Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thorsten J. Pattberg


 * 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. It's been stated many times, we don't create the notability, we simply acknowledge what's all ready there. Xymmax So let it be written   So let it be done  20:36, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Thorsten J. Pattberg

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

(Endorsed PROD was removed by IP, so this is brought to Afd) This BLP fails notability criteria for WP:PROF and appears to be blatant Self-promotion through the use of sockpuppets. No references are provided for claims in the lead other than Pattberg's own website and his name mentioned as a participant at a conference. Searches find no hits for publications, nor books  nor any significant coverage ,  except that the individual was one of a number of staff scientists at the Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai a year ago. Equally problematic are the apparent sockpuppet SPAs and IPs which are inserting Pattberg's name in several WP articles, , , ,  ,. in an attempt to promote an unpublished book. — Cactus Writer |   needles  19:18, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  — —  Cactus Writer |   needles  19:27, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions.  — —  Cactus Writer |   needles  19:27, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. There seems to be no significant coverage of book or author (in Google Books and News and Scholar)--with or without middle initial (and nothing for "Pei Desi" either). This looks like the advertising of a self-published book to me. Drmies (talk) 19:35, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow, that's a ton of ipuppets, in the history of the article and the "associated" articles. Drmies (talk) 19:40, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delte There certainly is a lack of even trivial sources to be kind. Not notable. Drawn Some (talk) 19:49, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Deltete this person is not "  1. The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources." or anything else on the list Arma virumque cano (talk) 19:49, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete --dab (��) 21:10, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as per nominator. and consdiering the COI and socking problems, Salt as well. Edward321 (talk) 23:16, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep I think it is getting too personal; back to the facts: Pattberg and his writings do exist, and they are having an impact as we speak. Pattberg, educated in Peking University and Tokyo University (also Edinburgh University, me thinks) wrote The East-West dichotomy (2009) in good faith via a non-commercial, modest web-site: www.east-west-dichotomy.com (copyright), sure, but so what, do you think he will reach less audiences this way? Better, even wikipedia itself is using his quotes, references, sources and ideas elsewhere (see now Cultural hemisphere). Most people wouldn't even know how to translate Li Dazhao or Ji Xianlin (there are no English translations available). The entries Thorsten J. Pattberg and the East West dichotomy need a bit more time to expand (as this is wikipedia, there will be many more experts editing on it over the time, hopefully many more Indians and Chinese, too), yet the general editors, assuming bad faith, immediately redirected East West dichotomy to Cultural hemisphere and want to delete Pattberg. I understand your worries. You say it is Pattberg's first work, and that he does not meet a so-called professor test (why not put him under a different category then?), so he shouldn't have been able to write The East-West dichotomy (2009), at least not before he is a Huntington or a Fukuyama? But I think wikipedia should neither do list every person who meets a professor test, nor should it list only the well established universal historians. It should also give place to the less established yet promising young authors, who for some reason or another where lucky enough to write an important piece of work. Pattberg is real, and he wrote, in good faith: "that there are two cultural hemispheres, East and West, which developed diametrically opposed, one from the particular to the universal and the other from the universal to the particular; the East is more inductive while the West is more deductive. Together, they form an equilibrium". Now, that is something beautiful to say, and you read The East-West dichotomy (2009) and agree or disagree, but you shouldn't attack him personally and delete his entry (and keep his ideas) just because the administration thinks such a young person has not the right to write a good paper. Many in Asia, in particular in China and India, strongly agree with the ideas expressed in the East-West discourse, that's why Ji Xianlin and Ikeda Daisaku have 100 millions of readers. Now you have Pattberg's The East-West dichotomy (2009) explaining and expanding a little bit more on the topic, and I kindly pointed it out to you by creating East West dichotomy as an entry in philosophy that did not exist before in wikipedia. It is based on Pattberg's work, so give him some credits. There is no need to delete neither East-West dichotomy nor Thorsten J. Pattberg, but I agree, it should be refined. Sakura china (talk) 01:19, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * not having a Wikipedia article is not in any way a slight or stain on the author's character. Most of us here don't have biographical Wikipedia articles. If Pattberg's writings are relevant, they can always be cited, but that doesn't mean he needs a bio article. See also WP:HARMLESS. --dab (��) 08:48, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. Article is inadequate and obscure. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:20, 15 May 2009 (UTC).
