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English Wikipedia @ Freddythechick:Articles for deletion/Lorenzo Iorio

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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, despite the hordes of WP:SPAs, who seemed unfamiliar with policy and notability guidelines. Jayjg (talk) 03:39, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Lorenzo Iorio

Lorenzo Iorio (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Non-notable scientist. Article mostly a list of his works. The biography part is unsorced. ospalh (talk) 13:47, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

  • I do not agree with Ospalh. Indeed, if this article will be deleted, the same should also be done for many other articles concerning lots of other physicists, not necessarily italian. Just take a look around. Many third-parties links to several independent sources citing Iorio's works are displayed. It is not true that the biographical part is unsorced because all the information contained in it come from Iorio's personal homepage and can easily be checked. If you are nor satisfied with that, note that also the bigraphical information of other physicists having articles here should be retained unsorced. asteraX99 (talk) 16:22, 17 December 2009 (UTC) — AsteraX99 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS TheWeakWilled (T * G) 19:29, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Keep. Article needs massive cleanup so it doesn't read like a CV/praise article, but his English CV ([1]) cites several third-party mentions, at least one of which has Mr. Iorio's research as the primary subject. To me that means he qualifies under WP:BIO. KuyaBriBriTalk 16:06, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Keep.I agree with AsteraX99 and Kuyabribri. There are several wiki articles on other physicists that basically do not contain any verifiable information concerning their lifes and, especially, their research activities and publications, so it would be absurd to delete just this one. I must admit that I find the overall tone not particularly Iorio-oriented. It is rather impartial and it describes well his research activity.

