Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Rizzo (2nd nomination)


 * 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. Spartaz Humbug! 04:13, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Michael Rizzo
AfDs for this article: 
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Fails WP:ACADEMIC. The article does not explain the notability of the subject, other than that he has written papers, although what these papers are about or why they are notable is not explained. The only sources used are websites of the institutions for which he works and his web page. (Note that there was an earlier article about a person with the same name, which was deleted.) TFD (talk) 17:49, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete - As noted by the nominator, this person does not meet any of the nine elements of the prof test. He's an assistant professor (non-tenured position on the tenure track below associate professor and professor). He teaches classes. He writes articles. He's a fellow at an institute/think tank started a few years ago that has yet to be deemed notable. He doesn't seem any more or less notable than any other assistant professor at a U.S. university. It should be noted that the article starter has posted a comment on the Talk page: "Being a prominent academic at one of the top universities of the nation suffices for the notability requirement. See Rudolf Kingslake, Celia Applegate, Barbara Jordan (poet) for similar pages." That's not an accurate statement of WP:PROF, which isn't nearly so broad. In addition, those individuals aren't comparable. For instance, Applegate's article states she is president of the German Studies Association (prong #6 of WP:PROF) and Jordan won the Barnard Women Poets Prize (prong #2). --JamesAM (talk) 20:21, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete per nomination and comment above. I express my interest - I nominated the article for speedy delete for non-notability at its inception but this was declined on the grounds that anyone titled "Professor" automatically jumps the first notability hurdle at new pages. I can find nothing that shows that anything the assistant professor has (co) written has been independently peer-reviewed, or has been reported in independent serious sources. The inline cites to his university in the lede: number 2 doesn't mention him, and  number 1 goes to his university page, where his own apparent web site  is mentioned, and then used as inline cite 3. The two inline jumps under "Publications" are to his co-written works - where these works appear in searches I can find no review (independent or otherwise) of the works, only a repeat of the titles and abstracts, for downloading or sale. Acabashi (talk) 21:50, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Quoted in reliable sources on the economy. "If there is a bit of a dark cloud, the impact on the real economy is bigger than it was in 2001," said Michael Rizzo, economics professor at the University of Rochester. "Whether justified or not, expectations matter. It puts a brake on the economy."  .  shows a paper for which he is a co-author, with 60 cites.  Thus he is a cited academic author.   (lots of other ones, but this one is cited in the WP article as being the "right Michael J. Rizzo")   Last I checked, being cited for multiple academic papers does confer notability.  In fact, it is specifically listed as conferring notability.   Nobel Prizes are not required to meet WP notability standards, really.  He is quoted in magazines, and cited for academic writings.  That is all WP requires. Collect (talk) 01:09, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 02:12, 27 June 2011 (UTC)


