Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephen Hicks


 * 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__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. (non-admin closure) Enos733 (talk) 03:12, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Stephen Hicks

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Fails WP:GNG. As one of its talk page thread says, this article looks like a PR piece. All sources are blogs, university documents and things written by Hicks himself. The page was created by a SPA that has been editing it for over 15 years, which explains the puffy writing. SparklyNights 23:58, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: People, Academics and educators, Authors, Philosophy,  and United States of America. SparklyNights 23:58, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Canada, Illinois,  and Indiana.  WC  Quidditch   ☎   ✎  01:42, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep. It's a shame that the writer of this rather puffy BLP could not take the trouble to provide a GS profile, but I think that there is a pass of WP:Prof and WP:Author in a low-profile field. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:46, 19 October 2023 (UTC).
 * Keep. One search on GS gives a book with 490 citations, which alone is well sufficient for SNG. Judging from the edit history there might be a COI problem but that is grounds for careful review, not for deletion. The career section contains (by my count) 4 references to him authored by academic peers, so the nominator has not checked things carefully. The most problematic part I noticed is actually the "criticism" section which appears to contain titles for unrelated books by another author. That smells of promotion. Ceconhistorian (talk) 04:40, 19 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I see his google scholar publications now, he is noted as "SRC Hicks" and that was why I couldn't find him before. His book Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault has over 400 citations now, which is a very big number, but I'm still concerned about the fact that his other publications still didn't get anywhere near that level of attention (his Nietzsche and the Nazis only has over 20 citations, for example, and I can't confirm if any of them mention Hicks beyond a passing mention). If only the postmodernism book is getting coverage, maybe we should have an article about the book and not him. I could confirm 2 sources about his works in the Career section of the article, one of which is about Explaining Postmodernism and the other seems to have been deleted from the Atlas Society website. SparklyNights
 * SparklyNights 05:59, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
 * His overall count looks good enough; 490 is massive and 20-60 are not bad citation numbers for a niche area like history of philosophy. From WP:PROF: "Generally, more experimental and applied subjects tend to have higher publication and citation rates than more theoretical ones. Publication and citation rates in humanities are generally lower than in sciences." History of philosophy is twice disadvantaged because it's in the humanities and quite theoretical. I've tried to come up with a fair comparison and the first that comes to mind is Peter Steinberger, a well-respected historian of philosophy who wrote on similar subjects -- here are his citation numbers. Ceconhistorian (talk) 06:44, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the titles for unrelated books by another author were added to explain who the reviewer being quoted is; the line is a bit awkward as a result, but it doesn't strike me as advertising those books. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:11, 19 October 2023 (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.