Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mikhail Blagosklonny


 * 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. The consensus seems to be that the subject satisfies WP:PROF and it is also well argued that the subject satisfies WP:PROF. While the criticism about the journals is valid, it doesn't automatically make them non-notable. What matters here is whether the subject had made an impact (whether positive or negative) which has been noticed by others. Randykitty seems to have demonstrated that the subject's work has been noticed by others. However, as noted in this AfD, the article needs work. It needs to be cleaned up and the criticism about the journals needs to be mentioned. The way forward is not to delete but to mention all reliably sourced viewpoints about the subject in the article (in accordance with due weight and BLP). (non-admin closure) Lemongirl942 (talk) 03:41, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Mikhail Blagosklonny

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Delete. Non-notable academic. Fails WP:BASIC, WP:ANYBIO. Clearly fails WP:ACADEMIC criteria 1-7 & 9. This leaves criteria 8, "The person is or has been the head or chief editor of a major, well-established academic journal in their subject area.". I argue this is also a strong fail. By 2015 SCImago rankings of journals which he has served as chief editor: Cell Cycle - 257th in subject area "Biochemistry, Genetics, and Molecular Biology", 363th in "Medicine". Aging - 195th in subject area "Biochemistry, Genetics, and Molecular Biology". Oncotarget - 344th in subject area "Medicine". Aging is ranked 5th in the subject category "Aging", but this is merely a subcategory under the subject area "Biochemistry, Genetics, and Molecular Biology". Furthermore, both Aging and Oncotarget are published by Impact Journals (Albany, New York), a relatively new (and very small) publisher listed by Jeffrey Beall as a "Potential, possible, or probable" predatory open-access publisher. I should also point out that "700forscience", a group that that the page indicates that he co-founded, appears defunct and is not notable. C64rocks (talk) 23:24, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Changed to Keep and withdrawing my nomination per my comment below from the last hour. C64rocks (talk) 18:03, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  Chickadee46   talk  00:32, 14 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete in this case but Draft if anyone should ever be willing for it, because he's part of team with high citations, but he's not been a closely significant author for it, therefore he would not be notable or apply for it, and although his book counts in libraries are noticeable, it's still not enough. Overall, there's still not the convincingly genuine article needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SwisterTwister (talk • contribs)
 * Preserve I serendipitously stumbled on this discussion and most likely the editors proposing this delete are non-scientists, because Blagosklonny published in PNAS, Nature and many other journals, edited books and developed the entire theory of aging. His H-index is >40 and he has over 250 papers on PubMed https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=blagosklonny%2Bm. It is worthwhile to point out that the Beall's list is biased and Jeffrey Beall is not a notable scientist with no significant contributions to science, who made a name for himself attacking open-access journals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.159.227.252 (talk) 21:49, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
 * (Not that it should be relevant to the discussion, but my PhD is in biomedical sciences.) What we have here IMO is a prime example of why WP:ACADEMIC warns that H-index is of limited usefulness for establishing notability. Although Blagosklonny's H-index is respectable, there is simply very little (?any) mention of his work in secondary sources. It appears that a large percentage of his articles were published in the journals where he serves as managing editor (Aging, Oncotarget, Cell Cycle). Considering the dubious reputations of these journals, I have a hard time not considering all of these articles as self-published. In other instances he is merely a middle author in a long list of authors. As for the claim that Blagosklonny "developed the entire theory of aging", self-publishing theoretical concepts on aging does not establish notability. I still fail to see any evidence that he has made a significant impact on the field. C64rocks (talk) 23:38, 19 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I was asked to comment as apparently the author has emailed, but I still confirm what I said above, as there's still not enough of the genuine substance for an article here, it's too soon. SwisterTwister   talk  02:32, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academic journals-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 02:42, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Health and fitness-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 02:42, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 02:42, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: I doing a bit of IAR and sorting into the Academic journals list because there is some talk about a predatory journal and the subject's notability as an editor in chief. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 02:43, 20 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Article Significantly Improved since many of the editors here may be distracted by Dr. Blagosklonny's publications in the journals, where he is editor-in-chief and did not have the time to go through the publication record on PubMed, I added just a few selected papers, 15 to be precise in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature, Nature Leukemia, Nature Cell Death & Differentiation and FEBS, where Dr. Blagosklonny was a senior author. Either first or last author (it is customary for the senior author to be last). I added other editorial roles including Nature Cell Death & Disease and included coverage by third parties including the Scientific American (http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v306/n1/full/scientificamerican0112-32.html) and Bloomberg Business Week (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-02-12/does-a-real-anti-aging-pill-already-exist-). When it comes to notable scientists, it is easy to criticize. But instead, please try to do your own research and improve the articles instead of deleting and criticizing. Cancer and aging are among the most important challenges our society is facing today. Attacking the people, who dedicate their lives to developing cures is bad karma. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.159.227.252 (talk) 09:07, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. Several (actually, most) arguments given above by both "keep" and "delete" !votes are misinterpreting WP:ACADEMIC. Blagosklonny clearly meets at least two criteria of ACADEMIC:
 * Criterion 1: "The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline". That the subject has published in important journals is irrelevant, as are the number of articles that he has co-authored. What is important is whether all these articles have been "noted" (that's what "notability" means). Well, GScholar tells us that his articles have been cited over 25,000 times, with an incredibly high h-index of 83. Given GScholar's notorious unreliability, I also checked the Web of Science. WoS lists 260 articles, cited a grand total of 18,849 times, with an h-index of 73. Please note that we often keep academics who have about 1000 citations and an h-index of 20 or more. We often keep academics who have 1 or 2 articles with more than 100 citations. Blagosklonny has 54 articles cited 100 times or more (9 have been cited over 300 times). This kind of metrics one does not get by self-citations and such. These are actually the highest citation numbers I have ever seen in an AfD of an academic. And, yes, we need to be careful in interpreting the h-index and citation counts, but that is mostly in the lower numbers: a low index or low citation counts do not necessarily mean non-notability. However, exceptionally high counts like Blagosklonny has are proof of notability. As for the doubtful argument that many of Blagosklonny's publications are "self-published", even if true that is not a reason to ignore them if it can be shown that such self-published stuff has made a measurable impact.
