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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Florentin Smarandache (2nd nomination)

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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. postdlf (talk) 03:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Florentin Smarandache

[edit]
AfDs for this article:
Florentin Smarandache (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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It's not entirely clear whether Smarandache passes the WP:PROF criteria (the first AfD was somewhat divided); he may because of the number of things (such as functions and numbers) named after him. But the main point is that there doesn't appear to be any reliable sources (independent of the subject) that talk about Smarandache himself. Without these sources, this article can't satisfy Wikipedia:Verifiability, so it should probably be deleted. Mlm42 (talk) 16:51, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Weak Keep - The subject of this article is a very prolific author. A search shows over 10 pages of results where the subject is the author. I did not find any significant other sources mentioning him. If you use another author mentioned on WP as a guide there are some authors of less know work left alone. It in itself is not a guide but there is a fine line here with regard to notability and this candidate for deletion. Golgofrinchian (talk) 17:35, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, those google results are not about the author, but rather publications by the author. The problem is that there doesn't appear to be any independent sources where Smarandache is the subject. Mlm42 (talk) 18:00, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

*Weak keep per above. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:39, 17 March 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by HJ Mitchall (talk • contribs) [reply]

  • Weak Keep Per above. Wilbysuffolk (talk) 18:28, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I think he's known less as an impactful mathematician than as a relentless self-promoter, but I think there's enough about him to have an article. See for instance [1] [2], a 55-page booklet about his work (though perhaps its publisher is not independent of the subject). And I don't really buy the nominator's arguments, anyway: researchers are known for their research, just as in most cases politicians are known for their political office and musicians are known for their music. It should be perfectly valid to have an article that summarizes the researcher's research contributions while saying little about their private life. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:02, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think point 5 in WP:SELFPUB specifically addresses this kind of case. My understanding is that we need sources that are independent of the subject. Mlm42 (talk) 19:25, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Weak delete. The citation counts in Google scholar are in the range for a pass of WP:PROF#C1, there is nontrivial coverage of him in sources, and his name is widely known. Because of all that, I'd like us to have a properly neutral article about him, one that accurately describes what mainstream mathematics thinks of his work. However, it seems particularly difficult to find sources that are actually independent of the subject and that say something nontrivial about him. Given his self-promotion I don't want to rely on non-independent sources for anything in the article — that would probably violate WP:NPOV — but without them what is there to say about him? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:13, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This article certainly has a colorful editing history, and some of the comments at the first AfD are laugh-out-loud funny, but I don't see that anything has changed since then to make me think that "keep" result wasn't the right one. He certainly seems to be notable based on the evidence. Per WP:ABOUTSELF, we do generally allow some autobiographical information to be included in biographical articles, and in this case it is appropriately identified as such in the text. For what it's worth (which may be very little in this case), Google News does turn up a few sources that appear to be "about" him[3]: they're in Romanian, which I don't know, and they make even less sense to me after being run through the Google translator into English.[4][5][6] That seems to be par for the course with respect to this subject.--Arxiloxos (talk) 19:20, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep per David Eppstein. Smarandache hasn't done much of importance, but he is well-known. On the other hand, I concur with the nominator on all the factual points mentioned in this AfD. CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:51, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Agricola. Additionally, I have concerns about our ability to write an article that is verifiable and independent of the subject. CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:42, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:30, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:55, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:55, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:55, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - agree completely with David Eppstein's arguments. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:26, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Stub until sources can be found. While it seems likely that we should have an article about this guy, the article will look nothing like the one we currently have. It should be based on sources that are independent of the subject. The current article runs afoul of a number of policies, at the very least: (1) the WP:NPOV policy by giving undue weight to the subject's fringe mathematical theories, (2) the WP:SPS portion of the verifiability policy, by including self-published self-promoting sources, (3) WP:OR, for instance by linking to the subject's personal site, the article concludes that he is a playwright. I suggest stubbing the article, and rewriting it from reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:10, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. After reading both the article and all of the above, I assumed I would probably side with the "keep" camp, but in looking a little deeper, I've found two problematic pieces of information. First, the gravity and impact of his work claimed (goes to WP:PROF #1) in the article is contravened by WoS – which is squarely where we would expect such impact to show up for someone working in mathematics and physics. For example, the article speaks of the "Smarandache constant", "Generalized Smarandache Palindrome", the "Smarandache hypothesis" in theoretical physics, etc. WoS shows only 3 papers, having citations of 1, 0, 0: h-index = 1. That figure is quite literally "next to nothing" in terms of impact. It is true that there are quite a few citations in GS, although a large fraction seem to be self-citations and citations from other unpublished works. (I went back to first AfD, which also points this out.) I'll admit that one might argue impact on the GS findings, but my feeling is that self and unpublished cites are not what is conventionally meant by that term. Smarandache seems to be somewhat on the fringe and he may have some fame therefrom, but I don't not believe that translates to notability per se...which brings us to my second objection. He is the editor of journals, which would normally satisfy WP:PROF #8, but these journals are neither major, nor well-established, as the policy requires. The International Journal of Applied Mathematics & Statistics is a relatively new journal and its web page indicates it is not indexed by WoS. Progress in Physics is an "alternative" journal that seems to publish unrefereed, often "crank" articles, see e.g. this. (Incidentally, the Progress in Physics article has no real sources, dead links, etc. – perhaps should be considered for deletion itself.) I think the conclusion that I come away with is that David's observation that Mr Smarandache is a relentless self-promoter is being kind. There's plenty of observation above and in the first AfD regarding his promotional prowess, in fact, this article was probably started by him (Geolocate shows the anon creator account to be from his institution.) I would like to respectfully propose that he is so good at this that even some of the usually and rightfully skeptics among us have been snowed. In the end, the only legit argument for "keep" is that he is, in some sense, famous, but WP:FAME suggests we should be dubious. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 16:17, 18 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
  • Delete per Agricola, excellent research, cant add anything to that other than some concerns about refspam in the article. Seems to be going for quantiy over quality RadioFan (talk) 20:52, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Some contributors to this debate do not appear have a good understanding of the concept of notability. Notability means being noted, and if somebody has been noted they are therefore notable by Wikipedia standards. These academic AfD pages do not have the function of an academic promotions committee set up to determine who has done "good" or "bad" mathematics and reward people accordingly. It may be that the subject of the article is a master of self-promotion but, if so, he is a successful one. With a GS h index of 20 he has around 1000 citations to his work and not all of those are by himself. By the standards applied on these pages he passes WP:Prof#C1 easily and his other accomplishments contribute to W:GNG. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:38, 20 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources.
However, a numerical preponderance of Google scholar hits citations from questionable sources does not translate into "significant impact in [his] scholarly discipline" (from WP:PROF: "Simply having authored a large number of published academic works is not considered sufficient to satisfy Criterion 1.") As already observed, most of the citations to his work are from unpublished or otherwise questionable sources. His WoS h-index gives a much more accurate assessment of this individual's impact in mathematics: effectively nil. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:33, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You miss the point. I was referring to citations not hits. Search on GS for "author:Florentin Smarandache" and you will find 864 hits. This extraordinarily large number refers to publications authored by Smarandache. In terms of establishing notability these hits are almost worthless. However, under each hit you will find "Cited by xx" where xx is the number of cites. The first hit shows 499 cites. Click on the "Cited by" and you will find who did the citing. Most of these cites are not self-cites by Smarandache. These are the data that are used to obtain the citation h index for GS. Looking back at past decisions on these academic AfD pages I find that to clearly satisfy WP:Prof#C1 500-1000 citations in the scientific literature have usually been needed with an h index of greater than 15. Those with an h index of less than 10 rarely pass. There is no formal policy on this; it is just the way that decisions of editors have evolved over the past few years. Standards of notability for academics and scholars in the English Wikipedia are much higher than for some other subjects; garage bands, musicians or athletes sometime get by with only a handful of references. The acceptable number of citations also varies by subject. It is not the job of editors of these pages to determine whether a subject's views are correct or incorrect, good or evil. We only determine if they are notable from having been noted, and in this case it is clear that the subject has been. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:19, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently you were inattentive in reading my post. Contrary to your overall tone WP:PROF#C1 is not some facile numerical criterion on notability, hence my reason for quoting the policy. Instead, the policy specifically demands that the sources must be reliable and independent of the subject. How many of these citations indexed by Google scholar are in reliable sources independent of the subject? Combing through the results (admittedly I have not looked at several hundred citations), most seem to be from vanity publishers and otherwise very questionable sources that we would not consider to be reliable sources. These are not "citations in the scientific literature"; these are self-published citations in vanity presses. But if it were true that the numbers go so far as to establish notability as you seem to feel, then his WoS index should also be high. But it is almost nonexistent. Since google scholar indexes many publications we would not consider reliable, in this case we should trust the assessment of WoS, particularly