Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Dwyer (professor)

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 no consensus. Cbrown1023 talk 18:45, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

John Dwyer (professor)

John Dwyer (professor) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Non-notable academic. Being a Fellow of the IEE doesn't seem adequate for WP:PROF, which is the only biographical guideline which seems to apply. Dwyer function, which would, if accepted, also be grounds for at least putting some biographical information in that article, is also up for deletion by {{prod}}. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 14:45, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. Weak publication record, now at an unaccredited university. Former deputy head is not enough (former dean, maybe, but he's not that) and neither is fellow of IEE (fellow of the IEEE would probably be enough for me, but again, he's not that). Does not pass WP:PROF. —David Eppstein (talk) 14:57, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
• Richmond is accredited in the UK and in the US; Dwyer was indeed previously Fellow of the IEE for many years; if the more complete biographical information had not been recently deleted, it would be clear that Dwyer was Department Chair at Richmond for more than twelve years, a Director of a postgraduate studies for two years and a Ph.D. external examiner at the University of Portsmouth. Dwyer is a full professor at Richmond.[Dwyerj] The preceding comment was added by User:Dwyerj, who created the article John Dwyer (professor). Nsk92 (talk) 16:31, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Perhaps I misunderstood the line "The DFES (Department for Education and Skills) in the UK DOES NOT list Richmond as a recognised "Degree Awarding Body" in Richmond, The American International University in London? —David Eppstein (talk) 17:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Thank you David. The "recognition" section in Wiki-Richmond definitely needs correcting but I think our Accreditation VP should talk care of it rather than me. For sure, we are accredited to award degrees in both the UK and in the US. (Dwyerj) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.54.243.250 (talk) 11:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
• Comment I am not ready to vote yet, but certain things about this article look strange. For example, the article claims that he used to be a "Deputy Head of the Computer Science Department at the City University of New York". I don't know what that means. I am very well familiar with the CUNY system and it consists of a large number of colleges, each with its own department structure. So there is no such single thing as "The Computer Science Department at the City University of New York". The colleges that comprise the CUNY system vary widely in standing and reputation, from the City College of CUNY to various community colleges. So at best the phrase "Deputy Head of the Computer Science Department at the City University of New York" is ambiguous and at worst it is misleading. Either way it needs to be clarified. I looked up Dwyer's webpage at Richmond [1] and the same ambiguous language is used there. Nsk92 (talk) 16:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I worked at the City College School of Engineering (Dwyerj) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.54.243.250 (talk) 11:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I was preparing to poke around in the Wayback Machine, but unfortunately all of cuny.edu is blocked. --Dhartung | Talk 17:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. I'm not sure what it adds to this case, but apparently Rudy Giuliani mentioned him, peripherally and not by name, as part of a campaign ad, as an example of somebody the INS was spending too much attention on when they should have been deporting criminals instead. According to this web page, which cites a 2000 Rochester newspaper story about his case, he was deported because he didn't have the proper visa to continue working at the US college that employed him after CUNY. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
• Delete The research and publication record is very undistinguished, especially for such an active field as computer science. I could not locate any published papers that actually cite his work using GoogleScholar, GoogleBooks, etc and the h-index appears to be close to zero. Some of the publications listed, such as the first three items in Algana Associates, appear to be essentially self-published technical reports. The claim to having the Dwyer function named after him does not hold up either as this term does not seem to have been used by any-one other than Dwyer himself (Google and GoogleScholar turn up nothing relevant[2][3])The university itself does not appear to be properly recognized in the UK. In any event, the university Richmond, The American International University in London, hardly seems a place of active research. They don't even have a well-defined department structure. Thus all exact sciences and humanities are lumped together into a single "Department of Arts & Sciences" with the staff of 27 people, many of whom are adjuncts[4]. No graduate degrees in sciences are offered. The only claim to notability of any kind appears to be having been a fellow of IEE, which is not sufficient given the otherwise mostly blank research record. Fails WP:PROF. Nsk92 (talk) 18:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
• Strong Keep Dwyer is an internationally respected teacher, having worked in top universitites in London and the United States. He was also Head of the Computing Department at my university. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Usangel16 (talk • contribs)
• Strong Keep. Dr Dwyer is an exceptional academic who is extremely dedicated to the education of his students. He was Dept. Chair at my University and has worked in several top universities in the US and UK. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AmyEnever (talk • contribs) 16:32, 23 April 2008

