Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andy Vidan


 * 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. Missvain (talk) 19:55, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Andy Vidan

 * – ( View AfD View log )

This article has no reliable biographical sources (the closest thing is a profile in 'Solving Problems that Matter', a CreateSpace book that he contributed to), so I believe it does not meet WP:GNG. He also doesn't meet any of the criteria given in WP:NACADEMIC. I've looked for more sources and haven't found anything but press-release type stuff from some recent business ventures. MrOllie (talk) 14:09, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. MrOllie (talk) 14:09, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Roller26 (talk) 15:46, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Massachusetts-related deletion discussions. Roller26 (talk) 15:46, 30 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete does not meet any of the inclusion criteria for academics.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:52, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

The article not citing reliable references is not an indication that none exist, and should not be used as an argument for deleting the article. This individual exists, has won a notable award from the IEEE, and this article expands on this individual's biography from the limited description included in the parent IEEE article. Again, the individual exists and is notable, and the information in the article is accurate. Additional references exists (a quick search finds references from MIT, IEEE, etc.). I can understand the need to add references and expand on the article, but do not understand why there should be an argument to delete the article.TheNeutron (talk) 20:17, 30 November 2020 (UTC) — TheNeutron (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

I have been thinking about this more and want to ask your consideration of the following: 1) Somewhat of an reductio ad absurdum argument - if you apply some of the thoughts above to most of the linked articles of recipients of these various awards, we will end up with no articles on most recpients. I personally think this is a loss of information, and overall negative value, rather than having articles about persons of interest. (Again, these persons are already arguably notable as they are named in other Wikipedia articles). 2) The WP:Too soon criteria, when applied too soon (no pun intended!), may actually cause us to lose information. If you take a cursory look at various biographical pages, you will notice that we tend to have better referenced biographies of more recent persons. This is largely due to, in my mind, our loss (as a community) of reliable references as the years go by. By creating articles now of contemporary persons, we actually create a starting point to build on in the coming years. MrOllie, and others, I would like to get your thoughts on this (as a new contributor): if you take a look at say one of the IEEE Technical Field Awards (which I would argue is a notable award) such as IEEE Robotics and Automation Award, are you really of the opinion that it would not be better to have each of the identified persons have an article? Again, as an encyclopedia, if you are researching this award, wouldn't you want to complete your research by being able to click on the 2005 recipient Seiuemon Inaba and understand why this person was given the award? Do we really want to lose this information? I may consider doing some research and add articles on these recipients, but I do not want them to be deleted! TheNeutron (talk) 04:50, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Further review of the inclusion criteria for academics, this academic (Criteria #2) "has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level" and (Criteria #8) was the "chief editor of a major, well-established academic journal in their subject area". Many of the other criteria can be hard to argue for many other existing persons, but even (Criteria #1) "The person's research has had a significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources" can arguable be met, as this individual was an Invited Speaker based on his research by the American Physical Society. Again, references exist, this article can be expanded, but should not be deleted. TheNeutron (talk) 21:27, 30 November 2020 (UTC) — TheNeutron (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * , As far as I can tell he has not won any 'highly prestigious' awards. This is for Nobels and the like. If he has in fact won such a thing it should at least be mentioned in the article. As to Criteria #8, which journal? Until recently the article wrongly stated that he was the editor of something called 'Humanitarian Technology' but that is not a journal at all, let alone a major one. It was a few special themed issues of Procedia Engineering. #1 obviously does not apply to conference speakers, or there would be very few academics who are not notable. MrOllie (talk) 22:37, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Suggestion remains toKeep and not delete. Information is accurate, let's expand on the article. This is after all Wikipedia. Criteria #1 I would agree with you, unless there is more here that we do not yet know and that we should allow the community to expand on. IEEE Technical Field Awards tend to be rather prestigious type of IEEE awards given. Procedia Engineering is through Elsevier, available on ScienceDirect, and tends to be an open access journal, which makes sense given the topic. TheNeutron (talk) 22:53, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , IEEE field awards aren't even the top class of awards you can get from the IEEE. That would be the medals, and specifically the IEEE Medal of Honor, which would probably be the IEEE award that would qualify for this criteria. Again, he is not the chief editor of Procedia Engineering. - MrOllie (talk) 22:58, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, I have struck out your second bold "keep". You are only allowed one of those per AfD. