Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Song Yoo-geun


 * 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. The keep arguments put forth by editors who read Korean are strong. (non-admin closure) Sam Sailor Talk! 01:47, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Song Yoo-geun

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The individual in question, a child prodigy, does not seem notable. His accomplishments sound impressive, but impressive accomplishments do not automatically merit inclusion in Wikipedia. I could only find a little bit of coverage clustering around a few events: a couple news articles from when he entered college, an interview he gave earlier this year (and a lot of blogs, reddit threads, etc. linking to it), and some blog posts earlier this week because an article he co-authored was found to be plagiarized. None of this seems to qualify as significant enough covage to meet the notability requirements for people in general, for academics, or the general notability guideline; rather, it all feels somewhat ONEEVENTy. Note, there is a corresponding article on Korean WP (송유근), which has more references cited, but I asked for help at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Korea to evaluate the sources there and nothing significant was turned up. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 04:58, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete. It seems that the coverage of him is pretty much ONEVENTish, and also has poblems due to the fact that it focuses on a plagiarism, in which he probably played a second fiddle to his supervisor, this raises issues related to WP:BLP and WP:CRIME. We miss Plagiarism in South Korea to which this could be merged, but frankly, there is little to merge and rescue here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:40, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.  SwisterTwister   talk  08:31, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of South Korea-related deletion discussions.  SwisterTwister   talk  08:31, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions.  SwisterTwister   talk  08:31, 27 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete and my searches found a few links but simply not enough for an independently notable article, merge and redirect wherever necessary though if needed. SwisterTwister   talk  08:32, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep. In its present 14 August 2015 state, this page creates no harm to anyone, so that CRIME and Biography of a Living Person are irrelevant. Saying that a 2005 one shoot event is not sufficient for notoriety would have not been an argument in a June 2015 Article for Deletion survey, since other events were recorded by Korean press small articles (not only blogs, but established newspapers). But now, a notable event has occurred. It happened that serially breaching the rules in order to "grow the future Korean Nobel Prize in Physic" (and serially depicting doubts as jealousy) has produced unforeseen results. For the moment, the best thing to do is to freeze the article in its present 14 August 2015 state, and wait to see what will say the main Korean newspapers (and other reliable sources) during the next months to come. Pldx1 (talk) 21:45, 27 November 2015 (UTC). Sarcasm against Pldx1: don't use weasel words, be specific about versions ! Pldx1 (talk) 18:05, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Regarding "this page creates no harm to anyone", please see WP:NOHARM. Regarding "the best thing to do is...wait to se what will say the main Korean newspapers", please see WP:ATA. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 07:44, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Dear User:Rjanag. The key part of my first sentence was so that. And, relative to this page creates no harm to anyone, so that CRIME and Biography of a Living Person are irrelevant, invocation of WP:NOHARM is irrelevant. Indeed, this page create no harm was not intended as an argument to keep, but as an argument to refute a delete opinion based on an alleged harm. If you disagree about harm v. no harm, please state it clearly. Assuming there is no harm (in exactly the 14 August 2015 version of the article), we have a large amount of time (circa one week) to discuss quietly about the other argument, i.e. notoriety. Reliable sources are telling us that various procedural rules have been broken by various Korean institutions, all these breaches being done asserting they were done for the best final benefit, i.e. growing a perhaps future Nobel Prize. If you have doubt about this fact (and more precisely about the fact that Reliable Sources are saying that), please state it clearly. Examining if this factoid (to call it that way) is worth of an article, or even of a mention in an article, is another discussion. And now it remains to have an opinion about the correct timing of a possible deletion of this article. It is crystal clear that none of us can read the future, in a crystal ball nor in any other device. I am not sure that a quotation from WP adds any truth to this axiom, but I agree with you that this is a reasonable axiom. And now, my opinion about our best move to follow the primum non nocere rule is to do nothing during one or two months from now. Wait and see the behaviour of Reliable Sources. Since Wikipedia is one of the most watched internet venue, erasing the article just right now (i.e. just after the publication of the AAS retractation) could be perceived as a white-washing attempt from one or the other involved parties. Creating by ourselves a Streisand effect about an event that is not yet evaluated as under the radar or as over the radar by the Reliable Sources is not something that we shall do. Pldx1 (talk) 18:05, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep. If you focus on English language sources only, you will miss the extensive coverage of this individual in Korea.  Please see 송유근 and the twelve sources used in that article.  웃웃 (talk) 22:06, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your feedback, 웃웃. Actually I asked about this issue at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Korea, but from the summaries that were given to me there it sounded like the Korean-language sources were not contributing any additional relevant information beyond what the English ones did. Note that 12 is just an arbitrary number and does not in of itself make an article notable or non-notable; it's the content of the references that matters. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 08:52, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Dear User:Rjanag. Following the link, it appears that you haven't asked actually, but four days ago. And the answer you got,  15:02, 26 November 2015 (UTC), was: at that date the w:ko article was containing a 2005 part (roughly equal to the w:en 2014 article) and a more recent part roughly equal to any other description of the studies of any pop-star, more about playing drums and tennis. This changed a lot in four days. The formal retractation of an article, published by the American Astronomical Society, motivated by an exceptionally large overlap with a paper published in 2002... seems to have triggered a lot of comments in Korea, while the Encyclopedia has to take her time for acting as a tertiary source. Moreover, we have now a lot of English articles published in Reliable Sources covering the recent events. Among them, The Korea Herald (www.koreaherald.com), Korean Joongang Daily (koreajoongangdaily.joins.com, 3 articles), Korea Times (www.koreatimes.co.kr, among them an Editorial comment), Yonhap News Agency (english.yonhapnews.co.kr), The Donga Ilbo (english.donga.com). Therefore, the factoid "something turned wrong in a long term process" is largely noticeable and established. What to say about this long term process, from 2005 to 2015, is a content discussion, not to be discussed here. Pldx1 (talk) 12:29, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * keep: It's not BLP1E, he has consistent coverage from Korean media following his Univ. entrance at age 7, and from his other stuff in Korea. I will be producing references in few hours. (Phone now.) &mdash; regards, Revi 00:57, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Quick Google: 2015-04, 2009-11, 2005-10... (Beware: You must be able to read Korean to read article properly.) &mdash; regards, Revi 01:00, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * keep: Not only is this being reported on in the Korean press (the retraction is major news), but there are other, English-language sites such as ScholarlyOA that are referring to this Wikipedia article. --WiseWoman (talk) 10:35, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * What does the fact that other sites refer to this article have to do with the notability of the subject?
 * I was aware of the scholarlyoa coverage when I nominated this article; I even mentioned it above in my deletion rationale, if you are aware of it. The question is not whether that coverage exists, but whether it constitutes evidence of notability. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 10:47, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   20:56, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * keep: I have started editing this page to show just how much press conference Song has gotten (at a regular interval, as a headline-worthy news). It's a big job, and it'll take a few days to complete, but his life events have been reported starting at about 2004, and he was front-page news for about a week because of his plagiarism controversy. I would say that Song has received much more media coverage than Kim Ung-Yong, and unless you vote to delete his page also (and some more), I don't think that deleting this page makes sense. Song is honestly a household name, and many parents would say things like "I hope that my child is as smart as Song Yoo Geun." He is certainly noteworthy (case in point: although I grew up outside of Korea, I grew up hearing his name). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Awolmayas1 (talk • contribs) 03:28, 6 December 2015 (UTC)


