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. Barkeep49 ( talk) 02:16, 12 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Adib Taherzadeh

Adib Taherzadeh (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log)

(Find sources:  Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Fails WP:GNG, WP:BASIC Serv181920 ( talk) 16:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Iran-related deletion discussions. Serv181920 ( talk) 16:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Shellwood ( talk) 17:06, 9 December 2020 (UTC) reply

• Redirect to Universal House of Justice and leave the content history. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 17:08, 9 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Comment – Thanks Serv181920 for the initiative. For the redirect might it be better to redirect to his section of the Baha'i literature page? Gazelle55 ( talk) 20:13, 15 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Gazelle55, Redirect is fine. Serv181920 ( talk) 09:28, 16 December 2020 (UTC) reply

• Keep Doing a Books search shows me that the subject is quoted in numerous other books about the faith as a subject matter expert. Possibly more importantly, the subject's writing are cited very often on a Scholars search in numerous academic works on the faith. Further, as a past member of a select (nine, to be precise) member governing body of a large global faith appears to lend notability.-- Concertmusic ( talk) 22:16, 15 December 2020 (UTC) reply

• Keep  There are tons of info about this person on the web. This article meets WP:GNG notability by having significant coverage. MISSIONgreen=SILVER ( talk) 04:44, 16 December 2020 (UTC) MISSIONgreen=SILVER reply

According to WP:GNG a topic should receive significant coverage in "reliable sources that are independent of the subject". This article does not fulfills the criteria. Serv181920 ( talk) 09:28, 16 December 2020 (UTC) reply

I looked him up on Google Scholar and his books have been cited 100+ times, but I think the average academic has more than that and they aren't automatically notable. I didn't find any academic articles about him. There could be non-academic sources that are WP:RS, but could those supporting inclusion point to them? He has certainly been quoted by Baha'is a lot but I don't think that proves notability.

And yes, he was elected to the Universal House of Justice (the leadership of the Baha'i Faith), but so are nine people every five years. That is not so notable given the Baha'i Faith has only ~1,000,000 active members according to Margit Warburg. Gazelle55 ( talk) 19:42, 16 December 2020 (UTC) reply

That's true. He is a Baha'i scholar and only Baha'is cite his books. If that makes him a notable then he is. Serv181920 ( talk) 10:18, 19 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple ( talk) 10:04, 19 December 2020 (UTC) reply

• Comment, "but so are nine people every five years. That is not so notable given the Baha'i Faith has only ~1,000,000 active members" , hmmmmm, as an example of the problems with these sorts of arguments lets look at Alaska, population of less then 3/4 million, not all voters, and yet there are 60 wikinotable people (40 in house of reps, and 20 in senate) so being one of 9 people "governing" (religiously anyway) over a million may actually be notable, also see WP:CLERGY. Coolabahapple ( talk) 11:01, 19 December 2020 (UTC) reply

As an author he fails WP:AUTHOR, WP:NBIO says - "A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject." This person fails WP:BIO also. WP:CLERGY is not applicable to the leaders of the Baha'i faith because they don't have clergies and these leaders don't perform any work of the clergy. Serv181920 ( talk) 07:51, 21 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Previous post was by Serv181920 (please remember to sign!). Coolabahapple, yeah good point about Alaska, I see that my point about the numbers isn't too relevant. Regarding WP:CLERGY (and WP:OUTCOMES more generally), correct me if I'm wrong but I think that indicates what has often happened rather than what should happen in any given case. I think WP:BASIC is more normative and it's not clear to me that Taherzadeh meets it (scrolling through Google results I see nothing but Baha'i sources and a few disgruntled ex-Baha'is on forums). I certainly doubt that most Universal House of Justice members meet WP:BASIC. My more general concern is the proliferation of Baha'i articles of dubious notability on Wikipedia, which I and others have discussed at length here. Gazelle55 ( talk) 18:42, 20 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Thank you Gazelle55, I have signed the comment now. That's true most of them fails WP:BASIC and Baha'i population figures for most countries are highly inflated. Interested editors can check this table, please. Serv181920 ( talk) 08:01, 21 December 2020 (UTC) reply

"The Universal House of Justice (Persian: بیت‌العدل اعظم‎) is the nine-member supreme ruling body of the Baháʼí Faith." - "Clergy are formal leaders within established religions.", looks similar to me, anyway acknowledge that they still need to meet WP:BASIC, which in this case is lacking. Coolabahapple ( talk) 13:55, 21 December 2020 (UTC) reply

