Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sarah Tuttle

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 no consensus. There simply isn't an agreement as to whether the article's subject meets notability threshold/s. I do, however, note that several preferences to keep were weak keeps, which leads me to believe the article is, indeed, borderline-notable. Which is why the likelihood for consensus seems so remote. I, as well, note with regret all the bad blood that the entire Jesswade88 saga has brought to the fore. Hopefully, strong adherence to assumptions of good faith and civil discourse could see the community through this relatively unscathed. I still have hope. El_C 03:53, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Sarah Tuttle

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Sarah Tuttle (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Does not pass NPROF or GNG. She's an assistant professor, her h-index is 13, and she hasn't won any major awards. From what I can tell, Tuttle was appointed as the lead for the Hobby–Eberly Telescope's VIRUS detector. is incorrect. One source linked to that lists her as a "former co-PI" under a PI and alongside two other co-PIs. The other is her describing what she's going to talk about when she gave a seminar (as is very common in academia), but doesn't say anything about her being a lead of this project or what her role was at all. The next claim, She is leading a spectrography project for the Apache Point Observatory. is very vague, ("a" spectrography project?) and is sourced to an interview. Her being a guest on a podcast while a graduate student is not at all notable. And the final claim Tuttle contributed to American Astronomical Society workshops and supported new guidelines to build a more diverse and inclusive environment is cited to two things that she herself wrote. Natureium (talk) 00:55, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. IntoThinAir (talk) 01:54, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Kpgjhpjm 02:23, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:36, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• Delete - core policy Wikipedia:Verifiability#Notability states: If no reliable independent sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it. The article does not contain (and I could not find) any independent sources... let alone enough to satisfy PROF or any other more general notability guideline. -- Netoholic @ 01:23, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  That is not a core policy, or a policy at all. That's a section pointing to "other principles", and it refers to a guideline. Leviv ich 20:04, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  WP:V is in fact a policy. Are you referring to something else? Natureium (talk) 20:07, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  WP:Verifiability or WP:V is a policy, but WP:V#Verifiability and other principles is, as the name suggests, a section about the Verifiability policy and other principles. In the "Notability" section of "Verifiability and other principles" (aka, WP:V#Notability), we see a one-sentence summary of the Notability guideline, or WP:N. Thus, WP:V#Notability is a pointer to a guideline, not a policy. Leviv ich 20:25, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• Delete. I can find multiple independent sources on GS, but they are not enough to satisfy WP:Prof#C1 in this highly cited field WP:Too soon. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:36, 3 May 2019 (UTC).

  By GS I assume you mean Google Scholar, and, while there are independent sources citing specific points within her co-authored work - there wouldn't be independent sources for biographical information on the person - an important distinction. -- Netoholic @ 03:02, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• Delete per nomination (which is a very thorough piece of work - well done, Natureium). As much as I support having more articles about scientists here, I can't see how she comes close to satisfying any relevant notability criteria.--Gronk Oz (talk) 03:42, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Delete. WP:TOOSOON. Doesn't pass PROF nor GNG.Icewhiz (talk) 04:00, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Comment. Did you know that women academics are twice as likely to be nominated for deletion as you would expect from the proportion of women among Wikipedia biographies? My strong impression is that, regardless of the fairness of the resulting discussions, this extra scrutiny that biographies of women face leads to a disproportionate outcome. Although this article itself looks hard to defend, and the nominator has also been active in creating biographies of women, its nomination here is a direct result of a discussion at ANI related to the creation of articles about women, and therefore its nomination here is a direct result of its subject being female. Such targeted deletion of articles on female academics produces very bad optics for Wikipedia, already known for being hostile to women. Now that we have a nomination we should address the notability of the subject honestly and without bias, but there are a lot of other less-fraught topics that the people involved could more constructively spend their efforts on in future nominations. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:02, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Not that I think that we should be working toward any particular "ideal" proportion of deletion discussions because there are a lot of factors, but maybe we could also equalize your findings by looking more closely at male academic entries and start nominating them if found to have few or no independent sources. That seems better than implying we should reduce our standards for female academics and/or just simply nominate them to AfD less often. Also, being "nominated for deletion" is not the same as "deleted", so you aren't even addressing the outcomes in that small sample size. -- Netoholic @ 04:18, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  So, we shall reduce our scrutiny on female biographies and/or not nominate female bios, because there are worse topics to delete? ∯WBG^converse 07:25, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  The thing you fail to acknowledge here is that they face higher scrutiny to begin with. That's the whole point. It's not that you should give them special lenience, it's that editor unconsciously give them less. That's the whole point of hidden biases and structural discrimination, which is just one aspect in which Wikipedia handles itself just like any other institution, Policy or not. François Robere (talk) 18:27, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Maybe that is because more of them are created that would fail notability?Slatersteven (talk) 12:19, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

But more of them aren't created. We have 18% women bios and 82% men bios. Do you think of all the notable people in the world, 82% are men? Or 50% are men? That's how we know either our policies, or our execution, or both, is way off. Leviv ich 20:06, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Do you really think that 50% of all notable people are women? I suppose if you're a man you may have never noticed that notable men have outnumbered notable women for all of history. Natureium (talk) 20:10, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, or close to it. "Notable" does not mean "well-known". It's not about fame, it's about whether the person is worth noting, not whether they are noted. (It's notable not noted.) Show me a notable man, I'll show you a notable woman or two. We could play that game all night. For the rest of our lives, even. The difference is that history mostly recorded the notable men; that doesn't mean notable women didn't exist. And it's a whole 'nother ballgame when we're talking about BLPs, like the one at issue, where we don't have to correct history's biases, we just need to avoid perpetuating biases of our own. Leviv ich 20:25, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Show me a notable man, I'll show you a notable woman or two. This seems to be only a theory on your part, what makes you think it is factual? Let's say we had an encyclopedia of inventors of "notable" inventions. Would you expect there to be as many women as men? You may feel there should be, or if everything else were equal there would be, but that does not make it a fact. This is like saying that because more African Americans are incarcerated proportional to their population that they must be being discriminated against - I believe they are being so but not because of the difference in representation alone - they may simply commit more crimes. Men may simply make more inventions, or write more impactful books, or whatever. What you have is a theory that things are actually otherwise but no evidence. —DIYeditor (talk) 06:48, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

• David Eppstein, I'm not sure how that's relevant to the lack of notability for this individual article. If you'd like to help create biographies of woman that do pass notability, there's a link to a list on my userpage. Natureium (talk) 13:46, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  David Eppstein, what you say is largely true, but we all know that User:Jesswade88 would not have created this article if the subject was not female, and that for some time the majority of new bios of scientists created have been of females. Some of these are done without enough consideration of notability. So it is not too surprising if they are the most common in AFD debates. Johnbod (talk) 17:23, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Johnbod The majority of new creations on scientists are women?? Let's look at some example from User:AlexNewArtBot/MathSearchResult (as an example, as it often includes scientists in other disciplines and since there doesn't appear to be a comprehensive listing of new articles on all of the sciences in one place).

• May 2: After eliminating 2 non-scientists, we have 2 women and 2 men.
• May 1: 1 woman and 3 men.
• April 30: 1 man.
• April 29: 1 man.
• April 28: 1 woman and 5 men.
• April 27: 1 non-scientist.
• April 26: 3 non-scientists.
• April 25: 2 non-scientists.
• April 24: 1 non-scientist, 1 man.
• April 23: 3 non-scientists.
• April 22: 1 man.
• April 21: 2 non-scientists, 1 man.
• April 20: 1 woman, 1 man.

