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. This is one of the most interesting AfD discussions I have read in some time. There were some very strong arguments on both sides, as well as some low-effort !votes that I effectively discounted. There is a strain running through the deletion arguments that the subject shouldn't have an article because he is a fringe psuedoscientist -- the subject is clearly a quack engaged in flim-flam, but that doesn't invalidate the reliable sources that attest to his notability. I would suggest that what it does mean is that the article needs to be carefully patrolled and kept clear of promotional fluff. A Train ^talk 08:47, 6 September 2016 (UTC) reply

Ruggero Santilli

Ruggero Santilli (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)

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The subject of this article does not meet the guidelines for notability. loupgarous ( talk) 01:13, 26 July 2016 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. — David Eppstein ( talk) 01:23, 26 July 2016 (UTC) reply

WP:GNG says "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." Reading the discussion in the first nomination for deletion (where the consensus was "Save"), I'm not persuaded by any of the arguments given that this article ever met that criterion, or WP:SIGCOV.

Certainly our current guidelines for notability would exclude the article, for the secondary sources consist of a discussion of his theories in a small scientific journal, and an article in a St. Petersburg, Florida newspaper.

The discussion I refer to above is of one of Santilli's published monographs regarding Santilli's proprietary "MagneGas" process. Again, no real notability here.

The references to Santilli's academic background and credentials are hosted on a Web site belonging to his own "Institute for Basic Research," and this includes his editorship of " Hadronic Press, Inc.". None of these are useful to establish notability.

It's unfortunate that the first discussion on nomination for deletion for this article didn't touch on notability more than it did. The guideline WP:NTEMP allows us to reconsider questions of notability, and this is one such case. The reference list just doesn't have significant coverage in reliable sources apart from Santilli's own publications or publications which reside on his organization's Web site.

WP:FRINGE comes into play here, too. It's not whether Santilli's theories are regarded as "fringe science," but again, whether they are notable fringe science.

Santilli complains that eminent physicist Steven Weinberg heads a group of Jewish scientists who are colluding to keep his theories from being published in the usual journals of physics and chemistry.

The more likely explanation is that Santilli's theories simply failed peer review in the major physics and chemistry journals, even as alternative explanations for accepted theories of how chemical bonds work.

According to the WP:PROFRINGE guidelines, we're not a forum for someone to promote theories with little or no support apart from a very narrow list of 'believers'. Santilli seems to have that forum in any case, in the "board" of "The Institute of Basic Research." These include a few physicists known in their own countries but with very little notability in the world at large.

Potential WP:COI Disclosure: Santilli and some of his staff refer to me (by my full name) as "a former Wikipedia editor" because I questioned some of the claims they've made for MagneGas. That is a separate discussion from this one; the reasons I am giving for deletion are confined to the subject's lack of sufficient notability for a wikipedia article.

I think the decision to keep Ruggero Santilli was a decision we need to revisit, keeping our current guidelines for notability and treatment of fringe theories in mind. Thank you for your attention. loupgarous ( talk)

• Keep as in first AfD. Subject is fringey, but notably fringey. A GS h-index of 26 shows that WP:Prof#C1 has been well passed. Nominator seems to have axes to grind. Xxanthippe ( talk) 02:35, 26 July 2016 (UTC). reply

WP:Prof#C1 requires that "the person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources." Can you show any evidence of that, apart from the h-index, which can be gamed by self-citations (among other strategies)? Ruggero Santilli concedes he can't get his work peer-reviewed in reliable scholarly journals. His explanation aside, that shows he failed at WP:Prof#C1. But I'd like to see specific examples of significant impact Ruggero Santilli has had in physics and chemistry. It's hard to game a nice, recent list of peer-reviewed publications in reliable journals. Almost all of Santilli's recent work is self-published. loupgarous ( talk) 03:17, 26 July 2016 (UTC) reply

Irrelevant. He has been noted by others. But if you care to count his self-citations, I will reconsider. Xxanthippe ( talk) 04:20, 26 July 2016 (UTC). reply

