Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Raymond Hoser


 * 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. Stifle (talk) 09:17, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Raymond Hoser

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Only references are attacks on his work by a single, rival academic. No clear assertion of notability which would qualify him as notable under the individual fields of author-notability or television presenter-notability. Inherent WP:BLP issues, subject request via OTRS, and marginal notability. Daniel (talk) 07:48, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete nominator said it all. He doesn't want this, and it is too marginal for us to need it.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 09:14, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.   -- the wub  "?!"  11:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep The references are peer reviews to his work, with (not one, but) eleven, Australian and international workers in the field putting their names to the scientific discussion papers. They challenge the validity of Hoser's scientific descriptions and contain nothing that could be construed as a personal attack. This is in stark contrast to the man himself who publishes such material on his web sites. The references do not state that he stinks, for example, but I detect a stench when I am harried by an editor who finally looks at what he has done, says he now has no objections, then toddles off here to vote nay. cygnis insignis 11:30, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions.   — cygnis insignis 13:54, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.   —Tim Vickers (talk) 20:58, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Amateurs sometimes make valuable contributions to taxonomy of groups of interest to them (reptiles, orchids, aquarium fish, etc). This does not seem to be the case for Hoser. The three references cited are not "attack essays" as stated on the article's talk page (and not from a single academic, as stated in the nom, there are several different co-authors on each of the three papers), but articles correcting errors brought into the taxonomic literature by a presumably well-meaning amateur. If "attacks", they attack his work, not the person and therefore don't seem to poase a BLP issue to me. In any case, it doesn't seem likely that his taxonomic work will have much more impact than the citations he got in these three papers, which would not be enough to satisfy any of the criteria of WP:PROF. His other activities (website and such) don't seem to be notable enough to satisfy WP:BIO. Just an aside, the fact that the subject of the article doesn't want an article is basically irrelevant to this discussion. A lack of notability is the only valid reason for deletion, IMHO. --Crusio (talk) 11:39, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Certainly not notable as an academic, under WP:ACADEMIC. Very little evidence of any citability (not to mention high citability, which is what is generally required for satisfying criterion 1 of WP:ACADEMIC) of his scholarly work by other scientists. Very low citation results in GoogleScholar and similarly low in WebOfScience. Also, very little in googlebooks. Nsk92 (talk) 11:53, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Change to Weak Delete. Although the subject is not notable academically, there may be a passable WP:BIO case (in relation to his political activism) based on the GoogleNews results. However, such a case does not seem to be strong, the subject requests deletion and there are apparent BLP concerns here. In view of this I still think that deletion is warranted. Nsk92 (talk) 18:11, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Change to Weak Delete. Although the subject is not notable academically, there may be a passable WP:BIO case (in relation to his political activism) based on the GoogleNews results. However, such a case does not seem to be strong, the subject requests deletion and there are apparent BLP concerns here. In view of this I still think that deletion is warranted. Nsk92 (talk) 18:11, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete this WP:COATRACK. Guy 12:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Guy, don't you think it is ironic that, in your eagerness to defend "living people", you never seem to hesitate in besmirching the motives and integrity of your fellow Wikipedians? Whoever wrote this article is a living person too, you know, and you have not a scrap of evidence to back up your COATRACK claim against them. Congratulations, you've just made an unverifiable personal attack on a living person. Hesperian 13:37, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, for goodness sake get a sense of proportion. A negative assessment of an anonymous person on a non-indexed debate page is NOT in the least equivalent to Wikipedia publishing highly prominent accessible information on living people who have no choice in its inclusion. And if any wikipedian doesn't like the treatment they can walk away, article subjects cannot.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 13:41, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I wasn't talking to you, Scott. Hesperian 13:59, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I was talking to you. If you want to have a private conversation with Guy, try e-mail. This is a multi-party discussion page.