Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jeffrey Herbener


 * 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. extransit (talk) 01:58, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Jeffrey Herbener

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Non notable academic. No coverage in secondary sources, so fails WP:GNG. Has produced no major theories, books, or articles beyond run of the mill academic works, so fails WP:PROF. At best, we have a minor quote in a book for ref #4 and positions as college professor and associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, a think tank publication. GrapedApe (talk) 20:42, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete - Strongest claim to notability is as professor at Grove City College, a small Christian liberal arts college that is ranked as third-tier by US News and World Report, and as an associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, which is published by the Von Mises Institute, a privately funded Libertarian think tank. A search on google scholar shows that he has only published in Von Mises Institute publications, and that his work has been cited almost exclusively only by articles in those same publications.  His work has had no impact on scholars outside that group. Fails the notability guideline for academics.  --LK (talk) 23:53, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  —David Eppstein (talk) 07:14, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete. Part of the problem is that Austrian economic theory is not taken seriously in most economics departments, meaning that its adherents have to publish is small venues.  The standard for notability should be his prominence within the pro-Austrian group, just as we don't demand that cultural anthropologists be well-known among the biological anthropology crowd.  And being a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute does demonstrate some reputation.  Still, he is not at a research institution and so his being a full professor doesn't satisfy that criterion in WP:PROF.  The Review of Austrian Economics is peer-reviewed, but that's a about it.  I don't see any special prominence.  RJC  TalkContribs 14:24, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Meta-discussion The distinction between modern scientific economists and Austrian Schoolers is rather different from that between cultural and biological anthropologists.  Pace WP:FRINGE ("Coverage on Wikipedia should not make a fringe theory appear more notable than it is...") I'm not one to interpret Wikipedia policy as considering e.g. every anti-plate-tectonics geologist as notable merely because there are so few of them.  Not that everyone who identifies as Austrian is fringe, but Austrians whose notability appears based only on publication in Austrian sources and participation at the Mises Institute get close.  Counterexamples:  Selgin, Boettke.  Bkalafut (talk) 08:44, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
 * addendum There's been considerable discussion of whether and to what extent WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE apply to Austrianism on in the Wikiproject Economics talk pages especially in September 2008. A real tangle, but worth reading, and one of the consensus positions to emerge is that undue weight was often given to Austrianism on WP.  It seems contrary to the spirit of WP:UNDUE to treat contemporary Austrians as notable simply because there are so few that nearly all who aren't notable among mainstream economists are "notable" to each other via participation in the Mises Institute.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bkalafut (talk • contribs) 09:34, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I probably overstated my position. I agree that Mises-only notability is probably not enough to pass WP:PROF.  I overreacted to what seemed to me to be an Austrian=Fringe argument above.  My point was that we shouldn't demand that someone be at an R1 with all of their publications in the top journals if what he has published has otherwise had a major impact.   RJC  TalkContribs 17:03, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete, per nom and LK; does not pass WP:PROF. A remark regarding RJC's comment above. Item 5 in WP:PROF specifically mentions that, when demonstrating significant impact in an academic discipline, "the academic discipline of the person in question needs to be sufficiently broadly construed. [...] Overly narrow and highly specialized categories should be avoided. Arguing that someone is an expert in an extremely narrow area of study is, in and of itself, not necessarily sufficient to satisfy Criterion 1, except for the actual leaders in those subjects." Nsk92 (talk) 17:25, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Metadiscussion It is one thing to say that being a major researcher on the role of women in post-Macedonian Athens will not satisfy criterion 1 of WP:PROF, but I don't think that we can say that being a major contributor to minority positions in the field of economics in general is what is covered by item 5 of the notes and examples. If his work were published only in journals friendly to the Austrian school but had made a significant impact I would say he satisfies criterion 1.  Part of this stems from my opinion that Austrian economics is a minority view but does not fall under WP:FRINGE.  RJC  TalkContribs 17:44, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. I'll add that his work has not made any impact in broader terms, i.e. he has not obviously published anything in a mainstream journal, by which I mean one that is indexed by one of the major services. There's nothing in WoS using the broadest query of "author = Herbener J*". GS shows an h-index of 6, with one paper in "The Review of Austrian Economics" having been cited 23 times. However, these stats are still way below what we normally take as satisfying WP:PROF #1. Without any intended disparagement of small christian colleges, I don't think a rank of full professor is comparable to that at a large research university, the latter of which often does imply satisfaction of WP:PROF #5 or #6. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 20:05, 25 June 2010 (UTC).
 * Note: For future reference, the author page for "Herbener, Jeffrey" on Scopus shows citations by 12 people, and a h Index of 1. LK (talk) 10:26, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete.  In agreement with most of the above, also see my remark.Bkalafut (talk) 08:45, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete Lack of notability and reliable sources.  TFD (talk) 01:42, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per LK's reasoning. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:54, 28 June 2010 (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.