Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Hampsey

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was ambiguous.

I count 9 votes to delete and 5 to keep. This is a clear majority but not the overwhelming majority generally required to establish evidence of concensus. In reviewing the article, I found that the link to the professor's home page) is not working, undermining the ability of readers to verify elements of the article. In reviewing the arguments presented below, I note that the "keep" votes for the most part simply stated "published author".  From available evidence, policy statements and an extensive study of our precedents, I do not believe that the general community concensus supports such a low standard for inclusion in Wikipedia.

After a great deal of consideration, I am going to exercise my discretion and delete the article. Rossami (talk) 03:46, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

John Hampsey
Non-notable professor. One wonders if the poster is one of his English students. RickK 00:45, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, not notable - fails Google test (less than 100 hits, approx. half of which are unrelated to the professor). Megan1967 02:39, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, fails the "average professor test" --Carnildo 07:27, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment: What's the "average professor test"? While I'm wondering, I'll say that this seems a more interesting and notable achievement to me than do those of most of the people listed on, say List of current American football players. -- Hoary 09:46, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)
 * Criteria for inclusion of biographies Thinking about it, it seems only logical that some college professors will be below average. Uncle G 15:19, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)
 * Regarding football players and such vs. college professors&mdash;le sigh, so true. Systemic bias is a bitch.  However more deserving of deletion the grunts are, though, I can't in good conscience give Hampsey a keep without violating WP:POINT.  &mdash;Korath (Talk) 03:08, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)
 * The bad punctuation and spelling in the original leads me to doubt that the poster was an English student. Modified article. A one-book wonder. Delete. Uncle G 15:19, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)
 * Keep - David Gerard 17:42, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep He's a published author, after all.Zantastik 07:29, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Published author of work that has received good reviews.Capitalistroadster 09:48, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep and expand. Published author. --Centauri 21:57, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. No evidence yet presented that he meets the recommended criteria for inclusion of biographies.  Being a published author alone is insufficient.  Essentially all professors publish something.  Rossami (talk) 00:14, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, published author. &mdash;RaD Man (talk) 22:24, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Added section on career. No change of vote from keep. Capitalistroadster 03:03, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. On the evidence in the article, he's just an average prof. Wile E. Heresiarch 08:27, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Fails Google test with less than 100 hits, and those seem to be mainly about his book.  No more than an average professor.  Cal State at San Luis Obispo isn't bad, but it isn't prestigious either.  His one book, published by the Univ of Virginia Press, has an Amazon sales rank of about 550,000, meaning very low sales.   Howard Zinn's quote was probably just a courtesy blurb, as they were together at Boston University for a while.  As another Wikipedian said elsewhere, there is something unseemly about a bunch of nobodies ruling on the notability of anyone.  But that is the criterion for inclusion of a biography in the Wikipedia, and it has to be that way.   --BM 01:38, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * You can make the same claim for most encyclopaedias. If anything their criteria is much more strict. Megan1967 02:37, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.