Talk:H-index

message: As the creator of Hirsch number, the merger is fine with me.  I'm not sure what article name will server future readers best but as long as there is a redirect from the eliminated name, I guess it doesn't much matter.  Is there an automated way to update all links to the article that is merged away?    Alison Chaiken 17:48, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I chose "Hirsch number" because that's what the original _Science_ article I read used.   "h-index" has way more google hits than "hirsch number" but undoubtedly a lot of the "h index" references are to something else.    Is there any way to tell which terms users have most frequently looked up at the Wikipedia site?    That is, are Wikipedia HTTP statistics gathered anywhere?   Consulting those would seem to me to be the best way to pick an article name.   Alison Chaiken 17:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I went to the Science web article linked from your Hirsch number page and it quote Hirsch himself referring to it as "h-index". I say we go with h-index. However, the h(erfindahl)-index of finance might confuse, so there should definitely be a disambiguation page as well. And maybe just make the main article "H-index (science)" etc. (Rajah 18:48, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Merge completed. Still need to rewrite some of the material though. --Rajah 22:37, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger with Hirsch number 

message: In other words, a scholar with an index of h has published h papers with at least h citations each. Active voice or passive voice (did the scholar's papers cite h other papers or were the scholar's papers cited in h other papers)? --Abdull 19:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: what middle part are you talking about? --Rajah 20:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  active or passive 

message: (should this be here? advertising?) by anon 
:i think it's fine as it is a free script. --Rajah 20:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: matlab script

message: Do you think we should write h-index (h-index) or h-index (h-index) in the text? It currently uses the former, but I think that the latter looks quite a bit better. It is a little more cumbersome to write, however. In any case, it is important that we keep it consistent. Rrelf 21:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: <nowiki>''h''-index</nowiki> or <nowiki><math>h</math>-index</nowiki>?

message: It could also be argued that the number isn't useful when it should be, that is, when scientists are first appling for jobs?  Maybe it should be discussed when the h-index is useful? Kaw in stl 19:42, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are people who have suggested this use, but in the context of deprecating it. If you can find a source the other way, put it in together with one on the other side.DGG 19:48, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usefulness/Criticism? 

message: Indiscriminate copying of verious list from unreliable source makes a disservice to the community. The second list, "Based on the ISI Web of Science", makes sense as long as only the solid state physicists are concerned. One may believe that if there are others 
with h>90, they are only one or two. Note that between Cardona and Heeger there is only a 17 point gap. On the contrary, the first list is already suspicious: it is unbelievable that Witten's index grew by 22 points in 4 months, nor that between the #1 and the #5 high-energy physicist there is a gap of 47 point! These numbers are bogus.
The "Based on the ISI Web of Knowledge" list is a joke. WoK is no different from woS, and 54-71 is not large enough to warrant mentioning in wikipedia. Knowing nothing about ecomomy, I was able, using WoK and ISI Essential Scientic Indicators to find an aconomist, J. Tirole, with h=46, that is, 30% higher than the alleged highest-h economist, Andrei Shleifer!
If there will be no objections here, I am going to delete most of the names from this article.
::I think having some list illustrates the method, but from my previous comments you will realize that I do not consider the method valid, and am therefore not the one to judge either way. These lists have appeared on the internet, probably in stable places.  Why not simply link to them?  DGG 05:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  This is fine with me; Unfortunately, most of these lists do not have URLs listed, and others are dislaimed at the original web pages as random entertainment of compilers with no claims at actual accuracy. I am going to verify the first list with WoK, add a proper disclaimer and delete the rest. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mdina (talk • contribs) 23:55, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

text: The comments based on low ranking scientists  would have been relevant had all scientists in the field been covered, but only the top few percent were included in  the first place.  If a scientist is defined as someone who publishes a scientific article, since about half of them never publish another, the average h for a field is 2. By the time we get to h values of 20 we are already talking about the top 5 or 10%. some of the above comments are unduly restrictive in terms of WP coverage. DGG 02:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Much too many irrelevant names 

message: The h-index is an original idea, but is Hirsch the first to propose that type of construct? Here is something about Sir Arthur Eddington: "His cycling record was coded in a simple Eddington number E, where E was the number of days in which he had cycled more than E miles" ( J.Barrow, The Constants of Nature (ch.5) p.83) al 09:49, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Inspiration

message: I believe the following summary statement from the article is in error:
:In other words, a scholar with an index of h has published h papers with at least h citations each
The point is that others have published h papers citing the author's papers at least h times each, not that the author has published h papers.  I think the statement is confused about the meaning of 'citation'. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.202.248.81 (talk) 14:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: sorry, but that does not make sense: 50 people have published 50 papers citing the work of author X. The formulation you propose would mean that each of the 50 papers would contain 50 citations. The original sentence means not that the authors 50 papers each have 50 citations, but that the re ar 50 papers, each of which has been cited by others 50 times or more. DGG 02:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Error in Description

message: After trying some of the software I added a paragraph on the (un) reliability of automated citation counts.  I am not sure how reliable the numbers are, but my hand count using web of science made me a 25, and automated processes claimed I was a 12. I have also seen this count issue arise in citation reports in tenure proposals. George Phillies
This counting issue is probably more important in disciplines where more work is published in the form of books or book chapters. My h-index comes out exactly correct at 25 in ISI's WoS. Of course, that does not tae into account any citations to my work made in books or chapters. Crusio 10:09, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Search reliability

message: Somebody anonymous has added comments on an "m value" and "v-index". This should be explained or otherwise removed, I think. Crusio 12:07, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  m value and v-index 

