Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Peter Proctor

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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 delete. Mark Arsten (talk) 17:42, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Peter Proctor[edit]

Peter Proctor (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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This is a WP:BLP about an American scientist who has actively sought to promote the idea that he was overlooked for a Nobel Prize, a contention that has never been taken up by secondary sources independent of the subject. To understand this page, it is vital to be familiar with Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Pproctor/Archive. The page subject has created a large drawerful of sockpuppets who created the page, supported one another in editing it, and teamed with one another to argue with (and make personal attacks against) editors who have questioned the subject's notability or proposed deletion. The talk page has seen extensive discussion about notability, and if one overlooks the sock comments, there is a clear consensus that the page fails WP:ACADEMIC, and that the claims about some commercial products promoted by the page subject fail WP:GNG. (See also Talk:Nobel Prize controversies#RfC: Should the 2000 Chemistry section be removed?) Most of the sourcing is not independent of the subject. Thus, no matter how much one looks for additional sourcing or tries to improve the page, it fails WP:BIO and WP:SOAP. We should seriously consider WP:SALT.

Please note that, based upon the socking history, it is extremely probable that single purpose accounts will show up here to defend the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:36, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As discussion has continued, it seems to me that the principal remaining issue is whether or not there are works by the subject that have been influential in secondary sources, but which are independent of John McGinness, whose notability is not being challenged in this discussion. Simply having been once associated with a notable person does not confer notability. I'm open to being proven wrong, but it looks to me like such publications do not exist. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:55, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - This article has caused WP nothing but grief. User:Pproctor created the article about himself, and has inserted large amounts of vanity material in it and in other WP articles. Proctor is now banned for sockpuppetry, and most vanity material has been removed. Should the Peter Proctor article remain? There are very few secondary sources that mention Proctor, but WP:SELFPUB does permit his own writings to be used to a limited extent. Most of the sources used in the article used aren't self-published: they are written by Proctor and published in journals, so that make them valid: but still primary sources, not 2ndary. User:Jesanj, on Proctor's talk page, said that Proctors h-index is 49, which may demonstrate that he does deserve an article. I was not able to confirm Proctor's h-index value, nor am I familiar with any convention adopted in AfD that h-indexes above a certain threshold are legitimate. If an article is kept, it should focus on 2ndary sources, and hence will be very small. I'm tempted to !vote Delete just because Proctor has caused WP so much trouble, but that would be punitive. So, I'll just post this comment. --Noleander (talk) 01:37, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I actually agree with you that being punitive is not a valid reason for deletion. But, in my understanding of things, failure to satisfy WP:ACADEMIC, WP:GNG, WP:BIO, and WP:SOAP is an entirely valid reason to delete, and that is what my nomination argues. I have, obviously, also pointed out the disruption, but my purpose there was to (1) make it harder for disruption to continue during the AfD discussion, and (2) make it clearer to previously uninvolved editors in this discussion what was going on, should that disruption re-emerge. About the self-published primary sources, WP:GNG requires sourcing that is independent of the subject; thus, although such primary sources satisfy WP:RS when used properly, they do not establish notability. The few truly independent secondary sources on the page do not help with notability, since they are merely cited as scientific background, without reflecting on the notability of the subject. Relying on an h-index to satisfy WP:ACADEMIC is tricky, and I would be reluctant to accept a value mentioned on a talk page without verifiable sourcing. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:02, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I am sympathetic to Noleander's views. But we can still recommend deletion even if the article's author is just a flagrant, serial, bullying (via socks) abuser of Wikipedia to misrepresent areas of science. My recommendation to delete is based on the absence of external recognition - no awards, no honorary titles (xyz professor of X), no lauded books, no lectureships (plenary lecture on abc), no stature conferred from sources of conventional authority. Since 99% of article was written by Proctor about Proctor, if we allow the article stand, we are tacitly allowing editors to write autobiographies.--Smokefoot (talk) 03:49, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note. More than 15 known socks have been implicated to be used by Proctor prior to January, 2013. Since January 2013, when this series of investigations took a serious turn, several new editors have popped up, each with an amazingly singular focus on this relatively obscure topic. --Smokefoot (talk) 14:52, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I suggest that the two following articles be considered together, because while not intrinsic they share an indisputable history
1. John McGinness Article, created & edited by Pproctor - no consensus reached on it, perhaps consensus building could be directed here as well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/John_McGinness
