Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Angela Zhang (scientist)

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. Keep, based on GNG, while not meeting the NPROF yet. Tone 08:19, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Angela Zhang (scientist)

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I don't think she meets Wikipedia:Notability (academics). For a scientist, she is probably too young to have a page about her (still pursuing PhD/MD according to her LinkedIn page [1]). Meeting President Obama at age 17 does not confer notability. Her "major contribution" appears to be research carried out while in high school. There are some articles written about her, but "cancer-curing teenager" seems more hyperbole than substance. MVP-nostalgia (talk) 01:26, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. ~ Amkgp 💬 05:35, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. ~ Amkgp 💬 05:35, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 07:31, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I see no automatic notabilty from winning the International Science and Engineering Fair, all coverage related to that and does not pass NACADEMIC. Reywas92^Talk 17:29, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Thank you for commenting. I note that the International Science and Engineering Fair article has a list of "top prize winners", but her name is not there. Perhaps she has won something lower than "top prize". MVP-nostalgia (talk) 17:42, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment For ISED, looking at https://sspcdn.blob.core.windows.net/files/Documents/SEP/ISEF/2011/Press-Releases/Grand-Awards.pdf she won a $3000 award (ref ME054), which was buried on page 32. That's definitely not a notable award in itself. The Siemens Competition one might be though? -Kj cheetham (talk) 19:50, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thanks for commenting. The Siemens Competition seems to be a competition for high school students. While obviously very competitive, I don't think it confers encyclopedic notability in itself. Do winners of other national high school competitions (e.g. sports) get pages on Wikipedia? MVP-nostalgia (talk) 21:15, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's not the award itself that confers notability in this case (though it's a $100000 scholarship effectively), it's the coverage of the subject in multiple independant news outlets, under WP:GNG. -Kj cheetham (talk) 08:41, 13 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Clearly meets WP:GNG with significant coverage in a combination of national (U.S. News, Atlantic) and local (Mercury) sources. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:36, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
~~Very weak~~ Keep - Fails WP:NPROF, but ~~just about~~ seems to pass WP:GNG. Due to articles in The Atlantic and Mercury News. -Kj cheetham (talk) 20:39, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Changed to a regular keep now additional sources have been added. -Kj cheetham (talk) 14:11, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete All competitions have press releases and promotional activities; lay news coverage doesn't demonstrate notability per se. Wait till she has several first-author papers. JoelleJay (talk) 20:44, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, thanks for commenting. I don't think she has any first-author papers yet per [2]. MVP-nostalgia (talk) 21:09, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think the difference is that she is headlined in multiple articles, rather than simply being mentioned in a list of laureates. You don't see this kind of coverage every day. It doesn't matter if she has subjectively done anything "important" enough to merit an article because it's not our place to be the judge; we simply follow what the sources say. GNG alone (without meeting PROF) is sufficient. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:17, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, thanks for your input, but I respectfully disagree.
1. I will argue that she is not "headlined" in any of the articles - she is either "teenager" or "student" in the titles.
2. I will argue that we should have higher bars of notability for science than pop culture. A notable YouTuber does not need to do anything, but a notable scientist should have "important" scientific or technological contributions. Yes, it's subjective, but we have evaluating guidelines (Wikipedia:Notability (academics)). If a scientist is in the news for non-scientific reasons (pop culture, getting murdered, competing in the Olympics, espionage, etc.) then that's something else, but that's not the case here. Zhang has done important research — for a teenager, which explains the coverage. She has not done important research if we take out her age element and just look at her publications like we do with other scientists ([3]).
3. I will also argue that her coverage is WP:ONEEVENT (winning the Siemens Competition in 2011). The ISED award is for the same research project, and meeting Obama is a direct result of that win. Beyond that... nothing. MVP-nostalgia (talk) 22:53, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
What I mean by "headlined" is that the headline alludes to her and the entire article is devoted to her, as opposed to having just a paragraph as part of a larger whole (which is often already enough to count as one source with significant coverage).

That is not supported in any policy, and I imagine most people would actually say the reverse.

