Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bruce Eckel

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. Davewild (talk) 19:27, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bruce Eckel

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Biography of a living person. His only claim to notability I see is two books, which themselves are up for AfD right now (both my nominations) D O N D E groovily Talk to me 04:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Per Google Scholar, these books have 900+ and 150+ citations, which, combined with the other his publications, lead me to argue for keeping the author but merging books into author's article. In any case, IMHO he's substantially more notable than Kevin J. Sullivan who got some support in concurrent AfD. Ipsign (talk) 06:35, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Sullivan's work shows him to be a researcher whose work is contributing new material to the field. Eckel's work is about teaching others to use existing knowledge. In my opinion, that makes Sullivan more notable than Eckel, as Sullivan is the one doing original research (unlike Wikipedia, academia is all about original research). D O N D E groovily Talk to me 13:15, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Strongly disagree with the argument about new research vs existing knowledge. Many people are notable exactly because of summarizing existing knowledge. For example, Donald Knuth is famous (I hope nobody will challenge that he is) mostly because of his The Art of Computer Programming, which is mostly summarizing existing research. Ipsign (talk) 04:37, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Per above. Significant contribution to the field. WP:AUTH applies. Ray^Talk 15:06, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. -- Ray^Talk 15:06, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. -- Ray^Talk 15:06, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep h-index >10. which is sort of an accepted threshold for academic AfDs.--Sodabottle (talk) 15:11, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Your gonna have to explain that one :) D O N D E groovily Talk to me 00:19, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. In academic related AfDs h-index (a measure of the citation count) is taken as the indication of the subjects contribution. This is a measure to see if the subject meets #1 of WP:PROF. There is a rough consensus that anyone with greater than h-index 10 is notable as being recognised by peers as a significant contributor to the field. Eckel's h-index is 13. So i guess he meets that criteria. If you list this AfD in Academic related deletion discussions, you might get extra input from people who know better (i am an occasional participant)--Sodabottle (talk) 05:00, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Having 900 citations for a work is significant in my view, even if his h-index is only about 13 [1]. He was also a founding member of the ANSI/ISO C++ standard committee. That is analogous to a psychiatrist that served on a DSM committee; i.e. considered a top expert by his peers on that topic. There are also articles/interviews about/with him, e.g. this; he keeps a list. Tijfo098 (talk) 07:06, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I did not intend to comment on this AfD, but given some sweeping statements about the h-index, it looks like there has been some serious inflation going on since I last participated in academics-related AfDs. The h-index must be interpreted in the light of the field that someone works in. A mathematician with an h of 10 is probably quite notable, because it is a field with a low "citation density". In my field (neuroscience, and in general most life sciences) every assistant prof with a few years of postdoc who's worth his salaray will have an h of 10. To take that as an absolute threshold of encyclopedic notability is, excuse the expression, absolutely ridiculous. I know many researchers (in my field) with an h index in the twenties, who have never some solid contributions, certainly, but nothing that you would feel worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia. I include myself in that. I have made some solid scientific contributions that I am certainly not ashamed of, but I don't think science would be much different if I had never done that work. My h is 30 and for my field, frankly, I don't think that should be enough for inclusion in any encyclopedia (not even WP, and yes, I know: NOTPAPER). Ten years after I retire, all that will be forgotten. --Crusio (talk) 09:24, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- Crusio (talk) 12:55, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete. Reference books tend to get much higher citation counts than research papers, so I don't see the high cite count for "Thinking in Java" as being particularly conclusive re WP:PROF, and he doesn't have enough other high-citation publications to convince me of a pass of criterion 1. The more relevant standard for this sort of work would be the existence of multiple published reviews of the book — there's some of that (for instance a piece in The Register on the 4th ed.), but it still looks like a case of WP:BIO1E to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 13:04, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Reference books tend to get much higher citation counts than research papers" - is there a consensus that they should count less merely because they're books (or maybe books are just more important on average?) This question is a generic one, not directly related to Bruce Eckel - I just want to understand current consensus better (and is is difficult). Ipsign (talk) 14:59, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say the argument is that the h-score doesn't apply much to reference or instruction books, just to research papers. For reference books, reviews in the media and the like are more important. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 15:12, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

h-index applies to people, not to books or articles, so I don't really see how we can exclude books from it. Ipsign (talk) 04:20, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep One of the most highly regarded thinkers in the world of "Conceptual Java". Although this article is only a stub, unlike our effort at Thinking in Java, this one does deserve keeping. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:33, 11 November 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.