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. Star Mississippi 01:29, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Chris Lawn (philosopher)[edit]

Chris Lawn (philosopher) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Despite multiple publications with good presses, this person does not appear to meet the notability criteria at WP:ACADEMIC. In general, I find these criteria overly stringent, but in this case I cannot even tell what rank or title the subject has at his university.

If other folks think the attention his work got by reviewers (not all positive!) merits his inclusion, I'm happy to be overruled on this. Otherwise more is needed to justify keeping the article. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 23:11, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Academics and educators, Authors, Philosophy, and Ireland. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 00:26, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Provisional Keep. Some high cites on GS in a very low cited field. There may be reviews to be found to suport WP:Author. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:46, 23 October 2023 (UTC).[reply]
• Weak keep. I think there are enough reviews of his books for WP:AUTHOR. But I can find almost nothing else about him beyond the fact that he used to be described as a lecturer at Mary Immaculate College, U. Limerick, and isn't listed by them now. I've stripped out the rest of the article (which wasn't very much) because it had no reliable sources. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:04, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Books seem quite highly cited for philosophy field (220,155,80,61) and reviews found by David Eppstein & the creator seem adequate to pass WP:AUTHOR. Espresso Addict (talk) 20:55, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• weak keep. per Espresso Addict, he just passes WP:NAUTHOR with reviews of multiple books, but only one book as more than a single review so its an edge case. --hroest 20:58, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: The book reviews are fine, AUTHOR is a weak keep. Oaktree b (talk) 00:40, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per all above. Nomination is in defiance of WP:NEXIST. SNOW also applies! gidonb (talk) 21:10, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Hi @Gidonb,

  Would you ever consider weighing in on the guidelines at WP:NACADEMIC? They are clearly written to exclude academics who do not meet a much higher threshold of notability than Dr. Lawn. Editors there might pay attention to someone with your experience.

  I've seen these criteria used to exclude academics with considerably more impressive CVs just because they are not formally distinguished and do not occupy a named chair—even though that is usually besides the point for full professors at major research universities, who can be presumed to be among the top scholars in their fields.

  My own view, even more lenient, is that anyone important enough to be cited as an expert in the body of another article should be seriously considered as deserving at least a stub entry. That way curious readers can get a little more context without necessarily having to leave Wikipedia.

  In any event, I only nominated this article for deletion because I understood that to be my responsibility as part of the new page patrol (to which I myself am new). For as I wrote above, I think the main problem in this instance is with the policy guidelines on the notability of academics, not the quality of Dr. Lawn's work. Happy to be overruled in this nomination!

  Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 01:04, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you have doubts about your nomination, you can withdraw it. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:43, 28 October 2023 (UTC).[reply]

The result here seems to be clear without further action on my part. I'm taking it as an occasion to address what I take to be the underlying issue, which is the overly exclusionary notability criteria.

I'd encourage anyone interested to weigh in at Wikipedia talk: Notability (academics) #proposal for modification of guidelines.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:48, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep. Scholar-search convinces me that it is best left in, though I understand the nominator's doubts. Suitskvarts (talk) 16:50, 28 October 2023 (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.