Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timothy Pogacar

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. Based on the discussion, the associated policy, and a further dip into the references, policy is to delete as failing WP:PROF (✉→BWilkins←✎) 22:41, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Timothy Pogacar

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Fails WP:ANYBIO, no references other than his university bio page, copied to a Slovenia Times article. No matches to the 9 criteria of WP:PROF MJH (talk) 01:39, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I think that he meets the criteria 6 (an appointed academic post at a major institution of higher education) and 8 (the head or chief editor of a major well-established academic journal in their subject area). For no. 6, he is Chair of the Department of German, Russian & East Asian Languages at Bowling Green State University. For no. 9, he was the chief editor of Slovene Studies: Journal of the Society for Slovene Studies. He is also the president of the Society for Slovene studies, the United States association of experts in Slovene language. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 14:17, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. Being a department chair is not sufficient by itself to pass any of the WP:PROF criteria. Criterion #6 is for people in charge of an entire university, not just a small subunit of it. And it is also not an endowed chair or distinguished professorship (#5). —David Eppstein (talk) 14:57, 14 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. He's a well-established scholar, and someone could easily improve the article with additional references. Doremo (talk) 20:22, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:50, 14 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:50, 14 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Reconfirming the subject's bio against criteria 1-9 of WP:PROF, I believe that it still does not pass. Head of German and a few other languages does not match "a highest level academic post" ... "at a major academic institution" and I can't find support for the claim that the Journal of Slovene Studies is "a major well-established academic journal". Currently the article is turning into a promotional bibliography including minor articles with no editorial commentary. I believe this content is more suitable for an academic's university home page.---MJH (talk) 19:13, 14 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Journal of the Society for Slovene studies is actually the most notable academic peer-reviewed Northern American journal on Slovene language and literature (i.e. "a major well-established academic journal in their subject area"). It has been published since the late 1970s, which is for over 30 years now (therefore well-established). --Eleassar ^{my talk} 20:37, 14 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mediran ^{talk to me!} 09:26, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2012 December 15. Snotbot t • c » 10:25, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment In contrast to what is asserted above, I'm not sure that the journal Slovene Studies meets our notability criteria for journals. Our article on it has zero independent sources and not even its own website claims that it is included in any databases (let alone selective, major databases). --Randykitty (talk) 11:53, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I have now had a closer look at both Pogalcar and Slovene Studies. The Web of Science lists 9 articles by him (a 10th is from a different person with the same name), none of which has been cited even once. Of course, WoS is not very strong in the humanities, so I checked GScholar, too. That renders 1 article cited 3 times and 1 article cited 7 times. None of this is indicative of any notability at all. As for the journal, as noted above, it is indeed the "the most notable academic peer-reviewed Northern American journal on Slovene language and literature". At the same time, it is also the least notable academic peer-reviewed Northern American journal on Slovene language and literature, as it simply is the only journal in North America on this subject... Slovene studies is far from a major area of studies, even in Europe, so being president of the Slovene Studies Society also doesn't mean much either. In summary, I think this bio thoroughly fails all criteria of WP:PROF and I don't see any evidence that this meets WP:GNG or WP:ANYBIO either. --Randykitty (talk) 13:20, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd have two remarks on this:

Firstly, this is not the only Northern American journal on this matter. There is also the Slovene Lingustic Studies Journal, published since 1997.[1]

Secondly, the Society for Slovene Studies is described as "an internationally recognised society of scholars" here.[2]. The society's journal is also mentioned here among the most notable Slovene-language media. It has been contributed to (e.g. [3], [4], [5]) and referenced ([6]) by Slovene scholars of the highest prominence.

I'll try to find more references about the society and the journal, but these seem reliable and notable enough to me. I therefore still stick to the opinion that Pogačar is notable for Wikipedia as the president of this society and the editor of "a major well-established academic journal in their subject area".

