Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Angela Gronenborn

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) 23:36, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Angela Gronenborn[edit]

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This nomination is a result of VRTS ticket # 2021012310007042, in which Angela Gronenborn has requested that the article be deleted. I am submitting it on her behalf.

I am well aware that she meets NPROF in more than one way, but I think there is a reasonable argument to be made here that WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE applies: Scientists are not inherently public figures – Angela Gronenborn has chosen not to be one. While the article is well written and has no obvious issues, I can empathise with a subject not wanting to be publicised in this manner (and not wanting to be burdened with the task of monitoring the article). I think we should honour this preference, especially since we're looking at a low-traffic, low edit-count (~50 pageviews in December, fewer than 50 edits since creation) article. I want to ask participants in this AfD to consider the request on these grounds instead of debating notability (which is clearly there). From my side, this is a strong delete for the sake of not burdening a low-profile individual. Best, Blablubbs|talk 13:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Blablubbs|talk 13:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Blablubbs|talk 13:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Biology-related deletion discussions. Blablubbs|talk 13:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. Blablubbs|talk 13:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep fascinating academic who meets NPROF in multiple ways, and thus article has encyclopaedic value. Most of the 1 million biographies are not of public figures. If we deleted them all on request we’re failing to be an encyclopaedia. To that end, BLPREQUESTDELETE also requires that the AfD be a no consensus outcome. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:53, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ProcrastinatingReader I'm not debating the encyclopaedic value of this article; I do feel that we have a duty to not do harm or cause distress to article subjects who would like their right to privacy to be honoured. We have a very real and tangible impact on the people we write about; notability should not be the be-all end-all of our considerations at AfD. You are of course correct that we'd be deleting a lot of articles if we batch-deleted biographies of low-profile individuals upon request. The thing is that most people don't mind having a Wikipedia article, and in this case they clearly do. If this was a high-traffic article about someone who had chosen to be in the public eye (or even someone who clearly met GNG, which I don't see as a given here), this would be a different story. Blablubbs|talk 14:09, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I don't know how prestigious the University of Pittsburgh is, being English, but she seems notable to me and much more notable than the numerous moinor actors,pop stars and beauty queens that seem to fill the pages of wikiopedia.Spinney Hill (talk) 13:59, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. In my opinion we should oblige the subject in this instance. The risk that all the non-public figures, or even a substantial fraction of them, will be encouraged to request deletion of their bio appears quite remote. Most people, notable or not, seem quite fond of having a Wikipedia article. Bishonen | tålk 14:12, 25 January 2021 (UTC).[reply]
Delete this seems to me to be what WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE is for. Public figures don't really get a say in whether they have an article. I think non-public figures should. Both as a point of BLP policy, and as common courtesy. WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE has been around for quite a while, and there has been no stampede of such requests. I'm reasonably confident that the user who created the article wouldn't have done so if they'd known the subject objected. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:40, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I can't see a good reason to ignore her request. And I also think Obapinia would not have created it over the subject's objections (having worked with her on ArbCom). Doug Weller talk 15:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete her positions do not make her a truly public figure, and since she is not a truly public figure we should respect her desire for privacy.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:58, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I have read the OTRS ticket and find the subject's concerns compelling. Yes, she meets NPROF; but NPROF is unique among SNGs in that it is considered to explicitly override GNG rather than to be a shortcut to meeting GNG, and as such someone can be unquestionably notable under NPROF without having received a significant amount of publicity. I appreciate that this guideline exists to further our coverage of academics, who, even when prominent in their field, don't tend to get as much media attention as reality TV stars and the like, but I think in some cases it can lead to BLP issues―these subjects are not necessarily accustomed to the exposure that a page that anyone can edit appearing as the first search result for their name entails. I believe the courtesy deletion request should be honoured. Spicy (talk) 16:44, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:20, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. As a named professor, member of multiple academic societies, president of a major academic society, etc., the subject does not in any sense have a low profile as an academic. This is not the kind of borderline case that WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE can apply to. We should have articles on all academics at this level, regardless of their preferences. And the arguments above that "WP:PROF is special and therefore we should ignore it when we want to" make no sense and are not grounded in policy or guidelines. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:22, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, obviously. I wrote this article a few years ago, along with several others on significant figures in protein NMR. I'm not on OTRS and haven't seen the ticket, but I see no reason we shouldn't respect the subject's request. She may not be "low-profile" in an academic sense, but even fairly prominent academics are often low-profile in the sense of public attention. We have lots of coverage gaps on "notable" people with low public profiles, no need to insist on filling this one over the subject's objections. Opabinia regalis (talk) 18:37, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, obviously. Being an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences as well as of several other academies already denotes a major scientific figure and in fact a public figure too because of the unique status of the National Academy of Sciences in the American public life. We should never delete articles about subjects with that level of notability. The subject has in fact received a substantial amount of publicity as is easily demonstated by the independent coverage related to her numerous significant awards and honors. Here are a few sample references, just off the top of the basic google search [1][2][3][4]. WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE does not apply to famous scientists like this one. Nsk92 (talk) 18:45, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- I have previously said that I don't think it's sensible to debate this on notability grounds, but I do want to point out that

is an award announcement by the granting organisation
is a lecturer bio of a university she worked at
is an announcement for a talk she held, put out by the organisation that hosted the talk
does appear to be independent, but is not in-depth coverage