If you want the article to be kept, you need to argue that it satisfies some Wikipedia notability guideline such as WP:PROF, WP:BIO or WP:N. (Which in my opinion is clearly not the case here). Whether or not someone is "extremely dedicated to the education of his students" is irrelevant for notability purposes. The claim of being an "exceptional academic" is also not substantiated. There is no evidence that Dwyer's work has been widely cited by other scientists in the scholarly publications in his field (in fact, I could not find any published citations of his work at all). The publication list is rather short and several items there are essentially self-published. Being a Department Chair at a place like Richmond is not indicative of notability in view of the above discussion. From what I could tell by looking at his vita, the best place Dwyer has worked was the City College of CUNY. That is a good place, but it is no Harvard or Oxford, and having worked there, in and of itself, does not indicate notability. As far as I can tell, he clearly fails each of WP:PROF, WP:BIO or WP:N. Nsk92 (talk) 18:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Keep. Dwyer was Chair of Arts and Sciences in Richmond and the university is properly accredited. Please note that wikipedia guidelines specifically advise that google scholar is not a strong measure for academic notability. Furthermore, quality of research counts above quantity of research. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kokoshaggy (talk • contribs) 19:33, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Please, give me a break. Yes, WP:PROF says that WebOfScience and Scopus are more reliable that GoogleScholar, but GoogleScholar can be used and is often used in AfD discussions as a quick test in determining academic notability. In any event, neither WebOfScience nor Scopus produce any hits for papers citing Dwyer's work either (or at least I could not find any, after quite a bit of searching). It is true that quality is more important than quantity. An yes, having one-two very highly cited papers may be enough to establish academic notability in some cases. But in this case we have no reliable sources that, per WP:RS that cite any of Dwyer's papers (forget about being highly cited, there seems to be trouble with his work being cited at all). So there are no reliable sources to substantiate that his work has made a substantial impact in his field. Nsk92 (talk) 21:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. I listed the three single-purpose accounts above at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Dwyerj. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
• STRONG KEEP All I can say is that Dr. Dwyer is a highly respected academic. I see people are making false comments about Richmond, The American International University and calling us meatpuppets and socketpuppets. Well that certainly is not the case. Dr. Dwyer was my Lecturer and advisor throughout my univeristy career going back several years, and all I can say is that he is a great academic and very well respected. Auggla (talk) 07:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • The statement "all I can say is that he is a great academic and very well respected" is not a good argument for keeping an article in WP. That statement is your personal opinion about him. Your opinion may well be justified, but you have to prove this by providing verifiable evidence to support your claim, per WP:V and WP:RS. You also need to prove, again by providing verifiable evidence, that the subject satisfies the requirements of one of Wikipedia's notability guidelines, such as WP:N, WP:BIO or WP:PROF. Unless you do that, your vote here is not going to count for much, whether it says "Keep", "Strong Keep" or "Very Strong Keep". Regarding you being or not being a meatpuppet, again, it is your actions rather than your protestations that matter here. Look up WP:MEAT and WP:SPA. Nsk92 (talk) 15:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
    • In regards to my comments earlier which was said that it had no facts only expressed an opinion. Well if one types John Dwyer in on google it will lead to pages of wikipedia of all the text book publications he has, and of which I recall using during my studies as well. Regarding the guidlines, this states that he is of notable academic due to his textbook publications as well as used literature in courses. --Auggla (talk) 15:39, 24 April 2008 (UTC) (Note: I moved both Auggla notes here from the talk page of the AfD. Both of them had the same capslocked strong keep at the start, but each user only gets to list a single opinion on an AfD, so I left off that part when I moved this second comment. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:49, 24 April 2008 (UTC))

Auggla, which textbooks are you talking about? Name them please and provide links to the results of the GoogleSearches you are talking about. If you mean the Algana Associates items listed in his WP entry, here are the GoogleSearch results for them: 1) "Algorithms: An Approach Using Puzzles & Brainteasers": 2 hits on Google, one of which to a Richmod website and another to Dywer's article on Wikipedia [5]; 2) "Speech Processing: An Interdisciplinary Approach": again, 2 hits on Google, one of which to a Richmod website and another to Dywer's article on Wikipedia [6]; "Circuits in Complete Graphs and Their Relations to Rapidly-increasing Special Functions": 7 hits[7], one of which to a website in Ruchmond, one to Dywer's article on Wikipedia and one to the Complete graph page on Wikipedia; the last link was added on April 12, 2008 (see the diff [8]) by an s.p.a IP editor 195.54.243.250 who had also edited Dwyer's wikipedia article. How is all of this evidence of notability? Has there been widespread or at least substantial use of Dywer's "textbooks" in other universities? If yes, please provide evidence of that. Do these "textbooks" even have ISBN numbers? Nsk92 (talk) 10:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

• DO NOT DELETE - As a colleague of Dr Dwyer at the Uni, I am astonished that someone with so much (30 plus years) university experience, much of it as a senior academic and Department Chair, should be considered "not notable". Even more astonishing seems to be the fact that a wikipedia editor does not know that the Uni is accredited in the USA and in the UK. Are they supposed to doublecheck before making rash comments? If not, who is double checking the editors? Finally, who says that a long publication record is the only measure of notability - presumably those who have a long publication record but little imagination. Dr Mo Adda. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.85.7.14 (talk) 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Nobody says that a long publication record is the only measure of notability. The main and most reliable measure of notability is wide citability of the work of the person in question by other scientists in the field. As I wrote above, having one or two highly cited publications may well be enough to establish notability. Here we seem to have no citations of his work at all in published works by others. Nsk92 (talk) 10:42, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

• Delete. Nothing at all that has been written in the article or in this discussion indicates any notability. If the subject of the article or his colleagues at the "university" (if any edits have really come from colleagues) had any self-respect they would be arguing for deletion of the article and this AfD discussion. Can't he/they see that the article and this discussion make him/them a laughing stock? I can't imagine any respectable academic institution will employ him after his antics, which will be accessible for a long time on this page via web searches that any prospective employer would undertake, or that anyone would wish to study at an institution that endorses them. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:36, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. My views reflect the comment above. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:35, 27 April 2008 (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.