Picked at random, Santilli's recent paper "Apparent Detection via New Telescopes with ConcaveLenses of Otherwise Invisible Terrestrial Entities (ITE)", American Journal of Modern Physics. Vol. 5, No. 3, 2016, pp. 45-53 has fifteen references. Nine of these cite other Santilli publications (one of which was a talk to the St. Petersburg Astronomy Club). The paper itself was published in the "American Journal of Modern Physics," an open access journal which charges US$370/paper (and charges authors extra for reprints). Only 2 of 31 members of the American Journal of Modern Physics's editorial board reside or work in the USA. One more lives and works in Venezuela - strictly speaking, he is "American" in that he lives in South America. Another member of this journal's editorial board is a high school teacher. Do you insist I count each of his self-citations? A bit of a time-sink, but it would show that the h-index is a broken indicator of academic impact in this case, so it could be worthwhile to show in general how measures like this are being gamed for fun and profit. loupgarous ( talk) 02:19, 27 July 2016 (UTC) reply

Thanks for the effort you have put in here. It confirms much of what is known about the subject's conduct. Still, he has been noted by others, and satisfies fringe requirements that the work must have been noted out-of universe. Xxanthippe ( talk) 02:33, 27 July 2016 (UTC). reply

Another Santilli paper, "Compatibility of Arbitrary Speeds with Special Relativity Axioms for Interior Dynamical Problems", American Journal of Modern Physics Volume 5, Issue 2-1, March 2016, Pages: 143-160, has 75 references, 40 of which carry Santilli as sole author or co-author. I'm not seeking recognition for the work here, a job well done is its own reward. But 40 self-citations out of 75 references? I'm counting his self-citations, and showing a pattern that probably skews Santilli's h-index upward without true impact on physics and mathematics, in "open access" journals with deceptive names and which accept manuscripts after payment of hefty processing fees. According to WP:Prof#C1 guidelines. "Simply having authored a large number of published academic works is not considered sufficient to satisfy Criterion 1." loupgarous ( talk) 03:03, 27 July 2016 (UTC) reply

Non-committal Mainly known for litigation, self-promotion and pseudoscience. Article frequently edited by associates of Santilli, possibly family members. Mathsci ( talk) 07:14, 26 July 2016 (UTC) reply

*Weak keep per Xxanthippe. Google cites look good. The article makes the subject seem primarily notable for self-promotion and pseudoscience, as Mathsci says, but the subject is already notable under WP:PROF independently of the more dubious aspects of his tenure, having published several highly cited mainstream works. I think this makes WP:NPOV probably a challenge to achieve. Appropriate focus should be given to the mainstream areas that Santilli has worked with, but also the article should be appropriately sceptical of his fringe work. As the mantra goes, "AfD is not cleanup", but it's easy to be an armchair AfD participant, and much harder to do the actual work. This article should probably be watched for COI. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 12:02, 26 July 2016 (UTC) reply

• Changed to weak delete. loupgarous' more careful analysis of the scholar hits makes me believe that this is a case of gaming the system. That leaves WP:FRINGE, and I don't see evidence of WP:FRIND sources. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 16:58, 4 August 2016 (UTC) reply

*Keep. Part of battle against pseudoscience. Simply ignoring noisy kooks is detrimental to public. And he is noisy and noted. Staszek Lem ( talk) 17:09, 26 July 2016 (UTC) reply

• Delete (reconsidered after counting independent refs in the article). Staszek Lem ( talk) 00:23, 3 August 2016 (UTC) reply

*Delete If you delete every statement supported only by a primary source or a source directly hosted on the subject's "Institute for Basic Research" Web site and written by the subject or other members of the Institute's board, all you're left with is his early personal life, four monographs he authored early in his career, and a recounting of his pro se lawsuits and his belief that his theories are being denied peer review by Steven Weinberg and his friends. Is that really enough of an article to keep? loupgarous ( talk) 01:39, 27 July 2016 (UTC) reply

Note: Struck duplicate !vote; the nomination is considered your delete !vote. See WP:AFDLIST. -- Softlavender ( talk) 02:00, 27 July 2016 (UTC) reply