WP:ONEEVENT does not apply here. She won the award in 2011, and was still having articles written about her in 2015 (U.S. News). This is evidence of the persistent coverage required to transcend WP:BLP1E. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:24, 13 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete does not at the present meet our inclusion criteria for academics or scientist.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:47, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing requires that an academic meet WP:NPROF, if they already meet WP:GNG. Satisfying either one of them is sufficient for notability. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:00, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 12:06, 16 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Kj cheetham (talk) 08:17, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete since she doesn't meet the notability guidelines for academics. The only thing that might make her notable is her cancer research, but it doesn't seem like the research has received any wide spread coverage. Maybe WP:GNG would apply instead of WP:NPROF, but then only one source, U.S. News., would qualify IMO. The other one from The Mercury News wouldn't because it's a local paper to the area she lives in, local papers cover that kind of thing, and I don't think that Siemens Competition is a high enough award for it to be notable on it's own. Especially since there isn't more regional or national news out there about her winning it. Ultimately, this should come down to if her scientific research has garnered peer notice. Her article is about her research, it's likely the only reason she has one, and so you can't say it's not relevant to the AfD and that WP:GNG is the only that applies. --Adamant1 (talk) 13:23, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Adamant1: Take a look at this CBS source. Even if we discount Mercury (and I don't agree with that - based on my understanding of WP:AUD, all sources, local or non-local, count as qualifying sources, and of the multiple qualifying sources just one needs to be non-local), U.S. News + CBS ought to be enough. WP:NPROF itself says: "It is possible for an academic not to be notable under the provisions of this guideline but to be notable in some other way under the general notability guideline or one of the other subject-specific notability guidelines." Nowhere does it say that people who are primarily known for their academic accomplishments must use NPROF instead of GNG. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 16:11, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment From my understanding there's some debate as to if the specific notability rules like NPROF over rule GNG or not. Personally, I'm under the impression that they mostly do (with a few exceptions). Otherwise, there's zero point in having them if people can just default to the GNG when an article doesn't meet the specific guidelines. There's some places, like with sports players and companies, where they are absolutely necessary. Otherwise, there would be no way to delete most articles in those subject areas. The need to follow them is probably a little less extreme with academics, but it shouldn't be none existant and the GNG is to general for them IMO, because ts easy to be an academic and be mentioned "somewhere." But there should be more then that. Just like mentions of sports players are a dime a dozen even with minor local teams. So the GNG alone isn't enough. Adamant1 (talk) 17:04, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2020 July 13#Matthew Jones (footballer, born 1980)‎, which deals with the opposite scenario: I closed a discussion as "keep" because the footballer met WP:NFOOTY despite not meeting WP:GNG. "Otherwise, there's zero point in having them if people can just default to the GNG when an article doesn't meet the specific guidelines" - funny, that's exactly the point I was making in defending my close, but in reverse: "Otherwise, there's zero point in having them if people can just default to the GNG [to argue for the article's deletion] when an article does meet the specific guidelines." In other words, the point of SNGs is to allow subjects to be considered notable even if they don't meet GNG. Many important academics don't receive much newspaper coverage and have an article solely by virtue of their highly cited work. GNG is always a valid argument for inclusion, unless the subject is specifically excluded in WP:NOT.

