Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eugene F. Lally


 * 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. While the headcount is similar on keep and delete sides, DGG's argument stands clear and has not been refuted. Stifle (talk) 09:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Eugene F. Lally

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

This self-written biography is for a rather typical and non-notable engineer from the early 1960's. Other than being amusing for its florid self-serving style the article serves little educational or historical purpose. His references are very obscure and there scant independent and verifiable evidence that he made any of the fundamental contributions he claims or was considered notable then or is considered notable now by anyone except in modern articles he has written about himself. Aldebaran66 (talk) 04:46, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Photography-related deletion discussions.  —Hoary (talk) 05:54, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  —Hoary (talk) 05:58, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.  —Hoary (talk) 06:00, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment this story at news.com.au basically gives the guy credit for coming up with the idea for the digital camera. If this is the case he probably deserves at least a mention somewhere. Given that this seems to be repeated elsewhere I'm a bit surprised by the lack of easily available coverage. Guest9999 (talk) 06:19, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * That article (for some Murdoch/Fox publication) doesn't start to hint at any source for the assertion. It doesn't mention any camera manufacturer, or even any present-day member of NASA, crediting Lally. Indeed, the article has a link to this WP article, raising the possibility that WP is his source. -- Hoary (talk) 06:26, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Question for nominator: In this edit, you wrote (in reply to the assertion Lally was/is a Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech scientist who published a paper in 1961 containing the first concept of digital photography) that: Lally's 1961 conference presentation proposes a spacecraft guidance system and does not mention photography. No version of any of his claims ever appeared in a refereed journal or patent or can be shown to have had any impact on later developments. The veracity of this document is also in question as it is available only from the author himself. However, the URL of that PDF file suggests that it's available from your website. Would you care to explain? -- Hoary (talk) 06:20, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It was obtained directly from the author (Lally) by another editor and passed on to me as a pdf. I have been unable to find any other source for it or independently verify it. Aldebaran66 (talk) 06:33, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment The Oxford Companion to the Photograph is historically oriented. Its article "Digital imaging" says nothing about the period before the development of the CCD in 1972. (Conveniently, and perhaps even legally, the article is reproduced here.) The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, 3rd ed (1993) simply starts the story of "Electronic Still Photography" with Sony's 1981 announcement/prototype. -- Hoary (talk) 07:33, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment There may be weak grounds to keep the article if the references state what they are claimed to state. There are several newspaper references which might need to be verified. A matrix of photodetectors could be used for spacecraft guidance as well as for digital imaging. But his 1961 conference presentation, as shown above only talks about guidance systems and never refers to photography. Any TV camera from years before 1961 with an image orthicon had "a matrix of photodetectors" as well.  However, the absence of mention in a history of photography does not mean that the individual did not make some contribution to the field. Are there reliable and independent sources which give the individual credit for the contributions claimed? I agree that the one recent newspaper article might be traceable back to Wikipedia. A problem with conflict of interest writing, in  an autobiography, is the danger of overstating the importance of one's own work. Google Book search  shows that he did work at Jet Propulsion lab. I would say that being a senior researcher there in the 1960's puts his importance above that of the typical engineer. Space/Aeronautics, Volume 40, 1963 verifies his status as a senior researcher there. Other citations in the Google Book search verify the existence of several of the other papers, if not the content. So much for the above comments questioning the existence of the 1961 mosaic paper.  Edison (talk) 14:56, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * You're correct in saying that the absence of mention in a history of photography doesn't mean insignificance. However, absence of mention in a succession of histories may be telling. I turn to The History of Photography as Seen through the Spira Collection (Aperture, ISBN 0-89381-953-0). This is a companion to a collection of historical photographic equipment. Its history of digital photography starts in the 1980s, but on the second page of this history comes a flashback: The concept of taking pictures electronically was first proposed by Alan Archibald Campbell Swinton FRS in 1908. [...] Campbell Swinton [...] delivered his 1911 [address as President of the Roentgen Society of London] on the subject of 'distant electric vision', describing in detail a system resembling today's television [...]