Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Peter Clift (2nd nomination)

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, defaults to Keep Nakon 05:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Peter Clift

Peter Clift (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Not sure what the current thinking is, but if this guy is notable, then very nearly EVERY academic is notable. His career is not particularly distinguished. If indeed it is the case that all academics are now inherently notable, then I shall withdraw the nom. The page was created by the subject (WP:AUTO) and userfication might be a useful compromise. Badgerpatrol (talk) 13:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Delete or userfy, as nominator. The notability guidelines for academics now appear to be very, very broad indeed. However, if Clift (and others in a similar vein) are notable then we are opening the floodgates to literally 60-70% of the academic population- tens of thousands of biographies regarding (in my view) fairly run of the mill, non-notable people. (The fact that this particular example is a vanity page also irks somewhat). Badgerpatrol (talk) 13:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

• Keep I think he is notable geologist. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 13:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

He's not a particularly notable geologist within the field, although I agree that this is not clear cut as he obviously has had some success. The question basically is: is every academic (or at least, a good majority) suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia, or only those likely to have some impact outside of their field? If the former is true, then I suspect each one of us could add several dozen new biographies to the encyclopaedia tomorrow, but surely Wikipedia is WP:NOT just a collection of indiscriminate information? Badgerpatrol (talk) 14:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Weak delete (I think you mean indiscriminate collection, not indiscriminate information—which doesn't make sense). Having a chaired professorship is kind of a big deal, but I don't think it's enough to make a "distinguished career." I don't think all academics are inherently notable, either. — brighterorange (talk) 14:30, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I've reversed the clauses (I think?) from WP:NOT (not an indiscriminate collection of information). Hopefully the meaning was still clear though. ;-) Badgerpatrol (talk) 14:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
• Keep The holder of a named chair at a UK university is notable, and will have the publications to support it. There are many people in such positions for which we do not have pages, we should have them. The qualifications used for WP:PROF are in my opinion not over broad, but interpreted very restrictively--few AfDs pass except for full professors at research universities (unless, of course, there is some special reason for notability), these are perhaps the top 10 or 20 % of full-time teachers in higher education--not 70%, not even half. We have made a very small approach to covering this subject area. Of course there are thousands. There ought to be many more of them.
  

The requirement for notability in WP is NOT impact outside of their field. It's notability in their field. Almost no major league baseball or football players are notable outside of their field. Very few ball players are even known to people who are not fans of their particular sport. He just has to be known to people who follow geology.
Nor is this a vanity page, I've seen vanity pages for academics--they list every committee they've been on, every lecture they've given--this is not one of them--it gives the facts of his career, as it ought to. In fact, it's a little inadequate, since it didnt even list the number of his peer-reviewed publications, or the number of people who cited them, which count heavily for notability. I've added that--its encyclopedic information. There are 77 papers, the two most highly cited being cited 113 and 69 times, respectively. DGG (talk) 19:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

And from the previous AFD "Actually, there's quite a bit out there by this fellow. A Google News Archive search shows a number of results regarding his Indus River studies and one BBC article," DGG (talk) 20:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment Clift has published 77 peer-reviewed papers listed in Web of Science. We have articles about some non-notable sports people. Even minor movie stars have articles. And, I also think that biographies of many notable scientists and social scientists are missing. For example, the biography of Roger Myerson was created after he was awarded the Nobel Prize. I see no reason why this article should be deleted. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 09:52, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

and we are still missing about 1/3 of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, most of the members of the Institute of Medicine, and almost all of the National Academy of Engineering. He's not in the NAS yet, but that has a strong correlation with age as well as merit. DGG (talk) 11:32, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

As a Briton, it is unlikely that Clift will ever be elevated to the NAS- the number of foreign associates is quite limited I believe. More importantly, he's not a fellow of the RS either. I have a fair familiarity with the UK geological scene, and I would speculate that it is very, very unlikely that he is ever going to be so elevated. In any case, it is academic (pardon the pun). I would have no objection to including his biography (vanity page or not - and it manifestly is a vanity page...) if he actually were a FRS. He isn't. It's not for us to speculate who is or isn't going to one day get in to the Royal Society. To be brutal, he is a professor at an average university (number 32 in the country, so in about the 35 percentile) in an average department (number 10 in the country, out of about 25, with a research rating of 4C, which is....not at all great). Clift has published one paper in Nature (as a first author, 3 years ago) and one in Science (14 years ago, not as first author and as one member of a very large collaboration). He has won one quite minor prize, with very restrictive eligibility (only those under 40 working in the field of tectonics). He has next to no exposure in the wider media.

However, he is a professor. Judging from their website, there are 9 other professors in Aberdeen's geology department (top universities will obviously have more, lesser universities will have less). Extrapolating that up (say the average university has 20 departments) that makes, as a very rough estimate, 200 professors per university * 120 or so = ~24,000 articles required - from the United Kingdom alone. We can add to that retired professors, those at non-university institutes, government research centres, hospitals, etc. That adds up to 10s of thousands of Wikipedia biographies.

Now if we want that, then fine, although I think it's a very bad idea indeed. Why are professors uniquely notable? What are the exigent circumstances that pertain only to academia? Surely non-academics who have reached a similar level of achievement are also notable, using a similar rationale. So all army officers above some arbitrary rank- say, lieutenant. All police officers above the rank of Detective, or sergeant. All QCs- indeed all senior barristers. Most successful small business owners say, or all traders or analysts at major investment banks. All partners or senior solicitors at legal firms. School headmasters or heads of year. Local councillors and senior local politicians.

That's a lot of people- hundreds of thousands in the UK alone. Now imagine it scaled up to every country in the world.

My point is that Wikipedia would very quickly fill up with articles on people that, frankly, most of us would consider more or less ordinary. The stipulations of WP:PROF are in fact very broad- they could easily be taken to apply to virtually any academic at post doc level or above. Clearly they are meant to be interpreted through the prism of common sense. If we include articles like this one, we are basically saying that virtually anyone who is successful at their job is worthy of a Wikipedia article. That is an interesting precedent to set. Badgerpatrol (talk) 19:55, 22 January 2008 (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.