--Eleassar ^{my talk} 14:47, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I see no evidence of a pass for WP:PROF. The broader subject area is Slavic languages, within which Pogacar doesn't appear to be significant. As far as relative academic prominence goes, being an associate prof is not that high on the scale, and below your "average" full professor. Ray^Talk 20:13, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:PROF, academics/professors meeting any one of these conditions, as substantiated through reliable sources, are notable. The criterion for inclusion is also "the head or chief editor of a major well-established academic journal in their subject area". This guy's subject area are the Slovene and the Russian studies, not the Slavic languages in general. As the Slovene studies are taught at a number of universities as an independent academic subject, their scope is neither too broad nor too narrow to not treat them also here as such. There's no good reason to do otherwise. As for "a major well-established academic journal", I've provided the material that qualifies it as such above. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 21:08, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly doubt that this journal is a "major well-established" one and am on the fence of whether to take it to AfD, too. Yes, it has been mentioned in passing in a book and some of its articles have been cited, but that doesn't make a journal any more notable than it does make this researcher notable. --Randykitty (talk) 12:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Eleassar, my understanding of the way the guideline works, is that it's supposed to instantiate the idea of actually being of note. Or, in another way, if I were to go to the nearest department at any major university to this professor's area of expertise, pick a random senior professor, and ask, "is this somebody people in your field should know about," the answer should be yes. This prof clearly doesn't come close to passing that basic idea for the English wikipedia. I would not object to transclusion into the Slovene language wikipedia, where it may be of special interest to the readership. Ray^Talk 19:40, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As somebody with a reasonably intimate knowledge of departments in this professor's area of expertise at major universities, I believe one would in fact receive a "yes" answer at many of them (especially at departments that consider Slavic languages to include more than Russian). Doremo (talk) 20:09, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Delete -- subject comes close on several WP PROF guidelines, but no clear pass on any of them. I think that there's enough information provided to keep the article on the journal, because it seems notable, but not at the higher level that editing it would be a clear pass of WP:PROF (separately, I think that that is the weakest criteria of the WP:PROF list, but regardless, I don't see a pass here). I think given the faculty title and lack of major awards listed, I would need a RS directly asserting the importance of the researcher or one of his ideas. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 05:51, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For now, we have checked only online sources. User:Doremo has stated that he has an intimate knowledge of this subject area. It would be great if he could check the offline sources and provide relevant quotes, if any, to better establish the notability of the professor as well as the journal. In addition, I'm still searching for anything relevant online. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 08:42, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's difficult for me to quantify this. Of course, I know Pogacar personally (as does, I believe, every English-speaking scholar involved in the small field of Slovene studies—certainly at a good number of major U.S. and Canadian universities—and quite a few in Slavic studies). The position of an academic extensively involved in publishing (as an editor more than an author) differs from one primarily known through research; that is, he's not necessarily known for ground-breaking or state-of-the-art research, but he is widely known and respected as a coordinator, facilitator, and editor due to involvement in journals, as a reviewer (generally anonymously, as is typical), as a conference organizer, and so on. In my opinion, he's got quite a high profile among scholars in Slovene studies—but whether this equates with suitable notability for WP is something for people to decide through consensus. I'm more or less an "inclusionist," so I would probably vote to keep an article on pretty much anyone, to be honest. Doremo (talk) 09:08, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I hope it does. Thank you. I've found two more online sources relevant for this debate:

"Graduate faculty representative" - http://etd.ohiolink.edu/send-pdf.cgi/Braziunaite Ramune.pdf?bgsu1308595914
"Med slovenskimi prevajalci je treba knjižno omeniti osebe, kot so: ... Timothy Pogačar" ["Among Slovene translators, the following people should be mentioned in the written form: ... Timothy Pogačar ..."]. This is a list of the most notable Slovene translators, prepared by the notable Slovene writer and translator Vladimir Gajšek [sl]. http://www.intelyway.com/kultura/na_sceni/vladimir_gajsek-janez_gradisnik_od_huga_wolfa_do_jamesa_joyca.pdf

In addition, Pogačar has his entry in the book Slovenski kdo je kdo (the Slovene version of Who's Who),[7] prepared by the notable lexicographer Drago Bajt [sl] and described in detail in multiple Slovene media as the first Slovene comprehensive biographical dictionary.

