Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Theodore Cohen (chemist)


 * 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 speedy keep. Nomination withdrawn. (non-admin closure)  Pais  a re pa  18:38, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Theodore Cohen (chemist)

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Subject does not meet WP:GNG or WP:NPROF. With the exception of obituaries, there is no significant coverage in reliable third-party sources.  Pais  a re pa  23:08, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.  Pais  a re pa  23:08, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  Pais  a re pa  23:08, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  Pais  a re pa  23:08, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Withdrawn by nominator. Consensus is obvious and there is no ongoing discussion that would be cut off.  Pais  a re pa  18:38, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep There may only be obits here, yet there are three independent obits. One states  Cohen, who was a chemistry professor at Pitt for 60 years, died Dec. 13, at 88 years old. During his time at Pitt, he authored more than 200 research papers, and graduates of his lab can be found teaching at colleges and universities around the world. which signifies notability. All a subject of an article has to be  is notable. This gentleman vaults that threshold with room to  spare. What the article needs is more substance and references for that substance. But AfD is not a mechanism of choice for article improvement  Fiddle   Faddle  23:23, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment Rather than just saying that the individual 'vaults the [notability] threshold', could you specifically explain how he meets WP:GNG, WP:NPROF, or any other SNG?  Pais  a re pa  23:31, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment I put a section in italics in my !vote. That section itself vaults the threshold. That will have to do for specifics. Fiddle   Faddle  23:33, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. I am getting a GS h-index of 30 plus, which passes WP:Prof. The BIO is terse and needs expansion. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:48, 3 March 2021 (UTC).
 * Comment One flaw of the h-index is that it does a poor job distinguishing between a relatively mediocre academic who published for a long period of time and a notable academic who published for a shorter duration. Cohen's h-index is inflated by the fact that he published for ~60 years, an unusually long career.  Pais  a re pa  00:13, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep A respectable and respected professor of chemistry. Not seeing the problem. Andrew🐉(talk) 00:31, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep. I looked at the citation metrics of all 63 of his coauthors with 10 or more publications, and all 30 authors (10+ pubs) of the 10 most recent articles citing him. Total citations: average: 4721, median: 1107, Cohen: 5754. Total papers: avg: 124, med: 59, C: 185. h-index: avg: 26, med: 18, C: 42. Highest citation: avg: 359, med: 143, C: 259. Clearly well above even the average in his field in most of these parameters. JoelleJay (talk) 01:21, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment Almost all of the metrics you list are cumulative, which means that his being above average in the metrics you list is purely an artifact of the fact that he published for an unusually long period of time. WP:PROF is clear that Simply having authored a large number of published academic works is not considered sufficient to satisfy Criterion 1; Cohen needs something more than a long career and the correspondingly large number of publications to meet WP:PROF.  Pais  a re pa  02:03, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Please distinguish between publications and citations. What he has got is a decent number of citations on GS. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:26, 4 March 2021 (UTC).
 * Yes, Cohen has an above average number of total citations (22% higher by JoelleJay's measure) compared to the average academic in his field, but the cause of this is simply that he published for a significantly longer period than the average academic in his field. Consider, for example, another professor who is exactly alike to Cohen in that they match his average of ~3 papers published per year and ~31 citations per paper, but this hypothetical professor publishes for a more typical 40 years compared to Cohen's 60. This hypothetical professor would have published 120 papers and have 3720 citations, and by both metrics would be below average. They would also have a lower h-index due to their shorter publishing career even if their number of citations per paper follows the same distribution as that of Cohen. Cohen is above average with regards to these metrics only because the metrics are dependent on and highly correlated with career duration. Without applying some common-sense normalization to these metrics you're largely just measuring publishing volume and career longevity, neither of which are measures of notability.  Pais  a re pa  04:18, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Irrelevant. WP:Prof measures cumulative achievement. Obviously a person will have more achievements at the end of their career than at the start. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:17, 4 March 2021 (UTC).