Note: duly noted. Thanks for the correction. loupgarous ( talk) 03:03, 27 July 2016 (UTC) reply

• Weak delete. Our article is dominated by fringe sources, many of them by Santilli himself. And I don't trust the citation count argument; he has one legitimately well-cited book ("Foundations of Theoretical Mechanics II: Birkhoffian Generalizations of Hamiltonian Mechanics"), then much lower-cited fringe publications, the best of which ("Elements of Hadronic Mechanics: Theoretical Foundations") has 128 citations on Google scholar, many of which appear to be from Santilli's log-rolling circle (look for Hadronic Press in the publisher). Leaving all that aside, what do we have? A 2007 article in the St. Petersburg press about a lawsuit, a book review in a college newspaper, a skeptic blog post, a one-sentence book quote about anti-semitism, and a trivial mention in a Salon article. I don't think that adds up to enough. — David Eppstein ( talk) 23:50, 31 July 2016 (UTC) reply

What's wrong with fringe sources in a fringe article? They are expected. The BLP is clearly labelled as fringe and it achieves notability as such. I am opposed to attempts to enforce the ideological purity of Wikipedia by removing fringe material from it. Xxanthippe ( talk) 00:02, 1 August 2016 (UTC). reply

Fringe sources don't allow us to satisfy WP:NPOV by providing a sourced mainstream view of the subject's fringe positions. — David Eppstein ( talk) 03:28, 6 August 2016 (UTC) reply

• Delete We do not have enough coverage for him to overcome the high notability bar for advocates of fringe theories. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 04:23, 2 August 2016 (UTC) reply
• Delete. One cannot evaluate a case like that purely formally and we have to look at the overall picture. That picture, as far as I can tell, is that the subject's activities are mainly in the WP:FRINGE area, and there is not enough specific coverage of him from non-fringe reliable sources to write a proper WP article that would be neither an embarrassment to Wikipedia nor a BLP nightmare. In specific terms, cases of this sort, where a scientist mainly works in a WP:FRINGE area, should not be judged by WP:PROF standards but should routed through WP:BIO instead. Certainly rough metrics like h-index should not be used as a way of justifying passing WP:PROF#C1. Santilli and his IBR set up a number of journals ("Hadronic Journal", "Hadronic Journal Supplement", "Algebras, Groups and Geometries", and probably others that I don't know about), where much of his fringe work and that of his disciples has been published. Many citations returned by GScholar search are for his publications in this fringe journals and many of the citing articles are in various fringe sources as well. GScholar can't tell the difference and we here are not qualified to sift through them and figure out what's what there and which citing articles referring to his work are WP:FRINGE and which are WP:RS. I don't know about physics, but in my own field, math, Santilli's work has been almost entirely ignored and almost nobody has heard of him. The first time I became aware of his name was when some years ago some colleague in my department noticed that Santilli's journal "Algebras, Groups and Geometries" published in 1998 three short "proofs" of Fermat's Last Theorem. That was already well after Wiles. Of course, these "proofs" were nonsense, and their reviews in MathSciNet are rather amusing. I think our library was still subscribing to that journal at the time because it was very cheap, but after that event we cancelled our subscription. By now MathSciNet no longer indexes any of Santilli's journals. I don't know anything about his physics work, and it would seem that he made a bit more of a splash there. But still, I am just not seeing enough specific coverage from non-fringe WP:RS sources to be able to create a decent article here which would not be a BLP disaster. Therefore I believe the article needs to go. Nsk92 ( talk) 05:12, 2 August 2016 (UTC) reply

With respect to Xxanthippe's statement, "I am opposed to attempts to enforce the ideological purity of Wikipedia by removing fringe material from it," I am opposed to wikipedia becoming known once more for the unreliability and lack of usefulness of its articles. Our current guidelines on biographical articles with respect to who's notable enough to merit a wikipedia article are so strict that Kenneth Mahood, whose editorial cartoons appeared in almost every daily issue of a major London newspaper, who was a regular cartoonist and illustrator for The New Yorker and before that for Punch magazine has been repeatedly denied an article by our reviewers despite a dozen secondary sources attesting to his reputation in the field of news and political cartooning.

