Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ping Li

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. Sandstein 10:25, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ping Li

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Does not meet any criteria of WP:ACADEMIC. If someone disagrees, please state which criterion is met. With regard to WP:GNG, all I see for independent coverage is being in Who's Who. Does anyone think that being in Who's Who satisfies WP:GNG? Logical Cowboy (talk) 15:39, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The claims in the article are insufficient to pass WP:ACADEMIC. Pburka (talk) 15:46, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I'm the editor that removed the PROD. I did so with the rationale that if the publications in the "listings" section of his CV are accurate, then he probably passes the GNG. For easy reference, I'll include them (minus the - oh, irony - Wikipedia reference) for people to pick apart if they wish. I didn't make any deep analysis regarding the different biographies and their suitability for notability purposes, etc. Here's the list:
1. 2010, 2011 - Marquis’s Who’s Who in America (64th, 65th editions)
2. 2008, 2005 - 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century, International Biographical Centre
3. 2001 - 1000 World Leaders of Scientific Influence, American Biographical Institute
4. 2001 - Who’s Who in the 21st Century, International Biographical Center
5. 1997-2001 - Marquis Who’s Who in the World (14th, 15th, 18th, 19th editions)
6. 1997 - Who’s Who in Chinese Linguistics, Hunan People’s Press, China

— Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 16:13, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Does anyone think that being in Who's Who satisfies WP:GNG? From their websites, it is clear that both Marquis and IBC allow self-nominations and indeed self-written biographies/aka/autobiographies. This is not to cast aspersions on the subject of the article. The point is that being in Who's Who does not seem very notable. According to the Marquis website, 1.4 million people are listed in Marquis's Who's Who. Logical Cowboy (talk) 16:25, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, I've just seen that Who's Who and the American Biographical Institute are explicitly excluded from counting towards notability in WP:PROF. I would guess that the International Biographical Centre is the same kind of thing. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 17:07, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. After going through his CV some more, I found that he is the president-elect of the Society for Computers in Psychology, meaning that he passes criterion 6 of WP:PROF. (SCiP officers page) — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 16:36, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Okay, is that a "major academic society?" Logical Cowboy (talk) 16:48, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, they don't appear to be the biggest society, but they are getting written about to some extent.[1] I will be happy to defer judgement of whether they are "major" or not to someone more familiar with the field than me. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 17:25, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, that's a self-published article, by a former president of the society. Logical Cowboy (talk) 17:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, it didn't look self-published to me, but you're right that it's obviously by someone connected with the society (I really should have checked for that, sorry). Still, that's just one article, and there may well be obvious ways to show the society is notable that my cursory search did not find. I'll wait for outside comment on this, I think. Regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 17:51, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I will contend that SCiP is not a major academic society. For instance, their conference in 2010 had 16 presentations and 41 posters (according to [2]). Furthermore, they say that "There were over 60 attendees at this year’s conference" in 2010. SCiP appears to be a subset of folks involved in the Psychonomic Society, since SCiP meetings always appear to precede their annual meeting. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 09:06, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, I will accept that the SCiP is not a major society, and that that means Li doesn't pass criterion 6 of WP:PROF. I will wait for consensus to develop about the journal he is the joint-chief editor of, and about his H-index, however, before I change my !vote. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 05:21, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Seems to clearly meet WP:ACADEMIC and the GNG, per the sources provided in the article. They're a tenured professor of an important dept. at a major university. Steven Walling • talk 17:27, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, which criteria of WP:ACADEMIC or WP:GNG are being met? Please be more specific. Being "a tenured professor of an important dept. at a major university" is not a criterion. Logical Cowboy (talk) 17:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Criterions 3, 4, and 5. Steven Walling • talk 19:19, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, with regard to 3, what is the "highly selective and prestigious scholarly society?" I don't see that in the article. Criterion 4 is moot. I'd like to see the 3rd party source for that--it's not in the article. With regard to 5, the subject of the article does not hold a "named chair appointment or 'Distinguished Professor' appointment"--that's just false. Logical Cowboy (talk) 19:27, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:26, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Li's being President-Elect of the Society for Computers in Psychology and one of the four chief editors of Bilingualism: Language and Cognition seems to me to meet our notability requirement. I have added these with refs to the article (Msrasnw (talk) 00:04, 3 November 2011 (UTC))[reply]
Delete Li's awards above are not ideal because they are "Who's Who" awards which don't grant academic credibility, and the others are extensive lists of individuals, rather than in-depth coverage required for WP:ACADEMIC. Li's position in SCiP is also unhelpful toward notability, because SCiP does not appear to be a "major academic society." Its attendance at last year's meeting was 60 individuals ([3]), and that they appear to be a subset of individuals from the larger Psychonomic Society. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 09:49, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Ignoring the Who's who material, which should be removed from the article, he is the editor of the multivolume handbook of East Asian psycholinguistics by Cambridge University press Worldcat. The selection of him to edit such a series shows him an authority in his subject. So does a full professorship at a major research university like Penn State--their criteria for such positions are in fact at least as high as our notability. It's not my subject field, but I am not prepared to second-guess them. DGG ( talk ) 16:22, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Neither editing a book or being a full professor at a research university are criteria in WP:ACADEMIC. Believe it or not, many professors have edited books and/or work at research universities. By your logic, we just should just upload the Penn State faculty directory into WP. There are 1300 full professors at Penn State! [4] Let's stick to the criteria in WP:ACADEMIC. Logical Cowboy (talk) 17:41, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Also, the Who's Who material does not appear in the article, so it can't be removed from the article. I think it's useful to read the article carefully before posting here. Logical Cowboy (talk) 17:46, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per Logical Cowboy. The sources cited do not support notabiliy under either the GNG or WP:PROF. Eluchil404 (talk) 04:19, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Question/Comment H-index: Has anyone calculated a h-index which is what we often use to assist us in an evaluation of academic notabity. I have done a quick look at Google Scholar and doing "Ping Li" AND Psychology and knocking out the nursing - mental health - teaching ones which I don't think are him - on the first few pages there seem a lot of well cited articles by this Ping Li - I get a H-index of at least 17. I suspect if one were to do this properly it would be higher. A h-index of 17 would seem to me enough! (Msrasnw (talk) 09:44, 10 November 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Comment: Hi, interesting idea, but why do you think that 17 is "enough?" Do you have a source for that? The WP article on h-index suggests that 18 is a minimum to become a full professor. So 17 is not that special. Admittedly that is for physics. I have no idea whether the number is the same or different for psychology. I randomly chose another psychologist who has a WP article, Leda Cosmides. She has an h-index of 51. Then I randomly chose a psycholinguist, Elena Lieven. She has an h-index of 28. I couldn't find any reason to think that 17 is "enough." Logical Cowboy (talk) 15:43, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that there have been many debates at Afd about this and there is some precedent eg here for scientist needing a figure of above 15 and humanities much less. I think the basic argument is that some, including me, may think that having 100s of citations to one's work by other people in one's field makes on notable in one's field. I think Ping Li clearly meets this. I don't like the numbers game but for example

