Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David W. Allan


 * 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)  Ya  sh  !   16:39, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

David W. Allan

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I have to admit I am not 100% sure on this one. It does look like he has one or two papers he co-wrote with a very high number of citations per google scholar, but physics is a field where the citations heavily come in papers and so the citation level will be high. As a government employee as opposed to an academic things are a bit tricky. He seems to have been involved somehow in developing GPS, but that was a braodranging effort. The hnonorary fellow title with the Institute of Naviagation does not seem to fit Criteria 3. That is actually probably the most likely way for scientists in positions like his to meet the criteria, but I do not see it. My general google search came up with his websites, and a non-reliable source highly critical of what he has written on his websites that did not in fact show much understanding of his actual ideas. John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:37, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. -  C HAMPION  (talk) (contributions) (logs) 01:42, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

He´s recipient of the second I. I. Rabi Award of the IEEE (after Rabi, the first recipient).--Claude J (talk) 09:49, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment Thanks and kudos to for a careful and balanced nomination. I'm not entirely sure about this either, but when I  (i.e., essentially the whole article/eulogy written by his son) in 2015, I was persuaded by the cites and the IEEE award that he passed the bar and so did not request deletion as G12. It may be worth noting that our page on the Rabi Award was written by the same COI editor., is this a significant or notable award, can you tell us? If not, perhaps that page should be nominated too. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:04, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, its a prestigious award in the area of frequency and time standards/control (with 5 Nobelprize Winners als recipients beginning with Rabi). Allan has also an entry in Pamela Kalte etal. "American Men and Women of Science" (Thomson Gale 2004) and Allan variance, a fundamental concept in frequency stability analysis, is named after him and invented by him (Riley, Handbook of Frequency Stability Analysis, NIST 2008, p. IV, where he is mentioned as pioneer in this field at the National Bureau of Standards along with James Barnes).--Claude J (talk) 13:39, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment I might be persuaded this article is keepable if someone was able to cite and incorporate the "American Men and Women of Science" reference. We need articles to actually be built on the use of reliable sources.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:46, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Additional comment Would the American Men and Women of Science reference include his educational background. His biography on his website opens here with mentioning when he got degrees from BYU and the University of Colorado. I think I am going to add it for now.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:56, 24 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep The award alone makes him notable to me. The rest of the searches (AMWS) above also convinces me. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:27, 24 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep, per comments and sources from (thank you!). Meanwhile, it'd be helpful if people would stop adding poorly-sourced or self-referenced content to the page – it's completely useless here, as we require independent reliable sources for our content. Thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:53, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep Have found numerous awards as well as peer-reviewed periodicals about or by the subject. Clearly passes WP:GNG. Granted, the article needs work, but a search of news and Google Scholar turns up several reliable sources. AuthorAuthor (talk) 06:04, 25 November 2016 (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.