Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ranadhir Sarma Sarkar


 * 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 no consensus. this seems to be borderline, and further discussion is unlikely to help.  DGG ( talk ) 09:19, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Ranadhir Sarma Sarkar

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

No assertion of adequate notability. Not enough coverage in independent, reliable sources to verify or sustian article. Fails general notability guidelines, WP:NPOL and WP:ANYBIO. The only thing that comes up in searches is he subject's Wikipedia page. Simply being a civil servant is not a basic for notability. J bh Talk  16:15, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions.  J bh  Talk  16:15, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions.  J bh  Talk  16:15, 5 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep. Holder of a senior civil service post, which is a basis for notability. Hardly surprising that internet searches bring up little for someone who reached his peak in the early 1970s! -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:22, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Based on what notability criteria? Not NPOL or ANYBIO. The only source we have for him is a list of former Chairman. What chance is there that an article on him will ever be anything than a permanent-sub-stub that says "R.S. Sarkar is a former Chairman of USPC of India"? The source in the article does not even have the years he served. That he has books in the LoC is pure WP:OR. The article claims he is dead but we have no source for that and the only indication fof his birth year is in the LoC book record which shows "1908-" which indicates he is alive. J bh  Talk  16:57, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually we do not even have evidence he was a sivil servant. The article refers to him simply as a bureaucrat and our article on the Union Public Service Commission says "At least half of the members of the Commission are Civil Servants (working or retired) with minimum ten years of experience" so being Chairman does not imply he was a civil servant. J bh  Talk  17:09, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Hair-splitting. A public servant if not actually a civil servant (although I suspect the chairman actually is a civil servant). See the second entry at WP:POLOUTCOMES. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:10, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The point is that we have literally no verifiable information on him other than a listing that says that at one time he was Chairman of UPSC. Having to say "...I suspect.." about something basic relating to the fundamental claim of an article subject's notability problematic. POLOUTCOMES pt 2 says "... especially if they had an otherwise notable career." We have no idea what this person has done because we have no sources. If there were any sources that mentioned this person other than an entry on a list on the website of the department he once chaired I could be convinced otherwise based on what the sources. Even passing GNG does not require an article be kept. If there is a list of former chairman in our UPSC article a redirect would be reasonable. Anyway, thank you for the link to POLOUTCOMES. J bh  Talk  17:27, 5 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep: I believe WP:NEXIST. Anup   [Talk]  23:59, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * It's not enough to assert that adequate sources exist to get him over WP:GNG. You have to explicitly show that sufficient sourcing exists, preferably by actually adding it to the article (although showing the hard results of an actual search for sources in this discussion would be acceptable as well). But we don't keep a poorly sourced article just because somebody believes that better sources might exist — we can keep it only if somebody does the work and explicitly shows that better sourcing does exist. Bearcat (talk) 17:54, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Not somebody believes something, that "somebody" is the Wikipedia Community here. Our policy NEXIST says that, Wikipedia articles are not a final draft, and an article's subject can be notable if such sources exist, even if they have not been named yet. And my !vote is based on the same. Anup   [Talk]  05:29, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * My entire point being that you haven't shown that such sources do exist; you've merely asserted that there's a possibility that such sources might exist. That's not the same thing. Bearcat (talk) 17:16, 8 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete per lack of adequate sourcing. While it's true that people who were active in the 1970s might be harder to source via a Google search alone, that fact does not exempt the article from having to be sourced properly — you still have to do the work of digging into microfilms or news retrieval databases, and adding enough sources to the article to get it over WP:GNG. No prejudice against recreation in the future if somebody can do better than this, but people at this level of significance are not automatically presumed notable, or exempted from having to be sourced properly, just because their name appears in their affiliated organization's own self-published list of its own chairpeople. Bearcat (talk) 17:59, 6 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep: Passes WP:GNG, especially given that the fellow was active in the non-Internet era. His books have been referred to by many authors. Check out the additions to the article now. