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. Some "keep" opinions are pretty weak, but the "delete" side's counting of scholarly articles isn't exactly hard science either. Ultimately this is, as with many scholars, a matter of editorial judgment, and we don't currently have agreement about whether she's notable enough as a scientist or university official to merit inclusion. Sandstein 08:12, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Caroline Langat Thoruwa[edit]

Caroline Langat Thoruwa (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Not many sources discuss her. Not a prolific researcher. Fails WP:GNG. Störm (talk) 16:58, 1 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:18, 1 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:18, 1 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:18, 1 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Kenya-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:18, 1 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment (no recommendation at this time); She's rather frequently cited by other scholars. See Google Scholar. Her work appears to have made an impact in her field. She was also the director of one of the campuses of Kenyatta University. Finding information online about African topics can be difficult. Just some thoughts to consider. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:45, 1 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment if this was a Western professor she would undoubtedly fail WP:NPROF. Maybe we should give positive discrimination to African people, maybe we shouldn't. Just saying its a tricky one, so not !voting either way. Dysklyver 14:59, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. She is a professor. There should be no discrimination against African universities.--Ipigott (talk) 17:06, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Fails WP:PROF, and it doesn't matter that someone is merely a professor or where they are one in terms of notability as others above have seemed to imply. I'm not finding much secondary coverage about the subject, and the research output seen through Google Scholar or other similar sites doesn't really pass the "average professor test" of PROF in totality (which is practically the lowest bar we have for academic notability). Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:20, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just tacking on since the discussion reopened for more clarification. Keep votes so far have basically argued that she is a professor and that she is a campus director. The former definitely is not in line with WP:PROF, and the director position isn't really anything that stands above an average professor test. A professor can often have positions that sound important within a university or groups of academics, but don't really rise above the normal expectations of a professor being on boards, etc. A "director" of satellite campuses for instance can be more a bureaucratic position, and definitely wouldn't be something notable for creating a BLP even if the person was from a western university that is already likely prone to get more attention. PROF already is a low bar, but nothing really stands out here or at the article that would result in a keep consensus. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:19, 24 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. We don't keep biographies just because the subject is a professor. WP:PROF#C5 applies to scholars who hold named chairs at major institutions, and neither criteria is met in this case. Google Scholar returns no papers with more than 100 citations, and a h-index of 10, which is nowhere near a convincing pass of WP:PROF#C1 in a high-citation field like chemistry. – Joe (talk) 11:42, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep African professors are going to be systematically hard to cover using standard measures (such as citation index), moreover she is a director of a campus of a major university: that also should be enough for passing WP:N. Sadads (talk) 13:39, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. I had closed this AFD as keep, but after discussion on my talk page, I have reopened it for further discussion to get input from additional editors. -- Ed (Edgar181) 15:50, 24 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• This is an interesting conundrum, the issue is that she is a professor, African and a women, and some note of this should be made, given that she is, for African standards, quite relevant. Dysklyver 09:40, 25 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I agree with Sadads, being the director of the campus for a major university does seem to pass notability standards. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:26, 25 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep The article fails WP:PROF, as she is only associate professor, but passes WP:BIO, a higher standard of notability, as being director of a major public institution. User:Joe Roe, Google Scholar doesn't apply in this case, as it doesn't cover Africa, China, India, most of Asia, really just the west, and bits of Australia and New Zealand. scope_creep (talk) 11:54, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Scope creep: Erm, ^{[citation needed]} on that. Google Scholar indexes scholarly publications in any language and casts a notoriously wide net (i.e. it includes a lot of non-RS garbage). I understand where the keep !voters are coming from: scholars in the developing world tend to be underrepresented in standard citation metrics, and I do believe that calls for us to loosen up our usual criteria for WP:PROF. But Wikipedia's systematic bias does not make all African professors inherently notable. I cannot see what in WP:BIO supports being "director of a major public institution" as establishing notability. I'd also disagree that a satellite campus of Kenyatta University can be described as a "major public institution".

At the end of the day if the subject passes any notability guideline, then there should be sources – where are they? – Joe (talk) 15:23, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Agree with User:Joe Roe. There should be at least one independent source from which we can verify WP:V, our core policy. If we want to counter systematic bias then start it right, not by making every African continent's professor inherently notable because it is easy to do. AfD closer has serious job to do, without any independent source we can't keep it. I might consider her notable if she was director of the most prestigious university of Kenya which it isn't (i.e. it is third largest). Störm (talk) 17:39, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree with a lot of things being said here for keeps that put them on very weak ground when it comes to actually assessing WP:CON, especially the comment that being a director of a satellite campus satisfies BIO yet somehow fails PROF (directors often are professors). If that were the defining feature of notability, we could have a stub article that just says she's the director, but that normally isn't considered notable for most universities even of larger size. I have to agree that there just isn't the secondary independent sourcing out there that tells us why the subject is notable, but instead editors are zeroing in on words like director or saying odd things like Africa is underrepresented somehow on GS. Even if the Africa bias comments were true, such an argument would violate WP:NPOV as we take information as mainstream sources describe them and omitting what doesn't get coverage.

The closer definitely has a bit to sort through here rather than just counting !votes at face value, otherwise we are just creeping the PROF bar even lower than it historically has been. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:34, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep She was one of the authors in a 2012 article about new napthalenes (eucleanal A and B) from the magic guarri (medicinal plant), a potential new antibacterial agent. SunnyBoiSunnyBoi (talk) 06:38, 2 December 2017 (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.