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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 no consensus. MBisanz talk 23:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Harold L. Sirkin

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Harold L. Sirkin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Non-notable consultant and author. He has not been the subject of published secondary source material. Fails Wikipedia:Notability (people) and Notability (people)#Creative professionals. Edcolins (talk) 21:41, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 00:30, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. —94.196.126.123 (talk) 12:26, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. —94.196.126.123 (talk) 12:26, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Weak Keep and Improve and Move to Hal Sirkin. The article is a mess, but I question whether anyone did the required search for sources. Clearly meets WP:AUTHOR: 466 Google News hits, 152 Google Books hits. THF (talk) 15:11, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am not convinced. A person is presumed to be notable if he has been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject. The sources I have found cite some analysis or comments made by Harold L. Sirkin on various subjects. It is not surprising to see consultants being cited plenty of times, which is part of their job, so to speak. But no source is about Harold L. Sirkin. Regarding the WP:CREATIVE criteria:
      • The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by their peers or successors. - Amongst senior management consultants, what makes Harold L. Sirkin an important figure? Sofar I haven't found any answer.
      • The person is known for originating a significant new concept, theory or technique. - No evidence.
      • The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, which has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews. - No evidence.
      • The person's work either (a) has become a significant monument, (b) has been a substantial part of a significant exhibition, (c) has won significant critical attention, or (d) is represented within the permanent collections of several notable galleries or museums, or had works in many significant libraries. - No evidence.
    • --Edcolins (talk) 18:24, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The WP:CREATIVE criteria are disjunctive, not conjunctive. Per the cites I have identified, it is the case that The person has created [a] collective body of work [that] has been the subject ... of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews. THF (talk) 18:34, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. They are disjunctive, but not to the point of removing some important words from the criterion: "The person has created a significant or well-known collective body of work [that] has been the subject ... of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews." This is not the case IMHO. --Edcolins (talk) 19:58, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Those are very spurious numbers for Google News and Books hits. Firstly you need to put the name in quotes, giving 76 Google News hits, not 466, every one of which seems to be quoting the subject rather than writing about him. From Google books, if you put the subject's name in quotes and remove books where he is one of the authors there are 12 hits, not 152, and again none of them look as if they provide any significant coverage of the subject - they all seem to be passing mentions. I'm flabbergasted that such an arch-deletionist as THF should be arguing to keep an article based on such hand-waving. Please point to specific sources that support the case for notability, rather than pointing to numbers of hits that any professional self-publicist such as the article subject would be able to generate. Phil Bridger (talk) 03:08, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unusually sloppy of me. I've changed my !vote per Bridger's analysis. We've deleted people more notable than Sirkin, but we've kept people far less notable. THF (talk) 18:18, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's too much. Different editors look at different articles and different discussions depending on their individual interests and time. That's the whole reason why WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is not a good argument. TJRC (talk) 20:04, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep i gave you two six reviews of the two books, that were easily found using google, seems notable to me, even if a little cheerleaderish like Tom Peters pohick (talk) 02:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The last four sources currently cited in the article [1][2][3][4] seem to be enough to establish notability. Phil Bridger (talk) 03:30, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. Doctorfluffy (robe and wizard hat) 18:57, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep In addition to the 76 google news hits for "Hal Sirkin," I get 129 google news hits for "Harold L. Sirkin" and 91 for "Harold Sirkin." It's apparent from these sources that Sirkin is widely cited as an expert in business and management. The argument that these sources do not count because they are "quoting the subject rather than writing about him" is original: It's not in the notability guideline, nor should it be. Many notable people have not been the subject of biographical profiles: They are noted for their work, not their lives. Not all consultants are widely cited, but those that are belong in an encyclopedia. Sirkin is quoted in his professional capacity by BusinessWeek (2006), the Asia Times (2006), CNN (2007), Reuters (2008), Forbes (2008) -- and those are just some of the free links in the first two pages of results for "Hal Sirkin". Perhaps WP:CREATIVE doesn't apply to the notability of experts who are cited in the popular press such as pundits and consultants. WP:PROF comes closer, in recognizing that "if the person is frequently quoted in conventional media as an academic expert in a particular area" then they satisfy the criteria for having made "a substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity". But if neither of these guidelines applies, it's an indication of the incompleteness of the notability guidelines and an opportunity to improve and expand them. It's not a license to excise justifiable content. In any case, Sirkin is also cited by his peers (The Leader's Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative, Stephen Denning, 2005, ISBN 078797675X, p.258; Firing on All Cylinders, Jim Clemmer and Barry Sheehy, 1994, ISBN 0786303565, pp. 52-3; Hidden value: how great companies achieve extraordinary results with ordinary people, Charles A. O'Reilly and Jeffrey Pfeffer, 2000, ISBN 0875848982, pp. 30). Those are from the first page of results for "Harold Sirkin" on Google books. Keep this article. The readers of the many articles that cite Sirkin as an expert ought to be able to look him up in an encyclopedia and evaluate his credentials for themselves. -- Shunpiker (talk) 02:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment it would help if the entry didn't read as a glossy advertisement for Mr. Sirkin. If it was de-adverted, it's hard to tell how much content would remain. tedder (talk) 04:42, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I took a pass at editing the article towards a more neutral tone. --Shunpiker (talk) 06:44, 15 March 2009 (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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