2. Peter H. Proctor Article edited by Nucleoliphic who may = John McGinness hypothesis?
I do not know if this is related to the sock investigation but could there possibly perhaps may of been 2 masters? Could Nucleoliphic perhaps = McGinness, because they may of created & edited each others pages, due to the Phd in related to physics on talk pg of Nucleoliphic & Nucleoliphic says he is not Pproctor but meets him at board meetings which would make sense since they both currently serve on the same less then 5 member Board of Directors I found of both Novelta and Nanoflux Tech. Holdings? Diagram showing connections listed at Corporation Wiki under Peter H. Proctor executive profile. http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=peter+h.+proctor+executive+profile+&oq=peter+h.+proctor+executive+profile+&gs_l=hp.3...539.16643.0.17746.58.47.8.2.3.0.561.6600.13j28j5j5-1.47.0.les%3B..2.0...1c.1.5.psy-ab.D1N6ScvgZao&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.43287494,d.b2I&fp=5f5c1b7c79913b10&biw=1366&bih=643 plus if McGinness is retired he may have far more free time than a working Physician such as Dr. Proctor to contribute online. Finally the personality of the Nucleoliphilic is different that Pproctor. Again the foregoing is a hypothesis only.
The John McGinness article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/John_McGinness no consensus was achieved on Deletion due in part to what one editor shared there I found "to long, not read" perhaps this could be an opportunity to achieve that consensus for both articles.Inhouse expert (talk) 04:50, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the way that AfD works, there needs to be a named discussion for each page considered for deletion. It's possible to open a discussion about multiple pages at once, but that's not what I did. So, you or someone else would have to start the AfD process for any other pages. For now, we are specifically discussing the Peter Proctor page. The checkuser investigation to which I linked in the nomination statement determined that Nucleophilic is Dr. Proctor. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:08, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:00, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:01, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:01, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The article itself could be speedied as ridiculously and over-the-top promotional, but let's put this one to rest. [1] Searching under Gscholar for "PH Proctor" as the author finds an h-index of 14, which is too low for WP:PROF#C1 in the extremely high citation fields of medical research. I see no other claim to notability under WP:PROF. The references in this article, especially as a ton of them are primary, are a classic case of TLDR, but a gnews search, as well as the work by earlier editors on the page, find nothing to pass WP:BIO's requirement for significant coverage in secondary sources independent of the subject. The closing admin may indeed wish to consider salting the article due to the history with sockpuppetry. RayTalk 01:18, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The history is undeniably bad, but we're only debating notability here. Proctor does appear to have a citation record that satisfies our conventional requirements (from WoS): 181, 105, 70, 64... with some of these being in Science and Nature. Dr. Proctor's career/work in mainstream research seems to have ended quite some time ago and he appears to have been making his living as a clinician (drproctor.com seems to be his clinical practice website). Content can be edited appropriately (art. should probably be stubbed) and the article can be locked down if socking continues to be a problem. Agricola44 (talk) 17:09, 8 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]
I agree with you that we are only debating notability here, but. Based on your description of his move from research to clinical practice, are you sure that he was not denied tenure? (And the link you provide is kind of laughable for an academic scientist!) Your argument about WOS goes to WP:PROF Criterion 1, and it's worth looking carefully at the notes to that criterion. You cite only two papers with WOS numbers above 100 (one just barely above), and that's not very much for the subject's field(s) of science. Further, do we know whether these papers were ones on which he was a principal author, or ones where he was merely one of several authors on another principal investigator's work? (I no longer have access to WOS, so I'm not able to check for myself.) In this discussion, we've had one editor cite another editor as saying that the h-index was 49, followed by another editor saying here that the h-index is 14 – so I don't want to take any editor claims about metrics on face value in this discussion. On the article talk page as well as at Talk:Nobel Prize controversies#RfC: Should the 2000 Chemistry section be removed, there has been a lot of discussion about whether any truly independent secondary sources have commented on the subject's works, and there just does not seem to be much if anything showing up. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:54, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I am indeed arguing on WP:PROF. Whether he was denied tenure and the fact that he runs some kind of hair clinic nowadays are irrelevant. Most of his papers are from the 1970s and early 80's, hence my speculation that he wasn't actually in the academic world all that long and that h-index is arguably not appropriate here. Judging by citations, he did write several somewhat important papers a long time ago and I think that qualifies him. (Your point about his specific contributions is well-taken, but this is problematic with almost every scientist here and we often give the benefit of the doubt.) Conversely, I think also that the article should probably be stubbed – WP is not the place to go into the minutiae of every single paper someone published. Eds/socks have caused lots of trouble here, but I think it's important to not confuse this with the documented contributions of Proctor, even if the socks are him. Agricola44 (talk) 23:57, 8 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]