Personally, I do not find reasons to remove his publications. On the contrary, I would invite contributors to do the same also for the other physicists listed here. Anyway, suggestions on how to fruitfully improve this page are certainly welcome. 775Jeanstar1 (talk) 18:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC) — 775Jeanstar1 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS TheWeakWilled (T * G) 19:29, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Keep. Basically, I do not see sound reasons to delete this well-detailed page. Unless one decides that only Newton, Einstein, Planck, etc. must have their place here, this article is well-suited for the scopes of WikiPedia. Certainly, it can be amended and improved, but it should not be deleted in my opinion. Black_90745 (talk) 08:43, 18 December 2009 (UTC) — Black_90475 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:10, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Keep. Many of the prior arguments for keeping are weak, as they're based essentially on WP:OTHERSTUFF. Let me provide a more objective argument on the basis of citations. WoS shows 93 peer-reviewed papers, with citations 31, 30, 24, 23, ... for an h-index of 13. I know this can be considered a borderline number, but I will further point out that almost all his papers have a very small author list (lots are just single-authored by him), so it's a safe assumption that these represent his contributions, rather than just a "coattail notability". Second, the citation numbers do not decay very quickly, e.g. the 20th highest paper still has 9 citations and the 60th highest still has 1 citation. Consequently, his overall body of scientific work has had a demonstrable impact. For those who want to double-check, the WoS query I used was "Author=(Iorio L*) Refined by: Subject Areas=(ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS OR PHYSICS, MULTIDISCIPLINARY OR PHYSICS, NUCLEAR OR PHYSICS, PARTICLES & FIELDS OR PHYSICS, MATHEMATICAL) Timespan=All Years. Databases=SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI". Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 15:55, 18 December 2009 (UTC).
  • Keep The quantitative arguments by Agricola44 are welcome, but, for me, even without them, it is clear that this article, which I contributed to, should be kept because it refers to a scientist whose production is quite transparent adn widely available throughout the net. And his notability should clearly appear from the links inserted. Thank you Citator (talk) 21:26, 18 December 2009 (UTC) — Citator (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
    • Comment. With all due respect, you are arguing from a very week weak position. All modern scientists' contributions are widely available through the net – this is entirely irrelevant to a notability assessment. Have a look at WP:PROF to see what criteria matter in this type of debate. The article is littered with red-links, so that is also not a good posture. In fact, this article is in dire need of clean-up and I would expect much, if not most of the material to be resected – right now it's basically a CV. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 23:13, 18 December 2009 (UTC).
  • Weak Keep Neutral Delete per Agricola44. GS h index is 15 so is barely notable according to WP:Prof #1. The arguments presented by the red links are implausable. The article is far too long and should be cut down to half a dozen lines. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:56, 19 December 2009 (UTC).
  • Delete. The only plausible argument for notability that I have seen so far is based on citation count and h-index. I would want to see either some additional evidence of passing WP:PROF (prestigious awards, journal editorships, etc) or a significantly more impressive citation count, in order to pass WP:PROF. Nsk92 (talk) 01:08, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Keep For example, he is one of the board members of The Open Astronomy Journals (TOAJ). Anyway, some people mix the deletion and the improvement issues. One thing is asking for an improvemnt of the article, another thing is asking for its deletion which, in my opinion, is an untenable request, also because the WP:PROF points are far from being objective Citator (talk) 03:08, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
    • Please do not vote more than once. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 15:27, 20 December 2009 (UTC).
      • Ok. I am sorry, but I did not realize that my comment could be considered as a second vote. Regards. Citator (talk) 16:51, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
        • Comments aren't considered second votes. Rather, you put "keep" in both your comments. Agricola44 (talk) 15:38, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
          • I struck the second vote to make the revote more apparent to the closing admin. Although, that's hardly the most problematic conduct in this AfD... —David Eppstein (talk) 01:48, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Keep Zillator (talk) 23:44, 21 December 2009 (UTC)— Zillator (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
WP:JUSTAVOTE TheWeakWilled (T * G) 19:29, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Delete despite the apparent sockpuppet infestation, there seems little actual basis for keeping this article. His citation record is insufficiently strong to make a convincing case for WP:PROF #1, a news search turns up one NewScientist story, not enough by itself for WP:GNG, and what else is there? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:45, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NW (Talk) 16:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Delete - this is a vanity page. Little evidence this person actually passes WP:PROF. It's suspicious when they list every little thing (like refereeing papers for journals, being demanded as a supervisor from foreign students, as these apply to pretty much any prof).--24.201.13.148 (talk) 21:42, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
  • keep I note that some of the criticisms raised here have been dealt with: the red links have been removed. It has been noted that L. Iorio is member of the editorial board of The Open Astronomy Journal, its h number has been discussed. Moreover, it has also been included in an issue of Scientific American and some international newspapers and scientific magazines. His workds appear in several bibliographic databases of various academic institutions. He also received some awards. In my opinion, this is enough concerning WP:PROF, also because, all in all, such criteria are far from being objective and strictly quantitative. Anyway, they are certainly not met for several other physicists listed here. I also note that the tone of some contributors to such a discussion is not neutral and sounds to be a priori biased against him, as if they had decided since the beginning to delete this page because they have the power to do so, contrary to other users. Some of them seem to be scholars as well; maybe some form of (un)conscious envy is present in them. Also the good faith of those who want to keep this page is suspect to such people. Merry Christmas to all PaxUniversalis (talk) 01:47, 25 December 2009 (UTC)— PaxUniversalis (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
The Open Astronomy Journal published a grand total of 2 papers in 2008[2] (both by the members of its own editorial advisory board, by the way) and a grand total of 16 papers in 2009. Its editorial advisory board consists of almost 90 people, Iorio being one of them [3]. They are listed without e-mails, postal addresses or institutional affiliations, always a bad sign in my experience. The journal does not have an impact factor and, after some GoogleScholar searching, I was not able to find any papers citing research published in the journal, except for one paper that had 3 citations[4]. So far all these factors indicate a rather low quality journal to me. Nsk92 (talk) 02:28, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Such a comment clearly demonstrates that Nsk92 has little competence to judge on topics like that, and that he/she is a-priori biased against Iorio. Indeed, the affiliations and the emails of the members of the editorial board of TOAJ can easily be retrieved online by searching for them. Moreover, among them there are well-renown scientists in their field, starting from the Honorable Editor Ellis but not limiting to him. The statistics by TOAJ are simply due to the fact that it has recently been launched and that, of course, years have to pass. PaxUniversalis (talk) 11:17, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Among the various press-releases there is also one in Physics World. Moreover, a simple search on the Internet shows that Iorio's works are often cited and discussed in several blogs and forums, contrary to other physicists whose pages are present in Wikipedia and are not subject to deletion PaxUniversalis (talk) 14:51, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Regarding memberships in various societies that you mentioned: for WP:PROF#3 it is not sifficient to be a regular member, but it is needed to be an elected member or fellow. If Iorio is one of these, you need to provide a verifiable reference. Similarly, you need to provide a reference for him being a fellow of AAAS (again, it would need to be an elected fellow). Similarly, you need to provide verifiable references for him having received the prizes you mention. About the New Scientist story: I followed your suggestion and looked up the New Scientist article, "Loner stakes claim to gravity prize"[5]. Apparently, Iorio made a fairly sensational claim to have found measurable experimental evidence for the Lense-Thirring effect from general relativity. The New Scientist article mentions skeptical reception of this claim by other scientists:The result has intrigued the Gravity Probe B team. James Overduin, a team member at Stanford University, California, likes Iorio's idea but remains sceptical about the details. "Experimental claims of this importance need to be supported by rigorous error analysis, and it's far from clear that this new [work] by Iorio meets that standard," he says. "A more serious treatment would be of significant interest." To the extent Iorio's claim has been checked by other scientists, their conclusions about his claim seem to be basically negative and to say that Iorio's methods and analysis were incorrect: [6][7][8]. To quote from the abstract of the first of these:"this confirmation of general relativity was obtained by misinterpreting the MGS data and then altering a key time period". While negative coverage is coverage, I don't think it is what WP:PROF#1 has in mind. Nsk92 (talk) 11:58, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia is certainly not the right place to judge about the validity or not of scientific works of individuals. Coverage is coverage, and, as you admit, interpretation of WP:PROF is purely subjective. Anyway, it seems that your position is biased against Iorio and is not impartial enough because you quote two unpublished preprints by negelcted people who have not published anything, but you do not cite the latest published paper by Iorio on the MGS stuff: see [9] in Central European Journal of Physics which is a journal with Frank Wilczek, Nobel laureate, in its editorial board. PaxUniversalis (talk) 12:31, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
What counts for establishing notability here is coverage by independent sources (meaning written by people other than the subject of the article himself). This is a basic principle of WP:N, WP:BIO, WP:PROF and of all other notability guidelines. For these purposes self-citations by Iorio himself do not count and what matters is what other scientists write about his work. If you find papers by other scholars (not authored or co-authored by Iorio) confirming his claims, that would certainly change things. Nsk92 (talk) 12:49, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Being a fellow of the AAAS would be enough for me to change my vote to keep. However, it appears to be false: I searched the AAAS fellows listing for all fellows whose name begins with I, and he wasn't there. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:46, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment By citing non-approriately and non-pertinently to this context those unpublished preprints you unadvertitely yield a biased vision of the MGS issue shedding shadows on your impartiality. Anyway, you can simply go to the NASA ADS database and look for the papers written by other people citing his papers on MGS.

