Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/K. Johnston

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. While this was a difficult close, the primary consensus on the references available, which is the primary concern, is that they are not sufficient to support a full article. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:08, 13 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

K. Johnston

K. Johnston (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)

No credible claim of significance, only one reference which is from her college. A simple Google search does not turn up anything of note. The CSD nomination was declined by Fouetté rond de jambe en tournant. — Music1201 ^talk 04:45, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment On my first look in google, I found numerous sources that can be used in the article. I am currently working on expanding and adding references to this article. Yes, I declined the speedy with good reason. There is credible claim of significance. The nominator stated above, "only one reference which is from her college. A simple Google search does not turn up anything of note." His statement is just simply not true. Perhaps the nominator should read over WP:BEFORE. Fouetté rond de jambe en tournant (talk) 07:07, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. /wiae /tlk 15:14, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Louisiana-related deletion discussions. /wiae /tlk 15:14, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, obviously. User:Music1201, did you do even the vaguest WP:BEFORE work here? ‑ Iridescent 17:03, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep; has reliable sources but not particularly notable. I have also moved the article to Kathleen Johnston. MB298 (talk) 17:42, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Subject has significant coverage across numerous reliable sources and thereby passes WP:GNG. Keep article here at wikipedia. Fouetté rond de jambe en tournant (talk) 23:47, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. It's peculiar and disturbing that solidly documented academic awards appear less valued by the community than being names Superslut of the Year. That should change. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by administrators since 2006. (talk) 16:26, 9 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Hullaballoo Wolfowitz: What is your basis for calling her award "solidly documented"? We only have her word that she won it. Which I don't doubt, but it's not solid documentation. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:27, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • My experience has been that, despite the occasional embarrassing incident, major universities vet the credentials of faculty posted on their websites. Perhapsmy experience isn't typical, perhaps it is. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by administrators since 2006. (talk) 16:50, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Uncertain All of the research activity was part of large teams, and it is hard to know how to assign credit . The article, btw, is radically defective-- All the references there cover only through 2000. Her 1999 or 2000 CV is the one given in the current Louisiana Tech directory, [1] tho not updated since then. The SURA lab ref was last updated in 2000. But she has remained active in the field: there's a 2014 paper in ArXIV [2]., and one from 2015 [3] again as part of a very large team, and both still from LouisianaTech. I have not yet searched in the intervening years. Did none of the people working on this notice the problem?. Materialscientist, Headbomb, can you be of any help here ? DGG ( talk ) 14:41, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. I had noticed the same thing as DGG and held off commenting until now because of it. Her top-cited paper in Google scholar ("Strange-quark contributions") has a citation-to-author ratio of less than three, and she appears in a middling position, so it is difficult to find a convincing case for notability via WP:PROF#C1. Directing a center is not an indication of notability (huge numbers of academics do this, basically because it sounds more impressive to call your group of grad students a center than to call them your group of grad students). And the Sigma Xi award appears to be very local, something that they give on a per-chapter (that is, per-university) basis rather than a national-level award, and has no sources independent of Johnston herself. So I don't see a basis for notability. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:23, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - I'm not finding enough in-depth coverage from independent, reliable sources to show they pass WP:GNG, and as pointed out by David Eppstein, they don't pass WP:SCHOLAR. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 14:02, 18 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete at best for now as still questionably better for signs of solid independent notability. SwisterTwister talk 21:41, 18 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, I agree with David Epstein's analysis. Nsk92 (talk) 02:55, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete for now. Sources are inadequate. Looks like WP:Too soon. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:47, 21 May 2016 (UTC).[reply]
• Delete. Not much in the article beyond the CV information and the list of publications. Getting their articles published in academic journals is what researchers in general try to do. I myself at 34 can point to five academic articles that I have authored or co-authored, and I am nowhere near being notable. Unless we want to have every reasonably experienced and successful researcher deemed notable, the inclusion criteria need to be tighter, for example, if the research receives attention outside the academic field and the researcher becomes a subject of interest. Johnston has indeed been successful at publishing (getting several articles into prestigious journals such as those in the Physical Review series is quite impressive), but I cannot see that it brings notability. Sjakkalle (Check!) 19:23, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The issue you raise is much discussed on Wikipedia. You might like to take a look at WP:Prof. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:30, 24 May 2016 (UTC).[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. st170e^talk 01:16, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per Sjakkalle.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  00:09, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Does her holding a named chair - Kathleen Johnston Joe D. Waggoner Professor of Physics http://www.phys.latech.edu/primary+links/faculty+and+staff indicate enough for WP:Prof 5. The person holds or has held a named chair appointment or distinguished professor appointment at a major institution of higher education and research? (Msrasnw (talk) 00:00, 11 June 2016 (UTC))[reply]

