Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert W. McGee


 * 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. Modussiccandi (talk) 09:19, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Robert W. McGee

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

A new editor tagged this article for speedy deletion as "vandalism". I removed the CSD tag and thought it was better to consider this article at AFD. It is so superlative (a novelist! a professor! a champion martial artist!) that it reads like a hoax article. I found evidence of his academic articles that have been published but nothing about the 900 gold medals he has supposedly earned. If it matters, much of this same content is repeated in his Amazon profile. It's unusual for an academic bio to be such an over-the-top exaggeration, I mean, it sounds like there is a super hero teaching at Fayetteville State University. Liz Read! Talk! 02:44, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Academics and educators, Finance, Law,  and Martial arts. Liz Read! Talk! 02:44, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete most of the sources are from his won works/self-published. Vanity spam, taken to a new level I suppose. Oaktree b (talk) 02:59, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment. Not checked in detail but Google Scholar profile suggests possible notability under WP:PROF, with top five citation counts of 268,242,205,167,164 and an h-index estimate of 56. There's a more sensible version in the history after what looks like IP vandalism in February. He's published on Trump's tax situation, which might explain things. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:21, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * That is the one thing I found evidence of, his publication record which is respectable for an academic. It's the rest of the content that made me skeptical about the entire article. I know of academics with a few honorary degrees but the dozens which it's claimed he has, teaching at a non-elite university, and the martial arts gold medals and the dozens of books he's written, AND being a lawyer make me doubt the truth of the bulk of the article. Liz Read! Talk! 06:09, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd probably have rolled the article back to the version prior to the IP additions on the assumption that the mess was just a prank originating from a student; that's pretty common for academics that continue to give lectures. But the self-citation issue that the unsigned comment notes below is concerning, particularly on top of the fact that the highest-cited article on his GS page is clearly not written by him (I excluded it above). Not going to argue for retention in the circumstances, unless someone can produce substantive clearly independent coverage of him/his works. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:09, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Robert McGee, here. Thank you for taking the time to read my Wikipedia page. Actually, I am an attorney (retired). I earned my law degree (JD) from Cleveland State University and passed the New York Bar exam. I also passed the CPA exam in Ohio. I actually do have 23 earned academic degrees. My first bachelor's degree is from Gannon University in Erie, PA. I also have 4 undergraduate degrees from Excelsior College (It was called University of the State of New York at the time), and 4 undergraduate degrees from Thomas A. Edison University. I have an MST (Master of Science in Taxation) from DePaul University in Chicago. Three of my doctorates are from universities in the United States - a JD from Cleveland State University and 2 PhDs from the Union Institute and University in Cincinnati. Six of my PhDs are from schools in England: University of Warwick, University of Bradford, Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Sunderland, University of the West of England and Leeds Beckett University (called Leeds Metropolitan University at the time). I also have a PhD from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, a DUniv from the University of Debrecen, Hungary (called Lajor Kussuth University at the time), a DSc from Tartu University in Estonia and a Dr. oec. from the University of Latvia. I am not listed in the Guinness Book of World Records because: [1] some people have more degrees, and [2] the Guinness Book no longer has a category for "Most earned academic degrees." I have approached Guinness several times, and each time I approached them I was told that Most Academic Degrees was not, and would not be a category because every university has its own standard for awarding academic degrees, and it is thus not a uniform standard of measurement. 2603:6081:3503:B4FF:755B:7822:CEAF:3A9A (talk) 03:00, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment: considering that the University of Debrecen was called Lajos Kossuth and not Lajor Kussuth, one might entertain some doubts if not to the veracity, then at least to the depth of the involvement there. I might not have a dozen PhDs, but I do know how to spell each of the universities whose names I had to spell dozens of times when submitting my dissertation and other paperwork.Ari T. Benchaim (talk) 14:11, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * It was a typo. 2603:6081:3503:B4FF:A532:876E:83C:C60B (talk) 03:15, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep The sheer amount of degrees is very impressive. All documented.