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.
Being the first African-American Woman to earn a PhD in physics from UCBerkeley, does not entitle to auto-notability. Specific stream; specific university....the more are the parameters, the less important is being the first one.
Her exhibitions have not received prominent coverage, either and the Smithsonian fellowship is a minor one. The coverage of her art-works in The Mercury News is typical mention of a town-event, that is going to be held and not a review. The East Bay Express is more of a PR-spam which has regurgitated her own words.∯WBGconverse12:56, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Winged Blades of Godric: Perhaps you could explain why you refer to a guideline meant for companies and organisations when discussing a BLP? I think I see what you're trying to get at, but it would be useful to show your working. Richard Nevell (talk) 18:08, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think I see what you're trying to get at, but it would be useful to show your working -- this is a typical phrase that I say to students, when tutoring maths and find it a bit patronising to hear over here.
Suppose, I launch a newspaper that covers my village. When the local village head-man has died, it is featured at the very front-page and across few many, in the middle. As, the village-doctor's daughter get married , there will be detailed reporting about ceremonies and all that. There will be detailed profiles of all the students, who passed out of the village school.
I run a newspaper that covers my town which have numerous villages. The village headman's death gets relegated to about two pieces in the third page. There's no stuff about marriage; other than a mere mention in the events header. There's a 150 words article mentioning the performance of the school in a few lines and feautres some bytes from the headmaster and the school-topper(s).
I run a newspaper that covers my district which have numerous towns. We don't care about headman deaths; unless it's of the largest villages. We publish a combined article about the performance of all schools and only the pass-percentage is mentioned in a tabular form. We don't even know that she is getting married.
Somebody can bring the village-newspaper and claim that each of the village student is notable or that the marriage is notable. Pages of coverage, after all. But, is it?
But, at any case, the papers have enough circulation and it's not in my nomination-statement either. It's all about intellectually independent coverage per what's sought at NARTIST. ∯WBGconverse18:33, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Victuallers, are you aware of WP:NARTIST whose relevant criteria states:- The person has created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work or collective body of work. In addition, such work must have been the primary subject of an independent and notable work (for example, a book, film, or television series, but usually not a single episode of a television series) or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews. ? ∯WBGconverse14:32, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Jesswade88 has a high profile as a young scientist writing about other women working in science, 5 of the articles she has created have been nominated for deletion in the past week, this is a really really unhealthy pattern. John Cummings (talk) 14:34, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I did not nominate a single one out of them and rest assured, I certainly don't control other's actions. By the way, read WP:AADD (and, specifically WP:ADHOM) because your !vote is devoid of rationale. ∯WBGconverse14:38, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)I don't have an opinion yet on whether this should be deleted or not but "this person wrote it" does not mean that anything should be kept - editors are not journalists (even if by profession) while editing, so implying that any editor is somehow an expert in their role as an editor of Wikipedia is problematic. Judge the article based on the subject's merit, not the creator. Commenting on the content, not contributor applies both ways in this respect, negative and positive.) Praxidicae (talk) 15:09, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
weak Delete - The only WP:INDEPENDENT reliable sources are a local papers (Mercury News, East Bay Express), a podcast (65 Days of Astronomy), and Smithsonian mag. None of these go to supporting a criteria listed at WP:NACADEMIC ("first X to receive a PhD at Y" is not a criteria). The Smithsonian ref is the briefest of name drops, and doesn't support the line it cites (I've tagged it)(fixed). The two articles in local papers are primarily about one event (an exhibition) and don't satisfy WP:NARTIST. The podcast appearance is a plus on both artist and academic ends, but altogether with the other independent sources I don't think passes the bar of WP:SIGCOV. If other independent sources are found, I could be convinced to swing toward keep and give the article more time. -- Netoholic@15:01, 3 May 2019 (UTC) (updated vote)[reply]
Keep. Enough coverage of her from enough independent sources for GNG. Netoholic's reasoning that "none of this go towards NACADEMIC" is ridiculous and wrongheaded: these sources are mostly unrelated to her academic accomplishments (which are probably WP:TOOSOON) but her accomplishments as an artist. Also, I think that this pattern of targeting Jesswade's creations of articles on women (this is now the fourth such AfD to be created within a span of days) is an extremely unhealthy pattern that displays the institutional misogyny inherent in Wikipedia. We can and should do better than that. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:18, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
