Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sapan Desai

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. -- Cirt (talk) 03:53, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sapan Desai

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If half of the claims in this article are true, this is indeed an exceptional young man. However, exceptional does not necessarily equal notable. Most claims are unsourced or sourced to the subject's own websites. Many claims are over the top (for instance, he seems to be a resident at Duke and the article was categorized as "Duke faculty"). I have cleaned up the article thoroughly, so it may be best if editors participating in this AfD use the version before my edits, containing all original claims and sources, to make up their minds. The claims to notability are mainly three. 1/ Research accomplishments. As a graduate student (and postdoc?), Desai has published several articles. As their are several people named "S. Desai" (or even S.S. Desai), it is difficult to do an exhaustive search, but WoS lists several articles that should be from this person. The most cited ones have between 30 and 40 citations (the articles numbered I and I in the Journal of Neurophysiology). While very decent for articles published in 2005, this is considerably less than what generally is taken to satisfy WP:PROF. 2/ Business. Subject is claimed to be founder of three different companies. The most notable one of these seems to be "Apex Testing" (the others don't even have websites). A Google search for "Apex Testing" renders thousands of Ghits. However, almost all seem to refer to other uses of the term. A search for ("Apex Testing" medicine -"Apex Testing Labs" -"Apex Testing Laboratory" -"Apex Testing Laboratories") gives only 17 Ghits, among them this WP article and the subject's own websites. This company does not appear to be notable. 3/ Charity. The subject has founded the "Desai Foundation". A Google search reveals the existence of many different foundations with "Desai" in their names. A search for ("desai foundation" -"neil desai foundation" -Jaswantiben -balasaheb -justice) removes most of the others and gives 68 Ghits, most of them still about other subjects. This foundation does not appear to be notbale either. Finally, under "Biographies and profiles", a newspaper article is listed, which covers the fact that Desai graduated just one year after leaving high school. The newspaper seems to be the [[1]], a local newspaper (and the article appears in an even more local subsection of this newspaper). This source alone does not appear to satisfy GNG's requirement for multiple independent sources either. In all, this article does not appear to meet WP:PROF, WP:BIO, or WP:GNG. Crusio (talk) 11:11, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- Crusio (talk) 11:14, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It would be nice if the article panned out because the supposed research and patents would be notable. The above entry and exhaustive research by Crusio is compelling enough for a delete consensus. I did check one inline link, Journal of Neurophysiology and references, and found the following under Footnotes;

The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. The article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

This is not a good reference so, also considering the above, I would concur with Delete. Otr500 (talk) 13:48, 19 July 2010

In all fairness, it is not uncommon at all in scientific publishing that authors contribute to the cost of publication of their articles. US law then requires that such an article is marked as an "advertisement", but no self-respecting journal (and J. Neurophysiol. is certainly a respectable one) will let this influence their decision to publish a particular manuscript or not. --Crusio (talk) 13:59, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is commonplace and does not convey any usable information about the reliablity of the source or the importance of the author. Abductive (reasoning) 07:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are absolutely right Crusio concerning the federal law and it may be "a respectable one.", However, in the lead of the Journal of Neurophysiology it states, "It publishes original research reports..." and this would be a clear violation of WP:OR correct? As I said, I would hope that the "multiple sources", but at least one to start, referred to by OverlordvI, can be provided. I am sure they (sources) are out there. I may be wrong and someone can correct me with proof, but OR such as, Ph.D. thesis, [2], and other such "papers" would not qualify. If just patents alone met the criteria someone could spend several years starting new stubs. Otr500 (talk) 03:11, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The relevant guideline is WP:PSTS. However, a scientific paper published in a scientific journal cannot "violate WP:OR"; WP:OR deals with editors on Wikipedia constructing an article by (ab)using primary sources to reach a conclusion that is not supported by secondary sources. Abductive (reasoning) 07:14, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, per a well researched nom. Being talented is not the same as being notable. Nsk92 (talk) 14:01, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Multiple sources corroborate this information, including newspapers at the local and regional level, scholarly publications as indexed in PubMed, third party and personal websites, and available correspondence. Some subjective opinions from third parties not well-versed in this particular arena or in these topics may not be familiar with the specific conventions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by OverlordvI (talk • contribs)
Delete, a standard overachiever with no particular claim of notability. Abductive (reasoning) 07:15, 22 July 2010 (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.