Yet, by oversight we have an article on a man who appears to be mainly notable for having discovered how to game the h-index and other indicators of influence on scholarly opinion with a plethora of articles featuring profuse citations of his own and his associates' work in his own "journals", and in offshore "open access" journals which appear largely to be paid venues for scientific publications. One of these, the "American Journal of Modern Physics" is notable chiefly in that, of the over thirty members of its editorial board, three reside or work in the Western Hemisphere. The "American Journal of Modern Physics" also happens to be the venue in which articles by the subject and his associates have most often appeared in recent years. This is a case in which we should maintain what's becoming a reasonably high standard for factual reliability in our articles. Regarding the subject as notable enough for a biographical article's inconsistent with our current standard for that. loupgarous ( talk) 12:34, 2 August 2016 (UTC) reply

It seems that you don't get it. Wikipedia is expected to be a reliable source for fringe material as well as for mainstream. The essential requirement for fringe is that it is identified as such and does not claim to be mainstream. That requirement is satisfied in this case. Wikipedia is WP:not censored. Xxanthippe ( talk) 22:53, 2 August 2016 (UTC). reply

Xxanthippe, you don't get it. Joseph Westley Newman, here on the Gulf Coast, was an authentic WP:Fringe scientist. Newman chose to stand on the scientific validity as he saw it of his theory that he'd discovered a way to make a motor which wasn't subject to the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics - a " perpetual motion machine". Having been questioned on the matter, Newman didn't resort to pro se litigation, start his own scientific journal, or recruit friends to cite his papers in paid scientific journals. Newman filed for a US Patent on his invention and was turned down on the grounds that his invention wasn't patentable, but he appears to have stood by his fringe theories. Santilli's claims to notability that can be documented by WP:RS are not for his fringe theories, but most recently for his self-promotional efforts, which aren't enough for an article here. WP:PROMOTION and WP:SIGCOV apply here more than WP:FRINGE. loupgarous ( talk) 17:09, 6 August 2016 (UTC) reply

• Delete, per David Eppstein (lack of independent sources) and John Pack Lambert (high notability bar for fringe theories).  — Scott • talk 15:57, 4 August 2016 (UTC) reply
• Delete No independent sources, and, frankly, pure fringe nonsense masquerading as a bio. This is an encyclopedia, not a place to shoehorn in your latest bizarre, unsupported notions. -- Begoon  ^talk 16:06, 4 August 2016 (UTC) reply
• Keep and at least trim extensively in that case, because he's at least notable as an author, having over 1,000 library holdings, with the highest held book at 475. Inviting DGG for analysis. SwisterTwister talk 02:06, 10 August 2016 (UTC) reply
• Keep. sufficient publications and citations. Ioupgarous, that he's sued people who object to his theories might add only a little notability ,but you seem to be arguing that because he did so , he's less notable than if he didn't. And rather than a high notability bar for fringe scientists, I'd say our proper bar was lower, and we should go a little out of our way to include them: these are precisely the subjects about which easy-to-find reliable information is needed DGG ( talk ) 04:27, 10 August 2016 (UTC) reply

An excellent point is made here. Notability bar for fringers should be lower because there are fewer of them and the behavior that they display is of interest to those who study cultural pathology, just as patients with exotic diseases are more interesting to physicians than healthy people. Xxanthippe ( talk) 04:32, 10 August 2016 (UTC). reply

• Keep. I'm seeing sufficient multiple examples of significant coverage in independent reliable sources (non-fringe) via GoogleBooks and Highbeam, and in some of the current citations for the wiki article; so he passes WP:GNG. Problems with the current wiki article's sourcing and/or content and/or COI and/or POV should be dealt with through normal editing processes rather than through AfD. Softlavender ( talk) 07:10, 10 August 2016 (UTC) reply

• I think it's also worth inviting the opinion of John Vandenberg, an experienced neutral editor/administrator who was the second most substantial adder of text to the article: [1]. -- Softlavender ( talk) 07:35, 10 August 2016 (UTC) reply

