Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kevin Houston

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. StarM 04:46, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kevin Houston

A successful but non-notable professional mathematician. Houston does not meet WP:N or WP:PROF, so we should not have an article on him (yet). This is not a personal criticism of Houston, simply an application of our inclusion criteria. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:22, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - no reliable source to establish notability according to WP:PROF criteria or the general notability guidelines.--Boffob (talk) 14:35, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:58, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Does not pass WP:PROF. MathSciNet lists 21 publications, with citations mostly in single digits in MathSciNet, WebOfScience and GoogleScholar[1] (the latter search has a few false positives for a medical researcher of the same name). He does have a 2002 paper in Inventiones Mathematicae, a top math journal. That's good but not good enough for passing WP:PROF. Looking at his homepage[2] I don't see anything else there to suggest passing WP:PROF (such as awards, journal editorships, etc). Nsk92 (talk) 17:39, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I'm afraid I concur that he doesn't yet meet WP:PROF, although I have a question for those familiar with the academic climate there: Does he have tenure? If not, it's clear he doesn't meet WP:PROF. It doesn't seem he meets any of the other aspects of WP:BIO or WP:N. Perhaps after the book is published? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:22, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete – Looks like I am in the majority here. Just not there yet, but getting close. As Mr. Rubin pointed-out, maybe after the book is released. ShoesssS ^Talk 19:12, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments. Senior lecturer is a permanent position (the UK analogue of tenure) immediately below the top position of Professor, together with Reader. It is therefore somewhere in between tenured Associate professor and Full professor in the US, probably closer to Full professor, but these things vary with the university. I find the academic notability line a difficult one to draw, and don't find WP:PROF a particularly clear or compelling guideline. I don't see, for example, how deleting this article would improve the encyclopedia. The article on Brian Bowditch was recently kept. He is a professor of course, but I can think of at least one UK professor :-) who doesn't have an article (and shouldn't in my view) although his publication record is comparable to Houston's. Now that this article has been brought for deletion, it may set a poor precedent to keep it. Geometry guy 19:31, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but this case is not comparable to Brian Bowditch. Bowditch has won the Whitehead Prize, gave an invited address at the 2004 European Congress of Mathematics, solved several important conjectures in geometric group theory as well as solved Conway's Angel problem. That is why Bowditch's article was kept, not because he has the rank of Professor. In the case of Kevin Houston I just don't see any comparable accomplishments or anything else to indicate passing WP:PROF. Nsk92 (talk) 20:08, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

delete agree with Nsk92's position. Pete.Hurd (talk) 20:13, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Just to add to Nsk92's points, a news search does not yield anything that would make him qualify for WP:BIO.--Eric Yurken (talk) 00:35, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 18:13, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment on the above remark regarding tenure by Arthur Rubin: "Does he have tenure? If not, it's clear he doesn't meet WP:PROF". Non-tenured status is not a disqualifier under WP:PROF. Taken at face-value, the statement would seem to imply that tenure equates to notability, which is clearly false. (There are many non-notable tenured professors). On the other hand, there are non-tenured academics that are very clearly notable, Grigori Perelman for example, the jobless (since 2003) academic, who would easily have been considered notable years before winning the Fields Medal. Tenure is also completely irrelevant to a researcher in the commercial sector, who's notability is nevertheless covered by most (though not all) the points enumerated in WP:PROF. So, I do not feel that tenure status should figure prominently in deliberations of notability. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 20:48, 12 November 2008 (UTC).[reply]
- Well, I feel that tenure status should be relevant to an academic researcher. I didn't mean to imply it was conclusive, but if he's employed by a university (US definition) and doesn't have tenure, it's an indication that his employer doesn't think he's notable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:09, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - So, I think we're in fair accord. I meant to make the point that, although there's almost certainly a reasonable correlation between tenure and notability, the former is not the cause of the latter. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 15:20, 13 November 2008 (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.