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 14:11, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The closing admin will likely ignore such ad hominem attacks Hesperian. Can you keep the discussion on-topic please? ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 16:44, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Hesperian, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about: . If Doomguy1001 was his real name then you might have a point, but it isn't. Guy 17:08, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If I understand your response correctly, you're not claiming that the creator of, or main contributors to, this article were biased, but rather than one or more bad faith editors have subsequently injected bias into the article. Apparently you think that any article that has received an injection of bias is thereby a coatrack that should be deleted. Sarah Palin? George W. Bush? Abortion? Hesperian 05:02, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I think that the main reason anyone wants an article on this man appears to be in order to discuss the dispute in which he is engaged. This is a view I formed while researching the possibility of a better sourced and more neutral article: most sources on the internet appear to be polemical in nature. Thise which are not appear to track back to him.  We received an OTRS complaint regarding the dispute between him and another individual; the only coverage of said dispute was primary sources connected with the two. I don't see this as a genuine article documenting a notable individual, but an article designed to either highlight or downplay, depending on partisan allegiance, his controversial side.  Since the controversy appears to be restricted to a rather small group of individuals, I don't think it's an appropriate subject for an article. Guy 13:15, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete I've had more scientific impact than this guy, and I've only just finished my MS and published 2 papers. Mokele (talk) 12:32, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - Wikipedia does not need pages on every person who some handful of people (about 3 per day in this case) might want to find information about. Wikipedia's 'notability' guidelines exist both to protect us from being flooded by pages about obscure individuals AND to protect individuals who are not already widely scrutinized from having their privacy violated by us. The latter seems to apply in this case. The listed sources all have extremely limited circulation. This person isn't regularly discussed in major newspapers. There is neither an existing 'public collection' of information about this person nor an existing demand for such information. It should not be Wikipedia's role to provide information which is not already widely available and sought after. --CBD 12:35, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Take off, eh? Per WP:BIO and per reasonable request from non-notable subject. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  13:27, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Author of multiple published works. Author of numerous valid (albeit not accepted) taxonomic names. His contributions to herpetology nomenclature have had such an impact that they have been the subject of academic refutations published in reputable journals. So what if his contributions have been assessed as unhelpful rather than helpful: the same could be said of Otto Kuntze or Richard Salisbury. The impact remains. This man well and truly meets our notability policy. Hesperian 13:37, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * So, you your logic, I get my own page? After all, I discovered a new mode of snake locomotion (meaning I did real, actual research, as opposed to just inventing new names for things), and my discovery has been upheld in the literature.  Or how about my friend Dan, who discovered the secondary re-evolution of galloping gaits in vampire bats?  Or Manny, who discovered pennate muscle gearing?  Or Tim, who discovered differential within-muscle activations?  All of us have had our discoveries published in top-tier journals.  My point is that all but the worst/laziest graduate student needs to have substantial novel contributions to science simply in order to graduate.  We clearly cannot list all of them.  Articles should be reserved for those who have made truly huge contributions, either in the form of a single incredible discovery or a lifetime of high-quality work.  Shitting out some taxonomy papers - which were rejected - is not notable. Mokele (talk) 14:14, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If you provide the references for that, I will be happy to write an article on you. Your discovery is notable! He is noted at WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles recommended taxonomic source (ITIS) as providing valid names. His name appears in multiple and reliable sources discussing Elapidae and other families of snakes. If Hoser is not notable, how did you come to hear of him or the article? Why did you contribute to it, prompting this talk page item from another user in this AfD 'discussion'? cygnis insignis 16:00, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * No, the point is that I'm NOT notable (at least not yet), and that many, many graduate students, post-docs, and professors have done a LOT of notable work, much more than Hoser. If we set the bar for inclusion in WP at this level, WP might as well simply import the entire faculty list of every university, plus most of the grad students, past and present.  