I think the main reason WP:CLERGY is complicated in this case is that the Universal House of Justice is a legislative body. Their collective decisions are authoritative but each person as an individual has no special authority. They like to point that out before making speeches. The lack of independent coverage of them as individuals seems to tilt towards deletion (in this case, redirect), as has been the case in Peter Khan, Kiser Barnes, Payman Mohajer, Firaydoun Javaheri, Glenford Eckleton Mitchell, Douglas Martin, David Ruhe, and maybe others. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 17:05, 21 December 2020 (UTC) reply

agree that redirect looks like the sensible course. Coolabahapple ( talk) 23:29, 21 December 2020 (UTC) reply

• Keep Satisfies notability criterion. Tarikhejtemai ( talk) 04:14, 22 December 2020 (UTC) reply

How he satisfies notability? Serv181920 ( talk) 07:18, 22 December 2020 (UTC) reply

His notability comes from WP:AUTHOR, his works, especially revelation of Baha'u'llah, are often cited in secondary and tertiary sources that are about the history of the Baha'i faith (e.g. Encyclopedia Iranica: Varqa Waliallah, Ebn Asdaq, Journal of Baha'i Studies: here, here, here and many other places). Tarikhejtemai ( talk) 03:47, 23 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Tarikhejtemai, thanks for contributing to the discussion. Could you clarify which of the four options under WP:AUTHOR you feel Taherzadeh meets? The Journal of Baha'i Studies is not a proper academic journal peer-reviewed by the mainstream scholarly community (there is a note about how this is not reliable under WP:SCHOLARSHIP). His writing is cited briefly in two short encyclopedia articles, but I think that is nowhere near the bar for any of the four options of WP:AUTHOR. Let me know if you feel I'm missing anything here. Gazelle55 ( talk) 01:45, 1 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Gazelle55 thanks for the question, based on Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#Religious_sources his works which were done in conjunction with Baha'i official international institutions (archives & research) are considered valid sources. Iranica has more references to his works, those were just examples, please see [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]. Similarly (because of Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#Religious_sources) Journal of Baha'i Studies is a credible source. Tarikhejtemai ( talk) 08:05, 3 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Tarikhejtemai, I didn't know about that section of WP:RSE, so glad you've brought it to my attention. That said, it is about whether his work could be used as a source, which doesn't mean he is himself notable. I see from your examples that his work has been cited many times by Iranica, but I don't think this satisfies option #1 under WP:AUTHOR (and definitely not options #2-4). It says: "The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors." Getting cited by 10-15 academic works (or even 100) is not unusual—many professors have thousands of citations and yet probably aren't Wiki-notable, and my best guess is that almost all tenured profs have over 100 citations, and they're certainly not all notable. If we want to say Taherzadeh is notable for being cited widely by non-academic Baha'i sources, maybe it is possible, the guideline is pretty vague so I'm not sure how to interpret it. Gazelle55 ( talk) 16:42, 4 January 2021 (UTC) reply

• Comment - This person is a Baha'i scholar, he is rather a hagiographer. All of his books are published by George Ronald, Oxford, a Baha'i publisher. Don't know how a Baha'i scholar who wrote a few books on Baha'i history becomes notable!? WP:BIO states "the person who is the topic of a biographical article should be "worthy of notice" or "note"—that is, "remarkable" or "significant, interesting, or unusual enough to deserve attention or to be recorded" within Wikipedia as a written account of that person's life." Whatever he has written is purely for the mainstream Baha'is. He has also been criticized by the descendants of Baha'u'llah (the founder of the Baha'i Faith) due to his unfair approach towards Baha'i history. He also fails WP:AUTHOR. Serv181920 ( talk) 08:18, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply

• Comment - The subject of this article fails WP:PROF2 also. He does not fulfills any of the Basic Criteria or Specific Criteria. Tarikhejtemai, seems to be just forwarding his own POV without referring to any of the policies. Would appreciate if he answers Gazelle55. Serv181920 ( talk) 14:57, 1 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Yes, Taherzadeh was not an academic and did not publish in academic venues (not even once, to my knowledge). I don't think there's any way to say he meets any of the options under WP:PROF. Nor does he meet WP:BASIC as discussed above, and for similar reasons he does not meet WP:GNG. It looks like all the editors who typically edit articles on the Baha'i Faith have agreed a redirect is the best option here (and for those not aware, there is usually a lot of disagreement about Baha'i articles). Various other editors have weighed in saying the article should be kept but I think their arguments have all been addressed. Gazelle55 ( talk) 17:24, 1 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Overall comment again – Taherzadeh does not meet WP:GNG, WP:BASIC, or WP:PROF. He might meet WP:AUTHOR's first criterion by being cited a lot in non-academic Baha'i books. The guideline is vague so I can't really judge. Gazelle55 ( talk) 16:48, 4 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Comment - I don't care either way as long as the edit history doesn't disappear. He can pass notability with some more work and research but I'm not really interested in doing it. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 21:49, 4 January 2021 (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.