Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Phil Mason (2nd nomination)


 * 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. This discussion comes down to a disagreement over the quality of the sources asserted to support notability, with neither side making a dispositive argument that the status quo should be changed. This defaults to the article being kept as is. bd2412 T 04:09, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Phil Mason
AfDs for this article: 
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Not notable (WP:GNG, WP:BASIC). w umbolo  ^^^  07:11, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep: as per now, the claim "not notable" is not backed up by any arguments. Thus, if there is no argument to delete it, there is no reason to delete it. Best regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 07:31, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * No, if there is no argument to keep it, it should be deleted. The only independent sources in the article (current revision) are: 7, 9, 10 and 12. Out of these, ref 7 only discusses some minor work by Mason, ref 9 begins with "YouTube has launched an Orwellian program for users to 'moderate content., ref 10 discusses Mason in only two sentences, and ref 12 is about a minor drama between Mason and a pro-creationist YouTuber. w umbolo   ^^^  07:56, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * . w umbolo   ^^^  07:56, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 09:11, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
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 * Delete I was a participant in the last deletion discussion and I said back then that the sourcing was a problem with regard to notability. I see this still suffers from that problem. He is still in essence apparently a non-notable youtuber as there are no reliable 3rd party sources that cover him in depth, nor has his academic work received much in terms of in depth peer review that one would expect to see.  The C of E God Save the Queen!  ( talk ) 15:32, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * On Edit To clarify, what I mean to say is that he fails WP:AUTHOR and WP:PROF.  The C of E God Save the Queen!  ( talk ) 08:41, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep, even a very cursory search turns up several relatively substantial sources:, , . I think a more in-depth look would turn up even more and perhaps some on his academic side, but between his work on Youtube and his academic career, he seems to have attracted enough source coverage to be notable. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:49, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The three sources are: a semi-lengthy summary of one of his videos, a summary of a minor FBI drama, and a passing mention. w umbolo   ^^^  20:47, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It is not up to you if something is "minor" or not. It was at least notable enough to make a long article about it. Just leave it to the administrators to check those sources, and they will come to their judgement. Otherwise, if you continue to dismiss every opposing view, then that will not do any good for the atmosphere on Wikipedia, and it will drain out all the fun of editing it.Jeff5102 (talk) 07:07, 30 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete I don't see coverage of this guy meeting WP:GNG at all. He easily fails WP:AUTHOR and WP:PROF as well. As w umbolo   ^^^  already stated, the three sources listed are very weak, and contrary to the comment on them, it IS up to us if something is minor or not. When it's passing mentions or a Hotair blurb that reads like a blog/opinion post, we're more than capable of making the judgment that those don't reach the level of "significant coverage in reliable sources." This man's coverage does not nearly meet that level. Amsgearing (talk) 15:26, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Tyw7 (🗣️ Talk) — If (reply) then (ping me) 13:15, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
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 * Delete One instance of research getting a bit of press coverage is not enough for WP:PROF; the sourcing in general isn't enough to satisfy the GNG. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:10, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep (previous AfD is old and unpersuasive) note that I added a search bar for his youtube handle.  It brings up a couple of books with discussions of him: Atheist Awakening: Secular Activism and Community in America, Oxford University Press, which talks about his "popular" series Why People Laugh at Creationists, and Religious Talk Online: The Evangelical Discourse of Muslims, Christians, and Atheists, Cambridge University Press, in whcih the author discusses a Christian posting as VenomFangX who threatened to sue Thunderf00t, (there's a footnote).  I also added a couple of sources not overlapping those added by Seraphimblade.  There are WPRS already in this article. And he does quite well in a news search. What is lacking is a formal profile, but WP:SIGCOV does not require one, just a lot of coverage that is more than a mere mention.  I think that adding the available sources together he probably does pass WP:GNG. E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:03, 4 September 2018 (UTC) After taking a deeper dive, I can see that there really is not enough WP:SIGCOV. switching to delete.E.M.Gregory (talk) 09:38, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
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 * Whose !vote is now to delete. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:11, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete Thunderfoot's notability is not by the press. He is a YouTube star who has something sharp and cutting to say on many topics and is well known among the Reddit set. He mixes fact with personality, hyperbole and production value to create entertainment that is self-published and lacking any oversight. The question then is he a YouTube star that stands out from the crowd of YouTube stars, who notable from the rest of YouTube stars. Of course any YouTube star will have some press mentions if you dig enough for marginal sources, but that would make most YouTube stars notable and dilutes the concept of notability. Indeed one would expect notable YouTube stars to have substantial cross-over coverage by the media, what sets them apart from the rest of the YouTubers. I'm not convinced he is notable for Wikipedia yet. --  Green  C  04:33, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep per Web of Science h-index of 34 which seems sufficiently high to pass WP:PROF. IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk  15:35, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I would argue that's a WP:GHITS argument.  The C of E God Save the Queen!  ( talk ) 17:24, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * How did you reach that figure? Searching for "Mason Phil" on WoS returns many papers that are by different people, and even then their combined h-index is only 11. The highest-cited paper by Mason I was able to find on GScholar is Ions at hydrophobic aqueous interfaces: Molecular dynamics with effective polarization, which he's the third author on and has been cited 50 times.