"There's some places, like with sports players and companies, where they are absolutely necessary." That's simply not true. WP:NFOOTY often results in stubs on footballers who played a few professional matches being kept; sports SNGs are widely believed to be looser than the GNG. Regarding "minor local teams", that's why we require at least one source with significant coverage to be non-local; if a local player meets that, I don't see why we shouldn't have an article on them. And WP:CORP is little more than a restatement of WP:GNG with some clarifications about the quality of sources and what constitutes significant coverage. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:43, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I never said it was news coverage or bust for academics. Obviously having highly cited work would come before a mention in the news. This person doesn't have that though. Personally, I'm not solid on the "one non-local source" rule for athletes myself. A few people were trying to argue that an athlete was notable because one of the two sources was from a Chicago newspaper and Chicago is a large area. So it shouldn't be considered a local source. I've also seen people try to combine local sources from different areas into a single "regional" source to get over the one non-local source threshold. So, I think there should be a little more then that. With athletes, I guess it really depends. Having to play professionally is stricter in some ways, but yeah it does result in a lot of stubs. So, I guess it's a trade off. Personally, I wouldn't call the topics that WP:CORP considers trivial as just a restatement or clarification of what's in WP:GNG. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:47, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Technically, no guideline other than WP:CORP requires that sources even be non-local (note the location of WP:AUD). So if you want to ignore AUD because it's in the wrong guideline, then we would simply accept local and non-local sources equally, since neither WP:N nor WP:BIO makes any mention whatsoever about regional scope. (That's not how AfDs work in practice, so we should probably move it to the main notability page.) If you disagree with AUD and think that local coverage cannot count at all towards notability, then feel free to start an RfC. For me, looking at non-local sources alone she crosses the line just barely, but when you include the Mercury articles she is well above it. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:08, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It's definitely true that a subject does not have to pass WP:PROF if they pass WP:GNG instead. Usually this matters for historical figures, who are hard to evaluate by WP:PROF (a guideline geared towards researchers active now). It can happen under other circumstances, too. XOR'easter (talk) 18:00, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This person isn't a historical figure though. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:47, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's why I said It can happen under other circumstances, too — whenever someone who happens to be a scientist (or an academic more generally) has achieved a degree of influence, significance or notoriety for activities outside the rather narrow remit of WP:PROF. XOR'easter (talk) 22:23, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Trivial coverage for any scientist. Basically every time we publish a somewhat interesting thing, we put it out on the newswire, when it gets picked up we can easily get hundreds of newsarticles within a day hence many scientists would be notable by GNG. It doesn't mean the researcher is particularly notable just that the university has a good PR reputation. In this case she hasn't published much yet (no first author paper I can see, one Science middle author (pretty good but if this helps noone would hire her without a first author), I see she is doing a MD-PhD in Darrell Irvine's lab (an outstanding lab run by a notable individual), so probably WP:TOSOON, many MD-PhD candidates will become notable later because its pretty hardcore. I would also say that using gold nanoparticles is really quite trivial even at the time and not a major advance. Btw Darrell Irvine is an excellent person for an article, as HHMI and prof at MIT he probably should have an article. PainProf (talk) 19:08, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You're free to have your opinion that GNG shouldn't count for scientists, but note what WP:PROF actually says: "It is possible for an academic not to be notable under the provisions of this guideline but to be notable in some other way under the general notability guideline or one of the other subject-specific notability guidelines." -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:57, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Trivial mentions don't really count. I think in this case we can see this is trivial churnalism based sourcing. The scientific guideline in this case might help us to assess it a little better. Another consideration is that this page is likely embarrassing to the subject considering having a Wikipedia page over a couple of times in the news before your PhD looks like peacocking. As a note I also think the article looks like it might also be conflating different people, she's listed at MIT, she's in David Irvine's lab from what I can tell on the article its Stanford which seems to be a different person, This makes me think there is way too much OR here and until some of this is actually verifiable this should be draftified regardless. i.e. https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-zhang-a083b946 and https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-zhang-b2755b105 PainProf (talk) 23:15, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Your characterization of the sources as "trivial mentions" is patently false. She is the main subject of multiple different articles in respected news outlets, spanning a wide timeframe. Whether you think her research is trivial is of no importance; as long as several reliable secondary sources each have a few sentences on her or more, she meets GNG, and some of the sources go well beyond that. Regarding her identity, the article itself is not confused, as all the major sources say that she went to high school in California (the other one is from North Carolina). There was no mention of the North Carolina person until you brought her up. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:39, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If she is not in David irvines lab this is much simpler. In that case the article shouldn't claim she is a scientist as she has yet to publish a paper even as middle author. Gotta have at least minimal standards for that claim. PainProf (talk) 23:48, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Again, you allude to some vague "standards" but don't address the central point, which is that WP:SNGs are never a requirement if a subject meets WP:GNG. The only defense to a subject having enough significant coverage in independent RS to meet GNG is WP:NOT or WP:ONEVENT, but I have explained above why that does not apply. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:00, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Or she fails WP:BASIC these are routine events. Wikipedia is not news. These don't reflect any notable achievements such as a major award. The USA news is written by an intern not their staff and relies on material provided exclusively by the subject so fails independence. The other sources are churnalism of press releases. Also verifiability is important - without a peer reviewed paper it's impossible to assess the claims of "research". I published my first academic paper at 20 so I don't really see this coverage as particularly notable, as I said when my work gets in the media there are invariably hundreds of articles but they are at best rewrites of the press releases the university writes. To me this is like saying winning the spelling bee is enough for notability.PainProf (talk) 00:26, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The WP:NOTNEWS angle fails because she has received coverage across multiple years. Can you point to anything in our notability guidelines that says that articles written by interns should be treated differently? The publication's reputation is on the line for all articles it publishes no matter who wrote them, so they have all undergone the same fact-checking process. Just because the U.S. News has a lot of quotes from her, doesn't mean that it is a primary source; there is enough journalistic reporting in there to constitute significant independent coverage. You refer to "churnalism", but give no evidence that those publications are simply republishing press release material. They may use primary sources in the process of their reporting, but any reputable outlet will do their own fact-checking on top of that, so the sausage that comes out of the factory is independent news reporting.

