Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rudolf Yanson

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. The arguments from his chair at a major university and his scheduled keynote address at the SOAS symposium are decisive. JohnCD (talk) 17:24, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rudolf Yanson

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

I strongly suspect failure of WP:PROF. Gscholar citations are minimal, Gnews nonexistent, Gbooks tiny. However, he works in a highly specialized field, so I refer to AfD in lieu of prod or even A7. Ray^Talk 16:21, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- Ray^Talk 16:21, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, unfortunately. I hate to vote against a bio of another linguist, but the article simply doesn't demonstrate the impact Dr. Yanson's work has had on the field. I have lots of professors who are great thinkers and do great work, but whom I wouldn't be able to write a Wikipedia article about under the current guidelines, as just being a great thinker is not enough. Many of the articles created by User:Tibetologist (the writer of this one) look more like CVs, and while I appreciate Tibetologist's work at fighting systemic bias on WP, we do have to uphold the notability criteria. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:14, 20 November 2009 (UTC) Changing to Keep. I think the plenary at the SOAS conference is enough. Hard to tell how big this conference is, but a keynote speech is a bigger deal even at a moderately important conference. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:46, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Before deciding that Rudolf Yanson is unimportant please review the other pages I have created. You will see that I am trying to cover scholars of the Tibetan language and Burmese language somewhat comprehensively. In certain cases I do not have as much biographical information as I would like to. But after all it is a scholars bibliography and not his biography that makes him important. I do know that colleagues of mine around the world find these pages useful, and many wikipedia articles are devoted to much more trivial topics (star treck ships, manga characters, etc.). I have put a lot of work into these various articles, and hope that from time to time I would be given the benefit of the doubt. The Yanson article has already been there for some time, perhaps this shows that other editors do not find it worthy of deletion. Tibetologist (talk) 22:57, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I don't feel qualified to weigh-in with an opinion on this case, but I can tell you that you are mistaken on several "textbook" points. Notability is what determines if a subject merits an article, not usefulness (WP:N, WP:USEFUL). With all due respect, it doesn't matter whether you've put in a lot of work (WP:EFFORT) and it doesn't matter if there are other subjects, like manga, you feel are less worthy of an article (WP:OTHERSTUFF). Finally, time is no indication that people generally feel it should be kept. I'm afraid that, unless notability can be established, this article will very likely be deleted. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 23:38, 20 November 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Comment. The subject works in one of the most obscure academic specialities one could expect to encounter and appears to have a presence there. Are there other scholars in the field who can comment? Xxanthippe (talk) 01:26, 21 November 2009 (UTC).[reply]
What about merging to an article on this field or people working in this field? ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:20, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. All of the points made by Agricola44 are reasonable. I would like to make several counterarguments. Firstly, google hits are not a good measure of notability. In Japan and the US there are efforts to make databases of scholarly articles. As a consequence US and Japanese authors get lots of google hits, even if no one reads or cites their articles. Such efforts are not being made in Russia, this has more to do with the wealth of Russian academia and Russian government policy and has little to do with the notability of Russian scholarship. If Wikipedia is an encyclopedia it should wish to present a reference work of human knowledge, and not a guide to google hits. It is my own view, and the view of most print encyclopedias that academic topics are inherently more noteworthy than manga characters or startrek ships, even if they are less popular. Popular and notable must be recognized to be different. Rudolf Yanson is probably the most prominent researcher in Old Burmese philology, if you think otherwise, how about writing some people in his field and asking if they have heard of him rather than simply (and lazily) doing google searches in English. Tibetologist (talk) 13:27, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment# The person holds or has held a named/personal chair appointment or "Distinguished Professor" appointment at a major institution of higher education and research.

Yanson fits this bill, he was dean of the faculty, he is a professor (we don't give that title away as easily here in Europe as you do in the US), and is scheduled to give a key-note at an international conference Tibetologist (talk) 13:30, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

cmt: @Xxanthippe: Southeast Asian linguistics is not that rare (although the historical side of that field is fading, nowadays people are more into experimental stuff), although it's no bioengineering or what have you, and most other people working in this area also don't have WP articles.
@Tibetologist: I don't think "usefulness" is a strong argument, as bibliographies of these professors can be found easily on academic databases, and biographical information can be found at their personal websites. But, if he really is about to give a keynote, that would be enough to satisfy notability (in my opinion) and if you can show us a link to that page (or perhaps a scan of the program) I would reconsider my vote. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:24, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

'comment: I would be happy to send a poster for this event, with his talk advertised prominently. I am sure he has done many such things in the past, but my Russian is not great, so I have had more trouble researching Yanson than other Burmese scholars. Tibetologist (talk)

Or you could just indicate the name of the conference. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:11, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

