Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Corinna Löckenhoff

Corinna Löckenhoff

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

• How to contribute
• Introduction to deletion process
• Guide to deletion (glossary)
• Help, my article got nominated for deletion!

Corinna Löckenhoff (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

The article subject has requested the page be deleted - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Corinna_L%C3%B6ckenhoff

Policy on deletion requests from subjects is at WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE: "Discussions concerning biographical articles of relatively unknown, non-public figures, where the subject has requested deletion and there is no rough consensus, may be closed as delete."

The subject arguably notes that she is not notable in Wikipedia terms. I will AGF and support her view in this with this AfD. --Tagishsimon (talk) 03:48, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Tagishsimon (talk) 03:48, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

The subject is notable per WP:Academics #3. The subject can say whatever. If this article will be deleted, I will assume that you are no longer a Wikipedian and will recreate it per above guideline. ;)--Biografer (talk) 03:56, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah. Cheers for the passive aggressive abuse, Biografer, but please, really, don't be an idiot. If the article is deleted as a result of this deletion discussion, you will not recreate it because those are the rules. Nor do you get to decide who is and who is not a Wikipedian.

So let's look at WP:Academics # 3: "The person has been an elected member of a highly selective..." blah blah blah. Did you stop to look at the criteria for fellowships of the Gerontological Society of America? Probably not. Here it is: https://www.geron.org/images/gsa/Fellows/2020_Code_of_Procedures_and_Requirements_for_Fellow_Status.pdf

By my reading, it does not appear "highly selective". There are criteria, but those criteria fail to meet what I take to be "highly". YMMV. --Tagishsimon (talk) 04:08, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

It's always tough to judge these things, but FWIW, I agree: the criteria are "selective" but not "highly selective". XOR'easter (talk) 21:20, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• Delete mid-career scientist (currently an associate professor). Only aspect of WP:PROF that might be met is #3, "an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society"; but fellowship in the Gerontological Society of America is much less selective than the examples given in the WP:PROF #3 critera. Deletion nomination resulted from my post at WIR, and I gotta say it's really shitty that Wikipedia is making somebody navigate through the bureaucracy of blocks and edit requests to deal with their own biography. Plantdrew (talk) 04:03, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• Delete. Relatively unknown and non-public figure, any keep argument would rely on a particularly broad interpretation of WP:ACADEMICS, and a subject who wishes for it to be deleted due to ongoing BLP issues. Not only should the article be deleted, but Biografer should be warned/sanctioned for the above threat to ignore the AfD and recreate it regardless of the outcome and Spintendo talked to about his pointlessly obstinate response to the subject asking for inaccurate details in her biography to be corrected. The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:07, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• The current AfD is focused on deletion of a subject because of the subjects' personal COI with it. I will be happy to address the inaccuracies, but deleting it because the subject wants it is a no-no. We have many stubs on Fellows of IEEE, but we don't go and delete them, we expand on them!--Biografer (talk) 04:17, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

The current AfD is predicted on the non-notability - in Wikipedia terms - of the subject. Your #3 has been blown out of the water. You got anything more? --Tagishsimon (talk) 04:21, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Tagishsimon: The subject meets WP:GNG, so its far from non-notable.--Biografer (talk) 04:25, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

And so you'll be wanting to adduce some evidence of that GNG. On you go. --Tagishsimon (talk) 04:28, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Two profiles of her on the websites of organisations she's affiliated with and four articles on her in the campus newspaper of the university she works at does not pass WP:GNG in any sense. The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:29, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

And equating Fellow of the IEEE with Fellow of the GSA kinda underscores your complete lack of understanding of #3, Biografer. Can you tease out the 'highly' part of their selectivity for us? --Tagishsimon (talk) 04:35, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Tagishsimon: Maybe its you all who need to rewrite the #3 guideline? You see, to me a Fellow is a Fellow, and #3 guidelines specifically for members and fellows. Maybe you need to create a list of acceptable and not acceptable fellowships? Will be of great help here. :)--Biografer (talk) 05:44, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Google have many hits for her in the "news" section.--Biografer (talk) 05:44, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

So let me guess, we have an article here on David Eppstein, so if @David Eppstein: will want his article to be deleted, we will need to bow down and just do it because of "subject request". Really?--Biografer (talk) 05:44, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

As a Wikipedian, my attitude is that the article on me is Someone Else's Problem. I might take action for serious inaccuracies or occasionally suggest updates for things like changes of job title, but otherwise I'm keeping my opinions about it to myself. I wish more of our subjects would take that attitude. But since they often don't, we allow subjects to request deletion as an outlet when the case is sufficiently borderline. The question at hand is not whether we must always bow to such demands, but whether Löckenhoff is sufficiently borderline for her opinion to carry any weight. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:06, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• Delete at request of subject. She does have a good GS citation record in the high-cited field of pop-psychology but otherwise of routine notability. WP:Prof#C3 is not passed. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:30, 11 January 2020 (UTC).