Invoking the fact that other scientists should write papers confirming his findings does not matter here: it is a strictly scientific question, and Wikipedia is not a venue for that. Generally speaking, look carefully at the list of external links in the Wikipedia article on Lorenzo Iorio: you will find lot of stuff, so that one can avoid to insert here one link at a time. For example, there is one in Portuguese on the Pioneer Anomaly [10]. Or you can look at Sky and Telescope, july 2006, pag. 20. Unfortunately, it seems that the server of ST does not work properly now, but the ST article on Iorio is cited in [11]. Anyway, I found the original documents concerning Iorio's prizes and associations and I inserted them in the article. Please note that Iorio is an elected Fellow of RAS and was an elected Fellow of AAAS. Concerning SIMCA, he is Socio Ordinario (Ordinary Member): the category of ordinary Members is reserved for distinguished professionals, while the one of Soci Straordinari (Extraordinary Members) refers to all other people simply interested in space machanics PaxUniversalis (talk) 14:27, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I also note that, among the various external links in the Iorio's article in Wikipedia there is one that shows that one paper of him was included in the category "Papers which might be of interest for science writers, for public information officers and for the press media and which will be forwarded to the Press Officer" of one EGU assembly [12]. PaxUniversalis (talk) 14:40, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
The Iorio's works are included also in the Technology blog by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 79.12.5.146 (talk) 15:06, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

From the list of the External links I note that also the page by Dr. Kasia Malek discusses a recently published paper by Iorio. PaxUniversalis (talk) 15:09, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I added two links to blogs dealing with the anomalous perihelion precession of Saturn which should contribute to enforce the WP:PROF points. Moreover, in the previous list of external links I noted that he is present also in one SISSA database; SISSA is certainly a prestigious international institution. Also the MIT Technology Review Blog deals with a Iorio's work on the Pioneer Anomaly [14] 876Xilli (talk) 17:34, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
You should read WP:V and WP:RS more carefully: blogs and discussion forums do not qualify as reliable sources; neither is inclusion in various bibliographic databases significant for establishing notability. What counts for establishing academic impact is the discussion of Iorio's work in published work of other scientists. That's what you should be looking for. Nsk92 (talk) 03:36, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment: The article is turning into a mess of links and publications farm, i.e. a massive attempt at overpromotion. Quantity over actual quality. I don't think it's helping the case for keeping.--24.201.13.148 (talk) 19:16, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
It sounds strange: some people demand higher standards of verifiable information meeting the WP:PROF criteria, and when other people improve the article adding such required information or discuss that already present in the article and missed by some critics, there somebody who criticizes this information appears and says that including too much information concerning the notability, etc. is overpromotion... 876Xilli (talk) 23:17, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Comment: take a look at the following articles: Charles K. Kao, Willard Boyle, Toshihide Maskawa, Yoichiro Nambu, etc. or any other Nobel laureates in Physics. They are all objectively more notable than Iorio, and none consists of long publication lists or attempts to overcompensate for lack of actual notability following the guidelines. If Iorio passed WP:PROF, all you'd need was a handful of cites from reliable secondary sources.--24.201.13.148 (talk) 23:40, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
I added more required verifiable information about some claims made in the article, as required. As somebody else has already noted in this discussion, if only Nobel laureates should be included in Wikipedia, very few articles to physicists should be included in Wikipedia. It seems a very weak argument to me in favor of a deletion. 876Xilli (talk) 00:28, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Keep Let us analize the points of WP:PROF having in mind all the caveats, etc. of that page:

1) The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources.

This point has been addressed by other people here also with quantitative paramters. In my opinion, this point is met, also in consideration of the field of research of Mr. Iorio and of the already noted fact that he is the sole author of most of his works. Anyway, as the WP:PROF page itself clarifies, such quantitative criteria are not so quantitative as too often one beleves. Anyway, look at databases like NASA ADS to see the citations scored by Iorio. For me one cannot say that criterion 1 is not met.

2) The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level.

Also this point is met, as it has been proven

3) The person is or has been an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association (e.g. a National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society) or a Fellow of a major scholarly society for which that is a highly selective honor (e.g. the IEEE)

Again, the criterion is met, as it has been pointed out by others here and as it has been proven.

4) The person's academic work has made a significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions.

In my opinion, Iorio met this criterion: he has been invited as lecturer at an International School in Brasil and he is editor of a book on gravitomagnetism including contributions from experts in the field.

7) The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity.

The media coverage has been exhaustively shown: no local newspapers are involved, but several international magazines and newspapers, blogs, etc. (on the Internet there is even more stuff than that listed here and in the article)

8) The person is or has been an editor-in-chief of a major well-established journal in their subject area.

He is a board member of a recently estabilished journal which includes in the editorial board several notable scientists in the field.

All in all, I think that if on one side an improvement of the article is certainly desirable, on the other one a deletion would be inappropriate. StarryingMatter87 (talk) 03:40, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

  • Comment The above account, User:StarryingMatter87, has been registered today. Among its edits is a creation of a new article citing Iorio's work [15]. Nsk92 (talk) 04:12, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
What is the problem? Indeed, in preparing my article on the Gravitomagnetic Clock Effect I came across some references of him. I retrieved them from this article which I found useful. I do not understand why I should have not insert them in my article StarryingMatter87 (talk) 09:25, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Concerning point 7), I discovered an article by Sky and Telescope and added it. StarryingMatter87 (talk) 12:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

  • DeleteThe determined effort to make this person look notable is absolutely baffling. However, the citation rates don't lie: his work has not had any major influence yet. Does not meet any of the criteria of WP:PROF. Article in urgent need of stubbifying, one of the worst I have seen in a long time... --Crusio (talk) 15:34, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Comment Unfortunately, Dr. Crusio seems to be not aware of the differences existing between his field of research and the one in which the individual of this article is involved, so that, in my opinion, it is wrong to use criteria which may be valid in a field, but not in another one. And such criteria are far from being objective, as WP:PROF page itself clearly shows. Moreover, his so harsh words sound a bit inapproriate, given that it cannot certainly be stated that Dr. Crusio makes every effort to pass unnoticed here in Wikipedia...876Xilli (talk) 19:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
876Xilli, stop it now! You should read WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. If you persist with personal attacks, you can be blocked from editing. Nsk92 (talk) 19:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I apologize with Dr. Crusio and I hope he did not feel offended because it was not my intention. 876Xilli (talk) 19:34, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
The following article can shed some light on the h-index [16] and shows the differences among the various fields of research. 876Xilli (talk) 20:00, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Delete - vanity article about nn scientist who fails WP:PROF. Any reputable scientist of his age would have a similar-looking track record but that doesn't make him notable. andy (talk) 11:22, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Keep I do not agree with andy; it is not true that other reputable researchers of his age active in his field have a similar track. For me, WP:PROF are generally met: perhaps, points 4, 5 and 6 are not so good as the other ones, but I would not delete this article. Greetings. Gravitom (talk) 11:45, 29 December 2009 (UTC) — Gravitom (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. andy (talk) 12:05, 29 December 2009 (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.
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