Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/JoAnn E. Manson


 * 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. Consensus is abundantly clear that this person passes WP:PROF #1 with flying colors. (non-admin closure) Tim Song (talk) 03:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

JoAnn E. Manson

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  AfD statistics)

This BLP was created in an apparent major COI violation, and while the subject seems to almost meet WP:PROF, it misses the mark. Tb (talk) 08:14, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Supporting argument: This one is complex, and I apologize for the length. The article was created in an apparent massive COI violation, and has enjoyed no other editors.  That in itself is sufficient to raise major suspicion.  I request initially that editors evaluating this AfD do not give credence to the representations in the article, which are generally unsourced.  Even then, however, I believe it does not meet any of the criteria for notability.


 * First, consider WP:PROF. Criterion one does not merely call for publication (of that there is no doubt) but highly cited publication.  When I checked the articles which JoAnn E. Manson identified as most important, I did not find very much citation.  Criterion two measures highly prestigious awards, but the awards listed on JoAnn E. Manson are not of the rank WP:PROF suggests are applicable here (Nobel, Fields Medal, MacArthur, etc.)  Criterion three asks for elected members of prestigious societies, which there is no indication of.  Criterion four asks for significant educational impact; she is identified as the author of a single textbook of recent publication.  Her posting is not a special distinguished professorship rank (criterion five), nor the highest post at her institution (criterion six).  Criterion seven is about substantial impact outside academia, but she has mostly authored a few articles and done the occasional speaking.  There is no indication of editorships (criterion eight).  Criterion nine does not apply to medicine.


 * Now, consider WP:BIO and WP:N. Here we must distinguish between writing about her, versus writing by her.  If merely authoring were sufficient for notability, then WP:PROF would be moot, and essentially all academics would be notable.  It is not her own publications which matter, or her writing, but rather, occasions in which she is written about.  And that seems to be absent.


