 (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.