Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tim Patterson (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 keep. (non-admin closure) Enos733 (talk) 17:02, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Tim Patterson
AfDs for this article:


 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

The subject of this article does not seem to meet either the GNG or WP:NPROF criteria.

Since "Tim Patterson" is a fairly common name, I did a WP:BEFORE search in the Canadian Newsstream database using his name plus the word "Carleton", which is the name of his university. I could find significant coverage of Patterson in only one independent, secondary, reliable source (see Talk page).

I also have WP:COI concerns about this article. The three top editors of the article have almost never edited any article except this one and Harvey, New Brunswick (population: 358) which according to a declared COI editor is where Patterson grew up. Procedural/transparency note: This article has recently been briefly discussed at WP:WikiProject Climate change. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 15:35, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Academics and educators and Environment. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 15:35, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 19:24, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. His Google Scholar profile shows heavy-enough citations for an easy pass of WP:PROF. Founding editor of Palaeontologia Electronica also looks like a pass of #C8. Nomination does not appear to have considered the correct notability criterion, WP:PROF, which is not about publicity (or as you may prefer to euphemize it, "significant coverage"), but rather about scholarly accomplishments, and is independent of WP:GNG. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:49, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Hmm, maybe the fact that I linked to WP:PROF in my nomination statement is a sign that I actually had considered WP:PROF? Maybe "significant coverage" is a term from a Wikipedia guideline and not my euphemism? Can you talk about the article and the subject without attacking the nominator, please?
 * W.r.t.  WP:PROF#C1, the guideline doesn't give a bar for what constitutes heavy-enough citations, so I'm curious how we decide what is heavy enough. W.r.t. #C8, the journal needs to be well-established, which was not the case when Patterson served as executive editor. Perhaps my interpretation of #C8 is different from yours. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 16:41, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * "Significant coverage" is a term from GNG. Your usage of it, in your nomination statement, suggests that you have not understood or not taken seriously the statement in PROF that it "is explicitly listed as an alternative to the general notability guideline" and that articles meeting PROF are not required to pass GNG. Your nomination makes a WP:VAGUEWAVE to PROF but does not actually address itself to any criterion of PROF. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:37, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Climate science is one of the more highly-cited disciplines, and I consider 5745 to be in the grey area of meeting C1. As most of the articles were published before the big boom in climate science, I'd lean to thinking they do meet C1. However, I checked 8 professors at my old university and my current one in this field, and none of them have under 10,000 cites. I'm always a bit uncertain where the C1 threshold is, so curious to hear your thoughts @David Eppstein. Femke (talk) 18:48, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think you have to look at paleoclimatology or paleolimnology rather than climate science as a whole; citation patterns in specialties like that that are more of scholarly interest are likely to vary significantly from citation patterns in the study of present-day climate change, which is for obvious reasons drawing a much larger amount of attention. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:08, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with David, and Tim Patterson's metrics seem to be very high for paleontology-adjacent fields. They're above the indices of paleontologists I know the names of (but consider that the people I'm thinking of are closer to systematics than earth science).
 * There's also some evidence of what appears to be promotional editing of the article which needs clearing up. NeverRainsButPours (talk) 14:31, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. passes WP:PROF per David Eppstein, some evidence of #C8 and prior discussions here based on number of citations, number of papers (9) with >100 citations and an h-index of 43. The article needs some work to remove the publications list (looks like a CV and not an article). --hroest 13:46, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep Nine articles with >100 citations (one with >350) meets my understanding of WP:PROF. The founding editor of Palaeontologia Electronica also goes towards meeting that guideline. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:53, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep Nine articles with >100 citations (one with >350) meets my understanding of WP:PROF. The founding editor of Palaeontologia Electronica also goes towards meeting that guideline. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:53, 6 October 2022 (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.