Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roger Stritmatter


 * 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 keep. (non-admin closure) DavidLeighEllis (talk) 00:01, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Roger Stritmatter

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This individual does not meet the standard for WP:N based on WP:SCHOLAR. I compared his credentials against the criteria listed for WP:SCHOLAR. Criteria #2-9 do not apply, so his notability relies entirely on meeting criterion #1, “The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources.” Typically this criterion is satisfied by a scholar being the author of highly-cited academic works.

Professor Stritmatter’s most-cited publication, according to Google Scholar, has been cited just 21 times. Three of those are in other publications he wrote. His H-Index is 5 on Google Scholar; on Web of Science, it’s 2. Web of Science identifies only 8 articles citing his work (other than self-citations.) There is no evidence that his scholarship has had a significant impact on his discipline, broadly construed. Bomagosh (talk) 19:56, 22 September 2015 (UTC) — Bomagosh (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Professor Stritmatter fails to meet the WP:SCHOLAR standard for academic notability. His research has not “made significant impact in [his] scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources.”  He is not “the author of highly-cited academic works.”


 * Of the 35 articles by Stritmatter listed on Google Scholar, 15 have never been cited. The remaining 20 articles have garnered 79 citations.


 * Of those 79 citations, three-fifths (45) do not meet the standards for Criterion 1. Nearly a third of his citations (25) are by himself or his collaborator.  Eight of those 25 are self-citations by Stritmatter; twelve, by his frequent co-author, Richard Waugaman (recently deleted from Wikipedia), five of which occur in Brief Chronicles, a journal edited by Stritmatter; five more are by Stritmatter and Waugaman jointly.  Another 17 are from non-academic, unrefereed websites and publications devoted to the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship; one is by a Baconian; one appears to be an undergraduate paper; one link is broken.


 * Only 32 citations “occur in peer-reviewed scholarly publications such as journals or academic books,” and are not by either Stritmatter or Waugaman. Two more are from dissertations.  But of those 34, seven citations refer to two papers on handwriting recognition, co-written with technical experts in that field.  These citations occur in other papers on the technical aspects of pattern recognition, far outside Stritmatter’s field of competence.  They have titles like “Style-based retrieval for ancient Syriac manuscripts” and “Writer identification using oriented Basic Image Features and the Delta encoding.”  Almost certainly, they do not discuss Stritmatter’s literary work on Herman Melville.  These are his citations only by association.  Omitting those seven, but including the two dissertations, leaves 27 valid citations out of 79 (34%).  That is an average of 0.77 citations per article.


 * The more rigorous Web of Science site lists 14 Stritmatter articles. Of these, Stritmatter & Kositsky's "Shakespeare and the voyagers revisited (Bermuda)" has five citations; "By providence Divine: Shakespeare's awareness of some Geneva marginal notes of I-Samuel" has three; "The influence of a Genevan note from Romans-VII,19 on Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 151'" is self-cited. The other eleven articles have gone unnoticed.  Average citations per item is 0.64.  His h-index is 2.


 * As measured by his academic achievements, Roger Stritmatter is scarcely notable. Though engaged in scholarly research and teaching, he is less “known for such engagement” than as a controversialist and publicist for the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship.--Quidlibet (talk) 06:52, 24 September 2015 (UTC) — Quidlibet (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Very strong keep, as this is a very serious matter, and it is unbelievable that this AfD has been proposed and opened. --Zbrnajsem (talk) 18:49, 26 September 2015 (UTC) - User Quidlibet wrote: As measured by his academic achievements, Roger Stritmatter is scarcely notable. Though engaged in scholarly research and teaching, he is less “known for such engagement” than as a controversialist and publicist for the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship. But interestingly enough, there is a special page on this very Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship on this Wikipedia, where one of the references belongs to Stritmatter´s dissertation, the first ever that is to be associated with Oxfordian theory. See Stritmatter, Roger (2001). The Marginalia of Edward de Vere's Geneva Bible: Providential Discovery, Literary Reasoning, and Historical Consequence (Ph.D.). University of Massachusetts. Retrieved 1 September 2012, available online. Professor Stritmatter is by all real criteria academically notable. So what is the point of Quidlibet and the others, e.g. Tom Reedy? They simply want to eliminate everything what they can eliminate in connection with the Oxfordian theory. They cannot eliminate the theory proper. Tom Reedy himself is one of the most prominent so-called mainstream (Shakespearean) editors on Wikipedia. However, he also contributed a lot to the above article on Oxfordian theory. In my opinion, there is no logics in this AfD, it should be closed without any further discussion. - Zbrnajsem (talk) 21:22, 26 September 2015 (UTC) --Zbrnajsem (talk) 06:23, 27 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep While I agree that the subject does not meet WP:SCHOLAR, he does meet the requirements of WP:FRINGEBLP, which states that "There are people who are notable enough to have articles included in Wikipedia solely on the basis of their advocacy of fringe beliefs." Stritmatter is mentioned, discussed, or quoted six times in James S. Shapiro’s Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?, which is a study of anti-Stratfordian fringe theories by a well-known and noted Shakespeare scholar. He calls him "one of the leading advocates of Oxford [as the true Shakespeare] at work today", and was called the world’s "first professional Oxfordian scholar" by Irvin Leigh Matus, another noted Shakespeare scholar. These reliable sources should be sufficient for inclusion of the article on Wikipedia. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:36, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep per Tom Reedy, though I came to the same conclusion before reading his remarks, after checking this AfD, on seeing the notification on Tom's page. Irv Matus's opinion, confirmed by Shapiro's work's citations of him, should not be taken lightly. There is a further, personal consideration. One's judgement here should not be influenced by personal views or the history of clashes with RS when he was active here. A negative vote from anyone involved in that past history would smack of vindictive enmity, which was never the question at all.Nishidani (talk) 19:57, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep As discussed by Shapiro and Matus, Dr. Stritmatter is perhaps the most notable apologist for the Oxford-as-Shakespeare theory. He fails WP:SCHOLAR, but easily passes WP:FRINGEBLP. If his page is rewritten to reflect that status, it should be kept.Quidlibet (talk) 21:46, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. North America1000 23:21, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. North America1000 23:21, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Maryland-related deletion discussions. North America1000 23:22, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. North America1000 23:22, 23 September 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.