. Not that Wikipedia is a RS or anything, but it does have an article on the handsomely mustachioed Campbell Swinton, and Google Books has a lot of material to back this up. No similar mentions of Lally at Google Books, and no mention whatever of him in the Spira book. The Oxford Companion article cites S. H. Edwards (ed.), "Electronic and Digital Photography", History of Photography, 22 (1998), which sounds promising; does anyone here have access to this journal? -- Hoary (talk) 15:43, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Swinton only gave a speculative talk on electronic television, all analog. Lally specifically called for computer analysis of the electronic image from the "mosaic." In this way, his writing relates to digital photography, while Swinton's did not. Edison (talk) 15:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Astronautics was an industry newsletter. He apparently did write a few speculative articles for it, does this establish him as a "senior researcher"? Like his conference presentations, this work is never cited and seems to have had little, if any, influence. Aldebaran66 (talk) 16:52, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. There are too many sources out there to ignore, and they can't be brushed aside by saying "They could have been sourced from Wikipedia." Many of the sources aren't related to digital photography, but to other aspects of his JPL work. New Scientist treated him as an expert in "spaceship design." He shows up a lot as "Eugene Lally" and "E.F. Lally." There appears to be a content dispute over his importance in the field of digital photography, but that isn't necessarily essential to establishing his notability. The Carl Sagan Center, for example, characterizes him as an important figure in the early US space program . He's one of the few nonacademics invited to lecture there (another signal of importance), and one of the very few invited to present historical matters rather than current research.  Handling issues related to this article by AFD is heavyhanded and way premature; settle the content issues first, then perhaps return here. But right now I'd go along with New Scientist's and the Sagan Center's view of his significance. And there are surprisingly many links to the video of his lecture at the Sagan Center, another signal that he's viewed as notable by the outside world (not proof, but a signal to be taken into account). Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 16:58, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Per Hullaballoo. It is frustrating that the references are not viewable online, but there appears enough there to determine he was a senior researcher at JPL in the 1960's and made significant contributions to spacecraft guidance via electro-optics, as well as conceptual work on the use of spin for artificial gravity on long duration missions, and was considered an expert in spacecraft design. Any COI puffery in article is correctable via normal editing process. Edison (talk) 15:27, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete I would not expect many references in Web of Science, but I find only 1, ( CONCEPTUAL SPACECRAFT DESIGNS FOR EXPLORATION OF JUPITER Author(s): LALLY EF Source: ASTRONAUTICA ACTA  Volume: 11   Issue: 4   Pages: 219-&   Published: 1965_ and it has never been cited by anyone.  As far as I am concerned, that falsifies the claims in the article that he has a significant role, except perhaps as a technician.    DGG ( talk ) 17:23, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment He was a degreed electrical engineer, and a "senior research scientist" at the JPL, so it is a bit demeaning to call him a "technician." There is no evidence he merely wielded a soldering iron and built, repaired or adjusted things others designed, or carried out detail work under the direction of a scientist or engineer, which would be my understanding of a "technician's" role. Edison (talk) 19:30, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JForget  20:49, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Keep-If: You really can't speculate like this- Einstein was a patent clerk and many engineers today spend more time with budgets than widgets. If the sources check then he would seem to have at least as much notablity as the local licesned AM radio stations that are notable by definition. Many trvial patents generate notability in fact for their triviality and absurd ideas from good institutions get covered too- we can't judge merit to a significant extent and can't make ad hominens/presumptions based on titles or qualifications. I'm currently looking at an article with similar problems in that a certain concept was described as if one person was alpha-to-omega of the topic, Swenson in this case  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Maximum_Entropy_Production, but with some additional work it looks like it is salvagable. COI from one author can be fixed if the topic is worthwhile. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 23:31, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * If the sources check then he would seem to have at least as much [notability] as the local [licensed] AM radio stations that are notable by definition -- or indeed the spaceships in the "Star Wars" "universe" or the squillions of Japanese "voice actors". However the latter are not pumped up to be more than they are (either in this or another "universe"). Indeed we can't judge merit to a significant extent but we can go looking for authoritative sources for or evidence of claims of merit. I made a humble attempt to look. DGG did it more seriously. Where would you look? -- Hoary (talk) 23:45, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Lazy-out-loud again, I don't always look but I'm trying to get some idea of what happens in these various arguments and get general ideas of encyclopedic merit :) I often just make comments based no what I read here and move on. I guess if much of this rests on a dead tree source, like a 1960's newspaper, it may be possible to contact the paper directly for a credible copy of the article much as is done with images, assuming it doesn't come up on goog news archives already. His name seems to come up a few times on goog books but most seem passing mention and internal reports or things like "juvenile nonfiction" and the preview doesn't help with context. I gather he was named in internal documents as more than just "staff" or "contractor X." Not sure what to make of 2009 au ref- odd to come out of no where. I guess merge is usally a good option here if there is an article that covers his putative contributions, " some evidence exists that Lally invented this but he is not widely acknowledged as the inventor[ etc]." ... comment added at 00:35, 9 September 2009 by Nerdseeksblonde''
