Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lisa Jones (scientist)


 * 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. Officially a very poor discussion with views expressed as opinions of vaguewaves. The policy arguments are broadly to delete but it would be a supervote to prefer that over a preponderance of the discussion. The irony of so much muddy thinking in a discussion about a serious scientist is not lost on me. Spartaz Humbug! 07:03, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Lisa Jones (scientist)

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Although won a $1.1mil grant, plus a few awards, I'm not sure being an associate professor with a h-index of 19 is sufficient for this field. Perhaps WP:TOOSOON? Kj cheetham (talk) 18:38, 13 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Kj cheetham (talk) 18:38, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Kj cheetham (talk) 18:38, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Biology-related deletion discussions. Kj cheetham (talk) 18:38, 13 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment. Likely TOOSOON. I used Scopus to do an "average professor test" by comparing a number of prestige parameters of Dr. Jones to the 17 coauthors of hers holding professorships on 18 of her top-cited and most recent papers. Total citations: average: 7916, median: 4304, Jones: 557. Total papers: avg: 142, med: 76, Jones: 31. h-index: avg: 41, med: 38, Jones: 16. Highest citation: avg: 853, med: 267, Jones: 75. Highest-citation (first-author): avg: 213, med: 169, Jones: 75. Based on these results she is far below the average professor in academic output (because she is early-career) and does not meet C1. Absent meeting other PROF or GNG criteria, I would lean delete. JoelleJay (talk) 01:30, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment Just to note that if people notice that I said h-index of 19 rather than 16, that's because I got it from Google Scholar instead of Scopus. -Kj cheetham (talk) 11:39, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment. Serious question, how is deleting this article on a black female scientist helping Wikipedia? Espresso Addict (talk) 07:21, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
 * On further research, I'm going with a formal keep as notable for being principal investigator on a study supported by a large and prestigious grant, which has received independent press coverage, and for her innovative work promoting the recruitment of BAME students to non-medical sciences. I believe JoelleJay's citation analyses are inherently flawed, as explained on their talk page. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:24, 17 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment As per User: Espresso Addict. Despite this individual being early career they have won awards and grants. Furthermore, they have supported teaching students at historically Black colleges in the United States. One does not only measure impact through looking at publication statistics. Who is an "average professor" in this case? Far below in comparison to who? Representation matters and when we think of notability and impact it is important to look beyond citation count. I do not think this article should be deleted. --Smallison (talk) 21:32, 16 February 2021 (UTC) https://www.sciencenews.org/article/black-scientists-disparities-representation-stem-science
 * My comment was in reference to NPROF C1 only. Citation metrics are the standard method of assessing someone's scientific impact on a field -- the other factors you mention would likely fall under different criteria and would be highly dependent on coverage by independent RS specifically discussing her contributions to minority representation. Since it's not clear that that coverage exists, we must rely on the notability criteria that don't require secondary coverage -- citations, awards, professional positions. It's uncertain whether a 1.1M grant for an instrument-intensive (read: expensive) field is especially unusual, but very well could be a relevant notability boost. JoelleJay (talk) 18:17, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment as explained below, a 1.1 M grant over 5 years is actually not uncommon in academia. --hroest 19:42, 28 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment. I had similar thoughts. Are the coauthor cite comparisons actually because people at the top of the field want to work with her? That should count for rather than against. Additionally, $1.1M is an exceptional grant at that stage. And there was enough to write an interesting, complete entry. I’m hard-pressed to see the improvement made by deleting it. Innisfree987 (talk) 22:46, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi Innisfree987, the majority of the professor-level coauthors of Dr. Jones collaborated with when she was a grad student or post-doc, so it's unlikely they were seeking her out specifically. Nevertheless, to account for this I also assessed 50 authors of 13 articles citing several of her papers.

Professional positions of everyone with an h-index of ≥4 included.

