Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anna M. Cienciala


 * 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. Courcelles 00:09, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Anna M. Cienciala

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Delete: Does not appear to fulfill WP:NOTABILITY.Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 02:00, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, I do understand and respect her academic credentials, but, aside from apparently just one published work, what distinguishes her from any other university professor in the nation? Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 21:19, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Keep. In fact this should be a snow. "aside from apparently just one published work" - what? Before nominating this, did you even bother to check her publications? The fact that the article on her cites only one work does not mean that she's published only one work. And one doesn't get to be a Professor Emeritus at a major research university based on a single publication. Seriously it's not that hard to check. Here's google scholar:. Here's google books showing how widely cited she is. Here she is as both an author and subject on jstor. This obviously fulfills #1 under Notability (academics) . Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:54, 1 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, whoever created the article should have made her notability clear and credited her writings, etc. and not just done a quick stublike job of it. I hope the article is fixed as  Volunteer Marek describes because it was simply not notable as written when I made the nomination. I'll be more than happy to withdraw the nom. ("Emeritus" just means essentially being retired from the rigors of daily academia, no?) Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 22:10, 1 January 2011 (UTC)


 * There's lots of incomplete stubs on Wikipedia. That's not a reason for deletion. Note that when you nominate an article it provides links to "news · books · scholar · free images". You can click these to see if the subject is notable. It is up to the nominator to check these. Also, the criteria for deletion is not whether the article is stubby or fixed but whether it is on a notable subject. I don't know if I'll have time to fix it, but that doesn't affect the fact that it shouldn't be deleted.
 * The title "emeritus" is used differently in different places. Sometimes it can just refer to a full professor who has retired but remains active in some capacity. In other instances the bestowing of the title is more rigorous and reserved for the most important/contributing retiring faculty. Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:41, 1 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:03, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:04, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. GS cites are 25, 11, 8, 4 .... Inadequate to meet WP:Prof. Emeritus does not help; by that time achievement should be apparent. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:40, 2 January 2011 (UTC).
 * GS cites are 25, 11, 8, 4  - I'm sorry can you clarify what this means? The GS shows a plethora of published works as well as lots of works citing her. All in all there's almost 11,700 hits on google scholar. The Nobelist Robert Aumann only gets 7,610 hits on google scholar! Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:41, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, please check google scholar with just "Anna Cienciala", without that middle "M.". "Cienciala" is a rare enough name that there shouldn't be too many false positives out of those 11,700 hits. Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:54, 2 January 2011 (UTC
 * Just look at the GS link you created yourself above. The cites are extremely low compared to most that come to these pages. What counts for scholars are cites, not hits. We normally expect around 1000 cites for a clear pass of WP:Prof. There may be special reasons here. If so it would be useful to know them. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:41, 3 January 2011 (UTC).
 * For History Profs? Note she was also on the Board of Directors of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, and received the Polish Cross of Merit. Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:07, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. WP:PROF is fulfilled by a festschrift in her honour: Andrzejewski, Marek, ed. Gdañsk, Gdynia, Europe, and the United States in the 19th and 20th Centuries: A Festschrift in Honor of Professor Anna Cienciala. Gdañsk: Gdañsk University Press, 2000. --Hegvald (talk) 10:27, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Which criterion of WP:Prof are you referring to? Xxanthippe (talk) 03:00, 3 January 2011 (UTC).
 * Couldn't you just search the WP:PROF page for "festschrift"? --Hegvald (talk) 03:21, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Are you implicitly referring to the point made there that this will only count as a "contributing factor"? I think the fact that there are a number of reviews covering her work should be enough, but a festschrift supports the claim that she is notable in her field. (I do not have a high opinion of the value of citation indices for measuring importance in the humanities.) --Hegvald (talk) 04:01, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not implicitly referring to anything. I just asked a question (which is yet to be answered). Xxanthippe (talk) 04:43, 3 January 2011 (UTC).
 * Can you provide a web link that would confirm this, maybe a link to a library catalog? Xxanthippe (talk) 01:49, 3 January 2011 (UTC).
 * Found it here under the English title, but it actually appears to have a Polish title: Gdańsk - Gdynia - Europa - Stany Zjednoczone w XIX i XX wieku : księga pamiątkowa dedykowana profesor Annie Cienciale, explaining why the English title is difficult to find on Google. --Hegvald (talk) 02:07, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note that the catalogue of the Polish National Library refers to her as "Cienciała" (note the L with stroke in the name). This should be included in the article (although not in the title, as she appears to have been living in America for most of her life). --Hegvald (talk) 15:06, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Does this work appear in any other catalogs? Xxanthippe (talk) 02:13, 3 January 2011 (UTC).


