Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John A. Boockvar

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. Consensus appears to have established that the subject meets the general notability guidelines and the notability guidelines for biographies. Both deletion concerns appear to have been addressed. (non-admin closure) Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 05:07, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

John A. Boockvar

John A. Boockvar (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Subject is an associate professor of neurosurgery at Well-Cornell. Article is basically a condensed CV and contains a long list of impressive looking "honors and awards". Unfortunately, not a single one would qualify under WP:PROF. Web of Science lists 63 publications, which have been cited a grand total of 314 times (top citations 52, 41, 37) with an h-index of 10. No independent sources, no hits on GNews, Google just gives the physician-related hits that are to be expected. Does not meet WP:PROF or WP:GNG. Guillaume2303 (talk) 17:36, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

• I'm the primary author of the article - I'm modeling it off of Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa. Please do not delete the article yet as it is still in the process of being created! I would welcome any comments or suggestions as to how to improve the article. Thank you! rosseauwake (talk) 13:49, 11 March 2012 (EST)

• Comment The article on AQH is actually quite bad, but in contrast to JAB, he does seem to be notable (for instance, there's a biographical note in the NEJM, one of the most prestigious medical journals). --Guillaume2303 (talk) 18:07, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
• Comment I believe the primary reason AQH got an article in NEJM was because of his rather unique and impressive circumstances - JAB did not start out as a migrant farm worker. However, JAB has published a significant number of peer-reviewed articles in well known scholarly journals (Journal of Neurosurgery, Cancer Journal, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychology, Journal of Neurooncology, etc.) and in that sense is very solidly a personne connue in the scientific community, just as much so as AQH. Rosseauwake (talk) 18:20, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment Sorry, but that is incorrect. I just went through the AQH article and there are substantial independent sources there, varying from the NEJM to several news media outlets. And, in any case, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not really a good argument in deletion discussions. JAB did publish a substantial number of articles, but that in itself is nothing out of the ordinary: publishing is what academics do. What matters is whether those publications have had any measurable substantial impact and that is absent here. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 18:36, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
• Comment Hi Guillaume, thank you again for taking the time to help me with this article! You were right about the lack of independent sources before, so I've added several independent sources to my references list, including the New York Times and CNBC, as well as the fact that JAB was Editor-in-Chief of the journal Current Stem Cell Research and Therapy and is an editorial board member of the Journal of Neuro-Oncology and the Journal of Neurosurgery. Hopefully that takes care of the independent sources issue. With respect to the publications, I have a pretty good knowledge of what JAB's lab does, and it is on the forefront of cancer stem cell research, as indicated by the writeups in third party media sources such as the NYTimes and CNBC and by the fact that his lab is funded by the National Cancer Institute. Does this resolve the legitimacy issue of the article? Thanks again. Rosseauwake (talk) 19:14, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:57, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:57, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