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 05:51, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 05:51, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 05:52, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• Delete. She's on the edge of being notable, but not yet. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 05:54, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• Weak delete. A decent citation record (13 papers with over 100 citations each), and being listed as a fellow by a minor learned society, would normally be enough for a keep for me. I think she does pass WP:PROF, by multiple criteria. But the case is not overwhelming enough for me to want to ignore the subject's wishes. The article is a near-orphan, so I don't think it would do much damage to the encyclopedia to delete it. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:16, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
  • @David Eppstein: So, on one hand you say that she meets WP:PROF, and on the other hand you are OK with it being deleted??? Can you explain your logic here? As for an article being near-orphan, I see no reason for it being deleted based on that observation. We have hundreds of orphaned articles here, which I currently try to expand (and hopefully connect to others). If you decided to delete this article based on being an orphan, you should take into consideration that many Fellows of the IEEE are also orphans, and yet, no admin and no subject issues AfD debate. :)--Biografer (talk) 20:59, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
    • What's to explain? She meets PROF, but is neither so far beyond that level that it would be an embarrassment to the encyclopedia to omit her, nor so well-linked that it would reduce the information content of the other articles on the encyclopedia to unlink her. Therefore, my default in the absence of a request from the subject would be a keep, but I think it's a case where we can honor that request without much cost. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:42, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• Weak keep, but Meh. See the talk page for the actual request from the subject, which doesn't so much say "please delete", so much as "please fix up, or otherwise delete". Independently from that post, I think this is a weak keep. Depending how you read the request from the subject, it either turns into a weak delete per WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE, or else stays keep (and we fix any errors, add links to primary sources, and explain to the subject why we need to keep the secondary sources). I lean towards the second, but the first is less work. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 08:37, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

To clarify, the weak keep is via WP:NPROF. 4500+ total citations, several papers over 300 citations looks like C1. Possibly also a case for C3 via Gerontological Society fellowship. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 10:20, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Subject prefers deletion; User talk:Loeckenhoff#What would prefer happen with the article about you? Plantdrew (talk) 21:32, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• Keep -- on condition inaccuracies are corrected as suggested above. If not, maintain as a draft until corrections can be made. More extensive comments on Women in Red.--Ipigott (talk) 11:06, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• Comment I'm with Ipigott on this - restore the changes that were requested by the subject on the grounds that accuracy is important. I think it's borderline enough to be deleted but draftified but again only with the changes made. If we are going to write biographies of borderline notable people we should at least get the details right since they will not have as many sources to be correcting them in a brief google by a user of the 'pedia. ☕ Antiqueight ^chatter 11:54, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• Delete - non-public figure, where the subject has requested deletion. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 16:22, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• Comment This revert on the basis of COI reintroduced multiple factual errors. The first two I noticed were that the subject's affiliation is now listed incorrectly, and a co-edited book has become a co-authored one. I dislike COI edits as much as anybody, but this is a case where the subject made changes in good faith and provided citations (e.g., [1][2]). This is definitely a situation where more consideration is required, and blindly following default procedure makes things worse. I have refactored the "Career" section to make it focus on the standard topics of an academic biography rather than reporting individual grants. This was not a major time investment on my part, and I wouldn't regret it if we decide to follow Dr. Löckenhoff's first choice and delete the page. I think there's a good argument made in the !votes above to the effect that, while she may clear the bar set by our notability guideline for academics, her wiki-notability is not so overwhelming that it should mean we override her request. XOR'easter (talk) 17:44, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
  • @XOR'easter: Keep in mind that people who voted Delete here, had a substantial lack of why she is notable, before I pinged David Eppstein here. In my book, she passes C1 (GS h-index 33) and C3 (being a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America) for WP:PROF. She also passes WP:GNG with additional sources which were added by the subject. Let me explain how I came to writing an article on the subject; I was writing an article on her co-author Anthony Ong who has an h-index of 41 on GS. Despite being highly cited, I found very small proof on the net regarding his notability, yet I managed to write a Start class article out of Corinna Löckenhoff. The thing is, is that if we will blindly follow subjects' wishes, we can say WP:BLP bye-bye.--Biografer (talk) 20:59, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