 *  Keep . On GS I find cites of 705, 210, 58, 53, 36, 28.... This would seem to suffice for WP:Prof. Can the nominator comment? Xxanthippe (talk) 03:43, 27 June 2011 (UTC).
 * I count 238 Google Scholar hits, most of which are for different people with the same name. Of those which are for this subject, they all appear to refer to articles where he assisted a full professor (i.e., he does not get top billing).  I can find no example of any other academic referring to his work.  I do not see that his "research has made significant impact in [his] scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources."  In any case we would need a reliable source to explain what that significant impact was.  TFD (talk) 04:15, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Please distinguish between cites and hits and note that he publishes in economics under the name M J Rizzo. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:02, 27 June 2011 (UTC).
 * You are confusing him with "Mario Rizzo", also an economist, who writes as M.J. Rizzo. There is also a medical writer.  The only hits for your MJ Rizzo are his own writings, which adds up to about zero cites.  TFD (talk) 014:18, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I suggest you correct your claim that M J Rizzo ihas absolutely zero cites.  24 cites, and listed as "MJ Rizzo".   ditto.   ditto.    ditto as sole author.    ditto as sole author.  And is not, repeat not, "Mario J. Rizzo."   Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:58, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You have not provided a link to cites, but could you please explain what Makes Rizzo notable. What theories of his are cited and why are they notable?  What was the nature of his collaboration with the other writer who received top willing in much of his work?  TFD (talk) 18:08, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Huh? You made an arrantly false claim - which anyone loking at the cites I give can easily verify.  Why not simply admit you erred?  Cheers.  Collect (talk) 23:19, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * TFD: I will assume good faith here and assume that this nomination is not your latest attempt at personal vendetta against me, and that you are honestly confident that this article should be deleted. Can you then tell us if you have any knowledge of how the academic publishing process works and what citations mean? I ask this because you asked "What theories of his are cited and why are they notable?" and I doubt a person with any experience in publishing process will ask a question like this. And if you indeed have no prior experience in this subject, why are you so convinced that this article must be deleted? Prochron (talk) 17:48, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  — TFD (talk) 18:11, 27 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete in view of the difficulty of identifying his publications. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:51, 27 June 2011 (UTC).
 * Comment: I'm not sure if having the same last name as another academic is a valid reason for deletion. In any case, User:Collect has managed to find out his publications and their number of citations. Prochron (talk) 17:43, 29 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Weak delete. According to his own list of publications, he has only seven real "academic publications", most of them in collaboration with Ehrenberg. The Google scholar citation counts for these are 60, 60, 24, 16, 14, and 4, with one ("A Panel Data Analysis of State Preferences for Funding Higher Education") not even found in Google scholar. That's not enough to convince me of a pass of WP:PROF, especially when his frequent collaborator Ehrenberg has much higher numbers (so that what impact these papers have may be due to Ehrenberg's coat-tails rather than Rizzo's contribution). If there is to be a case for keeping this article, I think it is not by WP:ACADEMIC but maybe for his popular press activity. But among the many newspaper articles mentioning someone by his name, I didn't find enough that covered him nontrivially rather than merely quoting him briefly to convince me of a pass of WP:GNG, either. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:58, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - I am the creator of this article, and I must admit that I hesitated before doing so. I am not absolutely sure that he meets the notability guideline as vaguely stated in the WP:ACADEMIC policy. However, based on the number of citations to his papers (mentioned above by other users), and that it is significantly higher than many other academics currently on Wikipedia (check the University of Rochester faculty category, for example), I believe this demonstrates sufficient notability. I must also note that the person who nominated this article for deletion currently has a content dispute with me and that this is apparently how he managed to track down the only article I created and then nominate it for deletion, without notifying me. This is after he made a blatantly false sockpuppetry accusation against me. I will not suggest that this should in any way disqualify the nomination process, but it is something to keep in mind when taken into consideration his opinion. Prochron (talk) 17:33, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, I'd like to add that the previously deleted Michael Rizzo was not about the same person, contrary to what the nominator implied. Prochron (talk) 18:27, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * How does having a handful of trivial cites, mostly for articles in which Rizzo was not the main author, establish that his "research has made significant impact in [his] scholarly discipline... as demonstrated by independent reliable sources? BTW I did not "imply" that the previous article was about "the same person", but wrote that it was "about a person with the same name".  TFD (talk) 20:17, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * About 200 citations is not "a handful of trivial cites". Should I be glad that you are now willing to admit he has a handful of cites rather than "zero"? What is it that makes you willing to repeat such blatant lies just to get this article deleted? And what do you think is a good criterion for notability?
 * I would also add that Rizzo appears to be a senior fellow at AHI, which is somewhat notable per criterion 6. Prochron (talk) 19:04, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Criteria six is holding "a major highest-level elected or appointed academic post at a major academic institution or major academic society", not a senior fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute. And the cites are trivial, because none of the papers that cite Rizzo rely on him to any great degree.  If I am wrong then find one that is non-trivial.  Also, the overwhelming number of cites are to papers where the main writer was Professor Ronald G. Ehrenberg.  Can you tell us anything about what Rizzo's main theories are and what writers have been influenced by him?  Can you provide one article written about him or his work?  TFD (talk) 19:37, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I have no intention of wasting more time with you in this pointless conversation. Since you insist on carrying out this personal vendetta to the extent that you are willing to state numerous lies and invent Wikipedia policy in the process, I will hereby disengage myself from this nomination and retract my comments.


 * Delete, because TFD will not stop harassing me until this is over. Prochron (talk) 21:07, 30 June 2011 (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.