--Eleassar ^{my talk} 09:16, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I considered changing my vote to Keep on the basis of the list of notable Slovene translators, but the list is too long (over a page of names single spaced) and without comment to seem sufficiently selective. I want to give Doremo a lot of space to show notability here, because I trust experts who know the field of the nominated subject well, but I think we still need something that we can point to even for the lower standard of the Average Professor Test. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 06:36, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really have much more to add in terms of showing notability (beyond the references that I've already added to the article). Like I said, Pogacar is well known in the (relatively obscure) field of Slovene studies, but primarily as an editor, coordinator, and translator rather than as a published author. Whether this kind of notability meets general WP notability requirements is something for the WP community to decide. I myself don't see any harm in keeping the article (which is objective, non-promotional, referenced, and linked to two content articles), but others may have a motivation to delete it. Doremo (talk) 07:02, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Now the rationale. I created the article in order to counter the systemic bias implicit in the current (and even more so historical) ways that the Big "Goliaths" (read: big nations) tend to treat the smaller nations, ethno-linguistic groups, and minorities ("Davids" fighting for their place under the sun with "Goliaths"). We, ethnic Slovenes have experienced such ways by our Austrian and Italian neighbors who a) annexed and subjected the quarter of total Slovene population which became the forcefully Italianized Slovene minority in Italy (1920-1947), and b) during WW II committed war crimes against Slovenes that never were persecuted because the British (read: another "Goliath") government prevented any trial in the name of Cold War between the - naturally huh? - Big players after the war, no one cared that justice has been abandoned. So, in my strong opinion, even if this person who is subject of the article would have not written a single scholarly article at all, the very fact of him being instrumental in maintaining the infrastructure (read: journal) for keeping Slovene studies alive and kicking internationally in such a biased global "community", this alone would make him a notable person. P.S. I apologize for my awkward English since I am obviously not a native speaker of the Big Language, although my Grand-Father spent first seven years of his life in Chicago where he was born and learned English upon his parents emigrating from Europe in the 1880s wave of Slovene emigration, but he had soon, aged only seven, upon the death of his father in a coal mine accident, returned fatherless to the Old World with his mom only (i.e. my great-grand-mother), to watch - forty years later - his home, built by himself, totally burned down by the Mario Roatta soldiers despite the fact that he wasn't on either side in the (civil) war, being neither a Slovene partisan nor a White Guard (Slovenia) member. My grand-father was just a hard-working (and church-going) family man. I counter the WP:systemic bias here in his honor. --DancingPhilosopher ^{my talk} 10:40, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'm afraid that you are mixing up "important" or "worthy" with notability in the WP sense. Not the same thing, I--Randykitty (talk) 11:26, 19 December 2012 (UTC) fear.[reply]
Comment I think DancingPhilosopher makes a cogent point. For example, from the perspective of world literature, most (if not all) Slovene poets and authors (like writers from other small nations) are not particularly noteworthy and would surely be unknown in nearly any literature program in the English-speaking world. Yet they have a place in WP, presumably because of their prominence within the (small) context of Slovene culture. Similarly, Pogacar has a notable position within the (small) context of Slovene studies, even if his position within Slavic studies as a whole or literature studies is much less prominent or even negligible. Doremo (talk) 11:53, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I would assume that there are significant, in-depth sources on those writers and poets. The language in which these sources are published is irrelevant (we should use English sources where available, but other-language sources are certainly admissible). I don't see any such sources on Pogacar, so I don't think that the comparison is valid. --Randykitty (talk) 12:17, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking more along the lines of RayAYang's quite reasonable suggestion of "go to the nearest department ... and ask, 'is this somebody people ... should know about,'" with regard to worthiness/importance in my comment about writers/poets above. It's an attractive criterion for inclusion, but is probably less useful for exclusion. And, of course, inclusion needs to be supported by reference to reliable sources, whatever the language. Doremo (talk) 13:20, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep on the basis that the journal he edits is indeed a major journal: WorldCat shows 281 holdings, which does not include whatever there may be in its own language area. This meets one of the qualifications of WP:PROF, and WC is a reliable source, so there's no need to discuss the others, which I agree are a little borderline. DGG ( talk ) 22:37, 22 December 2012 (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.