 * strong keep:although it doesn't seem to be on the article, there was a 5-part documentary made about him back in the day (tried to Google quickly but phones have limitations. I'll try to produce that reference at some point), which brought in an incredible number of viewers. He is most definitely not one event y, and he has received significant coverage all his life. Unless the op has another reason, every reason that the op suggested so far is very far from the truth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FB90:4D:C402:9019:744E:C00:2D6D (talk) 02:14, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

@Awolmayas1 and 2607:FB90:4D:C402:9019:744E:C00:2D6D: If you guys can produce those references that would be helpful. Unfortunately "I remember there is a lot of coverage" is not so useful, but if you provide the sources that will go a long way towards indicating notability. As you can see from reading above, the original of the article did not demonstrate notability at all, and I actually did make quite a lot of effort to find coverage outside of the article (including asking Korean speakers for help, since I don't know Korean) but didn't find anything useful. So if there is stuff that is useful, that would change the picture. <b class="IPA">r ʨ anaɢ</b> (talk) 16:44, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

@Rjanag You might see that I have already started editing the article (of course, if you don't speak Korean, most of the references that I cite won't make much sense) but I have indeed started producing the references. You should also see that pretty much every stage of his life is well-documented. The way consensus is going, it is likely that he is actually not a child prodigy, but either way, he will be talked about for generations to come, either as a genius or as a big fraud. I agree that the original article did not demonstrate notability, and I do plan to keep editing, but it is a lot of work sifting through tens of thousands of articles. Incidentally, it would be helpful if you can comment on the current (in-progress) version of the article, instead of the original article. Also, your Korean speaker friends didn't tell you that they know this guy? That's bizarre. I'd like to know how your Korean speaker friends helped. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Awolmayas1 (talk • contribs) 19:09, 8 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep Most of the argument for deleting seems to be based on GNG and 1E, and none of the users making these arguments appear to read Korean, the language in which most of the RSs discussing the topic are obviously written. Saying "I asked on WikiProject Korea and they couldn't find a lot of better sources" isn't adequate, since this was done less than 24 hours before this AFD, and to date there has only been one response from another editor (who opposes this AFD). It would also appear that this person is notable for at least two events. Until more Korean-speaking Wikipedians have examined the sources and determined whether or not this figure actually has received significant coverage in his home country, I don't see why we should be rushing to delete the article. If there was concern that this figure was primarily known for something negative but BLP prevented us from discussing that in a neutral manner, then I would say the best path would be deletion, but no one seems to be making that argument. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 10:35, 10 December 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.