Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rafael Medoff

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. Lara❤Love 02:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rafael Medoff

Rafael Medoff (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

Fails all 6 criteria for inclusion of WP:PROF, fails notability tests for non-academics as well. No significant 3rd party coverage by reliable sources. Tarc (talk) 19:12, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

• Delete. Fails WP:PROF, significantly edited by POV sockfarm at WP:Requests for checkuser/Case/Evidence-based. --Relata refero (disp.) 20:18, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
• Delete: Fails WP:PROF. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 22:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep 5 significant academic books & another one in press are probably enough for significance, even though they are not by the really major academic publishers. And she's not "a director" at the Wyman Institute [1] she's The director. a major administrator position and a major research center in her field. There also seem to be sufficient publications about them. I would not like to think that the controversial nature of her views should affect this. I'm aware of who started the article, but some of his work was good. Many of the people he thought notable actually are.DGG (talk) 22:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Neverthless, in this case her body of work, if collectively notable, would be noted as such. Not only does she fail WP:PROF as written, but there don't appear to be any sources discussing her life and work, so she fails the very spirit of WP:N. More generally, we need such sources to write articles about people, because otherwise we'd be performing massive acts of interpretation of the primary sources of their work, which is not in keeping with WP:OR. That way lie coatracks, and terrible articles. --Relata refero (disp.) 22:47, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. How on earth can anyone say that there is no notability here when are these 256 Google News archive hits, including reviews of the subject's books in major publications [2] [3] [4] [5] that show obvious notability for the subject as an author? Why do we have to waste our time fending off AfD nominations when the nominator could have found notability in less time than it takes to create an AfD discussion? Phil Bridger (talk) 23:09, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • You are, presumably, joking. Is it standard interpretation for a book reviewed by the likes of the Middle East Quarterly to be considered "the subject of multiple independent works" because of those reviews? If so, I will withdraw my delete vote and go and canvass WT:PROF for that wording to be tightened. --Relata refero (disp.) 23:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Well, disparaging comments on how I should spend my time aside, one cannot find notability where it does not exist. What you cited there does not satisfy the requirements in the slightest. The infamous "Google test" is never a reliable substitute for notability, but even a good chunk of those hits point back to one source, highbeam, which also accounts for 3 of the subsequent links you list, with the 4th being a subscription-only library review. Many of the other google hits are in articles written by others on various subjects (not on Medoff herself) that only quotes here as a source. So please, keep your comments focused on the subject matter, and not me. Thanks. Tarc (talk) 23:34, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. Actually it is standard practice for books reviewed by such sources as the Jerusalem Post and the Middle East Quarterly to be considered notable. What better ways for establishing notability could you suggest for books and their authors? And Highbeam is simply an archive host - it isn't the original publisher of these articles. Phil Bridger (talk) 00:28, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

• For academic books? Academic reviews, at the very least. Further, as written, WP:PROF does not support the view that any person who writes a book that is reviewed somewhere meets it. --Relata refero (disp.) 08:16, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

• That's academic elitism; books meet notability requirements by having reviews, whether or not they're in academic journals. In fact, outside academic journals is more notable, since that's rarer and for a larger audience.--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:56, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

• Not if we're looking for notability as an academic. If so, its academic views that count. --Relata refero (disp.) 12:08, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

• Who's looking for notability as an academic? The subject is notable as an author and the director of a political think tank. He and his books get plenty of coverage from mainstream media sources in these capacities. He's not a professor, and nothing in the article claims that he is, so why does everyone keep going on about WP:PROF? WP:BIO is the standard here. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:19, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Er, he is in fact an academic. If he's not, then as a general interest author he definitely doesn't make the criterion - he hasn't been reviewed by any high-circulation publications, after all. If he's an activist, there should be sources about him - which is our standard WP:BIO route, right? Two independent sources talking about his life and career? I don't see those either. Any way you slice it, you have to find a criterion he meets; and having a book reviewed by the MEQ doesn't make it in my opinion. We've written WP:PROF so it excludes academics who've written books unless those books can be demonstrated, or cited, as notable advancements or contributions to their field. Relata refero (disp.) 15:42, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

