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 keep. NW (Talk) 02:29, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Jim Tucker

Jim Tucker (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

(Find sources: "Jim Tucker" — search, news, books, scholar, images )

This article has been tagged as not meeting Wikipedias notability guidelines since July. AT this point it is unlikely that further sourcing will be added that will satisfy the editors that have raised this concern, therefore per the notability template I am bringing the article to AfD (" If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged or deleted. "). Please consider myself neutral. Artw (talk) 22:07, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —Artw (talk) 22:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Paranormal-related deletion discussions. —Artw (talk) 22:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. —Artw (talk) 22:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

• Weak keep. Brr, the study of past lives memories from reincarnation. Personally, I find this pretty preposterous. However, the media coverage cited in the article seems sufficient to me for passing WP:BIO, even for a fringe science/pseudo-science topic. Kinoq (talk) 22:50, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
• Delete. Assistant professor in pseudoscience area. Minimal GS cites yet. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:45, 8 November 2009 (UTC).
• Keep: Looks like mention by Oprah and Depak, we don't need to establish scientific merit just notice. AFAIK he needn't qualify on the basis of criteria for an academic, a notable clown who happens to work at a university could still be notable. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 23:49, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
• Delete - I don't think appearing on Oprah etc in the context of doing a book tour is an indication of notability... just a good publisher. Now, if someone else, while appearing on Oprah, had discussed Tuker or his books... well, that would be different. Blueboar (talk) 00:15, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

You do raise a good point, notability isn't inherited, and I guess selecting guests is not much different from giving an invited talk at a conference. Presumably it is largely a promotional peace but not sure if appearance on Oprah creates a strong but rebuttable presumption of notability. Does the author care to elaborate on the coverage from Oprah or other sources and distinguish it from promotional or "intellectually dependent" of Tucker ( biased, PR, or purely advertising)? I guess my other presumption is that if Oprah covered it someone else covered her coveage etc etc- almost nothing on that show appears unnotable, again not a comment on scientific merit. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 00:47, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't presume... I would agree that if someone else covered Oprah's coverage of Tucker, there would be a much better case for saying that Tucker is notable... but the question is: Is there such a source? Blueboar (talk) 16:10, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

• Keep - Tucker easily meets the general criteria for notability, not necessarily as an academic (although he is an assistant professor and medical director of a clinic at U.S. university), but for the media coverage of his book (not just Oprah) and for the fact that he is a frequent consultant to the media on the question of apparent remembered past lives. It seems that the academic notability issue has been raised as a smokescreen for eliminating an article about Tucker because of a distaste for the nature of his research. I may be misreading this but it sure seems that way. Even if you don't agree with his research and think it doesn't deserve to be presented in WP because of its fringe nature, how can you justify assessing him as non-notable on general criteria? --EPadmirateur (talk) 01:18, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The article under discussion is Tucker, he can't be fringe about himself. In an article on rigorous science, he may or may not be mentioned. Nerdseeksblonde (talk)

• Keep. I think that, at least for individuals in generally notable classes (authors, performers, politicians, as opposed to "human interest" figures) appearing on major television programs like Oprah is pretty strong evidence of notability, and should at the very least be treated as significant independent coverage. Otherwise we have the paradox that if, for example, a TV host's guest talks about a book for a few minutes, and recommends it, that's evidence of notability, but if she brings the author on for an hour to discuss himself and his book, that's just promotion. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 01:33, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

You need to have some notion of independence. If you paid to get on Oprah or it was an infomercial, everyone would glibby assume that didn't make it notable. I don't know quite what relationship exists for that show but just assumed there would be more converage due to that. It could of course be an infomercial type relationship. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 01:47, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