In short, none of those could be used to demonstrate that she meets GNG. Blablubbs|talk 19:27, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, clearly she doesn't pass Wikipedia:Notability (sports) or Wikipedia:Notability (astronomical objects). But why should we care whether she passes GNG when she so obviously and easily passes an unrelated notability criterion, WP:PROF? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:45, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete at subject's request. Although she passes WP:Prof, the wish of a non-public figure for privacy should be respected. At this moment in history we are seeing the tremendous harm that can be done by social media, and people who wish to avoid social media should be encouraged to. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:41, 26 January 2021 (UTC).[reply]
Comment It seems contradictory to argue both that the article gives the subject unwanted publicity and that it is low-traffic. Maybe I'm missing something important (it's been a long day), but if I were trying to publicize myself and my Wikipedia article had a page-view count in the tens per month, I'd fire my agent. On a more general note, does anyone else have the feeling that we've been seeing more WP:BLPREQUESTDELETEs of scientist biographies lately? XOR'easter (talk) 07:13, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I get the impression that there are a few more requests, mostly from women, and I think that is a good thing. As I said above, more people are starting to realize that social media is a two-edged sword with dangerously sharp edges and they want to get a safe distance away from it. Xxanthippe (talk) 08:39, 26 January 2021 (UTC).[reply]

Wikipedia isn’t social media, and the same/similar info on this page can be found on the result one above this one when Googling the subject’s name. Not to mention the claim about having to monitor the page for vandalism seems mistaken, not least because there’s been no such thing in 5 years. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:23, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Unlike Xxanthippe I happen to think that it's a bad thing that certain elements of society harass prominent women merely for being prominent women, to such an extent that it becomes distinctly noticeable that more of these "please hide me from the internet" requests come from women than from men. And I also think that giving in to this pressure and hiding the prominent women from Wikipedia is accomplishing the harassers' agenda for them and is the opposite of what we should want to be doing. I have no access to the OTRS ticket and have no idea whether any of that fits this particular case, but I have some evidence in other cases and strongly suspect it's a more general pattern. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:58, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Straw person. Needless to say, if it had not been for the subject's wish I would have voted Strong Keep. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:17, 28 January 2021 (UTC).[reply]