 * If you want to look at particular 1960s issues of a Pasadena newspaper, you look for that newspaper in the OPAC of a large library in Pasadena or thereabouts; and, if you find it, go there and struggle with kilograms of the real thing, or mind-numbing microform thereof. I'm thousands of kilometres away; how about you? -- Hoary (talk) 03:18, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, for an encyclopedia maybe the paper would have enough interest if you have a specific claimed date of publication, it was just a thought. If they have their own arcives online and computer readable that would help too. Dead-tree sources would not be easy for most casual wiki readers to verify in an case but "obscure-but-notable" seems like a reasonable realm for even a free volunteer encyclopedia. Wikipedia reliability to others is supposed to separate wiki from blogs :) Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 10:31, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not understand what you are saying here. Anyway, I find it hard to believe that any of these newspapers will be available online. If you believe that any of them is, then please provide a link. If you are near a very large US library (or conceivably other library) that stocks 40+ year old US newspapers, then feel free to visit it and divulge what you find there. -- Hoary (talk) 13:43, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Just thinking, easy verification is important to reliability but obscure and dead-tree sources are perfectly valid and can convery hard-to-find information to a web wiki user. That's all. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 14:25, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. First, although the comment that DGG added to his finding may be demeaning, the finding itself carries some weight, and nobody has directly challenged it. Secondly, there's nothing inherently wrong with 40+ year old newspaper articles as sources, but no editor in good standing has offered to check these (and most editors, including myself, are geographically constrained from checking them even if they wanted to). It's odd that reliable and far more accessible sources wouldn't by now exist to provide information about somebody of the degree of notability that's asserted in this article and seems assumed by the "keep" comments. There's something fishy about the article, although I hesitate to say that it's a hoax or lie. Anyone who wants to work on it may have it userfied. -- Hoary (talk) 00:42, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I honor and respect technicians. I've known many excellent ones, I learned a great deal from them, and they can be as important to a project as the scientists. But it is extremely rare that one of them will make sufficient recognizable contributions to be notable individually. What Hoary sees as fishy, I see as exaggeration.   DGG ( talk ) 00:17, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. (Nominator) The article fails WP:N, WP:COI and WP:RS (among other things) and it does not seem that anyone is willing or able to correct these fatal flaws. The article is inadvertently hilarious in its exaggerations and I would leave it for its entertainment value. However, editors inside and outside Wikipedia are restating these unconfirmed claims as fact, such as we have seen in the Fox newspaper story quoted previously. Aldebaran66 (talk) 22:24, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep (repeat !vote). As somebody who's worked, long ago, in industrial R&D, I can just say I believe DGG is dead wrong on this question. Steve Wozniak was an amateur engineer, and probably made more important contributions to PC design than most scientists involved at the time. (What's Wozniak published, anyway?) NASA was run by engineers, not scientists, for the most part. The head of JPL at the time discussed here, although his Wikipedia article styles him a "scientist," had his principal degree in electrical engineering. And there's still way too much focus here on the digital photography claim. Which reminds me Edwin Land, another engineer styled a scientist in his Wikipedia article, no earned scientific degree, and no important publications. Does that make him a deletion target, he asked maliciously. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:54, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment The digital photography claim was the one that I thought I might be competent to start to investigate, thus my concentration on it. I regret to admit that I've just now looked at the New Scientist reference for the first time. It's intriguing, yes, but the Google reproduction is too snippified to be more than merely intriguing. Incredibly, "my" library doesn't stock the New Scientist of any year. Surely somebody here has access to a library that stocks 1962 issues and can tell us a bit more. -- Hoary (talk) 00:47, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It has intrigued me and I think I have access to such a library — should be able to check tomorrow (16 Sep) if this debate hasn't been closed by then. Qwfp (talk) 19:14, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment No opinion one way or the other, but I noticed Hoary's implied request that an editor with access to local papers check up on the sources. I have access to an online PDF database which includes some of the papers cited. I was unable to get the "Browse" mechanism to work, in order to check the specific dates/articles cited, and was unable to find them through searches either... which seems a bit fishy to me... though, I suppose, if I had devoted more time, I might have been able to track them down... but other subjects call... A search on Lally's name, however, did pull up a few hits including:
 * Star-News | Pasadena, California | Monday, June 29, 1964, p.17 - Portrait of Lally, with caption: "FARAWAY GOAL — El Monte engineer Eugene Lally studies a small model of the planet Mercury, goal of a fly-by for scientific purposes which he will propose this week to a meeting of scientists in Washington." above an article titled "El Monte Space Firm to Urge Mercury Probe."
 * Independent, The | Pasadena, California | Monday, June 29, 1964 | Page 17 -- same portrait, similar article/caption.
 * Bridgeport Telegram, The | Bridgeport, Connecticut | Thursday, September 06, 1962 | Page 39 : Artificial Gravity Proposed For Men on Long Space Hops; "Eugene Lally of the JPL's systems design section believes... Lally says in an article in Astronautics Magazine, etc..."


 * And to Hoary-- If that's saba you smell, save some for me... I love saba... Dekkappai (talk) 18:08, 15 September 2009 (UTC)