Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jack Rechcigl (2nd nomination): Difference between revisions

Jack Rechcigl (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Page on an academic administrator that was not rigorously checked for accuracy. No evidence of a pass of WP:NPROF, with relatively low publication record. Too many claims (such as selected publications) that fail verification, and evidence from his image of COI. Note that his “research professor” appointment is not a “distinguished” chair, and being a capable administrator does not qualify as a NPROF pass. There is so much dubious information here that I think we must TNT this. Someone can try again later with verifiable information, but my BEFORE suggests this is unlikely to succeed. Ldm1954 (talk) 14:01, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Academics and educators, Science, Environment, and Florida. Ldm1954 (talk) 14:01, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep passes criteria 3 of WP:NPROF as an elected Fellow of Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences, the American Society of Agronomy, and the Soil Science Society of America. Also I would say his role as director of two research centers at the University of Florida is pretty significant.4meter4 (talk) 17:09, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  1. Where are the sources that verify those claims? Just because his site claims these is not enough considering all the other unreliable claims.
  2. ASA & SSSA are the same, searches on their site does not find him and the qualifications are not of the level of WP:NPROF#C3 even if he is a Fellow.
  3. A search of https://www.google.com/search?q=Czechoslovak+Society+of+Arts+and+Sciences+Rechcigl finds cites for his father (a founder of the organisation), but not him.
  4. Only being the top admin of a major university passes WP:NPROF#C6 as stated on the NPROF page and the nom.

  Ldm1954 (talk) 18:30, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I sincerely doubt the University of Florida website would allow their employee bios to falsify content of that nature. The UF is the #7 ranked public research university in the United States, and has high visibility. That type of fact would get reported quickly if it were falsified and would ruin an academic’s reputation and career if they got caught. Doubting the truthfulness of it seems ridiculous.4meter4 (talk) 03:31, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@4meter4, this page is an exception. Please check the page history and you will find content removal by myself, Christian Edmundson, Iamnilesh0321 and Timtrent as well as removal of promo by Drmies. Even in what is left there is unverifiable information. For instance the 1st paragraph claims he used AI citing an article without a year or volume and a 1999 award report. Of the 4 pubs, the ISBN of the first is to a book by someone else (see recent history wrt Bobby Cohn), while my searches failed to find 2 & 3. Note that the page used to claim that he edited the “Agriculture and Environment monograph series”, a series which does not come up in a search. The books all had two editors, he co-edited. I view omitting a co-author as academic dishonesty, but then I have a zero tolerance policy. Last, but not least, note the obvious undeclared COI of the original editor uploading a picture of Rechcigl taken in his garden. Ldm1954 (talk) 07:53, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, I would not trust any post-secondary institution in the US at this moment, given how they’ve had to comply with the whims of Mr. Trump in order to keep funding coming through, and the State of Florida in particular. That would be considered a primary source regardless; even in the best of times, we wouldn’t use it. Oaktree b (talk) 20:05, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: In my view this was borderline to accept. Rather than allowing it to languish I chose to accept it from this draft and allow the community to reach a conclusion. I reman steadfastly neutral when any AFC acceptance ny me is discussed at AfD. This diff shows how much the article has been edited since acceptance. I’m grateful to the nom for alerting me to this discussion. 🇵🇸‍🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦‍🇵🇸 08:17, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• We have to go by what we know. I find no evidence of the honorary/fellow claims. I cleaned up the publications, which were hopelessly incorrect and perhaps misleading, and found he is the co-editor of five of those books (yes, the “Agriculture & Environment Series” exists, though there is no evidence that he was the editor-in-chief or whatever, and three of the books were indeed edited jointly) and has some journal articles to his name. But a search through JSTOR revealed no reviews of those books so it’s hard to establish whether #1 of WP:PROF actually applies. Sure, one may feel like being the director of that soil program is a notable thing, but again, that’s a feeling (without evidence) and there is no secondary sourcing that supports that. I mean, there IS no secondary sourcing as far as I know. So going by the book, I have to be a Delete. I’m setting aside the other things mentioned here–possibly misleading citations and resume info, COI creation, etc., since they don’t really matter for a deletion discussion. Drmies (talk) 12:41, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. There seems to be some confusion here. As the infobox shows, his legal name is John Rechcigl and a search under that name (or just Rechcigl) shows he was elected a Fellow of the ASA in 1998 and of the SSSA in 1999. These are separate the societies with separate boards. The qualifications for these honorary fellowships are similar to those for other societies even if not worded exactly the same, and limited to 0.3% of the members. As a delete vote said in the 2008 AfD, High level recognition by the Soil Science Society of America or International Union of Soil Sciences would tip the balance to notability. He had been made a fellow in 1999, but searching for Jack rather than John makes it hard to find. StarryGrandma (talk) 18:14, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Or not so hard to find. The fellow awards in the 5 September 2025 version of this article were sourced to an archived ASA web site. So I am am even more confused. @Drmies, any academic’s article can be criticized for sounding like a resume since the material covered is the same. They can be rewritten rather than taking facts out. It is not appropriate to remove the fellow awards and the society references that support them and then say you can “find no evidence of the fellow claims”. I know we get swamped with promotional articles, often by admiring students or university PR people. But nobility of a person is independent of the state or origin of an article, and “wonderfulness” can be tossed out as you capably did. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:37, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I retrieved the much earlier sources for his being elected as a fellow.

  1. The one from ASA is a real source. I checked the numbers for the fellows of ASA as of about 2012. Counting the list gives ~1,800 total fellows and their membership (from Board meeting minutes) was ~8,000.
  2. The source for SSSA does not have enough information for verification. I even joined SSSA to look at his member profile, and it has no information beyond his name. I therefore tagged that source as unverified.
  3. I have reservations about the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences as this is an organisation founded and run for many years by his father Mila Rechcigl.

  N.B., I do not have access to the version of the page that was deleted in 2008. Since his being elected as a fellow predates that deletion by 10 years it seems plausible that they were not viewed as notable then. Ldm1954 (talk) 20:28, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: Gscholar shows he has 2400 something citations, but the discussion above doesn’t seem to indicate much else is notable. I can’t find any book reviews or news articles about this person, or any confirmation for the followships (besides primary sources), so it’s a !decline. Oaktree b (talk) 20:07, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep – I’ve added better sources for the ASA and SSSA fellowships, and both are available through WP:LIBRARY. The ASA one, in Agronomy Journal, contains a good page of significant coverage for a biography, though I haven’t woven this into the article yet. For me, these fellowships together meet WP:NPROF#3. I agree with Ldm1954 that the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences one is rather dubious in terms of independence, and can’t contribute to notability. I also improved some of the existing references with online sources and added an archive-url link for the CV. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 10:46, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]