Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Umberto Bartocci

:{{la|Umberto Bartocci}} ([{{fullurl:Umberto Bartocci|wpReason={{urlencode: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Umberto Bartocci}}&action=delete}} delete]) – (View AfD)(View log)

The person is not notable, and not published in reputable sources. Ox3nard (talk) 19:08, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: — ox3nard (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. {{ #if: | The preceding unsigned comment was added at {{{2}}} (UTC).}} In addition, one of this person's few edits was to remove an external link to Tom Van Flandern, the only other topic which User: 6324xxxx has edited besides this AFD. --C S (talk) 00:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 00:03, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:54, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete - Only evidence of notability seems to be his own website. Fails WP:BIO. Astronaut (talk) 18:25, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete No independent sources, notability not shown. Edward321 (talk) 00:02, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• Keep. Does not seem to pass notability requirements under WP:PROF. Citation impact [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_sauthors=%22Umberto+Bartocci%22 seems to be low]. Most widely held book in libraries, currently in less than 15 libraries worldwide according to [http://www.worldcat.org WorldCat]. However, I believe the subject passes WP:BIO. News coverage [http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=%22Umberto+Bartocci%22 indicates notability], even though a lot of it stems from the subject’s belief that Olinto De Pretto was the original discoverer of the E=mc^2 equation.--Eric Yurken (talk) 01:42, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

::Comment: Wouldn't his beliefs about E=mc^2 be called a fringe theory? Astronaut (talk) 05:54, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

::: I'd be cautious about attributing notability based on the kind of "news coverage" that an individual like Bartocci generates for his fringe beliefs. He has been unable to get his beliefs accepted by reputable scholarly journals, so he resorted to issuing "press releases", but the stuff about De Pretto (for example) was not original or "news" with Bartocci. De Pretto has been touted by anti-Einstein kooks for decades. So the "news stories" are just shams, perpetrated by a determined fringe individual. Think Mark McCutcheon and "The Final Theory". If we really want to have Wikipedia biographies on every kook who publicizes his beliefs, I fear Wikipedia will become a repository for kook biographies. Just having a web page or being mentioned in the newspaper (in an article that you yourself have arranged) shouldn't be sufficient to establish notability. There is already an article on De Pretto, which mentions Bartocci as a recent publicizer. That stikes me as the appropriate level of coverage. (Actually I think the De Pretto article should be updated to note the previous individuals who have promoted that idea. It certainly is not a Bartocci innovation. Just re-hashed run of the mill anti-Einsteinism.)6324xxxx (talk) 06:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• Weak delete per WP:BIO1E. The Guardian article is entirely about De Pretto except for all the "said Bartocci" interjections, and does not provide much of a source for Bartocci himself. That's the only news search result that seems convincingly reliable, but it doesn't meet the non-triviality test of WP:RS. And as Eric Yurken says, he doesn't seem to pass WP:PROF. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• Comment. WP is not about quality of arguments, correctness of arguments, or validity of arguments – it is about notability. When arguments are false, or biased, and have enough media coverage, a WP article can help clarify their validity. The WP guideline on fringe theories is essentially that coverage “should not make a fringe theory appear more notable than it actually is”. Here I think enough independent coverage exists. It should be noted that Bartocci is a historian of mathematics, not the proponent of the theory (equation). Bartocci is the one making the historical argument of precedence by De Pretto; a credible one in my view, in historical terms, even though De Pretto seems to have arrived at the equation almost by chance. The point made by David Eppstein is more critical. However, I am not entirely convinced that The Guardian is the only reliable source. Moreover, the coverage on The Guardian was in 1999, and we have several news articles in between, ending in 2008 – that is nearly 10 years of coverage. Finally, the results of this [http://books.google.com/books?lr=&q=%22Umberto+Bartocci%22 Google Books search] seem to provide further evidence of notability.--Eric Yurken (talk) 15:06, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

:*By the way, Bartocci’s citations in The Guardian article are not minor. He is cited several times, and quite prominently. He has made a decisive point as a historian, writing an entire book on the subject. The book was apparently published by Andromeda, whose specialties are science fiction, fantasy and horror. Still, notability is notability …--Eric Yurken (talk) 15:15, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

::*Most of the paragraphs in the Guardian article end with "according to Bartocci" or some equivalent. That's not the same as coverage about Bartocci, and I still say it's trivial. "Made a decisive point as a historian" is an argument for WP:PROF #1, but I'm not convinced the standards of that criterion are met. The Guardian article does supply strong support for the De Pretto article and I suppose one solution would be to redirect Bartocci's article there. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:13, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

:::*Redirection seems like a good idea.--Eric Yurken (talk) 03:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

• Delete It seems clear that the Guardian article was instigated by Bartocci himself, and on an essentially fradulent basis, claiming to have unearthed something newsworthy when he was actually just repeating the decades-old De Pretto cannard. So, to whatever extent that article can be said to signify notability of Bartocci, it was based on fradulent self-promotion. Admittedly, someone could claim notability as a fradulent self-promoter, but I don't think Bartocci rises to that level, and even if he did, the article would then have to be about a notable fradulent self-promoter, not about a notable historian of science. He has no notability in any reputable scholarly sources, so it violates Wiki policy to present him as notable on that basis. It's usually a bad idea to include articles that, if written to accurately reflect a person's notability, will just be disparaging to a living individual. So it's far better to just avoid having such articles.AlanAlmost (talk) 18:34, 2 April 2009 (UTC) — AlanAlmost (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. {{ #if: | The preceding unsigned comment was added at {{{2}}} (UTC).}}
• Delete No this was poorly thought out. Delete on basis of agreement with above.
• Delete, considering WP:FRINGE and WP:BLP1E, I think this one isn't notable. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:41, 3 April 2009 (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.