Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ben Britton


 * 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. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  11:01, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Ben Britton

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

High achieving early career scientist, but fails WP:PROF, very little to satisfy our notability criteria aside from their social media activity. This is a potential WP:COI article creation, although the deletion nomination is based purely on notability. Polyamorph (talk) 10:08, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 11:34, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 11:34, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 11:34, 10 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment Note that has responded on the article's talk page to the nominator's COI concern. Bakazaka (talk) 17:14, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Her comments there are less than fully candid. Personally I think the notability case is borderline here, but the muddying of the waters by COI editing really doesn't help. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 19:26, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Hello, what do you mean by ‘less than fully candid’? I have nothing to do with Ben academically and did not know him well when I started the page- the only part I’ve added since was his involvement in a charity and a recent academic project. Nothing impartial, no ‘puffery’. If someone can point out where my ‘less than candid’ admission of a potential COI impacts the neutrality of this article I’m happy to remove those sections. Or someone who works in nuclear engineering/ microscopy could develop this further...Jesswade88 (talk) 09:40, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * My comment is fully explained on the talk page. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 09:40, 14 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep Looks like a pass of WP:PROF to me . I'm not sure if his IOM3 Fellowship is selective/prestigious enough to count for WP:PROF, but it doesn't hurt. In addition, he appears to be something of a quotable source for expert opinion on nuclear energy, maybe not enough so for a slam-dunk pass of WP:PROF, but again, leaning in that direction. While I see the possibility for a COI in principle, the article that we have now does not itself appear problematic to me. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:47, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Addendum OK, after reading around more, I'm satisfied that an IOM3 Fellowship counts for WP:PROF. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 01:01, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment I suspect another COI edit has recently been made to this biography, going by the username, I have notified the user involved. The article may not seem problematic, but COI editing introduces bias, whether intentional or not. It is a little concerning that even though this AfD makes mention of COI concerns, such editing continues. I assume good faith in that the editors involved are likely inexperienced and unaware of wikipedia policy and guidelines. Notability needs to be established by reference to significant coverage in reliable third party sources. The above keep !vote immediately above this comment does not satisfy this requirement. Polyamorph (talk) 09:24, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * COI confirmed by editor here. I undid the edit as I don't feel the particular internal university award is particularly noteworthy.Polyamorph (talk) 18:21, 14 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Notice of off-wiki discussion of this AfD. This AfD has been mentioned in a non-neutral manner off-wiki. Polyamorph (talk) 10:03, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Question Are you referring to this tweet by Britton? (One of the most "fun" aspects of having a @Wikipedia article about yourself is watching people discuss whether you are notable or not. But of course, the living subject of the article is not allowed to comment or remind the people bickering that their comments are about a human...) I checked the various social-media venues where I figured such mentions would occur, and I didn't see anything else. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:21, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I am not sure it is appropriate to directly link to off-wiki discussion, but since you have I will reply "Yes". Polyamorph (talk) 18:10, 14 January 2019 (UTC)


 * '' Clearly I have a Conflict of Interest, as I am the subject of the article and as noted by the Tweet TheSandDoctor I can comment here.

Re: WP:PROF If you want evidence of external comment on nuclear power aspects - I am quoted by World Nuclear News - http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Costs-will-dictate-future-of-UK-nuclear,-says-univ. and http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/UK-academics-join-pro-Hinkley-nuclear-project-deba and my comments have been covered in The Engineer https://www.theengineer.co.uk/building-a-future-career-prospects-in-civil-engineering/, and I have written to the House of Lords https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201719/ldselect/ldeucom/63/63.pdf and http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/eu-energy-and-environment-subcommittee/brexit-energy-security/written/69411.html. I have contributed to the House of Lords on Nuclear - https://www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-committees/science-technology/Nuclear-research-technologies/Nuclear-research-technologies-evidence.pdf. I have contributed to 3rd party discussions on Climate Change - https://www.climateworks.org/clean-power-2017-deep-dive/.

Re: WP:PROF If you want evidence of my comment on LGBTQ+ issues - I am quoted by Chemistry World (this is the press of the Royal Society of Chemistry) - https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/a-walk-on-the-pride-side/3009251.article

Re: WP:PROF If you want evidence that I am a notable ECR researcher - I have been quoted by Nature on how to set up a lab - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05655-3. I have been quoted by C&EN on how to improve communication in a lab https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i29/Slack-ing-helps-chemists-manage.html.

