Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Heath Sommer

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. Cirt (talk) 13:29, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Heath Sommer

Fails WP:AUTHOR (lacks recognition and wide citation by peers, recognized work or body of work, no indication of some new concept or theory), WP:PROFESSOR (No indication of any significant awards or significant society elections. There is some impact outside of academia with his fiction book but not what I'd call significant.), and WP:BIO (lacks significant coverage in 3rd party sources). Google Scholar search brings up only 2 citations not authored by Sommer. Google news brings up a single hit, surprisingly low for an author. Not finding many reviews for the fiction book either. RadioFan (talk) 13:57, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —RadioFan (talk) 13:58, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. —RadioFan (talk) 13:58, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The academic book is just a reprint of the theses--only 76 p. long; the papers are cited 6 times total--not nearly a notable academic yet; the single fiction book is held in zero libraries according to WorldCat, and I do not see any reviews. The Tower books sales rank is an unexplained anomaly. DGG (talk) 17:37, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. His novel appears to be published through a vanity press: searching the internet reveals that there are two companies known as Tate Publishing. The one described in our Tate Publishing article is a reputable art publisher, but does not publish fiction. The other one requires authors to pay for their books to be published, not the model for any reputable publisher. So I don't think his writing passes WP:CREATIVE. Additionally, there is no evidence (citations etc) that his academic work has achieved any impact let alone enough of one to pass WP:PROF. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:28, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, the publisher is not exactly a vanity publisher in the same way as the worst of them, but claims to actually be selective. [1] I still have my strong doubts about anything they publish, but there does some to be a slight difference from the usual. The number of staff indicates they must actually be doing some work vbesides printing the books. [2]. DGG (talk) 22:22, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From their general information: "most unknown authors who fall into the single-digit percentage of authors receiving contracts from Tate Publishing will have a refundable, author-investment contract". This is a nice way of saying that authors pay to publish, which is the very definition of a vanity press. And they have been called out by name as a vanity press e.g. here. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:22, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - adjuncts almost always fail WP:PROF. Publication of a thesis, by itself, is not enough; otherwise every grad student would be notable. I'd like to see a lot more to pass WP:CREATE. Bearian (talk) 18:10, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. To all of the above substantive reasons we can add: (1) Some of the notability claim here is actually WP:CRYSTAL "It is anticipated that the release of the prequel to The Manufactured Identity, The Grand Delusion, will be released in 2010". (2) Claims of notability with respect to science/medicine do not hold up. In particular, parts of his personal website (linked from article) imply he's an expert on Angelman syndrome, but he has evidently not authored a single peer-reviewed paper on this subject. Other areas of his notability claim may have similar problems. The layout of his website suggests it's primarily a vehicle to sell his novel. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 12:15, 23 June 2009 (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.