So at least recently we have a total of 5 women and 15 men, around 25%. This is better than the 18% ratio among current Wikipedia biographies, worse than the 35% ratio of women to men among recent academic deletion discussions (hence my assertion that women are far more likely than men to be taken to deletion discussion) and far far from a majority. I suspect you have fallen prey to the standard "see any noticable representation of women at all and think that it is a majority" fallacy. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:51, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

No, but it could be that I look more at AFD lists and WIR talk than the rather unreliable/imprecise bot lists (for example Nia Imara probably appears as an artist). I'm also certainly influenced by my annual survey of whether new FRS's already have WP articles when the news is announced. For the 2nd year running, women are much more likely to already have articles than men. I'll be writing this up soon. Johnbod (talk) 18:00, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

That seems to be only mathematicians, and according to a quick google search, 15% of tenure-track mathematicians are female, so even 25% seems high. I think if you picked a different category, there would be more biographies of women being created. Natureium (talk) 17:57, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

It's not "only mathematicians"; for example, Kate Hevner Mueller was a psychologist and Clara Brink Shoemaker was a crystallographer who worked on molecular biology. XOR'easter (talk) 18:03, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Can you explain how this bot works? I clicked the link and got this, so I assumed it was looking for something related to that in new articles. Natureium (talk) 18:04, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Johnbod Bad woman! Bad! Writing bad articles about other bad women? I never... who would've guessed? She should only write about MEN! How rude of her! And she clearly doesn't know how to write, this "Imperial College London" research associate! Who let her in anyway?! François Robere (talk) 18:22, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Now you're being very silly - especially to someone who has organized and led workshops on writing female science bios - but you have to explain the notabily requirements carefully. None of these were brought to AFD by the way. Johnbod (talk) 18:27, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• • Please stop marching around your little survey as a broad fact or evidence of gender bias. The portion of new scientist articles that are on women would be a better comparison than to all articles since many of those nominated were recently created. And how many of those recent AFDs were also articles created by the same user? Reywas92^Talk 22:45, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Comment. If anything the Donna Strickland case argues that there is a different standard for achievement within the professorate based on gender. The argument, "She's an assistant professor," is not particularly compelling in light of recent experience. I don't have strong opinions on this article in particular, but the comments found here are indicative of a conflation of impartiality with "bias blindness." Applying a universal standard of achievement within the academy is not reflective of inherent gender inequalities. --ElectricBuddha (talk) 04:48, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
  • I don't know how much we can infer from a single case, but there is actual data that Wikipedia is imposing a double standard of achievement on women. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:54, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Delete per nomination argument. FWIW, cannot overemphasize upon the need of religiously abiding by WP:INTEGRITY whilst writing about BLPs. ∯WBG^converse 07:27, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Delete per the nom's thorough WP:BEFORE. ——SerialNumber54129 10:44, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Delete How much of this is sourced to her work? Not notable at this time.Slatersteven (talk) 12:15, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Note [[1]], a call to aRMS.Slatersteven (talk) 12:17, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

 Administrator note Off-topic and personalized discussion redacted. Everyone reminded to focus on the topic at hand, and uphold the expected standards of civility. Abecedare (talk) 15:42, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• Delete WP:TOOSOON. Sgerbic (talk) 13:42, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Delete fails our notability guidelines, as established repeatedly above. It's unfortunate that the subject of this article has fallen back on claims of "misogyny and racism." I can almost understand the misogyny claim, although it's still an insensitive misuse of the term by an individual who never should have had an article and only had one created because she is a woman. But racism... really? This person is an academic? It is a good thing that we have so many editors fighting against systemic bias by creating more articles about women, and I hope that this effort will eliminate the gender gap. But our notability guidelines still apply and thus it really isn't helpful to see special pleading from David Eppstein when he knows that this article is hard to defend. And I'm glad to see Fae getting shouted down above for their gross, offensive comment. It creates a chilling effect when users have to fear that participation in these discussions may cause them to be accused of sexism (or even complicity in the sexism of others). Seriously, it would be great to have more articles on women. Just make sure that they are notable before you create the article. Lepricavark (talk) 15:06, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• Comment I think it's disingenuous of Wikipedia to pretend that every page here meets the standards that would have been required by a print encyclopedia. There are pages and pages of special interests on music, sports, etc. etc. that I think are totally fine, but clearly would never pass a criterion of real "notability". But when it comes to science and scientists, the fact that a piece of science has not yet come to the attention of journalists is used to argue against notability, resulting in ridiculous situations like (female) Nobel Prize-winners not having a Wikipedia page. Journalists should not be the arbiter of whether science is notable. I would like to see a Science Wikipedia discussion about a criterion that would work better. BTW please can this not be the h-index? We all know this to be a flawed measure. I am not logging in to post this comment because I fear that logging in would expose my own created pages to undue scrutiny by people who don't like this argument. I feel bad about this but that's the way it is. 134.174.140.104 (talk) 15:52, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

It seems like you don't understand notability then. Journalists don't have anything to do with this. The standards that apply here are:

1. The person's research has had a significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources.
2. The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level.
3. The person is or has been an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association (e.g., a National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society) or a fellow of a major scholarly society which reserves fellow status as a highly selective honor (e.g., Fellow of the IEEE).
4. The person's academic work has made a significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions.
5. The person holds or 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.
6. The person has held a highest-level elected or appointed administrative post at a major academic institution or major academic society.
7. The person has had a substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity.
8. The person is or has been the head or chief editor of a major, well-established academic journal in their subject area.

Natureium (talk) 16:02, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

What journalists do most definitely affects how we evaluate those criteria, particularly C7 but also C1 and C4. XOR'easter (talk) 16:11, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Of course, it is often the easiest way to establish notability, but it is not the only way.Slatersteven (talk) 16:13, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I suppose that's true. Essentially, a journalist could make someone more notable, but not less notable. If they fulfill those criteria, they're notable even if journalists ignore them entirely. It would make for a pretty short article though. Natureium (talk) 16:25, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Which is a problem, but not one for here.Slatersteven (talk) 16:28, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Disingenuous again. By far the most common factoid used to establish notability is an article in some kind of publication. But science articles are not considered "reliable". For example, this paper "reviews the main progress in the last decade" and cites one of Tuttle's papers. Why is that not "significant impact in their scholarly discipline'? 134.174.140.104 (talk) 17:56, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

We can use books, as to the paper, I do not have access to it so cannot say, but only citing one paper, no that would not be a significant impact. Hell there are plenty of notable scientists, its not as if we have no articles on any.Slatersteven (talk) 18:06, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

