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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 keep. Article should be cleaned up, but plenty of evidence of notability was found. Shii (tock) 07:56, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Reiner Grundmann

Reiner Grundmann (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Notability not established, issues have been pointed out back in 2014 September on talk page, poor citing, most to blog posts from person and to his own publications, and often cites which do not conform to Misplaced Pages standards. prokaryotes (talk) 12:40, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

• Keep, prune and improve. Professor in Nottingham with publications in the German National Library (I added that), notable enough I think, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:14, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

I understand that there is some level of notability, looking at some unsourced content and a look at media appearance, but i could go there and delete half of the page or more(when removing listing of pubs), based on above issues. Thus, my impression is that the notability is over hyped, especially if you consider some of his involvement with his input about Climategate. prokaryotes (talk) 13:24, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Since you posted on my talk page Gerda Arendt (talk), i answer you here, please keep the discussion here. Another point i noticed, the article wrongly states "He was President (2009–10) of the Sociology and Social Policy Section of the British Science Association." Ofc, this claim is unsourced as most content on this article, a google search also does not show any validation. Then you can go to the criteria for listing academics, https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Notability_(academics) I do not see how Grundmann fits in here. Unless there are substantial updates, the person as it is, is not notable. prokaryotes (talk) 13:58, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure what sort of google you use, but mine didn't have any problem to confirm his contribution to the British Science festival and his presidency with the sociology section of the BSA. Serten 20:31, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

• Having publications in the German National Library is not significant. The catalogue all publication in Germany - I even found one of my technical reports from the 1990s. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:50, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Esquivalience 14:03, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Esquivalience 14:03, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Esquivalience 14:03, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. Esquivalience 14:04, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

• Additional information about the person, http://www.academia.edu/4754580/Debunking_skeptical_propaganda_Book_review_of_Oreskes_Conway_Merchants_of_Doubt & https://twitter.com/reinergrundmann/status/389419692642680832 Imho, his quest for knowledge appears to be agenda driven, and the current article version is careful to avoid his stance on climate science and reporting. Which comes to no surprise, because the editor who created the page is a known climate denier in the German Wikipediasphere (Previous Ger WP account of page creator Polentario), and Grundmann edited the page himself. Thus, COI would apply as well, and page creation can be seen as a way to create notability in the first place. prokaryotes (talk) 15:04, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to add that i have read now two papers from him, but cannot judge him at this point. However, i don't think his work is that important, not the best, not extensive enough. Additionally, he doesn't seem to bother with pointing out errors of the science he quotes, he just quotes mainstream facts and compares both sides, and doesn't seem to be aware of all the science - he just skips a lot. But he might become notable in the future, i.e. in the case his papers gain traction and are judged by notable reviews in a peer-reviewed process or the related media. Thus, for now i suggest if required his work could be mentioned on related articles.prokaryotes (talk) 16:37, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

• Delete He writes papers and stuff, which is what all academics do. I don't see that he passes even the extremely low bar of WP:PROF, much less real-world notability. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:15, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
• Delete - As Boris points out, he doesn't seem to meet PROF. In addition, the article is mostly original synthesis based on his publications. The few third-party sources that exist in the article don't speak to his importance or significance; take them out and there's almost nothing left (a book review, an interview on a blog) and even less would be appropriate for a BLP. Guettarda (talk) 17:35, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
• Delete. As Guettarda says: there is a lack of reliable sources speaking to his notability. Aside, perhaps, from his trying to puff up "climategate", which does suggest some kind of agenda. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:20, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. First the prokaryotes afD contains some offensive wording. I am far from being a denier, neither is any sockpuppetry allegation appropriate here or elsewhere. Grundmann's review of the Oreskes Merchants of doubt was not done at twitter, but with BioSocieties - a Palgrave Macmillan Journal and got a doi:10.1057/biosoc.2013.15 btw ;) and is the most scientific review of that opus magnum. Misplaced Pages:I DON'T LIKE IT respectively Misplaced Pages:I DON'T LIKE HIM of both an author and his works is no base for an afd. Writing about climategate and its effects, as Grundmann did (doi 10.1002/wcc.166), is scholarschip. The agenda is yours.

