Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)

This project page was nominated for deletion on 7 February 2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

This discussion was begun at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Nicholas J. Hopper, where the early history of the discussion can be found.

Archives

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This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by when more than 4 sections are present.

See Wikipedia:Notability (academics)/Precedents for a collection of related AfD debates and related information from the early and pre- history of this guideline (2005-2006) and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Academics_and_educators/archive, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Academics_and_educators/archive 2 for lists of all sorted deletions regarding academics since 2007.

Subheadings for Specific Criteria Notes

Should there be subheadings for Specific Criteria Notes? Then someone could link to the specific criterion being discussed at places like Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion. C1 could become WP:PROFIMPACT, C2 WP:PROFAWARD, C3 WP:PROFMEMBER. — 🌊PacificDepths (talk) 10:21, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on notability of International Academy of Wood Science Fellows

We have a significant number of pages which cite being a Fellow of the International Academy of Wood Science as a claim towards notability. From what I can see these Fellows are paying members, nothing more, but I may be wrong. I would like some second and third opinions before considering whether some of these pages merit further consideration as not-notable. Ldm1954 (talk) 11:02, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

From their website: “Fellows of the IAWS are wood scientists who are elected as actively engaged in wood research in the broadest sense, their election being evidence of high scientific standards.” So being a Fellow just means that you work in the field and do good work, and is not a recognition of exceptional work or excellence. Hard to argue that this would count unless their own website is wrong. Qflib (talk) 13:24, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ldm1954: @Qflib:

(a) The Fellows of the IAWS are elected based on their long-term research contributions and achievements, which have made a significant international impact in the field of Wood science. They are not paying members. This distinction is critical: their selection is based on scientific merit and peer recognition, not on financial contribution.

The election to IAWS Fellowship reflects rigorous academic standards, international peer acknowledgment, and a history of impactful research. Suggesting otherwise undermines the prestige of the Academy itself.

(b) The official IAWS website clearly states: [1]

"Fellows of the IAWS are wood scientists who are elected as actively engaged in wood research in the broadest sense, their election being evidence of high scientific standards."

This statement affirms that Fellowship is not a formality or general membership—it is a recognition of excellence. It means that a Fellow is an internationally recognized expert whose scientific work in wood science meets or exceeds globally acknowledged benchmarks. This designation is earned, not granted. Go please and read the "Bulletins" of the IAWS and see the research work of each elected Fellow.[2] [3].

(c) The claim that the title FIAWS is not an award or recognition but merely a form of membership is incorrect. The recognition that comes with being elected as an IAWS Fellow is evident from how universities and institutions publicize (in the Media) such honors. For example:

These links demonstrate how institutions treat this as a prestigious milestone in a scholar’s career.

(d) The metascience study by Stanford University—hosted on Mendeley Data (formerly Elsevier Data)—is of critical relevance. This study quantitatively assesses the international impact of researchers across disciplines. See here: [12](https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/btchxktzyw/6)

Being listed among the top 2% of scientists globally, i.e. “forestry-materials” or related categories, confirms an academic's high-impact contribution at a global level. See also: [13](https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/btchxktzyw/7)

This recognition is highly regarded in academia, as seen from institutional acknowledgments around the world:

In conclusion, denying the academic weight: (a) of IAWS Fellowship and (b) the inclusion in the Stanford/Elsevier top 2% scientist rankings is like ignoring how the global academic community recognizes and values the scientific excellence. If such recognitions are not meaningful to us, to Wikipedia, then, you may delete all the articles of these wood scientists. That simple! G-Lignum (talk) 17:25, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Some Comments by the Institutions;

About Stanford/Elsevier's Top 2% Scientist Rankings- Now in its sixth iteration, this prestigious list identifies the world's leading researchers, representing approximately 2% of all scientists worldwide. It encompasses standardised data on citations, h-index, and a wide range of bibliometric indicators [21];

Elsevier/Stanford University have created a publicly available database of top-cited scientists that provides standardized information on citations, h-index, co-authorship adjusted hm-index, citations to papers in different authorship positions and a composite indicator (c-score). [22]

This influential list is a publicly accessible database that ranks the world's top-cited scientists, offering a comprehensive look at their impact [23]

A significant number of researchers from Trinity College Dublin’s School of Engineering have been named among the top 2% of scientists globally in the prestigious Elsevier and Stanford University’s 2024 rankings. The rankings, which recognise career-long impact, are based on comprehensive citation metrics, offering a thorough analysis of scholarly influence and research excellence across various scientific fields. The publicly available database compiled by Elsevier in collaboration with Stanford University uses Scopus data to evaluate scientists' influence through standardised citation information. This includes h-index, co-authorship adjusted hm-index, citations in different authorship positions, and the composite c-score indicator. Metrics both with and without self-citations were considered, and for the first time, data on citations to and from retracted papers were included. [24] G-Lignum (talk) 17:54, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are academic societies that anyone can join but that reserve fellow status for a tiny fraction of members. For instance, newly elected IEEE Fellows are limited to 0.1% of the membership per year. This would be one way of demonstrating that being a fellow is a highly selective honor.

