Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jessica Hammer


 * 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 no consensus. North America1000 23:30, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Jessica Hammer

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Article about an Assistant Professor that fails to establish notability. Article lacks independent reliable sources. A google search provides no information to pass WP:PROF. Article created by WP:SPA with a total of 2 edits all of which are to this article. CBS 527 Talk 20:56, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist  (Speak quickly) (Follow my trail) 21:08, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist  (Speak quickly) (Follow my trail) 21:08, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist  (Speak quickly) (Follow my trail) 21:08, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist  (Speak quickly) (Follow my trail) 21:08, 15 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep youngish academic who attracts a good deal of attention in general-circulation press, some of which I have added to the article. And the press likes to quote her; I suppose she knows how to give a good quote  see:, just for example, .  The sources I added to the article actually say something about her.  E.M.Gregory (talk) 00:39, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * "youngish academic who attracts a good deal of attention in general" is not what establishes notability, especially not when an assistant professor with no library significance or citations to show for it. Being quoted and liking to quote her is not a claim of notability here. SwisterTwister   talk  02:47, 16 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep A surprising degree of coverage in reliable and verifiable sources in the general media and in scholarly work, all of which establishes notability, Nice detective work by to confirm notability. Alansohn (talk) 01:02, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment. Her top five papers in GS have 515, 379, 209, 25, 12 citations, so only 3 papers with substantial citations as yet, not exactly a body of work. Together with assistant professorship, she seems borderline on WP:PROF but might meet other guidelines. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:38, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete' as the citations above will also show, she's not a significant figure since the highest citation is only as a secondary author and is only in the few hundreds, not a significance; next, she's not held in libraries and the professorship has nothing significant either. Overall, we base these by WP:PROF or coinciding with WP:AUTHOR if significant as an author, and both of them are unsatisfied here. Because her career and field is in education, this article is in WP:PROF area (as the nomination shows) and since the two above have not cited either WP:AUTHOR and WP:PROF or anything significant to show for her career, it's not the same thing. "surprising degree of coverage in reliable and verifiable sources in the general media and in scholarly work" is not what convinces WP:PROF either, since selection is what establishes a professor's notability. SwisterTwister   talk  02:47, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Very weak keep. Her Google scholar shows three well-cited papers but then it drops off steeply. I don't think there's enough depth there for WP:PROF, although it's a case of WP:TOOSOON — she should be there eventually. I can't read the Pensacola or Capital stories, but of the rest, only the Tribune and Kill Switch pieces are actually in-depth, independent, and about her or her work. (The NYT story, for instance, only gives a pull quote by her, not relevant for notability.) But maybe that's enough for WP:GNG? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:29, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The Pensacola story is filled with quotes from young campers and staff about how totally cool Hammer is. It is about a summer camp sponsored by U Florida, Hammer is the focus apparetly because  a reporter (or an editor) decided to use her as a way to show that a geeky-sounding computer-programming summer camp got teenagers really, really excited about tech, sort of "computer geeks can be cool" which was apparently a new idea in Florida.  Hammer is quoted and her educational and employment history is described.   The Capital (a daily newspaper, Annapolis, MD) is a profile of the winning team in an Atari-sponsored event in which selected  teams of programmers selected by Atari (they were all strangers walking in) compete to produce a video game in 24 hours. Hammer is highlighted because 6 hours of the 24 fell on the Sabbath, and during those 6 hours hammer, a Sabbath-observer, "contemplate programming", only going actual programming after the Sabbath ended.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:55, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete. Off to a good start, but yet WP:Too soon. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:48, 17 January 2017 (UTC).
