Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wolf Bickel (2nd 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. (non-admin closure) – Davey 2010 Talk 23:26, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Wolf Bickel
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

While I admire Mr. Bickel's achievements, this unsourced BLP merely lists his discoveries of minor planets. It withstood a previous AfD nomination in 2005, but despite that, I cannot find any significant coverage by reliable, independent secondary sources (WP:GNG). Moreover, the article does not establish Mr. Bickel's notability. Considering that over 700,000 minor planets were known as of late 2015, I respectfully submit that the discovery of 0.1% of these should not be considered automatically notable in the absence of reliable sources asserting his notability. Astro4686 (talk) 06:08, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Astronomy-related deletion discussions. Astro4686 (talk) 06:08, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Astro4686 (talk) 06:08, 22 January 2016 (UTC)


 * keep sometimes we may bend our rules. To discover 600 asteroids is clearly a feat. - üser:Altenmann >t 06:42, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment. Hi Altenmann, thank you for your comment. While I agree that Mr. Bickel's accomplishment is a feat, my concern is that Wikipedia's notability guideline requires more than just an impressive achievement without context. If the article stated why his work has been notable and provided appropriate attribution, I would likely be persuaded to withdraw the nomination. Unfortunately, in its current form, I don't think that it meets the bare minimum requirements of WP:NBIO and WP:VERIFIABILITY.Astro4686 (talk) 09:37, 22 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Weak keep When we evaluate notability for academics, WP:PROF says that academics whose work shows a significant impact on their field are considered notable. I would make an analogy to this case, and say that his position as among the most prolific discovers of small planets perhaps renders him notable. I'm not entirely convinced, though. Oh, and that table needs to be taken out of the article, it is quite ridiculous having a table with ~600 redlinks in a Bio. Vanamonde93 (talk) 07:32, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment. Hi Vanamonde93, thank you for your input. While I generally agree with your analysis, I think that the problem is that the article doesn't actually establish his impact within astronomy. It presumes that the discovery of that many minor planets is intrinsically notable, but I think that that's an assumption that requires attribution. For example, with your analogy, if a professor published hundreds of articles, that fact in isolation would not establish the person's impact. Astro4686 (talk) 09:37, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 11:46, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep, but the article needs to be improved. His achievements are impressive, but the article itself is weak, and as the nominator has said, needs to clearly establish the significance of the subject. A request for article improvement should be posted to the relevant projects, and if it hasn't improved in that time, let it be nominated again. Since the original AfD was for verifiability, which was disproved, I think this solution is acceptable. 8bitW (talk) 17:47, 1 February 2016 (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.