Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Penny Smith (mathematician)


 * 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 delete. Jaranda wat's sup 06:14, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Penny Smith (mathematician)

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Notability questionable, and based on a brief media storm around a preprint that quickly died away. Does not seem fair to brand here as the mathematicians who claimed to have proved Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness but was mistaken. It was just a preprint, and preprints are not publications Billlion 12:09, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: the "brief media storm" seems to be limited to mostly blogs (such as Peter Woit's) and several articles, e.g. in Nature, Seed, NZZ (for nonsubscription access to the Nature article see ). In terms of "notability"  Notability would assert this coverage was enough and cannot diminish over time; however, this guideline (whose status has always been kind of dubious anyway) is at the moment heavily contested.  I would like to add that feelings of sympathy ideally should not play into whether this article is kept or not.  It is best to be consistent in what we decide is kept or not, regardless of how we feel about the subject.  Nonetheless, in my opinion, articles like this can never be more than marginal keep.  I personally think creating a whole bio on Smith because of this is rather dubious.  --C S (Talk) 04:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
 * This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT 09:21, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete - there are several reliable sources, all covering a single incident. That's not "independent" as outlined in WP:N. I wouldn't call it "substantial" either, since the sources are more concerned with maths in the computer age than with Penelope Smith, using her case only as a recent example. Huon 20:44, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. The "independence" criterion does not require that the sources be independent of each other (in terms of topic), but instead that the sources be independent of the subject of the article (i.e., not self-published).  -- Black Falcon 08:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment The "independence" criterion requires both, see WP:N: "Such sources must be reliable, independent of the subject and independent of each other." I wouldn't mind a merge and redirect to Clay Mathematics Institute, where the information on the Millennium Problems is kept, but she isn't independently notable. As an aside, is there a reason why the article's title is "Penny" instead of "Penelope"? Most sources, including her website (and even the article's first sentence) seem to use her full name. Huon 22:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * No, you're still misreading it. "Independent of each other" does not mean covering independent events, as "each other" is referring to the sources themselves.  The sources I listed do not appear to be dependent.  This part of the criterion is designed to avoid the situation where one source may basically just be copying another.  This is not the case here; it appears each news source did their own investigation.  --C S (Talk) 17:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * keep seems to be a footnote in the history of the Millennium Prizes which is worth documenting. --Salix alba (talk) 12:37, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions.   -- David Eppstein 03:06, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete no evidence of notability and poorly refed NBeale 21:27, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. There may be some amount of notability to the Navier Stokes claim but in the spirit of WP:BLP I think that the level of notability required for an entry that's solely about an embarrassing incident in this person's history should be significantly higher than the notability required for more positive academic accomplishments. —David Eppstein 02:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. That was what I meant to say in the nomination. Thankyou very well put. Billlion 09:12, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete. If not for the bloggers, withdrawal of the preprint would have drawn little attention. (On a lighter note – did any other P.G. Wodehouse fans notice that her name is Psmith?) DavidCBryant 12:14, 9 March 2007 (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.