Regarding your own example, you're claiming that it is common for big-name national outlets to routinely report on student papers? Funny that you mention the spelling bee, because a spelling bee champ Evan O'Dorney was kept at AfD primarily due to news coverage of him winning competitions. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:49, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I checked university library as it essentially tells you where sources come from see https://hollis.harvard.edu/primo-explore/search?query=any,contains,Angela%20zhang%20science&tab=everything&search_scope=everything&vid=HVD2&mfacet=rtype,include,newspaper_articles,1&lang=en_US&offset=0 it looks like they are all from same Press release so not independent PainProf (talk) 00:59, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Covering the same event that PR Newswire also covers is not evidence of churnalism. If both the press release and the news article accurately represent the facts, then an overlap in content is not surprising. Since these are reputable news sources we're talking about, which will generally explicitly cite press releases when they use them (e.g. [4]), the burden of proof is on you to prove that they swiped the material from press releases. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:21, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per arguments set forth by editor King of Hearts. I also liked the thought introduced by PainProf concerning the poor baby doc getting embarrassed because she has an article on Wikipedia. Makes me wonder how many other notables are embarrassed for the same reason? Sorry but that's not here nor there. KoH has this put together correctly and nobody thus far effectively rebuts. (imho) P.I. Ellsworth ed. ^put'r there 04:39, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I won't offer any further arguments on the relative merits of the sources. My understanding is BLP1E's main purpose is to protect low profile individuals from this. I actually think this is somewhat missed sometimes. Not everyone benefits from a Wikipedia profile. In this case for instance claiming to do be the one performing research where you weren't the first or last author has a really bad connotation within the scientific community itself. In this case, I could imagine an adverse effect on the subject. An inaccurate attribution can be fatal to a career. I accept this might not be a valid argument in any particular policy but I did want to point it out as a consideration. PainProf (talk) 15:00, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the main protection here relies on her notability, and she and her research are notable under GNG. So I don't see her as a "low profile individual". I'm a low profile person, very low profile, and I would jump with surprise and joy if someone were to write an article about me. I think it would pass GNG, but there is no way I'd write it myself. What we have here appears to be a child prodigy who has done notable work while still underage. She's 25 now and probably quite capable of enjoying the fact that we write about her and acknowledge her notable accomplishments. She's also probably under a lot of pressure to continue her works of genius, so I doubt if she pays much attention to us. No pressure, but I hope her research leads us into a new era of NOFEAR when it comes to things like cancer. Good on you, though, for such thoughtful sensitivity of her situation! P.I. Ellsworth ed. ^put'r there 15:27, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of the outcome we should make sure the research section appropriately attributes the work to her supervisors and her as a contributor. If anyone can find an underlying academic paper from the supervisor that would assauge my concerns more. That might be a good way to mitigate the concern re attribution which is the main potential harm. It would be great if we had some kind of template to make clear that she can request deletion on the talk page. I consider her low profile independently of her notability since she hasn't obviously sought the coverage herself.PainProf (talk) 15:42, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To me it looks like the research was published, here in a low impact journal. I leave this for context. I do think the research section needs to not engage in hyperbole. The research was led by Dr Xiaoyun Chen, and Ruijin Xing, in my experience the first and last author generally had the idea for the study regardless of the media claims.^[1]

Keep. Per King of Hearts. Meeting GNG is a valid alternative to not meeting (at this stage), NPROF. She has enough RS that are specifically on her to meet GNG per the article, and I also found: Business Insider, Business Insider, and CBS. Britishfinance (talk) 13:41, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as passing WP:GNG per KoH and Britishfinance. --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 03:59, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, for those who want this article kept. Davidgoodheart (talk) 08:00, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Xing, Ruijun; Liu, Gang; Quan, Qimeng; Bhirde, Ashwinkumar; Zhang, Guofeng; Jin, Albert; Bryant, L. Henry; Zhang, Angela; Liang, Amy; Eden, Henry S.; Hou, Yanglong (2011-11-28). "Functional MnO nanoclusters for efficient siRNA delivery". Chemical Communications (Cambridge, England). 47 (44): 12152–12154. doi:10.1039/c1cc15408g. ISSN 1364-548X. PMC 4620662. PMID 21991584.

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.

[1] Xing, Ruijun; Liu, Gang; Quan, Qimeng; Bhirde, Ashwinkumar; Zhang, Guofeng; Jin, Albert; Bryant, L. Henry; Zhang, Angela; Liang, Amy; Eden, Henry S.; Hou, Yanglong (2011-11-28). "Functional MnO nanoclusters for efficient siRNA delivery". Chemical Communications (Cambridge, England). 47 (44): 12152–12154. doi:10.1039/c1cc15408g. ISSN 1364-548X. PMC 4620662. PMID 21991584.

[1]