Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mary Katharine Duffie, Ph.D.


 * 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. Davewild (talk) 08:51, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Mary Katharine Duffie, Ph.D.

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This autobiography is written as a resume. It appears to fail general notability standards. Besides an example of publish or perish in the academic community and its technical literature, it fails to add significance to the encyclopedia. A Prod failed when the autobiographer removed the notice and contributed more details to the article. I like to saw logs! (talk) 06:24, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete Written by the subject, does not establish notability as shown in WP:SCHOLAR. James Cage (talk) 15:43, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

ANSWER: I can understand how it may appear written as a resume, but I did not intend to sell or persuade anyone on my background - at all. It may have looked like a resume because I was trying to keep it short. I tried to follow the page structure on a number of anthropologists in wiki.

Perhaps you were immediately turned off, because autobiography is discouraged (for obvious reasons.) But, my intentions were actually opposite. Over the years I have been contacted by many people about my work - from defense attorneys, to lay people interested in New Zealand, to other academics needing specific information about the health and culture of American Indians and Maori. As I wrote the article, I was partly thinking of New Zealand and American Indian researchers as these are a very small but increasingly important group of academics. They are merging their research collectively into an indigenous epistemology, with an emphasis on global patterns in neocolonialism. Those who take a fourth world approach, as I did, to solving sociocultural patterns are pioneers in that way. More broadly, my life's work is unique and original as it was impacted by study with Vine DeLoria, jr. who turned anthropology upside down with his disdain for etic (or outsider analysis) interpretations among anthropologoligical ethnographies (i.e, in the 1980s-90s, he was reeling against the grain of truth in the following joke: Q. what composes an Indian family? A. Single mother, two kids and an anthropologist). I was one of the first, if not the first, Indian researcher(s) to incorporate these criticisms into all of my work, drawing on Clifford Geertz and Shostak from the anthro side. There are two books, a major research grant, and at least five journal articles that are mostly all readable by lay and academic alike. In fact, one book was written for a public audience in New Zealand. I also tried very hard to keep it nontechnical, as most of my hyperlinks bring the reader to already established wiki pages. I only included 2-3 external definition links, and these are very easy to read. Also, the autobiography references a research article that contains an original, unique theory about the physiologic, psychologic and cultural relationships that result in cross-cultural psycho-somatic illness. The theory earned a prestigious signal honor from the Society of Medical Anthropology. Perhaps I could redo the article and include some of the above analysis, or that which you may suggest (with consensus permission of course) from the other editors? Please also NOTE: I also did not intentionally remove any prods, so please don't hold that against the article. It must have happened by mistake. Example (talk) 21:25, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Please identify which notability standards are missing. I should be able to address these with a bit more research and give the needed proof.

In a more general sense, I look forward to adding bits of clarifying information on many of the Maori, New Zealand and American Indian culture pages, separate from my own work of course. And, I hope to make a friendly relationship with many of you.

Thanks for considering ways to improve the article. I am a diligent responder. — Preceding mkduffie comment added by 205.161.250.173 (talk) 21:37, 24 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I do hope you will stay involved at Wikipedia, but in my opinion you have no place editing this article. I would never consider an article written by the subject to be worthy of including in an encyclopedia. It undermines the credibility of the article, and of the encyclopedia itself. It is impossible to consider such an article to be unbiased. I think you'll find that to be close to a consensus among Wikipedia editors (and all other encyclopedia editors, for that matter). You can read more at WP:AB. To be clear, I am not encouraging you to change, edit, or expand your autobiography here.


 * In general, should there be an encyclopedia entry for Mary Katharine Duffie? From what I've seen, I don't believe so. That says nothing negative about you or your career. Your autobiographical article documents work you have done, but does not seem to show that you or your work has received extraordinary notice by others. Speaking strictly for myself, it seems to be in line with the accomplishments and awards of other academics. Academic requirements are neatly summarized at WP:SCHOLAR. If you are curious, or if you want to contribute to articles about other academics, I urge you to read them. But again, as regards this article, I see no point in discussing this. Instead, I urge you to read some of the deletion discussion lists shown at the bottom of this page (for example the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions) for some perspective on this process.


 * I honestly believe that if a person is notable, someone else will take note of them and write a Wikipedia entry. If that doesn't happen, there's your answer. (And no, I am absolutely not recommending that you recruit someone else to write an article for you. You should have nothing to do with your own article.) Of course, I am just one of many thousands of contributors. Wikipedia is a rough democracy, and I'm just a single vote here. But as odd as it may seem, it's very effective. Best regards - James Cage (talk) 19:29, 26 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:14, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of New Zealand-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:14, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:14, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:14, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:14, 26 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete. Neither the article nor the Google scholar citation record demonstrate a pass of WP:PROF. Author should be admonished to refrain from autobiography here. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:07, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete. WorldCat holdings on 2 books about avg too. Dr Duffie appears to be a typical academic. I would echo the advice offered by James Cage above. Agricola44 (talk) 22:02, 26 May 2015 (UTC).
 * Delete. There is no real claim to notability here. The lack of academic positions is highly conspicuous because of their absence from the article, and the number of papers written is relatively small.  Echoing previous advice, go and write a linkedin page, not a Wikipedia article.  Le petit fromage (talk) 11:59, 29 May 2015 (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.