Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pierre-Marie Robitaille

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 delete. Black Kite (talk) 16:45, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Pierre-Marie Robitaille

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Seems to fail WP:BIO for WP:ONEEVENT reasons. jps (talk) 13:36, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Doing a bit a research with this tool found that this article wasn't an orphan at one time, as it was actually linked to List of Big Bang Cosmology Dissidents. That article is also nominated for deletion. Aerospeed (Talk) 15:14, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Concur with nom. Small amount of coverage for only a single event. Not notable. IRWolfie- (talk) 17:05, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The subject does have a slight amount of notability due to the full page ad in the NYT and the follow-up article, but on the other hand, it didn't get coverage anywhere else, and I don't think we need a Wikipedia article on every "man bites dog" story that appears in the NYT, let alone every kooky paid advertisement. Also, I think this article was created specifically to generate notability so the guy could be added to the "List of Big Bang Dissidents", which is another problematic article. This technique of manufacturing mutually referential articles promoting fringe POVs is not consistent with Wikipedia policy.Urgent01 (talk) 18:35, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Formerly Director of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Research for the Department of Medicine of Ohio State University from 1989-2000. If this isn't notable I don't know what is. Reasons for deletion are dis-functional. Wavyinfinity (talk) 00:00, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:35, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:35, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:35, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:35, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep. GS h-index of 17 passes WP:Prof#C1 for his mainstream work. Fringe work is amusing but WP:BLP1E. Former directorship of MRI Center is not remotely notable see WP:Prof#C6. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:45, 10 February 2014 (UTC).[reply]
- How would you write an article on the basis of h-index? What sources do you use? Do you reference the highly cited papers? This is a biography, not a bibliography, after all. jps (talk) 03:23, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Read WP:Prof, its talk and archives. Best wishes. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:48, 10 February 2014 (UTC).[reply]

I don't think there is anything in that notability guideline that indicates how one is to write an article when all the sources are just the person's corpus of work. High h-index can be considered evidence for notability, but by itself it cannot serve as a the sole reliable source for a biography. jps (talk) 11:54, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We can't even reliably say his birth year. IRWolfie- (talk) 01:08, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

From article "July 12, 2010 marks the 50th birthday of Professor Pierre- Marie Robitaille". Xxanthippe (talk) 01:17, 11 February 2014 (UTC).[reply]

The article you are using is a fringe source with no reputation for fact checking. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:07, 16 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Keep. Agree with Xxan across the board. Robitaille's former position as a director does not render him notable per se, but he does have a large body of published work. Radiology is a high-citation field, but his WoS h-index of 25 is probably significant within that field. There's sufficient WP:RS in his body of work to support at least a stub. More bio would be nice, but it's not a necessary requirement for a WP article. Agricola44 (talk) 18:13, 10 February 2014 (UTC).[reply]
Comment. Here is another case where GS h-index is less than WoS one! Xxanthippe (talk) 21:25, 10 February 2014 (UTC).[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, The Bushranger _{One ping only} 08:07, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I think there are two different aspects that might be considered grounds for notability. First, recall that the article was created specifically to promote Robitaille's non-mainstream views on astronomy and cosmology. (The editor who created the article has subsequently been banned from editing on those subjects.) Robitaille has written (as the sole author) a large number of papers on these subjects, but none have appeared in mainstream reputable journals. He also paid for a full page ad in the New York Times to present his views, and a follow-up article describing this incident also appeared in the New York Times. Someone might claim that this is notable, but I think the consensus here is that none of this makes him notable. So, if this was the whole story, the article would have been a speedy delete.

However, during the course of this deletion discussion it was pointed out that Robitaille is listed as author (or rather, co-author) on several papers (involving radiology) that have appeared in reputable journals, and it's been suggested that these papers might meet the threshold of notability as a radiologist researcher. I did a google search and just randomly grabbed one of these mainstream papers:

Article: Changes in concentrations of neuroendocrine hormones and catecholamines in dogs with myocardial failure induced by rapid ventricular pacing.

Brian M Roche, Denise Schwartz, Robert A Lehnhard, Kenneth H McKeever, Tomohiro Nakayama, Timothy E Kirby, Pierre-Marie L Robitaille, Robert L Hamlin

American Journal of Veterinary Research 11/2002; 63(10):1413-7. · 1.35 Impact Factor

I don't claim this is representative, I just grabbed one at random. I assume this is a reputable journal, and the paper is mainstream research... but I'm not sure how much this counts toward notability for Robitaille, because he isn't really a Veterinarian, he is a radiologist. I'm not qualified to even guess what his contribution to this paper might have been. For all I know, the main authors might have just asked him to take an MRI of the dogs. I'm in the same boat when I try to assess the other papers on which he is listed as co-author. What we would like, ideally, is an independent reputable secondary source that says Robitaille is notable in the field of veterinary research, or radiology, or whatever. But secondary sources that mention him seem to be scarce. I'm reluctant to simply use an undigested tally of papers on which he is listed as co-author as verifiable proof of notability. We could really use an independent secondary source.

Also, the existing article is focused on the non-mainstream views and the NYT incident, which is (let's face it) a lot more notable to the average person than all those papers combined. A Wikipedia article is supposed to be focused on the notable aspects of the subject, so if the article is retained on the grounds that he is notable as a radiology researcher but not as a cosmologist or dissident scientist, then the article would need to be completely re-written.Urgent01 (talk) 00:41, 21 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

His h-index is 26, I10-index about 39 or so by google scholar (which is always on the high side) which doesn't sound notably high. It seems standard for a professor whose chief publishing was in the 90s, but the value is field dependent. Second Quantization (talk) 21:05, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

~~Weak keep~~Weak delete It was pointed out to me that the slightly amusing nature of the entry doesn't play well with WP:BLP still don't feel very srong one way or the other but should probably adjust. Striking through my previous comments. ~~Suggest expanding on the WP:PROF side of the equation with additional sources to more clearly demonstrate notability.~~Simonm223 (talk) 14:17, 22 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Admittedly it is pretty amusing, particularly the last line: "The Times ad cost nearly a year of Robitaille's salary. When asked why he didn't just put it on the standard preprint archive, he replied that he didn't know it existed." Second Quantization (talk) 20:54, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, it can be difficult to read motivation, but the way that the article is written now pretty much seems based to poke fun at the subject rather than construct a neutral biography. With that said, I find the arguments made for notability above to be marginal and unconvincing. He might be on the cusp of being a notable professor, but since we can't be sure and this is a BLP, we should err on the side of caution. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 12:07, 2 March 2014 (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.