Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steve Omohundro (2nd nomination)

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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. Arkyan • (talk) 23:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Steve Omohundro (2nd nomination)

Steve Omohundro (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Previously deleted biography, restored and cleaned up by User:Zippy. Previous keep arguments leaned on a vanity Who-is-Who entry and his dissertation, which received few cites. I don't see that the new discoveries (17 articles and a patent) change much in notability, but I agree that they're enough to have a second look. best citation count is 28 (Physica D), the rest is mostly in the single digits. The copyvio versions in the edit history should be deleted in any case, but I'll leave them up for now for comparison. ~ trialsanderrors 01:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Trialsanderrors, how do you do the citation count? --Zippy 02:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
ISI Web of science, see WP:SCI. ~ trialsanderrors 06:08, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

*Delete The article has been cleaned up, but I still see little evidence that any encyclopedic information can be found in reliable, third party sources. A single patent is the ONLY third-party verification that he has done anything notable, and still seems to fail the multiple criteria. I could be persuaded to change my vote if I could see that people who were not Steve Omohundro, or friends or associates of Steve Omohundro, have written about and referenced his work. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 01:31, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

    • Strikethru per below. Changed vote. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:13, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
    • One problem, I think, is that much of Omohundro's work was pre-web. It's going to take more time to track down cites than it would be for a net celebrity. I agree that the article needs citations, but believe that given Omohundro's publication record (in journals that I've heard of, and not random almost-vanity press ones) plus his involvement in the creation of two computer languages (each of which rates its own article, and which in turn refer to Omohundro in the first paragraph) that third-party cites can be developed. Might I suggest that instead of deleting the article, we flag it with a "this article needs sources" tag? --Zippy 02:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep Surely the cited publications are verifiable? Physica D, for one, is a major journal. And the Dr. Dobb's Journal article is a mainstream media publication. I am surprised that we are discussing the notability of someone with multiple refereed publications (Physica D) and at least one mass-market publication (Dr. Dobbs). These plus the patent plus the creation of two computer languages *Lisp and Sather seem above and beyond the threshold. --Zippy 01:40, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment I have no idea how relevant these languages are, esp. given that both articles are wholly unsourced and didn't get more than a handful of edits since creation. Care to offer some sources that establish their relevance and SO's supposed leadership in creating them? ~ trialsanderrors 01:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Here's a source for Omohundro's connection to Sather from gnu.org: "Steve Omohundro was the original driving force behind Sather." [1]. The same source gives Omohundro as one of the co-authors of the Sather 1.0 compiler, and also cites his Dr. Dobb's article on Sather. There are many more references available via a Google query on "Steven Omohundro". I don't mean to claim that Sather is his only route to notability, but instead to show that the claims in the article are easily verifiable, and that I believe the main issue is not so much one of notability as it is one of a question of the validity of the claims. Sather and *Lisp were well known languages within the CS and AI communities in which they were developed. --Zippy 02:32, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak Delete How is he more notable than the average professor? Publish or perish; every professor will have some journal publications. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:45, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
    • For starters, he's also published in a mainstream magazine (Dr. Dobb's) putting him in front of a larger audience than the typical professor, and he has a patent, and he created two computer languages, *Lisp and Sather, that both rate their own entries in the Wikipedia. --Zippy 02:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
      • ... and both WP language articles mention him prominently (first para in *Lisp, infobox in Sather. --Zippy 02:45, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Google yields 11,000 matches for Omohundro and Sather. --Zippy 03:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions. -- Pete.Hurd 01:50, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. Author of many well-cited papers (150 total, 4 with over 100 cites, 3 others close to that, according to Google scholar), clear pass for WP:PROF despite having since left academia. "Sather" is also a surname but a Google scholar search restricted only to the programming language found 500 papers on it. —David Eppstein 03:37, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Surely wikipedia specifically says that Google Scholar should not be used. Instead a Web of Science, Scifinder or other search should be performed. So do we have a list from one of these other citation search engines- Curious Gregor - Synthesis for all 15:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
      • What Wikipedia:Search engine test actually says: "Other tools that may be useful for research include Google Scholar, which searches academic literature. ... A caution about Google Scholar: Google Scholar works well for fields that are (1) paper-oriented and (2) where all (or nearly all) respected venues have an online presence. Most papers written by a computer scientist will show up, but for less technologically up-to-date fields, it's dicey. Even the journal Science puts articles online only back to 1996. Thus, Google Scholar should rarely be used as proof of non-notability." Note that I'm not using it as proof of non-notability and that this is in fact about a computer scientist. —David Eppstein 15:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep per David Eppstein. I usually prefer the ISI citation index over Google scholar, but GS favors the sorts of publications which have real currency in CS circles, even if they don't for other disciplines. (Omohundro's ISI h-index is a mere 4). It seems to me that notability is evident, but someone needs to bring the articles relating to his work up to encyclopedic standards. \begin{rant}So many academics with Wikipedia biographies seem to be in fields that have exceptionally poor Wikipedia articles, suggesting a greater interest in putting CVs on WP than on writing encyclopedic articles. \end{rant}. Pete.Hurd 04:00, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep vote changed from above (see strikethru). David Eppstein has provided that his work is frequently cited within his field. That seems to show clear notability. Now a good keep. The article is still stubby, and needs some work though. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:13, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Happy to withdraw this iff someone can turn this from a CV into an encyclopedic article (and start by adding sources). ~ trialsanderrors 04:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment The problem is reliable, verifiable sources. Not original research from primary sources. --Bejnar 05:59, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Technically, published primary sources are not original research, but I agree, an article has to stand on independent, secondary sources. Cite and Google counts are only approximate metrics of notability, the proof has still to be brought that the academic output has been noted. (A cite can mean anything from a listing as "related research" to an in-depth response. Here we're only interested in the latter.) ~ trialsanderrors 06:08, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
      • I find this need for idealogical purity baffling. Is any of the claims in the article "challenged or likely to be challenged"? In what sense do the easily found primary sources for these claims fail to document them? WP:ATT does not say to avoid primary sources; it says only that they should only be used for clear descriptive claims. But Omohundro's authorship of various primary works about Sather, e.g., cannot reasonably be in doubt. Secondary sources are needed to document the significance of this work, but for that purpose cite counts are I think adequate. —David Eppstein 00:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep His involvement with *Lisp, Sather and Mathematica makes him notable, but verifiable sources are needed. Janm67 09:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I agree. So far I've found a cite for his involvement in Sather. I could use help tracking down ones for *Lisp and Mathematica. And the *Lisp article would benefit from sources as well. --Zippy 17:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Update - someone emailed me that Omohundro is credited as one of the creators of Mathematica in the first edition of the Mathematica book. If anyone here happens to have the first edition of this book, I'd appreciate it if you could verify this. --Zippy 17:55, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep--trialsanderrors, your request was already satisfied. The citation is a mention. There were 150 of them. SCI is a secondary source of great reliability. DGG 03:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak keep and rework so it doesn't read like a CV. His prior work is notable, especially on Sather and PicHunter but the other stuff is a little bit too much. The homepage for the company he founded is an AT&T user's page and these days he seems to be doing little more than frequenting conferences held by the Immortality Institute. And unless his patent is relevant to Sather or PicHunter, that information isn't relevant to the article. Irene Ringworm 23:59, 26 March 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.