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {Talk / Edits} 08:21, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for digging up more information. It seem though that the only source independent of him is Diplomacy & Diaspora. Two of the references are just footnotes where he was cited (Which is WP:OR since no third party has commented on it.) and not about him while the others are his own books, none of which counts towards GNG. Could you give some idea of what Diaspora & Diplomacy has to say about him is it a passing mention ie is he simply listed as committee member? Or is there something in depth? I looked at the citations given to his books to see if he might pass NAUTHOR or PROF but his 4 books are cited by only 15, 8, 7, and 2 other works . I am unfamiliar with the position of Law Secretary of Government of India. The only place that the term used is in this article while Law Secretary of Goverment shows up only 3 times including this article . So without more information I do not think it would qualify under NPOL.  J bh  Talk  14:25, 7 October 2016 (UTC) Last edited: 02:49, 8 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Two of the references are just footnotes where he was cited and not about him... The references were used to show what that the sentence before them stated; that his books have been "referred to by other academics". You removed this sentence from the article giving edit summary as "books cited 15, 7,8,2 times based on Gscholar. Using random books citing his works to support a claim of "cited by other accedemics" is WP:OR" How is this OR? I actually submitted works of academics which have used Sarkar's work and attributed him thus. What is OR in this? He is simply listed as committee member, the committee was of three people. What do you mean by only 15, 8, 7, and 2 other works? What is the minimum required criteria? Law Secretary is the highest position in the Main Secretariat office of New Delhi within the Department of Legal Affairs. ref. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {Talk / Edits} 10:00, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
 * It is OR because you went and found books he was cited in and you decided that it was significant not an independant reliable source. That is the very essence of WP:OR. As to the number of citations while there is no bright line number, citation metrics are addressed in Notability_(academics). I do not think 15 citations indicated a work that has "made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources", which is the notability criteria which his publication history would be judged by. Finally, is there any documentation about "Law Secretary". Our article, which you linked, says the head of the Secretariat is the Law Minister of India and it lists them going back to 1947. He is not on that list. Do you mean he is the senior civil servant, ie the Permanent Secretary?  J bh  Talk  14:37, 12 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I presented references to where Sarkar has been used as reference by other academics. This might be PRIMARY, but is in no way OR. For the secretariat thing please refer the non-wiki ref link I provided above; our articles are quite shabby. He wasn't an elected Minister but an appointed law secretary of the department. I don't know how it translates to the British synonymous. But as India's structure is very much similar you might say that its similar to Permanent Secretary. Yeah... fine he doesn't pass Academic's metric. My claim was always of GNG. He touches that academic metric, gets appointed to two highest posts, of law Secretary and chairman of the UPSC. That's GNG based on online sources from an internet-free era. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {Talk / Edits} 12:44, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Btw, the Google scholar link you gave is giving only citations of his four books. It is not accounting his writings in various journals. For example, his article "Role of Government Departments in Legislative Process" that was published in Journal of Constitutional and Parliamentary Studies in 1968 has been referred to in this book. His another article titled "Specialists and Generalists" published in 1973 has been referred to in this book; "Press and Privileges of Parliament" (1981) has been referred to in here; "Legislative Relations" (1986) is referred in here; "The Office of Governor" (1969) goes in here. I am providing only one example of each journal entry for simplicity. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {Talk / Edits} 13:16, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions.  J bh  Talk  02:37, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  J bh  Talk  02:45, 8 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. The article still fails to demonstrate a pass of WP:GNG or WP:AUTHOR. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:16, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
 * NAUTHOR is for creative professional. Not sure writing law-related books falls under creative writing or not. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {Talk / Edits} 10:00, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   09:41, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note An IP went through and deleted the nomination statement and delete !votes and the article's AfD notice  immediately after the article's protection, which was placed becuase of AfD removal, expired . The article creator was blocked as a sock  of .  J bh  Talk  12:12, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment And now two more IPs have attempted to blank par tor all of the AFD  Meters (talk) 02:54, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep -- reasonable references for a subject whose career mostly took place in the pre-internet era and reasonable assertions of notability. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:19, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep as this is a case where WP:POLITICIAN is met with the national government positions. SwisterTwister   talk  05:11, 23 October 2016 (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.