Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kevin Eggan

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 good arguments raised on both sides, and if this was 'balance of arguments' I'd struggle to say which side 'won'. However, this is a pretty clear no consensus result, and no consensus defaults to keep. Daniel 02:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kevin Eggan

Kevin Eggan (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

WP:PRODded, PROD removed. Non-notable researcher (WP:N). Despite the evidence of the article creator, Kevin Eggan is still, when checked out, a run of the mill non-notable researcher.

He is an assistant (not full) professor of biology [1]. His 2005 Nature bio speaks of his hopes and activities but does not when examined give strong grounds for notability either. [2]. A 2006 profile and bio article in Harvard magazine starts "Last year Kevin Eggan was a Junior Fellow at Harvard," again not exactly indicating he had a very notable reputation as a scientist then (for Wikipedia purposes), and this profile also speaks only of his hopes in his line of research, but adds no further evidence of notability at all. [3]

The article's writer puts as a headline quote a comment by a non-science journal that Eggan makes a "significant contribution" that "could one day" lead to disease cures. That statement is true for so many potential researchers and avenues of research, as to be meaningless for notability. Again this is still all hopes and wishes. He may make some astounding discovery (WP:CRYSTAL). On the other hand, right now all he is is a bright but still fairly run of the mill active researcher in his field, with no major recognition to his name either in his university, or in science in general.

His awards equally do not establish notability, when examined closely. They include a student prize, two awards by bodies that have little or no scientific standing or judgement ("popular science" and "technology review"), and a research grant (that many people with promising ideas may be awarded).

I don't feel that the slight evidence presented of possible academic notability reaches the level needed to call an assistant professor such as Eggan, "notable". The criteria of WP:PROF includes being a "significant expert" (#1) - maybe one day he will be, but for now he is one of many "aspiring significants". If he died tomorrow he would not have left any notable research, his works to date do not appear significantly more able to advance notability than the works of many biology researchers, there is no evidence that other academics regard him as an especially "significant expert" (a strong term) or an "important figure" in biological research (#2), or that he has published a "significant and well-known academic work" (#3) or that any of the other criteria are well met.

There are thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of scientists studying stem cells and other forms of biological process and research worldwise. Many have their own theories and hopes, and some mention in the press or science journals.

There is a specific level of notability agreed as the norm for academics to become notable, beyond mere coverage in reliable sources, and this one doesn't seem to have an especial claim of notability. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 09:24, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Nominator can't think of a reason to delete this referenced article which clearly includes media attributions of notability. --Dhartung | Talk 09:28, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry - reason took a few minutes to type :) FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 10:05, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

• Delete - At first glance, the article sounds like the subject is notable... however after a little scrutiny, I actually find the notability argument (or lack of notability, to be more clear) convincing. The subject will probably become notable one day, but I don't see it now. Hopefully AFD participants will do more than a cursory glance. /Blaxthos 14:51, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep "6. The person has received a notable award or honor, or has been often nominated for them. Can you say MacArthur "Genius" Grant? Based on that one award, this AfD is embarrassing. MarkBul 16:11, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep. As MarkBul mentioned, he received the MacArthur Grant. That equals instant and automatic notability. Please close this AfD ASAP. Smashville 17:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions. —David Eppstein 17:47, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. MacArthur grant, multiple mentions in popular press. Assistant professors may rarely be notable but this looks like a clear exception. —David Eppstein 17:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment re grant -- Does the MacArthur Foundation grant endow automatic notability on all recipients then? I haven't seen that argument made for it, nor evidence that this is the case. This is a research grant given to a fair number of people a year, for people who show exceptional promise where the MacArthur foundation board decides to "invest in their future". It seems there are many many such grant schemes (or similar/comparable) in many many countries, and many academic researchers of all kinds of notability (and non-notability) are awarded such grants. So having 'exceptional promise' by the opinion of one grant scheme, is not, by itself, an obviously automatic claim to notability.

Could we substantiate this a bit more, before relying on a simple claim of unsubstantiated inherited notability? This is AFD, and claims of notability whether intrinsic or inherited should expect to be evidenced, not merely stated. That is a policy basis. Is there actual evidence that this grant scheme has such standing compared to other grant schemes that anyone awarded a grant by it is automatically notable regardless? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 19:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

It's an extremely well-known 3.5 million dollar grant given to between 20-40 people per year. Yes, it does give inherited notability in the same way a Pulitzer Prize gives inherent notability. Smashville 19:37, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

But there are many such, and inherited notability is not lightly given in general on Wikipedia. (Support for view: see well respected AFD precedent WP:NOTINHERITED - notability is not in general considered to inherit from a parent entity to a subordinate entity, such as in this case, from grant foundation to its grant recipients.)

