Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Douglas E. Harding

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 Keep. Consensus is that the topic meets the general notability guidelines. -- Jreferee t/c 13:38, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Douglas E. Harding

Does not appear to satisfy the notability guideline for biographies, NPOV, tagged for notabilility since May 2007. Found only his books and a few references from websites (on an individuals homepage, two Google returns only his books and short mentions of him (such as one man's guru rating service page :) NPOV could be changed but I could find no external sources for info on him that were not very closely tied to him or his own website. Fitzhugh 06:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT 10:33, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:BIO and WP:NPOV. STORMTRACKER 94 11:34, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Although Googling is complicated by other Douglas Hardings, I see some hits on Google Books, and the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh had him write an introduction to one of his books (And The Flowers Showered), indicating that he has some notability among Western Buddhists. WorldCat indicates that his two most popular books[1][2] are still held in a couple hundred libraries, and some have been translated into foreign languages. --Groggy Dice T | C 01:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I've found out from his obituary[3] that the introduction to his The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth was written by C.S. Lewis. --Groggy Dice T | C 14:40, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. There are biographies of MANY less interesting and influential thinkers and writers in Wikipedia, including one or two self-promoting but minor academic philosophers I could name. Harding is not an academic philosopher, having spent his working life as an architect alongside a serious and sustained intellectual and "spiritual" avocation. His work is, however, excerpted in an important academic volume on philosophy of mind: The Mind's I by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett. The editors give the excerpt their commendation, as well they might. It is highly original and challenging. Myself, I have recently read and appreciated Harding's The Little Book of Life and Death. It too is engaging and challenging: a serious effort by a very thoughtful mystic in something like the "debunking" tradition of Alan Watts, who had a somewhat similar origin and early religious formation. The article itself is not yet in good shape, but again there are many worse! I'm strongly in favour of letting it stand; and I will probably put some effort into it myself – as a competent editor reasonably well versed in this area (though it is not one I normally contribute in).

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 12:30, 15 October 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.