Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard T. Snodgrass


 * 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) 01:30, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Richard T. Snodgrass

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Does not fit WP:NOTE dj (talk) 18:51, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep The relevant criterion must be WP:PROF, item 1, "significant impact in their scholarly discipline". Snodgrass is very well known for his work on temporal databases, and a Google Scholar search for his name shows numerous citations.  The author of the article has computed H- and G-index values here and they look convincing to me.  Favonian (talk) 19:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Also, as the article notes, he has been an ACM Fellow since 1999. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 19:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment There seems to be a total lack of third party swources establishing notability. In fact the only source that does not appear to have been writen by him is his Biog on the university he works for (and thus is harldey third party), nor does it establish notability. I can find no news referances for him, and most of the scholerly material seems to be by him, not about himk.Slatersteven (talk) 19:20, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * This is actually why Wikipedia has separate guidelines regarding the notability of academics, WP:PROF. According to them, it is for instance sufficient if the person in question is recognized by the scientific community as demonstrated by citations in scientific publications or by fellowship in a major scholarly society, which are the two conditions Snodgrass meets.  Favonian (talk) 19:49, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - that doesn't excuse the lack of independent sources and the abuse of primary sources. Someone notable in academia will get recognition from independent institutes in one form or another.--137.122.49.102 (talk) 20:09, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, and Snodgrass has that recognition, in the form of the ACM Fellowship. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:52, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Can we close this discussion? The consensus seems to be Keep Or Strong keep.
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Favonian (talk) 19:20, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Favonian (talk) 19:20, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Also some of these refer to works he has edited, and writen with others. We will have to establish which works source only his work.Slatersteven (talk) 23:47, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Weak keep - seems to pass WP:PROF but desperately needs cleanup and better independent sources.--137.122.49.102 (talk) 20:09, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. Clear pass of WP:PROF #1, #3 (ACM Fellow), and #8 (Editor-in-chief of ACM TODS 2001-2007). —David Eppstein (talk) 03:51, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Criteria 1 needs to be demonstrated thru RS that he has had an impact, I see no where it saying anything about being cited (which by the way could only apply to work it can be demonstrated he has writen) Criteria 2 does ACM meets this, is it a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association?. acan be asked of ACM TODS, is it a major journel?Slatersteven (talk) 12:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Google scholar finds over 500 reliable sources each (other papers that cite Snodgrass' work) for the impact of his top-cited publications on temporal databases. That is the standard way we measure academic impact. As for ACM Fellow, yes it does — ACM is the main research organization for computer scientists and becoming an ACM Fellow is very far from easy; it's exactly the sort of thing that WP:PROF #3 was intended to describe. As for ACM Transactions on Database Systems, it's been around for 35 years and it had the highest possible ranking in the "CORE" listing of computer science journals. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:47, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Can we have some sources that back uo the claim that ACM is a major body, and that becoming a fellow of it (It seems tyhat even students can become members). Same for the mmagazine, can we hace some sources noting its notability please?Slatersteven (talk) 12:33, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Becoming a member of ACM is easy, and there are at present 92,000 of them. Becoming a fellow is much harder, which is why there are a measly 675, something like 0.7%.  As for the notability of the journal, have a look at the references in the TODS article.  Favonian (talk) 14:35, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The TODS article has three references, one being a book by Prof Snodgrass. CORE is a list of journals that members of publish in as such its hardly independent; also there is no indication as to what it is rated for. The other source says that it was only the highest in those in the study, not exactly saying its highly regarded. As I have said we need some independent third party sources that actually say that this is more then just the best we have looked at. As to his fellowship, well he is as notable as 675 other people, but this still doe not establish that ACM fellowship is a bench mark of excellence.Slatersteven (talk) 15:25, 29 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. This is a slam dunk. The enormous citation base to his work is sufficient (GS h-index seems to be around 25): it is independent, verifiable, as well as being conclusive proof of impact. This indeed is the long-established standard test of WP:PROF #1, which the subject conspicuously satisfies. ACM Fellow would also be a pass (as would "Fellow"-level election in any of the main scientific societies). Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 14:48, 28 April 2010 (UTC).
 * Question Some of the GS (I assume you mean Google search) are hits for work he has published. As to the rest (this is the question) as he is either the editor (not the author) or it is joint work, much of the referancing may not appply to his work alone, as such does this mean that it fails criteria 1?Slatersteven (talk) 15:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, no. We don't usually do this level of joint-author hair-splitting in this forum. The basic problem is that it is almost always impossible to conclusively dissect the individual contributions to a research result and then apportion impact accordingly. While we have had some cases where a claim of research contribution was clearly exaggerated, I think our general practice here is attribute the impact of a paper (i.e. citations) to a scientist if his/her name is in the author list. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 16:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC).