The grant being well known means the grant is notable, not necessarily that its recipients are (or automatically should inherit that).

Hence the above comment/request. Thanks :) FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 19:42, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

You're engaging in contorted arguments to minimize the importance of the MacArthur fellowship (aka grant/prize/award). You're arguing that he fails various criteria of WP:PROF, but #6 is has received a notable award or honor. We have established that the MacArthur prizes are indeed notable. The notability is specifically inherited not by virtue of the simple notability of the prize, but because that is the notability guideline -- that receiving a significant prize makes one notable. (Yes, that applies to other "grant schemes" as well, but let's not play subjective games of "standing" That's precisely what the guideline was created to avoid.) Thus, yes, the guideline guides us to consider the notability of significant awards to be inherited. Of course, in the event that the MacArthur was the only claim to notability that someone ever had, we might have a more borderline case. But this is someone who has been the topic of media profiles and accolades (again, without regard to subjective determinations of "standing" -- admit it, you were sneering as you typed "popular science"). Notability is not subjective. Notability comes from being "noted". Yes, people you may not respect may be more notable than people you do respect, and I'm sure you and I could agree that there are many important scientific advances made that don't make the papers. That's not Wikipedia's fault, nor a fault with the world that Wikipedia has a remit to correct. So, perhaps he does fail criteria 1 through 5, but if he passes 6, he passes the guideline. --Dhartung | Talk 22:58, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Please don't jump to unwarranted conclusions. There is a case that the subject is likely non-notable, or evidence of notability is insufficient. It's nothing to do with like or dislike, respect or disrespect. You'll not find a single "ILIKEIT" or "IDONTLIKEIT" listed in the nomination. It's utterly based upon policy based criteria. The article doesn't seem to evidence clearly if he is indeed notable. There is a lot of "puff" (appearance is impressive, actually says little) as noted also by Blaxthos. The response to a request to demonstrate notability to Wikipedia standards has been simply "he has X award", with no further relevant discussion (see above). Notability of award does not always imply notability of all recipients, as notability does not usually inherit. That is AFD criteria and precedent.

Problematically, in this case, there is actually little to no other evidence of any kind of real notability. The question of whether this is a borderline case where he just fails the criteria is a valid one. A technology review magazine or the like is probably not nearly as significant for demonstrating notability as (say) recognition by his peers in biology research or a scientific journal would be; he has few signs of any special recognition or "claim to fame". Essentially the one sole grant is the only solid measure. Of the 23 people to be awarded the same grant, 14 (60%) have Wikipedia articles, 9 (40%) do not. But of the 14 who do, most (11, or around 80%) already had met notability criteria through other means and would have merited articles regardless of the award anyhow - multiple significant recognitions, lifetime achievement awards, wide range of professional accolades for achievements and work to date, etc. So it is far from clear that this grant makes any recipient notable unless they have at least some other claim to notability or renown. To date, and despite searching and despite 3 different bio's, Kevin Eggan still seems to have almost none. That is all. So it seems a well founded question. Is he really notable by encyclopedic standards? It seems perhaps not. Hence raised at AFD. It's that simple. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 23:21, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Some propositions:

1. The standards we use at Wikipedia to determine notability are encyclopedic standards.
2. Receiving a notable award or honor, and being noted in the popular press, are both sufficient to cause someone to be notable by the standards in place at Wikipedia.
3. Eggan has received a notable award or honor and has been noted in the popular press.

Therefore, he is notable by encyclopedic standards.

If you feel those are the wrong standards to be using, feel free to argue about it at WP:PROF. If you feel you have a stronger argument than IDONTLIKEIT for setting aside our usual standards in this case, feel free to argue that, too, here. I haven't yet seen a case for either position here, though. —David Eppstein 03:29, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Delete - I agree with the questionable notability, and the initial and main author is writing this article for profit, creating a conflict of interest. I did edit the page to remove some POV, but overall, I find that just another genetics researcher who won a prize that hundreds of people have won isn't inherently notable, despite the policy, unless someone plans to profile all of the grant winners. Further, it's a grant, not an award, nor honor. A grant's given to fund research because the grantor HOPES it will result in successes, not because of successes achieved, so a distinction there should be made. Not everyone who TRIES is notable, but SOME who succeed are notable. ThuranX 04:11, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

  I think you might be mistaken or possibly looking in the wrong place. Genius grants are most definitely an award and an honor. Please consider from MacArthur Fellows Program: "The MacArthur Fellows Program or MacArthur Fellowship (sometimes nicknamed the "genius grant") is an award given by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation each year" (emphasis added.) --JayHenry 21:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