My familiarity with him comes from his role in the venomoid trade - to me, he's notable as an animal-abuser who mutilates snakes in unsanitary conditions with horrific mortality rates and no proper surgical procedure or post-operative care.  Just about every reputable herpetologist or hobbyist won't go near him with a 20 foot pole as a result.  Mokele (talk) 17:06, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that your body of work doesn't make you notable. But once a reputable journal publishes an assessment of the impact of your work, you're notable. That is true regardless of whether the assessment is "Mokele's ground-breaking contributions have laid a frameword for the field for the next fifty years." or "Mokele's contributions are a load of garbage that have set the field back fifty years." Hesperian 04:57, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I should rephrase - performing notable, publishable research is basically the job description of any scientist, so the bar for notability needs to be set higher, as in the guidelines for academics. I don't think there's any debate that Hoser's work does not make the grade - it's a handful of taxonomic changes in obscure papers (many of which have been rejected).  I've read some of his papers, and I'm definitely not impressed - I'd reject them if I was a peer-reviewer, mostly due to the highly dubious choices of distinguishing characters (such as pattern, scalation, and vertebral number, all of which are highly polymorphic within and between populations).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mokele (talk • contribs) 13:45, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I can't believe you are comparing Hoser to O. Kuntze, a man who produced an enormous body of work. And although much of that has been overturned, a lot of it still stands. Many of the taxa described by Kuntze are still in use today, more than 100 years later. --Crusio (talk) 14:57, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Point taken; it was not my intention to put Hoser on the same pedestal as Kuntze. Hesperian 04:57, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep Raymond Hoser easily passes the general test of worthy of notice, with many reliable independent secondary sources (newspaper articles, radio and current affairs news transcripts, academic refutations in journals) available to attest to his worthiness for inclusion in Wikipedia. The article probably needs more detail on Hoser's work, his anti-corruption campaigning and various legal cases he has been embroiled in, some of which were newsworthy and very unusual such as the Victorian Supreme Court fining him $5000 for scandalising the court in 2001, a rarely prosecuted offence.. As with most VfD articles, they often need improvement, and this one is no exception, including adding reliable secondary sources. Although the subject of the article may fail the academic notability test, I find it difficult to believe how any editor can seriously consider this article for deletion based on a general test of Notability. The person is very noteworthy, although not necessarily based on his scientific achievements. --Takver (talk) 15:51, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * This is not VfD. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:42, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete - the usual bar of notability is "multiple non-trivial reliable secondary sources about the subject." None of the people recommending that we keep the article have so far shown any kind of evidence that this kind of source exists for this subject. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:42, 11 October 2008 (UTC) Nutral - this guy seems to attract very minor press. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 21:08, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - This is not true - Google News found 427 references to Raymond Hoser, many of which were non-trivial articles. I have just done a rewrite of the article, which changes the focus to Hoser as an anti-corruption whistleblower and campaigner. He has been significantly reported upon and discussed with regard to anti-corruption. I added 9 non-trivial reliable and independent secondary references to the article which substantiate the claim to general notability of the article.--Takver (talk) 18:15, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Good, I've added in a section with references about his persistence practice of animal cruelty. Mokele (talk) 18:32, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

*Weak delete just in the context of a scientist, his two descriptive biology books are not widely held outside of Australia. The 4 scientific papers mentioned are not in international journals. I have not look at other factors. 03:36, 12 October 2008 (UTC) re-evaluated--see below DGG (talk) 23:24, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 *  Delete  - non-notable individual, and subject requested. We are reasonable people here; let's not fight about this. -- how do you turn this on  18:00, 11 October 2008 (UTC) Stricken per research done. --  how do you turn this on  21:17, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - he is very well known in herpetological circles, if not necessarily for his scientific achievements. Moreover, he has been embroiled in numerous acrimonious exchanges, and a Wikipedia page provides the opportunity for balanced coverage.-- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caissaca (talk • contribs) 11:35, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - I've actually got a few of his corruption books here on my shelf. Notable by my standards. -- Longhair\talk 11:40, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, balanced article and there is no need to be too concerned by his wish for it to be deleted as he is clearly a believer in freedom of speech on occasions.--Grahame (talk) 14:01, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Note to closing admin and "keep" voting editors Given the way AfD usually works, it boils down to a vote, even if it shouldn't. Given the number of "keep" votes given above (although none of them really give any solid reasons establishing notability), I therefore expect the closing admin to go for a "no consensus" solution, this being the easiest and safest. In that case, the article needs a thorough rewrite. Nobody really argues that the herpetological work of this person is notable. Whatever notability he has, it derives from his anti-corruption activities. The article needs to be rewritten to reflect this. For instance, it now starts with "is an Australian herpetologist". As it stands, the anti-corruption stuff is secondary, the herpetology primary. The latter should be more of a footnote. --Crusio (talk) 15:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, meets WP:BIO, though not WP:PROF. I've added "findsouces" above to facilitate viewing GNews results.  WP:COATRACK is easily trumped by notability: the point is then to get NPOV in the article.  Crusio is correct in saying the article needs re-writing.  Takver's edits help; I can see why this one was nominated given the state it was in yesterday, but I think it doesn't qualify for deletion now.  Nomoskedasticity (talk) 21:41, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep Keep -- see below for rationale. although not notable as an academic--works are of local interest only. The sources fo rthe rest is good enough, but the article remains sketchy.DGG (talk) 02:17, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * keep His work dealing with Australian corruption makes him notable enough as is. He could likely get an article simply for his herpetological work. It is not generally a good idea to delete an article on someone notable for two distinct issues would be deleted. Note also that claims of COATRACK are unpersuasive(and moreover irrelevant since the solution to such an issue would be to rewrite not to delete). Finally, the subject's work especially his political work makes him a willing public figure. It is unreasonable in the extreme to delete articles about willing public figures even if they want them deleted. JoshuaZ (talk) 17:44, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, a notably bad amateur scientist who's work was singled out for detailed rebuttal in a review article by several prominent herpetologists, who also made unusually strong criticisms of his ethics (see article). More criticism of Hoser's work was published in, which I will also add to this article. Most scientists, fortunately, do not warrant that much attention. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:09, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Note on "citations" in taxonomy and nomenclature From the above comments by several editors, I feel there is perhaps a need to explain a bit about work in scientific nomenclature. The traditions of taxonomy force people to cite. One cannot deal with a group without citing all synonyms and their "authorities" (I put that between parentheses, because this does not mean "authority" in the common sense, but in the taxonomic sense). If one sees things that way, those citations rebutting Hoser's work are less significant, not more. To give another example, in most fields of science, if someone manages to publish bad research (which unfortunately happens more often than one would like), nobody will cite it and that's the end of it. In taxonomy, given the nomenclature rules, if someone publishes a bunch of rubbish names, they still must be dealt with and they will be listed ad eternam in any article covering the taxonomy and nomenclature of that particular group. If this would confer notability, then all someone has to do to become notable is to publish a bunch of scientific names in a valid way (and that's pretty easy, since they don't need to be published in a peer-reviewed journal - a self-published little rag is sufficient) and wait until someone writes an article to put the record straight.... --Crusio (talk) 20:35, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * However, this guy seems to be a serial offender in that regard, which I agree doesn't make him a notable scientist, but the aggravation and disruption he has caused appears to have been considerable, and generated a lot of comment in reliable sources. Consequently, I think his taxonomic "work" makes him notable, because it is so very bad. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * There aren't many people becoming notable for their amateur taxonomy work whether well done or not. If at some point people start publishing bad taxonomy work in order to get Wikipedia articles we can worry about it then. JoshuaZ (talk) 21:34, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, and who is going to want to become notable for being wrong? That would be the academic equivalent of becoming the star wars kid. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:48, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, I don't care how many rules it violates, we *MUST* use that description in the section on Hoser's taxonomic work. It's just too funny not to use. Mokele (talk) 23:10, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Of course I am not seriously proposing that someone would do all this on purpose, just to get into WP. I was just trying to illustrate a point. I work in neuroscience. If I would publish some particularly bad science, then most other neuroscientists would ignore it, unless it attracted attention for some reason, say because I managed to make a lot of noise and get it into prominent journals. In that case, someone might write an article entitled "Why Crusio is wrong" and that might rightfully be taken as a sign of notability. I did bad science, but it was notable. Like most people here, as a neuroscientist I would take the articles showing Hoser's errors as a sign of notability. Bad science, but notable. However, when I was a student I worked in taxonomy (I even described a new species at some point :-), so I know a bit how things go there. Scientific nomenclature is guided by a set of stringent rules (actually sets of rules: there are different rules for plants, animals, microorganisms). These rules stipulate that if a name is validly published, it has to be taken into account, whether correct or not. Suppose I would describe a new contemporary species in the genus Homo, Homo ludens. All taxonomists studying Homo would fall over me: there is only one contemporary species of Homo, Homo sapiens. H. ludens would therefore be reduced to a synonym. The thing is, however, that every subsequent serious taxonomic treatment of Homo sapiens would have to cite H. ludens (and my bad article), listing it as a synonym of H. sapiens. Unlike other fields, citations in taxonomy are not necessarily a sign that someone has used a certain piece of work, it's just an acknowledgement that some name was validly published, nothing else. Suppose now that I would have published a whole bunch of new names in Homo. Someone would then have to publish an article to state officially that these names are wrong, otherwise they would become the valid nomenclature: the last publication counts. I would not call that "a lot of comment". It's just one article, stating "Crusio did a bad job", we reduce all names that he published to synonyms so that we can all be rid of it. Note that I would not need to publish my bad article in some reputable journal. It could be a "journal" that I produce in my back yard shed. In contrast, such an article would be completely ignored in any other field of science. To cut a long story short, I argue that taxonomy is kind of a special case here and the articles correcting the wrong nomenclature introduced by Hoser were not because he had produced some notable bad science, but because the nomenclature rules make it impossible to ignore such bad science and oblige other taxonomists to correct these errors. Hope I'm a bit clearer now than before. For more information, see International Code of Botanical Nomenclature and International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. --Crusio (talk) 22:59, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * PS: It's a bit ironical that here people are arguing for notability because someone has published science bad enough to warrant corrections by others, whereas here people are using the same situation to argue against notability.... ;-) --Crusio (talk) 22:59, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If that was all he'd done, I'd probably agree that notability was borderline. However, the books, legal cases, press coverage and taxonomic SNAFU all add up to make him notable. Added to that, his self-promotional website Smuggled.com for me argues that he is a willing public figure. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:33, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep; he seems to be a figure of minor controversy in several fields, that adds up to notability over all.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:05, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep this person has had 8 books published between 1989 and 2000, this is enough for notability alone. Then add to it two of those books resulted in convictions for contempt of court in Victoria, another one was the subject of proceedings to surpress its publication. Just today another court case(administrative tribunal) action completed. Then theres the herpetology information. Yes the article is controvercial but it because this guy attracts it, BLP doesnt exclude controversies it just require them to presented in a balance way(WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE) with reliable sources. Gnangarra 05:44, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment I was asked by Tim to take another look, at the article--which he has much improved. I am not sure the space devoted to the taxonomic work of an amateur naturalist is really worth the trouble, but I suppose it does as to his credibility for his related work in conservation and related advocacy. That it was discussed in Nature as an example of amateur work is relevant to notability, though. He would in my opinion might well be notable even if he had never done it. I however changed by Weak keep above to a keep, primarily because of the Nature paper. DGG (talk) 22:40, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep per DGG. --Crusio (talk) 07:20, 16 October 2008 (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.