  ... and I am the creator of the article, for what it is worth, so I am naturally biased here. But I very much appreciate the ping, as somehow I didnt know about this AfD. I'm a bit pressed for time, but will try to review and re-assess my opinion on this article. John Vandenberg ^{( chat)} 08:08, 10 August 2016 (UTC) reply

  fwiw, I believe he is notable not just for his fringe science, but the lengths that he has gone to in vanity publishing. He is not in a league of his own, but he has only a few peers in that arena. This doesnt seem to be as prominent in the article as it once was. John Vandenberg ^{( chat)} 09:16, 10 August 2016 (UTC) reply

• Reminder to Sławomir Biały, Staszek Lem, David Eppstein, Scott, and Begoon: Notability is not judged or determined by the citations used in the wiki article, but by the existence of significant coverage in independent reliable sources. As I noted above, there are multiple examples of significant coverage in non-fringe independent reliable sources via GoogleBooks and Highbeam, and in some of the current citations for the wiki article; so the subject passes WP:GNG. And a reminder to Nsk92: Notability is not temporary. -- Softlavender ( talk) 08:34, 10 August 2016 (UTC) reply

Thanks, but search engine hits are not the same thing as sources, and the results of those searches are not very impressive. Perhaps you would like to identify a few sources that are WP:FRIND? Sławomir Biały ( talk) 11:50, 10 August 2016 (UTC) reply

I have notified the fringe theory noticeboard to generate additional input regarding the allegedly "non-fringe" sources. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 12:01, 10 August 2016 (UTC) reply

• Sample sources of significant coverage in independent reliable sources:

Book:

• Dunning-Davies, Jeremy. Concise Thermodynamics: Principles and Applications in Physical Science and Engineering. Elsevier, 2008. pp. 91–93.

Periodicals & major media:

• [2] International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
• [3] International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
• [4] International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
• [5], [6] Progress in Physics
• [7] Biotech Week
• [8] News of Science
• [9] Energy Weekly News
• [10] Gulf Industry
• CNN
• Investrend
• Investrend
• St. Petersburg Times

Organizations:

• Fondazione Mediterraneo: Mediterranean Award for Sciences and Research

-- Softlavender ( talk) 14:19, 10 August 2016 (UTC) reply

Being published in research journals and trade media does not contribute substantially to notability under WP:PROF, neither do minor awards. Every academic is essentially referenced in this way, since that's pretty much their job description. WP:PROF requires substantial and lasting impact to the field. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 14:57, 10 August 2016 (UTC) reply

As I've mentioned three times, these are all independent reliable non-fringe sources. None of them is by Santilli or from his publications. Softlavender ( talk) 18:42, 22 August 2016 (UTC) reply

I do not believe that the Journal of hydrogen energy sources contribute very much to notability. Generally WP:PROF requires a more substantial impact in a scholarly discipline than this. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 19:12, 22 August 2016 (UTC) reply

WP:PROF has little or nothing to do with this person's notability. He's not a professor. Plus we are judging on GNG, which supersedes all other subsidiary notability guidelines anyway. But if you want "more substantial impact in a scholarly discipline", here are 236 hits in GoogleScholar, only a very few of which are in his own Hadrionics Journal or Institute of Basic Research: [11]. -- Softlavender ( talk) 19:43, 22 August 2016 (UTC) reply

GNG creates a presumption, not a guarantee, oof notability. Secondary sources addressing the subject's contributions must pass the "more significant than the average college professor test". I'm not convinced, without a more detailed analysis of the GS hits that the subject meets WP:PROF, since he is clearly good at gaming the GS system. See the arguments presented by Agricola44 at [12] for a clear precedent. Sławomir Biały ( talk)

To repeat, WP:PROF has nothing to do with this person's notability. He's not a professor. Plus we are judging on GNG, which supersedes all other subsidiary notability guidelines anyway. Softlavender ( talk) 21:33, 22 August 2016 (UTC) reply

