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. No consensus to delete.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:52, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Would be nice if nom could explain why claims to notability are invalid. Thanks. --Crusio (talk) 12:41, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I am having a hard time figuring out this case. Most posts and distinctions mentioned in the article come from within the Department of Defence hierarchy and it is not clear if any of them signify academic distinction rather than technical expertise. I search the Web of Science and found literally nothing for his name, which I found very surprising. On the other hand he is giving a keynote address at the 2008 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Applied Computing [1]. Ordinarily something like that would automatically signify academic notability to me. But where are all the citations of his work? GoogleScholar does not return much either [2]. In the above link he is listed an a senior member of IEEE but not an elected fellow (which would have meant automatic notability). The IEEE site indicates that "The grade of Senior Member is the highest for which application may be made and shall require experience reflecting professional maturity. For admission or transfer to the grade of Senior Member, a candidate shall be an engineer, scientist, educator, technical executive, or originator in IEEE-designated fields for a total of 10 years. Individuals may apply for Senior Member grade online."[3] He is also listed there as a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. Again, not a fellow but a member, where membership is open to all the qualified individuals for a fee[4]. So all in all, I am fairly confused here. It could be that his notability is largely as an engineer and technical expert rather than as an academic researcher. In that case he would have to pass WP:BIO rather than WP:PROF and it is not clear from the info listed in the article that he does in fact pass WP:BIO. Nsk92 (talk) 12:59, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep okay, not a lot of publications, but biodefense isn't exactly a field that's been around a long time--the uniqueness of that, plus the history of work in the field, leads me to land of Keep. I think it's uniquely notable.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:57, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is not the sort of subject where people publish in journals--especially the people who work for the agencies he does. We have the same problem evaluating scientists in industrial corporations. We essentially have to go by the positions. He qualifies. DGG (talk) 03:52, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete NsK92 sums it the basic issues for me, I don't see him passing WP:BIO (no extensive coverage of him in secondary sources), and so it seems fair to evaluate the impact of his ideas on his discipline via WP:PROF. While he may be important within his organization, I don't see the reliable and verifible evidence of his impact. DGG's point is that there has to be considerable impact, even if it is not in verifiable and reliable sources. I suspect he may be right, but I don't think that suspicion is grounds enough to retain this biography. Pete.Hurd (talk) 19:44, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The only sign of notability I can find is a keynote speach at WorldComp'08, the current "partial list" of keynote speakers for that conference includes ten different talks, and I'm not convinced that this is a notable conference (the lack of major academic society sponsorship is worrisome). The publication record on his cv looks slim and I can't find a lot of citations to his work. I don't buy DGG's argument, which seems to be that he's in a field where we're not going to have reliable sources so we have to go merely by his job title and institution: my feeling is, if it's a field that doesn't prove its notability to us, it's not notable to us. By the way, participants here might be interested in a related AfD, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Network Science Center. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:56, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Pete Hurd's and David Eppstein's arguments are compelling. --Crusio (talk) 23:11, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Generally per DGG. Of course our article should be based on reliable, verifiable sources, which do exist for this person. The question is how we should evaluate the import of these sourced facts in comparison to more commonly seen WP:PROF standards. In light of the fact that his kind of work is not openly published, the best guideline for notablity is positions and appointments, which should thus be weighed heavily. They are the verifiable and reliable sources for "considerable impact." It is clear his work is thought highly of by his peers, that he is more notable than the average worker in his fields and institutions, that his positions are good evidence for prof criterion #1. Some of the fields he works in (e.g.. biodefense, counterterrorism) are highly notable to any human being, and hardly need to prove it to us. Notability and importance are not the same as notoriety and easy access to information. Some similar classified fields (I'm thinking NSA and cryptography) have or had the reputation of being clearly ahead of open academic science, even.John Z (talk) 18:52, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per above, but clean up the peacock terms. Bearian (talk) 21:55, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per the compelling arguments put forth by David Eppstein and others. JBsupreme (talk) 05:38, 5 July 2008 (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.