About "we often give the benefit of the doubt" concerning specific contributions, the question becomes whether we should give that benefit for this particular page; otherwise it becomes a WP:OTHERSTUFF argument for keep. So the question becomes: did he actually write what you call "several somewhat important papers", or was he simply a co-author on those papers that were primarily other people's work? We agree that the h-index is a dubious measure, and I'm also questioning the WOS metrics. I might be persuaded if we could see secondary sources citing findings that are actually associated with Proctor's own work, but, heck, when I was in graduate school, I was a coauthor on widely cited papers by my advisor, but that work would be attributed to him, not me. I'm just not persuaded that WOS metrics, by themselves, establish notability in the absence of any other evidence of notability. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:29, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, in this case, Dr. Proctor's advisor was John McGinness. I'd be disinclined to put much weight here on papers coauthored by the two of them, in that high citation rates for such papers would count much more towards notability of Dr. McGinness (whose page, of course, is not up for deletion here) than for notability of Dr. Proctor. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:12, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Searching for "P H Procter" in GS gives some well-cited papers and an h-index around 16. A good start but, as Ray clearly says, not enough for this highly cited field. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:35, 9 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]
  • Weak delete. The case for WP:PROF is borderline and given all the COI and sockpuppetry issues I think we're best off without. Given that he seems to have made such a big deal about not winning the Nobel, proper coverage of him should say something about it, but disinterested and reliable sources don't seem to exist. So we're left with an unbalanced article that just avoids talking about the issue, also not a good thing. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:17, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question, to those who were involved with this sock puppet investigation, who exactly out of the members named on that page were shown to have the same IP address or were any and all checked, as that is more definitive than some of the other lines of evidence of course?Inhouse expert (talk) 20:13, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • The IP addresses are visible only to Checkusers, and they've said all they're going to say on the subject in the linked investigation archive (e.g. the "Confirmed" etc messages). So we won't get a clearer picture than we already have about which kind of evidence was used for this check. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:53, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • And the reason that they will not say more is that our privacy policy makes that kind of information confidential. Even editors who sock are entitled to personal privacy. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:11, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Agree with others who say does not meet the notability standards and given the COI and socking I agree with David Eppstein we are better off without this article. LGA talkedits 00:03, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete -- agree with David Eppstein and the general principles of User:Antandrus/observations on Wikipedia behavior (9, 13, 66) that for borderline cases, we need to ask, is this making the encyclopedia better or worse? The sockpuppets + Single purpose account + ridiculous claims to being denied a Nobel, make me conclude the answer is worse, and delete will improve WP. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 03:23, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep In borderline cases we can consider whether it makes the encyclopedia better or worse, and I think it makes it better to have the information in the present reasonably neutral article; all it takes is a little further condensation and less use of the subject's name. What we well might want to rid ourselves of is the editor who is making this difficult by trying for the most promotional articles possible. Some people can write about themselves objectively, but we rightly discourage it, and this discussion will show why. DGG ( talk ) 04:27, 13 March 2013 (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.
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