Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Nelson (scientist)

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. Consensus is for the article to be retained. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:09, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Nelson (scientist)

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Promotional biography by an SPA clearly associated with the subject (see [1]) sourced mainly to the subject himself but also namechecks in articles that are about something else. It is conceivable that the "institute of ecotechnics" may be notable, though we do not have an article, so the idea that he's notable for being part of this organisation for which there is no evidence of notability is a bit odd. SO, the sources that are independent dfo not rise above the level of namechecks. Guy (Help!) 10:27, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. Nordic Dragon 10:30, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of New Mexico-related deletion discussions. Nordic Dragon 10:30, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. His notability come from being one of the original 8 crew members of Biosphere 2, which was certainly notable in its day. There is quite a lot written about him personally (not by him) in Dreaming the Biosphere: The Theater of All Possibilities (University of New Mexico Press, 2009) and Spaceship Earth in the Environmental Age, 1960–1990 (Routledge 2015) as well as this Associated Press article, widely syndicated when the Biosphere 2 project began, plus several other articles during the period of the experiment. See also this rather interesting piece about Nelson in the Phoenix New Times (19 June 1991). I agree that the article is promotional of his current activities and book and needs a big clean up and pruning, but that can be fixed. It's not a reason to delete the article, nor is the obvious COI of its creator. Voceditenore (talk) 12:45, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The "Institute of ecotechnics" is not without notability or rather notoriety (at least in the past), e.g. this 1991 article/exposé in The Village Voice and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary mentioned in several major publications [2]. Voceditenore (talk) 13:12, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:26, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment but perhaps Keep if all of this is convincing enough as I'm still questionable regarding what there is and the current article so I'm notifying DGG for better analysis. SwisterTwister talk 06:45, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
~~Possibly Keep~~ I think the sources mentioned in the discussion show he was the a leader of the project. That's enough. A rewrite is indeed needed based on them. Voceditenore, can you do it? I do not really have the time. If not, the alternative is to userify or move it to draftspace for someone else to do, because it's a little to promotional to stand as is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs) 07:03, 1 March 2016

DGG, Guy, et al., I'm willing to clean this up. I just realized that the whole article is basically an advert for the Institute of Ecotechnics and its spin-offs with a load of irrelevant stuff about the Synergia Ranch etc. The new version would be vastly truncated to a biographical narrative of Nelson only—based on the above sources and some others, such as this article/review of his wastewater activities and book in New Scientist. However, I'm not sure how much resistance there is going to be from the COI editors who created the current advertorial and given the amount of work this will take, I am not prepared to do this without a close of this discussion as "Keep and clean up". Voceditenore (talk) 08:53, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How about if I move it to Draft and then you can fix it into an article on either him or the Institute? Guy (Help!) 09:03, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Guy, I'm not keen on that. The person either meets our criteria for inclusion, or he doesn't. In my view he does, quite clearly. His "Institute of Ecotechnics" might also meet the criteria, I'm not sure, but that is the subject of a different article—not this one—and I have no intention of creating Institute of Ecotechnics. I'd much rather work on Nelson's biography in situ with a clear mandate to do so—not some fuzzy, messy close of moving it to draft space and me moving it back when I'm done. The AfD has begun, it should run its course. Voceditenore (talk) 09:19, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Moving to Draft is a safe and non-commital procedure. All that needs to be done there is to improve the article so it is likely to pass AfD.It's not a final judgment or a judgment at all--if it is moved back, it can again be challenged. I have frequently worked on borderline Draft articles in draft space, andif I think there's a reasonable chance , moved them to mainspace. The decision will be made there. DGG ( talk ) 09:50, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK. I'll work on it in draft space and then move it back to article space, if that's how this AfD closes, although frankly I'm not sure of what the value of that outcome is instead of keeping it and me cleaning up in situ. Voceditenore (talk) 10:06, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The only reason for suggesting Draft is that you said it would take a while, and WP:BLP is kind of important - bad biographies should not, IMO, be left lying around unfixed. However, I see that you have already started work, which is also fine by me obviously. Guy (Help!) 10:54, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I said it would take a lot of work, not a long time. It took me about three hours of continuous work this morning to re-write and re-reference it. Yes, BLP is important, but interestingly, all of the biographical claims about him in the original version were true and reasonably referenced, apart from him receiving the Yuri Gagarin medal for which I couldn't find a reference and removed. What made the article poor was all the advertorial writing publicising his book and the Institute of Ecotechnics and its spin-offs. Voceditenore (talk) 11:46, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep ~~but cleanup~~ -- I can't help much w/ the cleanup, but I'll definitely put the article on my watchlist so that Voce doesn't need to fight any COI pushers alone. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 07:33, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Definite keep after User:Voceditenore's edits. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 23:26, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Update I've gone ahead and completely rewritten and re-referenced the article using the sources in this discussion, removing great swathes of advertorial, and drastically pruning the external links and the publications. Michael, thanks so much for putting this on your watchlist. That will be a big help. DGG, Guy, and SwisterTwister, could you take a look at the article now? Voceditenore (talk) 09:57, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
'Keep, as revised. DGG ( talk ) 20:19, 2 March 2016 (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.