He's scheduled to give the keynote address at the 2010 Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages Symposium hosted by SOAS.[1] I don't know if that's the one that Tibetologist had in mind. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:23, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. A Dean of Faculty in an equivalent university in the United States or the United Kingdom would get a unanimous "keep" if nominated for deletion (e.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephen Mumford), so why treat someone at Saint Petersburg State University any differently? This isn't a case of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but of WP:OTHERSTUFFGETSKEPTATAFD. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:50, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
'Very weak Keep Keep Dean of faculty at a really major university such as this can be a sufficiently high academic position, though it is difficult to evaluate from an unfamiliar system. But it would seem to correspond to the US Provost-- what is usually meant by "Chief academic officer"; this is notable in a great university, though not as a general rule in all colleges--the person who decides on new programs, new faculty appointments, and tenure promotions. Much more important to be such a officer at St petersburg than a university president almost anywhere else. However, I would like some actual evidence that he holds this position, for I do not see any. It is even more difficult to evaluate non-English ;language publications in a subject such as this. G scholar is certainly useless for this sort of work--it essentially covers only mainstream english language journals. The G scholar results seem to be the basis of the article: but they amount to only 3 papers in edited volumes, and one book. We need some evidence besides that. If it is the intention to provide a complete list of everyone who has ever published a paper on the subject, then this does fail NOT DIRECTORY. DGG ( talk ) 16:13, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment (after edit conflicts). It seems that, for such a major university, Saint Petersburg State University has a very limited web site - all you web designers and Internet marketing gurus should be getting on to them and offering your services. I can't find any confirmation that that the subject served as Dean of Faculty, which may well be a post that goes on an annual rotation, but this confirms that he has been head of the Department of Chinese, Korean and South-East Asian Philology since 1998, and this shows that he leads a team of about 40 faculty members, including seven full professors. That's still enough for me to stay with my unqualified "keep". Phil Bridger (talk) 19:49, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Superficial search indicates clear case of noted scholar in his area (key note speaker at his subjects major conference at SOAS (added ref to article)). Deaprtment page (added ref to article) lists him as head I think. Преподаватели - Профессор, зав.кафедрой д.филол.н. - Янсон Рудольф Алексеевич - http://www.orient.pu.ru/dept_china/ Rudolf Alexeevich Yanson's Departmental Page listing him as departmental head. But my Russian knowledge is limited to using google translate! (Msrasnw (talk) 19:46, 22 November 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Comment - I think this is just the sort of article that makes our encylcopedia really useful - A noted scholar in his field on which Googling alone is not so useful. Clear pass of WP:PROF No. 1 The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources. via Keynote speaker at subjects important conference. That alone is enough. (Msrasnw (talk) 16:50, 25 November 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Yandex works far better than Google for searching notability in Russian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.21.13 (talk) 02:07, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Per WP:PROF, we need some tangible and verifiable evidence of academic notability, such as citations of his work, reviews of his books, academic awards etc. Such evidence is not available here. I am a native Russian speaker and I did a bit of google searching in both Russian and English and found very little. It may be that google does not yet have access to various Russian sources, but that is not a good enough reason to keep the article. If and when some verifiable sources covering his work are forthcoming, the article may be re-created. For now, IMO, it should be deleted and maybe userfied, so that the creator of the article may keep working on it in his userspace. Nsk92 (talk) 22:00, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Per Nsk92 (WP:PROF). Eusebeus (talk) 22:14, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Lack of Google footprint for a Russian academic in a specialist field is a weak deletion rationale, in particular with this list of publications, susceptible to WP:BIAS and general concerns about negative evidence. Power.corrupts (talk) 11:31, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep He is a professor and department chair at one of Russia's most prestigious universities. He is a notable scholar in his field, and should be on Wikipedia. The fact that he is at a Russian university rather than an American or British university should not make any difference. As to his area of expertise, it is not particularly obscure or narrow, as some above have suggested — many notable linguists study far more "obscure" languages than Burmese. BabelStone (talk) 13:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

comment about obscurity There seem to be only two departments offering graduate work in Burmese in the English speaking world: Northern Illinois, and SOAS. see Burma studies--confirmed by my own search. There seem to be a scattering of universities offering elementary courses: I noticed Hawaii, and a few universities offering it on demand, including Yale and ANU and possibly USC. There are presumably others in Europe and Asia. As mentioned above, the St Petersburg site has neither individual pages for its faculty nor a list of courses, so it is impossible to tell directly what level they teach. The Russian page, and the incomplete pages it links to and it provides no useful information about this individual. The team of 40 people presumably represents the entire staff ofthe department, and Id assume its emphasis is not in Burmese. DGG ( talk ) 18:38, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Phil Bridger, DGG ,and Babelstone. Sufficient evidence of both contributions to field and of important position held to establish notability. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 20:30, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep. All things considered. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:52, 23 November 2009 (UTC).[reply]

The majority appears to have come round to 'keep and the debate died down. Would it perhaps be appropriate to remove the deletion nomination from the article at this point? Tibetologist (talk) 16:07, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion discussions usually last for seven days, so an administrator wil evaluate the consensus in a couple of days and remove the template from the article if appropriate. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:27, 25 November 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.