Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alan Baker (philosopher)


 * 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. It appears that there is a rough consensus to keep that is supported by policy. There was also no outright for a delete from anyone besides the nom, so there is no consensus to delete. (non-admin closure) Spirit of Eagle (talk) 05:16, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Alan Baker (philosopher)

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This subject does not seem to pass WP:PROF or the GNG; being a winner in a shogi competition is not enough to pass WP:ATHLETE. Drmies (talk) 01:06, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  Everymorning   talk  01:18, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions.  Everymorning   talk  01:19, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions.  Everymorning   talk  01:29, 19 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep – This is the second nomination. The first one is here. I agree about the shogi. About academics, I think that the publications may meet WP:NACADEMICS #C1, significant impact. Rather than the number it is the quality of the cites that impresses me. The first one in GS, in Mind, has been cited in top-level journals, listed with the the abstract, and it seems to have been significant attention. Likewise for the second one, here. From his CV, he authored the article "Simplicity" in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. So at least within his field he seems to be well known. – Margin1522 (talk) 02:25, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I was, in fact, just now alerted to Articles for deletion/Alan Baker (shogi), by ; I didn't know because the article had been moved. I just looked at that AfD and I suppose a no consensus call was fair enough (thanks ), but I'm really not that convinced., your keep is really based on two articles and the fact that it's cited a few times, but citation (of an article, not a book) by itself doesn't always mean everything and it doesn't automatically prove an impact. , in the previous AfD, cited another article (http://www.jstor.org/stable/27653642) which argues explicitly against Baker. And then there's the Stanford article, but there also I don't see how much that makes for notability: it's a lot of articles. So I am not convinced, and I wonder what and  think. I'll also ping  and  since they voted in that AfD. Drmies (talk) 03:10, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. I don't think I actually did vote in the previous AfD, but thanks for the ping. I did point out that he has a Google scholar profile here which is helpful for getting an impression of how significant his philosophy work is; I think this may be a field with low-enough citations to make his numbers (h-index of 10, top citation count 127) meet the threshold for WP:PROF, barely; I prefer Margin1522's argument from strength rather than numbers of citations, but that takes more subject-specific expertise than I have. I agree that there is no case for keeping on the basis of his shogi activity, so I think WP:PROF is the only possibility. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:37, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep I basically agree with DavidE on all points. The 127 citations to an article in Mind, is sufficient in this area especially considering the great importance of that journal, as bolstered by the other citation levels. The shoji material is irrelevant. The article needs some expansion to show the importance.  DGG ( talk ) 03:50, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment I first posted about this on Drmies' talk page, but since I've been pinged I guess it's OK for me to comment here too. I am the editor who proposed this article for deletion the first time, but that was based solely on Baker's notability as shogi player and of the article. As stated above, the result of first Afd was "no consensus". The article was improved, renamed and the focus shifted to Baker's academic activities which, in my opinion, made it much better than the version I first saw. That is why I just accepted the "no consensus" keep for what it was and moved on to other things. Is Baker notable enough to satisfy any of the criterion in WP:NACADEMICS? I cannot say for sure, but since he needs to satisfy only one of the nine and No.1 seems to be his best chance, I think it depends on how broadly you wish to define "significant impact". No. 1 of WP:PROF says "the academic has been an author of highly cited academic work". Being cited 127 times sounds highly cited to me, but WP:PROF seems to imply that using Google Scholar, citation counts, h-index, etc. as determining factors may not always be as clear cut as it seems. - Marchjuly (talk) 05:12, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Meh 'The most compelling criterion to me is PROF C1, the test there is a bit subjective, the result here feels, to me, marginal (despite my previous enthusiasm). The only other point I would make is that negative coverage, such as the link I provided in the previous AfD, is coverage, and we have no reason to weight negative criticism differently than positive criticism in determining notability, per NPOV. Lamarck and Copernicus  are notable in large part for their failed theories, perhaps this fellow is notable for his. In short, I am neutral. --j⚛e deckertalk 07:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Weak keep as in first AfD. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:33, 19 February 2015 (UTC).
 * Keep - He's an associate professor and acting chair of the philosophy dept. at Swarthmore. The 127 cites to his top paper are persuasive. Unfortunately, his article on Simplicity in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy only gets 8 citations in Google Scholar. Agree that he does not get his notability from shogi. EdJohnston (talk) 23:39, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep per EdJohnston. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:38, 23 February 2015 (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.