Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kedar Joshi


 * 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. Highly promotional, if it weren't already time to close I'd be considering speedy G11. . If an article can be written on the basis of secondary references, it would need to be started over from scratch.  DGG ( talk ) 02:15, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Kedar Joshi

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Non-notable pseudophilosopher with Fringe views and crazy theories not found in the sane world. There are lot of references, both in the article and the talk page, that are being used by fanboys to justify notability. Fortunately for sanity, none of them are sufficient, since they typically fall into 9 categories 1. Self-published sources 2. Aggregators and bots like this 3. Unsolicited spam by subject 4. Internet forum posts 5. Non-notable sources like this 6. Only passing mention in notable sources 7. Pure garbage sources like Conservapedia that are not even worthy of attention. 8. Dead links 9. Social networking crap like this (a date site? really?).

Policy violations WP:N and WP:FRINGE Courtiersuitor (talk) 08:43, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom.— Ryulong ( 竜龙 ) 08:43, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete despite an impressive number of citations, no citations appear to establish notability. Delete as notability not established. --TeaDrinker (talk) 08:45, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete. None of the sources on the article show notability and the only thing that wasn't a junk site or something promotional by the author was the Wikiversity page .Tokyogirl79 (talk) 10:14, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete A bad case of citation overkill, but all those links don't come close to the two or three reliable sources needed for the article to be kept. Yunshui 雲&zwj;水 10:52, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. The subject seems to be notable for the following reasons.
 * A. The subject seems to have been quoted
 * 1. thrice in The Times of India: Sacred Space, along with highly notable people like M K Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Paramahansa Yogananda, Kabir, Prophet Muhammad;
 * 2. in a scholarly paper, along with Confucius;
 * 3. on the notable website WriteAPrisoner.com, along with notable persons and thinkers like Frank Zappa, Cyril Connolly, Martin Luther King, Jr.;
 * 4. in the newspaper The Nassau Guardian: Quote in Time;
 * 5. in an article, with praise, in larepublica.net.
 * B. Philosophical dialogs with the subject seem to have been published in notable journals and online magazines like Philosophy Pathways and Chowk.com.
 * C. There seem to be articles about the subject published on rupeenews.com, with significant coverage.
 * D. One of the articles written by the subject, published on Chowk.com, seems to have been discussed in an English book.
 * E. There seem to be claims of news articles published in notable sources, with significant coverage of the subject and his theories and works. (Note: Offline sources)
 * F. The subject seems to have been interviewed by MiD DAY.
 * G. E-archives like CogPrints, SciRePrints do not seem to include crazy works and theories NSTP theory UQV theory.
 * H. Websites like quoteland.com, decision-making-solutions.com, confrontingignorance.org may not be notable according to WP standards, but they do not seem to quote non-notable people.
 * Many of the links in the article and the talk page were added by me in attempting to establish notability and improve the article. The article may need some cleanup though. ~ RogDel (talk) 14:54, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment Being quoted, even in reliable sources, doesn't make one notable. Newpapers quote many people - are you arguing that every company spokesperson with a soundbite is notable? Furthermore, interviews, dialogues and articles written by the subject are primary sources; notability requires that sources be independent of the subject. That many sources quote him is not in question; these sources do not, however, necessarily have the same requirements for inclusion as Wikipedia. None of the references given above are independent, in-depth coverage. The man has a knack for a pithy soundbite, true, but that doesn't mean that he's automatically granted a pass of the WP:GNG. Yunshui 雲&zwj;水 15:08, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment. None of the articles (dialogs) mentioned in point B seems to have been written by the subject; they seem to be dialogs with the subject, not dialogs written by the subject; they thus do not seem to be primary sources. Sources mentioned in points E (and C) could be independent, in-depth coverage. And being quoted as a company spokesperson does not seem to be the same (of the same calibre, with respect to notability) as being quoted as a thinker, along with highly notable people. ~ RogDel (talk) 15:44, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment: User:RogDel has the primary editor of this article, and possibly a Meatpuppet of Joshi himself, raising issues of Conflict of Interest. He's just repeating the same medicine-man/voodoo he (or one of his sockpuppets) tooted in the article talk page, linking to poor quality third world newspapers with virtually no editorial quality control, blogs/quotefarms/aggregators and other unreliable sources like Pakistani nationalist propaganda site ruppeenews.com.Courtiersuitor (talk) 15:57, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment. I’m the primary editor of this article, yes, but I’ve absolutely no conflict of interest. As it can be seen on my userpage, I’m a WP reviewer, a senior editor, and one of the 400 most active