Draft talk:Barak Shoshany
Feedback from New Page Review process
I left the following feedback for the creator/future reviewers while reviewing this article: An assistant professor with an h-factor of 6 and who is quoted briefly in articles on Dr Who is far from meeting any of the criteria of WP:NPROF. While he has made a good start to his career, it will be many years before he qualifies for a Wikipedia article.
Ldm1954 (talk) 19:50, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
I respectfully disagree with the suggestion that Barak Shoshany fails to meet WP:NPROF standards. According to WP:NPROF, an academic is notable if their research has significantly impacted their field (Criterion 1) or if they have had substantial influence outside academia (Criterion 7). In this case, the article is supported by 27 independent, reliable sources—including peer‐reviewed publications in respected journals such as Physical Review D and Classical and Quantum Gravity, detailed institutional profiles, and interviews with prominent media outlets like New Scientist, BBC Future, TVOntario’s The Agenda, Infobae, and Science & Vie which explicitly demonstrate that he is widely regarded as a subject matter expert.
Moreover, while his h‑index of 6 and his current rank as an assistant professor might seem modest in isolation, these figures must be understood in the context of his highly specialized research areas—loop quantum gravity and causality—where publication and citation rates are naturally lower. His rapid career progression—from a brief postdoctoral stint to a full-time faculty role supported by the very competitive NSERC Discovery Grant and a prestigious teaching award—underscores the quality of his contributions. In addition, his work in scientific computing is exemplified not only by his influential OGRe packages but also by his highly popular C++ thread pool library, which boasts impressive GitHub metrics (over 2.4k stars and 268 forks).
Taken together, these points confirm that Shoshany satisfies WP:NPROF—particularly Criteria 1 and 7—and I urge that the substantial evidence of his academic and public influence be recognized by reconsidering the article’s draft status. I also invite other experienced editors to review the evidence presented here and share their perspectives.
Gravitonne (talk) 20:32, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- Looking at Wikipedia:Notability (academics) § Specific criteria notes, even considered generously, I would not say that Barak Shoshany meets the criteria that you mention based on what you say. Take care not to apply a wildly different interpretation than an uninvolved, experienced editor might apply. For example, interviews do not establish notability even when in a notable publication, and none of the media outlets that you mention would be considered reliable for our purposes even if they'd published an article about a person's notability rather than simple interviews. —Quondum 18:36, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- "Detailed institutional profiles" count for absolutely nothing when it comes to evaluating notability. Winning a grant seldom, if ever, signifies notability; passing WP:PROF means you've done something influential, not that you've gotten some money to fund work that might one day become influential. GitHub metrics, like Google hits and YouTube subscriber counts, aren't evidence of notability for Wikipedia's purposes either.Any notability argument based on pop-science media has to overcome the fact that pop-science media can be, well, pretty rubbish. The fact that Shoshany is willing to answer emails about questions in sensationalist topic areas (time travel, parallel universes, etc.) is not a substantial basis for writing an encyclopedia article about him. And an outlet like BBC Future getting a quote or two from him is not the same as their doing a whole interview (which itself would not count for a lot).Loop quantum gravity might not be the most highly-cited field out there, but it's not so obscure that papers about it get no citations at all.Overall, I'm just not seeing a case for notability here. XOR'easter (talk) 21:29, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hello everyone, and thank you all for your valuable feedback. As I am not an academic myself, I defer to your collective judgment regarding the notability of this article and will certainly take your comments into consideration when creating future articles. Hopefully, in the coming years, Shoshany will gain greater recognition, enabling us to revisit and potentially move this article to the main space. Gravitonne (talk) 19:11, 4 March 2025 (UTC)