Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Science

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Science

Chris Macdonald (scientist)

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Fails WP:SIRS and so fails WP:GNG. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:15, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: People, Academics and educators, and United Kingdom. UtherSRG (talk) 19:15, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Authors, Science, and England. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 20:33, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Has anyone seen if he passes one of the criteria for WP:PROF? The Prof Test is an alternative method of showing notability, so please ping me. Bearian (talk) 18:11, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. This is a young professor who has just gotten an under-40 years old award. The "extensive coverage" of his work is the newspaper reports generated from a single University of Cambridge press release. He appears to have only that single paper in Google scholar, which has mixed him up with a Canadian business professor. It is too soon for him to have an article. StarryGrandma (talk) 18:59, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do Not Delete:.

Dr Macdonald has multiple publications: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3880-6563
His coverage was not the result of a ‘single University press release’ – it was the featured research story on the University homepage – and independently of that, it was covered by BBC, ITV, etc.
He clearly passes the criteria for WP:PROF (of which you only need to meet one):

1. The person's research has had a significant impact in their scholarly discipline: His recent article is “in the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric”.

2. The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level: His research won the National Innovation Award, the Digital Health Award, and the 40 Under 40 Award.

3. The person has been an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association: Dr Macdonald is a Fellow at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of the Institute of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability

7. The person has had a substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity: His research has appeared in over 100 international news outlets. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JayneDavis07 (talk • contribs)

JayneDavis07, our criteria can be confusing for a new editor. Most researchers have multiple publications. What matters is not how many they have published but how other researchers have responded to those publications by citing them in their own papers. That is how we determine significant impact. Most awards, and definitely not young investigator awards, are not what we mean by "highly prestigious". Having newspapers cover ones research when publicized by their employer is common and not considered "substantial impact". "Fellow" is a term used in many different ways. In Macdonald's case the first Fellow is one of the terms used by Cambridge for their employees, so does not qualify. The second Fellow is just the name of the level of dues paying member of the ICRS, not an honorary award given for major contributions to a field. Macdonald is a promising researcher, and may well qualify according to WP:NPROF in the future, but not now. StarryGrandma (talk) 23:23, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For the impact of his publications see here. He has only been publishing for a few years. We would need to see over a hundred citations per paper for impact, but he is just starting out so hasn't had time to develop. He does have 14 papers in Google Scholar, but his latest one is linked to another author. StarryGrandma (talk) 23:39, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do not delete:

Fellow in the Cambridge system is not merely a term for employees. Fellows are voted in by the Governing body and are special honours for “distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry.” There are different types of Fellowship at Cambridge (Visiting Fellow, Research Fellow, Fellow Commoner, Bye-Fellow, etc) – Dr Macdonald holds a full unrestricted permanent Fellowship and as a result is a full voting member of the Governing Body of the University – the highest honour.

Under the criteria for WP:PROF, Academics only need to meet one of 8 conditions.

1. The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level.

With regard to condition 1 – Dr Macdonald won the 40 Under 40 Award in the Science category. The award has two rounds of voting – the first is an expert panel, the second is a public vote – the award programme is at the national level and is for the nation’s most influential and accomplished leaders.

7. The person has had a substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity.

With regard to condition 7 – Dr Macdonald developed and launched a virtual reality public speaking platform to help individuals overcome speech anxiety. He made the platform fully open access, and it is used by people around the world. It is a first-of-its-kind platform – the only to be free and accessible on all platforms and operating systems. Accordingly, it received widespread global media attention - it was covered in over 100 media outlets - including The Times, The Guardian, ITV, BBC, etc, etc. This is outside of a conventional academics remit.

It makes the academic “significant, interesting, or unusual enough to be worthy of notice”.— Preceding unsigned comment added by JayneDavis07 (talk • contribs)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting. No consensus here yet.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:07, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I have not been able to find evidence that Chris Macdonald meets the criteria for GNG or NPROF. As noted by StarryGrandma, most of the publicity appears to be based on a press release from cambridge. Public press about a single VR program is not indicative of academic notability.

Responding specifically to arguments above concerning NPROF:
- 1. AltMetric is not good for determining academic notability as any mention on any site online can improve altmetric. If we're considering notability based on academics, then his work needs to be highly cited by other academics, which it is not.
- 2. The awards he has won do not appear prestigious on a national or international level, names notwithstanding. Think Nobel prize (international) or something like a Priestly medal (national chemistry award in US). I'm not even sure which 40 under 40 list he was included under because there are so many of these lists today and the specific list is mentioned nowhere in his bios. A public vote for an award is also not good criteria for academic notability.
- 3. Elected member/fellow of a society. A fellow at a uni is not the same thing. Reading through the types of fellow at Lucy Cavendish College, it sounds like he is just a professor (not the same thing as Cambridge wide fellowships --- each college has their own processes). Nor is being a "fellow" at a non-profit think tank funded by a bunch of corporations in the name of "responsibility"
- 7. Unlikely over 100 international news outlets covered his virtually reality public speaking VR work independently. This is also definitely WP:TOOSOON as the impact of the work that was released a month ago is not yet known.Anonrfjwhuikdzz (talk) 03:13, 17 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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 soft delete‎. Based on minimal participation, this uncontroversial nomination is treated as an expired PROD (a.k.a. "soft deletion"). Editors can request the article's undeletion. ✗plicit 03:53, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

