Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carl Faingold

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. I'm satisfied that WP:PROF has been met. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:26, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Carl Faingold

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I've cleaned this article up a bit but after looking for additional information to add more substance, I don't think this meets WP:GNG. He's certainly had his name attached to many published papers, but they are pretty niche in content and many co-authors don't have their own pages. Looking at the page history, it appears that this may have been initially authored by a student or someone associated with him. Most recently, an IP user copy/pasted a numbered list of his papers but started at "112" which makes me think it came from somewhere else, but I can't find where. Lindsey40186 (talk) 01:09, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Lindsey40186 (talk) 01:09, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Authors, Medicine, and Illinois. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 03:28, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per WP:NPROF#1. On GS I see at least 12 publications in GS with 100+ citations which is generally beyond the bar required to clear #1. Scopus lists him at an h-index of 44 with 10 publications with 100+ citations and Scopus is generally more conservative than GS. So based on this it seems like a pretty clear cut case for NPROF#1. --hroest 10:47, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's a pretty gross misreading of WP: NPROF. It says "The person's research has had a significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources." Nowhere does it say that h-index, citation count, or publication count is a factor for establishing notability. HyperAccelerated (talk) 02:12, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, it also doesn't say that they are not factors. "The most typical way of satisfying Criterion 1 is to show that the academic has been an author of highly cited academic work – either several extremely highly cited scholarly publications or a substantial number of scholarly publications with significant citation rates. Reviews of the person's work, published in selective academic publications, can be considered together with ordinary citations here. Differences in typical citation and publication rates and in publication conventions between different academic disciplines should be taken into account." Qflib (talk) 16:25, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I also look at the bio side of it as well. It's great if someone is a highly cited writer, but if we don't have any reliable sources to form even a very basic biography (age, education, work history) then is it worth what would ostensibly be a list of journals they've contributed to? (and even in that case, we can't necessarily be sure to what extent they contributed). Lindsey40186 (talk) 17:18, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This metric is arbitrary and self-serving. If this person has 12 publications with 100+ citations and is notable, what if they only had 11? Are they still notable? What if they had 12 publications that had exactly 99 citations? Are they suddenly no longer notable? What if there are lots of self-citations? This is why reliable sourcing matters. Citation counts alone are deeply unpersuasive. HyperAccelerated (talk) 18:12, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, if the subject's citation counts are sky high, then finding reliable sourcing shouldn't be a issue. Someone would have written a reliable piece about their discoveries. The fact that several people haven't found reliable sources is evidence that the subject hasn't achieved the impact that WP:NPROF demands. HyperAccelerated (talk) 18:33, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The citations are in reliable sources. That's the point. – Joe (talk) 10:28, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Joe's exactly right, and this is the reason why WP:NPROF is constructed the way that it is at present. Qflib (talk) 18:59, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your response may be terse, but it completely misses the point.

My reading of the arguments in favor of keeping are along the lines of "The subject has X citations and an h-index of Y, and I think that's enough to establish notability". Nobody here is disputing citation counts. What is up for discussion is why this level of citation is enough to establish notability. You've also said that 5746 citations is enough to establish notability. Why? There's an equal amount of reason to believe that 5747 citations is the threshold at which we should consider a subject notable.

Furthermore, sourcing generally needs to be in-depth. Citations are often passing mentions in a related work section, which does little to establish notability.

Having specific sources in hand makes this discussion easier. I'm difficult to sell on vague, wishy-washy gestures to a collection of citations and baseless claims that the subject's citation counts just happen to be enough to satisfy the criteria for WP: NPROF. HyperAccelerated (talk) 17:48, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Author of quite a few books and peer-reviewed studies, but I don't find critical review of his books, nor any indication of the academic notability needed here. Oaktree b (talk) 13:11, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗plicit 01:32, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: Fails WP: N. I can't find any sources to establish notability. HyperAccelerated (talk) 02:16, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per WP:NPROF#1, as explained by hroast; meeting one element of WP:NPROF is enough to establish notability. Qflib (talk) 17:46, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies to hroest for the spelling error. Qflib (talk) 16:01, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting as there is no consensus. I've closed hundreds of AFD discussions and for academics, citation counts are routinely considered in discussing notability. They are not the only factor but they are a factor that shouldn't be casually dismissed as being arbitrary.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:42, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep meets WP:PROF#C1 based on citations which, yeah, like it or not, is the most common way of assessing whether someone meets WP:PROF#C1. Scopus lists 5746 citations to Faingold's papers which, in Wikipedianese, means that there are 5746 reliable sources covering Faingold's work. Most of these will be passing mentions but it is still incredibly unlikely that with more than five thousand potential sources we won't find enough to support a decent summary of his contributions to science. That's enough for an article (biographical details are nice to round it out, but not strictly necessary) and the core logic of WP:PROF. – Joe (talk) 10:26, 1 July 2024 (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.