Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William R. Corliss


 * 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. John254 00:29, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

William R. Corliss

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

I don't think this particular physicist has actually become "known" for his interests. Being featured in one article in New Scientist and in the fringe Journal of Scientific Exploration does not, to me, indicate a passing of WP:BIO or WP:PROF. I'll also note that none of his books seem notable. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep One article in New Scientist is a pretty good step towards proving notability. If there were concerns about his notability then you could have started by flagging the need for more references on the article, jumping to an AfD seems premature. (Emperor (talk) 18:57, 6 August 2008 (UTC))
 * New Scientist of late has been writing articles on increasingly sensationalized things. It's become the National Enquirer of science journalism. In other words, not a good source for establishing notability. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:18, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Note that the article was written in 1977. Zagalejo^^^ 23:28, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * True. Not that the reputation of this magazine was ever very high. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:35, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you have a cite for that assertion? Zagalejo^^^ 00:10, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep It appears that his book Science Frontiers was reviewed by USA Today in 1994 and Current Science in 1995. (I can't access the whole articles, but there are abstracts available at ProQuest. I can give the full citations, if anyone wants to track them down.) Corliss is fairly well known in the Fortean community. Most decent librarires will contain at least one of his books. Zagalejo^^^ 19:21, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well known in the "Fortean community" is not good enough to qualify for WP:BIO unless you can give us an independent source that establishes this. There are gamers that are well-known in their respective communities which have had their articles deleted in spite of similar objections. Also singular book reviews as you point to do nothing to establish the notability of an author. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:27, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * 1)Jerome Clark's Unexplained has an eight-paragraph entry on the Sourcebook Project. I'm sure you think Clark is a blithering idiot, but the entry should be enough to show that Corliss is considered important in that field. 2) Multiple book reviews have always been good enough to establish notability for a writer. Zagalejo^^^ 19:39, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There is no "field" to speak of, unless you mean fringe community. The point is notability within a marginal group is not notability enough for Wikipedia. Thus, until this guy receives some recognition outside of the community of tightly-nit tinfoil-hat-wearing crowd we must should not have an article on him. I note that Jerome Clark in contrast does have outside recognition both on television serials and by being a mainstream songwriter. This guy is just some physicist who happens to like forteana. Nothing notable about him. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:24, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * In truth, Corliss is mostly interested in geological, astronomical, and meteorological anomalies, rather than the typical UFO conspiracy stuff, so he's not quite as bad as the "tinfoil-hat wearers". But I digress. What would demonstrate notability for you? Here are a bunch of reviews from the journal Icarus. Is there something wrong with Icarus? Enlightenment me. Zagalejo^^^ 22:48, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying that Corliss himself is a woo-woo; I'm saying that you are trying to establish notability of this guy through his fame at woo-woo conventions. Secondly, that Corliss publishes is rather unremarkable. Physicists publish, that's what they do. To determine whether a publishing physicist is notable, we use WP:PROF guidelines, which, I already pointed out, this guy fails. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:55, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, your original argument was that he is not "known". I was just trying to show that he is known to a certain sizeable community. I'm not sure if he fails WP:PROF. I think the case could be made that he passes point #4. Here's an interesting quote from the New York Times (William J. Broad. "The science corps wants a few more good heretics". New York Times. October 16, 1983. A18.):
 * "Among the more diligent is William R. Corliss, a trained physicist who worked as a science writer for the Federal Government and now directs The Sourcebook Project in Glen Arm, Md. For more than a decade, Mr. Corliss has searched out and catalogued the inexplicable. His volumes, which should number 25 when the project is completed, have attracted more than the curious. For instance, thermonuclear fusion experts, who confine atoms at high temperatures in a quest for a source of nearly limitless energy, have looked for inspiration to the phenomenon of ball lightning, which Mr. Corliss's books document in detail.
 * "It's intriguing stuff that serves a useful purpose," said Stephen Jay Gould, the Harvard paleontologist and science commentator. "Funding today tends to go to things that are tried and true. I'm glad these other guys are out there." Zagalejo^^^ 23:28, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The Stephen Jay Gould quote is your classic red herring association... he's talking about fringe science not about Corliss in particular. That Broad wrote an article that mentioned Corliss in three sentences on page A18 of the New York Times some 25 years ago is probably a good one event indicator. You're consistently striking out here or alternatively grasping at ever-thinning straws. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:34, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * What "one event"? The article is clearly talking about a trend. Zagalejo^^^ 00:10, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Let me just summarize what I have found:
 * 1) A review of Corliss' book from USA Today (Cullen Murphy. "Marvelling at nature's freak surprises". USA Today. April 14, 1994. D4.)
 * 2)Multiple reviews of Corliss' work in scholarly journals.
 * 3)A New York Times article saying that Corliss' work has attracted legitimate scientists.
 * 4) An eight paragraph profile of Corliss' Sourcebook Project in Jerome Clark's Unexplained (which, though it might not be enough by itself, clearly establishes that Corliss is well-known to Forteans.)
 * 5) Impressive WorldCat results (Strange Phenomena; A Sourcebook of Unusual Natural Phenomena is in at least 582 libraries; Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenonmena is in at least 959 libraries)
 * 6) A mention of his book Man and Atom in Britannica.
 * 7) Mentions in books like this and . ***What more do you want? Zagalejo^^^ 00:10, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Also I just found out that the guy has a profile in Contemporary Authors, part of the Gale Literary Databases. Zagalejo^^^ 00:52, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. May be a crank, but Zagalejo has established that he's a notable one. Pburka (talk) 01:22, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.   --  Fabrictramp  |  talk to me  15:32, 7 August 2008 (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.