Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ran Libeskind-Hadas

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 No-Consensus. We have no clear consensus on this one and there has been sufficient discussion to suggest that relisting this won't achieve anything. Spartaz ^Humbug! 15:39, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ran Libeskind-Hadas

Contested PROD; in the PROD summary, I wrote, "Doesn't seem to meet the criteria at WP:PROF: professor at a small college, nothing about notable publications or awards or influence in the field. Last paragraph is almost entirely unencyclopedic (and documents activities that are worthy, but don't demonstrate any notability.)" These concerns still apply. Another editor added a citation to one of Libeskind-Hadas's papers (with no assertion that it is a particularly influential paper) and mentioned that Libeskind-Hadas has 36 publications, which is not an unusually large number for a computer science professor. Delete. SparsityProblem 18:55, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stong Keep This person is highly notable, having published significant papers in top flight (eg IEEE) journals in his field. More importantly his work is noted by other academics in his field. His work on nodule optimisation is very important as a breaktrhough in computer science of solutions to large scale circuitry design problems. By the way Harvey Mudd is a top tier west coast school as part of the Pomona Colleges. Decoratrix 21:35, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I suggest familiarizing yourself with the guidelines at WP:PROF. Publishing papers in major journals is not in itself grounds for notability, per Wikipedia standards. Nor is being cited by other academics (though having written papers that are widely cited is). Nor is being a professor at a good school; Harvey Mudd is a good school, but not every professor at Harvey Mudd has a Wikipedia article devoted to them. I suspect that most professors at even Harvard University don't have biographical articles on Wikipedia. It's possible that Libeskind-Hadas may meet some of these guidelines, but the issue is that the article still does not assert that he does. SparsityProblem 21:55, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - I am familiar with the guidelines at WP:PROF which the subject meets. Perhaps you should familiarise yourself with the actual content of his papers and their significance. Decoratrix 22:16, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - No, there's no need for me to do that. The burden of proof is on the creator(s) of the article to demonstrate that the subject's papers have encyclopedic significance. That's how Wikipedia works. SparsityProblem 01:59, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

the guidelines are guidelines, and are reasonably interpreted to mean that he need to have published sufficient papers in good journals to establish his work as being important--because publishing significant work in good journals is what professors do that makes them important. Being cited widely is how significant papers are recognized as being significant--thats what the word means in science. It's the criterion used in all academic subjects, though the details vary. The papers are not necessary or even usually individually of encyclopedic significance, we are writing about the man, and his encyclopedic significance is in his work as a whole, and it is judged by the way people in his field think of it--which they show by appointments, awards, and citations. That's how science article about scientists in Wikipedia work. DGG (talk) 04:48, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions. —David Eppstein 02:04, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
note three cited publications listed in ISI:

Ferrel I, Mettler A, Miller E, & Libeskind-Hadas R (2006) IEEE ACM T NETWORK 14:183-190 (3 citations)
Hartline JRK, Libeskind-Hadas R, Dresner KM, Drucker EW, & Ray KJ (2004) IEEE ACM T NETWORK 12:375-383 (1 citation)
Barden B, Libeskind-Hadas R, Davis J, & Williams W (1999) INFORM PROCESS LETT 70:13-16 (5 citations)

I realize that h-indices are particularly poor at judging CS clout due to the importanc of conference proceedings, but 1 & 3 citations suggest that these IEEE publications don't confer notability. Pete.Hurd 02:50, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think using Google scholar for h-indices works better than ISI, because it includes the conferences more consistently. Their data is not as clean, but can still be compared with other authors using the same data. By that measure, I make out his h-index to be 9. I would expect more like something at least in the high teens for most established full professors in CS at research universities, with many being higher than that. Though I am not convinced that h-indices measure the right thing: I'd be much more impressed by one paper cited 200 times than 10 papers cited 10 times each. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:12, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

further note weird, doing a general search, rather than a cited reference search on ISI (not how I usually search for citations) turns up more cited papers. 10 papers listed, citations: 3,0,1,0,22,0,6,5,2,0. The 22 citations paper is:

Libeskind-Hadas R & Melhem R (2002) Multicast routing and wavelength assignment in multihop optical networks IEEE-ACM TRANSACTIONS ON NETWORKING 10:621-629

I still don't see notability. Pete.Hurd 03:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Very weak keep I think the notability is borderline. He's a full professor at a good college, but it isn't a research university. He has a reasonable but not very high number of publications, cited a reasonable number of times. If the standard is more than the average professor, a full professor at a good college is already safely in the upper half, as it's the top of the three ranks. The current cleanest way to do a WoS search is neither a general author search nor a cited reference search, but to use the author finder in the general search part (the interface is in the process of changing over the next month or two to eliminate the general search/cited reference search distinction, and make it work more like Scopus--but the way will still be with the author finder. That is, when it works (compound names are sometimes a little weird). What I get, like Pete, is 10 items that WoS considers citable papers. sorting by "times cited", I get the counts Pete got. As Pete remarks, nothing works all that well for computer scientists, due to their manner of publication. Pete on balance doesnt think the record is notable, Harvey Mudd seems to think otherwise, and i don't think I can decide between them. DGG (talk) 04:48, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
delete He has an endowed chair, but it's an "Endowed Chair for effective teaching", which doesn't suggest any additional research impact over the typical prof, his publications aren't cited nearly enough to demonstrate the influence Decoratrix suggests his work has had, other than that, he has a typical number of publications and conference papers, and holding an NSF grant, which isn't atypical. If Harvey Mudd thinks he's notable, it seems to be for his teaching and undergraduate supervision. I don't see how he passes WP:PROF. Pete.Hurd 06:44, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete as per Pete Hurd. Note that the NSF grant is for running an undergraduate research program. --Crusio 10:01, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment One can be notable as a teacher, but i think it would involve significant award outside the university--just as any significant award for anything establishes notability. (there have been a very few afds here on this point, and I think they turned on that) A distinguished teaching chair would then not be enough--but if the NSF grant is for running a educational program there, perhaps it would count. Just perhaps.— Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs)
Keep. I feel that the provided academic record, in combination with the professor's endowed chair and role as acting Department Chair last year, is sufficient evidence of notability to merit a Wikipedia article. --Goobergunch|? 02:58, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete not notable. Wikipedia is not an index of people with PhDs or professors at universities. He has nothing that makes him stand out from his peers. --DHeyward 06:42, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I believe his notability is established in the current article. -- Masterzora (talk) 03:05, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete. Pub record is nothing special and I see nothing else to make up for that in terms of notability. Not particularly known in algorithm design and analysis and complexity theory, which the article claims to be his primary research areas. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:01, 17 November 2007 (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.