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 delete. I'm going to close this though I have participated, because I am closing against my own opinion. It seems clear that the consensus is that in at this this individual case, the evidence is not sufficient to show notability. DGG ( talk ) 20:34, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A. Muthama Muasya[edit]

A. Muthama Muasya (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Subject of the article fails WP:GNG and WP:ACADEMIC. Professors and Associate Professors/Readers are not generally considered notable. Wikic¤l¤gy^{t@lk to M£} 12:08, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - Does not meet academic notability criteria.--Rpclod (talk) 15:03, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. /wiae /tlk 15:38, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of South Africa-related deletion discussions. /wiae /tlk 15:38, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Subject does not meet any of the criteria listed at WP:ACADEMIC. In addition, the article's only source was a database entry, and no notability-proving reliable sources could be found. Johanna^{(talk to me!)} 16:37, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment If a person's citation counts are high enough, we generally do regard them as notable by WP:ACADEMIC#1, no matter what their academic position - I am slightly concerned that the nominator's rationale seems to ignore this possibility, and that the existing delete recommendations give no indication of having factored this in to their considerations. I think it likely that, in this particular field, the subject's apparent h-index of 23 according to Google Scholar is not quite high enough to reach this notability threshhold - but it is probably close enough that the matter should be looked at by someone with the relevant expertise before this discussion closes. PWilkinson (talk) 00:20, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:41, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. Subject's papers tend to have large numbers of authors and I cannot find any single-author papers, so it is not clear of the extent of the subject's contribution to the published work and to what extent he is being carried by a large research group. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:33, 25 February 2016 (UTC).[reply]
• Keep. Weak keep It has I think been well established that any Botanical author having a standard name is notable. He seems to be one of a group of authors who are authorities on a majro group of plants, and I would consider all of them notable. DGG ( talk ) 07:34, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

DGG, I don't see how your assertion is a policy-based one. Which of the criteria of WP:ACADEMIC do you think the subject of the article passed? Wikic¤l¤gy^{t@lk to M£} 11:48, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

being an authority in their subject. DGG ( talk ) 21:44, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"being an authority in their subject" is never a criterion under WP:ACADEMIC. Wikic¤l¤gy^{t@lk to M£} 16:31, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, looked in WP:GNG criteria and don't see that.--Rpclod (talk) 22:02, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not even in WP:ACADEMIC criteria.Wikic¤l¤gy^{t@lk to M£} 22:11, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

DGG I don't know where you got that from. How do you describe a Professor of gynecology? Authority in the field of medicine? If yes, does it automatically pass him for WP:ACADEMIC?. A master degree holder in the field of botany that found a new specie of plant is an authority in the field of botany? I think WP:ACADEMIC and every other notability criteria are clear enough. Wikic¤l¤gy^{t@lk to M£} 22:11, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

an authority on that group of plants. Or so it has always been interpreted. I am not necessarily saying it's a good idea, but that's what we have done, and it is a virtue to be consistent & predictable. That can be more important than arguing. DGG ( talk ) 03:09, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to incorporate that into WP:ACADEMIC that will be a discussion of another debate. Wikic¤l¤gy^{t@lk to M£} 06:27, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep -- changed to Keep per h-index arguments below Comment -- DGG, do you have a guess as to how many standard names there are in botany? Is it dozens, hundreds, or thousands? I haven't weighed in here, but this seems to be an important distinction. A few dozen -- keep on that basis. Hundreds or thousands would add little or no notability. Wish there were a botanist here... -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 16:17, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I can answer my own question. Putting in "Michael" found 53 entries alone and "Smith" 131. So I don't see this as sufficiently rare or notable on its own. I would revisit precedent and say that a standard name for a botanical author should not be considered sufficient grounds. I don't feel competent enough to judge whether h-index of 23, but with many coauthored papers in a high citation field is sufficient one way or another, so except for the standard name argument, I'll remain Neutral -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 16:23, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Mscuthbert, you may be confusing notability with fame. There are indeed thousands. There are thousands of notable botanists. Classical biology is a low citation field, as with most descriptive sciences, because relatively few people work on anyone biological group. the sort of field where h=23 would not be impressive would be clinical medicine and some biomedical sciences, where hundreds of people work on the same narrow subject. But I agree that without more information, this may be borderline. DGG ( talk ) 20:00, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I am confusing the two with respect to whether I would consider a standard name to be sufficient in itself. Based on what you say about h-index in the descriptive sciences, I've changed neutral to keep (I remember having this discussion before), but looking at statistics for authors added it appears that botany is adding 50-60 standard names per month (if I'm reading this correctly), suggesting that about 600 new botanists would become automatically notable each year -- that is far too low of a bar. How would it be that having a standard name is botany is an automatic pass but we're rejecting major awards in the humanities like winning the Guggenheim as not sufficient? -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 20:15, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

DGG, WP:ACADEMIC does not rate one scholarly field above the other. It doesn't rate medicine above botany, just as biochemistry is not rated above microbiology. If H-index of 23, is not sufficient to establish notability in the field of medicine, it's simply not enough to establish notability in the field of botany if we are to follow the WP:ACADEMIC guidelines which editors are expected to follow. Wikic¤l¤gy^{t@lk to M£} 20:22, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Different fields have different citation patterns. The use of h index without taking field into consideration is like saying scientists are not notable unless they write books the way people in the humanities do. That's why the WP:PROF guideline does not specify h index--there would be too many qualifiers needed, as is in fact explained under WP:PROF in the specific criteria notes, point 1, "Generally, more experimental and applied subjects tend to have higher publication and citation rates than more theoretical ones. Publication and citation rates in humanities are generally lower than in sciences. Also, in sciences, most new original research is published in journals and conference proceedings whereas in humanities book publications tend to play a larger role (and are harder to count without access to offline libraries). The meaning of "substantial number of publications" and "high citation rates" is to be interpreted in line with the interpretations used by major research institutions in the awarding of tenure." DGG ( talk ) 20:30, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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.