XOR'easter, by enough I assume the three sources (2 from Mercury News and one from East Bay). Right? So, now 3 local articles mentioning a woman's exhibition means that she gets an article. Nice. WP:NARTIST has gone for a toss. ∯WBGconverse15:39, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know about X's opinion, but I'm counting Smithsonian Magazine as well. It's a major magazine and I think it's well-enough separated from the specific branch of the Smithsonian that she works for to count as independent. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:15, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The Smithsonian article is a brief name drop that only concerns how she was hired at Harvard. Good, independent, reliable, background info, but not "significant coverage" by a loooong shot. -- Netoholic@16:17, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, sufficient coverage demonstrated in total, between being a minority physicist, an activist, and an artist. Quite possibly none of the three would suffice independently - she's not the most notable physicist, or the most notable activist, or the most notable artist - but together she crosses the bar in my opinion. --GRuban (talk) 17:24, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep in addition to the factors mentioned above, especially the summary by GRuban, the John Harvard Distinguished Science Fellow award shows recognition and notability. ch (talk) 17:33, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, unless notability as a scientist is clearly demonstrated, which doesn't seem to be happening. Absolutely & certainly not notable as an artist, or under GNG. Three areas of 1/3 notability do not add up to notability! But I'm not sure if she makes WP:PROF - comments on citations would be useful. Johnbod (talk) 17:42, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Of course they do. Otherwise we could break every way in which a person was notable into individual events, then disqualify them one at a time per WP:BLP1EVENT, and we could disqualify every source covering that person as "that's just one source", and so forth. Almost all notable people are notable due to the combination of things about them that make them notable. Writers are rarely notable for one book, scientists for one paper, usually for all the books and papers they have written over they course of their lives. This person is notable as an artist and a physicist. --GRuban (talk) 01:36, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep It wouldn’t matter if she was the 1,000th woman to earn a Ph. D. from the University of Saturn, from what I’ve been able to see there is academic notability and could be expanded further in the future. Trillfendi (talk) 17:59, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I agree the "first" isn't the issue. She's mentioned in enough external sources to establish notability. François Robere (talk) 18:45, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Given that it is the only thing mentioned in the introduction, I assume her status as "the first African-American woman to earn a PhD in astrophysics at the University of California, Berkeley" is asserted as her primary claim to notability. I was the first Czech-French woman to attend my school and probably the first of that background to do a lot of niche stuff in France & Belgium. Essentially this idea that you deserve an article just because you are the first person of your specific background to do a very specific thing at a very specific place is something that is apparently only applied to Americans here, and never accepted for people from other countries. I'm not quite sure about notability, though; it looks like a case of WP:TOOSOON to me, although there is some coverage and she seems to be well on track to become notable. --Tataral (talk) 18:55, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep There is enough coverage in RS for GNG for the subject of this article. The local sources issue is a red herring and not mentioned even once on WP:GNG. As Tataral pointed out the lead wasn't very good, so I improved it. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:03, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
GNG specifies "significant coverage", which is a subjective bar. Consider that 2 local articles about a single event is less coverage than your average high school football coach gets in a lifetime. This also relates to WP:BLP1E and its appropriate to look at this as minimal, non-persistent coverage in local media about a single event. -- Netoholic@19:42, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Netoholic GNG is also cumulative. She is part of a Smithsonian article and her work is discussed in AAS Nova. There is no BLP1E here because there are multiple sources discussing different parts of her life. And comparing her contributions as an artist by to an "average high school football coach" is not relevant at all, so I'm not sure what you're trying to imply here. Winged Blades of Godric Why do you say "It's nice that you chose to evade the entire nomination...."? That feels a little pointed and I've not been rude here nor am I "evading". If an article passes GNG, that's enough. You don't need anything else. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 20:04, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Cumulative, perhaps, but only within one area. The independent sources seem to take interest that she is into both art and astronomy... but you can't combine minimal coverage as an artist + minimal coverage as an post-doc astronomer + a sprinkle of a mention about how she was hired to Harvard and build a satisfying cake of "significance". I'd really hoped that interested editors would have found more sources rather than debate the scraps that we have. She is ultimately both a WP:Run-of-the-mill artist and a WP:Run-of-the-mill astronomy post-doc, and this is all WP:TOOSOON for either category. -- Netoholic@20:18, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
High school football coaches are written up in multiple RS, too. If you're relying on GNG, I think you have to pass the high school coach test. She's on a track that might get her there... but its just not true at the moment. -- Netoholic@20:29, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep partly per K.e.coffman. Also the 14 current sources in the article contain substantial details about her and enough to meet GNG. – Ammarpad (talk) 09:04, 4 May 2019 (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.