Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Luboš Motl (3rd nomination)

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The result was Nomination withdrawn with no calls for deletion. Non-admin closure. Regent of the Seatopians (talk) 00:27, 7 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Luboš Motl[edit]

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Apparently non-notable scientist. This article was previously nominated for deletion in 2005 and 2007, but our standards have changed since then, and I believe it does not pass our inclusion standards today. Specifically, it fails WP:PROF and WP:BIO. I can't find any significant coverage of the subject in reliable sources; he has plenty of mentions in blogs, but as I understand it they are generally not reliable sources. A search for his name on Google Scholar finds 51 results, which does not seem like a great deal. In short, there seems to be nothing particularly significant or exceptional about him that justifies him having a biography on Wikipedia. Robofish (talk) 16:19, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is possible, however, that the diacritic in his name is making him difficult to search for. I have found a few reliable sources that mention him as 'Lubos Motl', and this New York Times article from 2001: [1]. I'm not sure that's sufficient for our purposes, though. Robofish (talk) 16:23, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I believe he has left string theory, his speciality in physics. Notabiliy may have to be established on other grounds. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:30, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. It appears so, but that only prevents him from increasing his notability as a physicist; it does nothing to diminish the notability of his existing accomplishments. We don't delete articles on dead academics just because they have become inactive. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:52, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Subject is notable as a blogger and a major contributor to and provocateur of the debate on string theory. See for example [this discussion of his role http://stevens.edu/csw/?p=4]. There was considerable discussion of this side of his notability on the article talk page; whether or not he made major scientific contributions to string theory is the kind of thing people can debate in the case of almost anybody but it seems indisputable that he created a widely followed blog and a strong community of interest. betsythedevine (talk) 19:20, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:34, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:34, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:38, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. It doesn't matter how many pubs he has, it matters how good they are. Four with over 100 cites each and an h-index around 20 is somewhat above our usual threshold for WP:PROF#C1. And (though it's a trivial mention of him) I think when one's blogging activities rise to the level of attention in the Times [2] that the case for being notable for that is quite plausible as well. He appears not to have been tenured at Harvard but that's par for the course there and nothing to be ashamed of. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:44, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep: From what David says it sounds like the subject has been significant in his former field (100 cites seems a lot to me), but the article itself does a very poor job of conveying this importance. It still needs to provide evidence for this notability. Although, I say that but have no idea how one does this for an academic who's "gone feral". Usually one can rely on a strong publication record together with leadership of scientific societies or receipt of prizes, but that probably doesn't apply here. --PLUMBAGO 21:13, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The publication record is sufficient to meet WP:PROF; the awards and leadership factors are an easy way of showing notability when present, but they are not necessary. Our standards for researchers have gotten considerably more consistent since the earlier AfDs, but they have not gotten more exclusive. And , as I said last time, a physicist "prepared to defend the Bogdanov brothers' papers in public" is notable all the more, in a perverse way". There really ought to be some material to cite commenting on his decision to do that. DGG ( talk ) 23:09, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. GS h index of 16, although these include some arXiv papers, plus fame as a blogger suffices. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:26, 6 August 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Keep Due to cited publications: Using (Motl L) Web of science calculates a h-index of 8 and total citations of 419 for the 12 articles (see here User:Msrasnw/Motl). Scopus also yields a h-index of 8 (Msrasnw (talk) 01:54, 6 August 2010 (UTC))[reply]
Comment. Fox News calls him a "Leading European scientist", and since he is in fact a failed academic trying to get publicity by bloggery, maybe the best thing is an article that simply tells the truth about him. Abductive (reasoning) 05:22, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: These assorted citation counts and h-index values are good, but can we cite them in the article? And how do we source them? I've had a not dissimilar problem in an article about a book that's been cited several hundred times in the primary literature. In that case there seemed to be no good way to cite this information, since dismissive editors cried WP:OR because I'd done the count. In passing, Abductive - I don't think that we can reasonably describe the subject as a "failed" academic. Yes, people leave academia because they find it too difficult, but given this subject's apparent significance to his field, it sounds like other factors are in play. Possibly he's just had enough of string theory? It is a vast theoretical edifice scraping around for observations to test it against - hardly a satisfactory field to find oneself in. Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 08:15, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the above comment. There are many physicists of Motl's age who who be happy to have his citation record. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:19, 6 August 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Keep. Subject is WikiNotable, given the 2001 New York Times article mentioned by Robofish and the oft-cited publications. Without a good secondary source about Dr Motl's move back to the Czech Republic, we're not going to be able to write a really good encyclopedia article about him, but we can have a article significantly better than the current one. CWC 11:30, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
AFD Withdrawn. Given that everyone above is satisfied he meets our guidelines, I'm happy to withdraw this. Just one request: could someone explain to me how to find out someone's h-index, so I avoid making more silly AfDs in future? Robofish (talk) 19:25, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- (1) Choose an index of academic citations. I usually use Google scholar, which works pretty well for high energy physics (Motl's area) and theoretical computer science (mine) but badly for some others. (2) Get a list of publications of the subject, sorted by number of citations. To find publications for Motl in Google scholar, for instance, search for author:l-motl. In some cases you need to be more careful to include variant spellings of the subject's name or to exclude hits from different people with similar names. Google scholar mostly sorts by number of citations (although there are exceptions that I don't really understand the reasons for). (3) Scan down the list until reaching a position x such that the paper in that position has fewer than x citations. The h-index is x−1. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:07, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - There's also an article at h-index (oh, and keep per Xxanthippe). -- Radagast 3 (talk) 22:52, 6 August 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.