Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nicolas Courtois

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 of the debate was no consensus. Mailer Diablo 04:26, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nicolas Courtois

I'm not at all convinced of the notability of this person. His first published paper appeared in 2000; he has 17, according to MathSciNet (or 20 according to a bio online). I believe the length of time has not been enough to make him truly notable. Even if he is an up and coming star (although this is not at all clear to me), can't we wait until he's won some awards or something? I wish to encourage some discussion and establish his notability and so I'm nominating the article. I'll start with saying I favor delete although I may change my mind based on discussion. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 10:19, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. No evidence of notability presented. Gamaliel 10:23, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: I first heard of Courtois in connection with the XSL attack. Whether this makes him notable enough to deserve his own bio is questionable, but he is a genuine academic cryptographer with a publication record. As are, of course, several hundred other researchers in the field, and we probably don't want a biography article for every one of them. — Matt Crypto 10:42, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom, not notable -- Alpha269 15:24, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
• weak Redirect to XSL attack, I'm worried that we will have to recreate this article in a year or two. JoshuaZ 16:32, 6 March 2006 (UTC) Chaning vote to keep per Trovatore. JoshuaZ 04:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Seems notable enough to me. He's been "in the news". Paul August ☎ 16:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, not notable. Hell, I've been "in the news" more than once, but that doesn't mean I deserve my own article. Brian G. Crawford 16:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per well argued nomination. εγκυκλοπαίδεια* 22:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
• Probably keep I think Chan-Ho's standards for bios of academics are too restrictive. If musicians get kept for putting out two albums on a major label, then I think seventeen papers in six years listed on MathSciNet ought to do it. My only reservation is that the article itself doesn't mention any actual accomplishments. --Trovatore 04:10, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

His main claim to fame, I think is the XSL attack, I've added a blurb about that to the article. Paul August ☎ 06:12, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

• Keep [1] is plenty of hits for me. How many published papers do you want? Not even mentioning his attack on AES. kotepho 16:33, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't use the number of papers in my criteria for notability. I merely listed the number above for those, such as yourself, who feel it is important (since MathSciNet is only by subscription). Rather, I go by criteria on whether he would be considered notable by his peers. I rather suspect from reading the XSL attack page that his peers would consider him a good up and coming researcher but not particularly famous, and his future fame would seemingly depend on how this XSL attack turns out. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 00:13, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the issue is not really Courtois, but the standards for bios of academics. I think yours are too high. In my opinion it would be fine if every bio of a tenured full professor in a PhD-granting program at a research university, were kept. That doesn't mean we'll actually get a bio of every such person, just that they shouldn't be deleted. (BTW I don't think Courtois is a full prof yet, but he clearly meets that level of notability.) --Trovatore 00:54, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe Nicolas Courtois works in industry (Schlumberger Smart Cards). — Matt Crypto 10:38, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

• Delete and insert redirect. No encyclopedic content other than that in XSL attack. WP is not an assemblage of resumes. Septentrionalis 03:13, 12 March 2006 (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.