Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Noah Carl

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. Tone 19:33, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Noah Carl

Noah Carl (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Fails WP:ACADEMIC and WP:1E. A very junior academic (a postdoc, in fact) who does not satisfy the notability guideline for academics and whose notability really comes from one single event. Atchom (talk) 04:17, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. PriceDL (talk) 04:31, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. PriceDL (talk) 04:31, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. PriceDL (talk) 04:31, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per WP:BASIC. Seriously, look at the references: three separate instances of WP:SIGCOV for separate incidents in reliable sources over a year 1 2 3. The fact that one of them was front-page news doesn't mean the others don't count - in fact the latest incident in which he was consider notable (the letter) is a result of previous incidents in which he was considered notable (his controversial research activities, speaking at the London conference) and is therefore not actually a single incident per se. FOARP (talk) 08:06, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

PS - can I just point out how unhelpful this delete proposal is? In no particular order:

1) There's no sign that WP:BEFORE was performed.

2) There's no attempt to engage with the other events discussed on the page. In the proposer's view these apparently don't meet the criteria for notability, but they haven't stated why when that was obviously a topic that would come up here.

3) The proposer has stated that this is a BLP based on a single event. Per policy the normal solution to that is merge/redirect/rename to a page discussing the event, not delete as a first step - but no reason for going straight to delete was given, or potential merge/redirect target proposed as an alternative solution.

4) No attempt at tagging the page with a notability notice first to allow a chance to improve it.

Imagine I was a new editor and this was my first article - would this encourage me to engage with Wiki further? FOARP (talk) 10:21, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Psychology-related deletion discussions. IntoThinAir (talk) 22:04, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I'm sorry that the article creator feels that way, so I feel I should elaborate. Firstly, I don't think it is in dispute that the person in question is an academic, so WP:ACADEMIC applies. The subject of the article fails all 9 possible notability criteria as set out by the article, which isn't surprising given that he is merely a postdoc, and a new one at that.

Of course, the article can then still be saved under the general notability guidelines. Now, there is no disagreement that the recent coverage of the person (because of the attempt to get him fired) has attracted considerable coverage. However, WP:1E would require that there should be coverage of the person not in relation to this particular event.

Of the two other sources FOARP cites above, one is an article by the Guardian about some research he and others published which quotes him. That's not coverage of the subject of the biography, but coverage of the research with a quote from the person. Academics routinely provide quotes to the media, and there is absolutely nothing about Carl in the Guardian piece. As to the New Statesman article, it mentions him as one of many who went to a controversial conference in London. Again, this does not constitute "significant coverage" under WP:SIGCOV, and neither changes the fact that his notability is essentially derived from one event.

Atchom (talk) 22:58, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• comment The New Statesman coverage amounts to two long paragraphs and in my view rises to the level of WP:SIGCOV. Here they are in full:

"Our investigation into the London Conference on Intelligence uncovered the involvement of at least 40 academics from at least 29 different universities in 15 different countries. Among these was the Oxford academic Noah Carl, a postdoctoral researcher in the social sciences at Nuffield College, who has spoken twice at the London Conference on Intelligence. Carl has also written several papers for Emil Kirkegaard’s OpenPsych, which include two looking at whether larger Muslim populations make Islamist terrorism more likely, and one suggesting that British stereotypes towards immigrants are “largely accurate”.

One external reviewer responded to the last paper by stating that: “It is never OK to publish research this bad, even in an inconsequential online journal.” Nevertheless, the paper was featured by conservative US website The Daily Caller, under a picture of Nigel Farage’s “Breaking Point” poster. The far right European Free West Media cited the paper to claim that “criminal elements are represented by certain ethnic groups”, and on the blog of a far-right French presidential candidate under the headline “Study validates prejudices”. It even ended up on InfoWars, one of the most popular news websites in the USA, and can be found circulating on far-right corners of Reddit. The fact that Carl is linked to Oxford University was mentioned frequently in the coverage, providing legitimacy to the political opinions presented."

I believe this section rises to WP:SIGCOV since Carl is not merely mentioned in passing in a long list of people but is described with his research in some depth, as well as the way he serves to legitimise certain views. This meets the requirement that the reference "addresses the topic directly and in detail" - it talks directly about him and discusses details of who he is and what his significance is.

Inherent in the most recent event (the letter) is that there were previous events which were also notable (i.e., the activities that the letter complains about). These previous events were also reported in reliable sources (e.g., the New Statesman). Even if you don't think that the NS ref was WP:SIGCOV then the coverage of the letter also acts as coverage of the same events that the New Statesman reports (i.e., two separate events).

Finally, if you believe this to be a WP:1E situation then why are you proposing deletion? FOARP (talk) 06:35, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Atchom, did you see the list of sources I compiled in the talk page? There's a lot of stuff, most of which is related to the ongoing event, but it's very likely that Carl will be in the media again as soon as his interview ban is lifted, or if he gets fired. So seems pointless to delete this page based on WP:1E only to have to recreate it in a few days. It makes more sense to just expand it and add more sources as they come out. Deleet (talk) 01:21, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Atchom: I assume you wanted to reference FOARP as I haven't actually contributed to this discussion. PriceDL (talk) 01:13, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, sorry. Corrected above. Atchom (talk) 03:43, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment It should be noted that Deleet is Emil Kirkegaard, founder and editor of the OpenPsych journals in which Carl has published several papers, including one with Kirkegaard himself as a co-author. IntoThinAir (talk) 05:10, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is true, and also why I am abstaining from voting or editing mainspace here. Deleet (talk) 20:34, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mr. Kirkegaard, commenting here really doesn't help anything. FOARP (talk) 09:08, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete This comes under fringe theory rules, and we lack the coverage needed for a fringe theorist. In fact, he just plain fails academic notability.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:43, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WP:FRINGE is not grounds for deletion but instead rules how fringe theories should be handled in articles. This article is not about a fringe theory but about an academic whose work may amount to fringe theories. Plenty of cranks and flim-flam artists are worthy of coverage in an encyclopedic article. Encyclopedic coverage does not imply any endorsement of the subject - often quite the opposite since it is the degree to which the subject if wrong that is often the reason for their notability. WP:ACADEMIC is not the relevant standard here since it is not really his contribution to the academic field per se that is the reason for his notability, but instead the controversies around him, WP:BASIC is the appropriate standard, and since he is notable for more than one event (I count at least three - his research, the London Conference, and the letter - all reported in reliable sources) he meets that standard. FOARP (talk) 06:35, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep I vote to keep. BJP — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bpesta22 (talk • contribs) 15:49, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bpesta22, would you care to explain why you believe that Carl is notable enough for an article? IntoThinAir (talk) 15:26, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Is significant coverage of his activities, and then the letter complaining of them, not sufficient? FOARP (talk) 16:57, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like coverage of his current situation will be ongoing; his other research has been covered elsewhere (by reliable sources), and the London Conference thing was also covered by the media. All these combined led me to vote "keep." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bpesta22 (talk • contribs) 13:14, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per FOARP and Bpesta22. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:18, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. When the deletion tag was added, the article was a stub and only had four references. It is being developed, and there are many notable sources discussing this man. Waters.Justin (talk) 15:59, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - He may not be a very senior academic, but he seems to have been involved in sufficient controversy as to help him meet our notability criteria of substantial coverage in reliable, independent sources. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 14:34, 16 December 2018 (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.