  Having reread the GUIDELINE, not policy, sections, I cite Caveats 1 and 2. As this grant is the singular notable event, and as the cited reason for keeping him, aka heritable notability, is only a guideline, NOT a policy, I say again,

• Keep regardless of who wrote the article, the content is well referenced, the subject has a clear assertion of notability (not every scientist gets mentioned by Forbes Magazine and USA Today). Not to mention the MacArthur "Genius" Grant... give me a break... this is a clear keep.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 12:17, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
• Delete A lot of smoke and mirrors, but in the end this is just a researcher with the usual number of publications one would expect of such. I note that a possible COI is mentioned above; this is plausible as a lot of effort seems to have been made to talk the guy up (a large paragraph on Forbes, for example, when a search of that article shows as far as I can see that we've extracted all the article sas on him, which would only actually qualify as a passing mention). I can't see that this fellow passes the professor test, the sources are not substantial or primarily biographical. It seems to be a distillation of minor tidbits from news stories, basically. Guy (Help!) 12:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
• Keep He published scientific papers and was recognized by multiple organizations for his work, including mainstream press (Forbes for example). The article reads a bit like as if somebody with WP:COI was writing it, which warrants a clean-up, but notability is IMO established. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 15:24, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
• keep clearly passes WP:PROF, poorly written article deserves clean-up. Pete.Hurd 17:43, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - Clearly notable no matter who wrote it. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 20:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep it's not entirely clear to me what part of WP:PROF those arguing for delete believe is being violated. He's definitely won a notable award, he and his research have both been the primary subject of articles from independent reliable sources (the associated press article is primarily about Eggan, Forbes is primarily about his research published in Science). --JayHenry 21:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

  Changed to strong keep. He was profiled in the journal Nature here. I'm sorry, but that's hardly trivial for a scientist to be profiled by Nature. I strongly urge the delete votes to reconsider in light of this evidence. --JayHenry 22:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep meets WP requreiements for notability - won a prestegious award, and has been profiled in independent 3rd party releiable sources. Who wrote it and why is entirely irrelvant. Isarig 00:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Relatively few Assistant Professors are notable, but we don't go by the position but the accomplishments. In this case he's done very clearly important highly topical work, and the sources are fully sufficient to show that. As for scientists and their own standards--his top five publications have been cited 288, 250, 191, 157, 143 times. (all in the last 6 years). Even had the work not been as scientifically important per se, the popular press coverage is enough, as is clearly recognized in the guidelines. I am a little puzzled at the nomination, because anyone with the much newspaper coverage would be thought notable anywhere outside the academic world. Certainly I do think that anyone who wins one of the MacArthur genius grants in ANY field should certainly and unquestionably be considered notable for WP. They are much more qualified at judging these things than we are; their standards are much higher; and finally the awards get so much publicity that there are always numerous press references to the people. WP does not decide on notability in any fundamental sense--we recognize what the world decides on is notable. DGG (talk) 03:16, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Clearly someone with potential, so he may warrant an article further on in his career. The Genius grants are prestigious, but given to fairly large numbers of people. Perhaps it would be better to compile a list of these in a separate article and only make individual articles on those individuals that establish notability beyond this. --Crusio 08:19, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Would you please consider taking another look at this? The references to this article include the following independent reliable sources which featured Kevin Eggan as the primary subject of an article (per WP:NOTE and WP:PROF): Forbes magazine profile, Boston Globe profile, Associated Press profile and most importantly Nature (one of the three most important scientific journals in the world!) profile. If you read these sources, you'll see that he has made some of the most important scientific breakthroughs in modern history -- most notably, the method of creating stem cells from skin cells, which, as reliable sources attest, reshaped the United States governments approach to embryonic stem cell research! I find it unlikely that anyone arguing for delete has read the article or done any research on the topic. Eggan easily passes all six criteria in WP:PROF and he only needs to pass one. He's incredibly notable, even beyond his MacArthur grant. What level of sourcing would be required to establish notability? (And I ask because a Nexis search reveals that in addition to the (at least) four profiles of which he was the primary subject his research has been covered in over 400 news articles, and has been cited in thousands of journal articles.) -JayHenry 14:59, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep JayHenry, your arguments and evidence are persuasive. I change my vote to keep. --Crusio 15:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep per JayHenry. Clearly meets the primary standard given in WP:BIO, along with various standards in WP:PROF. JavaTenor 22:03, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment - If the above claims are accurate as stated, then these are clear evidence of notability and the article should probably be kept. However, as noted in the nom, in each case they make clear he has expectations, or hopes, or is working on such goals. But so are many people, and many have written papers, had profiles in journals, and so on. They read like publicity, or hopes, the kind of thing any up-and-coming future notable researcher working on their line of research might expect to have said of them, and reminiscent of WP:CRYSTAL.

