Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephan Kinsella (4th Nomination)


 * 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. ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 08:33, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Stephan Kinsella
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Due to its absence of neutral or credible sources, this piece clearly fails to meet Wikipedia's criterion of notability and should therefore be deleted unless neutral sources can justify Kinsella's claim (literally speaking, since Kinsella admits he wrote the page after one created by DickClarkMises, an anarchist libertarian ideologue who has taken it upon himself to create dozens of pages for obscure libertarian thinkers) to prominence. I will give three reasons as to why this should be the case, although there are undoubtedly many more. I invite those who care about the Wikipedia criteria for deletion to do the same.

1) The criterion of notability asserts that "multiple sources are generally expected" of notable figures, and affiliated sources don't count as multiple sources; yet every citation on this page either comes from Mr. Kinsella himself (which doesn't count as a source, according to the rules) or comes from the anarchist libertarian Ludwig Von Mises Institute and its various associated publications (The Journal of Libertarian Studies, The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, and LewRockwell.com]. I fail to see a compelling reason as to why Kinsella should be exempt from this "general" rule.

2) The claim that Kinsella is a prominent legal theorist is sourced by his publication in the above-mentioned journals. Yet the scholarship portion of the "neutral source" requirement of the criterion of notability clearly indicates that "Journals that are not peer reviewed by the wider academic community should not be considered reliable, except to show the views of the groups represented by those journals." The only "peer-review" process of the above-mentioned journals are by Austrian Economists, a fringe group of extreme (almost all anarchistic) libertarians who reject the scientific method in their methodology (in other words, they wouldn't even been considered "economists" by mainstream thinkers). In other words, the sources of Kinsella's academic notability fail the neutrality test.

3) The scholarship portion of the neutral source requirement of the criterion of notability also indicates that scholarly sources should have entered (or in some way impacted) mainstream academic sources. This is supposed to be measured by " checking the scholarly citations it has received in citation indexes." As far as I can tell, those mainstream scholarly citations are virtually non-existent; the only citations are from ideologically affiliated "Austrian" (i.e., mostly anarchist economists who reject the scientific method applied to economics) sources. Steeletrap (talk) 01:01, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2013 April 17.  Snotbot   t &bull; c &raquo;  08:19, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I have notified the subject (an editor here) and the article author as requested on the article talk page. I have also cleaned up templates in various places related to this AFD. I won't "vote" on the nomination itself but feel free to contact me if there is a technical issue with any of the templates I added/changed. Cheers, Stalwart 111  10:05, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep - Previous AfDs resulted in keep by significant margins. This article has been around since 05. Those facts combined would suggest this AfD will result in keep. Looking for references, this guy does get some minor mention in mainstream RS. All that said, I do sorta struggle to find a criterion under Notability_(people) or Notability_(academics) that this subject obviously passes. All-in-all, I'd say this guy just scrapes by notability guidelines. NickCT (talk) 12:58, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep - Notability is not temporary. Leaving aside Kinsella's authorship or editorship of multiple legal texts published by Oxford University Press (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Kinsella's 2001 journal article "Against Intellectual Property" has garnered numerous citations and substantial discussion in various scholarly journals and law reviews since its publication (See Google Scholar search here). It is not accurate to assert that all these mentions have been in Mises Institute-related publications, as they include the Texas Law Review, Ecology Law Quarterly, UC Davis Law Review, California Law Review, South Carolina Law Review, Public Finance Review, University of Memphis Law Review, Journal of Business Ethics, European Journal of International Relations, Buffalo Intellectual Property Law Review, Oeconomica, International Journal of Social Economics, International Review of Business Research, The Journal of World Intellectual Property, Global Public Health, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, UCLA Journal of Law & Technology, and others. Even if all his mentions were by other Austrians, I disagree with the nominator that this would render these mentions unworthy of consideration for purposes of establishing notability. Yes, Austrians will be more often cited by Austrians than by others, Marxist economists will more often be cited by other Marxist economists, etc. So what? This is not clearly related to the question of Kinsella's notability, but the assertion by the nom that Austrians would not be considered economists by other economists is clearly incorrect, as there are literally hundreds of Austrians in tenured or tenure-track positions in economics departments around