Per WP:PROF: "For the purposes of this guideline, an academic is someone engaged in scholarly research..." If the basis of the keep votes is not that the individual is primarily notable for their "scholarly research", then I suggest that the media that does not address the scholarly research be isolated for the application of WP:GNG. In particular, that means eliminating the aforementioned Journal of hydrogen energy source from consideration. Of the remaining sources you have provided, most appear to be garbage press releases or other unreliable types of media. The St. Petersburg Times seems to be the best source, but I hardly think that being the subject of a local expose is a sufficient condition for notability of a private citizen. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 22:07, 22 August 2016 (UTC) reply

You're making up your own rules, when in fact WP:GNG is very clear. Moveover, Santilli is an entrepreneur (in addition to being known for his engagement in research): Chairman, President and CEO of Thunder Energies Corp; Founder and Chairman of Magnegas Corp (a NASDAQ traded company [13]); and President of the Institute for Basic Research: Bloomberg profile. Moreover, none of the links I provided above are press releases or unreliable. I have no intention of prolonging this discussion, so this is my last reply to you. Softlavender ( talk) 22:41, 22 August 2016 (UTC) reply

A Bloomberg profile is not credibly independent of the subject. And "NASDAQ" is another primary source. I am not making up my own rules. I've already said that, if we are evaluating scholarly sources, then the correct question that we must determine is whether the person has made a significant scholarly impact in their discipline. This is not something that GNG can directly answer for us. We must see what the sources say. If, as you contend, the subject is notable as an entrepreneur, then show us the sources that the subject is not more than the "typical entrepreneur" or whatever. That is, find some good WP:GNG sources that provide some indication of that person's notability. As I said, WP:GNG creates a presumption, not a guarantee, of notability. Notability is the question of "Is the subject notable enough for an encyclopedia article?" Typically the relevant criteria are that the person made an impact in their field that sets that person apart from others. Examples pointing to notability are winning significant awards, or being an otherwise important enduring aspect of the record. We have guidelines like WP:PROF and WP:CREATIVE to help determine whether persons (especially living persons) are notable enough for an encyclopedia article. But in the end, it does come down to a question: "Do the sources we have show that the subject is notable enough to have an article written about them in an encyclopedia?" This is not a calculation that can be determined simply by counting the number of ghits. So, I ask, show me the GNG sources. It does not seem like the subject of this article is an enduring part of the historical record. Moreover, there are serious WP:NPOV issues to do with the WP:FRINGE aspects of the subject. Since this is also a WP:BLP, these considerations cannot simply be dismissed by chanting "zomg, teh sourcez". Sławomir Biały ( talk) 23:29, 22 August 2016 (UTC) reply

Of the sources Softlavender provided as Sample sources of significant coverage in independent reliable sources:

Progress in Physics is described in our article Progress in Physics having "published papers by several authors, who, along with some of the editors, claim to have been blacklisted by the Cornell University arXiv as proponents of fringe scientific theories." That makes it part of the scientific vanity press catering to those who admit they can't even get published in Cornell's open access arXiv site for open access publication of scientific papers.

Progress in Physics is not a reliable secondary source under WP:QUESTIONABLE. It also fails under WP:FRINGELEVEL - "Wikipedia is not a forum for presenting new ideas, for countering any systemic bias in institutions such as academia, or for otherwise promoting ideas which have failed to merit attention elsewhere.", and WP:SCHOLARSHIP - "Care should be taken with journals that exist mainly to promote a particular point of view. A claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs. Journals that are not peer reviewed by the wider academic community should not be considered reliable, except to show the views of the groups represented by those journal."

Biotech Week News of Science, and Energy Weekly News are all trade publications of the NewsRx group of publications. While they do some original content, mostly they paraphrase and publish press releases from other organizations, so their content (as shown in the sample links provided, and a sample I reproduce below) is press releases from Santilli's firms. They don't meet the criterion in WP:RSCONTEXT - "...the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication. Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in the Wikipedia article."

