Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark A. O'Neill


 * 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 per WP:PROF. The subject's work, legacy, and citations are good enough. Several users discussed that at least two reliable sources discuss the subject's biography at length. A high h-index is a heuristic but not required metric; it is a factor but not an element of the 'professor test'. Bearian (talk) 21:33, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Mark A. O'Neill

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DePRODed by creator witout  adressing  the issues. Concern was: ''WP:BLP without Reliable independent sources relevant to the subject and which confer notability. All the references are either to the subject's own works or do not substantiate any biographical content.'' Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:00, 11 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. According to WP:ACADEMIC (#3), which I believe to be the relevant standard, O'Neill's membership in the Royal Entomological Society and the Royal Astronomical Society are sufficient to demonstrate notability.  Reading the notes at WP:ACADEMIC, I can't think these are "minor and non-notable societies".  I didn't take this analysis further; possibly someone will want to get into citation metrics, etc.  Ubelowme (talk) 16:01, 11 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. O'Neill is also a Fellow of the British Computer Society, The Institute of Engineering and a Chartered Engineer. Furthermore, his papers in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and Science have a significant number of citations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adhemarius (talk • contribs) 17:58, 11 June 2012 (UTC)  — Adhemarius (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Note. According to Wikipedia: If anyone, including the article creator, removes a proposed deletion tag from an article, do not replace it, even if the tag was apparently removed in bad faith. I removed the tag because I object to the deletion as per Wikipedia instructions for the reasons given above -- Adhemarius. — Adhemarius (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Keep. You should look at this guys citations, I knew him at Oxford, he used to work with Colin Blakemore in computational neuroscience. Looks like there is only a fraction of the stuff he did here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DanScrayfield (talk • contribs) 18:27, 11 June 2012 (UTC)  — DanScrayfield (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 02:10, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 02:11, 12 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete as too early. GS cites are 122, 114, 29, 17, 11, 8, 8...with an h-index of 7 in a high cited field. This is not enough to satisfy WP:Prof. Fellowships are not sufficient. The article RanaVision, which looks promotional, needs to be looked at too. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:17, 12 June 2012 (UTC).
 * Query about the H Index being reported: I think there may possibly be some mistake with the figure being quoted. For example I think our Dr O'Neill wrote these:
 * Anatomical connectivity defines the organization of clusters of cortical areas in the macaque monkey and the cat - Author(s): Hilgetag, CC (Hilgetag, CC); Burns, GAPC (Burns, GAPC); O'Neill, MA (O'Neill, MA); Scannell, JW (Scannell, JW); Young, MP (Young, MP)   Source: PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON SERIES B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES  Volume: 355   Issue: 1393Pages: 91-110   DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2000.0551   Published: JAN 29 2000
 * and this has been cited according the Google Scholar 295 cites.
 * and this one - "Hierarchical organisation of the macaque and cat cortical sensory systems explored with a novel network processor" has 80 cites
 * And this one - "Computational Analysis of Functional Connectivity between Areas of Primate Cerebral Cortex" - has GS 185 cites
 * And this one - "The Connectional Organization of the Cortico-thalamic System of the Cat" - has 240 cites
 * I have not checked for more but if these are by him, and this should be checked, I think these might change the picture a bit. (Msrasnw (talk) 17:07, 14 June 2012 (UTC))
 * Another few quite well cited ones Non-Metric Multidimensional Scaling in the Analysis of Neuroanatomical Connection Data and the Organization of the Primate Cortical Visual System GS 74 cites and Automating the identification of insects: a new solution to an old problem, ID Gauld, KJ Gaston… - Bulletin of …, 1997 - Cambridge Univ Press GS cites 34, Automating insect identification: exploring the limitations of a prototype system with GS cites 43.  Species-identification of wasps using principal component associative memories with GS cites 23
 * These cites would now take our list to the following: GS cites = 295, 240, 185, 122, 114, 80, 74, 43, 34, 29, 23, 17 which maps onto a h-index=12 which I think is in an acceptable level, given his fields, to establish O'Neill's notability via WP:Prof. (Msrasnw (talk) 17:42, 19 June 2012 (UTC))