Part of the problem has been that the profiles (and the article) focused on hopes for the future rather than actual notability today. At this point it seems there are specific bases today for notability, but that the article didn't present clearly the notable aspects as it might have. I have had a go at refactoring the Kevin Eggan article; hopefully this now brings his career and biography into slightly sharper focus. There are notable matters, documented in reliable sources, about Eggan as he is, not as he (WP:CRYSTAL) may one day become. But none of these were well represented in the article, which focussed more upon his role as starting the political debate. Hopefully this will help focus the article somewhat too. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:38, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep There are multiple mentions of him in the popular press (including Nature running a bio of him!) and his notability is still questioned? Yet, if he were on a reality show for five minutes, deletion would never be an issue. Keep this article.--Gloriamarie 21:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - multiple reliable sources have written about him. That meets the criteria for notability regardless of any details for academics in WP:PROF. -- Whpq 22:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep We're debating his notability? I can't believe what and who Wikipedia editors don't consider notable. This is absurd. It looks like he's all over the place on Scholar, in the citations index, news articles. The Boston Globe calls him "prominents," the New York Times grabs a sound bite from him rather than a more prominent professor at Columbia, Harvard, MIT or Boston, and it appears that he's the talk of the town among stem cell scientists, the MacArthur Foundation recognized him out of thousands of molecular cell biologists the world over, and here's Wikipedia debating his notability. Absurd. KP Botany 02:57, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Most of this was not evident in the article, which presented him as a person who had much "puff" but little actual notability. There's still fairly slight evidence of notability, but a little more than there was. The article, I'm pleased to day, is a bit better now. I've reworked it a lot. A few points above carry almost no weight: 1/ Soundbites are often not from the most senior guy; they are busy and often delegate that job, sometimes even to an administrative person. The assumption that he gave the soundbite -> he is equivalent to the head of the place or very important there is not justified logic, it's WP:OR. 2/ Many researchers seem "all over the place", that'd need quantifying to show notability; "all over the place" is pretty much a viewer perception, again WP:OR). As is 3/ "It appears that" and "talk of the town". All basically WP:OR. Lots of OR there. the only solid fact mentioned is still just that one thing, he has won a grant or award. Is that grant of a standard to inherit notability to its recipients, and does he have other non-OR notability? Those are what will count.

HOWEVER, on one issue, to be safe... The initial and main author is writing this article for profit, creating a conflict of interest (user:ThuranX). Would the main author of the article like to state for the record, is this article (or any part of it, editing of it, link mentioned in it) paid for, or "talked up" for any kind of professional or personal benefit, or inserted to benefit in any way any specific person or party, as suggested above? Just for the record, you understand, so we have a clear statement for future if it's ever called into issue. Thanks :) FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 06:29, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The author of the article has been indef blocked (on rather spurious grounds), so is in no place to oblige you. Your request seems strange, though. If there is anything currently in the article which is not written in a NPOV way, or is non-factual, you may simply remove it. If everything is written in an encyclopedic NPOV way, what difference does it make how it got there, and what would the "statement for the record" achieve? (Sidebar: Since you seem to be so keen on this, are you going to place such a statement for the record on each article you author in the future?) Isarig 14:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not necessary, but if a question of motive leading to COI is actually raised by an editor as a direct allegation, it's often best to ask than rely upon hearsay or let "smoke" build up. Anyone can write a neutral article, and anyone even with bias can contribute well, if they can set their bias aside, but it's a well established arbcom principle that activist agendas (which can lead to similar issues as this) are not always compatible with neutral encyclopedia editorship. In any event, it shortcuts a lot of needless chat to ask directly "is this the case" and then point them to WP:COI if so, so they understand how to edit without falling foul of communal views on COI. Paradoxically it helps assume good faith if someone says "yes, I do this for pay, and I am open about it". We have a few editors like that; it works very well. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 22:13, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

yes, I know that the question of motive leading to COI was raised by an editor, but that is a red herring. the article needs to be judged on its merits, not the alleged motivations of its author. if it is NPOV, it does not matter if the author was paid for it. If it falls short of some WP standard, we should fix it. In either case, the possible motivations of the author don't enter into it. Isarig 23:32, 8 September 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.