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by BlackAmerican (talk • contribs) 05:14, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't know of a notability standard by which the number of degrees held alone makes one notable, unless it's some Guinness world record type of thing. Having a ton of degrees, many of which are quite prone to repurposing (it was very common for Western scholars to get 'Soviet style PhDs', as the article describes them, by simply translating their Western PhD into the local language and taking a class in dialectical materialism to satisfy the educational requirement), is not in and of itself an indicator of notability.Ari T. Benchaim (talk) 13:39, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment: I am unfamiliar with the European system, but a degree is still a recognized earned degree. I am right now updating his page, and am listing all his earned degree's from non primary sources.BlackAmerican (talk) 14:25, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment my reality-check alarm is going off very loudly. Before being impressed by the citations, do check who is doing the citing. For example, for "The ethics of tax evasion: Perspectives in theory and practice", which is his best, he has 268 citations but 73 are self-citations. By the time we reach "Why people evade taxes in Armenia: A look at an ethical issue based on a summary of interviews", which is still one of his higher-cited articles, at 141, we find that 113 of these citations are self-citations! To reach a self-citation rate of 80% in a field that ought to be highly interesting (tax evasion) takes real talent and effort. I feel strongly that this article needs close examination by someone who's prepared to do the detective work and unravel what this person has actually done, and what's self-promotion, because he's clearly an utter expert at it. I'll admit a strong personal bias, to the extent that I don't feel I can judge him fairly (it's impossible to do anything well at the sheer speed he does things). But we're not here to assess his quality. He may have achieved notability by getting himself written about (by appropriately gullible secondary sources); the decision must be taken on secondary sources, and them alone. I'm really struggling because it's hard to google without being bogged down in a morass of his self-promotion and primary publication.


 * Delete - if we peel back the self-promotion, what do we have? His Google Scholar record is dubious. The most cited article on the list is one from 1954 which he manifestly did not write. There are plenty of articles that appear in works edited by him but not written by him, which is not a 'publication' to be credited to one in any conceivable scientific sense. The articles all sound like rehashings of the same paper, and even though he has copious self-citations, his h-score is a respectable but not too high 23. Some of the entries on his Google Scholar are individual chapters of a monograph, so that the twenty-odd citations of the monograph accrue once per chapter, which is admittedly a clever trick to inflate one's citation count. According to the FSU website, he's not a named chair, which would not meet WP:NPROF. I have no doubts that he's a very interesting fellow, but just about everything about him is so tainted by self-promotion that even if there might be a justifiable case for notability, it is very, very hard to ascertain.Ari T. Benchaim (talk) 13:47, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe it is self promotion, but there is enough independent research to show he is somewhat notable.BlackAmerican (talk) 14:25, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment Clearly passes WP:GNG WP:SIGCOV has Significant coverage, Reliable sources, and Independent of the subject. BlackAmerican (talk) 14:38, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete I am the user who originaly proposed the page for deletion. In general claims such as 900 medals and claims such as best selling novelist are unverefied or self verefied (read: false self promotion). The fact that guinness doesn't acknowledge his as the first in degrees held is also very suspect. Reverse search of the image in the page only yields the page itself(excluding alumni uses whom he probably gave the picture himself)! It is almoast definately photoshopped. Even if there is anything true under these layers upon layers of self published sources, it is doubtful it meets the notability deadlines. Even so, I believe we shouldn't take the risk and remove the page entirely. Inquisitor9800 (talk) 17:03, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Response He isn't first in degree's, there is another individual, Michael Nicholson, who has more degrees., , , BlackAmerican (talk) 18:03, 10 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Robert McGee here. Thank you for taking the time to critique the content of this Wikipedia article. As the article states, several studies have ranked me #1 for both accounting ethics and business ethics scholarship. Those studies were published in refereed journals. One of those journals is the Journal of Business Ethics, which is an "A" journal. It is true that I have published many article and books over the years. Writing is a hobby of mine. I published my first article in 1975. I published my first book in 1978. It, and several others, were published by Harcourt Brace. I have also published with Prentice Hall, Springer, National Association of Accountants (now called the Institute of Management Accountants), Dow Jones-Irwin, Quorum Books, Greenwood Press, Kluwer, Praeger, Warren, Gorham & Lamont, the Foundation for Economic Education and a few academic presses. 