the world, and they were not all hired by other Austrians. Additionally, Frank Fetter, sometimes called "the American Austrian," was an eminent scholar recognized by economists of all schools as a notable figure in the history of economic thought. This sidenote from the nom attacking the Austrian School leads me to believe that this nomination may be an example of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. DickClarkMises (talk) 14:07, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment Delete DickClarkMises, I did not say that Kinsella has never been cited by any mainstream journals; I said that his Wikipedia page only cites Mises-related publications and his own website, which means it should be deleted unless the material related to his notability can be sourced by a mainstream, NPOV publication. (Incidentally, his degree of citations in mainstream journals is very small compared to an average "notable" academic; I don't see much evidence that his work has passed a threshold of mainstream notability. But maybe you can help with that by providing some citations of mainstream journals describing his contributions.) Steeletrap (talk) 14:44, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Also, NickCT seems to have only (and barely) voted to keep because of the Stephan Kinsella page's past success in these votes. I think that's a bad criterion in this case, since ideologues and sock-puppets were running up the vote score. (You yourself Dick, are an anarchist libertarian who has created dozens of Wikipedia entries for relatively obscure libertarian thinkers; do you -- and I'm just asking; genuinely don't mean to be snarky -- think that could affect your point of view? Also: I see you and Mr. Kinsella are both affiliated with the Von Mises Institute. Would you mind saying whether you are personally friendly with Mr. Kinsella?) Steeletrap (talk) 14:44, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The fact that you believe that the article is currently poorly written is not a valid argument for deletion based on non-notability. The number and quality of sources currently cited in the article are not what determines notability. See WP:RUBBISH. As for my personal interests, please read WP:NPA to understand why they are irrelevant to this discussion and why your comments constitute personal attacks that should be avoided. DickClarkMises (talk) 14:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Maybe a reasonable compromise could be to keep the page but only if the claims to notability can be sourced from NPOV/mainstream sources that aren't published by fellows at the (libertarian anarchist) Mises Institute where Kinsella is a Senior Fellow or published by Kinsella himself? If that could be done, I would strongly consider changing my vote. But if it can't, his claim to notability seems to lack credibility. Also, I don't think it's fair to say asking you -- who created the page originally before it was deleted and re-created by Mr. Kinsella himself -- whether you are friendly with Kinsella and whether you (who are also affiliated with the Mises Institute) share his (anarchist libertarian) political views is a personal attack. Ideological affinity (particularly in the case of a pretty small, tightly-knit political group) and personal friendship can bias anyone's judgment. Wikipedia rules indicate that "pointing out an editor's relevant conflict of interest and its relevance to the discussion at hand is not considered a personal attack," which is all I'm doing. Steeletrap (talk) 14:48, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep per prior AfD - it may be from 2007, but I am convinced by the sources and arguments in that AfD even today. Luke no 94  (tell Luke off here) 15:21, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:14, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:14, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:14, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment - In three previous AfDs, closed as Delete once (2005) and Keep twice (2005, 2007). The last debate is not a strong one, based upon a "seems important/has published widely/yeah I agree" sort of chain of opinions. Footnotes showing in the piece are poor (largely self-published) and not sufficient for a GNG pass without a look-see at the internets, in my opinion. No opinion as to notability other than to say this should not be a slam-dunk keep based on a weak 2007 debate. Carrite (talk) 00:38, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment - Also note: seemingly self promotional per THIS. Carrite (talk) 00:44, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It wasn't created by that account, so that particular argument doesn't really hold water with me. Luke no 94  (tell Luke off here) 07:10, 18 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes it was Luke. Look at his page again: on his page, Stephan Kinsella admits that he created the Stephan Kinsella wiki after DickClark Mises'(who has taken it upon himself to create wiki entires for some two dozen anarchist libertarian thinkers affiliated with the Mises Institute) version was deleted. Steeletrap (talk) 13:37, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You're confusing me, this is clearly not Kinsella. Whether Kinsella dragged up the page again, based on this version, is irrelevant, the original creator is a third-party. It is beyond dispute that the promotional SPA has since hijacked the page, but that is irrelevant. Also, your comments with regards to DickClarkMises are borderline personal attacks. Luke no 94  (tell Luke off here) 13:47, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * My comments are purely descriptive. Kinsella created the page after it was