Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dr. Attash Durrani


 * 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 -- JForget  22:40, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Dr. Attash Durrani

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Obviously self-promotional bio of a Pakistani scholar, apparently strongly exaggerated claims to notability ("famous publications"). See also Ghost Characters Theory, pushing the same agenda. Unsourced. I don't exclude there might be some real notability somewhere to be found out there, though it will probably be difficult to verify without access to Urdu literature; but in any case, even if there's something legit at the core of it, the present text is unuseable for being blatantly promotional. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:05, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. There does seem to be a purport of significant notability, but it's not presented in a way that's verifiable.  Unless someone cleans it up during nomination, delete it until or unless a new verifiable article is created.  LotLE × talk  00:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.   --  Fabrictramp  |  talk to me  00:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Pakistan-related deletion discussions.   --  Fabrictramp  |  talk to me  00:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete What Ghits I can find seem to be press releases  and his editing one unavailable and out of print book  doesn't seem to satisfy notability. I'd be happy to change to Keep if anyone can find independant sources showing notability. Edward321 (talk) 04:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete. It seems that he had quite a few government-related administrative positions, but it is hard to find verifiable evidence of his research having made substantial impact in his academic field. I searched JSTOR, WebOfScience and Scopus and could not find anything (in particular, no evidence of his numerous publications mentioned in the article). Similarly, a Worldcat libraries search returns zero hits for his books. Does not appear to satisfy WP:PROF, based on the verifiable data available. Nsk92 (talk) 11:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * NoteWorld cat returns 6 search results for Atash Durrani (Attash Durrani) i believe there must be a typo in transliteration), — Preceding unsigned comment added by Madzilde (talk • contribs)


 * Delete Vanity article intended to give some credibility to his Ghost Characters Theory BabelStone (talk) 22:50, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * keepI have added references of authentic websites, and changed the tone as well. Please, resolve it. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Madzilde (talk • contribs) — Madzilde (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Weak Delete Doesn't appear to meet the notability criteria for inclusion. Verifiability problems with references which also don't seem to be up to standards. Jasynnash2 (talk) 10:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep I think there is a good dal of cleanup necessary, but the basic information or notability is present. DGG (talk) 06:05, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Article says this person completed his PhD in 1991, so all his notable publications would very likely appear in the Web of Science database (arguably the most comprehensive database of academic publications, covering research areas in the languages, as well as journals written in various languages) – a search on "Durrani A*" turns up 66 publications related primarily to medicine, biology, and structural engineering. (Our subject's work is evidently not among these.) Not a single one of the "250 research papers" claimed in the article seems to be in any of the world's mainstream academic literature, which is very problematic since the article's content would seem to require compliance with WP:PROF.Agricola44 (talk) 15:19, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep Publications of all persons who did PhD in 1991 are not included in every database, "Web of Science" is mainly science database, not much related with language and literature.
 * note to anonymous poster 203.99.176.9: This is patently false. Web of Science (a somewhat narrow name, IMHO) actually covers all academic subject areas. (The Thomson-Reuters site indicates its coverage to be about 8,700 distinct academic journals.) Indeed, if I search for one of my favorite poets, Mary Jo Bang (search "Bang MJ"), I find her contributions (40 hits) in journals such as Poetry, The Paris Review, Western Humanities Review, etc. The common presumption in academia is that notable contributions will be found in Web of Science. The electronic version of this database goes back to 1988, so as I said above, it would indeed be very likely that all notable publications from someone with a 1991 PhD would appear here.Agricola44 (talk) 19:58, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * My Ph.D. is from 1989, not 1991, but my second-most-cited paper (according to Google scholar, which gives it nearly 400 citations), a survey entitled "Mesh generation and optimal triangulation", appears not to be in Web of Science. Nor does "Spanning trees and spanners" (another survey, 159 GS cites), "Subgraph isomorphism in planar graphs and related problems" (a research paper with both a conference and a journal version, 117 GS cites), "Internet packet filter management and rectangle geometry" (conference research paper with 90 GS cites), etc. So I'm not convinced Web of Science should be as trusted as you claim even for technical fields. This should not be taken as validating the anon's point, though, which seems to be perhaps a refutation of someone else's delete argument but doesn't support a keep at all. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:05, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * On this particular individual, I think we agree in principle. As to your more general point, what I believe we really have to keep in mind when measuring against WP:PROF are the long-established standards and conventions of academia. In particular, and with all due respect to everyone in academia and related research and educational sectors, not all publications count equally. For example, academic tenure committees, promotion committees, and the like, typically only consider publications in peer-reviewed journals in their deliberations. Published books carry weight too, although not so much if it is simply a collection of chapters written by many individuals. I'm afraid that conference papers, posters, etc. are given little, if any weight. Committees' presumptions are that notable work will have found its way into the peer-reviewed literature. (This often gets dissected even further, e.g. how many of the author's publications are in "top tier" versus less-prestigious journals, but that is a separate discussion.) There are, of course, exceptions like the Spalart-Allmaras Turbulence Model, which I don't think was ever published in a journal, but such cases are certainly few. Google Scholar gathers citations from a much broader base than Web of Science, so many GS "hits" will likely be from other non-journal sources. (In other words, the average paper appearing in both Google Scholar and Web of Science will have more "hits" in the former.) Again, I'm afraid that the academic establishment does not (at least not yet) consider non-journal citations to be particularly notable. So, IMHO, Web of Science is the better tool for evaluating WP:PROF because (1) there are well-known secrecy problems with Google Scholar, (2) GS does not yet include results from some of the major research sectors (e.g. ACS journals), and (3) all "hits" returned by Web of Science are journal "hits", and so are notable according to current academic standards.Agricola44 (talk) 17:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * My point is that Web of Science excludes many established, respected, and peer-reviewed publications. It is useful, but far from as reliable as you were claiming it to be. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:18, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks.Agricola44 (talk) 21:13, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Notability not verified. Number of citations is a useful barometer, but the standard remains reliable sources attesting to notability. These have not materialized. RayAYang (talk) 21:37, 16 July 2008 (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.