Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brian Martin (professor)

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. Cirt (talk) 00:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Brian Martin (professor)[edit]

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Lack of evidence of notability. It seems to be about a non-notable professor with some outspoken views, but no obvious indication of notability. The only source is his own university page, the organisation he's involved with is itself not notable, and the recent books publications seem neither academically or normally mainstream. A google search turns up nothing (though it's a difficult name to search for). JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 19:38, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Subject's fringe views are mostly self-published. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 19:51, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Try Freedom Press, long-standing London-based publisher of anarchist books. He has 3 books in print there and at least one more that I know of ("Strip the Experts", 1991 ISBN 0900384638). AllyD (talk) 23:23, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. As DGG once said, full professors at major universities are almost always notable. Google search turns up quite a lot here. Martin's CV is here. He has a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Sydney and worked for a time at the prestigious CSIRO. He is author of a dozen books and over 200 major articles and chapters. Johnfos (talk) 21:27, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

* comment just being a professor does not make him notable anywhere - for guidelines see WP:PROF. The google search you've linked to just turns up information that's on his web page, i.e. a few books by fringe publishers. The cv and other info is from his web site, and just working for anyone is irrelevant (I could list more notable organisations I've worked for, it does not make me at all notable).--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 22:04, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I wonder if Martin's website is causing some confusion here. Almost all the material on the website is published elsewhere, but he is apparently making it easily and freely available on one site. Original sources for the material are given in each case. For example, Martin's CV is also on the university website here. Hope this helps. Johnfos (talk) 22:19, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

comment no, no confusion here. My point was it's not an indication of notability that he's had books published - anyone can do that, and its very common in academia. "Material" on his website and a mirror of his cv do nothing to establish notability. See WP:PROF for a list of things that establish notability. Based on the article as it stands he comes close to none of them.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 22:42, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What 3rd parties, intellectually independent of the subject, has covered him in depth? If they cannot be found, he's NN, see WP:ANYBIO that WP:PROF does not trump. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 22:54, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep As I've noted above, Martin has a long publishing history with Freedom Press, both in books and in journal articles (e.g. "Compulsory Voting: A useful target for anti-state action?" in The Raven (journal) no 14, 1991). AllyD (talk) 23:27, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- WP:PROF states: "Simply having authored a large number of published academic works is not considered sufficient to satisfy Criterion 1." Not !voting yet though as I haven't fully evaluated this guy. --Mkativerata (talk) 00:44, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. — Gongshow ^Talk 00:09, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions. —Grahame (talk) 00:38, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep. A major figure in suppression of dissent, academic freedom issues, particularly in Australia. Try searching for "Brian Martin" not "Brian Martin (professor)" and add a few search terms like "academic freedom". Xxanthippe (talk) 00:44, 29 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Keep - I can see quite a few news articles (most of which are for Professor Martin). Seems to have been written about sufficiently for a verifyable, reliably-sourced article - Peripitus (Talk) 02:04, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The same search on Google turns up 25,700 Ghits. It is strange that the nominator says that a Google search turns up nothing. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:14, 29 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]

I won't disagree that my google-fu is easily bested by more experienced editors; I did not think of adding his location. But ghits are not an indication of notability, not are books he's written (unless they are significant enough to make him notable as an author). That needs independent, secondary coverage of him or his work, and it needs to referenced be in the article.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 08:19, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Read the news articles. News articles seem to be independant and secondary. I can't see what the problem is - Peripitus (Talk) 20:16, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A person should be the subject of independent, secondary material, not simply mentioned in a few news items over two decades. Most of the news items found by that search are for other people – a judge and mayor and broadcaster in Autralia – and I don't see one that is significantly on him.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 20:38, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've now incorporated some text and refs from Peripitus's search (BBC, ABC) and more (Australian Senate Inquiry) into the article. That still leaves others (Washington Post behind a pay-per-view) which might be added. I'd say these are strong and clear indications of what used to be called a "public intellectual". AllyD (talk) 21:03, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Clarifying some confusion here - the nom has repeatedly said that secondary coverage is required to meet the notability standards of WP:PROF. However, the page as of now has criterion 1, which says "The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources". Note 1 says "The most typical way of satisfying Criterion 1 is to show that the academic has been an author of highly cited academic work". For the purposes of academics, their work being cited can provide evidence of notability. This is necessary because there are plenty of notable, prolific researchers who do not have articles devoted to them. A search for Brian Martin in Google Scholar turns up his 1979 "Numerical inversion of the Laplace transform..." article, which is shown as cited in GScholar 287 times. Note 2 of WP:PROF cautions that GScholar may underestimate citation hits; it can also overestimate the number of low-quality hits, but in this case the vast majority of hits are to peer-reviewed journal articles. Regardless even of Martin's mathematical and physics research, he is a prominent researcher on scientific controversy and scientific dissent, and is cited in news articles for comments on such topics (see news hits above). II | (t - c) 17:26, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