That's a fatuous conclusion. Policy in this area is to permit the deletion in a case where there is not consensus as to notability. Where there is consensus, the deletion does not take place. Appliction of the policy does not cause BLP to disappear, but rather provides guidance on a fairly thin margin. The problem for you here is that you have not got anything like consensus to keep, and you're still making dubious arguments, such as for the fellowship as an indicator of notabilty via #3, despite users pointing to the criteria requiring a highly selective process. You've been asked about evidence for GNG, and we still have nothing from you to rebut The Drover's Wife's comments. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:09, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Tagishsimon: I already gave this link above: Google have many hits for her in the "news" section. It was meant to answer the GNG criteria.--Biografer (talk) 21:38, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Dumping a search-engine query is, by itself, not too helpful. Moreover, there are only 10 items returned in that Google News search, which is not a promising beginning. The first is a standard university PR item from her employer, so it's not independent. The second quotes her as the standard "according to a researcher who was not involved in the study" opinion. It's not about her or her own work. The third is just an echo of the second. The fourth is a Forbes "contributor" item, and these are generally seen as not reliable; it only mentions her in passing anyway, as a then-graduate student carrying out research started by someone else. The fifth is a passing mention in a press release about somebody else's research. The remainder aren't in English; four are churnalistic echoes of the second item, and the final one is paywalled so I can't evaluate it. Nothing here adds up to a pass of WP:GNG or WP:PROF. XOR'easter (talk) 22:06, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: Well, I don't know Spanish, but we never delete articles because they use foreign sources, that is, as long as they are not written in language other then English, which this article is.--Biografer (talk) 22:33, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

I didn't say that they were worthless because they're in a foreign language. I said that they don't contribute to passing WP:GNG or any other notability guideline because they're superficial churning of a superficial original. XOR'easter (talk) 01:01, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

• • • We're not "blindly follow[ing] subjects' wishes"; we're debating the removal of potentially misleading content about an individual in a situation where omitting that individual's biography from Wikipedia would not even seriously affect our ability to write about the subject area where she works. Wiki-notability is about whether a subject can in principle have a Wikipedia article, which is not the same as whether they must have an article. Yes, a GS h-index of 33 is pretty good, but that's only one factor in our considerations, and as noted above, whether Fellowship in the Gerontological Society of America is enough for WP:PROF#C3 is not so clear-cut. Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't — I don't think that specific society has actually come up in any notability debate so far, meaning that the question simply hasn't been settled yet. Nor am I convinced that the additional sources really make a WP:GNG case for wiki-notability: for example, a press release from the subject's own institution is a primary source. We can take it as accurate, but it doesn't really represent the wider world paying attention. XOR'easter (talk) 21:10, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
      • @XOR'easter: The Fellowship enlists 1564 members as of 2019. We also have a category: Category:Fellows of the Gerontological Society of America since 2017.--Biografer (talk) 21:46, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
        • That's actually a good argument against regarding Fellowship as being "highly selective", since they have less than 6000 members in all. (According to our page about them, which is surely not too out of date.) Contrast this, with, say, the American Physical Society, in which "Each year, no more than one half of one percent of the Society's membership" is elected to Fellow status [3]. Having a category is beside the point; we have Category:American physicists, a person isn't automatically notable for being an American physicist. XOR'easter (talk) 21:54, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
          • Well, I used to write here articles on Fellows of the American College of Surgeons, until somebody told me that those academics are not notable either, despite have a whopping 80,000 members. That leads me into a confusion of some sort: If a Fellow of Gerontological Society of America is less notable then a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, then what is considered a WP:PROF #3 pass? Like, obviously, various Academy of Sciences, or the AAAS, but are there notable societies for physicians? If an academic is fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics he seems to be a notable pediatrician.--Biografer (talk) 22:22, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
            • It's not the size of the society that matters, but how selective the criteria for being a Fellow are. The requirements for becoming a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics seem rather low: FAAP designation after a member's name stands for Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and may only be used by AAP members in good standing who have obtained initial board certification in pediatrics or a surgical specialty board [4]. Their press material suggests that about 34,000 out of 60,000 AAP members are Fellows — more than half. That's not "highly selective" by any stretch of the imagination. And it's nothing like what WP:PROF#C3 is about. XOR'easter (talk) 01:12, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
              • @XOR'easter: Meantime, the Gerontological Society of America have 5064 fellows and IEEE have 5364 fellows. But while IEEE selection in Wikipedia is "high", the selection for the Gerontological Society of America is "low" according to Wikipedia. Maybe you can explain why 300 more members of IEEE are more notable then 5K of the Gerontological Society of America? To me, I don't see a difference between 5K and 5K plus.--Biografer (talk) 04:28, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
      • The thing is, is that this article was to no-ones attention until the subject peeped out of nowhere and now we need to abide by her wishes. If she was not notable at the time of the writing, then maybe she should have been deleted by an admin before this debate. As it stands, we have subject that is deemed notable by @David Eppstein: and @Ipigott: (and me, as creator), and we have like three to four people here who apparently felt sorry for the subject (or maybe fell in love with her, because geez, a lady coming to WP makes us men blush). :) Just my theory, don't take it personally.--Biografer (talk) 21:29, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Ad hominem attacks are always a sure sign of a winning argument. Please don't project your sexist crap on us. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:42, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