* I might have made the error to base the noteability on the German rules - a scholar with a habilitation, a research career at Germanys most prestigous reseacrh center (Max Planck Gesellschaft), tenure resp. head of department in Aston and Nottingham, contributing to the British Science festival with a presidential session (as president of the sociology section of the British Science Association and some dozens of books translated in different languages and even more peer reviewed publications, published at Routledge, Taylor and Francis, Oxford and Cambridge university press, Suhrkamp and others in different languages and (Worldcat providing 355 entries is a WP:SNOW case in the deWP with her much stricter rules. That said, I have inserted three reviews of three books and editions of Grundmann's, two in the Canadian Journal of Sociology, one in the New Left Review to get rid of the drive-by-tagging. A simple google research would have easened that task as well for prokaryotes.

* Prokaryotes accusations about the section Reiner_Grundmann#Peer_review_and_climate_change are being far from accurate and accusing me to carefully avoid his stance on climate is a sort of fairy tale. Either have the cake or eat it. Grundmann is mentioned as a coathor of the The Hartwell Paper (clear indication of a political cloud far from the denial crowd) and as an author of prestigeous books and studies comparing the political dealings with Ozone depletion and climate change and dealt as well with Climategate and its political effects. If you don't like the findings, no reason for an AfD, as said. I point out Grundmann's stance on Hans von Storch's science blog Klimazwiebel as well and refer to a controversy in the peer reviewed literature using various scientific entries. Finally just to quote the Nottingham University website:

* That said, the AfD is sort of contentious. WP:SNOW in combination with Misplaced Pages:I DON'T LIKE IT respectively Misplaced Pages:I DON'T LIKE HIM. Serten 20:29, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

• Disclosure, last March Serten filed an successful AfD on my article about the scientific consensus on climate change, over at the German wikipedia, and the page was deleted. Because i tried to explain the issues with the Grundmann article to Serten on the article talk page already in detail, i have nothing else to add, unless someone wants more links or a translation etc. prokaryotes (talk) 20:49, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Thats sorta wrong. I filed a successfull AfD in the deWP on Prokaryotes Bablefish translation of Scientific opinion on climate change. Serten 22:52, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

a scholar with a habilitation, a research career at Germanys most prestigous reseacrh center (Max Planck Gesellschaft), tenure resp. head of department in Aston and Nottingham

PROF asks for more than this: "The person holds or has held a named chair appointment or "Distinguished Professor" appointment at a major institution of higher education and research (or an equivalent position in countries where named chairs are uncommon)"

contributing to the British Science festival with a presidential session (as president of the sociology section of the British Science Association

PROF asks for more than this: The person is or has been an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association (e.g., a National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society) or a Fellow of a major scholarly society for which that is a highly selective honor (e.g., the IEEE).

and some dozens of books translated in different languages and even more peer reviewed publications, published at Routledge, Taylor and Francis, Oxford and Cambridge university press, Suhrkamp and others in different languages and Worldcat providing 355 entries

Then it shouldn't be difficult meet this requirement of PROF: The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources. But what we need are reliable secondary sources. Guettarda (talk) 20:54, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Hmm I based larger parts of the articles on peer reviewed publications and scientific text books - that means, those books and entrys already went through independent checking and reviews. You seem to tell the audience here, that a peer reviewed contribution is same level as a blog entry. Thats sort of contentious again. That said, I have added various English reviews in scientific journals, some german and others are yet to come. Serten 21:27, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

No,I didn't say anything like "a peer reviewed contribution is same level as a blog entry". Sorry, that's simply untrue.