Li, P. (1996). Spoken word recognition of code-switched words by Chinese-English bilinguals. Journal of Memory and Language, 35, 757-774.

has been cited 78 times -

Li, P., Zhao, X. and Mac Whinney, B. (2007), Dynamic Self-Organization and Early Lexical Development in Children. Cognitive Science, 31: 581–612.

has been cited 57 times

these seem to me to indicate that lots of fellow academics have noted these works and judged them worthy of citing. H=17 means that there at least 17*17 = 289 citations to his work. This seems a lot of people noting his work enough to cite it.

Anyway Best wishes (Msrasnw (talk) 16:20, 10 November 2011 (UTC))PS: Elena will be pleased to hear she has been randomly chosen as a Psycholinguist and has a high h-score! PPS - the figure I got is just from GS with his name and Psychology (and ignoring those that weren't him) it is quite possible some of his articles were missed as a result of this filter as well as the shortcomings of GS itself.[reply]

Reply: Actually, in the example you gave, the subject of the article had an h-index of 25, and the article was deleted. Logical Cowboy (talk) 16:43, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reply: h-index 4 for Vijendra K. Singh: I may be mistaken but my understanding was that his h-index was found to be 4 rather than 25 - hence the deletion - but I was quoting that as place where there was a discussion of the 15 rule was mentioned - not the particular case! That one like, this one was tricky because of the name though. Best wishes (Msrasnw (talk) 16:54, 10 November 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, causa sui (talk) 18:33, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - (GS) H-index at least 23 - using Google Scholar and searching a little more widely I get a min H-index now of 23 - with a combined total of more than 1000 citations, but am pretty sure to have missed some. (For verification a little list of these is here: User:Msrasnw/Ping Li Hindex) Best wishes (Msrasnw (talk) 10:10, 11 November 2011 (UTC))[reply]
Comment - I realise that he is only one of four joint-chief editors of Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, rather than the chief editor, but would this not be enough for him to pass criterion 8 of WP:PROF, without us having to worry about his H-index? — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 05:26, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep. The fact that he lists his Wikipedia article and all those who's-who entries on his cv is a bad sign. The citation counts are ok but not totally convincing. And from what I can see SCIP is not a large organization, running what its historians describe as an intimate conference annually. But I think the presidency and the journal co-editorship may be enough. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:14, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as per Logical Cowboy. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:59, 15 November 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.