Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Igor Pak

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. Claims of notability are at best weakly established and set out in the article, but better described here. Editors are encouraged to improve the stub. The Math departments bulletin (currently at the MIT Math department website linked in the article), notes a promotion to Associate Professor on page 2, right after a pair of tenure awards. At MIT this rank can be tenured or non-tenured, and in this context I interpret as not yet tenured, contrary to the IP editor's statement below. The MacTutor test is nowhere described as one of our standard tests. (See the proposal WP:PROF and the guidelines WP:BIO and WP:NOTE for what the standard tests are.) GRBerry 03:54, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Igor Pak

Igor Pak (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

This mathematician does not appear to have sufficient notability. It was never the Wikipedia policy to include all faculty of all universities -- the university websites are sufficient for that purpose. I suggest to stick to really notable mathematicians, like Fields medals or important historical figures. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nabla2006 (talk • contribs) 20:32, 3 January 2007

• Delete - don't think he's notable enough, per WP:BIO and WP:N. Jayden54 21:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I am not going to vote because I happen to be acquainted with the subject of the article. I however urge the voters to look up the nominator's contribs -- the deletion nomination is their 3rd edit on the wikipedia, which seems to be done out of spite following own unnotable article deleted. Somebody bit the newcomer too hard, maybe? In general, when somebody asserts non-notability, I'd expect some backing information, such as the number of citations of the AfD subject's works (clearly appropriate in a mathematician's case), some google testing, or whatever.else. Nevertheless, I think that there is no problem in evaluating any particular article's worthiness even if clearly less notable biographies are still present. Go ahead and see for yourself. --BACbKA 21:42, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral I'd rather abstain from a more definite opinion but as someone who is somewhat familiar with the research area of Igor Pak, let me make a few (hopefully helpful) comments. I'm concerned about the lack of reliable third-party coverage which would be our only chance to create a thorough article. On the other hand he's clearly an above average mathematician. I've heard his name a number of times (although I share some of his research interests so that might not be so indicative of wider notability) and he's definitely a productive researcher (very solid list of publications) and a respected authority in his subfield. He's a borderline case of WP:PROF however because it's difficult to find independent sources that specifically mention him as an important figure whatever "important" is supposed to mean. The situation looks like this: if we believe that Wikipedia should contain articles for every mathematician who makes solid contributions in his field, a few of which will likely still be remembered in 50 years, then we keep this article. If we believe that Wikipedia should only contain articles for mathematicians whose contributions have been central to the advances in mathematics, who will be regarded in fifty years time as key figures of their (mathematical) time, who are or are almost certain to soon be the primary subject of third-party works, who have garnered various mathematical distinctions, then we should delete this article. Pascal.Tesson 22:55, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Google test. I got 21,000 hits for "Igor Pak" and as far as I can tell they are all referring to the subject of the article. On the other hand, I should mention here that I personally know him. Mhym 23:48, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep This is a no-brainer. I'm a mathematician active in combinatorics. Pak is an enormously important combinatorialist, who has important publications across different subareas of combinatorics. I don't have hard data, but he's definitely cited much more than most mathematicians twice his age. I think he clearly meets the criteria outlined in WP:PROF. Dkostic 02:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep as per Dkostic. Combinatorial proof of the Rogers-Ramanujan identities surely qualifies as "a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in their specifc field" as required by WP:BIO. Further evidence of notability is that papers that he has authored or co-authored are cited as references in at least 6 different Wikipedia mathematics articles. Gandalf61 16:16, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
• Conditional Delete All of what the keep !votes say may well be true; but none of it's in the article. Delete unless there is a sourced assertion of notability - for example, a statement of what he's done in combinatorics, and in which papers - at the close of this discussion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

  I have added a link to this list of Pak's published papers from the MIT web site to the article. This is a list of over 50 papers, with publication details and abstracts. Is this enough evidence of notability ? Gandalf61 19:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

  • While helpful, it does not address WP:PROF. Which of these are more notable than the average professor? (It also makes clear that the proof of the Rogers-Ramanujan identities is simply another, somewhat more direct proof, than the standard algebraic one. While interesting, not necessarily notable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

  • George Andrews, leading authority in the field of integer partitions for over 30 years, said "The difficulty of describing a bijective explanation of the first Rogers-Ramanujan identity was recognised by the great peripatetic mathematician Paul Erdös ... it is still an open and exciting question whether a direct bijection explaining the first Rogers-Ramanujan identity can be described ... the original discoverers of all these partition identities - Euler, Rogers, Ramanujan, Schur - used methods of proof other than bijections" (Andrews, Eriksson, Integer Partitions, 2004, p41). This shows that Pak's direct bijection proof definitely is notable. Gandalf61 21:44, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep per Dkostic and Mhym Alex Bakharev 06:57, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete -- A good test of notability is presence in MacTutor. If there is no MacTutor mathematical biography, strong arguments are needed to justify a Keep. Also, please no sockpuppeting in this discussion! Per WP:BIO and WP:N, having written more than 50 research papers is not sufficient proof of notability -- virtually all faculty fall in this class. nabla2006 13:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)Nom !vote. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

You can't vote twice --- you're the nominator already, so you're going to be counted as a delete proponent anyway. --BACbKA 12:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

However, it is customary for a nominator to express his opinion in addition to the nomination; that way we can tell if it changes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

To repeat User:BACbKA's earlier point, nabla2006 made exactly 4 edits, all on this issue. Mhym 20:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

And please be specific when throwing around the sockpuppeting accusations. --BACbKA 12:56, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment If a mathematician is in MacTutor, he or she is probably notable enough to be here. But absence from MacTutor should not be used to support a claim of non-notability. Last time I checked, Herbert Robbins was not in MacTutor. But no one would say he's not notable. Michael Hardy 02:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment:Your MacTutor test is very flawed. The MacTutor coverage is rather weak, e.g. note Mikhail Gromov does not have a bio! Of course, good reasons should always be given, regardless of whether it is for a keep, delete, or nomination. --67.172.164.179 13:19, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep:Looking through his publication list, it doesn't appear to have very much padding. A majority of the journals are very respectable (including Journal of the American Mathematical Society and Combinatorica). Just the handful of results from the very best on his publication list should be more than satisfactory, from what I've seen get kept on Wikipedia. He also managed to get tenure at MIT, which means what he has done is already fairly significant. --67.172.164.179 13:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep Looking at the earlier comments, there seems to be a feeling that while other professions have to be notable, mathematicians have to be very notable. This is POV. . One standard is clearly, refered to in major works, and that has very clearly been met. DGG 03:26, 9 January 2007 (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.