We can't use Grundmann's publications to discuss the significance of Grundmann's publications. That shouldn't be all that difficult to grasp. Nor can we count Grundmann's publications and use that tally to assert that made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources. His works are not independent sources. They're the opposite of independent. Guettarda (talk) 22:12, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Hmm. I inserted some reviews, including Süddeutsche Zeitung / Perlentaucher (new scientific field, one of the essentials here), some politics and social science portals reviews in German and French, and btw I like the quotes Routledge was allowed to start Transnational environmental policy with: Take Gaia Guru Jim Lovelock stating This readable book is the best treatment of the subject published so far and Noble Prize Laureate Frank Sherwood Rowland with Stimulating and thought-provoking. The quoted WP_Prof requirements are no must, but shalls, but see no reason for doubt against notability. You? Serten 22:52, 9 May 2015 (UTC) I am OK with the request for reviews, it gets however contentious again, if major points from Grundmanns science books and peer reviewed papers are being tagged as needing third party confirmations. An article about a scholar, needs third party reviews proving that he or she may be noteable. It doesnt need third party sources to confirm that he has written certain stuff. Thats being based and depicted on his work, books and papers. (added by Serten)

• Keep but trim. Unquestionably notable. Author of major academic works published by some of the very most important academic publishers. His Transnational environmental policy reconstructing ozone (Routledge) is in 580 libraries a/c WorldCat ; Marxism and ecology published by OUP is in 296 libraries; The power of scientific knowledge : from research to public policy(Cambridge Univ. Press) is in 231. nAny author with the record is notable by WP:PROF and WP:AUTHOR> I can see no basis at all for the deletion arguments . "what all academic do"-- very few indeed have written books published by both OUP and CUP; "climategate" -- irrelevant. "His work is not the best" -- we do not make that judgment, the academic publishers do--the multiple very high level reviews always obtained by referees for publishers like CUP and OUP have much better judgment than we do in such matters "RS" If you want to fulfill the GNG, the RSs are the book reviews, but WP:PROF is an alternative to the GNG, on the basis that judgments of notability within the academic world is the standard of academic notability. The PROf statements for named chair or the like are just shortcuts for the most obvious cases.--the basic standard is acceptance by those in the field as an authority, and the basic proof for this is publications. Furthermore, with the reviews, it meets WP:AUTHOR.

The only cases where a person with this level of an academic record have ever been deleted here for lack of notability have been a very few times for people whose views on some controversial subject were unpopular at WP, and such deletions do us no credit. Ivery much hope that this sort of prejudice is not the motive here.

What is however true is the nominator's statement that the article is much too full of the subjects opinions, and not a npov description of his career. I tried to fix some of this in 2014, but the fluff is back again, re-added by Serten. --and indeed what I did then was incomplete--much more cutting is needed That contributor is doing the article and WP no service by restoring such material. Making an article into a promotional for the authors views is likely to attract negative attention. If it can not be fixed, and remain fixed, I will myself bring a third afd as promotional to apply WP:TNT and have it rewritten in a more proper way. Or even G11, as promotional and impossible to fix by normal editing. I would feel much better about this if that editor would promise to stay away from the article. DGG ( talk ) 01:10, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

You made some good points, also this TNT thingy sounds interesting. And because the article could be helpful to state the person's views more clearly, which would be a service to every interested reader, and i imagine there are many who wonder who is this guy who criticises Oreskes, the IPCC, climate scientists and equals them with deniers. prokaryotes (talk) 01:44, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I have a diametrically opposite view regarding your comments about less-than-noble motives. If someone really wanted to "get" an academic that they disagreed with, one of the best ways would be to have a Misplaced Pages article about them where it could be filled with criticism, or the subject of never-ending battles over one thing or another. I certainly wouldn't wish a Misplaced Pages article on my closest and most valued colleagues. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:57, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I appreciate - DGG checked notability. Prokaryotes had been made aware of Reiners h-index (16 since 2010), he didn't care. The AfD has got a sort of interesting timing, as I was longer absent from the enWP recently, the article itself has not been touched by anyone involved since December 2014. Nothing happened since. I will accept now the reduction the list of peer reviewed papers and book chapters as foreseen by DGG. Far from anything WP:TNT is being called for.

@Short Brigade Harvester Boris The only climate related conflicts I registered is a) the one with Lever Tracy, and b) the one about climategate and its moral impact. Both have been described from the very start. The most interesting conflict he's been in is the one in the New left and a recent Springer volume by PRC scholars about the Marx-and-ecology: Grundmanns interpretation of mastery of nature by man is of interest, globally, as being shown now with the works of scholars from PRC and (South...) Korea.

