Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christopher E. Mason


 * 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) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Christopher E. Mason

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Subject fails WP:NPROF and WP:GNG. Wikipedia's guidance about notability says nothing about number of publications, citations, or h-index, so any belief about those is purely subjective. Most of the citations here are what the subject co-wrote so they do nothing for notability. None of the independent sources are about the subject. The subject is not in a named chair. This article was created because Draft:Christopher E. Mason has been declined at AfC. UPE is definitely a possibility. Chris Troutman ( talk ) 19:01, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 19:01, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions.  Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 19:01, 11 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:NPROF C1 for numerous highly cited papers. Citations are relative to field, but this is a strong record even for a fairly high-citation field.  Agree that the article needs a lot of cleanup. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 19:10, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * That's incorrect: AfD is not for cleanup. The issue is that we don't know what "highly cited" means. You, who claim to be an associate professor, say "this is a strong record" but what reliable source can you provide to prove it is? Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 19:20, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm well aware that Afd is not cleanup, but the promotional tone and other details requiring cleanup seem to be the reason for the nomination, and I'm actually sympathetic to that. As Eddie891 says in more detail below, this citation record compares favorably to blps that we have kept in the past. 2800+ citations on the top-cited paper indicates quite a bit of impact.  I'm uncertain as to why you'd take the aggressive tone. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 21:07, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The reason for the nomination is in part because I declined the draft and was watching this space just in case such an end-run around AfC was made. The nomination is because the subject isn't notable, which is the only reason to nominate for deletion. My frustration with your assertions is that some editors make claims about "highly cited" but we, as a community, have never created objective standards regarding h-index, etc. I think your argument is essentially ILIKEIT. At least Eddie891 is making a statistical claim. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 21:19, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Weak keep Google scholar profile suggests a pass of WP:NPROF (top cited paper 2807 cites, ~4 with over 1000, ~9 over 500, and at least 20 over 200) which is 'highly cited' based upon consensus established in many past AfD's. I can understand (and perhaps support) efforts to clarify these guidelines (as to what exactly 'highly cited is'), but the standing consensus is that these numbers would meet NPROF. Eddie891 Talk Work 20:32, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment I've made up a list of some past AfD's that have been kept as 'highly cited' with quotes for easier checking at User:Eddie891/highly cited? Eddie891 Talk Work 20:46, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Any argument using a version of OUTCOMES is circular reasoning. Even if AfDs went the wrong way 200 times in the past does not mean we have to repeat that mistake for consistency's sake. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 21:19, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd completely agree that we don't really have much besides circular reasoning. We seem to have slipped into thresholds that haven't necessarily been backed up. All I found outside of Wikipedia is that he is listed as a "Highly Cited Researcher" which based upon their methodology puts him in the top 1% of scholars in their field, which indicates that he's highly cited to me. This ranking should be taken with a grain of salt because it doesn't seem to have much recognition outside of the company, but it's also made by Clarivate, a seemingly reliable statistics company. Best wishes, Eddie891 Talk Work 23:01, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:PROF based on the citation record of his research. See his Google Scholar profile to confirm. TJMSmith (talk) 21:43, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Weak keep per the first criterion of WP:NPROF, with sympathy to the nom's point of view. I admit the first criterion of NPROF is problematic. Our threshold is "author of highly cited academic work", but citation indices only give us numbers of citations. "Highly cited" differs from field to field, and so we rely upon past AfDs (circular reasoning, as nom points out above), calls to authority (I work in or am familiar with [insert field] so I know what highly cited looks like), and arbitrary rules of thumb to decide where the line is. I'll apply my circular logic and arbitrary rule of thumb here to say: we usually seem to keep pages for profs in biomedicine that have been the senior author on several papers with over 100 citations. According to SCOPUS, the most cited work with the subject as senior author are (456 citations),  (172 citations, but it's a review so my opinion is it doesn't really count),  (129 citations),  (125 citations),  (125 citations; another review), and  (112 citations). So I would call that a narrow pass through NPROF. If we want to discuss tweaking NPROF to hammer down some more usable boundaries, I'm all for that (to the nom's point above, I've never seen a reliable source say "several papers with 100 citations is quite highly cited in biomedicine" and I'm not sure how we've assumed this habit). Based on the way that draft looked, this could very well be a case of WP:BOGO. But besides cleaning up the page to make it less awful, I'm not sure what we should really do about that... Ajpolino (talk) 22:40, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:Prof. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:30, 12 June 2020 (UTC).
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 21:34, 14 June 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.