given the subject's penchant for voluminous self-publication. So I motion that the GS cites are irrelevant, unless a substantial number of these can be demonstrated to be reliable indicators of notability. I believe the guideline already makes clear that h-index should only be used cautiously (in this case, there is good reason for being even more cautious than usual), and it already discusses the unreliability of Google scholar's h-index (which in this case is especially unreliable). Sławomir Biały (talk) 01:22, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Given the accusations of sockpuppetry in the PlanetMath piece, and the ease of faking up high citation counts in Google scholar, I'm not sure that we should take the high numbers in Google scholar completely at face value without other evidence. In addition, this week Google scholar seems to have made a change that causes outgoing citations as well as incoming citations to be counted, making their counts useless for assessing notability. Looking at the actual citations listed by Google for his highest cited work, many are in the "Smarandache notions journal" (i.e. not independent of the subject); of the first ten citations it lists, the only one I really trust is Sloane's, and that one mentions the subject only trivially. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:40, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to Eppstein for revealing how readily Google Scholar can be subverted. A closer look at the Smarandache citations does indeed raise questions about their validity. I still support a keep in view of his heroic efforts at self-promotion, that needs to be put in the article. If we have an article about William McGonagal we can have an article about Smarandache. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:57, 23 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
... but what is the Telesio Galilei Academy of Science Award? According to this page, he won it in 2010. Phiwum (talk) 16:00, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To the extent that PlanetMath hit piece is relevant here, wouldn't it provide further evidence of his notability, even if only as a "doofus"? --Arxiloxos (talk) 20:26, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Do you want to base an article on that? Tijfo098 (talk) 20:54, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, probably. I won't open the can of worms about Smarandache's PROF notability, but just looking over the Romanian echoes of his contribution to literature, I get the sense that the man is very self-promotional, but much neglected by mainstream criticism. He only gets a handful of small-scale reviews in mainstream literary journals. For instance this article, in the Writers' Union of Romania România Literară, briefly mentions him as "Autorul (matematician român stabilit în SUA) pretinde că a creat un nou curent literar, "paradoxismul", pe care îl menţionează entuziast, ca o mare realizare, în cv-ul său. Are şi numeroşi adepţi devotaţi, situaţi, ca şi el, în afara adevăratei literaturi. Poeziile din recentul volum sunt (ca şi cele din volumele anterioare) rezultatul unei gimnastici lingvistice hazardate. Lipsit de bun-gust, Florentin Smarandache vrea să fie original, dar nu reuşeşte decât să fie strident, vrea să epateze, dar nu reuşeşte decât să provoace cititorului (cultivat) un zâmbet ironic [...]. Singurele momente în care atinge poezia sunt acelea în care îl imită pe Nichita Stănescu [...]" That is: "The author (a Romanian mathematician living in the USA) claims to have created a new literary current, 'paradoxism', which he mentions with enthusiasm, like some sort of great achievement, in his CV. He also has many devoted followers, located, just as he is, outside the realm of real literature. The poems of his recent volume are (like those of his earlier volumes) the result of risky verbal gymnastics. Lacking in good taste, Florentin Smarandache wants to be original, but only manages to be glaring, wants to shock, but only manages to raise an ironic smile from the (cultivated) reader [...]. The only moments where he touches on real poetry are those where he imitates Nichita Stănescu [...]" A more in-depth analysis in Observator Cultural, article by Paul Cernat, also reserves some brutal criticism for Smarandache and his pals: "graphomaniacs", "nonsense", "fauna" etc. are some of the epithets Cernat uses in reference to these guys. Cernat also briefly reviews Smarandache's memoirs, noting that the man has "a modest literary talent" and "an overinflated ego", and that, although he has good "Oltenian humor", his pages are "sordid". And so on. Now, I'm tired of searching for more - this is the type of reviews FS gets, and will probably get until the day he gives up on writing. Rest assured, there's not much more than that around. Maybe these validate keeping the article, but it would have to lean on the negative side, since there's nobody that thinks much of FS other than himself & comp. WP:BLP in mind, it's probably better to invite the article out. Dahn (talk) 07:39, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the in-depth research. FWIW, graphomania. Tijfo098 (talk) 12:48, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep on the basis of Dahn's information. Notable is not equal to meritorious. A low quality writer whose work gets 3rd party published RS reviews is notable, and the reviews given above are sufficient for notability . DGG ( talk ) 00:51, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't necessarily object to that interpretation (though note that what I quoted is virtually all of the exposure that FS got in such sources!). The problem here is that, if built from the actual mentions that are quotable, such as the ones I quoted above, the article would become very negative to FS, overwhelmingly so. Three reasons why that is a problem: 1) WP:BLP concerns; 2) keeping the article on the basis of negative reviews would automatically imply the exposure of FS' own vanity press - for "reciprocity", and simply because it's okay to quote self-published sources "in articles about themselves"; 3) I'd wager we'd be facing a continuous edit war with various single-purpose accounts trying to remove the "negative" information, and in the process reducing this article to what it already is. All that because a couple of mentions in the non-vanity press? I for one don't think that's what wikipedia should do/what wikipedia was meant for. Dahn (talk) 19:54, 24 March 2011 (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.
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