Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eli Maor

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 keep. No arguments for deletion aside from the nominator. (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Eli Maor (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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Not seeing how this can meet WP:BIO, WP:AUTHOR or WP:PROF. Only claims of notability in the article are teaching and editing an entry in Britannica. Bio on his employer's web site mentions an award but it doesn't meet the "prestigious" requirement of WP:PROF. Google scholar produces a number of citations but not to the point where I'd call it a 'significant impact' RadioFan (talk) 18:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:06, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as article fails notability criteria for academics. Armbrust ^Talk _Contribs 23:18, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Has written a well cited history of e (mathematical constant) which is cited in that article. GS cites 123, 66, 75, 34, 17, 15....h index rather low at 7 but this will not be a well-cited field. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:23, 30 August 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Comment I think you are referring to the Google Scholar hits. Those are intersting but insufficient to meet WP:PROF.--RadioFan (talk) 00:26, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am talking about cites, not hits. Discussion of these matters can be found in WP:Prof and h index. Xxanthippe (talk) 07:22, 31 August 2010 (UTC).[reply]

• Keep per Xxan. Ray^Talk 01:28, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. He is basically a historian, and GoogleScholar is notoriously bad in finding citations in humanities, so it is better to look for factors other than h-index in this case. His books are widely held in academic libraries, according to WorldCat: 1647[1], 1183[2], 927[3]. These are quite high numbers for academic library holdings, even for books with popular appeal. His books also have been extensively reviewed in a variety of publications, from specialized scholarly journals, to general science periodicals to ordinary newspapers. E.g. there were reviews of his books in Nature[4] (review on p. 562), and [5], Science[6][7], New Scientist[8], [9], American Mathematical Monthly[10], as well as in specialized scholarly journals[11],[12],[13],[14],[15],[16],[17],[18], [19] and also in some newspapers, e.g. Los Angeles Times[20], Times Higher Education[21], Washington Times[22], etc. I am fairly sure that there are more. A bio page about him at the Princeton University Press[23] mentions an award from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics for the best article on teaching the applications of mathematics. This[24] says that his book "The Pythagorean Theorem : A 4,000-Year History" received an Honorable Mention, 2007 award for best professional/scholary book in mathematics, Association of American Publishers. Overall, I think there is enough here to pass WP:PROF and WP:AUTHOR. Nsk92 (talk) 06:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The case made above is overwhelming. Xxanthippe (talk) 07:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC).[reply]

• Keep - clearly notable as an author. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:06, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. I can find several college syllabi that require or recommend his books: Agnes Scott, Amherst, CUNY, Evergreen, Toledo, Wittenberg. So, in addition to the other justifications for keeping this article, I think he passes WP:PROF#C4. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• keep I made an earlier unsuccessful case to keep this article. However, I was not able to see the library counts that Nsk92 (talk · contribs) has found above --Senra (Talk) 19:50, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep since I keep bumping into his book. Someone mentioned h-indices, etc., so see that argument above. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:32, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and Close Mr. Maor makes the cut. Qalana (talk) 19:26, 2 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I don't understand what the nominator doesn't understand. <personal attack removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.213.131.190 (talk) 19:01, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • These kind of comments are entirely unacceptable, a violation of WP:AGF and WP:NPA. The nominator stated his arguments - you may not agree with them (and I don't, as my own "keep" comment above indicates) but these arguments are reasonable and policy-based. On the other hand, throwing in unfounded accusations of racism is highly disruptive and absolutely unacceptable. Nsk92 (talk) 19:18, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• comment (my keep vote is above) can we close this already then we can perma-link the above excellent research in the article talk page; improve the article and move on? --Senra (Talk) 20:13, 3 September 2010 (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.