The Jerusalem Post is a high-circulation publication. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

• Keep -meets WP:PROF, and WP:BIO, in general, as a frequently quoted expert and contributor to mainstream media. See [6] [7][8][9][10][11][, as just a few of resources available on-line. Editing by sockpuppets is not a reason to delete an article. Canadian Monkey (talk) 03:08, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Barring something egregious or a question posed directly to me, this should be the last response as I really don't want to be one of those people that ticky-tacks everything in their of AfD nomination :); I've had my say and will let others weigh in. But I had to respond once more to this, to point out that my rationale above is purely on notability, and not on suspected socks. As for the "sources" you give, penning a few columns or being mentioned tangentially by another columnist writing on a topic does not meet either WP:PROF or WP:BIO. I surmise that you are trying to go by "An academic repeatedly quoted, as an academic expert, in newspapers or newsmagazines may be considered to meet criterion 1", where criterion 1 is "The person is regarded as a significant expert in his or her area by independent sources". Medoff is quoted in places, yes, but I do not see that it rises to the thresholds of "repeatedly quoted" or "significant expert". Tarc (talk) 14:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

• Keep Medoff is quite well known. Right now there is a significant academic/real world (much in the Jewish press) controversy between what's been called the "conventional" or older, traditional account of the attitude and actions of the US, UK etc toward WWII refugee issues and the Holocaust, and the "revisionist" account (which has ties to Revisionist Zionism), whose position is basically The Abandonment Of The Jews; see also e.g. Auschwitz bombing debate). Partly because of relative youth and energy, I think, Medoff is in some ways now the leader of the revisionists - David Wyman is more respected by both sides, but he's pretty old, and as far as I can tell, Medoff's been made sort of the legitimate heir. Medoff is quite active in putting forward his (not her, btw) theses in the press and to other institutions like museums, etc.. Until very recently I think it is fair to say that the revisionist account was clearly winning and replacing the older US, FDR etc were good guys account. A recent example is the controversy over Robert Rosen's Saving the Jews': Franklin Roosevelt and the Holocaust, foreword by Gerhard Weinberg, afterword by Alan Dershowitz; as you can see at the Wyman Institute and some cites in the Jewish press, Medoff organized a bunch of 50 or so scholars to sign a critique of this vigorously pro-"conventional" book, which had been supported by two very notable people. So I think this, among others is enough to show that he is a significant person in this significant battle of the books, and his article should be kept. IMHO, he satisfies most of the criteria in WP:PROF My apologies for going on at such length. I think these controversies are underreported at Wikipedia & have done a little work to remedy this, and felt I had to explain the context. John Z (talk) 04:31, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:40, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
• Delete- Fails WP:PROF criteria. --Tomb of the Unknown Warrior tomb 05:13, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

*KeepI don't know why Relato Refero is arguing so strongly against reality, but, since Relato Refero asserted that theses books are not received by scholars, I punched Medoff into JSTOR. Results: His books gets reviewed: Review: Medoff's "The Deafening Silence, " Yehuda Bauer ,The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 80, No. 3/4 (Jan. - Apr., 1990), pp. 371-375 , Review: Pragmatic Idealists: Zionism in AmericaReview: Pragmatic Idealists: Zionism in America, Stuart Knee ,Reviewed work(s): Zionism and the Arabs: An American Jewish Dilemma, 1898-1948 by Rafael Medoff, The Emergence of American Zionism by Mark A. Raider , AJS Review, Vol. 24, No. 2 (1999), pp. 337-341. Moreover: His books are discussed in the periodic review articles commissioned by the journal "Modern Judaism," in fact, earlier this week, I inculded Deborah Lipstadt's discussion of Medoff's work in her 1990 review essay of recent work on the Holocaust in "Modern Judaism." More significantly, in 1995 "Modern Judaism" commissioned Medoff to write the review article. Recent Trends in the Historiography of Zionism: A Review Essay, by Rafael Medoff, Modern Judaism, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Feb., 1995), pp. 95-101. Plus: To add to my puzzlement over Relato Refero's motivations, after I saw that he had suggested this article for deletion and spent some time adding material to the article, he put up this on my account page: An editor has expressed a concern that this user may be a sock puppet of Evidence-based. Please refer to contributions for evidence. See block log and current autoblocks. In sum: Relato Refero's postign of this notice did have the effect of adding a new term to my vocabulary. But I hardly think flinging such accusations is an appropriate response to my objections to his attempt to remove this article. In fact, though adding information to Wikipedia pages when I am excited about an institution, a book, a play, or a beautiful building is fun, I don't particularly care for the argumentative, aggressive tone of some editors at Wikipedia. I suspect, moreover, that it drives people from continuing to contribute.13:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)Fan613

