Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert J. LeRoy

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. WjBscribe 23:46, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Robert J. LeRoy

Robert J. LeRoy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Non notable Canadian scientist, no reasoning given for notability and does not meet WP:BIO guidelines. Cat-five - talk 02:36, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions. -- Pete.Hurd 03:31, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. YechielMan 05:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. The article obviously needs sourcing, but "no reasoning given for notability"? It says pretty clearly: "Dr. LeRoy is renowned for two major achievements in the field of chemistry: the development of the 'near-dissociation theory', alongside R. B Bernstein, and the derivation of the LeRoy Radius." There clearly is reasoning given for notability. It's just a matter of whether we accept that reasoning. Here are the Google hits on near-dissociation theory, and here are the hits on the Le Roy radius. That certainly doesn't make him Marie Curie or anything. But (to someone like myself, who is admittedly out of his element when it comes to advanced chemistry) it does seem to satisfy WP:PROF #5. Mwelch 07:09, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Scientists are usually established as notable by their work, with the presumption that full professors at research universities like Waterloo have gotten their positions by having published work judged notable by their peers. LeRoy has published 98 peer-reviewed papers, listed in WebofScience. The 5 most highly cited of them received 325, 185, 160, 147, and 132 citations by other peer reviewed papers, which is a very high degree of professional recognition.

I can understand some reluctance to accept the claims because of the totally unsourced nature of the article. Google Scholar lists only 31 papers, but even so one of them has 131 references, which should have been an indication of notability . The reason for the low counts, of course, is that he was born in 1943, and thus almost all of his career antedates Google Scholar (that typically also is the reason for the absence of a web site). For scientists with a large part of their career before 1999 or so, WebofScience and similar professional indexes are the only reliable sources. This creates a problem for documenting them here, because these are almost all extremely expensive databases, and only major university libraries have access to the complete runs. In biomedicine, PubMed can be used instead, which is free, but there is no counterpart for other subjects. But local sources should be tried--if the author is associated with the University of Waterloo, that library has access to the complete run of WebofScience. If there is no other way, I and others with access to them will help fellow editors when necessary with occasional individual searches that fall within the acceptable use policies of the databases.DGG 08:51, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Seems notable for more than just a single concept or theorem. Me and my grand total of five professional references (different field) added a link to his university homepage. Will rewrite rest of article for encyclopedic tone and proper sourcing over the coming day or three. Eldereft 13:31, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. The text of the article clearly asserts his notability. The lack of sources could allow some of the sections to be disputed, then removed, at which point an AfD on the basis of lack of notability could be more warranted. Though a full professor at Waterloo almost certainly is more notable than average. (As a comment, WebofScience isn't even a fully reliable source for publications before 1980.) --Myke Cuthbert 23:15, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep The above discussion convinced me that there's notability there but please flag it for being in dire need of sourcing. Canuckle 00:57, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - evidently a scientist of some distinction. Metamagician3000 23:36, 29 April 2007 (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.