This is not the place to discuss my actions, hence why I have not explained my cunning and holmesian way of finding this, nor will I participate other then this curtsy message. However nor will it stop me from posting here, or voting in any other AFD's.Slatersteven (talk) 15:37, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• Keep I was originally inclining to saying this article was too soon, but finding her recognition by the NAS began to tip the balance for me. The sum total of her outreach work and the press recognition for her involvement in science activism persuaded me that she passes WP:PROF#C7. At worst, thanks to the improvements since the AfD began, this is a "draftify" situation — even if it is "too soon", the current content is good enough to save somewhere out of the way and build upon. XOR'easter (talk) 16:56, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Oh, and I found a heap of sources about her and the Lilith Fund, of which I picked three. XOR'easter (talk) 17:16, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Delete per nom and the other delete !votes above. aboideau^talk 17:56, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep It's marginal, but not ridiculous. She has notable achievements, has won national awards, has been quoted in the national press. The article is very well-written and well-documented. When one takes a look at the hundreds thousands of pages here for people who have done less, and have less to show for it, this page and her achievements shine by comparison. ubiquity (talk) 18:05, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep. She's been mentioned as an expert in half a dozen outlets, does significant scientific and outreach work, and is the author or co-author of 70 papers and letters.[2] If any of you still feel a strong urge to delete something, there are tens of thousands of stubs that await your attention. François Robere (talk) 18:10, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Delete per nom and deleters, plus the last two keepers, who try and fail to make a case for notability. Johnbod (talk) 18:23, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Delete - Fails WP:PROF. For the users arguing that the article is "very well-written" see WP:MASK. -- Millionsandbillions (talk) 19:10, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Delete. An assistant professor who isn't anywhere near passing WP:PROF, insufficient evidence of passing GNG too. Her campaign on Twitter against this AfD certainly doesn't help. --Tataral (talk) 19:11, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Editorial Comment I think such articles are generally fine. It's a well-written article based on reliable sources. But our inclusion guidelines don't allow for such articles. I understand why (coverage as a bright line for notability etc. etc.) but I'm not thrilled with the outcome in this case. Hobit (talk) 19:50, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

While it may be an interesting article to read, most of the sources (at least when I went through them last night) are not what we would consider reliable sources. (For example, wordpress and medium, and sources she wrote herself, are not reliable sources for blps) Natureium (talk) 20:05, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

References

• Keep Come on, she has an h-index of 13 (that is, 13 publications that have been quoted at least 13 times) in physics, where people don't publish a paper a week like the biomedical people seem to do. Ubiquity has said it nicely - I get the feeling the only real reason for deletion is that she is female. Wikipedia is not really known for representing non-male scholars very well... --WiseWoman (talk) 20:21, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Her most widely cited works (of which she is one of numerous co-authors and not the first author) are cited 26, 23 and 21 times, which isn't high for a field like physics. H-index alone isn't necessarily a very good indicator of notability. --Tataral (talk) 21:22, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
    • The median number of citations for physics papers is somewhere near 10: https://physics.bu.edu/~redner/pubs/pdf/PT.pdf . Astronomy papers are not cited much more often: https://astrobites.org/2017/10/27/success-in-astronomy-some-surprising-strategies/ . That is comparable to many other fields. e.g psychology - http://geekpsychologist.com/how-many-citations-does-a-typical-research-paper-in-psychology-receive/ . And you seem to be simultaneously saying "Sarah Tuttle's papers have not been cited that much"; which is, again, not true; and "citation metrics alone isn't necessarily an indicator of notability". Those arguments contradict one another. Michaelbusch alternate (talk) 22:16, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
      • Why are those arguments contradictory? I see no reason why they couldn't coexist. Tataral is saying that the citation argument is not a great one to begin with and doesn't help Tuttle anyway. Not contradictory at all. Lepricavark (talk) 22:26, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
        • I didn't say that; I referred specifically to h-index. --Tataral (talk) 22:30, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
          • Right. And that's not contradictory. I get really tired of the strawman arguments from editors who are convinced that their cause is just and that they therefore don't have to be fair to editors who disagree with them. Lepricavark (talk) 22:37, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
      • Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that covers notable people. Most journal papers aren't highly cited and aren't particularly significant. A median number of citations, or slightly more, doesn't confer notability. Noone said "citation metrics alone isn't necessarily an indicator of notability". I specifically referred to h-index, which is just one particular (somewhat arbitrary and as most agree, flawed) method of citation metrics. Her total number of citations, for papers that she co-authored with dozens of other people, is around 400 or something like that. That's ok for someone in an entry-level academic job in a science discipline. It's not enough to earn her a place in an encyclopedia, based on citations. --Tataral (talk) 22:30, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
        • I understand the criteria for notability. I agree that citation metrics, like the h-index, are not by themselves sufficient for notability. I suggest only that it does not make much sense to bring up the citation count of her papers at all, if you say that they are not relevant. Instead of saying, for example, "notability should not be assessed on the basis of h-index". Michaelbusch alternate (talk) 22:48, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
          • Tataral did not bring up the citation count. Tataral was replying to someone else who brought up the citation count. This can be seen very easily by reading the post to which Tataral was replying. Also, you still are not quoting Tataral correctly. Lepricavark (talk) 23:01, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
          • The claim that I have said citation counts "are not relevant" is patently false. I've said no such thing. The only thing I said about citation metrics was that "H-index alone isn't necessarily a very good indicator of notability". Notice the "h-index", "alone", "necessarily" and "a very good" parts of the sentence. Citation counts are clearly relevant in a discussion of a scientist's notability. H-index is not the same as citation counts. I also didn't say we should ignore h-index completely, only that having an h-index of 13 isn't in itself proof of notability. --Tataral (talk) 23:32, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Please take a look at the list of articles created by Natureium, who initiated this AfD and who I believe is a woman. Your comments about her motives are a personal attack that could not be more inaccurate. Please don't accuse people of misogyny without a very good reason. It is very difficult to have these conversations when editors carelessly cast aspersions. And this type of behavior creates a chilling effect on good faith contributors who don't want to run the risk of being accused of misogyny by someone who does not know anything about them but has a battleground mentality. Lepricavark (talk) 21:51, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep disclaimer, I made this page (which, incidentally, is why it is being nominated for deletion). Passes WP:GNG. Additionally, Tuttle created the first screen-printed PLED, which is notable in its own right. Further, I don't think it is fair that someone who makes claims like "Do you really think that 50% of all notable people are women? I suppose if you're a man you may have never noticed that notable men have outnumbered notable women for all of history. Natureium 20:10, 3 May 2019 (UTC)" should be able to call for women's biographies to be deleted. The decision of who is notable enough for Wikipedia should not be made by people who are biased. Jesswade88 (talk) 21:27, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I am removing the quotation as I have apparently misunderstood, I apologise Natureium. I am still voting keep as I think that Tuttle is notable - very few scientists maintain an academic and public engagement record like this - and even fewer succeeded in both solid-state and astrophysics. Jesswade88 (talk) 23:14, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• It is being nominated for deletion because the nominator thinks it does not comply with our notability requirements. That you created it is irrelevant to the nomination. - Sitush (talk) 21:30, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  Oh, it's relevant. Let's not play pretend. Leviv ich 21:33, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  ... I don't think you understood what I said there, but regardless, none of what you said is a reason that the article would be within notability guidelines. Natureium (talk) 21:40, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  The persona of the creator is not an argument to keep or to delete, unless (sometimes) the creator is a sockpuppet. I can think of an isolated exception to this, 10 or so years ago, when an admin (PMDrive1061) nuked all articles created by one highly disruptive contributor following a discussion at ANI but that wasn't through the AfD process. An appeal to sentiment at AfD carries no argumentative weight at the point of closure, so there is no point in mentioning it. - Sitush (talk) 21:44, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  Not an argument to keep or to delete, I agree, but that doesn't mean it's not relevant. Wade's articles have come under extraordinary scrutiny lately. It's not a secret. Leviv ich 21:52, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  • It is routine and legitimate for an editor, seeing the creation of a series of pages on non-notable subjects by an editor, to look through the editors previous page creations and nominate those that fail WP:GNG for deletion. this is how Wikipedia works.E.M.Gregory (talk) 22:07, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  Sure, it happens often and there's nothing illegitimate about it (I do it myself), but that doesn't mean we should pretend it's not happening or that it's not relevant. For example, it would be insulting to an editor for me to pretend I wasn't putting their edits under the microscope, when I was (science pun intended). Leviv ich 22:25, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• Keep per XOR'easter and WiseWoman. Sometimes, I'm not sure what my colleagues want out of articles. This discussion encapsulates much of what frustrates me about deletion discussions: editors !voting delete arguing two sides of the same coin, and both sides forgetting the underlying purpose of Wikipedia. On the one hand, the argument that this is a perfectly well written, well sourced, verified, factual article about somebody interesting is met with pointers to essays like WP:MASK and the suggestion that the argument is essentially WP:ILIKEIT. However, our purpose here is to write an encyclopedia: a collection of interesting, verified knowledge. So it matters that the article meets that purpose. On the other hand, the nomination and much of the analysis isn't a WP:BEFORE search, but rather an analysis of the current sources and claims in the article. So we are judging it by how it's written? Or not? In determining notability, we should be looking at the state of the sourcing, not the state of the article. So, of course it won't meet WP:GNG. Few astrophysicists will meet GNG unless their names are Hawkings or Tyson. That's the whole reason we have WP:NPROF, right? The subject meets NPROF 1 and 7. Why is an h-index of 13 too low? That's 13 works cited 13 times each. That's a lot more impact than professional wrestlers, models, and many other BLP subjects. I'm not aware of any rule or precedent that h-index 13 (or having a few papers cited 25 times each) is too low for NPROF 1 (maybe I'm wrong about that). Another sign of NPROF 1 and 7 impact are the sources. In 2015, Metro UK published her twitter rant. [3] Medium published her "Statement of Solidarity". [4] She wrote a piece in Medium in 2016 [5] that was referred to in a Forbes article ("...what Sarah Tuttle reports on Medium..."). In 2017, she co-wrote another piece that was posted on Medium's The Establishment [6], which was referred to by the Washington Post. [7] Same year, she was quoted in the Seattle Times ("Experts answer your burning questions..."). [8] In 2018, she was quoted multiple times in Gizmodo. [9] [10] and Inhabitat [11] I know there's more out there, but I stopped looking. Lots of Google Scholar and Google News search results (for the astrophysicist, not just the name) establishing her impact within and outside of academia. And it's a well written article. So keep. Leviv ich 21:33, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  Levivichich, a useful thing to know when discussing notability is the difference between an article in Forbes, actual articles are assigned by editors , written by professional, paid journalists, and edited before publication, and columns. Forbes has an enormous stable of volunteer columnists who write and post at will - like the columnists at HuffPost. These are not WP:RS and not used to establish notability. Also, being quoted by a journalist as an expert is not WP:SIGCOV.E.M.Gregory (talk) 22:17, 3 May 2019 (UTC)E.M.Gregory (talk) 22:15, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  WP:SIGCOV is a WP:GNG concept, and as I said, it's not a GNG issue, it's an WP:NPROF 7 issue. The smaller mentions, and the quotes, show an impact outside academia. (And just because it's a blog doesn't mean it's not an RS. I'm good with Forbes, Medium, Washington Post and Seattle Times as showing impact outside academia in this instance.) Leviv ich 22:25, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  The Forbes item is by Ethan Siegel, a scientist and science writer who is wiki-notable in his own right, and thus it meets WP:NEWSBLOG. XOR'easter (talk) 23:44, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  • Small detail: I think The Establishment was an online magazine whose archives are now hosted on Medium, not a thing run by Medium itself. XOR'easter (talk) 22:08, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
    • Fixed, thanks! Leviv ich 22:25, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Delete Fails WP:PROFand diligent searching has failed to produce sources that meet WP:GNG Possibly a case of WP:TOOSOON for this physicist at the assistant professor stage of her career . E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:51, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Weak keep. Recent improvements to the article make a plausible case for WP:PROF#C7 "substantial impact outside academia"..."may be satisfied, for example, if the person is frequently quoted in conventional media". It's not relevant for this that she's relatively junior, or not as heavily cited as one would expect for a more senior academic. And although the Kavli Fellow is not the kind of fellowship that passes WP:PROF by itself, it is also indicative of a certain level of prominence. But my keep is still only weak because the sourcing is weak. Most of the sources are by her, quote her, name-drop her with little detail, or are primary. For a non-weak keep of #C7 I'd prefer to see more independent sourcing of her and her role in science communication. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:15, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep per XOR'easter, WiseWoman, Levivich. Sarah Tuttle's work meets WP:NPROF Criteria 1 and 7; and the current version of the article reflects that with links to five reliable independent sources that discuss both her engineering & astronomy research and her activism. Disclosure: I know Sarah professionally. When I say her work has had a significant impact on astronomy, I speak from my own knowledge (that does not count as an independent source) -Michaelbusch using alternate account Michaelbusch alternate (talk) 22:16, 3 May 2019 (UTC).
  • And, as a note regarding much of the discussion on this page: The extent of gender bias on Wikipedia is extremely well-documented and not subject to dispute. That includes gender bias in articles being suggested for deletion, as noted above. As one way to address that bias, editors should default to keep for articles about people who are not men. Michaelbusch alternate (talk) 22:16, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
    • We're all well aware of the gender gap and the vast majority of us would love for it to be reduced. But creating, and fighting aggressively to save, articles about non-notable individuals is an extremely poor way to fight the gender gap. And when such articles are brought to AfD, it is really frustrating to see the efforts that are made to derail the nomination. Often, these efforts consist of unwarranted attacks on the motives of the nom and the delete !voters. We're volunteers who are acting in good faith. Don't treat us like that. Lepricavark (talk) 22:58, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Hear, hear. It would also be useful editors participating in these discussions would learn basic stuff, like what constitutes a WP:RS.