Wikipedians. So far I have created 28 articles on the English Wikipedia and have made over 71,000 contributions. Even the article was created a few days after I was encouraged to create article/s by User:Peter Eisenburger. Maybe you yourself, looking like a single-purpose account, have conflict of interest. Being the creator of the article, I’ve been consistently adding links to it merely to help establish notability (though I admit some of the links may not be very appropriate for WP). And it is hard to believe that well-established, notable newspapers like Kesari, Lokmat may be of poor quality with virtually no editorial quality control! ~ RogDel (talk) 17:07, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Um, these newspapers are Indian newspapers based on Indian soil and so are largely garbage. Sadly, a lot of the English language media in India is pure tabloid trash, with little real editorial control. Indian journalists are often poorly trained in fact checking, engage in sensationalist reporting for higher ratings from an uneducated populace, and even prominent newspapers in India like ToI have been caught plagiarising wikipedia content (see User:YellowMonkey/Times of India). You can't find any mention of this nutter in any peer-reviewed academic source or mainstream media in a western country. The best you can do is link to the absurd Pakistani equivalent of Der Sturmer. An Islamist/revisionist/irredentist rag called rupeenews.com. Lol!05:03, 13 March 2012 (UTC)   — Preceding unsigned comment added by Courtiersuitor (talk • contribs)


 * Delete per rationale at Wikiquote:Votes for deletion/Kedar Joshi in 2010, including but not limited to my observation that "it is hard to take a self-published person seriously; and as more non-serious links are added it only gets harder." Note also that an earlier Wikiquote article was created the day after an earlier Wikipedia article was deleted as "nn-bio", as discussed at Wikiquote:Votes for deletion archive/Kedar Joshi in 2006. Years of industrious promotion of his works and quotes on numerous hosting sites, wikis, quotation pages, &tc. does not appear to have resulted in notability. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:42, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete This is an absurdly self-referencing article and a ridiculous read, pushing some pitiful crackpot theory. The alphabetized rationale above is pure nonsense. For instance, A 1): that is not ToI, it is a page that has spun on its website, clearly marked as the "Opinion" section; and Joshi is not quoted "thrice", but once, and then pinged. A 2): he is apparently used for a motto by one of the speakers at a conference, which is not on any subject that would by relevant to Joshi's work - it's not even an editorial opinion, it's pure junk. Etc. etc. I don't even bother with the faux citations or the junklinks that are included in the summary above, I trust editors are competent enough to note that WriteAPrisoner or whatever are not the kind of stuff that wikipedia could ever take for reliable sources. Dahn (talk) 19:57, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment. That is ToI!! Go to > Archives > 8 March 2011 > The Times of India Mumbai, for example > Pg 18. And at the bottom of the page (pg 18), you’ll see a regular column called “Sacred Space” where Joshi is quoted. (Sacred Space: God and I). And these, for instance, are reliable sources, aren’t they? ~ RogDel (talk) 23:31, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Erm, it is important to note that the ToI links you cited are user editable pages where any crackpot can copy-paste quotes from others and interleave his own crap in together. Furthermore, the source philisophypathways.com is not a peer-reviewed journal. It is edited by one dude named Geoffrey Klempner and has no impact factor,Immediacy index, or any measure in any recognized metric of academic attention-worthiness whatsoever.Courtiersuitor (talk) 04:53, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The ToI links are not user editable pages. They appear basically in the ToI print paper. And I’ve given a link to that in my above comment. Geoffrey Klempner seems to have a D.Phil in Philosophy from the University of Oxford and was a lecturer at Sheffield University. He does seem to have some academic standing. And Philosophy Pathways is a peer-reviewed journal, listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals. ~ RogDel (talk) 05:46, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Just being listed in a directory is not enough. What is it 2011 impact factor? Why doesn't it have one? All peer-reviewed journals more than 1 year old have impact factors. Furthermore, just having a doctorate degree is not enough to assert reliability. David Duke also has a doctorate, and he's a White Nationalist loon. Finally, it's rather dishonest to claim that user editable pages appear on print paper, since I get daily prints of ToI right on my doorstep and none of this nonsense can be found in them. It's becoming very hard to assume good faith anymore.Courtiersuitor (talk) 12:47, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I’ve seen the subject quoted in 8 December 2011 as well as 13 July 2011 ToI print papers. If you follow the link mentioned in my comment, you’ll see the subject quoted in 8 December 2011 ToI: Sacred Space column; the link to the e-paper is an exact (electronic) copy of the print paper. Philosophy Pathways appears to be a notable, peer-reviewed, philosophy journal, and a reliable source. The Directory of Open Access Journals seems to define open access journals as scientific and scholarly journals that meet high quality standards by exercising peer review or editorial quality control… It doesn’t seem to include unreliable journals/sources. And