Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David D. Balam

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 as per consensus. Non-admin closure. Warrah (talk) 01:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

David D. Balam

David D. Balam (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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Delete. Contested prod on the basis that this figure is notable, but I am unable to locate non-trivial coverage of this person by reliable third party outlets. JBsupreme (talk) 19:09, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. Try searching for "David Balam" without the middle initial. Lots of hits on scholar. News has some interesting bits, unfortunately most of it is pay-per-view archive. Some interesting info from G-news and the abstracts: BC telescope a key anti-asteroid sentry, Toronto Star, May 10, 1998 "University of Victoria astronomer David Balam is one of the world's most prolific contributors to this research. In addition to his measurements of known ..." and "Hollywood trivia: in the original screenplay for Armageddon, two of the characters were named Brian Balam and David Marsden, in honour of Victoria's David Balam and American asteroid researcher Brian Marsden." He also has an asteroid system named after him, 2nd result (3749) Balam: A Very Young Multiple Asteroid System, see also 3749 Balam. I don't know why the International Astronomical Union would name anything for him if he wasn't notable. More sources are definitely needed for the article, but I think they're out there. Wine Guy Talk 11:13, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I forgot to mention above that Comet Zhu-Balam, which he identified, is also named for him. Wine Guy Talk 17:38, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

• Conditional Keep if the claim of 600 asteroid discoveries, etc can be verified and if this is considered notable in astronmoical circles. Wikipeterproject (talk) 23:05, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:24, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable asteroid hunter with an asteroid named after him. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:06, 31 January 2010 (UTC).
• Keep Obviously a notable astronomer, also (if not more) notable for his work in supernovae:advanced scholar googling: 142 hits, most cited article 938 times. ¨¨ victor falk 08:42, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
• Comment I've slightly expanded the article and added 4 sources; hopefully that makes his notability a bit more clear. Wine Guy Talk 20:18, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
• Keep. I'm unsure about WP:PROF (not because of the citation numbers, which are good, but because he's in a middle position on the highly cited papers). However I think Wine Guy's improvements are enough to show that he passes WP:GNG. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:20, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

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.