Yes, women, please listen to Mr. David Eppstein for further instructions on how to live your own life and manage your own affairs. He is a white male and knows more than you do. It's for your own good. (That might normally be too snarky, but anyone who starts off "Unlike Xxanthippe I happen to think that it's a bad thing..." is a jerk and has no right to complain.) --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:22, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum to my comment: it's hard to evaluate WP:BLPREQUESTDELETEs without knowing why exactly the subject wishes deletion, particularly when the article content is the same kind of impersonal biography found on a faculty website. Do they fear that having a Wikipedia article makes them seem overly self-promotional? (I could see that for an early-career researcher, but hardly for someone who is already Fellow of everything.) Are they the subject of a harassment campaign? That is serious, but we have measures to deal with it like page protection which they might not be aware of. In this particular case, I'm not sure that Dr. Gronenborn can aptly be called a "low-profile" or "non-public" individual. Being a society president means voluntarily taking a position where one is the public face of an organization with, in this case, thousands of members. XOR'easter (talk) 17:13, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep - I respect the prof's preference that she not have a Wikipedia article ... but it is simply her preference. She is notable. Is this a case where she's embarrassed that Wikipedia is the first search result? This is a nicely written article; I fail to see how it is an undue burden. I can't read the ticket, but, unlike other BLP tickets, a youthful (or not-so-youthful) indiscretion or legal matter has not been dug up and come back to bite her... Caro7200 (talk) 20:26, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I'm curious if there is a threshold for NPROF where a (non-public) subject's academic profile is strong enough that it overrides a deletion request? She is cited 40,815 times in 24,799 documents, has a Science article cited 1,138 times, and has an h-index of 108. How high would any of these parameters have to get before we would decline deletion? If he had a similar lack of coverage by the general media, would we honor a request from George Davey Smith, whose h-index is 212? Zhonglin Wang, with 223? JoelleJay (talk) 20:37, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a co-author on a paper that has been cited 1,482 times (not first author and my other metrics don't compare to Gronenborn's). That makes me think that the work described in our paper warrants coverage on Wikipedia (and it is covered in a Wikipedia article). It does not make me think that I or any of the other authors warrant a Wikipedia page. All these metrics imply to me that Gronenborn's work is notable and I hope it is covered on Wikipedia. I don't think that makes Gronenborn notable enough to override a WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE. I realise WP:NPROF confounds scholarly citation with personal notability, but notability is WP:NOTINHERITED! So I guess what I'm saying is that no bibliometric should override WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE; the question to ask is whether there are lots of articles about the person that make them a public figure. If someone has the most cited ever paper in a field and doesn't want a Wikipedia article, no problem, we can do an article on that paper. Bondegezou (talk) 11:06, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete private, non-public person and in the spirit of policy. The way to combat Wikipedias systemic bias and gender gap is not to force women into the spotlight who don't want to be there, it's to acknowledge the bias and do better and you know, actually listen to women, not force the spotlight onto private individuals who are not otherwise notable aside from one archaic guideline that is Wikipedia specific. CUPIDICAE💕 14:05, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Unambiguous pass of WP:NPROF C3 and C5, and I think it's also pretty strong for C1. I take WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE as intended for somewhat marginal cases, and I don't see anything marginal here at all. I disagree that university professors are not public figures -- part of the job is to be famous in a low-key and localized manner. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 16:03, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Yes, WP:NPROF is met, but that's not what WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE asks. It asks whether the person is a "relatively unknown, non-public figure". In clicking around to figure out exactly what that meant, I wound up at WP:LPI and the section on Eminence caught my attention. I'm no expert on the world of academia, but from what I understand it's expected that a person who's been around this long has racked up triple-digit publications and a strong handful of chairs and other titles. The subject here may be an expert in her field, but how well-known is she outside of her field? From what I can tell she's gone out of the way to be as private a person as she can given the field she's chosen to work in, and my reading of the OTRS ticket does nothing to dissuade me from that. This isn't a situation where notability needs to overcome the deletion policy. The deletion policy has simply thrown the tiebreaker in the article subject's favor, where "no consensus" here means "delete", rather than "status quo", and the community can make its decision, as it always has. ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 21:45, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't say it's expected that a person who's been around this long has racked up triple-digit publications and a strong handful of chairs and other titles. Longevity isn't the same thing as influence. Not everyone who's hung around gets elected president of a scientific society, elected to the NAS, chosen to be a Fellow of the RSC, etc. We're talking about a really strong set of recognitions here. XOR'easter (talk) 22:02, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Per WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE. In general I would oppose this request but the reasons laid out have convinced me that we should honor it in this case and remove the article. -- Dane ^talk 21:58, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with a complete rewrite or delete and rewrite. A google search brings up too much biographical information, including recent major awards, to be considered a very private person rather than an important scientist. Someone googling her will find a large amount of material, not just our Wikipedia article:

https://www.structbio.pitt.edu/index.php/12-faculty/2-angela-gronenborn

https://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/great-expectations

https://www.biophysics.org/profiles/angela-m-gronenborn

https://www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/people/040119/gronenborn-wins-asbmb-mildred-cohn-award

"Congrats to Angela M. Gronenborn from the University of Pittsburgh, the 2020 winner of the E. Bright Wilson Award in Spectroscopy for pioneering work on the development of NMR spectroscopy for determining 3-D structures of biological macromolecules in solution and extraordinary service to the chemistry community. (American Chemical Society)"

Our article, however, doesn't say what those google results say. Instead it focuses on her work with a colleague who is her former husband. He is also listed as an influence on her in the infobox, the usual insulting idea that if a woman and a man work together, the ideas must have come from him. Her former husband's article doesn't even mention her. StarryGrandma (talk) 00:04, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, per WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE. I am aware that the subject passes WP:NPROF. However, given that she is relatively unknown outside of her field, the request should be honored. ExRat (talk) 02:16, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The article doesn't mention (except in the infobox) that she is a member of the US National Academy of Science, which it should. Since she accepted this, I don't think she can really claim to be a wholly private figure. Her university carries a similar bio. If we delete this, it feeds claims of gender bias. If the ex-husband issues are the problem, they should perhaps be adjusted. Johnbod (talk) 07:07, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE. This isn't someone who is a widely known figure, so whether or not they pass WP:NPROF we should honour the subject's request. stwalkerster (talk) 21:32, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE and as per the reasoning of multiple editors above. As a professor myself, I feel WP:NPROF is relatively easy to pass. WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE refers to "relatively unknown, non-public figures", so what counts as "relatively unknown, non-public"? I'd say someone who fails WP:GNG and this person appears to fail WP:GNG. Ergo, WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE applies, ergo we respect the request. Bondegezou (talk) 10:53, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE and the many other rationales already listed above. As Blablubbs stated earlier, it's important to consider that there absolutely is an impact on the people whom we write about. Perryprog (talk) 21:16, 4 February 2021 (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.