Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roger Tangri


 * 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. Eluchil404 (talk) 22:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Roger Tangri

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Standard academic who doesn't appear notable based on this article. R andom H umanoid ( &rArr; ) 05:12, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete--I don't see any notability either following WP:PROF. An earlier prod had been removed by DGG, saying that the prof in question had two books by OUP--however, they were published (at least one of them still listed on the publisher's website) by James Currey in Oxford (originally misspelled as 'Curry'), which is a small press (though in league with Boydell and Brewer). The Politics of Patronage has been reviewed a few times, but isn't cited much, as far as I can tell. Then, the prof strikes me as a journeyman, not as a notable person (head of something, endowed chair, etc), and no sources are provided to suggest otherwise. Drmies (talk) 05:30, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak keep Yes, I was wrong about OUP, and it does make a difference. But I see that Politics in sub-Saharan Africa, 1985, copublished by Heineman and Currey, is held in 350 worldcat libraries  and The politics of patronage in Africa : parastatals, privatization, and private enterprise publ by Currey, is held in 159. These are substantial counts for the subject. However,  it is borderline. DGG (talk) 05:58, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.   —John Z (talk) 07:49, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. As pointed out by DGG, his book Politics in sub-Saharan Africa is widely held (in 359 libraries worldwide, according to my version of Worldcat). I believe a threshold of 300 is enough to meet WP:PROF criterion #1. He is also cited in the media, including New York Times, although not extensively. Citation impact appears to be borderline, as far as notability under WP:PROF is concerned. All in all, I would say it is a keep.--Eric Yurken (talk) 12:52, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey Eric, DGG, I should know more than I do, and this maybe isn't the place for it, but a WorldCat count doesn't necessarily mean a book is notable. Lots of books are simply acquired by academic libraries become they come from a certain press, or because a certain reviewer has said certain things, etc. I understand that that may mean something, but it's not a given, and I don't really see how 300 copies worldwide (which really isn't much, considering that there's 300 universities in the state of Alabama alone, it seems) means that #1, on "significant impact," has been fulfilled. BTW, if y'all say keep, you're not hurting my feelings. Thanks for enlightening me, Drmies (talk) 23:15, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Drmies. If 300 Spartans could do it, then 300 books should also … okay, the 300 in Worldcat is a subjective threshold, but it seems to be somewhere in the ballpark of those agreed to be notable here after some discussion. This is primarily for academics that are deemed notable based on scholarly books; often in the social sciences. Worldcat does not provide information on all libraries, only the major ones. These libraries buy based on requests from faculty (if they are university libraries), or directly from publishers; the latter usually only from reputable and selective publishers. By comparison, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman’s book The Spatial Economy yields 456 entries in Worldcat. --Eric Yurken (talk) 16:09, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * the threshold depends on the subject. This is a relatively out of the way topic, and US universities are notably weak in African studies, so the number is significant. I am not aware of any academic library that has bought books indiscriminately across all fields in the last 50 years or so, though some will indeed buy every published book in very narrow fields. The number that do it in this topic in the US might be between zero and five. DGG (talk) 21:20, 29 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 00:01, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You could take a book that is no doubt notable and do a count for that to get an idea how it compares. - Mgm|(talk) 00:13, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, Eric did just that above, in a more popular field; but, more important, the criteria for notability of a book are different--a scholar merely has to be an expert in the field, , & publishing one or more important books isone way of showing it.DGG (talk) 23:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment This raises the interesting question of whether WorldCat is a useful tool for measuring notability and how to intrepet ad hoc formulas constructed using its data. This would be worth looking into in more detail, outside the context of this AfD.  I just looked up a number of what might be deemed universally used textbooks in my (very large) field that have surprising low WorldCat numbers.  I'm at a loss to explain that.  Food for thought... -- R andom H umanoid ( &rArr; ) 16:42, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  MBisanz  talk 00:11, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Neutral - he does get some news coverage, but not a lot. Then again, I suppose there are not too many quotable experts on Ghana's economy out there. Quotable, apparently. Notable, not sure. Academics are quoted all the time, often just because the journalist has to track down somebody who can give a credible quote. Jlg4104 (talk) 03:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep--His prolific academic work is cited by others, Google Scholar--Jmundo (talk) 07:10, 2 January 2009 (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.