Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Allan Boardman


 * 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. Secret account 18:05, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Allan Boardman

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Seems to fail WP:ACADEMIC. Subject is non-notable - he is not the subject of multiple independent secondary sources. Of the two references listed in the article, one merely lists his name and contact details and the other doesn't even mention him. Article claims (without citation) that he is a leader in his field, although his publication history pales in comparison to others in his field such as John Pendry, Victor Veselago or David R. Smith. Furthermore, the page was created by someone who claims to work in the same research group as Boardman, suggesting a potential COI. Una LagunaTalk 19:59, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment I am not familiar with the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications or the Institute of Physics, but he is apparently a fellow in both of those societies, and a fellow of the SPIE. If any of these are prestigious, then he'd be notable per criterion 3 of WP:PROF. There are also suggestions that he was the director of some institutes and the "UK Voice" of some kind of international collaboration? I don't have enough knowledge of this area to judge how significant these are, but my intuition would be that he's probably going to be a borderline keep.


 * Oh, I should also note that this article is kinda terrible and certainly needs to be cleaned up, but WP:DINC. I didn't find anything obvious for him in terms of coverage outside of academia. 0x0077BE  [talk/contrib] 18:54, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:00, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:00, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:01, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep. Being a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and the Institute of Physics passes WP:PROF. A clear failure of WP:BEFORE by the nom. -- 101.117.56.81 (talk) 03:01, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Don't worry, I have read WP:PROF - I linked to it at the start of the nom - but if the only verifiable information about the guy is his fellowships, should he be the subject of an article on Wikipedia (see WP:PROF point one)? Perhaps I'm underestimating the importance of having fellowships, but I'm not persuaded an article that won't get beyond stub-class is worth having on Wikipedia. Maybe you guys can set me straight, but that's the feeling I get, especially when other researchers in the field with Wikipedia articles (see above) have so much more coverage (correct me if I'm wrong). Una LagunaTalk 11:57, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep - In addition to the fellow designations named above, he was a named a fellow of The Optical Society in 2006. EricEnfermero  HOWDY! 03:25, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * As with the SPIE fellowship mentioned by Truth or consequences-2 below, an OSA fellowship is the lowest rank occupied by 10% of all OSA members (see here) and so probably not the "highly selective" fellowship WP:PROF refers to. Una LagunaTalk 08:47, 11 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete - impressive though the fellowships look, if one digs, it turns out the ones mentioned in the article are as part of U.K. associations, not the international type that would more likely meet WP:PROF. The SPIE recognition is as plain "Fellow member", which is the lowest rank and covers a good thousand people ([see here]). Likewise there is no reliable claim to major editorship; the subject no longer features on the board linked in the article [and here], and the wording of the link implies that what this was for plain membership on the editorial board, not editorship-in-chief. The citation record is too weak to otherwise pass WP:PROF, and the actual "faculty page" [here] is all but empty, signifying an insignificant career in the absence of evidence of a stronger track record during previous employment. Finally, there is no coverage to assert WP:GNG. This is typical of BLPs that look impressive based on big words and fancy-sounding honors, and deflate into non-Wikiworthiness once probed.Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 15:08, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The IOP is an international society. And even if it was UK-only, being a fellow would meet WP:PROF. National-level societies (e.g. the National Academy of Sciences) are specifically included under that guideline. And he is a full Fellow of SPIE (http://spie.org/x38.xml). Since there are, on average, only 20-odd Fellows elected each year (about 1100 over the past 50 years), that is indeed a "highly selective honour." His blank faculty page does not "signify an insignificant career" -- it just signifies that his energies are elsewhere. -- 101.117.57.51 (talk) 06:40, 10 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment. Searching for "AD Boardman" on Google Scholar finds a h-index of 32, which also passes WP:PROF (quite easily). -- 101.117.57.51 (talk) 06:50, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment. Maybe. Then again, even if one follows the h-index fallacy, searching for his actual name in various combinations finds a GS h-index of no more than 16, which does not pass WP:PROF for this (very) highly cited field.Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 13:12, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, but searching for his actual name doesn't find all of his papers, because he publishes using his surname and first initials. It's not reasonable to exclude half his papers and then claim he fails WP:PROF. In fact, he passes WP:PROF, as noted above. -- 101.117.29.137 (talk) 00:23, 11 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep. Clear pass of WP:PROF (e.g. seven publications listed by Google scholar with over 100 cites, with the top one having 776 cites, in a search for "author:ad-boardman"). The society fellowships are also suggestive of the same conclusion. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:41, 11 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment. What are the criteria here, and why? From near-WP:SPA 101.117.57.51, we get that anything with the same initials should be counted, regardless of whether it is the same person, no question asked please. From David Eppstein, we get an arbitrary cutoff of N1 papers over N2 citations, from one source known to be biased towards hard sciences (GS) as mentioned in policy. No attention to field, vintage, authorship (I for one would be more impressed with the single-edited book, though like the rest of the work it is surprisingly low on citations per year)... Never mind "suggestive". Wikipedia can do better, or at least clearer, no?Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 11:55, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The reason that all the top 32 "AD Boardman" papers should be counted is that they all have a "University of Salford" affiliation, as you would see if you did the Google Scholar search and looked at the papers. They obviously are all the same person, since there are clearly not two different "A.D. Boardman"s in the Physics Department there. David Eppstein's way of looking at it is also valid: 2500+ citations for the top 8 papers is impressive. As to alleged bias in GS, that is only relevant in considering AfDs for subjects outside the hard sciences. Also, I'm not an SPA, I don't care much for your "no question asked please" comment, and I wonder why you're so keen to exclude from consideration papers that the subject of the article has clearly written. -- 101.117.2.208 (talk) 15:06, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * To have a few 100+ citation papers in the field of metamaterials is nothing special. Even less so when some of those papers and textbooks have been knocking about for 3 decades. I do not think his publication/citation record is impressive given the context of the field he is working in. Una LagunaTalk 16:05, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * We have guidelines like WP:PROF for a reason; to get away from subjective assessments of notability. A h-index of 32 is well over our usual C1 threshold, so it's really an open-and-shut case. And, in spite of what you say, 2500+ citations for the top 8 papers is indeed significantly more than ordinary. -- 101.117.90.93 (talk) 23:36, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Where is WP:PROF does is specifically say h=32 and 2500 cites in top 8 papers is significant? It doesn't, because to take these numbers at face value without considering their context is incredibly naive. (It also sounds like an exceptionally subjective criteria to me... is the cutoff at h=30 or h=35? 2,500 cites in top 10 or top 20 papers?) As I have said, citation records such as Boardman's are really nothing extraordinary in the field of metamaterials. I'll repeat that in case you missed it: metamaterials is a very highly-cited field and I would be surprised if a tenured academic in the field had anything less than his citation record. I could quite easily list a dozen academics in his field with similar/superior citation records who definitely fail WP:PROF. Furthermore, you are failing to take into account the flaws of the h-index metric. Boardman is not a young academic, and the h-index is very heavily biased in favour of academics with longer publication histories. h=32, 2,500 cites in top 8 papers is not unusual in metamaterials and even less so when the academic in question has been publishing for 40 years (many of the key metamaterials researchers have been active for less than half that time and accrued even more citations than him). Una LagunaTalk 06:44, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I've been involved with AfD for many years now. We usually take h=20 (give or take a little, depending on the field) as the threshold. Boardman is clearly well over that. And I note that you provide no support or evidence for your assertions about the field of metamaterials. I also note from your user profile that your own academic field is the same as Boardman's, at another university in the same city, and I'm wondering if there is some less than friendly rivalry here? -- 101.117.88.156 (talk) 10:52, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Ouch? Please stick to the deletion discussion. (FWIW, his research occupies a very different realm of plasmonics/metamaterials to mine - zero overlap, no opportunity for competition.) I am happy to provide evidence for my assertion that having a few 100+ citations in this field is nothing special: Zayats, Zhang, Qiu, Hibbins, Grigorenko, Wurtz, Oulton, Barnes, Nordlander, Maier, Polman, Garcia de Abajo, Koppens. h=20 is very common in the field, so I would pick a much higher threshold, and in the case of Boardman I would raise it even higher based on the fact that he has been publishing many years longer than most of these guys. Una LagunaTalk 12:10, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Even if we bump the cutoff to h=25 or h=30 (appropriate for a highly cited field), Boardman still passes WP:PROF. And when I look at those of your examples with a higher h-index than Boardman's, such as William L Barnes at Exeter or Peter Nordlander at Rice, they seem to me unquestionably notable, and should indeed also have Wikipedia articles. If your beef is that Barnes and Nordlander are more notable than Boardman, you may well be right, but that doesn't alter the fact that Boardman passes WP:PROF. Indeed, compared to some of the academics that have passed AfD in the past, he passes with flying colours. -- 101.117.2.126 (talk) 14:49, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment. So here we are down to the h index from GS as sole argument. (Which h index varies between the 117's and Randykitty's below, too, though that is a matter of course.) Is that the basis for a sound decision?Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 19:21, 12 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Obvious keep I did a (rather conservative) search for "Boardman AD" on the Web of Science and checked the most cited articles for whether they were by this Boardman or perhaps another one. Note that WoS always gives much lower citation rates than GS, because it is much more selective in its sources (GS strives to have everything, WoS only covers the most influential journals). I got a total of 212 publications (I didn't check them all, as that would be a lot of work, but I didn't see any that were not by him in checking the highest-cited ones, so even if there are a few, it won't influence the results very much), that have been cited 3800 times (highest ones: 748, 286, 144, 139, and 96), with an h-index of 28. The arguments above that better-cited persons don't have an article is a kind of inverted WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS argument. Whether the nom likes it or not, this kind of citation figures is way beyond what we usually take as indicating that a subject has significantly influenced her/his field (PROF#1). Perhaps these contributions pale in comparison to some other muminaries in this field, but everybody pales when compared to, say, Newton, Darwin, or Einstein. WP's coverage is larger than those shining stars. As 101 says above, if there are people with better citation records than Boardman that don't have an article, the solution is to create articles for those people and not waste time here trying to get this scientist bio deleted. (PS: as an aside, I should say that personally I find a WoS cutoff of h=30 -GS h=34 or so- much more discriminating between "run-of-the-mill" and "above average", but the reality is that consensus in AfD debates has accepted a GS index of 20 as sufficient for high citation-density fields like this one, and indexes of around 10 or sometimes even lower for humanities or mathematics, for example). --Randykitty (talk) 15:49, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment. Here I appreciate the greater depth of discussion. But are Wikipedians aware of the horror that is the h-index, in the first place? Not with Randykitty here, but elsewhere it is sad to see the argument boil down to a h cutoff.Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 19:21, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I must admit I am surprised by how simple the keep arguments based on citations are. Please don't take that as a criticism - I'll admit that maybe I've been over-thinking the application of WP:PROF. But surely the age and nature of highly-cited works should at least be taken into account? Two of his highest-cited works are textbooks, which are likely to be well-cited regardless of his stature in the field. And while the number 748 is impressive, that particular paper was published over 40 years ago, translating to 18 cites per year, which feels less impressive. If one takes publication age into account in this way then most of the works in his "top 10" become much less significant. This is one of the biggest criticisms of the h-index. WP:PROF seems silent on this issue, but in this case it's a point that feels relevant. What do people think? Una LagunaTalk 19:56, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I think that the "regulars" at academics AFDs are very well aware of the hazards of boiling down someone's career to a single igure (with RL administrators had the same wisdom). In any case, I think the weakness of the h-index is more that a low index does not necessarily mean that someone is not notable, whereas it will be very rare the other way around. I remember a case of a physicist who had a sizable h, but always was somewhere in the middle among dozens upon dozens of co-authors (must have been high-energy physics) and in the end the conclusion was not notable despite the high h. Any statistic needs interpretation and we therefore cannot have an absolute cutoff value in PROF. --Randykitty (talk) 20:05, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Randykitty. But along Una Laguna I will add another glaring weakness of the h index as used here: Any mediocre scholar, given time, will be turned by such a recipe into WP-worthy. Just publish 20+ citation-worthy papers (relative piece of cake in Boardman's field) and let age. Though this mostly applies to authors of the last thirty-forty years (the subject here is smack in the sweet spot). As a light aside: Funny you should mention Newton in a discussion of someone whose main international recognition (albeit one of over a thousand) is by an optics society.Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 21:30, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * 1/ As I said, I think 20 is indeed a bit low. 2/ Nonetheless, I think you are underestimating the difficulty of reaching even an h-index of 20. Over half of all scientific publications are not cited even once. Ever... 3/ Boardman's index is well above 20. The way the h-index works, 28 is not 40% higher, but much more (that is, this is not a linear thing). 4/ Longevity is not all. Rare is the article that still gets cited regularly 5 years after it was published. --Randykitty (talk) 21:43, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Far from me to disparage academics. But actually it is an urban legend that most scientific publications never get cited, and that is certainly not true in Boardman's meta-field. See here and here. As for short citation cycles, again that's an exaggerated issue (see second source), and certainly less likely in materials science than say in IT.Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 15:27, 13 August 2014 (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.