comment The paper is Numerical Inversion of the Laplace Transform: a Survey and Comparison of Methods, i.e. a review of other people's work on an undergraduate level technique. Hardly a "significant impact in their scholarly discipline" (Criterion 1 at WP:PROF). It also unrelated to why the article says he is notable.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 19:26, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Xxianthipe and II. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 17:52, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Scientific dissent is not an academic department and it looks like Brian Martin agrees with scientific dissenters more then he is a researcher of scientific dissent. MiRroar (talk) 18:11, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Surely Martin's particular positions and views are irrelevant to this discussion? (WP:NPOV) AllyD (talk) 21:14, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Brian Martin is a whistleblower who has headed a whistleblower unit at an international level. His role means that whistleblowers will contact him in relation to their issues, and any of substance he will speak out on, hence the appearance of speaking for dissenters, which is merely an adjunct to his current work. His work is unique and serves a function recognized by University allowing research and development in his field. I understand he had to blow the whistle on some issue that involved his work in Physics in the late '70s and has pursued that subsequently to allow other whistleblowers knowledge on how to appropriately deal with issues. DDB (talk) 20:29, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. A search of Google Scholar with author:Brian Martin, and picking out the relevant hits, gives cites of 287, 83, 81, 65, 57, 60, 53, 43, 41, 36, 36, 31, 26, 24, 24, 24, 24, 23, 23, 23, 22, 21, 21, 20, 20...etc. giving an h index of 21. A clear pass of WP:Prof #1. Again, it is surprising that the nominator of this AfD missed this data. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:46, 30 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Comment. This is among the worst researched AfD nominations that I have seen on these pages. I suggest that the nominator withdraw it to avoid wasting further the time of editors who are already overburdened by the current deletion frenzy. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:21, 1 February 2010 (UTC).[reply]

comment thank you or the suggestion, but I am still unconvinced. Currently despite the efforts of other editors the article still has nowhere near enough evidence of notability for it to be kept. It's not even clear what he is notable for. If it's his contributions to physics or mathematics then they are not given in the article: it only says he received a PhD in physics and taught applied maths. If it's as a social scientist then there's no evidence: just a list of self-published or small-press opinion pieces. The main references are his own website and one of his books. The independent coverage is very thin and none is primarily about him.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 09:17, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I find this continued assertion baffling... Are the British and Australian Broadcasting Corporations references self-published or small-press? Is the footnoted BBC report on "one of the best-attended sessions at the British Association's Festival of Science" directly quoting Martin an example of "thin" independent coverage? AllyD (talk) 17:49, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm finding this whole AfD a bit baffling -- seldom have I seen an AfD with so many repetitive interjections from the nominator. Johnfos (talk) 18:01, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep Reliable sources show that he is notable and the article is important. - Ret.Prof (talk) 20:09, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I'm not at all sure he is actually notable as a mathematician or a physicist or an astronomer; When I did the citation count, the only even moderately cited articles in these fields were done as part of a large team, or as a junior worker. But he switched fields; the majority of his published work, including all of his books, does not really fit into any one academic field; his university calls it " Science, technology, and society" but I usually think of it as Science Studies, or, in his particular case, Sociology of Science. --studies about science. His particular topics are things I find rather difficult to judge academic notability, because they are really quite diverse. But in any case he is certainly notable as an author. DGG ( talk ) 04:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

After his career change he made himself notable as an academic sociologist and his cites show it. Because of his science background much, but not all, of his work has been on science-related issues. I do not think that one can throw a person out of the WP:Prof category because they are one of the few practicioners in a non-standard field. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:03, 3 February 2010 (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.