Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Grime (2nd nomination)


 * 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. Yunshui 雲 水 09:36, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

James Grime
AfDs for this article: 
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Essentially, James Grime is a very active self-promotion for-hire speaker with mathematics content. He is not a mathematics academic by any measure (no postdoctoral research), but a performer, a mathematics educator and entertainer

The sources are all promotional and non-independent. Many are WP:RS-failing. James Grime has written articles, but no one has written about him, not independently and in a reliable source. Some of the sources look like quality sources, but they are authored by himself.

Most of the content is personal trivia. So much is content based upon interviews, i.e. based upon himself talking about himself. SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:31, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:31, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment See also WP:Deletion review/Log/2019 October 12. Captain Eek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 01:33, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep Note, I was the reviewer who passed the article for AfC, and also the requestor that the article be unsalted, so assess bias accordingly. As I see it, Grime is a professor at the very prestigious University of Cambridge, and passes WP:NPROF, specifically criteria 7. As noted in the last AfD, hes been a writer for the guardian , part of the Millennium Mathematics Project through which he tours an Enigma machine, and discovered a set of non-transitive dice. The last AfD was almost 6 years ago, Grime has been busy since then. Almost all of the sources have been published since then. Grime certainly passes WP:GNG as a popular mathematician, considering as well his viral contributions to Numberphile, and there is a strong case for NPROF 7. Captain Eek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 02:12, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Grime is a professor at the very prestigious University of Cambridge Not true.  Not Professor.  H-index=2 means that he not recognized as a serious researcher.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:18, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * passes WP:NPROF, specifically criteria 7. It says:  "The person has had a substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity".  Do you have a single independent reliable source that says this?? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:20, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * hes been a writer for the guardian. Writing articles for the guardian does not get you a Wikipedia article.  Authorship does not create Wikipedia-notability, unless you are trying to meet WP:NAUTHOR.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:23, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Grime certainly passes WP:GNG ...? Can you point to two sources are are independent, reliable, and discuss James Grime?  Possibly there are buried in the copious non-independent sources listed in the article, and returned by google.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:05, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Numberphile – basically per in the last AfD. Grime focuses on public engagement so is not likely to pass most WP:PROF criteria, but it's perfectly possible for him to be a notable populariser per WP:PROF or the WP:GNG. At first glance I assumed he would be—Numberphile certainly is notable—but on closer inspection the sourcing just isn't there. Most of the references in the article are to non-independent sources or passing mentions of Grime in popular articles about mathematics. I searched quite hard and couldn't find anything better. The closest is probably The Best Writing on Mathematics 2018, but we can't have a BLP hanging off a single, one-paragraph contributor bio in one book. But it's not a bad article. In the interests of preserving appropriate content we should redirect to the project he's most associated with (Numberphile) and tag it with R with possibilities. It can be revived should more independent sourcing emerge. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 09:27, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I think your comments on Grime's career in the nomination are in poor taste. We're supposed to be assessing the merits of the sources, not the subject. Remember that Wikipedia is in the real world. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 09:28, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Did I come across as personally critical. Sorry.  His Google Scholar shows that he obviously not a Mathematics Professor as someone (not James) says. James’s own pages explain that in completing his PhD he turned his interests to public speaking.  It seems to reflect an honest interest, certainly not a lack of ability. He combines entertainment with education, which is admirable.  All of the sources are “promotional”, by which we mean “not independent and linking to advertising to pay for his product”. He charges for his presentations, which is not a criticism of the person, everyone needs to earn money for their time, but Wikipedia is averse to building content on promotional sources.  I’ve looked fairly hard, and I can find no independent commentary. He fails WP:PROF, and WP:PERFORMER, and the WP:GNG.  I wish him well, but reliable others have not (yet) written about him. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:01, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep Quite a lot of people may have come across Grime when he has been giving a talk or they may have seen him on YouTube. They may be interested in knowing who the hell he is. By googling they'll either get highly promotional information or just detail about some particular thing he has done. For the sake of argument I'll assume everything in the article is verifiable – if not we can make it so. Also for the sake of argument I'll assume he fails all our notability guidelines (I haven't checked). But it is good to have an article about him and this article is worth reading. It helps readers and improves Wikipedia. If he fails our notability criteria it is because they are not perfect. Sometimes they give the wrong answer. They do not pretend to always give the right answer. They are there to guide us when we (as editors) try to represent the interests of readers. We should not blindly follow the notability guidelines when they fail us. (By the way a merge with Millennium Mathematics Project would be better than Numberphile but neither work too well.) Thincat (talk) 10:47, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Source analysis:
 * 1. https://www.ice.cam.ac.uk/about-us/staff-profiles/tutor/dr-james-grime His staff page. Not independent.  Irrelevant to notability.  —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:55, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * 2. https://www.numberphile.com/podcast/james-grime His podcast. Not independent. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:56, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * 3. https://scalarlearning.com/2017/11/ep-146-numberphile-mathematician-james-grime-on-why-math-matters/ His own introduction to his motivations, podcast and YouTube videos. Not independent. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:00, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * 4. https://thelachatupdate.com/2018/06/06/james-grime-numberphile-enigma-and-the-beauty-of-maths/ A video interview of James, softball questions, just an expose. Not independent. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:05, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * 5. https://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=155812 His NDSU page, virtually no content, PhD 2007 Title and Advisor. Does not attest notability. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:08, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * 6. https://www.space.com/36450-star-trek-math-of-khan.html A report on James’ entertaining presentation of some mathematics in Star Trek. Not about the subject, not independent, does not attest notability. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:10, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * 7. https://www.metv.com/stories/well-it-turns-out-redshirts-are-not-more-likely-to-die-on-star-trek More Star Trek educational maths joke. Not about the subject, not independent, does not attest notability. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:13, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * 8. https://www.theguardian.com/science/alexs-adventures-in-numberland/2015/apr/15/why-the-cheryl-birthday-problem-turned-into-the-maths-version-of-thatdress James Grime wrote an article in The Guardian. Not independent.  Your own newspaper articles don’t contribute evidence of notability. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:16, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * 9. https://www.theguardian.com/science/alexs-adventures-in-numberland/2015/mar/14/pi-day-2015-pi-rivers-truth-grime Another article by Grime. On the meandering of rivers, and mathematics. Not independent. Does not attest notability. Not about Grime.  -SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:22, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * 10. https://maths.org/ Does not mention Grime. Gratuitous reference forking content from Millennium Mathematics Project. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:24, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * 11. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18419691 Doesn’t mention Grime. About Turing and codebreaking, content forked from other articles. -SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:27, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * 12. https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/news/pupils-have-a-cracking-time-with-enigma-cipher-machine-at-cambridge-school-9050145/ Local paper covers Grime presenting to a local high school. Not independent.  Not about Grime. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:31, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * In regards to Number 2, James Grime does not run Numberphile or the Numberphile Podcast, he is only featured on the channel run by Brady Haran. The podcast has featured a number of notable mathematicians such as David Eisenbud, Simon Singh, Ken Ribet, etc. with James Grime previously being the only one with a red link.Cerebral726 (talk) 12:53, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete - not easy working through the refs but in the end none of them make a robust case for notability. The whole thing reads like self promotion right down to the little advert for their own shop. Fails WP:GNG.  Velella  Velella Talk 10:58, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete - A lot of people getting hung up on WP:NPROF above, but WP:BASIC is a much more easy test - which the subject fails according to my WP:BEFORE. I could not find any instances of WP:SIGCOV of the actual subject of the article, all I could find were one-or-two-sentence-long descriptions of him in articles about popular mathematics. FOARP (talk) 11:31, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Redirect with R with possibilities–possibly with a semi-protect—per Joe. I'm a bit more lenient when it comes to reviewing AfCs than how I would personally argue at AfD – regardless of how I feel about the notability policy, I had an honest belief that such an article could survive an AfD, and would've accepted it (but would've tagged the article for cleanup) were it not for the salt, hence why I opened the DRV. Sceptre (talk) 17:53, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I too am lenient with AfC, especially on academic related topics, like this, but when the reference list begins with non-independent unsuitable sources, it is a bad sign. I agree with Grime is close to the line, but he is below it.  Uncomfortably, it may require two negative incidents for independent newspaper coverage that provide a distant perspective introduction for him to meet the GNG.  However, if that happens, these sources will provide the anchoring perspective, and the article won’t begin with the subject’s childhood interests, etc. Wikipedia has many listed in Category:Science communicators; is it harder for mathematics communicators?  —-SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:42, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Most contemporary popular mathematicians are in the Numberphile milieu these days. Mathematics doesn't really capture the imagination like astrophysics (NDGT) or futurism (Michio Kaku) do, either. The only mathematics communicators that aren't associated with Numberphile that I can think of on the top of my head are Vi Hart and Kevin Houston, and I only know of the latter because he lectures in the compulsory modules at my alma mater. Sceptre (talk) 21:52, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't know much about the pop-math world overall, but there's also 3Blue1Brown, the hosts of PBS Infinite Series (recently discontinued, sadly), and Mathologer. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 04:05, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Redirect for now, without deleting the page history. I expected to vote for Keep, being familiar with Grime as a Numberphile presenter, but am persuaded by the above that Wikipedia's notability threshold is not passed yet. – Fayenatic  L ondon 22:34, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 08:17, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 08:17, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 08:17, 17 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete. No pass of WP:Prof. Still not enough sources to pas GNG for promotional activities. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:13, 17 October 2019 (UTC).
 * Delete, no redirect. I'm surprised not to find more about him. But searching for sources that were not mere talk announcements, and did not merely namedrop him in the context of Numberphile, I found only a piece from his undergraduate university saying he won honours and was going on to a doctoral programme, and a story from a university he had visited about his visit. I don't think that's enough to demonstrate independent notability. As for why no redirect: he's only mentioned on our Numberphile article as one of some 30 people who had sometimes been interviewed on Numberphile, rather than as having any central role in the channel's creation. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:13, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete with a note that it may just be WP:TOOSOON. The most substantial recognition seems to be his inclusion in the 2018 Best Writing on Mathematics collection. There just doesn't seem to be enough to base an article upon. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 04:11, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep He is more notable, as far as the general public is concerned, than most academics. MathPerson (talk) 01:55, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Thought I had !voted here. Looking on WP:GNG alone, I don't see any independent coverage of him, and some of the articles don't mention him at all. Almost all of it is self-generated content or social media-generated content. I don't see how WP:NPROF is met, so fails both the notability guideline and the academics guideline at this time, possibly also WP:PROMO. Please don't redirect, either - not closely associated enough with the proposed target. SportingFlyer  T · C  09:45, 20 October 2019 (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.