 * DeleteThis may possibly be epoch-making work, but until people publish about it, I don't see how that can be demonstrated. When he has millions of readers, there will be evidence of that, but this is not the place to disseminate his work. We write the article after he has made the impact. DGG (talk) 04:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * But wikipedia already published about it, the East West dichotomy. The content of East-West dichotomy are the concept, quotes, translations, references borrowed from The East-West dichotomy (2009), www.east-west-dichotomy by Thorsten J. Pattberg. The same two editors who want to push for deletion of Thorsten J. Pattberg are those who are most keen on editing the entry East-West dichotomy themselves. Please consider. Sakura china (talk) 14:37, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we should look more carefully at your contributions to that article as well? It could stand some cleanup, it appears. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. I was unable to verify even his claimed affiliations with Peking U. and U. Tokyo, let alone any evidence of academic impact. (The article included an abstract from a conference that mentions the Peking affiliation but that seems close to a self-published source to me; I'd be happier with some evidence of his existence on the pku.edu.cn and hi.u-tokyo.ac.jp web sites, but Google comes up blank. Regardless, he seems to fail WP:PROF. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Try Baidu.com: http://www2.kokugakuin.ac.jp/shukyobunka/IACM/IACM2009Program-jp.pdf; http://www.oir.pku.edu.cn/newoir/2005/Article/ShowArticle.asp?ArticleID=3985; http://space.tv.cctv.com/act/video.jsp?videoId=VIDE1221113362857901 (6:38, front man, that's Peking U. Sanskrit Dept.). Google is biased, depending on the country you are in. But you are completely right, Prof. Eppstein. No published research work except The East-West dichotomy, www.east-west-dichotomy, so no PW:PROF, but maybe a PW:BIO that would need refinement. Thank you for your (good faith) editing. Pattberg (talk) 07:59, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is Thorsten Pattberg, the object of this discussion and the Thorsten Pattberg entry, and author of The East-West dichotomy (2009), which caused the wikipedia entry East-West dichotomy. As pointed out correctly, the sources, quotes, translations, and references from The East-West dichotomy were utilitized by free wikipedia editors for the East West dichotomy and Cultural hemisphere entries which now link to many other categories like The Clash of Civilizations, History of Western civilization, Eastern world, Western world, Eastern philosophy, Western philosophy, Eastern religion, Western religion, Eastern Christianity, and Western Christianity. Your source, the webpage The East-West dichotomy, is not a blog, nor an unpublished book, nor is it original research, as wrongly accused, but in reality is a well researched book (see WP:WEB) which reveals all its primary, secondary sources, and references. It is not blatant self-promotion either. I just wrote a book and published it. The East-West dichotomy is neither a commercial site, nor a personal page, nor a biography. It is solely a well-researched book published on the web, copyrighted, with references, foreword, quotes, translations, facts and figures, evidences and conclusions, all of which I am accountable for. Of course, it goes technical at times (who knows the writings of Hu Shi, Gu Hongming, Nishida, or Wen Jun?), but some person might find even those details an invaluable piece of information and source of reference. After all, that is the spirit of Wikipedia, to cover many fields of expertise. Yes, I have briefly been a staff scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai.Ｗhat you could not know is that I was expatriated by the German Max-Planck Society, Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (http://www.mis.mpg.de/people/former/2008.html), in order to organize an international conference in Shanghai and to do research on Xu Guangqi’s contributions to world sciences. Xu Guangqi, Matteo Ricci, Adam Schall von Bell etc. played an important part in the first great encounter of Eastern and Western sciences and cultures, and comparative cultural studies: http://www.picb.ac.cn/XuGuangqi/Contact.html Finally, the question of "expert knowledge": I am not a professor and never claimed so, and The East-West dichotomy is the only work of impact; in fact, I am a researcher in comparative cultural studies (I prefer Buddhism) at Peking University and Tokyo University. These are quite respectable institutions. Why would anyone leap from here to the conclusion that I am not an expert in what I am doing? Do we academics have such a ill-faithed public reputation to begin with? ;-) To sum up, for the completion and the correctness of sources on the East-West dichotomy, the entry Thorsten Pattberg will get a brush-over soon, as it is in the interest of all the parties involved. To prematurely delete it, would be a great pity. Thanks you for your kindness and goodwill. Pattberg (talk) 08:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: casual readers of this page should note that the above paean of praise was writtten by the LP himself. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:26, 18 May 2009 (UTC).
 * this reinforces the plausible but striclty unproven hypothesis that the recent touting of Mr. Pattberg and his work here on Wikipedia is due to Mr. Pattberg himself. This includes various socks and IPs. Delete all the more, I suppose. Mr. Pattberg's website may be a valuable WP:EL for some article, but it stops there. --dab (��) 09:38, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The above account has been added to the list at Sockpuppet investigations/Sakura china. — Cactus Writer |   needles  09:51, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that the comments by both Sakura China and Pattberg here have the appearance of violating WP:STUFF. I've added the "not a vote" banner to this AfD as is usual when sockpuppetry appears to be influencing the discussion. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:24, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * delete and salt, but maybe repair some of the overtaken areas first..--Buridan (talk) 21:47, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. Does the subject even exist? No Google Scholar, Google Books, or WorldCat entries. If the subject indeed exists, and this is not a big hoax, the subject clearly passes neither WP:PROF nor WP:BIO.--Eric Yurken (talk) 03:06, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per Eric Yurken, salt per Edward321, and clean up related articles per David Eppstein. Pete.Hurd (talk) 07:01, 20 May 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.