Talk:Hermann Mucke (bioscientist)

Remove references from sections, then remove sections as unreferenced?

Something weird is going on here. Over the past weeks I have created perhaps half a dozen bio articles on several Austrian scientists, researchers, and science popularizers (see my user page). All went unchallenged, although most of the references I cited were in German, not available online, and in some cases perhaps even obscure to the English speaking world. Today I created this page, mostly to resolve confusion with Hermann Mucke (astronomer) and I find that within minutes User:Chzz broke out all the inline references to the most reputed all-English peer review journals, and then proceeded to remove entire sections as "unreferenced." These were the exact references that supported some of the cases I made here, and the article was not in any way final. The guy I bioed here is, among other positions, Patent Editor at Current Opinions in Investigational Drugs, a ThomsonReuters journal (go here and click on the "Editorial Board" tab) and there are other references I have not at hand yet but could insert next week. Consider your actions please, please, and apply good faith. Glst2 (talk)

The incoming links to this article have alerted me to discussions at User talk:Intesvensk#Question about PROD and User talk:Chzz/Archive 10#Hermann Mucke (bioscientist). I'm putting these on the article discussion page where they belong. - (2 threads of discussion inserted below) Glst2 (talk) 09:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm doing some recent changes patrolling and have come across the article Hermann Mucke (bioscientist). I'm not sure whether it satisfies WP:ACADEMIC or not and whether to PROD it or not (or even speedy delete it). All the references seem to be links to articles he's written or links to lists of those articles. Any suggestions gladly received. ɪntəsvɛnsk 15:17, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Intesvensk. The article on Mucke is neither a speedy nor a prod but it is a possible candidate for AfD. The reason this is not a speedy, is because the only two bases it could possibly fall under (unless of course it turns out to be a copyvio) are A7 and G11. As to the first, all that is required to avoid A7 is a mere assertion of importance. This has that in spades. As for the second, it does not read as blatant spam that would have to be fundamentally rewritten. It's not a Prod because proposed deletion is only for uncontroversial deletions, and an article which cites multiple sources, and is as well developed as this one is would not be uncontroversial. If you do decide to take it to AfD I would first search yourself to see whether he meets the standards at WP:ACADEMIC and elsewhere. As noted at AfD, "When nominating an article for deletion due to sourcing or notability concerns, make a good-faith attempt to confirm that such sources aren't likely to exist." There are many claims in the article and a quick search of google books and web indicates to me that he's probably not a good AfD target. For the moment I am going to go stick {{primarysources}} on the article. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:00, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• I fully agree with Fuh. above, ie it's not CSD or PROD
• If the article was created now, it would almost certainly be deleted, because it lacks any non-primary sources; I did some searching, and whilst I agree the person is notable, I cannot find secondary sources to verify the information. I don't like seeing things like this sit around forever, so I've done a bit to try and sort it out. Firstly, I've moved the self-refs to a section called 'Bibliographic notes' - they simply should not sit there as sources. Secondly, I changed the above tag from 'primary sourced' to 'BLP unreferenced'. Thirdly, I tried to source information; I could not find sources (with google books, google scholar, etc) therefore I tagged up and removed info as I believe appropriate, per WP:V - "Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed".  Chzz  ►  16:43, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Chzz. We cross paths a lot on helpmes, help desk, etc. and I wish I had dropped by before now just to say hello. I only have a moment as I am going to the movies and must leave but I don't know that removing all the inline citations to primary sources in Hermann Mucke (bioscientist) is the right course. These are not self-published sources but primary sources which have been (apparently) published in peer reviewed journals. As noted at Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary and tertiary sources: "Primary sources that have been reliably published (for example, by a university press or mainstream newspaper) may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them...." I haven't given this a lot of thought nor have I studied the article closely to see if it makes interpretive claims using them, but I did want to drop a quick message before it fell out the other side of my head (and note that I won't be able to respond to any reply until many hours from now). Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:02, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I did wonder about my action. If you think that it's inappropriate, please undo things. I don't feel all that strongly about the issue; I was merely trying to think of something that could be done to attempt to 'fix' the issue, and on BLP's I tend to agree with Jimbo, that unsourced stuff should go; I think that most of the primaries are not appropriate refs for the claims asserted - it's more a link to the actual publications, rather than a reference. I moved them to that section to try and 'see the woods from the trees' - and then hoped I could go through and source things. When I was unable to do so, I did remove the two sections that made the various claims about the person. As I say, I'm quite open to ideas on that one. It's frustrating, with articles like that - I could spend many hours trying to sort it out, but it would probably be fruitless; I've already spent an hour or so trying to look up the info about the uni attendences, birthday, awards, etc, and not found anything. Thanks for commenting; it's a tricky area, and I do welcome your thoughts and ideas about how such articles should be fixed.  Chzz  ►  17:13, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

(2 copied user talk threads end here)

I note that neither User:Intesvensk nor User:Chzz could be bothered to raise the subject here or on my user talk page, perhaps just to ask:hi, there might be an issue here, are you planning to add more in support of your emergent article? That would have amounted to something known as ***style*** in earlier, old-fashioned times. But I see I am going to loose here: contributing constructively takes as much aches with electrons as with penstrokes; while deleting has become so quick and convenient in the digital world. Glst2 (talk) 09:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm simply new to this and wanted to ask the advice of someone with more experience. Part of the article read like an advert (the bits about his consultancy work) and so it raised a couple of red flags with me. All the references seemed to be primary sources and so I was wanted to know if the article met WP:ACADEMIC and if not whether the correct course of action was PROD or Speedy Delete. The answer I got was: neither. I just asked someone for help in making the decision. I have no agenda against the subject of the article or you, just a few queries about the way it was written and how to proceed. You're not going to lose anything because of me. It wouldn't hurt to AGF about others too ɪntəsvɛnsk 10:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)