Alternatively, some academic societies operate by self-selection and invitation, and have a rigorous enough selection process that membership alone is enough for our notability standards. That would describe most national academies, for instance.

What we want to exclude are the societies that have a paid membership category called "fellow" but with a low bar to entry, for which "fellowship" is more an expression of interest in the topic rather than a highly selective honor. I think the Royal Society of Arts may fall into this category, for instance.

In the case of IAWS, fellowship appears to be a paid membership status, the only category of individual membership, and subject to external nomination rather than self-selection. Those are not promising signs. But on the other hand spot-checking the citation counts of newly elected fellows suggests that most of them would pass WP:PROF#C1, so they do seem to be at least somewhat selective. It would help if we had a clearer statement from the society of what its acceptance criteria are. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:00, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comment. It is not a Society, it is the International Academy of Wood Science which can be asked; see [25].

Let’s now check two examples which presently are being examined for ‘’Notability’’:

One is Draft:Nami Kartal (FIAWS; 2% Top Elsevier Data); as a scientist, he has 4,300 international citations at Google Scholar and an h-index of 38. Also, two of his research works have totally 290 and 148 citations. Second example is George Mantanis (FIAWS; 2% Top Elsevier Data); as a wood researcher, his doctorate work has had over 1,000 citations globally, and also three other research works of his have -until today- 417, 245, and also 199 citations [26]. In total, he has more than 3,300 citations in this very specific, and very narrow scientific area of wood science. Will you delete them? Are there issues of “Notability”? G-Lignum (talk) 18:42, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

or even, check the "Notability" of all the other wood scientists listed in Wikipedia [27] G-Lignum (talk) 18:48, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be missing the point. The question raised is whether being a member of this organization would, by itself, indicate satisfaction of the notability criteria described at WP:NPROF. No one has said or implied anything else. And by the way, refbombing the discussion isn’t really very collegial. Qflib (talk) 19:42, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Point taken. Membership of that academy, by itself, does not imply notability, despite all the tendentious blurb above. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:28, 18 June 2025 (UTC).[reply]

Agreed. Those who are notable can likely be identified as such by other criteria. (And those that fail such criteria may be dead wood. Sorry, I couldn't resist.) --Tryptofish (talk) 23:27, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC about Stanford/Elsevier top 2%

I am interested in opinions about the Stanford/Elsevier top 2%. I am seeing many (many) AfC or new pages being created where this is being cited as a claim towards notability. I think it would be good to, at a minimum, have some soft policy established here. Ldm1954 (talk) 18:35, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is this intended to be an RfC? If so, I respectfully suggest either significantly and quickly developing it so it's in line with our typical expectations and practices for an RfC or withdrawing it (with the option of putting forth a more developed question later or opening a discussion in some other way). ElKevbo (talk) 21:58, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is intended to be an informal RfC, to gauge the opinions at WT:NPROF about the use of the top 2% list as a claim towards notability, WP:NPROF. I am deliberately not giving an opinion here. If you want some options, here are some:

An academic being in the top 2% list is sufficient to qualify under WP:NPROF#C1.
An academic being in the top 2% list is encouraging for their notability as a pass of WP:PROF, but not sufficient.
An academic being in the top 2% list is not a significant contributor to passing WP:NPROF.
Stating that an academic is in the top 2% list is discouraged as puffery/peacock.

Ldm1954 (talk) 22:09, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not entirely sure where I ultimately stand on this question, but the fact that Elsevier is a for-profit journal publisher raises a bit of a red flag for me. (I'm not saying that their journals are predatory, not at all, please understand. I've published in some of them, myself.) It's just that I would want to be convinced that the "2%" isn't skewed in some way. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:31, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the more automated and numerical a system for evaluating researcher impact is made, the less informative it becomes. This one is too far along the automated scale for me. Red flags for me include a focus on author position in fully half of its six criteria (important for some fields, meaningless and heavily biased towards authors with alphabetically-early names for others), the focus on scopus data (accurate for some fields, heavily discouraged by professional organizations in computer science at least because of its failure to index conference publications), the difficulty of access (apparently available only as an Excel download), the infrequency of updates (last updated mid-2024), and the explicit disclaimer that the authors refuse to take any corrections. But even beyond all of those specific concerns with this system, I think its assignment of people to a coarse subdivision of subfields is a system that cannot work. Researchers cross from one subfield to another all the time and different subfields (even those with many of the same people in both) can have very different citation patterns, so a researcher's ranking can depend heavily on whether they get assigned to a high-citation or adjacent low-citation subfield. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:38, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Tryptofish and @David Eppstein, thanks for the comments. Let me now add my opinion.