Regarding awards WP:PROF: The Royal Academy of Engineering / Engineer's Trust award of "Young Engineer of the Year" is a Premier Award of the Royal Academy of Engineering - https://www.raeng.org.uk/grants-and-prizes/prizes-and-medals/individual-medals/young-engineer-of-the-year. I was one of 5 awardees and the citation is here: https://www.raeng.org.uk/news/news-releases/2016/june/future-engineering-leaders-win-academy-awards - this is a nationally recognised award, given by the Engineering Equivalent of the Royal Society. This was reported in the Engineering press - e.g. https://www.theengineer.co.uk/royal-academy-honours-engineers-early-career-achievements/

The IOM3 Silver Medal is a Premier Award of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. This is the learned society who recognise and award Chartered Engineering and Chartered Scientist status. The Silver Medal is a premier award to recognise silver medal achievement - https://www.iom3.org/news/2014/apr/15/institute-medals-and-prizes-2014 - and I was awarded this in 2014.

Regarding Fellowship WP:PROF: I am a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. This is the learned institute for my discipline. It is equivalent to IEEE (which is the example given) and to the Institute of Physics, Royal Society of Chemistry, and equivalent scholarly institutions in the UK. I am also a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Scientist. For all these, I am one of the youngest in the UK to have these.

Regarding my research fellowship, funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering WP:PROF: This was covered in the engineering press - https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/september-2014-online/materials-study-aims-at-improving-nuclear-reactor-performance/ This was covered in the Futurist - https://search.proquest.com/openview/f18d55a8f332425856d380e2c18ac3a0/1?cbl=47758&pq-origsite=gscholar The Imperial College press article was picked up externally - https://www.myscience.org.uk/wire/two_imperial_researchers_announced_as_fellows_of_royal_academy_of_engineering-2014-imperial

Regarding impact WP:PROF: One aspect of my research is the field of electron backscatter diffraction. My work is recognised as world leading in this area. I am current conference chair at the UK RMS EBSD meeting (2019) - https://www.rms.org.uk/discover-engage/event-calendar/ebsd-2019.html. I have been Conference Chair of the 2014 meeting. I was conference session chair at the 2018 International Microscopy Congress - http://imc19.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/IMC19-Program_30052018.pdf. Publication 'metrics' are difficult (see https://sfdora.org/) but within my field, my work is received favourably (e.g. "Crystal Orientations and EBSD - Or Which Way is Up?" has been downloaded >22,000 times (presently it is at 25,283 downloads) as per reporting of the publisher Joe d'Angelo who works for Elsevier (https://twitter.com/jodangeeto/status/1065981372186136576) and for context this article remains one of the most downloaded articles from the journal https://www.journals.elsevier.com/materials-characterization - see Most Downloaded).