 * Weak delete per WP:OUTCOMES. We very rarely include biographies of living assistant professors in our encyclopedia. This academic is certainly up and coming, and there is some evidence of her breaking into the upper ranks of her field. She may pass merely on the basis of WP:GNG, that she has gotten media attention. If she gained the title of associate professor, there would be more precedent for keeping or re-creating her article; perhaps she is up for tenure and so we could usefy this page. FWIW, I don't know of any connection that I might have to this scholar or her employer. Bearian (talk) 15:52, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * sources searching gbooks turns up a handful of hits to this "Jessica Hammer" (non-unique name), including an interesting write-up by John L. Locke (non-unique name) of a student research project she did with Simon Baron-Cohen (some people do have unique names). I added it to the article.E.M.Gregory (talk) 11:18, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep doesn't meet WP:PROF in my estimation, but the coverage in the general press gets her by WP:GNG. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:53, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 00:34, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. Let's go back to basics. The WP:GNG requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", where significant is a source that "addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content ... more than a trivial mention" and "multiple sources are generally expected". I've reviewed the sources added by and of the independent sources only one includes non-trivial coverage  – and I'm not sure whether "killscreen.com" is a reliable source. Yes, Hammer has been mentioned in the press, but literally only mentioned: a single quote in article about an entirely different subject, or an article about a summer camp where the kids say she's their favourite teacher. I'm afraid this fits a pattern I've been noticing at a lot of recent AfDs:  will type the subject's name into ProQuest and refbomb the article with any and every hit. I've had to remove a number of references where there is absolutely no indication that the "Jessica Hammer" mentioned (e.g. as winning a school science contest in 1994) is the person covered in the article. But unless I'm way off in my understanding of WP:GNG, significant coverage in one source of dubious reliability and a scattering of trivial mentions in other sources comes nowhere near to passing the bar. And with regards to WP:PROF, I agree with the consensus that while Hammer is definitely on track to being a notable academic, it's WP:TOOSOON for her to have made the "significant impact" required by WP:PROF and she's too junior to meet any of the other criteria. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 11:11, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Were you able to access the articles from the Pittsburgh and Annapolis papers? they are hardly examples of refbombing.E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:07, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The "School science contest" that you removed was the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, and the linkage came form another article that you removed, from the New York Jewish Week (and perhaps also form some other articles I had looked at but did not add) confirming that this Jessica Hammer, is the daughter of Michael Hammer, who, along with her siblings, attended a very small parochial high school Maimonides School which can hardly have produced two Westinghouse winners with thes name in the same year (if there had been 2, the Boston Globe would have noted it in t the article about the Westinghouse).E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:07, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * note also that I did not add the Killscreen source, as implied.E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:36, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * And note that the Proquest News search shows 166 hits. The assertion that I added "any and every one" of them is absurd.E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:39, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Respond Many articles that come to AFD are poorly sourced.  I use Proquest because I have noticed a WP:SYSTEMICBIAS towards presentism caused by the fact that many RS are paywalled and many editors do not have ready access to older sources.  In this case, I did what I regularly do with poorly-sourced but not prima facie implausible articles - she is at Carnegie Mellon after all.  I ran a search and was impressed by the sources that came up.  I may have gotten over-enthusiastic;  it may be WP:TOOSOON; but as other Joe Roe have notes, she does appear to be "on track to being a notable academic" and in the spirit of WP:PRESERVE it seem reasonable to lean towards keep.E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:07, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I just remembered where we met, at Articles for deletion/Dorothy King (2nd nomination), where I thought we worked together rather well.E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:27, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Strong Delete Clearly doesn't show the verifiable sources to pass notability. Fails WP:PROF and WP:BIO. scope_creep (talk) 18:52, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep -- appears to be a notable figure on the issues of gender issues in game design noted for her views; see for example: Video Games as Applied Design—Without Women as Designers, Slate & In Virtual Play, Sex Harassment Is All Too Real, The New York Times. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:05, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete', does not meet WP:PROF and frankly too soon to judge her notability or impact. Kierzek (talk) 20:27, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Kurykh (talk) 23:12, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Note  the multi-paragraph section on her work in thes US News & World Report aritcle (just added to page), source # 2. here: [ ].E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:10, 10 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep - she fails the prof test as merely as assistant professor, but she probably passes for being covered in the media. Bearian (talk) 14:23, 6 February 2017 (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.