Talk:David Callaway

Untitled
I began cleanup on this article. perhaps tho not certainly notable: a few highly cited papers, but the bio ones may not be with him as principal author & the physics ones are reviews. Full professor at a research university, but not really one of the very top-level ones in physics. The references to his papers still need expansion, and the citation counts checked. Since the material was originally adapted or perhaps copied from web sites, it needs to be rewritten completely to avoid possible copyvio. DGG (talk) 01:11, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Pastalover (talk) 17:45, 12 October 2008 (UTC)Actually the only physics paper that is a review is the Physics Reports (ref 7). The others are journals that are highly regarded, as one can see from their citation index. Indeed, according to its Wiki page, Physical Review Letters is one of the most prestigious journals in physics (number 4 in the ref list).

It is also important to remember that for physics papers, authors are usually listed in alphabetical order, with equal credit assumed. By contrast, in the biomedical sciences, the senior author (the leader of the collaboration) is normally the last name in the author list (see the JBC and PNAS papers, 1 and 3).

One may also peruse the Proc Nat Acad Sci Wiki entry which states: PNAS is the second most cited scientific journal with 1,338,191 citations from 1994–2004 (the Journal of Biological Chemistry is the most cited journal over this period with 1,740,902 citations in total).

(JBC is refs 1 and 2, PNAS is ref 3).

Numbers of citations can be checked in many ways. Because the datasets used are different, there will be slightly different numbers involved. Google scholar and Web of Science are two possibilities. Also note that the link on the page

Callaway's publications on the SPIRES HEP Literature Database

will give you a list of papers WITH CITATIONS ATTACHED when clicked.

(note however that this is a physics database--biological papers will be undercited)

Pastalover (talk) 17:45, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Just did an ISI web of science citation search on Callaway DJE

1,356 citations

25.11 per paper

54 papers

Don't know if that is all the papers Harlotsghost (talk) 19:20, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

preliminary comments
The standards are in WP:PROF, established by community consent. As I see it, its borderline there in two different fields. The actual decision will be made by the community, in an AfD discussion, should someone bring it there, not by individuals. My own role in this so far has been to prevent quick deletion without an argument, and to point out some weaknesses in the article. If it goes to AfD, I will comment further there, and so will others--I usually comment on all higher education AfDs for researchers.

But as a guide to arguing there: Not every who publishes in JBC is therefore notable. Nor even PNAS. Given joint authorship, many students will never go anywhere. To be a junior on some notable projects, does not make anyone notable in any field. As for author sequence, some labs in biomedicine list the senior guy first, some list him last, but his name is second on the JBC paper, which makes him the non-principal author almost always. We don't go by summing up citation count. If we cite one number, it's h factor, but a career can not be truly summarized this way. I would appreciate a reference to a real CV for this guy, not the abridged PR that's on his web site. The significance depends on the distribution, and in borderline cases here we usually analyze in detail, and sometimes, people who know enough will try to evaluate the work itself. Others will comment on the physics. I'll recheck the biology. The HEP-Scopus divergence is probably citations from unpublished work or multiple versions--I shall have to check. That's what one sees in GS also. The true values are usually Scopus & WoS, which almost always agree approximately in these subjects for recent work in mainstream fields. But remember that we do not go by authority here, but by the consensus of everyone who chooses to contribute to the discussion. It won;t be me that you have to convince.

The thing to do is to improve the article. Another thing, though, is to be aware that in discussions we tend to watch out for people whose only contributions are to the discussion, and who say the same things--see WP:SOCK. 17:49, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

A minor correction--the first paper on the publication list is JBC, and lists Callaway as last (senior) author.

Harlotsghost (talk) 18:40, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Bogus notability issues
@Pingumeister is ostensibly questioning the notability of the page's subject. He has evidently reviewed DJECs google scholar profile and decided an h-index of 30 and >3679 citations are subpar. I am not patient enough to get into a disquisition of notability with him, but, to me, DJEC appears quite notable and superior to his peers in that category. The templates invite discussion, but I only see gobbledygook in the sniping edits' comment boxes. What is the issue User:Pingumeister  is trying to improve on? Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 19:51, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Inspire, the field's clearing house of record appears impressed by the subject's profile and notable papers; this is mostly what my colleagues and I look at before any jive secondary stories. In my dozen years of editing Wikipedia this is the first I learn of a bogus implicit claim that secondary sources are required detailing in the references (!) in predominance over primary sources, in this case papers, which academics immediately assess and rely on. The secondary sources are available, but I have dark views on the con jobs of e.g. Garrett Lisi's page enabled by excessive reliance on (inferior) secondary sources. Attending a meeting of academics rating CVs could rapidly unconfuse the objectors on what rates and what does not. Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 20:00, 20 June 2018 (UTC)


 * I am sorry for any misunderstanding. You have not provided any verifiable sources that indicate Callaway's notability; the amount of research, or the quality of said research, is not sufficient to demonstrate notability. You need multiple independent sources which show this – your own interpretation of the situation is not enough. Wikipedia does not publish original research. The purpose of the maintenance tag is to draw attention to the fact that reliable independent secondary sources are lacking in the article, in the hope that people fix this. I am not suggesting the article be deleted. -- Pingumeister(talk) 00:59, 21 June 2018 (UTC)


 * I too am sorry I have to point out yet again the first criterion is met in the above Google Scholar h-index cited, a verifiable accepted secondary source....  It is not my "original research"  lark on that person.    3679 citations do demonstrate nontrivial impact, if only you were aware of our field's standards, and I sent you to Inspire to note the "very well known papers" of over 100 cites each, not to injudiciously count papers.  It might well behoove you to be the proverbial "people" hoped for in the template, and format the info in a way comprehensible to people at large, if you are truly anxious to help the project. Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 02:57, 21 June 2018 (UTC)