Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ron Aryel


 * 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. Smithcraft36's comment disregarded as being made by a confirmed sock. Any contributor in good standing is welcome to the content on request.  Sandstein  05:16, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Ron Aryel

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Non-notable person. References are just passing mentions or synthesis of original research. If this were cut to what is verifiable, there would be less than a stub. Jehochman Talk 03:54, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree. The textbook mentioned is real; the subject, biosurveillance, is not covered in any textbook prior to 2006; the publication sources are real, and relevant including papers Aryel authored.  This article is exceptionally well-cited compared to many others.  The original research is in the textbook mentioned.


 * There are a lot of articles posted in wikipedia, notably about popular media, which have no citations whatsoever. If you are going to delete articles, I suggest that you delete many of those first (the tag "this article has no citations" should really be deleted itself, since articles with no citations do not belong on wikipedia). There are probably hundreds of articles that should be deleted before this one is.Smithcraft36 (talk) 05:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Smithcraft36, the great majority of your few edits to Wikipedia center on promoting the career of this individual. If you have a close connection to the subject, you should read and follow our conflict of interest guideline.  One requirement is that you should not comment on this deletion discussion if you have a conflict of interest. Jehochman Talk 12:37, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you and I should stay on topic. I pointed out why I disagreed with your judgment about this article.  Instead of addressing my points, you chose to make the argument personal based on my points.  Wikipedia has a policy about personal attacks too - you will recall that editors should assume each other's motives and reasoning to be positive and try to let that guide us.  I invite you to discuss the objective points of the article and refrain from personal attacks or judgments.Smithcraft36 (talk) 00:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  —David Eppstein (talk) 15:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. The subject's dr. title and the scientific nature of the claim to notability would seem to place this case under the jurisdiction of WP:PROF. GS gives less than 10 hits with h-index of 2, while WoS gives 1 hit using Author=(aryel r*): J. Am. Med. Informatics Assoc. (1997) with 0 citations, for an h-index of 0. These figures suggest that the subject's work has not had a strong impact, Bush's visit notwithstanding – fails WP:PROF #1. I don't see any obvious possibility of passing any of the other WP:PROF criteria either. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 20:20, 16 September 2009 (UTC).

I note again the sad appearance of personal attacks in place of reasoned discussion. For the record, incidentally, if a given article is factual and reasonably written and supported, it doesn't matter who wrote it. The conflict of Interest is a guideline intended to prevent abuse, not a law for persons to rely upon when they are unwilling to discuss issues. Wikipedia does not prohibit someone from writing about himself or herself; we note that it's harder to be objective that way, but it's not a crime. The "suckpuppet" issue is relevant when an editor is performing a true harm, such as threatening an illegal act against another editor, performing repeated outright vandalism on articles, threatening violence etc. Even then, "sockpuppet" doesn't necessarily prove anything (you never really know who is at the keyboard regardless of what the investigation finds, unless you go to where the computer actually is when the person is typing and watch him/her type). Smithcraft36 (talk) 05:47, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Agricola44 has brought the discussion back on topic with a reasonable criticism, and that's good. Here's where I came from with this article:  Aryel is not an academic. He's a consultant.  His value specifically to biosurveillance is this:  There was no coherent set of principles and practices published before 2006 (there was a chapter published in a 2004 textbook published by Springer-Verlag and Aryel was a coauthor of that one too).  There were no biosurveillance systems in existence before 1999 (RODS was the only game in town when it started) and Aryel was a major subcontractor and author of the reports funded by AHRQ.   RODS and biosurveillance are not strictly academic projects;  RODS is a system used by public health to monitor for outbreaks in several states. WP:PROF really doesn't apply here.  This is not to say that other participants in the project did not publish more articles; they did.  But the key work that launched the RODS effort is what's covered here.  Note that this is not a zero-sum game (ie for Aryel to "win" someone else has to lose - not the case).  As an additional point, the textbook is the requited text for graduate biosurveillance coursework at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon University.  Those two places and Johns Hopkins were the only places one could get graduate level training in the subject (that has changed in the last year or two).  ...Smithcraft36 (talk) 05:10, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete, not notable by any standard. Certainly not by PROF, but he doesn't meet BIO either.  Some references on the page don't mention him; others are to works written by him.  Overall, there is insufficient secondary source material to support an article here.  Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:43, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Userfy to User:Raryel. This is beyond a simple matter of conflict of interest: the article is most likely autobiographical, not biographical. Smithcraft36's contributions to this discussion are all too similar in tone and in style to Raryel's responses on his user talk page. Furthermore, the revision history of this article and other coincidences in timing lead me to suspect that Jndoe is also a sockpuppet of Raryel's, perhaps with some intention of humor in its naming (see John Doe). I don't particularly want to pursue this through Sockpuppet Investigations; I would far rather that the user concerned admitted it here so that the matter could be quickly closed with this deletion discussion. 𝐨𝐱𝐲𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐵𝑈𝑇𝐴𝑍𝑂𝑁𝐸 ⓊⓉ 16:35, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep as the author of a major handbook, the first in its field.. I don't much care who wrote the article. We;re discussing whether the subject is notable.    DGG ( talk ) 02:59, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * But where are the multiple independent secondary sources? Sometimes I think that "notable" is the wrong word for "worthy of an encyclopedia article" -- instead what we mean is "noted", i.e., someone else has noticed and produced reliable sources.  Perhaps Aryel has done something we could ourselves judge significant ("notable"), but that doesn't help us write an article. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:53, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * There's a difference between something that's genuinely a major handbook and the first in its field and something that's promoted by its author and/or publisher as "a major handbook" and "the first in its field". This is one reason why we have verifiability. This one's definitely just promotional. 𝐨𝐱𝐲𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐵𝑈𝑇𝐴𝑍𝑂𝑁𝐸 ⓊⓉ 14:27, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * As you wish it. You've been given two chances already in this discussion to allow an informal resolution of the COI issue: you haven't taken either of them. I've now taken this to Sockpuppet Investigations. I'm sorry it's come to this. 𝐨𝐱𝐲𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐵𝑈𝑇𝐴𝑍𝑂𝑁𝐸 ⓊⓉ 14:27, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Smithcraft36 was found to be a sockpuppet account, and was blocked indefinitely. Jehochman Talk 02:12, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. It seems that the handbook, although first in its field, is yet to achieve notability by WP standards on the basis of independent citations. Maybe it will in the future. Time will tell. Xxanthippe (talk) 10:09, 20 September 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.