Seconding Lepricavark. I've not voted on this particular AFD for a reason - I don't know the first thing about science (I've never worked so hard in my life as for that C in geology freshman year). But I find the sort of attitude expressed in this comment troubling. Yes, the gender gap exists...and yes, we need to do everything we can to reduce/eliminate it. But an article must be able to stand on its own merits, whatever the subject. If it cannot do so, it should be deleted...whatever the subject. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 00:41, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Here's what really frustrates me. Contrary to the assertions made by several editors in this thread (and Sarah Tuttle herself on Twitter), there is no evidence of anyone !voting delete here simply because the subject is a woman. On the contrary, several editors have very plainly !voted keep because the subject is a woman. Furthermore, there is an editor (Netoholic) currently hauled before the kangaroo court of ANI for over-zealousness in pursuing the deletion of articles that happened to be about women. If the articles were not about women, there is almost zero chance that Netoholic would be facing the kind of sanctions that he is facing. Yes, there is a problem of gender disparity on Wikipedia, but some of the editors fighting that problem have also resorted to fighting good faith editors who do not need to be fought. Unwarranted complaints of "institutional misogyny" have a chilling effect upon good-faith contributors who do not want such rhetoric directed at them. Part of me would like to get involved in the task of improving articles about women. I'm not a great article writer, but I would be glad to offer my WikiGnoming skills. But I'm not sure it's worth it. Lepricavark (talk) 01:20, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