It is tautologically true that nobody noticed a problem until someone came along and noticed the problem. The person who noticed happened to be the subject of the article. Nobody is saying that "we need to abide by her wishes". The argument of those supporting deletion is that it is a simple solution and we have no truly compelling reason not to do it. Feeling "sorry" doesn't enter into the considerations at all. And I'm sorry to be blunt, but bizarre personal insinuations are inappropriate even if dressed up with a smiley and a "don't take it personally". XOR'easter (talk) 21:44, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, I didn't meant any personal attacks, but that's how it was seem to me at the time. :(--Biografer (talk) 21:50, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: So notability is not important now, simplicity is? Wow. It would be better to improve the article rather than delete it. Makes me wonder why do I bother to expand on those stubs on IEEE Fellows, knowing that in a near future, you guys will nominate them for deletion because it will be a "simple thing to do".--Biografer (talk) 22:04, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Where have I ever said that notability is "not important"? If I thought so, why would I have put in the time to evaluate the cases for WP:PROF#C3 (probable fail, since we have no grounds to say that Fellowship is "highly selective") and WP:GNG (also a probable fail, since the available sources are a mix of superficial and/or not independent)? And what is the relevance of stubs for IEEE Fellows, since again, all the evidence we can find indicates that Fellowship in the IEEE and in the GSA are simply not equally selective? XOR'easter (talk) 22:12, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: While you didn't say it, you did said that The argument of those supporting deletion is that it is a simple solution and we have no truly compelling reason not to do it, which indicates that you support simplicity of deletion, like, it will cause less headache, over fixing the factual errors and let the article be.--Biografer (talk) 22:28, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

As for IEEE Fellows relevance, if you consider to delete an article because of simplicity, then maybe you want to delete a ton of IEEE stubs and not waste your time on expanding them? But trust me, I put an effort on expanding them, even though for simplicity reason, it will better to just delete them. :)--Biografer (talk) 22:40, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• Delete Not notable yet. Also, the person in question has requested deletion.--Darwinek (talk) 23:13, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• Keep The person is notable and meets C1 and C3 of WP:PROF. Weather the subject likes it or not, we should retain this article for its encyclopedic value. We should never bow to the wishes of a subject. We need to fix the article and tell the subject "sorry, good bye". If she wants to sue us, we will gladly pay her some hush money to keep her happy. An article on a notable academic should never be deleted just because the subject said so.--Biografer (talk) 23:52, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• Delete Currently I don't feel they pass NACADEMIC (under the several criteria mooted, the specific reasoning is considered above). I don't know what scale of promotion the subject is going for, which they mentioned on the talk page, but it's possible that would move them into notable grounds. However, that decision can be made if and when that's appropriate. As the non-public subject has requested deletion, it needs to be a clear keep on notability grounds to retain. Nosebagbear (talk) 00:33, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear: Confused. You are proposing a deletion and at the same time you are saying that it needs to be a clear keep on notability grounds to retain? In other words, you are voting Keep if I am not mistaken?--Biografer (talk) 04:57, 12 January 2020 (UTC)