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:26, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Got it. Sorry - did not mean to do that twice.TheNeutron (talk) 02:33, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. WP:Too soon to pass WP:Prof. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:58, 1 December 2020 (UTC).
 * There is a clear need to find biographical information in an encyclopedia of persons of interest. We can continue to debate which of all the awards listed on IEEE awards is notable or top class, but the fact of the matter is, there is a list of articles of these awards and their recipients. I believe the community would like to have more than a mere mention of a name of a person, but to be able to click through and see a full article about the receipient. We have here what is the start of a good, well-referenced article about a person that arguably fits the notability criteria. I still do not see the merit of deletion rather than improving.TheNeutron (talk) 02:33, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep Improve the article first. But it nominator has some argument.BlueD954 (talk) 04:59, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete The argument above for keeping is that if we make articles on everybody who might possibly later become notable, we'll have the basis of a good quality article when they do. But this is utterly opposed to the basic principle of WP, the policy NOT INDISCRIMINATE. To carry it to an admittedly absurd length, if we make articles for everyone who gets a PhD, perhaps 1% will be notable. But the other articles will actually do harm being here, because then WP will become a directory, not an encyclopedia Similarly for minor awards--awards are a shortcut at WP:PROF, because major awards invariable go to academics who have published a good deal of very heavily cited work--it's the standard the profession uses., but the basic criterion in science is publications. The expected level of an award to show. notability is that it's the highest level in the field on a national basis.  DGG ( talk ) 09:41, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that was really my argument, or my intention. We are not making a directory, but rather connecting the dots, filling in biographical information, on persons of interest that are mentioned elsewhere on WP. Again, the information in the article is accurate, and additional references exists. I still maitain a better option here is to improve, not delete. If you allow me time, I will look to add references and biographical information from reliable sources I can find, and look for your review. TheNeutron (talk) 13:42, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , Your argument boils down to inherited notability - the idea that because a topic is associated with some other notable topic it must be notable as well. This argument pretty much never gains traction at AFD - see WP:NOTINHERITED. MrOllie (talk) 13:50, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * MrOllie Fair point, I'll give you that. But please answer my question posed to you above. What's more of a directory? A list of award recipients names, or a rich encyclopedia that has articles with biographical information about the recipients? When I use an encyclopedia, I want more information, not less. In my question above, I honestly randomly chose Seiuemon Inaba as an example of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Award article that has no information, and after a bit of research, found that this individual actually just passed away after making significant achievements. No article exists about him - was there ever one? perhaps someone got discouraged from creating one? I may create one now, but would not want my efforts to get deleted... TheNeutron (talk) 15:45, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , If you'd like to opine about or change the notability guidelines, the place for that is Wikipedia_talk:Notability. This discussion should remain focused on whether this particular article satisfies the guidelines as they currently are. MrOllie (talk) 16:14, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete Citation counts are far too low for WP:PROF. The IEEE Innovation in Societal Infrastructure Award is not significant enough for WP:PROF. Co-editing "the annual Humanitarian Technology special issues of the Procedia Engineering journal" is not the kind of achievement that WP:PROF is talking about. (We don't even have an article for Procedia Engineering; it appears not to have published an issue since 2018.) XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:25, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * So now this all just seems arbitrary. The individual has a article (in Nature) that experimentally verified a topic within quantum mechanics and superconductivity, with 200+ citations, received