You have no idea how much Michaelbusch's statement sets me off. The article stands on its own merit or not. That is all I'm considering. I have had conversations with male Wikipedia editors who will not get involved in AfD if the target is female, because they are worried about repercussions and optics. Sgerbic (talk) 04:47, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• Delete. That wordpress "article" is pure puff. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 22:18, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Would you mind clarifying this, please? The only instances of the string "wordpress" in the article are a link to her CV and a page that is only used to cite her place of birth. Neither of these are what the arguments for WP:PROF#C1 and WP:PROF#C7 made by the "keep" !voters are based upon. XOR'easter (talk) 23:39, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep along the same lines as David Eppstein. The combination of research work, together with the Kavli fellowship which indicates notability within her age group, together with Tuttle's outreach work (which should include social media these days – the TrueSciPhi list here gives some indication) tips the scale for me. I would have preferred to be able to rely on the simpler NPROF criteria such as prizes or fellowships, but without those, and taking into account the combination of C1 and C7, my best estimate is Keep. Markus Pössel (talk) 23:34, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep, per WP:IAR, if anything. The encyclopedia would not be substantially improved by deleting this article. In any case, removing an article about a woman scientist seems hardly a priority while there are 72 entries in Category:Japanese female adult models, 186 in Category:American female adult models, or 89 in Category:Penthouse Pets, with much worse sourcing than this. In another example, there are 17 entries in Category:Penthouse Pets navigational boxes. You get the point. Checking these BLPs out and nominating some for deletion would be more productive than spending community time removing articles on academics, even jr ones. -- K.e.coffman (talk) 00:20, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

We do not keep a page for these reasons. The page we are discussing currently for Sarah Tuttle is all we are considering. Sgerbic (talk) 04:51, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• Keep I added a new citation to one of her articles, providing further evidence of her meeting WP:PROF#C7 standards for notability. ~Eliz81^(C) 00:22, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep along the same lines as David Eppstein. --Rosiestep (talk) 01:18, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep per Markus Pössel and Levivich. Additionally, it's a waste of time and effort to try to appease editors who are worried about being accused of misogyny. Closing the gender gap isn't about your feelings, so please stop derailing the conversation around these efforts. --nonmodernist (talk) 02:38, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

  Is it really a waste of time and effort to avoid attacking editors simply because they !voted to delete an article that happens to be about a woman? It seems to me that it would take absolutely no effort to not make personal attacks. This is not about feelings. This is about basic decency. Lepricavark (talk) 01:00, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

While a few personal attacks have been lobbed by a minority of editors, the majority of discussion around closing WP's gender gap has been about Systemic bias. Those derailing the conversation by publicly hand-wringing that they can't get involved in anything to do with women for fear of being attacked are enacting a derailing tactic (in anti-racist work, the corresponding tactic is called white women's tears, but I'm not sure anti-misogyny work has coined an equivalent term). Yes, I agree that we can and should discuss here without personal attacks; we can also do it without editors performatively claiming that the Big Bad Feminists are hurting their feelings. --nonmodernist (talk) 12:02, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I would argue that the conversation is derailed by the editors who make the baseless accusations of sexism and misogyny, not the editors who complain about the baseless accusations of sexism and misogyny. You try to carry on a normal, productive conversation with someone who replies with strawmen and personal attacks and then tell me who is at fault. Lepricavark (talk) 16:53, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

• Keep. When the National Academy of Sciences says you're notable, then you're notable. There are plenty of independent sources in the article, besides, so deleting this article is ludicrous. jps (talk) 06:06, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep May as well openly vote, considering I spent yesterday at ANI defending myself against claims by the Usual Suspects that I called someone a sexist on this page without, you know, ever using that word; along with having my personal pronoun ridiculed, because people who do that will get a slap on the back for being so bold for taking personal pot shots at the "unhinged" social justice warrior. The conduct on and around this AfD shows that right now Wikipedia is as bad a hostile s**thole of a non-collegiate environment it has ever been. Newbies have no chance and should be warned that they are likely to be called a meatpuppet, and should only be open about who they are if they expect to have their social media accounts investigated by the self appointed Wikipedia keystone cops. My comments about what is now a huge notice at the top of this AfD were deleted from this page, because that's now normal. The notice implies that the subject of this BLP is asking others to vote here. The allegation is not correct, not based on the evidence of the BLP subject's actions, not fair; it is a hostile way to treat the subject. --Fæ (talk) 06:51, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• Do you actually have a rationale, rather than another rant? - Sitush (talk) 07:41, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Enough with the PA's and assumption of bad faith the ANI said " We do expect more of all our editors than to engage in personal squabbles.". Stop misrepresenting users actions NOW.Slatersteven (talk) 08:13, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• Keep 17 sources added since deletion nomination, now easily meets WP:NPROF criteria 7, "the person is frequently quoted in conventional media as an academic expert in a particular area." EllenCT (talk) 08:23, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• Keep along the same lines as David Eppstein Duncan.Hull (talk) 08:33, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

MedCircus (talk) 08:51, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• Keep Any problems still remaining can and should be solved, rather than have the article deleted. I note the recent edits and the improvement thereof. I am surprised that the subject's Twitter stream is part of this discussion because that has nothing to do with notability. It seems to indicate a personal dislike, which should not enter into this decision.

• The reason is now covered by the template at the top of this page. It's just that one person won't let it go. We should probably add the Womeninred twitter feed to that template - the sudden influx of !voters here is somewhat surprising. OTOH, perhaps no different from a delsort notice provided they're not SPAs etc. I would note that whilst David Eppstein said weak keep, those referring to him are saying an unqualified keep, which seems a tad inconsistent but hey-ho. - Sitush (talk) 09:29, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Maybe you should publish your evidence in a proposed a ban against WiR participants contributing to AfDs on women BLPs, rather than just using this page to imply that the project is canvassing for votes? I am sure lots of people would help review the evidence rather than passively read theories. --Fæ (talk) 09:37, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

No one wants such a ban. That is a strawman and you know it. Lepricavark (talk) 01:02, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Several requests for evidence to support the serious claims of canvassing were made and the issue discussed at length here. Zero verifiable, factual evidence of canvassing this AfD was produced by anyone. Those allegations published without evidence fail WP:ASPERSIONS and the allegations should always be treated seriously, not liberally used or repeated in AfDs and potentially bias those discussions or in the long term unfairly damage the reputation of WiR contributors. --Fæ (talk) 08:58, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Oh, those are the aspersions on this page that you're worried about? Natureium (talk) 12:23, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

• Delete Fails GNG and PROF. If this level of notability is the standard, the gender gap of scientist biographies will explode. ConstantPlancks (talk) 09:26, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep. This isn't some random, she's head of a lab[12] and has received media attention. For those worried about covering someone who is "just" an assistant professor, we've got at least 350 others![13]. The media regards her as an expert[14][15][16] and she got attention for her response to Tim Hunt[17][18] and for political organising.[19] Makers blog listed her among "5 Groundbreaking Female Scientists You Need to Know".[20] I think this adds up to Tuttle being notable. I note the article for her UW colleague Mario Jurić is not receiving similar scrutiny - stop hounding Jess Wade. Fences&Windows 11:10, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

