Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glenn McGee


 * 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.  Sandstein  21:02, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Glenn McGee

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There are some WP:BLP1E issues surrounding this article, not to mention a huge conflict of interest as far as what type of editing is being done, and lastly I don't feel that this person is particularly notable. My suggestion is to delete and WP:SALT from further creation. JBsupreme (talk) 17:31, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The entry was in place LONG before the scandal surrounding the move from AMBI, which McGee is better known for creating than for leaving. The entry has been edited many times moreover to remove accomplishments of McGee, which include being among the better known academics in the U.S.  If you do not feel this person is notable, please compare to other bioethicists in that list and score against them before your dramatic remedy.  I cannot suggest "Keep" because I have COI but it is pretty obvious that this academic serves on more commissions, editorial boards, and has been in more national and international media than most any academic, let alone of his age, and is widely recognized as a leader in bioethics, itself the fastest growing academic field.  The mere fact that he invented and edits the #1 journal in all of health services research, ethics, philosophy and history & philosohy of science, The American Journal of Bioethics, would do it.  That he also runs bioethics.net and was in Wikipedia long before he left AMBI - which it would be wise not to prejudge (2 weeks beforehand he was named one of the top 10 most influential people in the NY State Capital by the Chamber of Commerce) - isn't inconsequential.  Not sure what your metric is for keeping people but check out the others on the bioethicists list.
 * —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.76.183.8 (talk • contribs) 04:35, 6 July 2008 — 74.76.183.8 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Keep the list of publications alone denotes notability Dreamspy (talk) 19:02, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but self-publications do not denote notability at all. Please review Notability for details. JBsupreme (talk) 23:36, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What self-publications? Among those noted as bioethicists please compare the publications by McGee G (me - in interest of full disclosure) with others identified as bioethicists and identify more than five people with more peer-reviewed publications including books published by major presses including one that was a NYT Bestseller. Are there ANY self-publications?
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.   --  Fabrictramp  |  talk to me  22:33, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Looks likely to pass WP:PROF, but I think the media attention surrounding his departure from Albany Medical (and the irony of an ethics expert being caught up in possible ethical issues, as reported on in the second Scientific American article) lead to a pass of WP:BIO as well. Care should be taken regarding our policy on biographies of living persons but as long as anything we state can be sourced to reliable publishers (e.g. SciAm) we should be ok on that front. I don't think WP:BIO1E applies because the articles about him are not just about his dismissal, but also about his life through the several years leading up to the dismissal and about the legal aftermath of the situation: BIO1E is for when we really only have one thing to say about a person (he was fired -- so what), but I think there is more here than that. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:00, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. I think this barely passes WP:Academics, but the media attention surrounding his departure of Albany makes that he passes WP:BIO. As to the publications, according to the Web of Science they have been cited less than 200 times (h-index of 8), which is less than stellar. There are some more citations if non-journal publications are taken into account and Web of Science may, in fact, be less appropriate for ethicists. Still, even Google Scholar, which casts a wider net, lists not that many citations (one with 63, one with 40, the rest less). What might tip the balance is the fact that he's the founding editor of the American Journal of Bioethics, which according to the Journal Citation Reports has an Impact factor of 3.9, which is more than twice the IF of number two in the category "HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE". (Strangely, there's an enormous amount of self-citations for 2007, but that does not enter into the above figures. Another strange thing with the journal: the Francis and Taylor website lists a pretty distinguished Editorial Board here, but the journal's own site lists no board at all and says that the "2008-2009 editorial board will be finalized shortly"). Whatever the verdict on the academic part, though, WP:BIO carries the day. --Crusio (talk) 18:39, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What is typical in Web of Science for bioethicists' typical (h-index)? Would this be a low number relative to the other key bioethicists   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.76.183.8 (talk) 15:56, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You are welcome to present some citation data on well-known bioethicists to show that this is more than "less than stellar". The same data for Arthur Caplan, for instance, are about 1500 citations total, h-index of 20. Of course he's older than you are and would therefore be expected to have somewhat better citation rates. --Crusio (talk) 16:06, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Would Arthur Caplan be the metric then? I think that would exclude ever other bioethics scholar in the English language, wouldn't it?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.232.210.74 (talk) 02:52, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That's quite obviously *not* what Crusio was suggesting... Pete.Hurd (talk) 03:29, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Of course you are right. I was being serious in making a point about the difficulty, as someone who has essentially been forced to respond to aggressively retaliatory edits of this page that resulted in essentially the deletion of scholarly matters that (were there to be a McGee page) one would hope could not just be imposed as though the magazine articles by one person erase my career.  I am clearly conflicted (COI) though on that matter.  As to T&F editorial board, the editorial board changes every two years, and the majority remain the same.  The citations to the journal itself within the same year are the ISI JCI immediacy index, which is not all that important (it results in the journal being ranked on that index above journals like Science and Cell) - though this matter is under debate; editors of the largest most prominent science journals argue that citations within the same journal in the same year, if they are not ridiculously cooked, are a metric of the journal's quality.  IMPACT FACTOR is the key issue - and it does not include citations in 2007 to 2007 articles.  So 2007 citations to AJOB would not matter nor is it claimed as a strength of the journal; Impact Factor is what matters and is not in question.  ISI JCI also studies the percentage of citations to articles in any journal (cited anywhere) that are cites to old articles as opposed to citations to new research; AJOB is heavily cited for its contemporary articles, for whatever that is worth, though that number does have some meaning and is positive of course, given that if the majority of citations to a journal are to older articles, this further cuts impact factor of current (recent) articles.  These metrics may not matter and are of course subject to controversy but are nonetheless the only metric available to medical school deans and tenure committees, who regularly use ISI JCI impact factor as a barometer hence the many, many reviews of AJOB in places like Times Literary Supplement and in fact in the Chronicle of Higher Education two weeks ago in which AJOB was described as the leading journal in the field and something of an "unheard of" growth factor for a journal. Again, COI.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.189.118.3 (talk) 18:31, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * keep passes WP:BIO, agree with David Eppstein that this is not a BIO1E. Pete.Hurd (talk) 06:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep The article should be kept, but there are errors in it now. For example he didn't write for the Albany paper in 1995-1997, rather I believe it was 2005-2007.  Also the section that used to detail that he was on the front page of papers for was for his resignation from advanced cell technology due to their cloning of an endangered species (gaur) without letting the ethics advisory board which he sat on know.  This was a very big deal at the time. Prior to the SCIAM article, there was a great deal of useful knowledge about Dr. McGee on here, that no longer is listed.k
 * —Preceding unsigned comment added by Penngirl03 (talk • contribs) 21:37, 8 July 2008 (UTC) — Penngirl03 (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Change
 * Include latest SciAm article http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=bioethics-institute-picks
 * Mr. McGee's statement about himself, "McGee retains the position of John A. Balint M.D. Endowed Chair Emeritus" is wrong. He was fired, he has not retired in good standing, and does not retain such position.
 * McGee says that "McGee served on the New York State Department of Health Newborn Screening committee and in its group on ethics and newborn screening [1], and as Chief of the Office of Bioethics of the Wadsworth Center, under its director Dr. Lawrence Sturman", but the New York State Department of Health states that he has never worked for them.
 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by Membrillita (talk • contribs) — Membrillita (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * There's nothing stopping you from making those changes yourself, as long as you're careful regarding conflicts of interest, inappropriate use of multiple accounts, and our policy on biographies of living persons. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:44, 10 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.