• Delete as a WP:PROMO page. This was basically all a cut-and-paste job from his employer's ad page for him (I just had to gut it for WP:COPYVIO reasons), and includes "awards" from a blatant plaque factory. --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:40, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment This is not a promotional page, as there is not a bias in the writing. The facts I stated in the paragraphs which you removed are precisely that - facts. Additionally, the America's Top Doctor awards were not processed through the Consumer Research Council of America, as your link implied. They were actually processed through Castle Connolly Ltd., a collaborator with U.S. News and World Report. (http://nyp.org/about/americas-top-doctors.html). All the awards listed are legitimate awards from impartial sources. With respect to the cut and paste job, yes, that's correct - large portions of text were taken from my employer's page (note that I left out information that could have been considered promotional, and only included factual information). I have permission from the owner of this page to include the text, so I don't see where the problem lies. Thank you. Rosseauwake (talk) 23:01, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Promotion can exist in display of facts, by choice of which facts to present, and one cannot expect balance from a brochure page like this is taken from. As for reuse of your employer's materials, you may want to look at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials which conveys how they can properly grant permission for their use. As for the statement that it's from the Connolly list rather than the CRCofA list, I believe you, but that should be sourced - both for general reasons of sourcing and for the claim that he's a "top doctor" to have a meaningful context. --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:59, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment Thank you for the pointers! I have sourced the Conolly listing, and will look into the Donating copyrighted materials page. As for the promotion existing in the display of facts, I have done research on JAB, and there really isn't anything negative to mention. No big scandals, no notoriety, just a smart, hard-working doctor doing groundbreaking work to improve and hopefully save the lives of patients terminally ill with brain cancer. And of course, this being an open and impartial wiki, if any user does find negative facts or information that they feel are pertinent, they can add it to the page. Rosseauwake (talk) 00:47, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Except the reference you've now provided seems to disprove the claim; looking at his page on Connelly, he was not selected for America's Top Doctors at all. He was selected for Top Doctors: New York Metro area. Had he been selected for America's Top Doctors, it would list in the list of publications on the right side of his page, as you see for this doctor. --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:53, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• Keep It is true as Guillaume has demonstrated that the subject does not meet the criteria at WP:ACADEMIC; he is only an associate professor, and his publications do not meet the usual requirements. However, he may well qualify for an article under WP:ANYBIO. Google News search finds a lot of articles in at least four languages. One is a substantial article about him and his research team in Science News Daily. Another (sorry, can't link to it due to laptop limitations) quotes him in a New York Times article.
  Some advice for User:Rousseauwake: please back off and stop trying to edit/keep this article. It is in terrible shape, completely non-encyclopedic, and your attempts to improve it are making it worse. The entire "honors" and "publications" sections should be deleted, they do not contribute to his notability. Instead the article should explain who he is, what his training/background is, and what his impact on the field is. Tell you what: in a day or two I'll have some time to rework the article. In the meantime, please follow the instructions at WP:COI and do not edit the article yourself. Instead, if you have something you think needs to be in the article, post it on the article's talk page and let an experienced Wikipedia editor decide whether and how to put it in the article. One thing I would like to know: one of the news programs seemed to refer to him as holding an endowed assistant professorship; what's that about? Anyhow, in my opinion he deserves an article here, but not in its present form. Please trust the rest of us to fix it up. MelanieN (talk) 16:43, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment Hi MelanieN, I think that's an accurate assessment. As you can probably tell, I'm relatively new to this whole article creation process on Wikipedia, so thank you for stepping in and fixing up the page. :) I will refrain from editing and let you take over! With respect to the endowed assistant professorship reference, I'm not entirely sure, but I'll look into it and get back to you. Do you know which news program referenced that, by chance? Rosseauwake (talk) 22:54, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

That 2008 article in Science News Daily referred to him as "the Alvina and Willis Murphy Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery and head of the Brain Tumor Research Group, at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell." I gather that he is now an associate professor rather than an assistant professor, but I was puzzled by the title "Alvina and Willis Murphy Assistant Professor". That sounds like an endowed professorship, but endowed professorships are usually given only to tenured full professors. Oh, OK, here's the deal: [1]. I can use that in the article, although it may not be enough by itself to make him notable. --MelanieN (talk) 05:01, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment I have completely rewritten the article, wikifying it and adding references. Those who have already expressed an opinion about it are invited to take another look. --MelanieN (talk) 06:03, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
• Keep Thanks to MelanieN for a great job. I am changing my own !vote to "keep", but given that there is another "delete" !vote, withdrawing the nom is not possible at this point. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 09:23, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment I'm not seeing it. That Science Daily piece is just a press release stripped of its attribution, and we are told that those do not count toward notability. The other third-party sources currently in the article briefly quote him, and are not substantially about him. As such, the things being presented here don't seem to match any relevant notability guideline. I maintain my delete stance. --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:34, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

• Keep - once you start looking, there are mentions of Boockvar in a number of sources. While there certainly are some press releases, they are being published in decent sources. And we have two New York Times reports on the work he is doing. The New York Times report I have just used in the article - [2] - is sufficient by itself to show notability. That is a very thorough report on the importance of his work. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 02:31, 19 March 2012 (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.