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Some sentences here are showing signs of WP:REFBOMB, I assume in a good-faith attempt to support the sourcing in response to AfD comments. As an example, there were four (five?) citations holding down the simple "he is a prof of polisci at UofT" sentence - totally unnecessary, but also only one of those sources was really about his named professorship at all. (I left that one as-is.) Two were both about Taiwan, so I added a new sentence and put them on it. (I do not think what I have added is a good sentence, or even a useful one, but I didn't want to completely remove them while the article is at AfD and I don't have anything more interesting to say.) I did entirely remove this one: [1]. I can't find a sentence to attach it to and don't think it has anything all that relevant to add to this article. If anyone feels otherwise, by all means put it back in, but my advice is to try to use it for something more than just "see? he's totally a UofT prof" if you do. -- asilvering (talk) 00:13, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Most likely I'm guilty of the REFBOMBing here, and I think your analysis is correct, in the unexpected and time-pressure context of the AfD (which was fair for User:Bearcat to start, this entire article initially started on the basis of a misunderstanding of WP:ACADEMIC specifically it relied on primary sources), I was in a rush to prove notability. I think everything you have done is a clear improvement and I support. Thank you. CT55555 (talk) 13:42, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think the bigger problem was the original format, which looked very "CV-style" -- this is a huge warning sign to a lot of people because of how many promotional/paid/puff articles about extremely non-notable people are written that way. So as soon as someone alert sees that, they go straight to the references list, and if it's all non-independent sources, they're going to flag it or propose deletion. Maybe they'll go looking for some sources to add, but with so many promo/non-notable articles made all the time, if yours looks like one of them you really run the risk of getting smacked by someone who's run out of patience. Help people out by:
making sure the lead clearly states the things that make the person notable
using full paragraphs rather than one-sentence-per-line "CV style"
using sources for citations when the answer to "what is this source / section of this source about?" = the sentence you're trying to cite; otherwise you're probably better off using that source to write a completely different sentence/paragraph
if they're an academic, always always check for monographs; put them in a separate section called "publications" or similar and link 2+ reviews each
if they're some other kind of writer, same thing, but you're probably making a "critical reception" section and might want to differentiate between academic analysis and industry-related book reviews
Thanks. I really appreciate the tips. The "CV" style was my defensive approach because someone said another article seemed promotional, so that was me trying to utterly stick to the facts in a chronological way. I think I made problems for myself in this article, especially as my starting point was "this should be an easy article" oops. I don't know if it's common or not, but the collective improvement effort that was triggered by the AfD process ended up massively improving the article, so it's in a much better place and it seems likely it's going to survive the AfD, so thanks again. This has all been a helpful learning experience. CT55555 (talk) 22:19, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