a Nature News/Views citation about it, received an Invited Talk by the American Physical Society, developed humanitarian technology being used by NATO and was editor of an Elsevier special edition journal; all this, and received an IEEE Technical Field Award. I'm sorry, but this seems like a worthwhile mention in WP, and links to other articles of interest across WP. For someone in the IEEE world, this is all very notable. I really don't understand the desire to delete accurate, factual information, rather than improve on it. This is very discouraging. Xxanthippe, XOR&#39;easter, MrOllie, DGG Please reconsider changing your position, so we can reach a consensus. Thank you. TheNeutron (talk) 17:50, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Minor note: It seems like the 3 issues of the journal that was edited has about ~50 papers in each; so we are talking about editing a special journal with 150 articles over 3 different editions.TheNeutron (talk) 17:53, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Being published in Nature doesn't make a person notable. (For example, I have been, and I'm not.) Similar remarks apply to all the other points you raise: many, many people are "invited speakers" at APS meetings; many, many people edit special issues of journals. Vidan simply does not yet stand out from his field in a documentable way. I encourage you to browse the archive of "academics and educators" deletion debates to see how the Wikipedia community decides these matters in practice. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:06, 1 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Editing a special issue of a journal is not notability . Even I've done it. Giving a talk at a society meeting however prestigeous, is not notability, essentially everyone with a PhD has done it. I've had an article written about in Nature News, and nobody has paid any attention to it since.
 * But rechecking the one thing that really matters,  the citations to his articles,, I see 213 (work when a-student), 294 ,(also based on his phd work)  14, 2, 1,    The papers with the highest citations are normally what we look for, but these are not indepdent work. The triple quantum dots work is uncited; many others have published well cited papers on the topic
 * From the lack of knowledge of our standards shown above, and argued repetitively, and the lack of work on any other subject here, and especially the failure to respond when notified about our rules on COI editing  on the user talk page., I conclude that the prurpose of this is promotion of a   scientist. who is very borderline at best. The combination of clear promotionalism , and very borderline notability , is a clear reason for deletion--either alone would be sufficient. The probably undeclared coi makes the necessary conclusion obvious.   DGG ( talk ) 18:24, 1 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete. I find DGG's analysis both of the citation counts (i.e. why we should discount the two high-citation works and look at the bigger pattern) and of the promotionalism on show here persuasive. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:46, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * David Eppstein, DGG and otherss: Apologies for the "repetitive arguements," but my frustrations here stems from 1) Accomplishments taken each on their own, and not as a collective. (Yes, understanding the criteria of Notability). One may have a Nature article, and yes, one may have an Invited Talk (which is very different and not common such as regular conference talks), and one may have yet another accomplishment. But collectively, the pattern here is taken together, plus a notable award, is what in my mind creates a justification for this article to be improved and not delete. 2) It seems unjustifiable that our awards within the IEEE, of which we do not have many and these Technical Field Awards are, as the name implies, meant to signify a significant award in a specific field of study, should be considered not notable. I certainly believe, and I hope others do as well, that all recipients of our IEEE technical Field Awards are deserving of an article. Finally, I am not sure of, and apologies for, not responding to the COI concern earlier. I took that as an alert, not something that required a response. There is no COI on my end. I would just like to fill out these recipients, and not have actual, factual information removed from WP. TheNeutron (talk) 18:49, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * More unsolicited advice: go read WP:BADGER. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:06, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * TheNeutron is the creator of and major contributor to this BLP. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2020 (UTC).
 * Delete. Looks WP:TOOSOON for WP:NPROF; I'm brought from weak to plain delete by WP:TNT.  The persistent WP:BLUDGEONing of the process and strong hints of COI don't help convince me that we'd be better off keeping. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 08:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete per, who's a former academic and someone I trust. As a former college teacher myself, while editing a journal or textbook is "an honor", it's not an award in academia, it's your job. Calling it an honor is an insult to the scut-puppies who get paid $120 to edit a monograph. Bearian (talk) 22:22, 4 December 2020 (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.