2603:6081:3503:B4FF:755B:7822:CEAF:3A9A (talk) 03:13, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Robert McGee here. Thank you for taking the time to evaluate me and my hobbies. I actually have won more than 900 gold medals in various martial arts. There are several factors that have enabled me to achieve this number of gold medals. I have competed in more than 200 martial arts tournaments. I tend to compete in many different events, not just sparring. Martial arts tournaments offer many different events, such as traditional, creative, extreme and musical weapons; traditional, creative, extreme and musical forms; hard style (Korean, Japanese), soft style (tai chi, etc.). During Covid, the various martial arts organizations that sponsor tournaments cancelled their "live" tournaments. Many of them started offering virtual tournaments. There are two kinds of virtual tournaments: [1] live Zoom tournaments, in which competitors perform their routines in front of a camera, and the judges score them in real time, and [2] tournaments in which the competitors submit videos of their performances, which are distributed to judges for evaluating and scoring. Because of Covid, I was able to compete in many more tournaments, and in many more events, than would have been possible under "normal" circumstances. I competed in my first tournament in the mid-1980s. I competed in my most recent tournament less than two weeks ago. At the age of 75 I continue to plug along, winning sometimes and losing other times. I have won world championships in several hard and soft martial arts. The photo that appears on my Wikipedia page was taken after I won 6 gold and 1 silver medal at a 2019 taekwondo world championship that was sponsored by the American Taekwondo Association [now called ATA Martial Arts] and its worldwide affiliates. It was not photo shopped. 2603:6081:3503:B4FF:755B:7822:CEAF:3A9A (talk) 03:44, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Robert McGee here. Actually, I am a novelist, professor and martial artist. I have given some details in the comment section of this page. I have published a lot because writing is one of my hobbies. I have won many gold medals because martial arts is also one of my hobbies, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time, as I explain in some of the comments on this page. 2603:6081:3503:B4FF:755B:7822:CEAF:3A9A (talk) 03:53, 12 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete. Heavy self-citation makes WP:PROF unusable as a notability criterion, and he doesn't appear to pass any other WP:PROF criterion, so we're forced to fall back on WP:GNG. But excluding works by McGee rather than about him, and promotional pieces by his employer, it seems the only source meeting the criteria of GNG (independent, reliable, in-depth) is a single local newspaper profile . That's not enough, and in view of the evident promotion here and the effort needed by other editors to keep the promotion down, I think it's not worth keeping this article. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:21, 10 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Robert McGee here. Thank you for taking the time to critique my work. One thing you did not mention was my ranking by the Social Science Research Network WWW.SSRN.COM. As of today (May 11, 2022), it ranks me #6 in the world among accounting professors in the "Last 12 Months" category, and #2 in the world in the "All Time" category. In the Business Author category, it ranks me #68 in the world in the "Last 12 Months" category and #15 in the "All Time" category. In the Top Author category, it ranks me #304 in the "Last 12 Months" category and #31 in the "All Time" category, out of a database containing 856,002 authors, which places me rather high [31/856,002 = 0.0000362]. 2603:6081:3503:B4FF:755B:7822:CEAF:3A9A (talk) 03:29, 12 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment source analysis:

I would consider this to be very strongly in favour of deletion.Ari T. Benchaim (talk) 19:32, 10 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Robert McGee here. Everything in the Wikipedia page (as of May 11, 2022) is true. See my comments for explanations and elaborations. 2603:6081:3503:B4FF:755B:7822:CEAF:3A9A (talk) 03:48, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment: the concern isn't with the truth of your article, the concern is with your notability. Coming here and explaining the truth of the record is not going to make much of a difference. If there are reliable secondary sources we've missed, go add them. Otherwise, not much good generally comes from an article subject turning up for its discussion.Ari T. Benchaim (talk) 12:20, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * McGee here. As I mentioned elsewhere on this page, the Social Science Research Network ranks me rather highly in three categories. The SSRN is a reliable external source that contains more than 800,000 academics in its database. 2603:6081:3503:B4FF:755B:7822:CEAF:3A9A (talk) 13:01, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * A few comments.
