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 delete. Per arguments below, at present we don't have sources to confirm that he is notable by WP:BIO or WP:PROF. As he is relatively young, notability may be established in the future. MastCell ^Talk 20:30, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Georgiy Starostin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Article is about a 31-year-old Russian linguistics professor who teaches and researches in Moscow. He is also a prolific Internet music critic. However, I have my doubts as to whether there are multiple, non-trivial, reliable published sources about him other than his own work - other reliable sources about him would be preferable. Unsure if he meets WP:PROF. His music website probably isn't a reliable source. His father seems to be notable, however. h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 20:55, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions. —David Eppstein 01:03, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Tentative delete. Searching the English version of the university site [1] came up with zero hits for this particular Starostin. 'G Starostin' gives 41 Google hits, many of which appear to relate to other people, and nearly all the Google Scholar hits seem to refer to physics; the linguistics papers appear to have few or no citations. There seems no evidence, therefore, that he meets WP:PROF at this time. A self-published music review site does not appear to convey notability, unless it's been discussed in multiple non-trivial sources, for which I can find no evidence. Willing to change my mind if an expert and/or Russian speaker comes up with more evidence. Espresso Addict 02:44, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. The only online Russian source where Georgiy is mentioned is this: [2] - it's a dead link but you can still read the short sample in Google, it says "Ими сейчас занимается мой сын, Георгий Старостин. Он пошел по моим стопам, уже защитил кандидатскую, довольно успешно занимался енисейскими и дравидийскими", which in my free translation (disclaimer: my Russian sucks) means "they are being currently taking care of by my son, Georgiy Starostin. He followed my footsteps and his candidacy has fulfilled the requirements, and now he's successfully working on Yenisey and Dravidian (languages)". So the only thing we have is a dad bragging about his son who more than likely owes him his job. As for the music blog, I can't find a trace. Any input from Russian speakers would be welcome, but I think it's pretty clear this guy's only claim to fame is his father. --Targeman 03:42, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep. Starostin is used as a source in 3 wikipedia articles on linguistics (Borean languages, Elamo-Dravidian languages and Nostratic languages). I know this is not a policy-based grounds to keep the article, but it suggests that people who know the field consider him important, and I don't know how to find out why. JulesH 09:11, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also note that he co-edited the journal Mother Tongue for a year. This also seems to be evidence of notability to me. JulesH 09:13, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

*Actually, only the Elamo-Dravidian languages and Mother Tongue references concern Georgiy Starostin, the other ones are about his father, Sergei Starostin. Georgiy is one of hundreds of linguists who have published theories on the Elamite language, and co-editing a scientific review for a year is really no big deal. Without more substantive sources, I cannot consider him notable enough. This AfD really need a Russian :-) --Targeman 09:24, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Borean languages says "Georgiy Starostin expresses the reservation that the name would imply a prejudgement that the Eurasian macrofamilies Nostratic, Dené-Caucasian, Afroasiatic and Austric are more closely related to each other than to the African families Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo." Nostratic languages states "Georgiy Starostin (2002) arrives at a tripartite overall grouping (that is, he considers Afro-Asiatic, Nostratic and Elamite to be roughly equidistant and more closely related to each other than to anything else". Both of these seam to refer to the subject of this AFD to me. JulesH 10:48, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• My apologies, I've really no idea how I could have misread those articles. I should stop editing at 3 a.m. :-) --Targeman 14:45, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete in the absences of good sources for this field, I hazard the guess that he probably will be notable one day,but not yet. We clearly do need an article on his father, though. DGG (talk) 07:49, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, as per points by JulesH. Digwuren 10:44, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete in the absence of any reliable sources. The claims made may satisfy WP:BIO but there is no obvious source confirming them. Nuttah68 07:26, 12 August 2007 (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.