Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Peter Lewis (philosopher) (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 delete. Unsourced BLP as well. —fetch ·comms 02:01, 30 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Peter Lewis (philosopher)[edit]

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This article managed to survive AfD twice before, but certainly seems to fail WP:PROF under today's interpretation. GS Citations are 31, 22, 16, 15, 12, 10, 8, 8, 6, 5..., for an h-index under 10. When first nominated, Lewis was an assistant prof, and now is an associate prof. His field, the philosophy of quantum mechanics, has workers with much higher citation records, such as Max Jammer. Abductive (reasoning) 07:33, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:20, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:21, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's interesting that the first AfD was closed by the ineffable Essjay. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:20, 23 July 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Comment. The nominator is correct to point out that an h index of 8 is rather low for notability for a physicist. However the subject is more of a philosopher. What do philosophers think? Xxanthippe (talk) 06:48, 23 July 2010 (UTC).[reply]

The way I try to decide these citation level is finding other researchers in the same field. The Google Scholar search quantum mechanics philiosophy returns a paper with 9862 citations. Then if I stick to philosophy journals, there is E Scheibe with 116 citations, P Teller with 114, M Lockwood with 70, P Suppes with 67, M Redhead and P Teller with 59, J Bub and R Clifton withb 59, ER Scerri with 48, and so on. Plus there are many books treating the subject with similar citation numbers. Abductive (reasoning) 22:12, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The last time this was up for deletion, WP:PROF was not yet a guideline and some keep votes were based on its not yet being a guideline (e.g., that the "average professor test" has no standing). Others argued that they found his work interesting, which not not currently a criterion for inclusion. Based on the information reported in the article, I'd say he fails the notability criteria as currently phrased. The nominator seems to understate the h-index, though. The Scholar h-Index Calculator extension for Firefox returns an h-index of 122 for a Google Scholar search of "Peter Lewis" philosophy. Still, none of the publications that come up has been cited more than 31 times. The previous AfD said that a Google search of "Peter Lewis" quantum turned up a lot of hits, but I don't get an impressive result from that search. Unless I'm missing something, he looks like a run-of-the-mill associate professor. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 17:42, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- You must be calculating something wrong — maybe 122 is the total number of papers or the total number of citations? An h-index of 122 would mean 122 separate publications each of which has at least 122 citations to it, not possible when the most heavily cited of his paper only gets 31 citations. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:27, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Not my calculation. Must be a bug with my Firefox extension. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 21:34, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - There is probably no bug. The issue is that there are many Peter Lewises working in different fields. Only those publishing in philosophy should be counted. Garbage in, garbage out. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:54, 24 July 2010 (UTC).[reply]
      - Thanks. The search specified philosophy. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 01:05, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There may be a bug, then. The easiest thing to do is count by eye as GS usually ranks papers according to cites. This is what makes h index such an easy tool to use. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:53, 25 July 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Delete in the absence of evidence of passing WP:PROF. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:48, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete. Heading for notability but not quite there yet. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:41, 29 July 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.