Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ruggles Prize

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. postdlf (talk) 21:05, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ruggles Prize

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Non-notable award issued by a college math department for which sourcing independent of the subject doesn't seem to appear. No reliable sources appear which discuss the subject in "significant detail," as is required by WP:GNG. No mention of the award is made in the George Washington University article itself, which were it a genuinely notable honor would not likely be the case (and truth be told, the entire Academics section of the GWU article is just over twice the word count of this AfD.) No mentions of the award at all on Google Scholar, and only four Google hits [1] referencing the award at all, all as passing references of it on website bios of winners. Not even any mention of the award in the searcheable archives of GW Today, the college's official periodical [2], or the GW Hatchet, the college's student newspaper [3]. PROD removed without comment by editor (after the week had gone by and the prod expired) who then complained to ANI about a PROD being filed at all, but who has not then or subsequently made any attempts to source or improve the article. Ravenswing 11:38, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Nothing to recommend it. None of the four hits are actually about the prize itself - zero notability. Mark^Dask 19:38, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete- Ravenswing's research and analysis of the sources has convinced me that this award is not notable. Reyk _YO! 20:35, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete As per above comments, and a side comment that if Norton wanted this un-deleted, he could have at least given a reason, rather than saying that RG was simply trying to "avoid scrutiny". This prize seems little noticed, and probably simply deserves a mention in the main biography of William Ruggles, but beyond that, it is probably not terribly notable. -- Avanu (talk) 20:53, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Beats me. Norton's made 30+ edits since I filed the AfD, so it's not as if he can claim to have been AFK. No doubt a number of us could speculate on the motives of such an experienced editor who opposes a PROD so strenuously as to take it to AN/I, without once saying why he opposes it or lifting a finger to advocate the subject's notability. To do so here would, in all likelihood, be uncivil. Ravenswing 07:04, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to William Ruggles. This should clearly be a redirect to there in any case. Hobit (talk) 22:55, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support merge and redirect to William Ruggles, no reason at all to delete. Does anyone now the name for the debating tactic where you say "I am not saying my opponent rape's farm animals ..." I seem to remember there is a name for the tactic, but can't remember the name. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:43, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - it is called Ad Hominem, but I get the feeling you already were aware. If this is a slight about us awaiting your comment here, your mention of it might be considered a Non-Sequitur or Digression. You could have simply asked for the content of the Ruggles Prize to be included in the William Ruggles article in the first place; I doubt any of us would have minded. The approach that you took instead involved requiring an admin to pull it out of PROD and then saying the editor who nominated was abusing procedure. Then you took hours to get a comment in and the substantive portion of it was "no reason at all to delete". I guess that could be sufficient, but I have seen several people post reasons of their own, and so I find it a bit lacking to simply say that and then go down to a mention of raping farm animals. Not sure what you wish to accomplish, but if it is community support, there is probably a better way. -- Avanu (talk) 20:21, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree fully that this should not have been an ANI issue, it seems that there was an objection raised when the admin undeleted this article per the request, even though that is entirely within the PROD procedure. Rlendog (talk) 15:07, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I really don't think, after taking a legitimate PROD to ANI, you've earned any right to complain about anyone's tactics, real or imagined. "No reason to delete" is a garbage answer we'd rightly take a newcomer to task for proffering, never mind from an editor with tens of thousands of edits. As with the PROD, the reason to delete is given, at some length and bolstered with considerable evidence. You plainly don't like the reason - where have I heard that before? - but that doesn't mean there are none. Would you care to try again, with some rationale founded in Wikipedia policy or guidelines? Ravenswing 20:27, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. —• Gene93k (talk) 01:51, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:51, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. No notability apparent. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:04, 29 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Delete - I'd say merge, but the info on the prize is adequately covered in Ruggles' article, and including more would just make it unbalanced. A redirect doesn't seem out of the question. Yaksar (let's chat) 05:39, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, sure. Xxanthippe (talk).

Uh, what?--Yaksar (let's chat) 07:17, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry. Redirect is O.K. with me. Xxanthippe (talk) 08:49, 29 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Delete; not notable. bobrayner (talk) 13:14, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to William Ruggles. Don't see any reason given why deletion should be preferred over a redirect (unless William Ruggles is not notable - I have not checked - in which case that article too should be considered for deletion). Rlendog (talk) 15:04, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sold myself on Ruggles' notability, and will examine that in more detail after this is done. If you read through his own article, its sole source is the college's website, and his sole claim to notability is that he taught there a long time. Of such is not passing WP:PROF made. Ravenswing 19:07, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I boldy redirected. You are welcome to take William Ruggles to afd --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:10, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I boldly un-redirected per Wikipedia:Guide to deletion: "You should not turn the article into a redirect. A functioning redirect will overwrite the AFD notice. It may also be interpreted as an attempt to "hide" the old content from scrutiny by the community." VernoWhitney (talk) 18:18, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quite aside from that the vox populi here is for deletion, not redirection. Ravenswing 19:06, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Aside the process issues of redirecting right now during the AfD, why do you have a problem with redirecting the article? If William Ruggles is kept, why shouldn't a user looking for "Ruggles Prize" be sent there? And if William Ruggles is deleted, it would be appropriate to delete this redirect at that time. Rlendog (talk) 20:12, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Because, quite bluntly, if the subject is too insignificant to be mentioned in the GWU official publications - the only mention on the entire GWU website was in a portmanteau column on the Department of Mathematics page listing the winners of the SEVERAL prizes they issue - the odds that anyone's going to come to Wikipedia instead are between, well, nil and nil. Ravenswing 06:35, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Redirects are cheap. If this gets deleted I'll certainly add a redirect which I suppose you could take to RfD where I very much believe it would be kept. The bar is _really_ low for a redirect and this more than meets it. Hobit (talk) 13:23, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Not verifiable via reliable sources = not notable. Reaper Eternal (talk) 12:49, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong with [4] for meeting WP:V? There are also some 20 links on the page itself that are verifiable. I agree on WP:N, but WP:V is met by a mile. Hobit (talk) 13:22, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(1) The painfully obvious fact that an organization's own website cannot be used to verify an award given out by that organization? (2) Tell you what ... how about you go back over that list and cross out every one that pertains to "Columbian College" and "GWU," which fall under the same prohibition. Then you can eliminate the fraternity and sorority newsletters, which has such things have always been, are largely user-submitted and run afoul of WP:NOTRS. That leaves only one remaining independent, reliable reference. If you actually read it, it is an investigation into the finances of GWU, quoting a university report proposing the creation of such a prize among every other prize and scholarship ever cited ... and that's it. Ravenswing 13:43, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I know its not quite on topic, but sometimes the restrictions on how we have to source things for Wikipedia are a bit annoying. I agree about the non-notability of the Ruggles Prize. Its just that the reliable source guideline often means that we have to willfully ignore a lot of strong evidence (or even our own fact-checking - for example if I personally went to GWU and viewed a Ruggles Prize being handed out). -- Avanu (talk) 15:49, 2 April 2011 (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.