José Luis Ricón

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Dubious notability. The Org seems to be the equivalent of a LinkedIn page, and the Future page does not provide any notable information. Many of the citations in the article are not verified in the sources, such as the claim of a "widely cited resource" Longevity FAQ. In addition, I have reason to believe this might be a trolling attempt, due to the creation of a prediction market on if the article will survive to the end of the year (https://manifold.markets/infiniteErgodicity/will-the-wikipedia-article-for-jose) Duckduckgoop (talk) 02:36, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Duckduckgoop (talk) 02:36, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Authors, Science, Internet, and Spain. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 02:57, 7 April 2025 (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.

Nano City

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Proposal in 2006 to build a city in India for nanotechnology work. The project never went anywhere and was formally cancelled in 2010. The only sources are two 2006 news articles about the proposals, and two articles when it was cancelled. It is very hard to justify this page as notable, particularly as there is no evidence that this cancelled proposal had any impact -- fails WP:Notability means impact. Ldm1954 (talk) 23:48, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Science, Engineering, and India. Ldm1954 (talk) 23:48, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Haryana-related deletion discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 02:59, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Very convincing nominating statement. A brief search for sources turned up this, which confirms that it didn't happen. I don't think there's any coverage from after 2011 (no lasting coverage). Toadspike [Talk] 09:49, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep or Merge - Notability means impact is an essay, not a policy. This article meets WP:GNG in that there is significant coverage from reliable sources about the proposal - regardless of whether or not it eventuated. Having said that, I think nothing would be lost if it were merged into Sabeer Bhatia --Spacepine (talk) 12:35, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:28, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merge into Sabeer Bhatia. That seems like the correct fit for both. — Maile (talk) 00:30, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete If someone wants to mention this on Sabeer Bhatia that's fine. Merging more than a 1-2 sentence mention would seem excessive to me though as there does not appear to be much more than routine news coverage announcing the project and its demise. Tech people/rich people proposing utopias that eventually never happen feels pretty routine these days anyways.Anonrfjwhuikdzz (talk) 01:13, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Sabeer Bhatia. I think a 1-2 sentence mention in that article is appropriate. ApexParagon (talk) 21:15, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am OK with a Merge Ldm1954 (talk) 22:17, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

UCPH Department of Chemistry

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Fails WP:GNG. WhoIsCentreLeft (talk) 19:49, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Science and Denmark. WhoIsCentreLeft (talk) 19:49, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 19:58, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm leaning towards keep just because this is such an old department and has the start of what looks to be a verifiable history - I just can't find it because I don't know any Danish and have to rely on Google Translate to find anything useful. If no one else can find information about it (the other departments also pretty heavily rely on primary sources, though they are in general better sourced) then it would probably be best to merge to University of Copenhagen Faculty of Science. Recon rabbit 15:01, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗plicit 23:41, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's tricky, but there are indications that there's enough in histories of Hans Christian Ørsted and in the quincentennial history of the University published in 1978 (and apparently held in the Rigsarkivet) to cover the history of the Chemistry institute specifically. It will need to be carefully teased apart from the history of chemistry at the Technical University of Denmark, which also involved Ørsted and some of which is apparently shared. Uncle G (talk) 00:44, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nanochannel glass materials

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Article about arrays of nanoscale glass holes; not to be confused with Nanopipettes or Anodized Aluminum Oxide. Article is based upon a NRL development or patent, and a single NRL science paper where these were used as a template for deposition.^[1] While that is an interesting paper, it did not get adopted by the community, having 86 total cites as of March 2025, which is not large for a high-profile journal. No indications of general notability, certainly not compared to nanopipettes and other types of nanoscale piping in microfluidics or similar systems which are different. Hence fails notability criteria for retention.