Um. On this, see User talk:Thatcher#Request for a checkuser confirmation of my suspicion. See the checkuser case I linked earlier to why this is a pattern of behavior. Relata refero (disp.) 15:42, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

in spite of the behavior of the above user, the subjects books do get reviewed in academic publications, thus showing notability as a writer. DGG (talk) 00:16, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

• Delete, unclear how he meets WP:BIO. Stifle (talk) 20:11, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep I don't know about WP:BIO but he clearly satisfies WP:PROF. Being the director of a significant academic institute would probably be enough already. GoogleBooks returns 148 hits[12] which is also substantial. As noted above, GoogleNews gives 256 hits.[13] More than enough to satisfy criterion 1 of WP:PROF, see example 2 in WP:PROF:"An academic repeatedly quoted, as an academic expert, in newspapers or newsmagazines may be considered to meet criterion 1." Nsk92 (talk) 22:13, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep Seems quite notable based on sources avaliable. Yahel Guhan 22:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. —Yahel Guhan 22:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep -- high number of reviews shows notability. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 05:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
• Keep -- Sheesh! A half-dozen published books, a major role for two decades in an important debate (American responsibility for the Holocaust). If he was a science fiction writer, would we be having this question? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yudel (talk • contribs) 00:46, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • No. --Relata refero (disp.) 07:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
• Keep - Enough outside respected sources that he is notable--YY (talk) 12:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

• Keep. I am puzzled what led to someone suggesting removing Dr. Rafael Medoff's Wikipedia page. Dr. Medoff's important collaborative book with Professor David Wyman and being director of the Wyman Institute are by themselves notable, as are his many other books, large number of articles in various papers in the USA and internationally, being historical consultant to the play "The Accomplices" shown last year in Manhattan, and high level conferences he organizes in the USA and internationally. Example of the latter is the 2007 Wyman Institute conference at the Fordham University Law School. Professor Elie Wiesel was keynote speaker and important talks were given also by Professor David Wyman, Professor Moshe Arens (was Israel's Minister of Defense and Minister of Foreign Affairs and its ambassador to the US), Dr. Rebecca Kook (Hillel Kook's daughter), ex-New York City mayor Ed Koch and many other noteworthy individuals. Dr. Medoff and Professor Wyman are the leading historians on the various important activities of Hillel Kook (Peter Bergson), especially his rescue committee which was one of the most important if not most important rescue activism during the Holocaust anywhere, and by far the most important in North America. As noted in earlier comments Dr. Medoff is not only the head of a noted research institute and a scholar with prolific publications in various media, but is also an activist and an effective popularizer of important issues. Some very basic litmus tests on Dr. Medoff's notability are the following row hit counts. Probably some links are out of context, however even the raw indicators are solid indications that Dr. Rafael Medoff, is indeed, making many notable contributions and that his Wikipedia page needs to be expanded.
  • Term "Dr. Rafael Medoff" on GOOGLE: 2,610 YAHOO: 15,700
  • Term "Rafael Medoff" on GOOGLE: 16,100 YAHOO: 82,500
  • Term "Wyman Institute" on GOOGLE: 8,570 YAHOO: 48,400 Emesz 1 May 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Emesz (talk • contribs) 16:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
• Keep as per User:DGG above. IZAK (talk) 11:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
• Keep as per DGG, meets criteria for professors. Coccyx Bloccyx (talk) 22:10, 5 May 2008 (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.