 * It is reasonable to distinguish between works the person has authored and works the person has edited but not authored. The highly-cited works in Snodgrass's oevre seem to be authored, though. As for picking out co-author contributions, it's not really possible in this case because many of his publications appear to be using the convention of alphabetized author lists. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:58, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * But doies not notability say that some one has to be idependantly notable? Sokme one is not notable becasue they (for example) belong to a good team, but becasue they are a notable member of that team?Slatersteven (talk) 12:33, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * This to me is strong evidence that you are just arguing for the sake of arguing and haven't even looked at the Google scholar results people keep citing. Three of the four publications with over 500 cites are single-authored. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:27, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Do forgive me but there is only one link in Goggle scholar that I can find here on this page. It does not seem to me to show over 500 citations from works he has published. I might be missing them, could you provvide a link to one (or even two) I bleive that this is what I have been asking for all along. Also I have looked here http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=4132448053759008641&hl=en&as_sdt=2000 so far all the documents I have checked do not source his sole work (one does list only him, but as an editor only), So I re-iterate my request for a couple of source that indicate that he (on his own merits) is sourced pleasse.Slatersteven (talk) 15:34, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's the link. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:14, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * No this is a link to works that contain his name, not works that source him in his own right. Two this is a google search result, not a source. this does not provide a source that sources Prof Snodgrass in his own right, its google scholar perhaps but still a search result. Moreover this says 112 not 500. So I shall ask again please provide a scholerly document (book or articel) that source work produced soley by Prof Snodgrass.Slatersteven (talk) 16:21, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, obviously I need to be more pedantic here. It's not a list of works that contain his name, it's a list of works that he himself has written; that's what the "author:" in the search string means. And do you see the little link "cited by 672" under the first publication returned by the search link? That link goes to 672 other publications, mostly by other people, that refer to this particular work of Snodgrass. Similarly the link "cited by 664" etc under the second entry, etc. Google scholar itself may not be a reliable source in the sense that we use it in Wikipedia, but many of those citations likely are, and the sheer number of them is strong evidence of the academic impact of his works, of the type that we use all the time in deletion discussions such as this one. I don't see the number 112 on the search page I linked to, so I don't know what you mean by that. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:25, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * This thread seems to be heading in the direction of WP:BAIT. The information above conclusively demonstrates notability, so we could probably just leave it at that. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 19:32, 29 April 2010 (UTC).
 * I have asked for claificiation on whether this established notability on RSN.Slatersteven (talk) 13:40, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep It's nice to have a smart article among all the dumb ones in Wikipedia. WP:PROF isn't quite as broad as the inherent notability that we give for professional athletes.  I think that it's great that the University of Arizona football season gets in-depth coverage 2009 Arizona Wildcats football team, 2008 Arizona Wildcats football team, etc., but I've heard that that universities also have people who do things, like research and teaching and book publishing.  Granted, it's not as much of a contribution to society as taking the Wildcats to a bowl game, but university professors sometimes do notable things too.  Mandsford (talk) 15:41, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * But he has to have been notable to be notable. So does he meet the criteria, so far all we have is some referancing to work that is not soley his and a claim that he si a amber of a notable socirty (whith out any apparent proof its notable). If he is notable enough to have an articel thyen it should not prove hard to find sources to back up claims of independant notability.Slatersteven (talk) 15:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Vk2010 (talk) 19:53, 28 April 2010 (UTC) Please see the references that I have added. Every piece of information now has a reference.
 * Strong Keep – per him having an h-index of >45 (Criterion #1), being an ACM Fellow (Criterion #3) and having been editor-in-chief of ACM Transactions on Database Systems (Criterion #8). I suspect that relatively few people in Computer Science would be more notable than him. Justin W Smith talk/stalk 21:19, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * To be a bit more precise, according to this list there are some 140 computer scientists "better" than Snodgrass, when it comes to the h-index. Not too shabby ;)  Favonian (talk) 21:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep I have asked and it seems that the Google scholar search is acceptable for proving notability. I would still have preferd that we actualy have citation from the books that source him rather then just the search hit (it will avoid any possible AFD in the future) but I applied the rules incorreclly. I also appoligise if any one was annoyed.Slatersteven (talk) 14:36, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Enough impact to keep. MiRroar (talk) 20:38, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Can we close this discussion? The consensus seems to be Keep Or Strong keep. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vk2010 (talk • contribs)
 * Keep Looks OK to me, and per Mandsford. Peridon (talk) 20:21, 1 May 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.