I am sort of annoyed about the COI allegation. A German sociologist writing about ClimateChange/Ozone and or doing a review of Oreskes Merchands of doubts in a sociology journal puts them into perspective. He is far from the anglo quasireligious infights in that realm. Thats one of the reasons his work was praised as groundbreaking. Serten 14:42, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't see where the nature of his views is relevant one way or the other to establishing his WP:notability.

As for your comment on his h index, a value of 16 is completely unremarkable in most fields I'm familiar with (especially if it is the inflated Google Scholar h index rather than the Web of Science one). If sociologists tend to publish far less than the physical sciences, maybe h=16 would argue in favor of notability. DGG, can you comment on this? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:21, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Prokaryotes made a lot of comments on his views. That should not be an issue here. H-index: pre 2010 is 21. It seems to be be feasible to have a WP entry with less, so may be its again dependend on his views. Serten 21:31, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

@DGG: - I'm curious about the significance of the fact that his book Transnational environmental policy reconstructing ozone is held by 580 libraries if, according to Google Scholar, it has only been cited 50 times (and given the way Google Scholar inflates citations, the real number is probably lower). These aren't all physical copies (I clicked on a few to check and they are electronic copies) and I know that publishers offer huge bundles of older e-books to libraries. Should we really be putting weight on numbers of copies held by libraries if a lot of those copies are virtual? Guettarda (talk) 21:39, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

This is the difference between the social sciences/humanities and sciences. Citations of books and mainly by other books, and come to a much lower number than citations of articles. In the sciences, it is routine doe an article to cite every possible article that relates to the subject in a substantial way, and most of them are just listed, not discussed. In the social sciences, it is normal for a book to cite only the particular other books that the author wishes to specifically discuss. The most exact way of evaluating holdings of books is in contrast to other books in the subject--this is a little complicated, and I defer this--its more of a research project than I think warranted in the present case.

I do not base my judgment of notability as an author on this particular book; it is published by Routledge, which is a good but not absolutely first rate publisher. If he had published nothing else, I might not be arguing for notability at all. I base it on the books published by CUP and OUP , which are in another league altogether, several levels up. Traditionally in most fields the two highest quality English language academic publishers-- or 3, if you add PrincetonUP; in this particular field, I'd also add ChicagoUP. I would certainly maintain that any academic book published by them is notable, and any author publishing two books by these presses is notable, and no further analysis is necessary for notability any more than further analysis is necessary for a major prize. I can enlarge on this in another place--the WP standards for notability of books is worth some further discussion. DGG ( talk ) 22:06, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Thnxs DGG. Important is as well that book reviews (as the one on merchants of doubt) ar much more important in social sciences but do not add to most indexes. This sort of review is based on invitations by the journal, so its a one to one issue as well. I might add as well that Grundmann's Work as a social scientist has passed several language and cultural barriers. DGG has mentioned prestigous UK publishers, but anything with Suhrkamp_Verlag#Academic_authors or Velbrück can be considered as main contribution in the field, Campus Verlag is like routledge, OK but another league. The article contains now some recent schlolarly entries from China about the marx/ecology issue with Reiner Grundmann in the title. Serten 10:00, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks DGG. For clarity can you explain in what specific way these books satisfy WP's formal BLP notability guidelines, since that's what we should be concerned with here? (The real problem is the reprehensible laxness of our BLP notability criteria, but that's not something we can settle in this venue.) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:32, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

• Keep but delete all but 2-3 sentences Almost all of this article was created without consideration of Misplaced Pages's reliable sources guidelines. I acknowledge the effort but Misplaced Pages does not publish content in this way and this article is the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding. The misunderstanding is that the papers written by the subject of the article are cited as sources of his work, when instead Misplaced Pages reports what other people have said about the subjects of articles. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:33, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Misplaced Pages:SELFPUB is useable on BoD and twitter, for WP:JDL reasons its being applied on books which are noteable on their own right. In so far we have stuff for a large article on person and work or about 5 Grundmann related articles. Of cause, any article about a scholar refers to and may use their published works as a source. Take Ulrich Beck (OK) or the entry on Giddens (much more selfquote) and compare it to the poorly sourced Naomi Oreskes. The AfD triggered some improvement on the Grundmann article, it contains now a large variety of third party reviews and references and the tagged statements are either sourced, properly reworded or deleted. Serten 14:53, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:24, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Sounds User_talk:Prokaryotes#Grundmann won't go on for with that AfD. I did a sloppy version in the deWP, gained at once interest from other authors to expand it. WP:Snow for any AfD as well there. I ask to close the discussion here. Serten 21:26, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