 * 1. SSRN is a preprint server. It's gotten tidier in recent years, but there is some mindblowing stuff there.
 * 2. The ranking is the number of downloads of your papers on SSRN. You have over 500 papers, so a high rank would be pretty much to be expected. What a number of downloads does not do is make a person notable.
 * 3. The ranking is not a ranking of skill, prowess or reputation. Such lists don't make much sense anyway.
 * Why do you so desperately want a Wikipedia page? You have lived an interesting, rich life with a lot of achievements. A Wikipedia page is neither an achievement nor a badge of honor. It's not a judgment on you or your accomplishments whether your page is deleted or not, and least of all is it the ultimate judgment of your worth.
 * To borrow from Marcus Porcius Cato: I would much rather have men ask why I have no wiki page than why I have one.
 * Ari T. Benchaim (talk) 14:08, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Very cute comments. Actually, I am not desperate to have a Wikipedia page. Someone else created it. I don't know who it was, but I suspect it was someone from the Union Institute and University. When I first saw it, I edited it a bit to get rid of some inaccuracies, then decided to add a few things. I will survive quite well weather I have a Wikipedia page or not. However, I do find it quite amusing that people with lesser credentials have Wikipedia pages. Go ahead and cancel me, if you like. 2603:6081:3503:B4FF:A532:876E:83C:C60B (talk) 03:27, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I am the author of the article, and I have never met Robert. I just happened to see an article about him and wrote one.BlackAmerican (talk) 09:00, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for writing the article. It was a nice surprise. 2603:6081:3503:B4FF:A041:5787:8E7F:13DD (talk) 04:47, 16 May 2022 (UTC)


 * comment Just wondering what is the difference between Robert McGee and [] BlackAmerican (talk) 09:01, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The keep votes in the Bolger AfD were based on GNG via coverage in mainstream media sources. I don't see that here so far.  See the sources table given by .  (In contrast, the US News and World report and the Chronicle sources in the Bolger article are independent in-depth coverage from reliable sources.)  In general WP:WHATABOUTX is an argument to advance with caution in deletion discussions. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 11:28, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I just wanted to know the difference. I didn't see it.BlackAmerican (talk) 09:00, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Weak delete. The scholarly output looks like a wp:walled garden, and I'm not seeing a pass of WP:NPROF, nor much progress there.  There would be a possible case for WP:BASIC based on number of degrees, but I'm not seeing significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject, as would be required.  The best case I can see for notability is based on WP:NAUTHOR.  However, the  books I can find reviews for appear to mainly be edited volumes (or possibly just compilations/anthologies of pre-existing works) ; there's also a coauthored book with review .  I'd look for two authored books with two reviews each as a bare minimum for WP:NAUTHOR. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 11:19, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete His martial arts championships are in senior age and (sometimes) belt limited divisons. ATA divides black belts by dan and runs tournaments only open to members, while there's no evidence that he's won anything that would show WP:MANOTE is met. I agree with the previous comments that he doesn't seem to meet any WP notability criteria, including WP:GNG.  I also think he has accomplishments to be proud of, but nothing to clearly show WP notability. Papaursa (talk) 02:02, 17 May 2022 (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.