 * I agree, an impactful achievement could be a single discovery of somebody that never does anything again or somebody who consistently contributes to a field over time. Of course the Great man theory of science opts for the former but in practice science is done more often in small but important steps. On top of that, I count 6 papers with citation count > 100, you usually dont achieve that by simply writing a lot of small irrelevant papers over a long period of time. --hroest 14:59, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep. Clearly relevant, see multiple different obituaries. An academic who had graduate students become PIs at other Universities has clearly had a strong impact on the field. More information can be found for example in the award justification for the Pittsburg award: https://www.chem.pitt.edu/news-story/professor-ted-cohen-2009-winner-acs-pittsburgh-section-award "His graduate significant contributions on the chemistry of pyridines and pyridine-N-oxides ... Pioneering work, on organocopper chemistry in 60's and 70's, organolithium and sulfur chemistry in the 80's and 90's, has been and still is the signature of Ted's voluminous work in the lab. His major contributions embrace mechanisms, synthetic methodology and natural product synthesis." The main issue with the article is that it needs improvement and addition of noteable facts. --hroest
 * Keep 's argument that he passes WP:PROF sounds solid to me. (Whether the numbers are "cumulative" is beside the point; one way to be an influential scientist is to keep doing research that people keep caring about, and if it works, it works. Some of us have long careers and stay obscure through to the bitter end.) The article can be expanded with details from the obituaries, like how he waited tables at a summer resort while he was an undergraduate, and Isaac Asimov encouraged him to go into chemistry. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 06:00, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. I see several quite highly cited papers, in what I understand to be a medium citation field.  I think it's a pass of WP:NPROF C1.  Sure, he's well-known partly because of the length of his career (but you could say the same for Johnny Carson).  Pitt held a small event for him on the occasion of his retirement, and there's a little more about him in coverage of the event in the chemistry department newsletter . — Preceding unsigned comment added by Russ Woodroofe  (talk • contribs) 08:05, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep As per all above, have enough notability. Hulatam (talk) 15:38, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. I agree. --Bduke (talk) 21:01, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. There may be enough here for WP:PROF. The in-depth analysis above looks at average citations per paper, but I think that's a mistake; we want to determine whether he made at least a small number of significant contributions, and averaging over all papers doesn't pick out the significant ones. The sources claiming that his phenol syntheses were included in textbooks, and that he was known for his work on organosulfur and organometals, look more relevant for this than trying to understand how citation numbers in this field might have varied over time in order to calibrate the numbers. Regardless, I think we also have enough here for WP:GNG. The sources affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh can be considered reliable but are non-independent; however, the Chemical & Engineering News and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette obituaries look independent enough (in particular, the one in the Post-Gazette appears to be an article written by them, rather than a paid death notice from a family member). —David Eppstein (talk) 01:59, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * (Pinging Paisarepa as well) I agree it's more important to weigh the qualitative contributions to the field when that's an option/the info is available. I do want to note that the metrics I use don't include average citation per paper but rather total citations and highest citation. I looked at all of Dr. Cohen's coauthors in an effort to account for longevity and differences in citation standards over time, and then looked at the authors of the 10 most recent articles citing him for comparisons with contemporary researchers. Looking at just his coauthors: total cites: avg: 6010, med: 1130, C: 5754; total pubs: avg: 130, med: 41, C: 185; h-index: avg: 29, med: 19, C: 42; highest citation: avg: 447, med: 162, C: 259. Note that these numbers skew the averages (not so much the medians) upward a lot due to a handful of old heavy-hitters like Houk of Houk's model and John Falck of aziridine and hydrastine synthesis fame. JoelleJay (talk) 18:28, 5 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep Seems to meet WP:NPROF and has some additional independant sourcing. -Kj cheetham (talk) 14:56, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment. The nominator may like to withdraw to avoid further waste of editors' time. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:26, 5 March 2021 (UTC),
 * Comment Thank you for sharing your opinion. I'm aware that there is a clear consensus but do not intend to withdraw the nomination until I'm confident there isn't a valuable discussion that may be short-circuted by doing so. As a reminder, there is no obligation to participate if you feel doing so is a waste of your time.  Pais  a re pa  22:52, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Note for the record, that the nominator first proposed uncontroversial deletion without discussion. Now they want lots of discussion but it's not clear what their point is.  Meanwhile, I'm getting the article reviewed to appear on the main page as a DYK. Andrew🐉(talk) 23:24, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * SNOW close... gone on long enough already. Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:33, 8 March 2021 (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.