Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Edwin E. Jacques

:{{la|Edwin E. Jacques}} – (View AfD)(View log)

Non-notable missionary and amateur historian. Has written one history book of dubious scholarly value. Article was written as a WP:COATRACK only to criticize certain perceived nationalist ideas, whose proponents on wiki were quoting this author as an authority. There is no independent sourced biographical coverage of the man himself as opposed to just the book. And real-world coverage of the book consists of just one critical academic review. While that review is doubtlessly a reliable source (it's by the leading scholar in the field), it alone does not constitute enough notability for this person. PROD was removed with the reason that the book "appears to have generated significant controversy" - but it apparently hasn't. A single critical review of a book is not "significant controversy", it's just run-of-the-mill academic routine. Real academics don't automatically pass our "professor test" just because they get a poor book review once; why then should an amateur scholar get such treatment? Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. No real evidence of notability, or that anyone cares apart from said Albanian nationalists and their opponents. Moreschi ^{If you've written a quality article...} 17:57, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —Espresso Addict (talk) 22:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comment. I can't comment on the coat-racking that Fut.Perf. mentions, but The Albanians is still available via Amazon [http://www.amazon.com/Albanians-Ethnic-History-Prehistoric-Present/dp/0899509320] -- pretty good for an academic book published in 1994 -- and has been cited and reviewed. An article on the book might be of more value than one on the author. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Hmmm. Well, I've written an academic book, and it's been cited and reviewed (more often than this one). Doesn't make either myself or my book notable. And the fact that it's still available (along with 17000 other history books from 1994 on Amazon) just means it never sold out its first edition, right? Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:30, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Weak Delete The book he wrote in in 309 WorldCat libraries. there are about 15 real refs to it in Google Scholar. There is a second review, by Jim Cole, in the academic journal Political Geography Volume 16, Issue 7, September 1997, Page 626-628. But even if he held an academic position, the author of a single academic book, with two reviews, is not generally notable. Nor is the book, usually. DGG (talk) 00:19, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
• ::::DGG I'm reading your comment of 2 years ago. The most independent scholar that I can find and has a review on the book is Robert Elsie's and actually he RECOMMENDS the book (see last page of Elsie's review). The only people that use the word "controversial" are some greek wikipedians, who made the edits and whose version was brought back. If rewritten the article will not contain that word because it wouldn't be just (but the article was brought back only for 15 minutes). The book of Jacques is heavily studied in Albania because he uses a huge amount of references. In addition, as far as reliability is concerned, Jacques also was noted for being a high figure in his denomination. At this point I will leave it in your hands to rebring the article back and I hope that you will reconsider. sulmues (talk)--Sulmues 22:39, 4 January 2010 (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.