Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/M. Paul Smith


 * 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. -- Cirt (talk) 07:55, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

M. Paul Smith

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Deprodded by DGG on the grounds that he is Head of his dept and having been mentioned as a (third) author of a study written up by the NYT. Being Head or Chair is not mentioned in WP:PROF as being sufficient for an article. Wikipedia is not a directory of everybody who has advanced in their administrative careers to some arbitrary point. Mere mention in an article about something else are not sufficient for notability. Compared to other workers in conodont fossils, he has low citation numbers and an h-index around 12. In addition, he has not been awarded the Pander Medal, the prize given out to notable conodont researchers by the Pander society. Abductive (reasoning) 07:48, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:24, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:24, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Some high GS cites in a field that is probably not highly cited. Chair of the Publications Board of The Paleontological Society. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:53, 5 October 2010 (UTC).
 * I included a link above that shows that he is not anywhere near the highest cited worker in his field. Abductive  (reasoning) 01:00, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * A person doesn't have to be the best to be notable. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:29, 6 October 2010 (UTC).
 * Is that notion expressed in any Wikipedia policy or guideline? Abductive  (reasoning) 02:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It is not: neither is the contrary. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:55, 6 October 2010 (UTC).
 * It is implicit in the concept that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, rather than a dumbed-down publication such as the Guinness Book of Records. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:14, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. This guy is actually pretty important, he established "the origin of the vertebrates to 515 million years BP, 40 million years earlier than had been previously thought." That alone is major find for someone in his field, it's a major find period, as mentioned in The New York Times when it happened (See WP:PROF criteria #1). But more than that, he is a director of a Museum, head of a university academic department (see WP:PROF criteria #6), published scores of peer reviewed papers, co-authored at least two books, his name and work is mentioned in dozens (100s?) of books published by other authors (see WP:PROF #1), he has a Chair position on the Publications Board of |The Paleontological Society which is a major International non-profit in his field (see WP:PROF criteria #3 and #8). Green Cardamom (talk) 02:26, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * He has not been given the conodont researchers' in-house award. How do you explain that given your opinion that he is "pretty important"? Abductive  (reasoning) 02:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Look, this scientist established when vertebrates first evolved. It may be my "opinion" that this is "pretty important", but it's really up to you to say why it's not important. Green Cardamom (talk) 04:41, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I did. Secondary sources are the currency, not our opinions. For example, I say that being a middle author on a paper from 1992, if it was so important, should have resulted in peer recognition. Yet in the tiny field of conodont researchers, Smith is conspicuously absent from the list of Pander Medalists. Only one of the other Medalists even has an article, by the way. I cannot say why his peers don't cite him as much as nearly everybody else in the field, but that is a fact. WP:PROF sets a high bar, lest all of the professors in the world get an article. According to Wikipedia's own article Professors in the United States, there are 11,000 professors in the California State University system alone. That article also says "... that the U.S. Department of Labor's list of "above average wages and high projected growth occupations," with a projected increase of 524,000 positions between 2004 and 2014." If the US is adding professors at the rate of half a million per decade, how many are there already? How about the rest of the world? Millions? Tens of millions? Abductive  (reasoning) 05:20, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Your setting an arbitrary and self-selected criteria (winning the Pander prize). If you look at WP:PROF, winning a prize is just one of many criteria that could allow a professor for inclusion in Wikipedia. I noted above this professor matches criteria #: 1, 6, 3 and 8. He only needs to meet one of those criteria to be notable, so you'll have to refute all four convincingly. Green Cardamom (talk) 16:55, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Clear Keep. Noted Paleotologist (judged by publications and full professorship at leading UK university), Chair of the Publications Board of The Paleontological Society, high profile in conodont research and in local geological community and Director of Lapworth Museum of Geology. (Msrasnw (talk) 14:33, 7 October 2010 (UTC))
 * Keep—seems notable enough, in the matter argued in the above discussion. &mdash;innotata 16:31, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep The NYT article is in my opinion decisive. Abductive's argument that one must be the top person in the field is irrelevant, or we would remove everyone who competed in the Olympics unless the won a gold medal, or any film performer not winning the academy award, or any city not the largest in its country, or any US politician who did not get elected president. Equally inappropriate is his  similar  argument that if we had articles on all full professors who were chairs of their departments in major research universities, we would necessarily have articles on everyone who was a college teacher, which would lead to the conclusion we should have no articles at all.  And FWIW, anyone who believes the US Dept of Labor's hilariously optimistic job predictions....    DGG ( talk ) 04:39, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The NYT article merely mentions this guy, it does not do any analysis of him. Abductive  (reasoning) 07:20, 12 October 2010 (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.