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AfDs for this article:Not sure what the current thinking is, but if this guy is notable, then very nearly EVERY academic is notable. His career is not particularly distinguished. If indeed it is the case that all academics are now inherently notable, then I shall withdraw the nom. The page was created by the subject (WP:AUTO) and userfication might be a useful compromise. Badgerpatrol (talk) 13:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
- Delete or userfy, as nominator. The notability guidelines for academics now appear to be very, very broad indeed. However, if Clift (and others in a similar vein) are notable then we are opening the floodgates to literally 60-70% of the academic population- tens of thousands of biographies regarding (in my view) fairly run of the mill, non-notable people. (The fact that this particular example is a vanity page also irks somewhat). Badgerpatrol (talk) 13:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
- Keep I think he is notable geologist. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 13:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
- He's not a particularly notable geologist within the field, although I agree that this is not clear cut as he obviously has had some success. The question basically is: is every academic (or at least, a good majority) suitable for inclusion in Misplaced Pages, or only those likely to have some impact outside of their field? If the former is true, then I suspect each one of us could add several dozen new biographies to the encyclopaedia tomorrow, but surely Misplaced Pages is WP:NOT just a collection of indiscriminate information? Badgerpatrol (talk) 14:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
- Weak delete (I think you mean indiscriminate collection, not indiscriminate information—which doesn't make sense). Having a chaired professorship is kind of a big deal, but I don't think it's enough to make a "distinguished career." I don't think all academics are inherently notable, either. — brighterorange (talk) 14:30, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, I've reversed the clauses (I think?) from WP:NOT (not an indiscriminate collection of information). Hopefully the meaning was still clear though. ;-) Badgerpatrol (talk) 14:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
- Weak delete (I think you mean indiscriminate collection, not indiscriminate information—which doesn't make sense). Having a chaired professorship is kind of a big deal, but I don't think it's enough to make a "distinguished career." I don't think all academics are inherently notable, either. — brighterorange (talk) 14:30, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
- He's not a particularly notable geologist within the field, although I agree that this is not clear cut as he obviously has had some success. The question basically is: is every academic (or at least, a good majority) suitable for inclusion in Misplaced Pages, or only those likely to have some impact outside of their field? If the former is true, then I suspect each one of us could add several dozen new biographies to the encyclopaedia tomorrow, but surely Misplaced Pages is WP:NOT just a collection of indiscriminate information? Badgerpatrol (talk) 14:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
- Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
- Keep The holder of a named chair at a UK university is notable, and will have the publications to support it. There are many people in such positions for which we do not have pages, we should have them. The qualifications used for WP:PROF are in my opinion not over broad, but interpreted very restrictively--few AfDs pass except for full professors at research universities (unless, of course, there is some special reason for notability), these are perhaps the top 10 or 20 % of full-time teachers in higher education--not 70%, not even half. We have made a very small approach to covering this subject area. Of course there are thousands. There ought to be many more of them.
The requirement for notability in WP is NOT impact outside of their field. It's notability in their field. Almost no major league baseball or football players are notable outside of their field. Very few ball players are even known to people who are not fans of their particular sport. He just has to be known to people who follow geology.
Nor is this a vanity page, I've seen vanity pages for academics--they list every committee they've been on, every lecture they've given--this is not one of them--it gives the facts of his career, as it ought to. In fact, it's a little inadequate, since it didnt even list the number of his peer-reviewed publications, or the number of people who cited them, which count heavily for notability. I've added that--its encyclopedic information. There are 77 papers, the two most highly cited being cited 113 and 69 times, respectively. DGG (talk) 19:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
- And from the previous AFD "Actually, there's quite a bit out there by this fellow. A Google News Archive search shows a number of results regarding his Indus River studies and one BBC article," DGG (talk) 20:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)