Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scott Eric Kaufman


 * 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. Article fails to claim notability per WP:BIO. Kim Dent-Brown  (Talk)  13:09, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Scott Eric Kaufman

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Minor blogger and adjunct professor. No indication subject satisfies either WP:ACADEMIC or WP:GNG. PROD declined without explanation by article creator. Safiel (talk) 02:48, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - Unless I greatly misjudge, the subject passes GNG. I'm sorry for not explaining my declination of the prod, I didn't mean to be rude, I'm just busy and this got sent to the back burner. Smmurphy(Talk) 03:55, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Journalism-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 00:58, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, –  Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 03:31, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete - Doesn't seem to pass WP:GNG. A small amount of coverage about subject's death but little else.  CBS 527 Talk 16:09, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The obituaries in the refs are about the subjects life, I think. There are articles about the subjects final illness and death, mostly blog posts, although one short mention in the Boston Globe . None are referenced in the article, but, as you suggest, a number of notable bloggers have written about his illness and health care financing difficulties. Smmurphy(Talk) 20:50, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, –  Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 00:43, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. North America1000 06:39, 14 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete Smmurphy has, again, greatly misjudged. Subject fails GNG and ANYBIO. I give no weight to sources for which the subject worked. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 00:43, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Articles about him and his work are cited in the article published by wired.com (in 2006), Inside Higher Ed (in 2012 and 2016), the Chronicle of Higher Education (in 2008), and thinkprogress.org (in 2013) and about his scholarship published by the academic journal Colloquy (in 2010). He didn't work for any of those, although his writings may have appeared in those publications. Smmurphy(Talk) 01:22, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * True enough. I still don't see GNG, and the issue of independence is still there. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 01:48, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Obviously, I disagree.
 * I'd also like to point out that blogs written by experts can sometimes be used as reliable sources. While I don't really go that route, and don't recommend it, his film criticism work is covered in many highly regarded blogs, from washingtonpost.com blogs to rogerebert.com . Similarly, as a blogger-journalist he is discussed on blogs from brad-delong  to Crooked Timber . I don't mean to argue that being mentioned in blog posts makes someone WP:Notable, only that highly regarded bloggers and experts in the fields of media criticism write about Kaufman and his work. Smmurphy(Talk) 02:24, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The 2012 article in the Inside Higher Ed website, a site that he was a contributor to, is a trivial mention of a comment on his blog. The 2016 article is an obit. The 2008 the Chronicle of Higher Education article is a trivial mention about a Youtube video. The reference in thinkprogress.org was in a friends blog, hardly a reliable source. The mention of Scott Eric Kaufman in the online journal Colloquy was in Daniel Wood's 17 page article about Zack Snyder’s Film Adaptation of Watchmen and consisted of 4 sentences. The Washington Post and Roger Ebert blogs are not about "Kaufman and his work". He is just one of many bloggers mentioned. The brad-delong and to Crooked Timber articles are obituaries. None of these seem to provide significant coverage to pass WP:GNG.  CBS 527 Talk 03:17, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The 2012 Inside Higher Ed article links to Kaufman's blog, which was where the protest started, and is about the protest that Kaufman made. Kaufman is a significant figure in that article, even if he is only named three times. The 2016 article is an obit, what's wrong with that. Fair point on the 2008 Chronicle article, although the panel was discussed in a few places, and the Chronicle seemed to be the most significant. Also, he was discussed by the Chronicle a number of other times between 2005 and 2008 . Alyssa Rosenburg, the writer of the thinkprogress article, has written for many of the same outlets as Kaufman, including DailyBeast and Salon. She is an East Coaster, while Kaufman is from the West and South. While I am sure they are friends, it seems that their friendship is professional. I think the friendship is mentioned in the thinkprogress article as a vote of confidence for Kaufman's writing, and not meant as a signal that her recommendation and description should be discounted. As for Colloquy, 4 sentences in an academic journal is a lot of ink about a blog post, but fair point. The WaPo and Ebert blogs are similar, in my mind, to the Colloquy coverage, as they represent more ink than is commonly given to bloggers. The brad-delong and Crooked Timber links I provided were to searches on their blogs, whose results show more than just obituaries.
 * For completeness: you didn't mention the wired.com article and neither of us mentioned the AV Club and Salon obituaries, which covers all of the sources currently in the article not written by Kaufman and the 4 blogs I mentioned above. Smmurphy(Talk) 04:08, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't usually like phrases like this, but I've added to the lede that Inside Higher Ed described him as a "leading first-generation, graduate student blogger" in an obituary, for what it is worth. Smmurphy(Talk) 04:44, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I would agree the wired.com article is a good reference. Obituaries tend to be questionable as a source. Generally they have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight or may have a conflict of interest. I'm still having a hard time with the subject's notability. I checked the Google Trending tool, but it wasn't much help in establishing notability. The number of times the search term "Scott Eric Kaufman" was used average slightly under 3 times a week from Jan. 15, 2012 to October 29, 2016 on Google. The period around his death (Oct. 30, 2016 - Dec.30, 2016)  the search average went up to slightly more than 17 per week. This year the average search went to 1 time per week.  The Google Nviewer shows the search term "Scott Eric Kaufman" at less than one billionth of one percent. Sadly, I still find that the subject lacks the notability for an article.   CBS 527 Talk 17:15, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I am not an expert in the metrics you are talking about, but Kaufman tracks pretty well with Daniel W. Drezner, Chapati Mystery, and isn't far behind 3 Quarks Daily, three of his peers in the academic blogosphere, I think.
 * Also, I'm surprised you would discount obituaries. They are often written before a subject dies (possible in this case, as his death was not unexpected) and are always heavily scrutinized (by readers and by editors, I think). Also, the superlatives given are similar to those in articles before his death, such as in the chroncle of higher ed in an article about his illness which isn't in the article or yet come up in our discussion, and can be read here. Smmurphy(Talk) 00:09, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. Smmurphy(Talk) 04:40, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Although comparing articles won't establish notability or lack of notability, the article on Daniel W. Drezner was tagged two weeks ago for notability issues and the article on Manan Ahmed Asif seems to have the same issues as well. I don't see how 3 Quarks Daily compares to the subject -It's a minor news aggregator like Google News or The Daily Beast. I appreciate your comments but we just disagree on this article. Regards,  CBS 527 Talk 16:08, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * This comment prompted me to go remove the notability tag from Drezner, a rising scholar whose books are widely reviewed in major newspapers.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:00, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Someone had already removed teh tag form Asif; appropriately so.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:04, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
 * No worries. I didn't mean to compare articles, just to point out that google trends should be used comparatively. In my opinion, 3qd is as much a blog as an aggregattor - or at least it was a decade ago when SEK started blogging. Smmurphy(Talk) 16:12, 16 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment - I added another (academic, independent, peer reviewed, published) source which I believe discusses Kaufman in depth: "Old English, New Media: Blogging Beowulf," The Old English Newsletter 41.1 (2008): 42-46. http://www.oenewsletter.org/OEN/essays.php/essays/hurley41_1. Smmurphy(Talk) 17:03, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * This link is broken, here and on the page.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:08, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmm, not sure, here is a link to the entire issue, does it work for you? Smmurphy(Talk) 19:36, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That article is written by a doctoral student rather than a PhD and Kaufman isn't the subject, his work on blogging is mentioned. I still don't see GNG. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 22:17, 22 January 2017 (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.