Including all authors: total citations: avg: 3454, med: 417, J: 557; total papers: avg: 84, med: 20, J: 31; h-index: avg: 20, med: 12, J: 16; highest cite: avg: 224, med: 76, J: 75; highest first-author cite: avg: 128, med: 39, J: 75.

Including only the 14 people with professorships: total citations: avg: 10782, med: 4866, J: 557; total papers: avg: 241, med: 158, J: 31; h-index: avg: 47, med: 39, J: 16; highest cite: avg: 559, med: 436, J: 75; highest first-author cite: avg: 310, med: 200, J: 75.

Including all authors with ≥10 papers: total citations: avg: 5264, med: 1001, J: 557; total papers: avg: 126, med: 42, J: 31; h-index: avg: 29, med: 18, J: 16; highest cite: avg: 335, med: 158, J: 75; highest first-author cite: avg: 191, med: 83, J: 75.

JoelleJay (talk) 18:17, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Wow this is a great deal of effort. I’m very sorry I didn’t chime in when I read the exchange you had with EA, to let you know I’m on the side of not finding this kind of novel invention of metrics—original research we might say—very compelling. Since the method is not established in RS, I can’t easily check it against other examples. What I’m left with then is the same question EA posed: is the encyclopedia improved by deleting this entry? Is it harmed? I do believe this entry adds value for reasons I and others mention, and I don’t believe, eg, our standards are diminished by including it. So I join those !voting keep. Innisfree987 (talk) 03:20, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
 * It doesn't take much work, I can just download the metrics from Scopus and use a script I wrote for it. What criteria do you use when evaluating citation counts? Do you calibrate for subfield? And the purpose of AfD isn't to gauge harm versus improvement to Wikipedia; it is literally to assess whether an article meets policy guidelines (including WP:N and WP:NOT). JoelleJay (talk) 05:13, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
 * You can see in my AfD log it’s not usually my deciding criteria for academics. This is because it’s so slippery; when I use it, I’m typically checking h-index against entries pointed out by those who regularly !vote on the specialty and can point to other comparable AfDs. All that being said, our task in everything we do here is to improve the encyclopedia and avoid disrupting that project, including with WP:BURO. I’m repeating myself now but since there’s a concern below for what affirmative arguments are being made, I !voted on the basis of her sizable grant and the sufficient material to write a complete entry—per WP:WHYN. Innisfree987 (talk) 03:09, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Very weak keep. As nom, I was a bit on the fence initially whether it was WP:TOOSOON, but I think the large grant and it's associated coverage pushes the article over the line, so I'm effectively withdrawing my nomination. -Kj cheetham (talk) 09:31, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
 * As time goes on I'm getting closer to just sitting on the fence. -Kj cheetham (talk) 10:25, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. I think it's WP:TOOSOON here.  The awards I see are early career, and don't contribute much to notability; similarly for the CAREER grant (see ).  The citation record looks far short of WP:NPROF C1 in what I believe to be a medium-high citation field.  I don't see any other sign of notability. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 10:56, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   12:20, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. I agree with the nominator whose opinion has changed. I say "weak" because she is quite young, but the new grant really indicates that, if we delete this article, we will need to recreate it in a couple of years. The nominator has withdrawn, so let us leave it for a couple of years and then maybe reconsider. --Bduke (talk) 02:40, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment. I would love to see a solid argument for keeping here.  So far, I'm seeing WP:NOHARM and an argument for temporary notability (in contrast with WP:NOTTEMPORARY).  Now, there are arguments about her CAREER grant that are somewhat serious.  The NSF CAREER grant is an early career grant intended to help her eventually reach notability, but is awarded mainly for promise.  About 450 awards are made per year, see .  Past AfD precedent does not establish this as enough for WP:NPROF (although it certainly does not detract from notability).  I'm interested in keeping articles about notable folks from underrepresented groups, but I'm very skeptical about NPROF here.  