 * Criterion 8: "The person is or has been the head or chief editor of a major, well-established academic journal in their subject area." Whether we like it or not, Aging, Cell Cycle, and Oncotarget are "major, well-established" journals. All three have significant impact factors. Yes, they are published by minor (or even shady) publishers (as noted in the articles on them) and Blagosklonny's editing (at least of Oncotarget) has been criticized (which should be mentioned in this article), but the fact remains that journals with an IF of 3 or higher are highly notable. (And if you check their edit histories, you'll note that it was me who inserted the criticism on those journals into the articles).
 * Finally, if one does a news search (just click the link above), several sources pop up (among them the New Scientist), so a case can be made that Blagosklonny also meets WP:GNG directly.
 * The above is not to say that the article we currently have is OK, because it is not. The list of articles is way too long, there is no criticism (such as about the editing of Oncotarget), so the article clearly needs work. However, there can be no doubt as to Blagosklonny being notable. --Randykitty (talk) 11:43, 20 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I still maintain that Blagosklonny is not notable. From WP:ACADEMIC: "Having published does not, in itself, make an academic notable, no matter how many publications there are. Notability depends on the impact the work has had on the field of study." Let's look at the section that was recently added to the page "Rapamycin and Aging". In the two references for the section, he is mentioned on the last page of the first article and sporadically several times in the second. Neither of these references are peer-reviewed academic sources (Scientific American and BusinessWeek) and as such they do not establish the claims made in that section. I should also point out that Blagosklonny does not appear in the list of faculty on the Roswell Park Cancer Institute website (the most recent mention is several years old). The PNAS publication is an interesting one. According to PubMed this article has been cited 29 times. A quick look reveals that 23 of these 29 citations are from the journals that he edits! This is the problem--every time that I come across something that at surface level looks like it may establish notability there is a big asterisks next to it. In my eyes, this is one of the most egregious cases of H-index padding and academic piggybacking that I have ever seen. The fact is that despite his H-index or any other arbitrary measure, I see little evidence to suggest that he has made a significant impact on his field of study. C64rocks (talk) 15:50, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment. I repeat: it doesn't matter how many publications somebody has, nor in what journal they were published. What matter is if these publications were noted. Blagosklonny's certainly have more noted, much more than we usually require, because over 18 THOUSAND citations is simply stellar. Where he works is also immaterial. Whether at a reputed university or some backwater one, the only thing that still counts is whether he is noted. Being cited in Scientific American and BusinessWeek contributes to meeting GNG. And nobody can "pad" their citation record to get 18 thousand citations and an h-index of 73 or more, that's just physically impossible. If you have an issue with the aging/rapamycin section, remove it or improve it. With or without that section, this is one of the most notable academics I have ever seen at AfD. I understand you are new here, but at least has been around long enough (and often enough at AfD) to know better. This is not a case of WP:TOOSOON. This is a misguided AfD and a waste of our time. I strongly suggest that it be withdrawn rapidly. This is my final comment here, enough said already. --Randykitty (talk) 16:34, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Further evidence of lack of field impact: He does not appear in Who's Who in Gerontology (maintained by João Pedro de Magalhães) despite the fact that the list includes 291 researchers in the field of aging. Although the page claims he was instrumental in elucidating TOR signaling, he is an author (co-author in this case) of only a signal reference out of 163 references on the TOR signaling page.C64rocks (talk) 18:39, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * You cannot prove that something or somebody is not notable. It's teh other way around. To include something here, you show it is notable. Which I have done above. That this person is not included in some list is absolutely irrelevant. And this now really is the last time that I comment here. --Randykitty (talk) 19:07, 20 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment: dear editors, I know that my comment was deleted, but I wanted to mention that Beall's list is a personal blog and personal blogs are not peer-reviewed. There needs to be an objective independent consortium to evaluate the editorial policies. Promoting a personal blog run by one person is much worse than promoting a resource run by a consortium. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.159.227.252 (talk) 01:01, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
 * This is not the place to discuss whether or not Beall's blog is a reliable source. Up till now, it has several times been judged to be one. --Randykitty (talk) 09:05, 21 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep. Passes WP:Prof with a GS h-index of 83. Nominator deserves a very large trout. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:34, 21 November 2016 (UTC).
 * Keep and close this Afd. Even a basic review of contributions of the academician (something I would consider should be necessarily done in the case of academicians) put him absolutely above the WP:ACADEMIC bar. As one of the editors above mentions, this subject out here has stellar contributions in the academic field, and Wikipedia not having his bio would be our loss, than the subject's. Lourdes  10:03, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Swallowing my pride and changing to Keep as I realize now that it is very difficult to demonstrate definitively why his H-index doesn't satisfy WP:Prof and that the bar isn't necessarily where I thought it was. There are contributions that I would like to make to other pages and I don't want to start off on the wrong foot here. I apologize for wasting anyone's time. C64rocks (talk) 17:07, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. You could perhaps strike off your nomination statement above and, as nominators may do, write that you are withdrawing the same. Lourdes  17:37, 21 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep - could use much improving, but worth keeping around for people to try to improve. Sagecandor (talk) 02:43, 22 November 2016 (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.