Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charles Wells (mathematician)


 * 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The result was Keep (non-admin closure / withdrawn by nom). Trout accepted. To be honest, I found it hard to believe that he wasn't notable, but as Salix  noted I was fooled by his being the second named author in his main work. Liv it ⇑ Eh?/What? 14:23, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Charles Wells (mathematician)

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Non-notable retired professor. Granted he is co-author of textbooks, I don't see anything that meets notability guidelines. The article asserts that he made "fundamental contributions to category theory", but I can't find any independent sourcing to back that up. Scholar searches don't show up citations of his books, and my basic searches of papers on category theory don't bring him up either. I'm happy to be proven wrong by someone who knows more about this field than I do, but from a layman's searches, he appears non-notable. Liv it ⇑ Eh?/What? 20:50, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Google scholar lists 705 citations to the textbook. All existing relevant Wikipedia entries point to this textbook, and did so all along: Category theory, Topos theory, Monad (category theory), Sketch (mathematics), Beck's monadicity theorem. The book is a standard reference in courses on category theory taught at universities. It has been foundational for the whole subject. Urs Schreiber 22:14, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * That was 705 citations for Toposes, Triples and Theories. The other book Category Theory for Computing Science gets 1094, although Google Scholar incorrectly attaches those citations to the answers sheet rather than the book. -- 202.124.73.122 (talk) 04:00, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 23:32, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 23:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep: In my view a pass of WP:Prof 4# The person's academic work has made a significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions. Criterion 4 may be satisfied, for example, if the person has authored several books that are widely used as textbooks (or as a basis for a course) at multiple institutions of higher education. Noted author of well used uni level maths textbooks - both Toposes, Triples and Theories - "a classic text" and Category Theory for Computing Science. Also, although it is not one of our criteria for notability, I think the fact his work is cited by our encyclopedia in several places is indicative of notability. (Msrasnw (talk) 01:30, 16 February 2012 (UTC))
 * Keep – significant impact in their scholarly discipline, as evidenced by highly cited academic work. --Lambiam 02:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep as the author of influential and highly cited textbooks, and a WP:TROUT to the nominator for wasting our time. Clearly satisfies WP:PROF #1 and #4, based on citations of the books. -- 202.124.73.122 (talk) 03:54, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:PROF, but add ref-s, and rm unformated links to articles and surveys. Sasha (talk) 05:22, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep (looking like a snowball keep) Looking at the citation of Toposes, Triples and Theories Wells is the second author which may account for Livitup problems with finding the google Scholar references.--Salix (talk): 09:22, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - vast number of cites, passes WP:PROF easily. --He to Hecuba (talk) 14:11, 16 February 2012 (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.