deleted; he says so on his wiki user page. Dick Clark has created dozens of pages for Mises Institute scholars and related matters. Those are descriptive (factual) assertions, not opinions or value judgments (much less attacks). Steeletrap (talk) 14:01, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * "Dozens"? Citation needed. But seriously, I don't understand these accusations. While I was at the Mises Institute (from August 2004 to September 2007) I had access to a lot of out-of-print materials, and I was able (acting under the authority granted to me by my bosses there) to release a great deal of content under free licenses. I thought that was the sort of thing we encouraged here. And look, I've also started articles about people like Peter Boettke who are openly critical of the Mises Institute. I'm in favor of building a good encyclopedia. DickClarkMises (talk) 15:39, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Correct me if I'm wrong about any of these, but you have created articles for Stephan Kinsella, Robert Murphy, Joseph Salerno, Burton Blumert, Robert Higgs, Mark Thorton, Kevin Gutzman, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Journal of Libertarian Studies, among others. You also have indicated that you have written articles outside of your account, and you have substantially revised virtually every article on every Mises Institute Senior Fellow. Of course, that doesn't prove bias in and of itself; but it's something for the community to watch, since -- even with good intentions -- it's hard to remain perfectly objective when repeatedly writing about colleagues and ideological fellow travelers. Steeletrap (talk) 16:46, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This is an inappropriate discussion and irrelevant to the article at hand. You're so far beyond WP:AGF at this point it's unreal. Luke no 94  (tell Luke off here) 20:05, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I disagree with your interpretation; I think my comments were strictly descriptive and that yours imputed bad faith onto me. I think that this back-and-forth is unproductive and will be stepping off this page to let people talk and vote about the issue at hand. Steeletrap (talk) 21:01, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure why you think I have "indicated that [I] have written articles outside of [my] account," but that isn't true. Other than a smattering of minor edits accidentally saved while I wasn't logged in, my ~11k edit count under the username DickClarkMises comprises the entirety of my contributions to Wikipedia. Also, we don't require that editors be "objective," only that they aspire to a neutral point of view when using the encyclopedic voice. I have worked to achieve that, but of course I wear my past affiliation with LvMI on my sleeve, and I fully expect others to be bold when working on the project, including those articles that I have edited in the past. DickClarkMises (talk) 22:54, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment It seems to me that Steeletrap is on a crusade against the LvMI and people associated with it. Whether or not this proposal has any merit, I cannot take it seriously due to the strong bias. --Cgtdk (talk) 20:26, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I certainly am strongly biased against the Mises Institute, and I suppose that is material to the discussion, so I am happy to disclose that. (To put it plainly, I think they are cultish, ideologically-driven charlatans whose "economics" is just an attempt to justify their ideological priors), and also believe that a great many of them are bigots). However, the reasons given above for deleting the page can and should be decoupled from and considered independently of any biases I may have. Agree with my reasoning or not, it clearly relates to notability and doesn't depend on whether one personally likes or dislikes the Mises Institute. Steeletrap (talk) 21:04, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete. The applicable guideline appears to be WP:ACADEMIC. From what is on the page, I don't see any evidence that he passes any of the criteria in WP:ACADEMIC. DCM's comment above points to publications that are the strongest claim to notability: Editorship of legal texts published by Oxford University Press (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). However, these are not enough to establish notability under WP:ACADEMIC.  LK (talk) 06:36, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep – Has produced good books, published by a most reputable publisher (OUP), stocked in large number of important libraries (law and otherwise). In the legal field his Online Contract Formation ("Online contract formation.(LAW)(Book Review)." Reference & Research Book News. Book News Inc. 2005. Retrieved April 23, 2013 from HighBeam Research: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-135655733.html) contains an extensive indexing of laws plus commentaries on the subject. – S. Rich (talk) 15:51, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep Two books with Oxford University press are enough for notability. And there's also the editorship of the major legal treatises by the standard publisher in the field, West (and its affiliated companies). None of this has anything to do with his theoretical positions, but rather shows widespread acceptance as an authority.   DGG ( talk ) 01:12, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually the works published by Oceana Publications are OUP as well. And the West/Thomson Reuters publication is an important legal practice guide from the major publisher of law books in the US. – S. Rich (talk) 01:33, 24 April 2013 (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.