Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Tomforde

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No clear evidence of meeting WP:PROF or WP:GNG; I don't believe awards described in the article meet the "highly prestigios" criteria. h-index is 18; OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 21:40, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I would say being the recipient of the Mathematical Association of America's Deborah and Franklin Haimo Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics would meet criteria 2 of WP:NPROF.4meter4 (talk) 03:19, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Academics and educators, Mathematics, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Texas. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 03:56, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: The MAA award seems to be a rather adequate to cover the NPROF award criteria. The other awards help verify that he is more than a flash in the pan. ~ Pbritti (talk) 04:09, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The top national postsecondary mathematics teaching award should be enough for WP:PROF#C2, and having a notable mathematical concept named after him (and nine triple-digit citation counts in a low-citation topic) also makes a strong case for #C1. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:09, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The teaching awards on their own are not a fair assessment of an individual who is no longer teaching due to student complaints^[1]^[2]. He is no longer a mathematician practicing at any university or research institute^[3], and the value of his mathematical work is arguable, including the eponymous Drinen–Tomforde desingularization. Indeed, there are researchers in graph algebras who are more influential who do not have wikipedia pages (e.g. Søren Eilers, Iain Raeburn, Wojcieh Szymanski). Potential conflict of interest: I am a mathematician who studies operator algebras, of which graph algebras is a small subset. Furthermore, I would ask that QuietSisyphus (writer of the article and main editor) declare his conflicts of interest. Fluffy McGruff (talk) 14:09, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
None of the above are appropriate arguments for deletion. The moral character of a subject has no bearing on their notability for Wikipedia's purposes. Indeed, coverage of proceeding against him can contribute to establishing his notability. Similarly, the WP:OTHERSTUFF argument suggests we should also have articles on those people, not that we should delete this one. ~ Pbritti (talk) 14:18, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

Keep. Plenty of citations for WP:NPROF C1 in a low citation field, including several single-author papers. The Haimo award is the highest award from a major professional association. Per WP:BLP, the allegations will likely be appropriate to include after a little better sourcing emerges: right now, I don't see much beyond the Colorado Politics article, but I suppose that'll change. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 15:13, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I was unable to find reliable sources on the subject. Yolandagonzales (talk) 15:57, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Independence and depth of sourcing is irrelevant to WP:PROF-based notability, and sources can be reliable when they are not independent. But for one that is independent (published by a different organization than the award it reports), reliable, and with some depth about the subject, let's start with [1]. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:45, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]