Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Katherine St. John


 * 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. JForget 00:43, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Katherine St. John

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Associate professor with an h-index around 10 or 11 in a field that has many people with much, much higher citation rates. Was deprodded by User:DGG on the (reasonable) grounds of being selected AWM/MAA Falconer Lecturer for women mathematicians/math educators. However, as can be seen in that article, and here, the award does not seem to result in a Wikipedia article or other coverage. Google searching for AWM/MAA Falconer Lecturer doesn't yield much, give it a try. I may well nominate that article as well. Abductive (reasoning) 22:58, 1 November 2009 (UTC) --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 00:04, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep No listed reasons from the AfD page have been offered as the reason for nominating this professor's biography for deletion. She's a leading researcher in a specialized field of bioinformatics. Her biography is paltry, unfortunately a stub, but look at all the time wasted nominating and discussing her deletion rather than improving wikipedia by giving the reader a good article on a leading American researcher? Wikipedia is far better served with a good brief article written on the topic than 10 hours of AfD discussions. The good article would take less time.
 * But here we are, not learning, but endlessly discussing based on an AfD about an h-index. For the information of other editors, and h-index of 11 in bioinformatics means...? And the other professors in her field with higher h-indexes are? And, the cut-off for notability of a professor based on their h-index is...? And your source for this cut-off is...? that "other people exist with higher h-indexes" is not a reason for deleting an article. None are listed, therefore keep. If h-index is going to be this nominators constant cry for deleting articles about academics I question the guidelines and want to see the policy that shows an h-index lower than other scientists is an appropriate reason for deleting.

The h-index quote, "Measures of citability such as H-index, G-index, etc, may be used as a rough guide in evaluating whether Criterion 1 is satisfied, but they should be approached with considerable caution since their validity is not, at present, widely accepted, and since they depend substantially on the source indices used." It does not state that a lower h-index than other scientists is reason for deletion. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 00:05, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * This is by no means a controversial nomination. The h-index in this case is very low, in any field, but especially in this one. For example, Walter M. Fitch, who has an equally short article, has an h-index of 56. His most-cited paper has 'phylogenetic trees' in the title, with 2,630 cites. The paper with the most citations that happens to have 'phylogenetic trees' in the title, by Saitou and Nei, has 19,692 cites. Katherine St. John's most cited paper has 19 cites, three orders of magnitude below Saitou and Nei. Abductive  (reasoning) 00:32, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * these are not reasons for deletions that one article is shorter than another heck we would have to delete all of wikipedia under your criteria here : fitch by the way is a biologist not a bioinformaticist so who knows why this comparison not relevant --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 00:36, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Nei's h-index is 80. I am not a "deletionist", I am a person who wants to see secondary sources that say somebody is a "leading researcher", which this woman clearly is not. There are over 1.6 million professors in the US, and at least ten times that in the world. Most of them are still alive. Abductive  (reasoning) 00:41, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * You haven't offered any reasoning with your cut-off point-and your reasoning should be based on policy, whereas your nominations tend to be based upon your feelings. What tells you that this h-index is deletable in biology and another isn't?
 * Nei, by the way, is also a biologist, not a bioinformaticist. Phylogenetic trees are produced by biologists in numerous fields from genetics to paleontology and by mathematicians and computer scientists. These are different fields of study, and bioinformatics is not a synonym for phylogenetic tree. So, your arguments would have more meaning if centered on the right field.
 * Your comment about the number of living professors in the US has no meaning in this discussion, so I can't respond. In addition your suggestion to search on the award and deleting that article isn't relevant either. So the topic is this computer scientist not whatever else you bring up.
 * If you don't even find out what field she's in your opinion on her notability doesn't weigh much. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 01:22, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't have to be an expert to edit, nor to nominate. However, saying Nei is a biologist, not a bioinformaticist, presumes that there will be a difference in the h-indices of workers in these related fields, which you have not demonstrated. Let me be as explicit as I can be; my nominations are in good faith, and I make an attempt to find sources that say, whatever the topic, that the topic is notable, and in the case of researchers, that there is actually something the are known for or have discovered. If a professor is to stand out from the crowd, their article should tell us what they discovered (or even just explained better) and why it is important. Abductive  (reasoning) 01:31, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * You're basing your nominations on the belief that differences in h-index across fields don't matter? Well, support that. Show that you can compare a researcher in one field and his h-index against a researcher in a nother field and their h-index, even another related field, and it's a valid comparison of the notability of the scientists. Provide me sources that support this.
 * Who said you have to be an expert? I can't find the use of that word in my text at all, so I'll have to dismiss that. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 01:37, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Right, because you own this AfD. Abductive  (reasoning) 01:41, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * No, it seems like you do. So, now that we've done all that. Back to the AfD.
 * And, what, by the way is St. John's h-index? And how was it calculated? --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 01:45, 2 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  —David Eppstein (talk) 03:10, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - associate prof at two colleges; leading researcher; I trust DGG on this. Bearian (talk) 04:07, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I can only hope that DGG has a different opinion, since he hasn't commented here yet. Abductive  (reasoning) 05:22, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, no sign that she's still at CUNY GC. Abductive  (reasoning) 05:26, 2 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep. Designation as Falconer Lecturer is notable award/honor satisfying general biographical standard; recognized as such by multiple external sources. "Stand out from the crowd" isn't a recognized notability determinant, just a subjective impression. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 17:03, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a lecture that I am unable to demonstrate is itself notable. Abductive  (reasoning) 20:51, 2 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep I apologize for being a little behind in commenting on the unusually large number of academic listed at AfD   In my view,  which I think the general view, raw h index is a useless measure unless one consider the subject field --for WEP:PROF we are judging notability in a particular field, and publication patterns vary widely. For this particular researcher,  Scopus shows 20 papers. The highest citations are 18, 17, 13, 12, in good journals. in some fields of science, such as cell biology, the conclusion from this would be non-notable. This is mathematical systematic biology, an extremely specialized field, and she has been publishing both in biology journals, and in ones on information science--two fields which tend to ignore each other , a pattern which will inevitably lower the citation count.  I still consider this a little on the low side, and she is still only an Associate Professor--hence the  weak keep, not keep.     I note, btw, that the person's name may yield inconsistent results in different databases--my Scopus result is the combination of two forms of the name.  We do not need secondary sources to say that someone is a significant researcher--that's the whole point of WP:PROF.       DGG ( talk ) 20:09, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I carefully checked all possible permutations of the name. Her record is very low in her field. Abductive  (reasoning) 20:51, 2 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment. FYI: There is an apparently highly-cited researcher with a similar name (identical initials) Kristen St John (e.g. The Cenozoic palaeoenvironment of the Arctic Ocean, Moran et al. NATURE 441(7093), 2006, 95 citations) that commentators should be careful not to confuse with our subject. I don't know to the extant, if any, to which this has occurred. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 23:43, 2 November 2009 (UTC).
 * I avoided Kristen in my calculations. Can't speak for anybody else. Abductive  (reasoning) 23:49, 2 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. Citation count borderline but lecture tips the scale. The fact that she is a successful female mathematician, of which there are currently so few, does not by itself confer notability but does add to it. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:01, 3 November 2009 (UTC).
 * Weak delete. A "successful female mathematician" with only 14 papers and 9 citations in MathSciNet? In general, this sounds like a typical case of an article created too early. — Miym (talk) 23:03, 5 November 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.