Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/José Martínez Gázquez

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 There appears to exist enough notability to warrant the article staying in place, however strong sourcing would help to improve the article. RickinBaltimore (talk) 13:16, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

José Martínez Gázquez[edit]

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H-index of 10, high citation count under 90. None of his positions appear to meet WP:NSCHOLAR. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 16:52, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 16:52, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Spain-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 17:01, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep (but I'm lukewarm about it). An h of 10 would be pretty unimpressive for a biochemist of essentially my age, but you can't expect the same for a philologist, for which it is closer to respectable, and compares well with h for another philologist that I've checked. Athel cb (talk) 18:46, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
keep while I know little of the field, he has gotten some honors including a PhD honoris causa and according to GS his citations would place him in the top 20 of the field: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=search_authors&mauthors=label%3Aphilology&btnG= which is impressive. --hroest 13:24, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That google scholar list is meaningless, it simply list those academics with a google scholar profile who have added Phililogy to their profile - If I look at my own profile I have keywords where I am in the top 4 of academics! So no, that is not a meaningful metric. Polyamorph (talk) 09:37, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I merely wanted to point out that this is a low citation field. It can be meaningless if you define your field to be narrow enough, but "philology" doesnt seem to be a narrow field to me. Also it is meaningful if you compare it to other fields such as this. But I agree, it may not be very meaningful but may provide some insight. The question is whether people in the field would tag themselves as such and how many of them are even on GS. --hroest 20:28, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep given they appear to broadly satisfy WP:PROF, but should be tagged as poorly referenced! Also noting the extremely weak notability criteria for sports persons I am biased towards inclusion of biographies of academics who actually contribute to advancing human knowledge, as opposed to simply being known for kicking a ball around a muddy field. Polyamorph (talk) 09:37, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That is a good point, but even with academics we still want to include those that actually advance human knowledge and not simply everybody who ever published a paper. Once you try to define that, it becomes a bit more tricky and often there are no WP:RS on academics which makes the whole issue even harder. That is why we have WP:NPROF. --hroest 20:28, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly if someone in sports can have a Wikipedia article on the basis of a single entry in a sports statistics almanac, then we can afford to be a bit more lenient for academics. Personally I think WP:NPROF is too restrictive, but that's the nature of higher expectations in academia in general. But this is not part of my reasoning for my keep !vote since I believe that in broad terms WP:NPROF is satisfied, albeit borderline. Polyamorph (talk) 21:18, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Polyamorph, I wholeheartedly agree. However, that's not the parameter for notability currently. Based on the current criteria, this person simply doesn't fit them. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 00:42, 3 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree with Polyamorph and onel5969 both and that is also what motivated my vote, but what I find most frustrating is how inconsistent the current criteria are used, in some cases we see strong articles about relatively strong academics deleted and then in other cases someone clearly non-notable in their early career gets kept. In general, if a person was given a tenure track professorship, that often means a committee of peers (more knowledgeable than Wikipedia editors about the field in question) decided that the contribution to research and scholarship of that person merits one of the highest positions at a University. Looking at the discussion here it clearly looks like we actually have noone even remotely familiar with the field here in Wikipedia,I see a biochemist, a physicist and a computational biologist here trying to figure out if a philologist is notable. --hroest 03:36, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We very clearly do not want to deem every person holding a tenure track position to be notable. 15 years ago I think some people failed to think of how such a view would play our on a global scale. I am coming to think even our deeming those who hold named chairs as notable may not be reasonable considering the huge number of named chairs some universities have come to have.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:33, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete well we actually are starting to rid Wikipedia of articles on people with single entry sports almanac listings for cricket. If we judged everyone as we judged sports figures, Wikipedia would be total junk. Reliable sources are needed to tell about someone and they are lacking here. Plus just a citiation level is not enough. People really cannot articulate how Martinez has been a truly major influence in his field. Mere saying his citation level is high is just not enough. I am not convinced he passes academic notability point 1, and no one has argued he passes any other. Having special honors with your Ph.D. absolutely in no way at all suggests someone is notable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:31, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Johnpacklambert This is not about "graduating with special honors", he got a Doctor Honoris Causa from a German university which is not related to his actual PhD, it is an honorary degree and counts like an award (that very few academics actually have). This tells us that his academic work is notable enough for such an award and that his work is widely known outside his own country/language area and recognized in Germany. Both of these things clearly add to his notability. --hroest 13:44, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Oh, that is what you mean. That is not at all a sign of notability. Lots of people get this who are not notable, and the ones who are notable who get it are clearly notable for other things. That in no way is a sign of notability.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:47, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Johnpacklambert see below, honorary degrees are specifically listed as being a sign of notability. Not every academic gets honorary degrees, so this is indeed a distinction in an academics career. --hroest 16:28, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – In my view, receiving a Doctor Honoris Causa from a university can be a potential sign of notability, as per WP:ANYBIO, which states that subjects are likely to be notable if they meet any of the standards listed there, including point #1 of WP:ANYBIO, "The person has received a well-known and significant award or honor, or has been nominated for such an award several times". Of course, this does not guarantee notability. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:02, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Northamerica1000 Johnpacklambert honorary degrees are even clearly mentioned here as being partially' satisfying, so they are not much by themselves but should be considered for notability since not every academic receives them (by far): For the purposes of partially satisfying Criterion 1, significant academic awards and honors may include, for example: major academic awards (they would also automatically satisfy Criterion 2), highly selective fellowships (other than postdoctoral fellowships); invited lectures at meetings of national or international scholarly societies, where giving such an invited lecture is considered considerably more prestigious than giving an invited lecture at typical national and international conferences in that discipline; named lectures or named lecture series; awards by notable academic and scholarly societies; honorary degrees; and others. Ordinary colloquia and seminar talks and invited lectures at scholarly conferences, standard research grants, named post-doctoral fellowships, visiting appointments, or internal university awards are insufficient for this purpose. Again, I am baffled by the total conviction displayed by Johnpacklambert of being right in his opinion on Wikipedia policy while at the same time being utterly incorrect on stated policy. --hroest 16:28, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep. I found a couple newspaper stories on his honorary doctorate (one added to article). I think that gives a weak case for WP:PROF#C2, and that his numbered membership in the Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona and associate foreign corresponding membership in Société des Antiquaires de France go some way towards #C3. I also found a fair number of reviews of his edited works, and fewer (but nonzero) of the authored ones. So the case is weak, but present, along multiple lines of notability beyond trying to divine what citation numbers in philology mean. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:18, 15 April 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.