Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Donald I. Barker

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. -- Cirt (talk) 00:11, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Donald I. Barker

Donald I. Barker (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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I have tried a variety of searches and permutations for this person's name (Donald I. Barker, Donald Barker, Don Barker) and keywords (netscape, software), and I cannot come up with a single reliable source containing biographical information (per WP:GNG) or reviews of his work (per WP:AUTHOR). Nothing here indicates he would pass WP:PROF either. I gladly stand corrected by being shown reliable secondary sources on this person and his work. Drmies (talk) 15:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. -- Ray^Talk 16:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
• Delete I would not be surprised if there was reliable independent coverage of Barker and his many books. However, my quick search could not find a good source. By the way, the claim that someone wrote the first of anything cannot be sourced to the book itself, rather it requires a source that says it was the first. Racepacket (talk) 16:26, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• Ray, It is not surprising that searches using permutations of this person's name (Donald I. Barker, Donald Barker, Don Barker) and keywords (Netscape, software) do not result in reliable sources containing biographical information. And you are quite right that, "...the claim that someone wrote the first of anything cannot be sourced to the book itself, rather it requires a source that says it was the first." Given that 98 percent of the information on the Web is hidden in databases from search engine spiders, it is difficult to locate such information. However, I was able to find a reliable independent source of biographical information about Donald I. Barker at the textbook publisher Cengage Learning: http://www.cengage.com/search/productOverview.do?N=0&Ntk=P_Isbn13&Ntt=9780538755986#subTab_4. I will add this reference to the article on Barker. Philip December 13, 2010
  • But what you added is from his publisher, as you said--and it is not independent, nor should it be deemed a reliable source. Sure, much information is hidden in databases, but that does not prevent us from properly sourcing and writing hundreds of thousands of biographical articles. Moreover, I didn't point at just biographical information--it is my contention that absent meaningful reviews of the books those titles don't rise to the level of notability, which would be necessary for the subject to pass WP:AUTHOR. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 18:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. -- -- Cirt (talk) 17:59, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
  • • With claims of being first to publish book, it would seem logical that most empirical method of verification would be simply to search for the first book published on subject. For example, the claim that Barker is the first to publish a book on Windows could be established by searching and sorting Amazon.com. Although not an exhaustive list, it is certainly the most extensive. I checked several of his titles and claims, and they do appear legitimate. What else should I search for? In other words, what would constitute sufficient evidence? For example, an article making these claims in say the Chronicle of Higher Education. Personally, I would trust my own research over that of journalist's fact checking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PhilipJFry2999 (talk • contribs) 21:08, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
      • But that is what is called original research, and while what you find may be true, it's not easily verifiable. But even if it were the first, how could we call that important unless reliable sources have noted that it is important? That is one of the cornerstones of the entire project: verifiability. Personally, I'd trust my own research on some topics over the CHE, but why would you trust mine over theirs? Drmies (talk) 21:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• • • • • But the question is not the trust of a person, but the methodology and (as you wrote above) the "verifiability" of the claim(s). In this particular case, anyone can conduct a search of Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and library databases to "verify" that these books were published before others on the same topics. Hence, whether that investigator is a CHE journalist or a Wikipedian, it is the empirical, repeatable process that matters, not the trustworthiness of the person or even the organizaiton. As a former journalist myself, I can tell that even the most professional routinely take biographical information provided by an interviewee for granted--unless there is a reason to suspect its authenticity. Therefore, citing such sources (no matter how reputable), lacks the credibility of an empirically verifiable claim. In regards to the contention that the absence "...of meaningful reviews of the books those titles don't rise to the level of notability...", textbooks (unlike trade books) are rarely reviewed, and only then by obscure library or academic journals. Does it then follow that we should exclude textbook authors as notable? Furthermore, my addition to this article makes no claims regarding the "bestseller" status of these textbooks. In my original investigation, I corresponded with the textbook publisher Cengage Learning and they "claimed" that (with a few exceptions), Barker's textbooks were bestsellers. Can we trust the publisher of the textbooks regarding these assertions? Obviously not, because there is no way to verify them. I even sought an independent source. However, the only ones I found that track textbook sales are industry-specific research firms. This exploration revealed two things. First, most of these firms simply don't keep information about individual textbook sales that date back into the 80s and 90s. Second, for those that do, they won't provide it for free because they make their living off selling such information to textbook publishers and other interested parties. Where does this leave us? Should we exclude individuals from Wikipedia based on the formal "notability" requirements, even when unpublished empirical evidence exists for anyone to check that the person is notable? If so, we do a great disservice to our readers and those individuals who have contributed so much to education and, hence, society. As an example, there is no biographical article in Wikipedia about "John McCarthy, the textbook author who wrote the most influential principles of marketing textbook in the last fifty years. Why? Because of the very requirements discussed above. I was going to write a biographical article about McCarthy as well, but now it would seem a waste of my time. Even though I could find countless marketing professors at major universities who would readily attest to the fact that his Principles of Marketing textbook is the seminal work in the field, the question would arise about my trustworthiness as the "reporter" of these comments. If I published these same claims in a piece for the CHE, then they would "miraculously" gain credibility as an independent source. I fully understand the need for independent sources, but when they simply don't exist for clearly noteworthy individuals and when empirical data does exist that anyone can verify, it seems that the "notability" requirements are too restrictive. Perhaps it is time to reevaluate these criteria and possibly expand them so that groups like textbook authors, who codify the knowledge of a field and educate our youth, are recognized as notable by Wikipedia.

<--Let me take just one of the questions, which I think stands for all: "Should we exclude individuals from Wikipedia based on the formal "notability" requirements, even when unpublished empirical evidence exists for anyone to check that the person is notable?" Yes. That is how Wikipedia works--see Wikipedia:Verifiability, and its opening sentence, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. That is, whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." Drmies (talk) 22:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

<--This is (what in philosophy) we call an insular argument. Wikipedia defines verifiability as published reliable sources, hence, one can not be notable without published reliable sources. There is no way to win such an argument, unless Wikipedia adopts a more scientific definition of verifiability, such as empirical evidence that can be demonstrated repeatedly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PhilipJFry2999 (talk • contribs)

• That's specious. One can easily 'win' this argument by making reference to reliable sources. Writing an encyclopedia is not a science--it is simply compiling reliable information that already exists in reliable (i.e., published) form. Drmies (talk) 15:59, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
• Delete I searched for substantial coverage in reliable sources in July and didn't find any, which is why I added the notability template. I can't find anything sufficient now, and the debate certainly doesn't show something substantial. Hekerui (talk) 23:46, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• Delete - I see no coverage bout him or his published works that would represent the coverage necessary to establish notability for an author. His volume of work would indicate that he probably earns enough money on the work to keep him in that line of work, but merely being a a published author is not notable. As for the claim of being the first to write a textbook for Windows, even if that claim were true, that doesn't establish notability. -- Whpq (talk) 17:28, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

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.