Article was PROD'd by nominator, with a PROD2 by User:Bieran. Prod was opposed by User:Mark viking who added sources on nanoscale glass pipettes, and argued (see Talk) that the article is about nanoscale channels, which it was not. Note that the sources added are for single pipettes, not arrays. Options are:

Delete
Keep
Redirect to nanopipette, i.e. keeping such pipettes as a topic that is notable, but acknowledging that what is currently here is different, i.e. abandoning the array concept. Ldm1954 (talk) 19:46, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.270.5233.68

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Science and Engineering. Ldm1954 (talk) 19:46, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would think a merge best here. Hyperbolick (talk) 20:38, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Merge and redirect is acceptable to me. Bearian (talk) 20:47, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Has decent number of sources. However it relies too much on primary sources. I have seen worse. Ramos1990 (talk)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, asilvering (talk) 03:15, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep or Merge I contested the PROD and added three secondary sources; the first two sources (sources 4 and 5)[1][2] had material on nanochannel arrays in addition to single nanochannels; search for 'array' in the articles and you will find it. The third (source 6) was purely about single nanochannels. The first two sources seem to have enough array content for notability per WP:GNG and so my first recommendation would be to keep the article. Should other editors disagree on the notability threshold, there is certainly plenty of verifiable material within secondary sources to support a merge into Nanopipette. It's WP policy to try to preserve verifiable material per WP:PRESERVE, so I think a merge would be an acceptable second choice. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 17:55, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: I did a quick check of Cambridge University Press and found several sources that deal directly with nanochannel glass materials (NCGM). These include: 1) Photonic Band Structure of Nanochannel Glass Materials (MRS Proceedings, 1996); 2) High-Pass Optical Filters Based on Gold-Coated Nanochannel Glass Materials (MRS Proceedings, 1996); 3) Fabrication of InAs Wires in Nanochannel Glass (MRS Proceedings, 1996). Each article focuses on NCGM as its main subject. This seems enough to pass WP:GNG as a standalone article. HerBauhaus (talk) 13:16, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies, but MRS Proceedings are extended conference papers which are rarely cited, often not reviewed, they are not standard journal articles. MRS is a good society, but such articles do not come close in reputation to ones in journals such as Acta Metallurgica or Phil Mag as a couple of examples. Plus three articles from ~30 years ago is definitely not WP:Sustained. Ldm1954 (talk) 15:33, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The MRS Proceedings, published by Cambridge University Press, are WP:RS since both the society and the publisher are well-regarded in the scientific community. These articles undergo editorial and technical peer review ([3], [4]). Each of the 3 cited papers provides independent coverage of nanochannel glass materials as its main subject. That satisfies WP:GNG, which requires only significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject. Sustained or recent coverage is not required.— Preceding unsigned comment added by HerBauhaus (talk • contribs) 01:06, April 13, 2025 (UTC) HerBauhaus (talk) 04:40, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To editor HerBauhaus: I am sorry, but I have to strongly disagree with your argument that 3 citations in extended conference proceedings such as those you quote satisfy WP:GNG. (Few senior academics in MSE include MRS proceedings in their CV, those publications would be ignored by their peers/Deans.) Similarly 3 cites in standard journals are not close to enough. This is even more so when the papers being quoted come from the same authors at NRL of the patent and paper upon which an article is based, so are clearly not independent, secondary sources.Ldm1954 (talk) 07:44, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Approval by senior elitist academics is not required for notability. If there is peer review by a reputable publisher, that is generally enough to consider a publication reliable in terms of the review aspect. Not independent and secondary mean these primary articles by themselves are not enough for notability. Nonetheless, primary publications from 1996, and others in the article, and the two secondary reviews I linked above from 2013 and 2018, show sustained coverage--even the array subtopic was not a one-week flash in the pan. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 17:52, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 13:40, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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. ✗plicit 23:56, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Camera, hand lens, and microscope probe

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Fails GNG. For reference, CHAMP was a proposed instrument that doesn't seem to have been included in the Mars Science Laboratory. Originally proposed at https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20090007927 - all sources I can find are either primary (authored by one or more of the inventors) or mention the instrument only in passing. Deprodded on account of Google Scholar hits, but I don't think any of those articles are secondary. Anerdw (talk) 07:19, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Science, Technology, and Spaceflight. Anerdw (talk) 07:19, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's all conference papers, as far as I can find. Uncle G (talk) 20:27, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete if its all conference papers honestly. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:38, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Previous WP:PROD candidate, ineligible for soft deletion.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗plicit 11:21, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗plicit 14:06, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. My own searching only came up with the small selection of primary sources already included in the artcle, and that's not enough. The only plausible WP:ATD I could see is a merge to Mars Science Laboratory, but that would be a stretch. RoySmith (talk) 17:31, 13 April 2025 (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.

Science Proposed deletions

Flow arrangement (via WP:PROD on 17 January 2025)
Reiner Kümmel (via WP:PROD on 16 January 2025)
Measure (physics) (via WP:PROD on 7 December 2024)
Evolution equations in high-energy particle physics (via WP:PROD on 4 December 2024)

Science Miscellany for deletion

Science Redirects for discussion

Deletion Review

[1] ttps://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.270.5233.68

[1]