• Delete In my opinion he doesn't pass . And I doubt that the presentation is neutral, especially since the main author seems to use him to support his clear agenda to raise doubt in a lot of quite settled scientific fields, especially climate change. Just look at Naomi Oreskes: With Merchants of Doubt they have presented a well-respected work about climate change denial, which has been cited more than 800 times since publication in 2010. And now Serten uses Grundmann's single opinion (the Heartland Institute is criticised by Oreskes, so that doesn't count) to fully rebut Merchants of Doubt, of course without mentioning all the scientific praise for the book. If you takes this, the missing of elemental notability standards and add the POV in the Grundmann article, the solution can only be the deletion of the article. --84.170.141.233 (talk) 22:31, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
• Grundmann did actual research comparing Ozone and climate policies, praised by the Noble prize winner (chemistry) in question. Oreske blames Seitz and Singer for whatever evil in a popular book. Two retreated phycisists killed Kyoto? Hilarious. If youre interested in actual science and policy interaction, read STS studies. Grundmann is one of the scholars in the field with international renown. WP:JDL again. Serten 23:43, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Don't throw smoke grenades. Oreskes best publication was cited much better than all of Grundmann's publications together (!). And Merchants of Doubt alone has more than halve of the cites Grundmann got in his total scientific life. But thank you for showing that you have a political agenda, which is to reject Oreskes work as unscientific. And thats the POV the Grundmann article is made of. Which is why it should be deleted. 84.170.142.6 (talk) 00:54, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

WP:TBK and WP:BK are both applicable, for all Grundmann books with one or two translations. Oreskes wrote a popular bestseller about the US specific shenanigins of Seitz and Singer in the climate/ozone/etc wars. Grundmann took years (and his habilitation) to conclude his studies about Transnational Environmental Policy (which led e.g. to a case study in The Power of Scientific Knowledge and is a base of Experts and Power of Expertise). That said, its not easy to compare, but I wonder, why no one asks for third party sources and scientific reviews for the Oreske article. It should be rather easy to add and quote them, it took me not much time to add some more to the Grundmann article (just found another STS review of Oreskes by Brian Wynne). The books mentioned above have full regalia to be noteable on their own. I wonder as well why someone researching the very topic we are using and displaying in wikipedia - knowledge - in standard textbooks as the Routledge Critical Concepts series could ever be thought of being deleted. Serten 11:17, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

• KEEP: Grundmann is unquestionably notable. Per comments above, article could be trimmed & improved. --Pete Tillman (talk) 14:31, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

• Comment There is now an ANI discussion involving the page creator, in part related to this AfD and other pages related to Grundmann edits. The user added to various articles mentions of Grundmann and cites to his work, i.e. four times at Ozone depletion and climate change. prokaryotes (talk) 00:14, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
• Sorry, but I don't understand what's going on. In JSTOR I found two reviews of books he's written/edited, he's mentioned/cited in at least a dozen articles that JSTOR pulled up, and I find citations and references all over Google Books as well, including , , , . In other words, that should be an easy keep. Now, the article is terrible. Sorry Serten, but it is. The subject, however, is notable. Drmies (talk) 00:40, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
• Keep per the outstanding analysis by DGG, who has shown for many years that he knows what he is talking about here on such matters. That being said, Serten should step aside from editing this article. Cullen Let's discuss it 02:45, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Proposal: I work on the German entry for Grundmann now. I won't edit on the enWP article for two months after the afd is closed. If I have an issue or suggestion, I will use the talk page. Serten 02:49, 14 May 2015 (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.