A quote from one of these journals:

• Thunder Energies Discovers Invisible Terrestrial Entities Using Santilli Telescope
• News of Science
• February 7, 2016 | Copyright
• 2016 FEB 7 (VerticalNews) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at News of Science -- Thunder Energies Corp (TNRG:OTC) has recently detected invisible entities in our terrestrial environment with the revolutionary Santilli telescope with concave lenses (Trade Mark and patent pending by Thunder Energies). Thunder Energies Corporation has previously presented confirmations of the apparent existence of antimatter galaxies, antimatter asteroids and antimatter cosmic rays detected in preceding tests. In this breaking news, Thunder Energies presents evidence for the existence of Invisible Terrestrial Entities (ITE) of the dark and bright type.
• "This is an exciting discovery. We do not know what these entities are; they're completely invisible to our eyes, our binoculars, or traditional Galileo telescopes, but these objects are fully visible in cameras attached to our Santilli telescope," stated Dr..."

and that's all we get without registering to read Highbeam citations, but by the guideline in WP:RSCONTEXT this isn't a reliable secondary source, but something from a Santilli company saying they "recently detected invisible entities in our terrestrial environment with the revolutionary Santilli telescope with concave lenses " It's not reliable reporting, it's pseudoscience. By reprinting this information and saying a "News Reporter-Staff News Editor" was responsible for the content, News of Science destroyed their reliability for our purposes under WP:FRINGELEVEL.

These articles do not establish notability. They support persistence and sophistication in self-promotion, which can never support notability according to WP:PROMOTION.

The Investtrend articles Investrend and Investrend fail for the same reasons as stated above.

The International Journal of Hydrogen Energy articles document a controversy over Santilli's claims to have developed a new sort of hydrogen-oxygen bond. They fail under WP:RSCONTEXT and WP:FRINGELEVEL.

That leaves

• the CNN video statement, which has at least some independent analysis - enough to support notability on a superficial level, at least,
• Santilli's mention in someone else's book, and
• the local newspaper article on Santilli's litigiousness in local courts.

I submit that the samples which meet our guidelines aren't enough to establish Ruggero Santilli's notability. loupgarous ( talk) 07:54, 24 August 2016 (UTC) reply

• delete I have been watching this for a while, and here is where I come down. NOTABILITY is marginal at best, so it could go either way. My preference would be to keep this to debunk the FRINGE, but in the face of the consistent promotional pressure this article has been under, maintaining the article in compliance with policy is way more work than it is worth for the community. That pushes it over to delete for me. Jytdog ( talk) 08:13, 24 August 2016 (UTC) reply
• Keep Frauds like this are notable and we need sites like Wikipedia to document them neutrally. Deleting this article = letting cranks win. Justanothervisitor ( talk) 00:52, 30 August 2016 (UTC) reply

The subject of the article owes whatever notability he has to tireless self-promotion, and the degree to which he'll go to promote his activities and theories. That, as shown above, makes it more a matter of WP:PROMOTION. loupgarous ( talk) 17:40, 30 August 2016 (UTC) reply

• Keep. Borderline, but in my opinion of the sources listed, there are enough reliable independent sources to constitute "signficant coverage", passing WP:GNG. Jujutacular ( talk) 02:21, 30 August 2016 (UTC) reply

I respectfully disagree. Apart from mentions in the trade press which can be shown to echo the subject's own press releases, other primary source material by the subject or his employees, and supporting scientific articles in pay-to-publish journals with deceptive names or which fail being reliable source material under WP:QUESTIONABLE, WP:FRINGELEVEL and WP:SCHOLARSHIP, there's a mention in someone else's text, a CNN video feature, and a local newspaper article on the subject's litigiousness in local courts.

The subject's own work isn't enough to add to that list without independent confirmation of notability, and his primary articles show abundant evidence of extensive self-citation and citation by others published in pay-to-publish journals with deceptive names or journals controlled by the subject himself. The overriding effect is that he gets an article here despite being notable chiefly for activity our own WP:PROMOTION guideline deprecates. loupgarous ( talk) 17:40, 30 August 2016 (UTC) reply

From the WP:PROMOTION guideline: "An article can report objectively about [promotional subjects], as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view." If the subject himself is overly promotional and independent reliable sources take note in a significant way -- then we create a neutral and reliably sourced article accordingly. You and I simply disagree on whether this subject rises to that level of significance. Jujutacular ( talk) 18:02, 30 August 2016 (UTC) reply