 * This is certainly a borderline case. But the fact of its borderline nature might well, when combined with the vanity character of the article, and its origin, could well argue that it should be removed.  At least, the community should be invited to decide.  Tb (talk) 08:29, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment Note that our article is almost clear copyvio of this website. --Vejvančický (talk) 08:25, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Eek, that's pretty awful. I have removed the material which was essentially identical to that reference, which doesn't leave our article empty, but it does rather substantially reduce it.  Tb (talk) 08:35, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  —David Eppstein (talk) 03:59, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete I am persuaded by supporting argument above. This physician may be prominent in her field, but that does not mean she is notable by our guidelines. Vartanza (talk) 16:28, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Clear Keep. Full professors at Harvard are prima facie likely to be notable and this one passes WP:Prof #1 with flying colors. Her record on GS, if I have interpreted it correctly, is astonishing. Her top cites are 1733, 1645, 1762, 1612, 1413, 1217 .... and her h index is around 140, the highest I have seen on these pages. She has received notable prizes and probably satisfies WP:Prof #2 too. COI, if it exists, is no reason for deletion. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:37, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
 * Hogwash. WP:PROF could say "full professors at Ivy League schools are notable", but it doesn't because the standard is tighter than that.  What is expected is a name chair or distinguished professor position.  Such things do exist at Harvard, and Manson does not hold one.  Tb (talk) 07:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You appear to be mistaken. Her named chair is as a Professor of Women's Health at Harvard Medical School; you have been claiming it is at Brigham and Women's Hospital, but that's not true, her position there is Chief of Preventive Medicine. See for instance this source. In any case, Xxanthippe was making an argument based on criterion #1 of WP:PROF, not #5, so your argument besides being factually incorrect misses the point. And please tone down your language, per WP:CIVIL. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:25, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I was relying on a link (see below) which contained a statement inconsistent with the faculty page, which does, as you note, say the named chair is at HMS; the other page says it's at BWH. As for the "hogwash" comment, that was specifically about the idea that somehow all full professors at Harvard are prima facie likely to be notable.  There is no such assumption, nor should we create one.  The existing guidelines are good ones, and this article should be measured against them, and not against ones like "Harvard full profs are all prima facie likely to be notable".  Tb (talk) 06:47, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you don't understand the meaning of the term prima facie. It means 'at first sight' the implication being that further investigation is likely (but not certain) to substantiate the case. Xxanthippe (talk) 07:15, 15 December 2009 (UTC).
 * I suspect it is rather you who do not. The use of the term carries an implication specifically that a prima facie case establishes a rebuttable presumption, and that the burden of proof is shifted to the other side.  It is precisely that which I disagree with here.  In no way does being a full professor at Harvard establish any kind of presumption of notability.  Rather, it is specifically the criteria listed at WP:PROF which establish such a presumption.  Tb (talk) 08:39, 15 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Speedy keep and salt . I've just looked up Web of science with "Author=(Manson J E) Refined by: Institutions= HARVARD UNIV" and got 728 articles with 54,564 cites; h-index 127, 6 articles with >1000 cites each. At least some of those check out with this article, thus no "other J E Manson" (one coauthor Stampfer MJ is mostly there as an extra check). Sure, medical articles are more cited than any other field, but even then, these numbers are raising all remaining hair on my head :-0 Materialscientist (talk) 02:01, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I thought salt was for deleted articles. To protect them in their deleted state. You know, like the Romans protected Carthage in its deleted state. So I'm a little confused what you mean by it here. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:10, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe. I meant prevent any further AFD attempt of this article. Perhaps snow is a right wikipedese term. Never mind. Materialscientist (talk) 02:17, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * "Any further AFD attempt"? Tb (talk) 07:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. Along with the arguments above she has a named chair at Harvard and thereby passes WP:PROF #5. Cleanup is not a good reason for deletion. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:12, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * No, she does not have a named chair at Harvard. Her faculty page is at, and she does not hold a named chair. Tb (talk) 07:22, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Abductive (reasoning) 07:51, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You've confused Brigham and Women's (not a university) with Harvard. She does not hold a named chair at Harvard.  Whether BWH counts or not on this score is not clear to me, but it's not the same as Harvard, as User:David Eppstein said. Tb (talk) 08:03, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a teaching hospital affliliated with Harvard. Big teaching hospitals have the same sort of systems as research universities for their doctors (MD Doctor or PhD Doctor, same diff). Abductive  (reasoning) 08:40, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, but also named chairs are vastly more common (because of the way donor relations work with non-profit hospitals) than they are with universities. Having a named chair at a hospital is nowhere near as impressive (in itself) as having a named chair at Harvard. Tb (talk) 17:29, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * She holds a named chair in the Harvard Medical School. She also holds a (non-named) appointment in the Harvard School of Public Health. Claiming that HMS is not really Harvard strikes me as an instance of the no true Scotsman fallacy, and in any case is not relevant: WP:PROF does not rely on the distinction between medical schools and other kinds of academic affiliation. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:43, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I was relying on the link User:Abductive pointed to, which differs on this from the faculty page. The former refers to a named professorship at BWH, and the latter refers to it (as you note) at HMS.  Tb (talk) 06:47, 15 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep, citations are 1762, 1744, 1645, 1612, 1413, 1297, 1265, 1182, 1093, 1052, 931, 918, 886, 796, 740, 731, 697, 643, 629, 620, 587, 587, 576, 564, 557, 546, 540, 540, 534, 522, 517, 512, 489, 487, 485, 483, 468, 467, 456, 448, and I got tired... The Category:Iranian academics is filled with people who may not even exist. Find some of those to nominate. Abductive  (reasoning) 05:57, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * When I looked at Manson's articles, the citations were nearly all to papers she was not the principal author of. Can you do more than just cite numbers, and provide the examples?  Tb (talk) 07:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Even if only taking the ones she was the first author on, it goes 1413, 918, 587, 564, 534, 456, 238, 220, 199, 112, 110, 106, 91, 59, 53, 50, 47, 29, 29, 25, 23, 22, 20, 14, 13, 11, 9, 6, 5, 5, 5, 4. This is an h-index of 22 as a first author. Anyway, I added my notvote as a supplement to all the other reasons stated by the other editors here. I can barely get the most egregious COI-authored, non-notable prof at some college that doesn't even grant PhDs deleted because a few editors think that any full prof is notable, and nominations like this one don't help me in that effort. Abductive  (reasoning) 07:48, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It's distressing that the obvious cases are hard. This is another egregious COI case, and I certainly agree it's borderline.  Tb (talk) 08:03, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * But it's a case that can be solved by editing. Abductive  (reasoning) 08:40, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure it can. All the sources are either the self-written bio type, or mere directory listings.  The other things that might indicate notability offer little in the way of biography.  But that merely means the article would be small--if we remove the vanity bits. Tb (talk) 09:02, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * As a thought exercise, write a sourced Wikipedia article on a prof you know to be notable. I find it difficult not to make it a copy of their CV, or, if I stick to the outside sources, a weird little squib that doesn't do them justice. They also feel like obituaries to me. So I haven't done any yet. Abductive  (reasoning) 09:08, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I think this very difficulty suggests that a lot of profs who have been counted notable really aren't. Tb (talk) 09:13, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Jees. I've just looked through some of those .. Anyone up to CSD-tag them? Materialscientist (talk) 06:10, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I've been nibbling around the edges, prodding a few. One has to be careful; their names might be transliterated wrong. On the other hand, some don't even have appointments at universities... Abductive  (reasoning) 06:37, 14 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Very far from borderline. In addition to the above, >1,000 gnews hits, 200+ gbooks hits. Lots of info on her out there, easily enough to make it more than a CV by any standards.John Z (talk) 00:16, 15 December 2009 (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.