350 is arguably not a huge number. Note that, just on the first page of those results, there are several who are notable as other things - film producer, politician, musician etc. Andrew Lane (film producer) and Bryan Carrott will do as examples. Johnbod (talk) 11:31, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• Keep Meets NPROF-C7 and GNG, per any reasonable scan of the refs on the article. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:56, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep The additions to the article since this nomination for deletion demonstrate that NPROF-C7 is met and therefore the person meets an accepted criteria for notability of academics. The rules say if an academic meets any one of the criteria they count as notable. So this person is notable by that rule. Reflecting on the comment on the page on notability for academics ""Average Professor Test": When judged against the average impact of a researcher in a given field, does this researcher stand out as clearly more notable or more accomplished than others in the field?", this person meets those criteria because of (1) such an early patent (only a year out of BSc); (2) leadership of a lab and major instrumentation projects which are significant within her field of academia (for this we need to find some independent sources, but that's a call for more sources, not deletion, and is irrelevant anyway because NPROF-C7 is met); (3) profile and activism outside of academia (for verification see references in the article) which meet NPROF-C7. KarenLMasters (talk) 13:58, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
• Regretful Delete Some of the "sources" are with regard to claims unrelated entirely to her notability as an academic (which appears to be the focus here). And one is entirely self-written which should have been excluded from the start. One source describes her as "Sarah Tuttle is a noisy white Jew and a professor of astronomy at the University of Washington, Seattle." In short, the "added sources" actually muddy any claims for notability. I do this as one who has !voted "Keep" fairly often on AfDs, so this is a carefully considered position here. Collect (talk) 14:21, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

  How does having a piece published, or being described as "a noisy white Jew and a professor of astronomy at the University of Washington, Seattle" muddy claims for notability? And which sources are unrelated entirely to her notability as an academic (doesn't every source cited in this discussion so far state that she is an astrophysicist)? Leviv ich 16:36, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

  did you read who wrote the NAS piece in the first person? And some of the other cites? They are not of first-class quality at all, and cites which are unrelated to the official notability of a person do not add strength to that person's notability. I avoid most Delete !votes by the way. This one was one where I cold not avoid it with a straight face. And I find many of the Keep !votes seem more focused on "outside issues" and not this single BLP and the general notability requirements. And, yes, there are a slew of much weaker articles, but that is not really a reason to be given a lot of weight by the closer. Collect (talk) 17:43, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

  The cites in the article are poor quality = reason to delete? I'm confused by that argument. Who cares how many bad cites are in the article? That speaks to the article, not to whether the subject of the article is notable. What about the cites put forward in this discussion (not in the article), like the ones Fences&Windows posted above, or the ones I posted above, tending to show NPROF (not GNG) is met? Leviv ich 17:52, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

  The cites are, in some cases, ludicrously poor. Articles which have to resort to such poor cites, including SPS paragraphs treated as though they were vetted by the NAS, do not impress me. Clearly you do not seek genuine strong cites? Collect (talk) 19:41, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

  No, I think we should focus on the state of available sourcing, not on the state of the article. So even if an article theoretically has terrible sourcing (I'm not saying this one does), it could still be a !keep if sources are available that support notability. In this case, I'm suggesting that instead of looking at the sources in the article, which do not impress you, you look at the sources raised in this discussion that I and others are saying establish notability under (take your pick) NPROF 1, 7, or GNG. Because I think you may have a different opinion on the notability of the subject if you evaluated the subject and not the article. Leviv ich 00:17, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

• Keep: I have read carefully all the arguments for and against and must agree that this person is sufficiently notable for Wikipedia. If we were assessing the notability of a man with similar achievements, I would also support keeping the article. I hope we don't have to go through such lengthy discussions in future.--Ipigott (talk) 15:25, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep NPROF-C7 applies here. Relic Keeper (talk) 16:28, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep per David Eppstein and others. It is pretty clear to me that this is a WP:POINTy AfD that has specifically targeted this article because the subject is a woman. Not only do I concur in Eppstein's rationale, I must note the application of our notability criteria: As always, the SNGs supplement GNG. The two sets of criteria are to be read together, not one as a "gotcha" to negate the other. Montanabw^(talk) 17:02, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Wow. I'm finding that really offensive. I'd ask that you either prove (or at least provide evidence) that this was nominated for sexist reasons or that you remove the claim. Hobit (talk) 22:30, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
    • If you find this really offensive, this might be a good time to reflect on what it is about this statement that you see reflected in yourself that makes you feel personally insulted by this. But in any case, if you're somehow unfamiliar with the history and haven't actually read enough of the comments above to figure it out for yourself: a female editor, Wikipedia-notable for creating biographies of women, felt stalked by another editor who was repeatedly tagging her creations for notability and taking them to AfD. This issue came to the attention of WP:ANI, which ultimately came to the conclusion that there was not yet enough of a pattern of activity to take any action. But as a consequence of this discussion, other editors who saw it took it on themselves to pore through the article creator's other hundreds or thousands of biographies of women, identify a half-dozen or so that could be attacked as non-notable, list them on ANI, and start nominating them for deletion. This specific AfD was one of those. So it was specifically targeted because its subject was part of a collection of biographies of women. The "sexist reasons" part is your own invention, and not what Montanabw said. My own impression is that the nominator feels that some culling would make Wikipedia's collection of biographies of women stronger, which is sort of the opposite of a sexist reason. Regardless, that's where we are now. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:25, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
      • Maybe Hobit finds the statement really offensive because it is really offensive. This AfD has been a real eye-opener for me regarding the permissive attitude taken toward baseless implications and direct charges of sexism and misogyny. It's impossible to have a productive discussion about the article when so many !keep editors are more interested in attacking the !delete editors with accusations and insinuations. I guess this does not bother you because it isn't happening to you personally. Lepricavark (talk) 00:58, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
        • If you find a neutral, factual, and accurate description of a sequence of events (in this case, the sequence of events that led up to this AfD) to be something that can be "really offensive", then maybe editing a site where we aim to be neutral, factual, and accurate is not for you. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:00, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
          • The "really offensive" comment is Montanabw's statement that It is pretty clear to me that this is a WP:POINTy AfD that has specifically targeted this article because the subject is a woman. In your own comment above, you stated the following: My own impression is that the nominator feels that some culling would make Wikipedia's collection of biographies of women stronger, which is sort of the opposite of a sexist reason. Now you are saying that Montanabw's comment is neutral, factual, and accurate. You seem to be contradicting yourself. Lepricavark (talk) 02:09, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
          • And yes, I realize you were responding to me as if I had applied the "really offensive" moniker to your comment that directly preceded mine. At least, that's what I believe you meant. But that is a very poor interpretation on your part, given that Hobit used the "really offensive" moniker in reference to Montanabw's post. And then you repeated the "really offensive" moniker in your reply to Hobit. And then, in my own post, I made it clear that I was discussing Hobit's reply to Montababw's post. You really should have understood what I meant, but apparently you didn't. And then you followed up your misconstruing of my very plain statement with the suggestion that I might not belong on Wikipedia. Lepricavark (talk) 02:20, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
          • @David Eppstein: you've been active on Wikipedia since my latest reply, so you've had time to respond here. In fact, you've had time to tell Slatersteven that editors should do the right thing more consistently Let's have a neutral, factual, and accurate review: Montanabw made a comment. Hobit called it "really offensive." You replied to Hobit, repeating the words "really offensive" in your reply. I replied to you, again repeating the words "really offensive" as a repetition of Hobit's characterization of Montanabw's post. You replied to me as if my use of "really offensive" was actually related to part of your comment, which was a misinterpretation. On the basis of this misinterpretation, you suggested that I might not belong on Wikipedia. I replied and corrected this misinterpretation, and as of yet you have not acknowledged your mistake. When are you planning to do the right thing? Lepricavark (talk) 17:50, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
          • I always try to do the right thing. That is not the same as doing what other adversarially-minded editors tell me to do. In this case, I believe that the right thing to do is to stand by what I said, and (after this one comment) to stop responding to your or others' provocations here, in order to let the AfD discussion return to its proper topic, the notability of Sarah Tuttle. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:30, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
            • If I said what I was thinking based on an honest reading of your post, I'd get blocked. But you can misrepresent what I say and then suggest that I don't belong here, and you don't even have the decency to admit you were wrong about any of that. Unbelievable. And the really sad part is that you almost certainly aren't the only one who thinks there is nothing wrong with what you've done. I'm not surprised that you've ended up painting me as the bad guy, but I defy you to give one good reason for doing so without misrepresenting what I've said in this thread. You didn't seem so interested in discussing Tuttle's notability when you were personally attacking me a couple of days ago. Lepricavark (talk) 02:47, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Keep per XOR'easter, WiseWoman, Levivich, and creator of the article Mlvandijk (talk) 16:35, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