Just how many independent reliable sources cited in this article have taken note in a significant way of the degree to which the subject promotes himself in the scientific and trade literature? The trade journals simply repeat what he sends them, misleadingly stating that an "editor or reporter" is saying the subject is (for example) seeing dark matter with the subject's proprietary telescopes, while the scientific literature cited consists (apart from four monographs and a book published early in his career which aren't enough under WP:PROF to support notability) of articles he and his colleagues have published in his own privately-controlled journals operated from his city of residence or from deceptively-titled pay-to-publish journals like the American journal of Modern Physics (domiciled in Sudan), mainly remarkable for an ardent circle of mutual citers, which drive their Google Scholar h-indices up nicely. Our article inappropriately grounds the subject's claim to scientific credentials more than it 'exposes' him as an exponent of fringe theories. He's actually not very notable as a fringe scientist or as a businessman or an authentic scientist with a notable impact in his fields of expertise. He's a superb publicist. And WP:PROMOTION doesn't allow him an article on that basis. loupgarous ( talk) 19:51, 30 August 2016 (UTC) reply

I agree, the sources that have been presented do not rise to the level of notability that our guidelines demand (specifically WP:PROF and WP:FRINGE). Sławomir Biały ( talk) 20:25, 30 August 2016 (UTC) reply

• Very Strong Keep Ruggero Santilli is without question notable. He is now even more notable today then he was back in 2007 - when editors here unanimously voted to keep the article, stating “Wikipedia is a Encyclopedia and per Once Notable Always Notable.”

I think Omegatron had summed it up nicely:

“Strong keep - See Wikipedia:Notability (academics) for some of the notability criteria that he meets. Also see [1]. As for the quality of the article, Deletion processes are not a way to complain or remove material that is personally disliked, whose perspective is against ones beliefs, or which is not yet presented neutrally. Using XfD as a "protest strategy" in an editorial or Neutral Point of View (NPOV) debate is generally an abuse of process. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a science textbook. Those people repeatedly nominating articles for deletion because they're about hoaxes or pseudoscience are seriously missing the point. — Omegatron 01:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)”

As the blogger (Pepijn) who apparently became notable himself by blogging about Santilli (even earning a citation in this very article) stated on his blog– “Santilli is a well known fringe scientist”

“Well known..” = notable.

As Spacepotato commented back in 2007: “Keep—I believe he's a notable crank/fringe scientist. I have attempted to improve the article and have added some non-self-published sources. Spacepotato 01:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)”

I agree, lets improve the article rather than deleting sources and then pushing for deletion on the basis of lack of sources - which seems very disingenuous to me.

I will begin by offering this quotation from [ Karl Popper] about Ruggero Santilli which does establish notability for Santilli as Popper is regarded as one of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century.

“I have mentioned Santilli, and I should like to say that he--one who belongs to a new generation -- seems to me to move on a different path. Far be it from me to belittle the giants who founded quantum mechanics under the leadership of Planck, Einstein, Bohr, Born, Heisenberg, de Broglie, Schrodinger, and Dirac. Santilli too makes it very clear how greatly he appreciates the work of these men. But in his approach he distinguishes the region of the ‘arena of incontrovertible applicability’ of quantum mechanics (he calls it ‘atomic mechanics’) from nuclear mechanics and hadronics, and his most fascinating arguments in support of the view that quantum mechanics should not, without new tests, be regarded as valid in nuclear and Hadronic mechanics, seem to me to augur a return to sanity: to that realism and objectivism for which Einstein stood, and which had been abandoned by those two very great physicists, Heisenberg and Bohr.” – Karl Popper Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics: From The Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery ISBN-10: 0415091128. Page 14.

I am new to Wiki and just learning my way around so I will try to add this and a number of other well sourced references of Santilli’s notability on the talk page. Hopefully Loupgarous and others can then help with actually incorporating these into the article. Maester Anderson ( talk) 01:33, 6 September 2016 (UTC) — Maester Anderson ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. 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.