Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Élodie Chabrol


 * 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 delete and redirect‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__ to Pint of Science. Black Kite (talk) 10:57, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Élodie Chabrol

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

After looking at the current sourcing, the academic has a weak h-Index of 14, there is no in-depth sourcing from independent, reliable, secondary sources, so meets neither WP:NSCHOLAR or WP:GNG.  Onel 5969  TT me 10:12, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Academics and educators, Women,  and France. Shellwood (talk) 10:37, 15 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Delete: Dear Onel5969, your points cast a clear reflection of the quandary at hand. With a humble h-Index and an overreliance on interview-based sources, it seems we are hemmed in by the strictures of WP:NSCHOLAR or WP:GNG. In such a predicament, our path is laid bare - one of adherence to the rules as they stand.
 * Yet, as I endorse a deletion, a sense of longing resonates within me. I yearn for a different set of guidelines, more encompassing, less prone to the painful severing of knowledge. While we navigate the present constraints, I harbor hope for a future that doesn't necessitate such regrettable sacrifices in our shared quest for understanding. Jack4576 (talk) 11:03, 15 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Pint of Science Delete . Chabrol seems to be doing great work in science communication, but hasn't attained the level of notability set out by the GNG or NSCHOLAR guidelines. I've had a look at the French version of this page, and it's almost entirely based on primary sources, so it's unlikely we're missing a significant body of source material on the subject. --Tserton (talk) 11:43, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete - Insufficient coverage to meet the notability guideline for biographies, and the h-index means the notability for academics is not met either. — MaxnaCarta  ( 💬 • 📝 ) 12:36, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * The h-index is only one tool for evaluating one of the eight criteria in WP:PROF. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:55, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment we wrote NPROF in acknowledgement that it's important to communicate to the public the stuff that academics do, even though the world of secondary sources is biased against the concept, and most academics are not great at getting themselves discussed in reliable secondary sources. There's a certain irony that we, ourselves, have created a set of rules that makes it near-impossible for someone engaged in publicising scientific work to achieve Wikipedia-notability, no matter how well-known they are, and no matter how interested the public might be in their activities - and even: no matter how sure we are that the information is correct. Yes, the nomination is correct. And we should be thoroughly ashamed of ourselves. Elemimele (talk) 18:00, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Just to scratch my guilty conscience, can you think of a way of gauging notability without relying on our current definition of reliable sources? I mostly agree with you, but can't come up with a way to reform the notability guidelines without opening the way for Wikipedia becoming a sort of glorified LinkedIn. --Tserton (talk) 18:11, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, let's have a little look at how notability of people like Chabrol could be established. Firstly, we could look at whether prestigious institutions where they've worked decide to feature them and their work (obviously to a greater extent than the usual staff page), for example UCL at "A pint of careers story with Pint of Science’s Elodie Chabrol | UCL UCL Researchers". But although a prestigious institution has chosen to feature this because it considers her work notable, we don't, because it's an interview. Can't be used. We could use a Nature careers Q&A article (yes, that Nature. The one that's pretty exclusive) "How a lab visit for people with neurological conditions inspired the global Pint of Science festival (nature.com)", but that merely mentions her.. "including from our international director, neuroscientist Élodie Chabrol, based in Paris, who brought more countries on board.". So we can't use it because it's a passing mention, and an interview to boot. But if we believe that she's been influential in spreading Pint of Science to other countries, we could consider what this means to the world. Is it a relevant thing to have done, compared, say, to writing a textbook or a highly-cited paper (both of which would be guaranteed notability by NPROF)? Every UK university that I checked engages with pint of science. It's pretty big. But notability is not inherited so we can't use it. We could look for recognition by the learned societies, such as the British Psychological Society "Hundreds of pints of science | BPS" but it's a passing mention, and again, based on an interview with her organisation. All of these are, I think, evidence that selective sources choose to talk to and about her, and there are other science communicators in that situation. But because their influence cannot be counted in citations or textbook sales, they fall foul of NPROF, and by their very nature, they communicate. They talk to people about science and what they do. And talking is interviews. And even if the pope and the president arrange a special joint meeting to interview you, that's still inadmissible as evidence of notability. I honestly don't know what the solution is. But until we find one, this encyclopaedia will suffer from a huge bias towards mediocre movies, moths, obscure villages, winners of Nigerian awards, and lists of software updates, because all of those things generate sources that we believe. Other potential sources include radiofrance.fr (unusable as it's an interview). She's also valued by industry, at least hellobio and Casio but they're interviews and non-independent sources. My argument is (1) that if enough people go wildly out of their way to want to interview someone, it might mean that person is notable, and (2) nearly all information about people comes from interviews, it's just some journalists write about the interview, others quote the interviewee. I'm far from convinced by our belief that a verbatim quote is less reliable than a rephrased quote? Sorry, that was a bit of a wall of text. Summary: science communicators generate interviews, and ought to be judged by the breadth and standard of those who choose to publish their interviews, but that's not how we do things. Elemimele (talk) 19:48, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Interviews can count towards notability, since they can be an indication that the world at large has taken notice of the subject. It depends on who is doing the interviewing, whether the questions are just PR softballs, etc. Founding a science-outreach organization could qualify a person for wiki-notability under WP:PROF (influence outside academia in their academic capacity). If many universities engage with that organization in a substantial way, we could argue for WP:PROF. I've no opinion yet either way whether that is the case here, but it's a possibility in principle. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:53, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Most of these issues are inherent to all businesspeople, not just science communicators. Hundreds of thousands of people have been interviewed in high-profile venues about orgs they founded or products they developed that are widely used. Why should we say someone working adjacent to academia is more deserving of a standalone than someone with just as many interviews in another field? How do we determine which publishers are prestigious enough that even non-independent coverage by them is indicative of notability? The problem with interviewee statements isn't (just) that they might not be reliable, it's that they do not reflect secondary commentary on the subject by someone independent of them (and in that vein, the interviewer rephrasing the interviewee's responses (e.g. quoting without quote marks, summarizing what the subject "felt" or "thought") should also not be considered independent). We need SIRS to have distilled the relevant aspects of a topic and discussed them in their own words to have any clue what content should be included in an article (which is part of why we avoid non-biography STEM articles on topics that have only been covered in primary research data, even if they're published in Nature). For that reason, the longstanding consensus at AfD/AfC has been that interviews that do not contain SIGCOV in the form of independent analysis from the interviewer/author do not count towards notability, regardless of where they're published. If this wasn't the case, probably a good 70% of the ~800+ bios of statspage-biography athletes I've helped delete would have been kept, as would most of the musicians and businesspeople. JoelleJay (talk) 00:26, 16 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Comment The worst-case outcome here would seem to be a redirect to Pint of Science. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:05, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Thinking it over, that wouldn't be a terrible outcome; she's got a decent write-up there, and at the moment most of what we have to say about her is closely related to pint of science. Elemimele (talk) 18:13, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm relatively new to AfD, but second Elemimele's observations. These discussions rely too often on citation metrics subjectively applied. For example, who is to say an h-index is weak? And what does the h-index really mean? A scholar could have two works cited 1000 times each and have an h-index of 2 ... sigh. As open science efforts advocate for DORA, Leiden Manifesto, the Hong Kong Principles 1, and as the H-Index is panned 2,3, 4, 5, why is Wikipedia AfD dragging its feet? Jaireeodell (talk) 22:10, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete No indication of significance. Fails WP:SIGCOV.   scope_creep Talk  08:56, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:PROF or, failing that, redirect to Pint of Science. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 14:06, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Pint of Science if notability cannot be established under the guidelines. Seems a sensible AtD as she is already mentioned there. Perhaps a bit more about her could be added to that article, including her photo, so long as it doesn't upset the balance there. Rupples (talk) 01:43, 23 May 2023 (UTC) (edited to more specific target Rupples (talk) 15:15, 24 May 2023 (UTC))
 * Delete as notability is not established. Was ready to promote a redirect to this "Pint of Science" fest, but unless I am misreading, she only started up a branch of the festival in France, not Pint of Science itself. Zaathras (talk) 13:49, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment. Taken a look at the article's history and it was redirected by two editors to Pint of Science for perceived lack of notability but reinstated by the article creator and restored at a RfD. Changing to more specific redirect target in my !vote above in light of this. Rupples (talk) 15:15, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete. I had been holding off on opining here because of an apparently-mistaken impression that she was the main founder of Pint of Science itself, rather than someone who imported a branch festival to another country. That sounded like the kind of thing that should be notable, but now the case is much less well-founded. For someone to be notable for science communication rather than for doing science itself, the standard appears to be WP:GNG rather than WP:PROF. In this case I don't enough in-depth and independent coverage about her and her own role in the science festival that she helped import. Per Zaathras it is not clear that a redirect is justified. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:34, 29 May 2023 (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.