• Comment: I would like to remind the commentariat that notability rules on Wikipedia were invented as a way to decide whether or not it is possible to write a high-quality, neutral article on a subject (see WP:5PILLARS). Rules relating to notability, starting with WP:GNG and going into content-specific guidelines were only added as additions to give convenient standards around which to base discussions. The idea was that certain subjects were not notable enough for inclusion because sourcing would be difficult to find to write high-quality work that was "neutral", "verifiable", and "derivative" all at the same time. Owing to early actions of certain vested interests to add problematic content (I won't go into details about this, but you can get a sense for some of these issues from the way WP:FRINGE and WP:WEIGHT are written), notability worked as a convenient reference for those of us hoping to confine Wikipedia to a reference work that did not suck.

Fast forward to today, more than a decade later, and you have a lot of the active users unaware that this is the history. And the history is important because, crucially, there are other problems that Wikipedia faces that are not addressed by this simple fix. A particular one is WP:BIAS which applies not only to geographical and language-related biases but also documented historical biases in the way sources were created. The community has consistently argued that it is a laudable goal to overcome such biases, thus WP:Women in Red is a celebrated collaboration and not one that has been shut down. The goal is to push content in the direction of inclusion to combat some of the problems that are inherent in the structure.

The argument for a few might be that Wikipedia should not right great wrongs. I think that this is not a good argument. Wikipedia is, for better or worse, a top-ten website and is in a position to move the needle in the world. Now you might not think that the coverage of women scientists deserves fixing in the real world. I strongly do. I am going to fight for this to be done and I would encourage the community to adopt the cause.

The best way to do this would be to adopt something similar to strict scrutiny when it comes to discussions such as this. The main goal of Wikipedia should be to provide reliable content on certain topics and not to act as a gatekeeper. Is there a compelling interest served to delete this content? No. In fact there is demonstrable perpetuation of harm in so doing. So don't do it.

jps (talk) 16:18, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

@ජපස: would you support amending NPROF-C1 to include membership in groups shown to have "pioneered or developed a significant new concept, technique or idea, made a significant discovery or solved a major problem in their academic discipline"? Major advances are rarely attributable solely to individuals, and haven't been for at least a century. The NPROF-C1 criterion requirement that we have to prove that a singular "person" is responsible for an advance prevents a large proportion of the most prestigious award-winners from meeting it. It's not uncommon for breakthrough papers to have more than a dozen authors, and for good reason. Will you join the cause to allow Wikipedia to recognize achievements of collective efforts? EllenCT (talk) 19:04, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

You are absolutely right that the current NPROF guideline relies on a great man theory in a way that is more than a little problematic. Perhaps better to remove C1 entirely? I think we really need to provide more general guidance for combatting WP:BIAS in notability discussions. Perhaps a guideline such as WP:STRICT SCRUTINY or something where we say, all else being equal, recognize that historic biases can influence the appearance of notability as it has been leveled at this website. While Wikipedia has a default to keep option, with WP:BLP this often goes the other way for protection reasons (to good effect often, but it's variable as can be seen in situations such as this). Perhaps we should talk about this in a different venue, though. jps (talk) 19:12, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

@ජපස: thank you. I copied our last two paragraphs over to Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)#Criteria 1 recognition of collaborative achievements where I'm going to let it simmer while thinking it over. EllenCT (talk) 23:01, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. Fails to meet WP:PROF. I'm not really seeing her meeting NPROF-C7, she's had an impact outside of academia, but it doesn't seem to be a substantial one like the criteria actually calls for. - GretLomborg (talk) 04:36, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

  Can't really argue with that assessment–it's a judgment call, reasonable editors can disagree on substantialness. I feel more generous towards astrophysicists because I think they get noticed less than other disciplines. The bio folks are curing diseases, engineers are putting robots on Mars, but astrophysicists are like, "For a moment we saw a slight shift in the color of a dot in the sky and it was a little different than the shift we predicted. This is major." No one ever cares about the details of their work except when there's a cool picture. I think for an astrophysicist, she's made a substantial impact. Not many get published and quoted in the non-academic press as much as she does IMO. Leviv ich 05:27, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't agree with the claim that astrophysics is noticed less than other disciplines. In my experience of science AfDs I have found astrophysics to be a highly cited field, as much as computer science or biomed. It depends on the quality of the papers of course. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:39, 5 May 2019 (UTC).

No vote should be based on alleged user actions, or intentions or in casting aspersions. Any such vote is a personal attack and should be struck. We are here to discus the notability of the subject, not other editors.Slatersteven (talk) 09:08, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

• Keep per Levivichich. Tacyarg (talk) 18:58, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep, but trim down. Looking at the sources, she seems to have enough coverage to warrant an article, but not everything in the articles is cited to reliable sources.StudiesWorld (talk) 19:31, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep - largely per Ubiquity's !vote above, there is enough here for the subject to pass WP:GNG. Article is of ggod quality to. As jps stated in the comment above WP:GNG is intended to act to ensure that articles are verifiable and of encyclopedic quality, not to be some bottleneck or gate keeper of content. Inter&anthro (talk) 20:34, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep - it may only be borderline notable, but the quality of the article more than makes up for it. Iamnotabunny (talk) 22:25, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
• Question - Could somebody, anybody, explain to me why the subject's resume is used as a source about half a dozen times? Or explain why almost half the sources cited are authored or co-authored by the subject; or by the employer of the subject? Particularly since these sources are the ones attempting to establish notability. Mr rnddude (talk) 00:32, 7 May 2019 (UTC) A resume as source, that's among the more ridiculous things I've seen.