–&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:46, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I entered "Mason PE" on Web of Science. Admittedly, some of those results are false positives but I doubt that excluding them would lower his h-index very much. On Google Scholar the highest-cited paper by Mason is not the one you linked to; rather, it is this one which has 287 citations. IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning)  talk  18:00, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see, "Mason PE" returns a lot more results on both. Thanks. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 19:23, 6 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Weak delete. There are lots of Google hits for Thunderf00t, but after spending some time searching I wasn't able to find a single source that is both in-depth and published in a mainstream, reliable publication. I also don't see any case for Mason passing WP:PROF. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:49, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Per IntoThinAir above, his citation metrics are in the range that we usually consider passes WP:PROF, although chemistry is a high-citation field. Still, I'm uneasy about his notability as a scientist acting as a coatrack for an article primarily about his dubious online activities. If it's kept, the article should be rewritten to give due weight to the things he is notable for and weed out the unreliable sources. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 19:23, 6 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:PROF (6 publications with over 100 citations each in Google Scholar). No opinion on whether his blogging activities are also sufficient for notability, but at least they appear to be adequately sourced for inclusion in the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:55, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 *  Strong Keep Per IntoThinAir and David Eppstein. Passes WP:PROF. Into the Rift (talk) 18:20, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Note For the benefit of openess, Into the Rift previously !voted based on another !vote which has since changed to delete thus he has removed it, the original post is here. But I would argue to the points above that the number of hits he gets on the h-index or google scholar makes him notable, is a WP:GHITS argument and not reliable to rely on for keeping the article.  The C of E God Save the Queen! ' ( talk ) 07:13, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
 * So this is another "I don't believe in our established notability standards for academics so I'm going to argue that they shouldn't apply even though the subject is an academic" opinion? The way to express that is to try to change WP:PROF, not to pretend that academic citations are the same thing as Google web hits. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:29, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Per WP:PROF, Citation measures such as the h-index, g-index, etc., are of limited usefulness in evaluating whether Criterion 1 is satisfied. They should be approached with caution because their validity is not, at present, completely accepted, and they may depend substantially on the citation database used. They are also discipline-dependent; some disciplines have higher average citation rates than others. And you call the h-index an established notability standard?? w umbolo   ^^^  07:40, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Also the notability guidelines are not rules like a boardgame -- one needs to make an argument why this person stands above the average academic, is a notable academic compared to his peers. To me he looks to be doing what all academics do - a few publications here and there, but not standing out from the crowd of academics. --  Green  C  14:42, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I'll choose to believe that you accidentally overlooked this, but I did explicitly make the argument why this person stands above: "6 publications with over 100 citations each". It is very much not the case that most people in the crowd of academics achieve this high level of citation. And that gives hundreds of reliably published sources mentioning his work, with some of them most likely in-depth. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:21, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I'll choose to believe that you accidentally overlooked that you only cited numbers, with no explanation as to why those numbers have any significance. Now that you have given an actual rationale, that is something to discuss. Per WP:PROF, Citation measures such as the h-index, g-index, etc., are of limited usefulness in evaluating whether Criterion 1 is satisfied. They should be approached with caution because their validity is not, at present, completely accepted, and they may depend substantially on the citation database used. They are also discipline-dependent; some disciplines have higher average citation rates than others. -- Green  C  18:34, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
 * The above comments about how h-indices are not a perfect indicator of notability remind me of a similar point made by at an AFD in 2014, in which I voted keep. Ahecht made basically the same point as the C of E and Wumbolo did above, i.e. that having a high h-index doesn't necessarily mean notability, and quoting the warning on WP:PROF advising against using h-indices as an infallible standard for notability.  responded by noting, "The warning above is directed at people who are not familiar with the world of scholarly publishing and citations. Most of the other contributors to this AfD, from their edit records, are." I also feel like both Eppstein and myself understand that h-indices aren't infallible indicators of notability, so arguments about it being imperfect fail to understand that it can be useful for separating notable from non-notable academics according to WP:PROF, if limitations are taken into account. If you look at User:Czar/h-index you'll see that an h-index of 29 has previously been determined to be sufficient for chemists such as Mason, whose h-index is actually slightly higher than that, as I noted above. IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning)  talk  22:03, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I'll be the first to agree that h-indexes are imperfect. Better would be actual expertise in that specific academic discipline. But the argument that "they're just numbers, so they're meaningless" is even worse, as is trying to evaluate academics by how much popular press they've attracted. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:05, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep: between WP:GNG and WP:PROF, sufficient notability has been established, per sources already present in the article. K.e.coffman (talk) 07:29, 8 September 2018 (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.