Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Walter Dunhan Claus


 * 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.  MBisanz  talk 18:09, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Walter Dunhan Claus

 * – ( View AfD View log )

None of the sources given in the article have Walter Dunhan Claus as the primary subject. None of the claims to notability, such as academic posts or assessment of his work as stated in the article are supported by any of the sources cited. A WP:BEFORE search yielded no sources of significance. Essentially this is a largely unverified article, with sources only verifying the existence of his publications but without indicating the significance of those publications or his overall work as a scientist. None of the biographical content is supported by the sources either. I was unable to find any critical assessment of his work to verify his role as a pioneer. Fails WP:SIGCOV and WP:NACADEMIC. 4meter4 (talk) 02:44, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 08:43, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Missouri-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 08:43, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete: No reliable, independent sources are cited. Peer-reviewed journals with the subject in the byline are not reliable, independent sources, as they are merely self-published work with editorial oversight. Multi7001 (talk) 18:06, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep It should be Walter Dunham Claus, as in the text, not "Dunhan", as in the title. At least one of the sources cited is reliable and independent, though I wouldn't call it "in depth". Some other sources are available, and I've begun incorporating them into the article. Wiki-notability might depend on whether fellowship in and presidency of the Health Physics Society meet WP:PROF. I'm inclined to say "yes", when comparing him to other researchers of the time period. (WP:PROF is mostly geared to evaluating scientists and other academics who are alive and active today; mid-20th-century American physicists most known for work during the Eisenhower era are a little outside our typical "look 'em up on Google Scholar" methodology.) XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:06, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗  plicit  03:56, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for finding and adding sources as well as catching the spelling error in the title. I went ahead and moved the page to fix the spelling error. I'll take s look more closely at your additions later today to evaluate whether or not to withdraw this nomination. Best.4meter4 (talk) 14:25, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 09:16, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment: the remark that "Peer-reviewed journals with the subject in the byline are not reliable, independent sources, as they are merely self-published work with editorial oversight." alarms me considerably. I think it's contrary to WP:PROF which indicates that writing highly-cited papers is a route to notability, and I worry that it doesn't reflect the nature of peer-review, which is highly selective and independent of the author. The whole point is that editorial oversight is what converts self-publishing into publishing. And the editorial oversight of a good peer-reviewed journal is ferociously strong. Just try publishing something in Nature! I haven't looked at the citation rates and impact on Walter Dunham Claus' publications, but his publications, with proper evaluation, should be taken as a potential measure of his notability, in that they reflect the impact he made on his field. Elemimele (talk) 16:57, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , I agree with you. However, I think what was trying to get at is that sources which are authored by the subject lack independence per the written guidelines at GNG; no matter how much editorial oversight there is. That's important in this case as a large percentage of the cited sources in this article were written by the subject. What we are really lacking is any source material which covers this person in depth in an independent source. To quote GNG. "Significant coverage addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content." "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by the article's subject or someone affiliated with it." We are currently lacking a source which provides significant independent coverage on Walter Dunham Claus.4meter4 (talk) 17:10, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * But please do have another look at WP:PROF. The point is this: notability can be achieved by authoring highly-cited works. It's in the specific criteria notes, section 1(a). A citation is an independent recognition of the author. There are basically two ways it can work. We can either find an independent review article that says "Smith's method is used by absolutely everyone", or we can find that a million everyones have cited the paper in which Smith originally described his method. The second situation still makes Smith notable, but obviously we can't list all million times Smith got cited; instead, by convention, we give a reference to Smith's highly-cited paper as evidence of Smith's notability, and it is independent because Smith didn't, and couldn't force anyone cite him. The only thing we could reasonably add to this would be an indication of how many people actually did cite Smith's paper, by reference to some citation index. Conventionally we don't do this because most academics would regard it as superfluous. Incidentally, we also regard academics as notable if they've held a named chair or been chief editor of a high-ranking journal, and neither of these necessarily generates independent coverage. Again, the point is that you can't get to either of these situations unless someone independent of you thinks you're worth it. Elemimele (talk) 19:37, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , I can see some merit to the rationale that the subject would meet criteria 3 or 8 of NPROF per User:XOR&. I'll admit I was a bit biased against the article to begin with because it was created and largely written by (an undisclosed paid editor who is now permanently blocked), and the article title misspelling threw off my BEFORE search. I am happy to change my vote to Keep based on that rationale. Unfortunately there can be no withdrawal because another editor has voted delete.4meter4 (talk) 19:52, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , oh, no, sorry, I'm just confusing the issue here. I don't have any particular opinion on Walter Dunham Claus, and I'm not trying to change your opinion; I only took objection to the idea that widely-cited peer-reviewed papers didn't indicate notability, and particularly I didn't like the term self-published (you may well be right that I misread that editor's intent; I think I took it too personally; I work an an academic field). If you don't think the subject of this article is notable, by all means stick to your guns! Elemimele (talk) 21:38, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * No harm done. I was already contemplating changing to keep, and this little side trail helped me make a decision. Ultimately I do find XOR&#39;easter's comments convincing. I'm currently getting ready to submit work to a journal for publication myself; so I can understand why you took offense to the label of self published for academic journals. Anybody who has ever gone through the scrutiny of a peer review process, an IRB board review, followed by an editorial board review would object to that label.4meter4 (talk) 22:23, 17 September 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.