  I don't think anyone's trying to use those to establish notability. There's 35 sources; if all of them established notability, nobody would be arguing here. Iamnotabunny (talk) 01:19, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

  The resume doesn't establish notability, but it can be an WP:ABOUTSELF source. Leviv ich 01:59, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

• If we'd agree that the section entitled "research and career" is where the claims to notability are, then it should be easy to verify notability from the statements and sources in that section. So let's do that:

• Tuttle's research applies novel hardware approaches to spectrograph instrumentation design, particularly aimed to isolate star formation regulation in galaxies through emission and infall from the interstellar medium cited to University of Washington. Sounds good, except that the claim is in her own words, i.e. "I am". Not suitable for notability as the claim is not independent of the subject. No matter, there's much more in that section.
• During her Ph.D. at Columbia, Tuttle designed the spectrograph for FIREBall, a balloon-borne telescope that is coupled to an ultraviolet spectrograph and designed to discover the intergalactic medium (IGM) in emission. - cited to Stratocat.ar and an article published in SPIE and co-authored by Tuttle. The first source does not mention her, the second is co-written by her. Again, not suitable because not verifiable and/or not independent of the subject.
• The FIREBall spectrograph built by Tuttle was the world's first fiber fed ultraviolet spectrograph and placed upper constraints on IGM emission - cited to two articles published in SPIE and both co-authored by the subject. Not suitable cause not independent.
• Tuttle served as the lead for the Hobby–Eberly Telescope's VIRUS detector from 2010 until 2012, where she prototyped, finalized and characterized the VIRUS spectrograph would be a claim to notability. However it is cited to 1. her resume, 2. National Science Foundation, which lists her as a former co-principal investigator for VIRUS2, but nothing about her involvement in VIRUS and 3. A speech presented by Sarah Tuttle herself. Not to mention, anything I find on VIRUS puts Gary Hill and Phillip McQueen front and centre. E.g. HETDEX itself. I can't find anything that even mentions Tuttle.
• As of May 2019, Tuttle was leading the recommissioning of the KOSMOS spectrograph for the Apache Point Observatory, an instrument originally stationed at Kitt Peak Observatory - cited to University of Washington which doesn't mention KOSMOS or Kitt Peak Observatory but is also in her own words again, and also to an article published in AAS that is co-authored by Tuttle. Not suitable because source 1 fails to meet verifiability and is not independent of the subject, and source 2 is not independent of the subject.
• Furthermore, she is leading a team in building a new spectrograph for the Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope. - Repeating the previous sentence with the same source, so I've removed it.

• That's nearly it. The last paragraph mentions appearances on a podcast and articles she's authored. Nothing notable.

• In 2014, the National Academy of Sciences honored her as a Kavli Fellow - Doesn't appear significant, two hundred thirty-seven other people were as well. Maybe this meets NPROF #3, but it doesn't look at all like the Kavli Fellowship is a major scholarly society which reserves fellow status as a highly selective honor when it hands the same honour to 237 other people the same year.

• I can't pull this anyway to meet GNG or NPROF. That's why I've put those two questions up. Make a claim to notability with an independent source that mentions the subject, because I can't find one in the article or online (I spent an hour on VIRUS alone). Mr rnddude (talk) 07:46, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

• Keep because in my opinion NPROF-C7 is met but I respect that some disagree. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 08:46, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
• Weak keep This individual seems marginally notable in that she has received somewhat more than trivial attention, and it doesn't hurt the project to have an article on her, and someone might be looking for such a collection of information. Also I believe this nomination, knowingly or unknowingly, may effectively be part of an anti-WiR effort. However I am concerned by the calls for outright affirmative action in the AfD process. You can't promote equality by giving certain classes of people an advantage over others - they are all individuals deserving of individual treatment for their accomplishments. If anyone deserves a "hand up" everyone does. —DIYeditor (talk) 07:07, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Also I believe this nomination, knowingly or unknowingly, may effectively be part of an anti-WiR effort Can you explain this? Natureium (talk) 13:41, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
    • That was based on David Eppstein's 00:25, 5 May 2019 (UTC) comment. —DIYeditor (talk) 14:16, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep Passes notability. AugusteBlanqui (talk) 17:34, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep In My Opinion, She meets WP:NPROF #C7. I've read carefully all the arguments for and against and must agree that this lady is sufficiently notable for Wikipedia. But some against base on the WP:IDONTLIKE. MyanmarBBQ (talk) 06:08, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep Sufficient sources are currently in the article to pass WP:GNG. No idea what state it was in when nominated, but as of now the subject passes GNG easily. --Jayron32 13:09, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

• No, That is the point. sources still DO NOT meet WP:SIGCOV. User:Mr rnddude, one of the project's most experienced and fairminded editors, assessed the page on May 7, stating "*I can't pull this anyway to meet GNG or NPROF.... Make a claim to notability with an independent source that mentions the subject, because I can't find one in the article or online." I an many other experienced editos agree with his asessment. No sources have been added since User:Mr rnddude's asessment. What the more expeienced editors on the page agree on is that a subject has to meet WP:GNG, and this one doesn't.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:56, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

• I an editor of equal fairmindedness and experience, unless my clean record, 13 years and 17,000 article edits don't qualify me as such. Perhaps you can tell me how many years of experience qualify one as "experienced enough for their vote to count at an AFD discussion". I have read the same sources, and arrived at a different conclusion. In my assessment, the threshold set out by GNG has been met. --Jayron32 16:29, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

• I'd be thrilled to be able to !vote to keep in good faith (I'm very far on the inclusion side, especially for academics), I just don't see the sources. Could you point to the two or three sources you see as meeting the requirements of WP:N? Thanks! Hobit (talk) 19:32, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

• Sure. I will give a representative, and not exhaustive, number of sources that indicate that people outside of Wikipedia have considered her and her work notable. here is she is part of a panel assembled by the Seattle Times newspaper as part of a panel of astronomy experts. She wrote a guest column here, which is cited later by Forbes (see below), and here you can see one of her articles in the journal Nature was specifically cited for inclusion in a series they did on Women in Astronomy. Her research on gender bias in astronomy, as published in Nature and other places, is cited here in Forbes. These citations, references, and discussions by others (again, I picked some random ones. There's more there. These are representative, not exhaustive), coupled with her various publications and awards, for me is over the threshold. --Jayron32 19:48, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

One of the ways we, as a society, have attempted to redress gender inequality is by producing special eitions focused on women in science. The idea, to give role models to schoolgirls, is a positive one. (A better approach might be to train and pay for math teachers, but I digress.) Another approach is to always make sure to put a woman or several women on comittees, panels, boards of overseers, and so forth. Exhausting for highly qualified women who must serve on what feels like too many committees, but, again, a good idea. What is true, however, is that in certain fields there are so few women that the committees must be filled out with women who are not as accomplished as their fellow panelists/committtee members. It's real, and it's a reason not to equate member of a panel with notable accomplishment.E.M.Gregory (talk) 22:38, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

What in Earth does any of that have to do with this article? You've gone into the Chewbacca defense here and I'm not even sure how to respond. Not that you care, I'm sure, but your walls of rambling text will have zero bearing on how the closing admin assess this consensus. Your non-sequitur diatribe will have no bearing on the outcome of this discussion, but I'm sure it made you feel good.--Jayron32 03:24, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you are making the distinction as to the reasons why someone would be appointed to a panel or committee. To me, if such a panel would be notable for a man who was sufficiently qualified, it is notable that a woman was appointed to it for any reason. Or if such a panel simply does not contribute to notability, the gender issue (or affirmative action, qualifications, etc.) are just a tangent irrelevant to this discussion. —DIYeditor (talk) 22:54, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Panelists are chosen for many reasons. Being on a panel is not among our usual metrics of notability.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:44, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Are you really suggesting that we take men more seriously as panelists than women? Because thats the only possible interpretation I can make of "What is true, however, is that in certain fields there are so few women that the committees must be filled out with women who are not as accomplished as their fellow panelists/committtee members. It's real, and it's a reason not to equate member of a panel with notable accomplishment.” Perhaps I am mistaken? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 02:46, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks. We normally don't take sources that are written by the subject or just cite their work. But I do tend to think that's somewhat wrongheaded. I'd say she doesn't meet our traditional sense of inclusion, but I'd be fairly pleased if we extended that sense for academics to sources like you're suggesting. I may start an RfC at WP:BIO on the issue. Hobit (talk) 20:01, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

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.