Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timir Datta

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 soft delete‎. Based on minimal participation, this uncontroversial nomination is treated as an expired PROD (a.k.a. "soft deletion"). Editors can request the article's undeletion. asilvering (talk) 04:52, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Timir Datta

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Article on a physics professor working on anti-gravity. It has had unresolved notability tags for 11 years.

Fails WP:NPROF: Article gives no indication professor won a notable award or held a named chair. He appears to have an H-Index of 821.
Fails WP:GNG: There is currently one piece of WP:SIGCOV in the article (in WIRED which is obviously RS). A BEFORE finds nothing else that is WP:INDEPENDENT or provides more than short quotes or brief mentions.

Chetsford (talk) 14:28, 9 September 2025 (UTC); edited 00:34, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Academics and educators, Physics, and South Carolina. Chetsford (talk) 14:28, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: India, California, Louisiana, and Massachusetts. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 19:15, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - our article says Datta worked on gravity in 1995 and 1996 but mostly has worked on superconduction. Google Scholar shows just 12 papers out of 195 that have the words, "gravity" or "gravitational", in the title. The Wired article is a fascinating, somewhat funny dive into others' anti-gravity work which only mentions Datta in passing. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 15:14, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment He was elected an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow in 2022, as can be verified from the AAAS website [1]. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 01:33, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for finding this. I'm prepared to withdraw the nomination on clarification of a point: is AAAS fellowship a "highly selective honor" as described in NPROF? It looks like more than 500 fellows were elected in 2022 alone, all of whom would be eligible for a BLP on no basis other than this. By comparison, the Royal Society (mentioned as an example of a "highly selective honor") elects about 50 annually. While I don't doubt AAAS fellowship is an honor and that it's selective, I'm not clear if it's "highly selective" or not? Chetsford (talk) 01:49, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The AAAS Fellowship is not selective enough to pass NPROF. Of some importance, his h-factor of 21 is very low (early associate prof level) -- nom, typo? He has one paper on Tl High-Tc with 500 cites, and one review with 300 then it drops off with only 2K total. Citation numbers per year are bad, see here, and there is no evidence of significant ongoing research. It looks like he is no longer active, most depts have a few of those. I don't see anything in his CV. Note: I believe the journal he is editor-in-chief of is from a predatory publisher.Ldm1954 (talk) 00:25, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, yes, that was a typo. I transcribed his five-year H-Index (8) and not his lifetime (21). I've now edited the OP. Chetsford (talk) 00:34, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. As an addition, the more recent work included is verging towards dubious/pseudoscience. As I am a card carrying Crystallographer, my expert opinion is that his "proof" of XRD rates 0/10. Ldm1954 (talk) 01:00, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"As an addition, the more recent work included is verging towards dubious/pseudoscience." That seems to be the final destination of many who purport to work on anti-gravity. Chetsford (talk) 02:45, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Stifle (talk) 08:08, 17 September 2025 (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.