 * Keep -- The list of her academic publications speaks for itself to my mind. The Polish version of her name should appear in the lead, but not the title, since she is clearly an American-resident, living where this accent is not used.  Peterkingiron (talk) 19:59, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The WP:Prof criterion for notability is not how much stuff a person has published but how much their stuff has been noted by others in reliable scholarly sources. This may be ascertained readily from citation databases such as Google scholar, Web of Science or Scopus. In this case the GS cites are anomalously low for a person who has published on contentious subjects as the Katyn massacre. Can anybody suggest why? What are the WoS and Scopus cites? Xxanthippe (talk) 23:41, 3 January 2011 (UTC).


 * Keep. Looks like a notable author, as can be established even by a Google search. I also checked her ISI citation index. She has 101 journal publications and she was quoted 52 times. That's a lot for someone who works in field of humanities. For comparison, Orlando Figes, who is definitely a notable author/historian, was cited ~350 times in this index (including quoting his books). Biophys (talk) 03:34, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Compare apples with apples. On GS the cites of Orlando Figes are 144, 109, 50, 52, 49, 44, 36, 21, 20... to give total cites of around 600 and an h index of 10. This would be in the acceptable range by our normal standards for WP:Prof for historians. Also, Figes has a great deal of general notability. The cites of this subject are ten times lower. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:22, 4 January 2011 (UTC).
 * The criteria of "highly cited" strongly depends on area of knowledge. In some areas of Biology one need several thousand of quotations to be "highly cited"; in others - only hundreds. You need to first calculate citation indexes for all historians, and then take 10% of the most highly cited to see if this particular author was among them. That's how this is done. h index means very little.Biophys (talk) 05:55, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The subject of this AfD publishes in the same area as Orlando Figes. A factor of 10 is hard to argue away. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:05, 4 January 2011 (UTC).
 * Sure, Orlando Figes is a notable author. But it does not mean that subject of the AfD does not belong to 10 or 20% of the most highly cited historians (I simply do not know it).Biophys (talk) 06:12, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I remind Biophys of his topic ban here, which still appears to be in effect. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:18, 4 January 2011 (UTC).
 * Thank you. This article is about Polish historian, and I do not discuss anything related to the Soviet Union, but only notability of a person. Besides, I am not excluded from the "process", but only from editing articles on the subject.Biophys (talk) 16:23, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The text of your topic ban (applied 23 May 2009) runs as: "3) Biophys (talk · contribs) is banned from editing articles about the Soviet Union and former Soviet Republics, and all related articles, broadly construed, for a period of no less than 1 year. At the end of 1 year, Biophys may apply to have the ban reviewed by the Arbitration Committee. 4) Biophys is restricted to 1 revert per week per article in the topic area for 1 year. This restriction will run consecutively with the topic ban." This might be considered to be a "related article, broadly construed". Xxanthippe (talk) 23:04, 4 January 2011 (UTC).
 * Sorry, but I do not see how ISI citation index I was talking about may be related to the Soviet Union. Besides, I did not edit the article.Biophys (talk) 03:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Expand and source.♦ Dr. Blofeld  22:08, 5 January 2011 (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.