 *  Delete Weak delete Per Xxanthippe's analysis. The memberships mentioned by Ubelowme do not contribute anything to notability: it's sufficient to work in an appropriate field and pay the membership fees. This fails WP:PROF, but the sources provided (Science and BBC) go some way to satisfying WP:GNG. Something more substantial would clinch it. The article needs a serious overhaul (weird bolding, inappropriate in-text external links, etc). --Guillaume2303 (talk) 06:03, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep The deletion proposal was on the basis of a lack of reliable independent references. I added a few reliable third-party references when this article was flagged unreferenced under the unreferenced blp project. These and more recent activity are, IMHO, sufficient to establish notability. However, I concur with Xxanthippe that related material appears promotional. That discussion would probably be better handled on COIN. --KenBailey (talk) 08:22, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * On which notability policy do you base your keep vote? Xxanthippe (talk) 10:33, 13 June 2012 (UTC).
 * Based on general notability from coverage in reliable national UK media secondary sources. --KenBailey (talk) 22:46, 14 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Weak Delete Keep -- as Guillaume2303 mentioned, the Royal Entomological Society and the Royal Astronomical Society are not competitive Fellowships. The latter is just a membership; the former is a professional membership.  The BBC article is a real, independent citation of his work that suggests a notable professor, but I think we need one more good citation of his work to keep. (Adding: the Science Pushing DAISY article is enough for me + the BBC article).  It's a case where the lack of institutional affiliation--which gives some independent affirmation of research notability--hurts the subject. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 20:19, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment/Question: Is the article - Reed, Sarah (2010) Pushing DAISY, Science, 25 June 2010 - a useful indication of the possible notability of our Dr O'Neill? I think, but can't see behind the paywall just yet, that this is a biographical article about him and his interesting Digital Automated Identification SYstem (DAISY) system. (Msrasnw (talk) 21:28, 13 June 2012 (UTC)) PS: The source is here: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/328/5986/1628.summary
 * Keep - I have read the Pushing DAISY article now - thanks to a link to a pdf from Google Scholar. An article with this amount of biographical detail in Science, together with the other evidence seem sufficient to me for notability. (Msrasnw (talk) 22:35, 13 June 2012 (UTC))
 * One article is not enough. There is a requirement for multiple independent reliable sources. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:20, 13 June 2012 (UTC).
 * Xxanthippe -- I changed my vote because I consider the BBC + Science to be two independent RSes. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 00:05, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
 * On which notability policy do you base your keep vote? Xxanthippe (talk) 00:18, 14 June 2012 (UTC).
 * WP:PROF category 1. I think that being interviewed in Science shows significant impact on his field; having his research profiled by BBC does also.  -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 04:56, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification but I don't think this is nearly enough for WP:Prof. Bioscience and computer science are both highly cited fields and the citations here are far below the h-index of around 20 that might be expected. The two media reports seems to be reports of aspiration rather than achievement, and although "two" technically counts as "multi" I think that sources more substantial than this are needed to pass WP:Prof. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:59, 14 June 2012 (UTC).
 * Hi Xxanthippe -- I've considered your assessment of the h-index which was one of the main reasons I originally chose Delete. My feeling is that I tend to use citation indexes (even in fields where they're pretty reliable and commonly used) when there's little external evidence of notability and I need to answer the question, "Did I miss something? Or did we do a thorough enough search?" If a computer scientist has an h-index of 7 and we find no external indications of notability then I'll be satisfied in voting delete.  If the person has an h-index of 40 I'll tend to think we've just missed something that is probably out there and vote keep even if the external sources are weak (there needs to be some RS out there though).  In this case though I've felt like what is out there attests to an importance that goes beyond the low number of citations; maybe computer science applied to entomology gets fewer citations than other CS fields? Here's a quote from the Science article: "O'Neill “is one of the most interdisciplinary scientists that I have ever worked with,” MacLeod [paleontologist of the Natural History Museum, London] says. “Mark lives and breathes entomology—growing caterpillars at home—but he is also an advanced IT specialist. He is decidedly unique.”" there is other praise for him and his work there and several explanations for lack of funding and citations due to his crossing boundaries.  I feel like the bar has been met. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 16:16, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Replies to comments above. It's a shame that there is ambiguity is assessing which journals are authored. But even if a few more are added they will not lift the h-index to the value of 20 or so expected for this field. In view of the non-linear nature of the index many more citations will be needed. May be too early. I am less impressed than some are by the two articles in the popular media. It is the nature of modern public relations for people who want publicity (and I do not allege that happened in this case) to approach journalists with a story and journalists, who are always on the look out for copy, will write an article if they can. I am also concerned, as mentioned above in regard to RanaVision, that there may be a issue at work here with the promotion of commercial software. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:31, 16 June 2012 (UTC).


 * Keep significant coverage in multiple reliable sources demonstrated. --Kvng (talk) 19:06, 18 June 2012 (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.