I view being included in this top 2% list as either #3 or #4 of the four options listed above. As @David Eppstein says, there are issues with the list, those that he mentioned above plus also the neglect of books. For instance a search I just did does not find the very well known book Ashcroft and Mermin in Scopus for Neil Ashcroft, but it is in Google Scholar. (While Elsevier is claiming to include books in Scopus, I failed to find the above or two others.)

If there is other clear evidence of a pass of NPROF for other reasons I am OK with it being mentioned so long as it is not peacock. Terminology such as using it as a source for claims such as has acquired international distinction I would view as puffery/peacock that should be removed.

Feel free to agree or disagree... Ldm1954 (talk) 20:48, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question about point 6

A while back I created the article Draft:Eva-Maria Beck-Meuth and submitted it to AfC. I judged that Beck-Meuth is notable because she was elected the president of a Technische Hochschule. @HerBauhaus kindly reviewed it, and declined it for lack of reliable sources. We discussed it on HerBauhaus's talk page User_talk:HerBauhaus#Eva-Maria Beck-Meuth notability, but seem to have a different interpretation of the notability and reliable source guidelines. I'd therefore like to get some additional feedback from you: is notability satisfied when the article cites one (or more) reliable sources that confirm that a person is a university president (satisfying WP:PROF 6), or is "significant coverage in independent, reliable sources" also required? a bunch of penguins (talk) 08:09, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@A bunch of penguins, I disagree with @HerBauhaus's interpretation. My reading of WP:NPROF#6 is that, provided the highest-level position that a subject holds or held is verifiable by a reliable source, that is sufficient to establish notability. Further, that need not be a strictly independent source; from the notes: For documenting that a person has held such a post (but not for a judgement of whether or not the institution or society is a major one), publications of the institution where the post is held are considered a reliable source.

In fact, the most recent decline notice says specifically This draft's references do not show that the subject qualifies for a Wikipedia article. In summary, the draft needs to meet any of the eight academic-specific criteria or cite multiple reliable, secondary sources independent of the subject, which cover the subject in some depth - for notability, it is an either/or situation. Of course some coverage will be needed to write anything more than a stub article. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 08:32, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@A bunch of penguins, it is not uncommon for reviewers at AfC (and sometimes AfD & PROD) to misunderstand the criteria for academics WP:NPROF and what type of coverage is considered reliable, as @HerBauhaus appears to have done here. If you resubmit the AfC then I expect someone will accept the page. If @HerBauhaus disagrees then it would need to go to AfD for further discussion. Ldm1954 (talk) 10:27, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @SunloungerFrog and @Ldm1954. Rather than resubmitting (and making work for someone else), I'll first ask @HerBauhaus to see this discussion. a bunch of penguins (talk) 12:08, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the case for notability would be stronger if you could cite evidence of the scholarly impact of her work. At this time, the draft page strikes me as focused on her administrative work. Even if the sourcing that she has met criterion 6 is reliable, that indicates a presumption, rather than a guarantee, of notability. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:29, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The guideline says "Academics meeting any one of the following conditions, as substantiated through reliable sources, are notable", not "presumed notable".

I don't know her scholarly work, but academics who pursue an administrative career will not necessarily have an exceptionally strong scholarly output, because administration demands so much of their time. a bunch of penguins (talk) 21:51, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I know these things get labyrinthine. I said what I said based on my impression of how PROF is usually taken to be about scholarly impact, and how positions lower than president have typically been taken to be not-notable if based only on administrative accomplishments. To some extent, that becomes as much a matter of GNG as of PROF. I also think we tend to use "is notable" and "is presumed notable" interchangeably; otherwise, there would be little to argue about at AfD. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:58, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thank you for clarifying @Tryptofish. a bunch of penguins (talk) 07:11, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I also read WP:NPROF#6 as being a pass/fail criteria (assuming that the information is verifiable). While there has been some disagreement on which positions are covered by #6, university presidents are unquestionably covered. I also would probably change the lede to focus on the subject's administrative career, especially if the subject's research is not that notable. --Enos733 (talk) 20:42, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Enos733, are you suggesting to completely remove "physicist and" from the first sentence? The rest of the lede is already about her administrative work. a bunch of penguins (talk) 21:42, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would follow this lede Jennifer Mnookin (born 1967) is an American legal scholar and academic serving as the 30th chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison since 2022. - Enos733 (talk) 21:53, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally in case you're wondering where her physics publications can be found in Google Scholar, search for "author:em-beck nuclear". They exist and are moderately well cited but not enough to make another case for notability that way. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:09, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to see WP:NPROF#6 deleted to avoid this sort of quibbling. Scholars and researchers become notable on the impact of their scholarly work, not administration, which can be covered by WP:Corp or WP:GNG. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:43, 19 June 2025 (UTC).[reply]