Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fundamentals of Stack Gas Dispersion

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) --Mdann52talk to me! 15:12, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Fundamentals of Stack Gas Dispersion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Buy My (Self-Published) Book. There's far more author COI here than independent RS notability. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:06, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The words "Buy My Book" are not included anywhere in the article!! The above sentence is completely uncalled for and blatantly intended to discredit the article .mbeychok (talk) 21:10, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It's surprising how thoroughly this article is hyperlinked to the rest of WP. The article's notability has been discussed before and the conclusion was that it met the criteria. However, it strikes me as overtly promotional, along with the over-linking. The article could be much shortened with a more neutral tone, but the book's website is likely to continue to be the main, or only, source. Normally that site would be RS as it's owned by a subject matter expert...but the COI there remains since it exists to sell the book. Geogene (talk) 16:38, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: In the current version of the article, I counted six internal links in the first two paragraphs, and 10 internal links listed under "See also", and no others. To me, that does not seem like overlinking. I counted seven independent external links in the fourth paragraph and three independent reviews under "Book reviews". That indicates to me that the book's website is by no means the only source. Because of the usefulness and readability of the book and of the article, I suggest allowing WP:IAR to override WP:COI. See also Talk:Fundamentals of Stack Gas Dispersion.

—Wavelength (talk) 03:28, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Comment: That was an observation on "What Links Here" for the book's article. It seemed a bit much to use the book as a source for a non-technical statement that the EPA uses air pollution models, complete with link to the book's article and external link to the website. This also happens on some other government agency articles as well. I find it too promotional, but this is not especially harmful to WP. IAR is not unreasonable. Geogene (talk) 17:54, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:27, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:28, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The book was first published in 1979 and is now in its 4th Edition. After 35 years , the book has been purchased in 84 countries and is currently available in 230 libraries worldwide. It has been referenced or cited as an educational resource more than 795 times in the technical literature and on the Internet, including the regulatory publications of 32 state or national governmental agencies worldwide. It has also been used as recommended reading or a textbook in 59 university courses. See http://www.air-dispersion.com/interest.html for a complete listing of the libraries, citations by governmental agencies, usages in university courses and overall citations. I should think that those facts are proof enough of the book's notability. mbeychok (talk) 04:15, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• The problem is that being in libraries isn't enough to show notability in and of itself. That it is in multiple libraries can make it more likely that the book has gained coverage, but it is not a guarantee and we don't keep books because they're in libraries- regardless of the number. As far as it being a recommended reading, that is helpful but the big problem with saying that it is a recommended reading or a textbook for classes is that we don't exactly count that in the same way we would say, To Kill A Mocking Bird. Books like this are frequently written with the intent of it being used as a textbook, so we don't count RRs or textbook usage for stuff like this for the most part. Even then, the expectation is that if the book is used heavily by agencies and schools, there will be coverage overall and it's extremely, extremely rare that an article will be kept on that without having some sort of independent, in-depth coverage. Although on that note, being used as a cite in other papers can help, as long as the person citing it isn't personally involved with the book in some way. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:46, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm not saying that it isn't notable or that sourcing can't be found, just that it's extremely rare to keep a book without some sort of in-depth coverage. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:55, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Further comment: The total number of citations (as noted in my previous comment) is 795 and at least 90% of those citations were by people not involved in any way with the book. Is that not indeed "in-depth coverage" for a non-fictional technological textbook? mbeychok (talk) 15:53, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• It depends. We still have to look at the citations to see who/where the citations are being used. Not all cites are created equal and we still have to verify that they're not involved, see how in-depth the work is cited, and so on. It's usually fairly rare for something to be kept purely on it being cited in other works without the book in question being specifically cited somewhere as a groundbreaking text or as a good example of its type. It's typically why I tend to go for the peer-reviewed journal reviews first to help show notability and find links to the PRJs, as they're usually a more solid thing to point to. It's frustrating, yes, but it's fairly common for me (when searching for an article subject) to find cites but not really a lot of ones that mention the subject in-depth. That makes it really hard to show notability at AfD and it's why I try to not really go "this is cited in this many places" without providing links to quite a few in-depth reliable sources. A lot of editors are jaded when it comes to numbers because they expect that the average academic subject will have citations and want to have the notability hammered down with some pretty good in-depth sources. Basically what I'm trying to say is that just saying a ton of people cite it isn't really good enough to firmly convince everyone and rather than giving numbers, it would be better to pick out 3-4 really in-depth citations that specifically mention the work. There has to be some out there and showing a PRJ source that says something along the lines of "and in Beychok's seminal work Fundamentals of Stack Gas Dispersion he mentions..." would do far more than just saying numbers, especially since you have a conflict of interest here (given your name), as people tend to take things from COI editors with a large grain of salt because we know that there's a very big benefit to you having the page on Wikipedia. Again, not saying that the book can't be notable, just that it's usually better to give a little more concrete evidence by way of links to sources rather than citing numbers. (Not trying to be rude, just saying that showing the best cites would be more effective here.) Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 23:51, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The relevant guideline is WP:G11. The subject appears to meet notability criteria and is not "exclusively" promotional. It can be re-written in a more neutral tone without fundamental change to the article. Geogene (talk) 18:54, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

G11 is a criterion for speedy deletion. No-one is suggesting that.

Quite obviously, not meeting criteria for one aspect of speedy deletion does not imply that it also passes all the other criteria needed to keep an article! Andy Dingley (talk) 19:13, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I agree with the Keep remarks by Geogene on June 20, 2014 and with the Comment remarks by Wavelength also on June 20th. To be completely transparent, I am the author of the Fundamentals of Stack Gas Dispersion article and my own Comment remarks are included in the above debate statements. I would also point out that the article does not include the word "buy" anywhere. It is simply a description of the book and its contents as well as some published reviews in well known technical journals. mbeychok (talk) 18:18, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep True there is COI, but it makes an attempt to be NPOV, not much needs to be changed. The book reviews, worldcat counts and many citations in Google Books suggest notability. -- GreenC 05:04, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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.