• Delete: no evidence of depth of coverage in third party sources. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 03:22, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
• Keep sufficient sources for notability as an author. How is the Sfgate article at least not substantial coverage of him? That what he is saying is in my personal opinion utter nonsense does not affect notability. DGG ( talk ) 04:20, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
• Keep as per DGG. Not sure he qualifies as an academic, but easily meets WP:GNG with articles such as those in major local publications as the San Francisco Chronicle and major national publications such as the National Post. Nfitz (talk) 04:41, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
• Keep. Significant coverage.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:22, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
• Keep: Significant sources are asserted (National Post, SFGate, Discover, Discovery Channel, etc.), until these are shown not to refer to Tucker, this article is "well sourced." - BalthCat (talk) 08:57, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
• Merit: The goal here is to document what people care about, consider this entry to be a commentary on current culture not a basis on which to do historical rearsrch probing the recollections of past lives. Kirlian photography is still notable if it captures a life force or water content and maybe there is some other merit buried in his work but we want to present the current thinking to the reader. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 11:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
• Weak Keep If Chester Carlson endowed a project at the University of Virginia to study this stuff and its staff gains press attention, then Ian Stevenson and Jim Tucker probably deserved balanced coverage in Wikipedia. I don't personally believe, but I can accept that the scientific method could be applied to exploring these questions. Racepacket (talk) 12:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
• Delete Fails WP:NOTE, no significant coverage in several independent sources. Note to nom, surviving this AfD wouldn't be a good reason to remove the tag; if it does survive.Verbal chat 20:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Discsussion of the tag would seem out of place until there is a verdict. However, yes, I would expect the tag to be removed if the article was kept on the grounds of meeting notability requirements. Why wouldn't it be? Artw (talk) 21:12, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment: I think some of the editors responding to this AfD have confused the issue of whether Tucker is notable with the issue of whether the topic he writes about is notable. A non-notable author can write about a notable topic (and vise versa). Since the subject of the article in question is a person... let's keep focused on whether that person is notable or not. Blueboar (talk) 16:04, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

InContext: he seems to be a notable speaker on this topic, 500 hits that probably relate to him+oprah ( not sure if there are spurious hits here),

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%22Jim+Tucker%22+reincarnation+oprah&aq=f&oq=&aqi= Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 16:11, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, some of those seem to mention Tucker the reporter with an unrelated comment about Oprah. I thought reincarnation would remove most of those. I'm not claiming these are reliable sources or that any of them should be cited, simply that he is in fact well known ( ok, notability has not been proven from this search) for the work in the field. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 16:15, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I've added the rescue tag in case anyone is interested in rooting through thoughs and adding supporting cites to the article. However the article as it stands already has multiple links to media appearances (admittedly not all involving Oprah), newspaper articles and a full length documentary on Tuckers work, so I am not sure they will do anything to perusade those that say Tucker is not notable. Artw (talk) 17:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

• Weak keep This is a definite case for the judicious application of WP:FRINGE#Independent sources, but the SFGate and Discover are enough for me. Merge to Reincarnation research could also work. - 2/0 (cont.) 20:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Q: If you are calling him fringe, what is he a fringe of? The article under discussion is about a person, not a subject. You could have multiple theories about some phenomenon or even some person( " he is an agent of Satan") but an article can't be fringe about itself. So, ok, let's say he is notable for being an expert in a fringe area of some scientific discipline. He may get zero coverage in some article related to that larger topic but it doesn't matter here- essentially, the quality of his science doesn't matter if he was made notable by appearances on Oprah or MTV and follow up coverage for his fringe science.

Part of encyclopedic coverage of any author or ideamonger involves detailing how their ideas fit in to the scholarship of the field and more generally the state of human knowledge as a whole. Obviously, this article should not be a coatrack for explaining why his ideas are right or wrong, but we do need to provide enough information to connect with the average reader. The independent coverage is what tells us how to weight the article, with points that are the subject of coverage elsewhere being given more space and detail than material that has not received such comment. - 2/0 (cont.) 09:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, agreed, context is important but in the context of a wikipedia article on topic A, A can not be a fringe view point related to A. So, the fact that some number of people write about him makes him notable and this coverage, not it scientific or really even scholastic merit, are the most relevant. When creating context by referencing the larger fields in which he works, it would seem that mainstream views on reincarnation may get only passing mention as being of "fringe" relevance to his raison d'etre. I guess at some point you have to determine how a source can be reliable and still indulge nonsense or, more often, just things you don't happen to like. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 12:23, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Um, I am agreeing with you. A more general discussion of the best way to write articles covered by Wikipedia:Fringe theories might be Wikipedia talk:Fringe theories. - 2/0 (cont.) 18:19, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• Keep. We may or may not consider him a whack job or in some way engaging in pseudo-science but the volume of sourcing, including reliable ones, sure suggests that he is a leading authority in his field. This is where encyclopedia writing arises to the level of explaining the subject and pointing our readers to helpful information about related topics. If most mainstream scientific scholars discredit the field or this person's work then simply state that without judgment. If he is the leading authority then state that. Go where the sources lead and even if various "sides" aren't happy at least we treat the subject fairly and dispassionately. -- Banjeboi 12:03, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• Keep, per DGG, sufficient sources for notability as an author. Johnfos (talk) 03:01, 14 November 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.