BenBritton (talk) 18:54, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Being new to Wikipedia I have looked up the conditions for notability for an academic: 'Academics/professors meeting any one of the following conditions, as substantiated through reliable sources, are notable... 2. The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level.' Dr Britton was awarded the IoM3's Silver Medal in 2014. The IoM3 is the national learned society for materials science and they declare this one of their premier awards. These are quite easily verifiable points of fact. I would have thought this in itself would be enough. AngusW99 (talk) 20:35, 14 January 2019 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that AngusW99 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion.
 * Reply Thank you for your comments. On the subject of publication metrics, Wikipedia does rely upon citation counts (and indices derived from them) more than upon download figures. Of course, citation counts are a coarse indicator with recognized flaws; to mention one issue that has arisen repeatedly, pure mathematicians can have quite low numbers while still being highly influential in their field. Our notability guideline for scholars and academics mitigates (imperfectly) these shortcomings by making publication metrics only one of several paths to notability. To see how the guideline is applied in practice, perusing the archive may be instructive. In fact, this is one aspect of the "sausage factory" that I've never seen addressed very well by the outside press. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 01:37, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Reply (Note conflict of interest, as above - I am the subject of the article which the AfD discusses) On citation metrics vs downloads, my citations can be accessed easily via Google scholar (there is a link in the primary article, and note I have been independent of my supervisor since 2012 when I started at Imperial). On the use of Downloads vs Citations, this is an active area of discussion in the responsible metrics community. I include the downloads in my list as an extra 'flavour' in the portfolio assessment as there is a positive correlation, as per Watson (Journal of Vision, 2009 - https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2193506). There are also "strong correlations between citations and download frequency when absolute values are used" (ref Schloegl and Gorraiz https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/asi.21420, as referenced in https://www.researchtrends.com/issue-37-june-2014/downloads-versus-citations-and-the-role-of-publication-language/ - but note that the correlation is weaker when an individual paper is used). In terms of external comment on this use of citations and the assessment of researchers, you can find lots of discussion on this via the #ResponsibleMetrics tag on twitter for instance and https://sfdora.org/ (which is discussed by Wellcome https://wellcome.ac.uk/news/how-we-judge-research-outputs-when-making-funding-decisions and DORA has been signed up to by the UK research councils https://timeshighereducation.com/news/funding-councils-sign-responsible-research-assessment). However, you can see in comments here that citations are being used to assess WP:PROF. BenBritton (talk) 19:28, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Reply Thank you again for your comments. I, for one, welcome our new altmetric overlords would be happy to have a discussion about whether WP:PROF needs updating, and if so, how to do it. (I can certainly see a case for making changes.) That is a bigger topic than what to do with an individual article, and perhaps Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics) would be a more suitable venue for that discussion. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:17, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm up for some of that, give me a shout if the discussion starts. Cheers! ——  SerialNumber  54129  21:16, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Declaration of Conflicted Interest: Dr Ben Britton was a research student I supervised in the Oxford Micromechanics Group. I continue to interact and collaborate with him [which I enjoy and gain from].
 * Comment I have to admit, I am somewhat swayed by the IOM3 fellowship WP:PROF, and citations are high WP:PROF. Polyamorph (talk) 07:04, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Having said this, I don't particularly see sufficient evidence for Significant coverage in reliable sources. Polyamorph (talk) 08:58, 15 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep clearly passes NPROF. Generally WPBEFORE assists in these matters. ——  SerialNumber  54129  08:08, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * This is a good faith nomination, WP:BEFORE was followed. The subject is not clearly notable as you state, hence the Notability tags which were removed by the article creator who has confirmed their COI on this article talk page. This is a borderline pass of WP:NPROF C3 and possibly C1 at best and warrants discussion. More evidence of Significant coverage in reliable sources would be a more helpful argument than simply "clearly passes NPROF" with no justification. Polyamorph (talk) 08:58, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You did do a WPBEFORE? Right, thanks for letting us know. ——  SerialNumber  54129  09:21, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, no problem. Cheers Polyamorph (talk) 09:36, 15 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep   on balance. The awards are junior awards for promising scientists under 30, and usually we consider junior awards as  equivalent to "May become notable someday" especially when the award goes to several people, --but  the IOM3 seems more important than most  junior awards. . The  work is very well cited for the field--citations of 146, 136, 128 ....    However, all of these were published as a joint author with his advisor. The question in such cases, is who gets the principal credit--it can be either way. Sometimes a senior person adds a junior who had only a minor role; sometimes the senior person adds his name to the junior only because the work was supported by the senior person's grant--and all sorts of intermediate situations.    There is no consistency, even within fields, and it is not easy for outsiders to judge. The paper published when Britton was still as PhD student has the highest citations, but it's the oldest, and papers accumulate citations with time. (As AngusW99 well knows, these are some of the limitations of such counts)
 * I do point out that being quoted by the press and testifying before a committee is not considered very heavily towards notability here, and especially that arguments by someone for their own notability are looked upon with a great deal of skepticism, and to a lesser degree the same goes by arguments from a colleague. .  DGG ( talk ) 08:25, 15 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep He seems to meets WP:NACADEMIC #1 (high citation rate), #2 (the IOM3 Silver medal), and #3 (Fellowship of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM), which "is an award granted to individuals that the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3), judges to have made “significant contribution or established a record of achievement in the materials, minerals, mining ”.) RebeccaGreen (talk) 04:34, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep The original article was a vanity piece created by a conflicted editor, and her continued involvement hasn't helped, but he's on the verge of meeting WP:NACADEMIC (based largely on the IOM3 silver medal: the FIMM is far too low level to count for anything) and will clearly pass it at some point in the next few years. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 09:14, 17 January 2019 (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.