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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mahadeva Sambasivan

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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. Tim Song (talk) 17:15, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mahadeva Sambasivan

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AfDs for this article:
Mahadeva Sambasivan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Non-notable surgeon and priest, publications not identified as his own. There is mix-up of more than one Sambasivan among the listed publications, all due, to lack of third party resources and of course notability. The de-prodding was an absolute waste of time for more than one editors--117.207.144.193 (talk) 18:38, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:55, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Article does not assert notability. There are many people who are both surgeons and priests, being both does not automatically make a person notable. RadManCF (talk) 20:39, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions. -- —SpacemanSpiff 20:53, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete fails WP:BIO. There is no significant coverage in secondary sources. The three citations are to India Harmony a magazine, and to two papers that he has published that show affiliation. The article in the magazine for those of you who don't wish to wade through the broken link, says, in toto: "Dr M Sambasivan, 70, is a practising neurosurgeon at a hospital in Thiruvananthapuram. When he is out of the OT, he replenishes his inner resources by conducting puja at temples. "There's a method in both science and religion," he believes, "and we should look into the scriptures to find it." His two spheres of living - one firmly rooted to the rational and the other following the spiritual and intangible - is his way to stay connected with this world and beyond." in an article about older people who have two spheres of living. There is no evidence that he is a leader in the field of neurosurgery or religion. --Bejnar (talk) 22:21, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Delete: fails WP:BLP due to lack of sources. This person probably is notable, but the article in its present state is too flawed. There was a former Vice Principal of that name at Thiruvananthapuram Medical College,[1] and he was a professor there.[2] The bulk of the article is a list of publications, which are not necessarily all by the same person (the 1964 article seems to be by a paediatrician of the same name). I would support a better (properly sourced) article on this person. -- Radagast3 (talk) 23:40, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The data Radagast3 has found is sufficient. Given the number of published works, and that some of them are important, this is notable enough. the publication in first rate international journals shows significant notability beyond the local. Keep in mind that the citation indexes include only a small minority of the journals that would cite him, so the citation counts are a gross underestimate. This is a first rate hospital and medical college, and being in a senior position there is significant. The list of publications is indeed all or almost all by him , as the subjects indicate. There are only three which might not be, and they seem plausible for a surgeon --I suspect they are early papers, which can often be in a slightly different field. There's an interesting discussion on my talk p., where the article was challenged on the basis that the person didn't exist,and that there was no first name, , Upon finding the first name, upon finding the link to the university & the hospital which did show existence, it was challenged because there was no proof of the position. Now the proof has been found, it is still being challenged. This seems like a rather desperate attempt to remove the article, and I do not know why, except possibly to discourage sourcing a challenged unsourced blp. I hope every time we do source a previously unsourced BLP it is not dealt with in this hyper-critical fashion. DGG ( talk ) 01:32, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We can't just assume that all the articles by "M. Sambasivan" are by this M. Sambasivan. I put some effort in and found some references, but the article still needs more, especially on the publications issue. I've gone ahead and trimmed the "publications" section to only contain neurology papers, which are likely to be by this person, and added some links. The article is better now, I think, and I'm changing my vote to "Weak Keep."
However, in future, rather than attacking Wikipedia policy on BLP, I suggest you put all that useful energy and enthusiasm into the article itself, and you won't have to worry about AfDs. The original author of the article should at least have looked up the first name. And it's still only a 2-line bio. -- Radagast3 (talk) 02:06, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was about to remove those three papers myself, so thanks for doing it. I think everyone here knows I support WP:BLP policy.--I have personally deleted thousands of unsourceable BLP articles. I do not support the hypercritical overextension of it that is sometimes done, and I certainly intend to keep trying for common sense and balance--I i think you support that also. My ability to write articles is unfortunately limited by the effort needed to defend them. Instead of writing or rewriting the 3 or 4 articles a day I would like to, I'm down to half that. DGG ( talk ) 02:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's a pity nobody else thought of taking the obvious step of looking up hospital and college web sites. If that had been done ages ago, this AfD might never have happened. I don't think people have been "hypercritical" -- they've just reacted to the obvious holes in the article.
And just to be clear: the main notability claim here is, I think WP:PROF #6: "the person has held a major highest-level elected or appointed academic post at an academic institution or major academic society" -- in this case Vice Principal of the medical college. This is now a sourced claim. -- Radagast3 (talk) 03:40, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That the fact has to be verified from a single passing mention in a news item on an award ceremony itself shows how poorly notable is the subject. WP:PROF needs to be re-written to mean "academic post at a renowned academic institution". Everybody knows these papers are run-of-the-mill stuff worth not much beyond the particular number of the periodical that publishes them. Mere career boosters. IPs won't vote here, I suppose. --117.204.81.13 (talk) 06:18, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Malayalam Wikipedia has only this to say on him and that too in an article on a place called Karamana.

The famous neurosurgeon Dr. M. Sambasivan is a resident of Karamana. Apart from being a surgeon he is an expert in tantric practice. He is tantri at Karamana Satyavageeswara Temple and and Srikanteswaram Durga Devi Temple.

The local ML:WP which has 12000+ articles and which is strong on local content has no article on him. --117.204.81.13 (talk) 06:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Assume good faith. This need not be a SPA: some IP users get a different address every time. And a viewpoint from a local who can (presumably) read Malayalam has some value. However, I still say "weak keep." -- Radagast3 (talk) 08:52, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No breach of AFG is incurred by drawing attention to an editor's history. The SPA has been editing from the same address every time. Perhaps he can speak for himself. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:29, 6 March 2010 (UTC).[reply]
No offence intended, I assure you (I have nothing but respect for your contributions to Wikipedia). All I meant was that the user was 117.204.81.13 today, but might have been some other address yesterday. The address seems to be part of a large block belonging to an Indian ISP, and seems to be located in Kozhikode. -- Radagast3 (talk) 09:47, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On re-reading WP:PROF (note 13), I see that head of the medical school doesn't satisfy #6, so I reverse my "weak keep" back to the original "weak delete." -- Radagast3 (talk) 12:06, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In reply to Xxanthippe's question upthread I would say there is a large amount of COI to this. The article was written by somebody on behalf of www.iish.org, which is an organisation promoting bigotry. N. Gopalakrishnan is the leading voice. They advocate Sanātana Dharma a quasi political doctrine of the revivalist Hindus. Indian Institute of Scientific Heritage is their forum. Even bigots could be notable but our parties are not yet.As Radagast3 correctly guessed my IP is extremely dynamic. I have no special interest in this other than seeing the crap zapped. --117.204.81.171 (talk) 13:38, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator addresses issues other than notability and attempts to impose political correctness on Wikipedia. He clearly demonstrates POV in this nomination. Nonetheless the article should be deleted on the basis of its (lack of) own merits. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:47, 6 March 2010 (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.
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