There are actually differences between named chair and named professor appointments. If something is titled "named chair", its definitely a chair, but if someone is called a named professor, it may or may not be a chaired appointment, depending on the details. For a sufficiently important named chair appointment, at the time when it is made there is usually a news release by the university or the college or at least the department involved where one can look up the details about the position. If such a news release is absent and the department does not have a subpage anywhere at its website explaining anything about the nature of the named professorship or mentioning it as a particular honor, that does send a signal that the department is not trading the designation very seriously. Nsk92 (talk) 01:55, 11 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - holding a named professorship at a major research university seems to me to be applicable: Kathleen Johnston is the Joe D. Waggoner Professor of Physics at Louisiana Tech University. I could not find evidence of the distinctions made by Nsk92 in our WP:Prof guidelines (Msrasnw (talk) 09:10, 12 June 2016 (UTC))[reply]

The college itself makes that distinction explicit in this case. See Endowed Professorships and Chairs list and Louisiana Tech. It lists a number of named professorships (including that of Kathleen Johnston), and five named chairs. So in the formal sense WP:PROF#C5 does not apply in this case, because her position is definitely not a named chair, and WP:PROF#C5 explicitly uses the wording "named chair". Nsk92 (talk) 11:09, 12 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment hough they may have different titles, I am not aware of any difference in meaning between an endowed professorship, a named professorship, an endowed chair, and a named chair. Nsk92, have you any reference for tha distinction , either specific to LSU or, more important, in general? DGG ( talk ) 22:36, 12 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is certainly something that is not often discussed and the practices aren't uniform. In general, in my experience (and here, I must freely admit that I am relying on personal knowledge, particularly from that in my own university and serving on various committees here, rather than on published sources), many schools now do make a significant distinction between a named chair and a named professorship. For schools that do make such a distinction explicit, named chairs are more prestigious and harder to obtain and also command substantially higher salaries (often by a factor of 1.5-2) than named professorships. That appears to be the case for Louisiana Tech University. They have 44 named professorships and 5 named chairs, and the two are clearly listed in separate categories. Other examples of universities that make such a distinction explicit include University of Texas at Austin and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In both cases there is a clearly delineated two-tier system of named permanent appointments, with endowed chairs being significantly higher (at least in the case of Illinois the salaries are publicly available and one can check what they are to see the difference). Similarly, Indiana University makes a clear distinction between named chairs and named professorships, as explained here [4] You can see, in particular, that there the minimum size of endowment required for a named professorship is $500,000, while for a named chair it is $1,500,000. In my experience that is typical for the schools that distinguish between the two types of positions, and that's why, in particular, at those schools you see a lot fewer named chairs than named professors. But that's what also makes the named chair positions at such schools much more selective and prestigious than named professorships. There are other universities where the terminology is used more freely and one usually needs to look at the announcement of a particular position to figure out the details. E.g. at the University of Michigan the seem to only use named professorships as titles for endowed positions, which are always or at least frequently termed chairs in their actual descriptions, e.g. here [5]. I think many of the older universities do the same, and the practices are not very uniform. One really does need to look at the details. But at the institutions that do have a clearly delineated two-tier system for named positions (such as Louisiana Tech University), there is a big gap in the minimum expectations, in terms of notability and distinction, from the named professor holder and the named chair holder. Since we are using WP:PROF#C5 as a shortcut, that is, as a way to pass WP:PROF with no further questions asked and no additional evidence of notability required, in my opinion we should not use these lesser named positions, in those places where the named chair appointment is clearly above them, as a way of satisfying WP:PROF#C5. They can, of course, still be uses as a way of partially satisfying WP:PROF#C1. Nsk92 (talk) 23:43, 12 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies to Seraphimblade: I started typing my response above to DGG, then got interrupted, then came back some time later, finished the edit and saved it. I did not realize that in the meantime you had put a "close in progress" note at the top. Anyway, please feel free to disregard my long reply to DGG above as it was added in the post-closing period. Nsk92 (talk) 00:39, 13 June 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.