as previously mentioned, Geoffrey Klempner doesn’t just have a doctorate, he was a lecturer at Sheffield University. And it’s becoming hard for me too to assume good faith on you anymore, esp. when you obviously seem to be a single purpose account! Your words like none of this nonsense, this nutter, etc. seem to suggest you’re not neutral! ~ RogDel (talk) 13:34, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Whatever dude. Until you give me the journal's impact factor or some related metric, it's no different than a random nut with a cardboard box in the streetcorners of Harlem wailing "The end is nigh! Repent and thou shalt be sayyyyved".117.194.194.152 (talk) 15:47, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * As of now, I seem to be unable to do that; but for the reasons given in my previous comment, Philosophy Pathways strongly appears to be a reliable, academic source. ~ RogDel (talk) 16:26, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Philosophy Pathways is not a peer reviewed journal. It is self-described on its pages as "the electronic newsletter for the Pathways to Philosophy distance learning program". The program and the International Society for Philosophers are part and parcel of the same walled garden offering tutorial services to undergraduate students and amateur would-be philosophers. Kedar Joshi appears to be an amateur or non-notable pseudophilosopher. If this appearance is incorrect, please identify two (2) English language citations that provide substantial independent coverage in reliable sources. By "substantial" I mean analysis of his theories and/or their influence, not random quotes or puff pieces. Please do not waste everybody's time with mass quantities of spurious links. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:14, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * If Philosophy Pathways is not a peer-reviewed journal, how come it’s in the Directory of Open Access Journals which lists quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals? Isn’t DOAJ supposed to be a reliable source? The point is that Philosophy Pathways appears to be a reliable source and philosophical dialogs with the subject, written by someone else, are published in it. None of the subject’s two theories may have been reviewed in any reliable, English language source, but the article is basically about the subject, not about his theories; and the subject appears to be worthy of notice for the points/reasons I’ve given earlier. ~ RogDel (talk) 20:40, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Whether Philosophy Pathways is an RS or not is actually entirely irrelevant; the coverage of Joshi there is a couple of imaginary dialogues using him as a fictional character, and in any case is lifted from this blog, which is most definitely not a reliable source. Rather than arguing the whys and wherefores of Philosophy Pathway's academic standing, please focus on finding reliable sources which provide significant coverage (ie. information about the man himself, not one-line quotes or imaginary conversations). I've looked - I can't find any. Yunshui 雲&zwj;水 08:47, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * There doesn’t seem to be much reason to believe that this dialog is imaginary; it seems to discuss the subject’s metaphysical views, including his theories; though the source is not reliable. All the three dialogues in Philosophy Pathways seem entirely different from the aforementioned one (i.e. not lifted from the blog you mentioned); though only one of them is mentioned as imagined. The remaining two could be perfectly real. And there is also another one at Chowk.com, which again could be real. And even about the possibly imaginary one/s, they do seem to indicate notability; the subject having received attention in reliable source/s. ~ RogDel (talk) 10:30, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "Attention" in reliable sources is not sufficient; I've received attention in reliable sources, and I'm sure as hell not notable. We need significant coverage of Kedar Joshi, not reported conversations with him, real or imaginary. Yunshui 雲&zwj;水 10:55, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Significant, independent coverages of the subject’s (philosophical) views in RS do indicate his notability. ~ RogDel (talk) 12:45, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Very true. However, that's not what you've provided here. If these are genuine conversations with Joshi, then they are not independent and therefore do not support notability. If they are imagined conversations, then they tell us nothing about him (they are using him as a fictional mouthpiece for a particular position, but there is no indication that this is in fact a position he takes), and are therefore not significant coverage. There are also doubts over whether this is, in fact, a reliable source. Whichever way you look at it, the articles in PP do not support notability. Yunshui 雲&zwj;水 12:54, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Why genuine conversations with Joshi would not be independent? X can have genuine conversations with Y, a philosopher, and publish them in RS, and the conversations could be independent of Y. And there is reason to believe that only one of the conversations is imaginary. Again, DOAJ seems to be a reliable source which lists quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. PP is listed in it, which indicates PP is a quality controlled, scholarly, reliable journal. ~ RogDel (talk) 13:11, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 02:53, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 02:53, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 02:53, 13 March 2012 (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.