Perhaps another notability criterion? Russ Woodroofe (talk) 08:05, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NPROF its very clear that its TOOSOON from an academic point of view - we do not create articles for everybody with a NSF grant. Even though a 1M grant looks impressive, these are very common for assistant professors and generally barely cover the professors salary, lab expenses and maybe one or two students. This is a 5 year grant, so this is ca 200k per year to put this into perspective and in the US this will also have to cover her salary. As Russ pointed out there are 450 awards per year and current notability criteria do not support this grant alone as a reason for notability. The "associated press coverage" is university press which is basically vanity press (every University has those to promote their own scientists). She works in my subfield and I did see her speak at notable conferences including Pittcon and she is clearly an impressive scientist with a promising career, but for Wikipedia it is TOOSOON (talks at conferences are not a current criterion for notability either). Furthermore, a h-index of 19 is quite common for assistant professors at her stage, so unless we make all assistant professors notable (we don't, not even full professors are notable) we would be making an exception here. The only reason for keeping this would be if there were regional or national press coverage about her research or her position in science as a black scientist. I am not specifically arguing against this article, but want to provide context and would like to point that we would first have to have a much larger discussion about professors and their notability first. --hroest 16:59, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. Jones is an early career scientist who is cited frequently and with high regards in mass spec reviews. Upon further investigation, she also holds leadership roles in University of Maryland, Baltimore CURE Scholars Program, IMSD Meyerhoff Graduate Fellowship Program, and American Society for Mass Spectrometry. This is notable, especially for someone who recently obtained their PhD in 2016. Gggg2123 (talk) 23:54, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment The paper cites are still lower than what I'd expect for someone notable in the field under WP:NPROF #1 and the leadership roles mentioned don't seem to meet #6, i.e. "highest-level elected or appointed administrative post at a major academic institution or major academic society". "Promising" is closer to WP:TOOSOON than "notable". -Kj cheetham (talk) 10:24, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. Note, I started this page. I don't think that citations are a very useful metric, Jones has contributed to both scientific discoveries and education/academic culture. Jones developed a novel structural probe to better understand cell membranes. She serves as co-Director of the Meyerhoff Graduate Fellowship Program, which produced distinguished scholars such as Kizzmekia Corbett. I see WP:NOHARM in keeping this page up. Jesswade88 (talk) 20:04, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I think citations are going to be important to see whether the method she developed is important (eg leads to important discoveries) and is used by other scientists - a method by itself is not relevant unless it is useful to gain insight into some biology. I agree with WP:NOHARM in this case and see the argument for keeping it, the only danger is that if the bar is lowered too much, Wikipedia will be flooded with self-promoting academics. --hroest 22:24, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Getting elected to the Board of Directors of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry would appear to justify a lowering of the bar in the name of affirmative action. I am hoping the apparent non-existence of the role of "Co-Director of the Meyerhoff Graduate Fellowship Program" on its UMB pages, and the lack of any mention of Jones as either a Core Team member or even a Mentor for the CURE Scholars Program on its UMB pages, are mere clerical oversights. Wikipedia can ill-afford another scandal of that nature.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cantor Simmonds (talk • contribs) 03:12, 1 March 2021 (UTC) —  Cantor Simmonds (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Keep: Understand the reason for the AFD but she does seem to be notable enough to have an article.   I wish we would be more explicit when we take articles to AFD that appear to have been created as part of projects to address Wikipedia's systemic bias such as via WikiProject Women in Red.  I am NOT saying a different standard applies just that's its always better to have context, just as I usually get the benefit of the doubt when I create an article that it will be on a notable subject due to my experience.--Milowent • hasspoken  20:23, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep The combination of academic career (in serious science) and "won a $1.1mil grant, plus a few awards" adds up to notable. Johnuniq (talk) 23:04, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * No it does not, please see WP:PROF, the criteria are much more strict. --hroest 02:55, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I said "notable" as in WP:N which is not the same as WP:PROF. Johnuniq (talk) 03:54, 5 March 2021 (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.