Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Douglas Torr


 * 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 delete‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. Daniel (talk) 22:33, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Douglas Torr

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Subject fails NPROF and ANYBIO. BEFORE search revealed no significant coverage. Chris Troutman ( talk )  01:09, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Academics and educators, Science,  and Alabama.   Chris Troutman  ( talk )  01:10, 29 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Delete. No sources found about him, aside from four JSTOR mentions. Thus, no sigcov, no notability.  Brachy 08  (Talk) 01:15, 29 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Delete. His citation record in Google Scholar is not bad, with quite a few double-digit citation counts and one triple-digit, but this is not strong enough in a high-citation field to convince me of a pass of WP:PROF. In the early 2000s he seems to have bounced around from UAB Huntsville to the University of South Carolina to Virginia Commonwealth U. (judging from publication affiliations) and then his academic career appears to have evaporated without trace, not a good sign. Now all that can be found are extremely fringy web sites. I don't think there's anything here on which to base an article. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:39, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete: Fails WP:GNG, WP:NPROF, and WP:ANYBIO. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:39, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep. May pass WP:Prof from GS citations in this not particularly high citation field (not nearly as high as computer science or biomed). His move into fringy activities may prejudice some against him, but I think that his other activities are enough for a weak keep. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:06, 29 January 2024 (UTC).
 * Delete for the reasons mentioned above. I see no demonstration of notability in this article or elsewhere.Ldm1954 (talk) 12:09, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. I think he actually does pass WP:Prof, as Xxanthippe mentioned, based on the number of citations as well as the number of peer-reviewed publications. But the article is a stub and needs significant improvement. If the fringy stuff makes him more notable then it should be included but if not, not. Qflib (talk) 17:42, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Qflib and @Xxanthippe, just to check we are discussing the same person, I found his citations at Scispace which reports 151 pubs (reasonable), 4150 citations (low) and an h-factor of 29 (low). To me those numbers are too low. Ldm1954 (talk) 20:51, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * If those statistics are reliable, and I have my doubts, they would lead to a keep. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:10, 1 February 2024 (UTC).
 * That h-factor is at the Associate Professor level. IMHO > 50 is a base level for an h-factor of a notable scientist, perhaps 30 for a mathematician. He would be marginal for promotion to full professor at an R1 university, particularly as many of his pubs are reports. Maybe I am harsher than many... Ldm1954 (talk) 01:36, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
 * 30 for mathematicians would be a pretty high standard for anyone who doesn't do applied/CS stuff... JoelleJay (talk) 22:15, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Scopus has him at 2823 citations, 163 docs, and h-index of 23. For most subfields of physics that is very low, but I'll have to check what his coauthors' citation profiles look like. JoelleJay (talk) 21:57, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete. I looked at all 55 coauthors of his with 30+ papers (average paper count among all 105 coauthors is 64):
 * Total citations: average: 4189, median: 2600, Torr: 2824. Total papers: 113, 90, 163. h-index: 29, 27, 23. Top 5 citations: 1st: 473, 360, 360. 2nd: 260, 173, 209. 3rd: 187, 138, 201. 4th: 150, 117, 132. 5th: 133, 97, 129. While he does have more papers and more highly-cited top papers than the median and sometimes average researcher in his field, what we're looking for is someone who is outstanding in their subfield, not slightly above average. Worth also pointing out that compared to people in the same subfield today, his citation profile is much less impressive (e.g. coauthors with far fewer papers who are still active include people like Maura Hagan, whose metrics are 7597, 102, 49, 621, 549, 415, 297, 267). JoelleJay (talk) 02:53, 3 February 2024 (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.