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 no consensus.  Sandstein  06:04, 10 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Joshua Greenberg (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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• Delete - Appears to fail WP:ACADEMIC. The majority of the sources originally cited are citations to the article subject's own webpage. I have searched and not found any WP:RS that confirm any sort of WP:N claims. I have attempted to prune the article per WP:BLP and there does not appear to be much in terms of notability. A position as a director reporting to someone famous does not constitute notability. Additionally the bulk of the citations that are not self-citations do not establish any type of notability for the article's subject. They instead focus on establishing notability of other people that work with the article's subject. ConcernedVancouverite (talk) 18:23, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —ConcernedVancouverite (talk) 03:46, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. His book has only three citations in Google scholar and a handful more in Google books. His position at NYPL does not confer notability and he fails WP:PROF. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:41, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Passes neither WP:PROF nor WP:BIO.--Eric Yurken (talk) 23:50, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep. Thanks DGG (see below) for doing some extra digging. Actually, I have just checked WorldCat, through a subscription version, and the book is in 501 libraries worldwide. With that many holdings, I think this is a weak keep based on meeting WP:PROF criterion #1 (significant impact in scholarly discipline, broadly construed). Not a clear keep because of the low citation impact of the book (3 citations on GS), but certainly a weak keep.--Eric Yurken (talk) 13:33, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Delete probably not quite notable yet. It's quite possible for the head of a major department at a great library to be notable, but it certainly isn't automatic. DGG ( talk ) 02:36, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Another academic bio created way too early. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 04:41, 4 October 2009 (UTC).[reply]
• Weak delete. The assistant director position is tempting (but it's only assistant). Overall, however, it doesn't seem to reach major influence in academic work (yet). LotLE×talk 01:54, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep. A bit more sourcing has been added, both publications and administrative roles. That plus some stylistic cleanup lets me discern greater notability than I could see at first pass. This tips it to the keep side. LotLE×talk 17:02, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • In relation to below comment by Tenmei, the argument seems to run foul of the fact that notability is WP:NOTINHERITED. The notability of David Ferriero seems well argued below, but having a notable person say highly positive things about another person does not of itself confer notability on the latter person. Measuring Greenberg himself against WP:PROF and other notability standards seems to come up a bit short of WP notability standards (unless I have missed some other claim to notability or overlooked a relevant standard). LotLE×talk 17:43, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

LotLE -- Aha, the shortcut to WP:NOTINHERITED was a welcome gesture. It helps me begin to parse this more finely. The word "measuring" was particularly good. I hadn't quite recognized that I was conflating two measuring standards which needed to be assessed separately. Let me think about this. --Tenmei (talk) 19:04, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose My reasons for creating this article were not simplistic in the manner suggested by David Eppstein and Eric Yurken. These two critics conclude that this article must fail because it's not written about a hypothetical someone else. Like ConcernedVancouverite, they appear to have mind some sort of theoretical check-off list which has nothing to do with what I've actually written about Josh Greenberg. Who can wonder that I'm more comfortable with the nuanced reasons for deletion which are posted by the others in this thread -- "not quite notable yet" and "doesn't seem to reach major influence in academic work (yet)."

Fundamentally, the subject of this article is notable solely because David Ferriero identifies Josh Greenberg as notable. That's the bottom-line which caused me to draft this article. This stub has been prepared for others like me who wonder who is Joshua Greenberg and what is Ferriero talking about when he mentions him.

Ferriero's asserted opinion becomes -- ipse dixit -- good and sufficient rationale for retaining this article. In other words, I'm arguing that Greenberg is notable even if Ferriero's assessment were a bare assertion fallacy in another context. In Ferriero's area of expertise, his opinion has stand-alone credibility for the purposes of assessing this stub for notability.

I don't understand nor can I explain what Ferriero means when he assigns some kind of pivotal quality to Greenberg. In my view, the two statements above are enough to satisfy WP:Notability.

As you may know, Ferriero has been nominated to become the 10th Archivist of the United States. This is apples and oranges in terms of the general topic of libraries and librarians and a host of other relevant issues. Nevertheless, the nomination does enhance the weight to be accorded Ferriero when he asserts an opinion in the area of his expertise, i.e., that Greenberg is sufficiently notable to be included in Wikipedia.

Talk:Joshua Greenberg has more in common with an inelegant game of Go rather than an engaged and thoughtful exchange of views. My failure to be persuasive in that venue was frustrating. This non-standard explanation attempts to make a similar argument in different words. This stub article should be retained.

I agree and accept that articles about living people need to be held to the highest standards. It is plain to me that the votes to delete this article are only intended to further these high standards. In such a dispute, everyone wins -- even if the end result happens to be that this article will be deleted until a better foundation can be developed. --Tenmei (talk) 14:42, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - The subject's notability seems primarily based on his being an author of a book. If one could find some reviews of the book that might help determine the outcome, but at present, it should be deleted. -- kosboot (talk) 23:46, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep As for the book, it is in 410 libraries according to WorldCat. I can find 2 reviews so far, Booklist v. 104 no. 13 (Mar. 1 2008) & Leonardo v 42, Number 1, February 2009. On the basis of that, changing to a weak keep. DGG ( talk ) 15:03, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Notability is not inherited. The fact that the book have been subject to critical review means that we can writen an article about the book. This does not automatically imply that the author is noteable. Taemyr (talk) 10:34, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A book does not create itself. By the same logic, Einstein would not be notable. Only his papers would be, since he could not “inherit” the notability of his papers. C’mon!--Eric Yurken (talk) 13:43, 8 October 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.