Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/S. Mageswaran

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. Vanamonde (Talk) 13:44, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

S. Mageswaran[edit]

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Fails the criteria of WP:NSCHOLAR. Specifically fails Criterium 1 - 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. (Google Scholar doesn't indicate high citation rates). Lesser administrative posts (provost, dean, department chair, etc.) are generally not sufficient to qualify under Criterion 6 alone. Noting the University of Jaffna is a primary source. Dan arndt (talk) 01:31, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: People, Academics and educators, Engineering, and Sri Lanka. Dan arndt (talk) 01:31, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. See the citation numbers at https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22mageswaran+sivapathasuntharam%22&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5 Eastmain (talk • contribs) 03:07, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: likely meets WP:NSCHOLAR criterion 1,d:

"…naming of academic awards or lecture series after a particular person; and others."

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 03:25, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, apart from the fact that this is reliant on an outdated unreliable primary source (WordPress is not usually considered an acceptable or reliable source) - which indicates that the lectures only went until 2017 not that they are ongoing. There are no independent/secondary sources provided to confirm this. Dan arndt (talk) 03:52, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a notice from 2022, which does not appear to be on Wordpress. However, In much of the world, hosting official webpages on free hosting websites like Wordpress is perfectly normal, and that seems to be what the University of Jaffna or the particular department is doing in this case. The relevant guideline should therefore be something like WP:BLOGS: is this credibly the University of Jaffna's website being hosted on Wordpress, and is the University of Jaffna credible on this issue? To my mind the answer is yes on both counts. - Astrophobe (talk) 17:31, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The fact he was founding professor of chemistry and head of the chemistry department at the University of Jaffna strongly suggests he held an established chair, which meets the criteria of WP:NACADEMIC #5: The person has held a named chair appointment or distinguished professor appointment at a major institution of higher education and research, or an equivalent position in countries where named chairs are uncommon. (Italics mine). -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:35, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: The nomination rationale is at odds with the definition of WP:NSCHOLAR in multiple important ways. The nominator writes that the article subject "Fails the criteria of WP:NSCHOLAR. Specifically fails Criterium 1". The section that defines NSCHOLAR says: "Academics meeting any one of the following conditions, as substantiated through reliable sources, are notable" (emphasis in the original). It is fully expected that many notable academics will not meet any number of the criteria in NSCHOLAR. Failing to meet a criterion under NSCHOLAR is not grounds for deletion; if just one of the criteria is satisfied, then the subject has presumed notability. Discounting notability because of their google scholar hits is a particularly bad misreading of WP:NSCHOLAR, because there is a caution specifically against reliance on Google Scholar in the guideline itself, at Wikipedia:Notability_(academics)#Citation_metrics. In this case, with an academic who would have written mostly in offline sources, maybe not in English, before the internet age, who does not have a google scholar profile, of course google scholar will show low numbers of citations compared to contemporary academics publishing online in English. In light of that, Necrothesp's point looks correct to me. Criterion 5 specifically acknowledges that the particular practice of being a "named chair" is culturally and temporally quite specific, but the motivation for this criterion is that universities regularly have internal mechanisms for signaling which of their faculty they believe are highly notable for their academic work, so that we can capture that kind of notability on Wikipedia. The page subject clearly received numerous such acknowledgements of notability, from being the founding chair of the department and dean of the science faculty, being credited by the university and in the news as a pioneer in the department and of Sri Lankan chemistry generally, and being the subject of a named lectureship and a student award. The nominator has responded above that nearly all of these should be discounted because they are not properly independent of the article subject. The lack of independent sources would be a concern for demonstrating notability under WP:GNG, which I would agree is not met. But meeting NSCHOLAR is sufficient for presumed notability, separate and apart from GNG. Regarding simple statements of fact ("there was a lecture named after this academic"), it is perfectly acceptable to use a university's own declaration of the lecture series. Unless there is serious reason to suspect that the University of Jaffna is fabricating the lectureship, the award, the department chair position, the dean position, and so on (is there any such reason for doubt?), this is a perfectly acceptable use of a source that is not independent of the subject of the article. Even if it were a primary source published by the article subject himself, WP:PRIMARYSOURCE says that "Primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia", but "only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts". This aren't even primary sources, so I don't see any issue with using them to make statements of fact. All of that said, !voters should ask themselves: what would a Sri Lankan chemist of the 1980s have to do to be classed as notable? Unless someone can cast serious factual doubt on the existence of this person or the University of Jaffna's credibility in describing the positions he held and the honours he was given, the subject of this article has all the traces that we associate with academic notability. - Astrophobe (talk) 17:23, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -- per Astrophobe and Necrothesp -- the named lecture series as a notable university is enough for WP:PROF. -- Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert (talk) 06:31, 11 August 2023 (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.