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Robert Young (longevity claims researcher)

Robert Young (longevity claims researcher) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

This article was nominated for deletion back in August, and the AfD was closed as "no consensus". It seems to me that it has not improved much since then, and that the previous discussion may not have covered all the problems.

First, this article was created by its subject Ryoung122 (talk · contribs), who has continued to edit it since the AfD closed. I was drawn to the subject by the orphaned category he created for it, Category:Supercentenarian trackers, and by the subsequent correspondence with Ryoung122, which involved (inter alia) spamming irrelevant and badly formatted-links in large quantities. Those things are not relevant to a deletion decision, but the diffuse nature of the material prompted me to examine this article more closely, in particular the claims to notability.

I don't see that the references provided come anywhere close to establishing notability:

1. http://www.grg.org/Adams/E.HTM lists Young as the validator of some supercetenarians. It's a primary source, irrelevant to notability
2. http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwger/about/admin.html is a liat of the Administration & Staff of the Gerontology Institute. It lists Young a Graduate Research Assistant, which is not a notable position, and as a primary source it's irrelevant to notability
3. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/calendar/files/23312.3112487793-Workshop%20Program.pdf is simply a list of conference participants, and irrelevant to notability (most academics participate in lots of conferences)
4. http://www.supercentenarian-research-foundation.org/organization.htm lists young as a memner of the committee of the Supercentenarian Research Foundation. Not a notable role, and another primary source
5. http://www.grg.org/Adams/AA.HTM doesn't mention Young

The external links are little better:

1. The first of the kinks to mention Young is the Yahoogroup which he runs, but that's not a WP:RS reliable source
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5293436.stm is an article about a supercentenarian, not about Young. Young is not mentioned until paragraph 11, and then with four sentences of quotes.
3. http://www.globalaging.org/health/us/2006/longevityclues.htm offers substantive coverage of Young. It's a 1,0000-word article in a newspaper from his home state, about the work of Young and his colleague
4. http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/rej.2005.8.274?cookieSet=1&journalCode=rej is a list of supercentenarians, which doesn't mention Young
5. http://biomed.gerontologyjournals.org/cgi/content/full/59/6/B579/TA1 is a journal to which I don't have access, but is presumably to a paper written or co-authored by Young. Irrelevant to notability
6. http://www.demografie.de/calendar/files/51736.8836975098-Workshop%20Program.pdf is a conference schedule which presented a paper by Young

And that's it. He's a 33-year-old graduate student who has given papers at conferences, which is non-notable. Otherwise he gets a few quotes in a BBC article and one more substantive article in his hometown's newspaper, and he claims to be a consultant to a few outside bodies (though we have no independent sources for those claims). That's perhaps slightly more than the norm for an academic, but it seems to me to fall well short of WP:BIO, which looks for such points as a "credible independent biography" or "Widespread coverage over time in the media such as the BBC, The Times or other reliable sources".

There has been three months since the last AfD, in which the subject himself has added references. If in that time even the article's subject hasn't found evidence to bring the article close to meeting WP:BIO's requirements, I think it's safe to conclude that the evidence probably doesn't exist. Delete. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:37, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions. —David Eppstein 05:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Not notable enough really.Alberon 09:22, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

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