message: I've put a POV template towards the end of the h-index#Criticism section because the following text appears to have an axe to grind.  However, the points made there could be legitimate — if written in a neutral way, and certainly with sources.  Unfortunately, as it stands it appears that the questionable content represents the author's own criticisms of the h-index. Ryan Reich 00:06, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV in [[h-index#Criticism|Criticism section]] 

message: In its current form, the article states that the h-index is a measure of a researchers productivity. I do not really agree. A very productive researcher, cranking out a new paper weekly, could still have a very low h-index if nobody cites all these articles. On the other hand, as the article notes, the h-index has an upper bound defined by the number of articles that someone has produced. Nevertheless, it appears to me that the h-index is more a measure of the impact of the research someone has done than of this person's productivity. Before making any changes though, I'd like to see what other people think about this.
--Crusio 19:22, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. I have slightly modified the introductory paragraph. Have a look whether you like this better. --Crusio 15:12, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Better is the enemy of good: I also attempted to rewrite. If you disagree and decide to revert, please insert a "both" i.e.  'based on both the number... and...'. The other reason were the 5 'science' words in the first 4 lines. Probably someone will object to the adjective 'hybrid' but I like it; 'his/her' is awkward but pc. al 10:31, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Prolificity/productivity or impact?

message: The following phrase was removed: "The h-index is currently not a widely accepted measure of scientific productivity, but only one of a number of possible indices.[citation needed]" I think this sentence should be left and the [citation needed] removed. I don't think that such a general statement needs any citation. If the statement had said that the h-index was a widely accepted metric, then it would have needed a citation. Rrelf 08:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, since we have no idea what goes on in most departmental hiring/tenure committee meetings, who is to say that the h-index is not used? Furthermore, the h-index is only a formalization of a process that such committees have used for a long time; "Dr Fulani sure has a lot of citations." "Yes, but has only published the one paper that anybody cares about." SolidPlaid 08:45, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am sure the h-index is being used, but the sentence did not say anything about whether or not it was used. It only said that it was "not a widely accepted measure of scientific productivity" and that it is "only one of a number of possible indices". It can very well be used without being widely accepted. Both statements are quite obvious though (both statements are true for almost all imaginable indices) and therefore I don't think they need a citation. I think, however, that they should be in the article as they are very useful for conveying that the h-index is not the standard metric nor the most widely accepted metric for scientific productivity. Rrelf 12:19, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

text: I re-inserted citation needed.  It's an empirical question whether the h-index is or is not widely accepted.  If the article is going to assert that it's not widely accepted, there needs to be some evidence for the claim.  It's not obvious at all.  In my university the h-index is an explicit part of the hiring and promotion evaluation process.--Cooper24 (talk) 11:14, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Not widely accepted

message: I am not starting a revert war: I sincerely believe the old introduction was much better. 
At least it offers a general description what the h-index is instead of giving an inaccurate definition which is reworded precisely a few lines below. Reading for the first time the definition of h is always confusing because it is one number for two different things:  number of papers and lower limit of the number of citations; 'hybrid' is a good word here. Many arguments can be found in the preceding discussion so there is not really a point to repeat them. Please read at least the discussion about 'attempting'. 
It seems obvious that 'the set of most quoted papers' is a subset of all papers.
The image fails to offer any insight or real explanation. It is much better to look up the original paper. The bright idea behind the h-index was to use rank statistics: arranging the papers according to decreasing number of quotes and relating the two i.e. rank & citations. Or graphically: a falling hyperbola (C/x) and a rising slope x. And this is in fact the recipe to find manually h: 
1/make a list of papers; 2/ write in front the number of quotes;3/arrange in decreasing order;4/start counting lines;5/stop when the line number becomes greater than the number written on it.al 22:02, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverted 

message: The list of rankings of individual scientists do not belong here, and more than a list of IFs would belong in that article. I'm not sure where to put them, though. butt hen, I'm not sure they are in the least encycloepdic at all, as a list.. suggestions welcome. DGG (talk) 10:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, not useful and not encyclopedic. I would suggest removing them completely. In addition, to keep these lists updated, original research is needed. --Crusio (talk) 10:46, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not true. The indices can be checked at the databases mentioned by typing in the persons's name, having the database sort the list by times cited (usually via a pull-down menu) and scrolling down until the number on the article is greater than the number of times cited. This is no more original research than might be used to gather information from the US Census website, or for finding an Erdős number for a particular mathematician (see List of people by Erdős number). The article needs a few examples, although all these lists may be a bit much. AnteaterZot (talk) 10:58, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it may be appropriate to include those people's h-indices that were in Hirsch's original paper, but I agree that accumulating lists from various disciplines is not a good thing.  Especially, as DGG often points out, the databases don't go back in time very consistently and often produce incorrect results for cases whose output is not entirely in the digital age, this tips it into WP:OR for me. Pete.Hurd (talk) 18:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree that these lists are not useful--it is likely one or more of the h values listed changes every day.  Is someone going to spend their life updating these? And what's the point of including long lists of specific names? As was pointed out earlier, many of these names seem arbitrary.  How do these lists help people understand what the h-index is?  A couple of examples from the original Hirsch article, as someone else suggested, would make sense as an illustration, and maybe a list of the top h in each field (although I don't think it's easy to discover this without an exhaustive search).--Cooper24 (talk) 11:08, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:Be Bold! --Crusio (talk) 15:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Go for it. T DGG (talk) 06:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Rankings

message: I'm certain the H-number has been around since before 2005 -- even if it was not published until then.   I removed "in 2005" from the first sentence of this entry.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.245.8.37 (talk) 21:46, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're certain, where's the citation?--Cooper24 (talk) 11:08, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Eventually see above Inspiration. al (talk) 11:58, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Date h-index was invented

message: In an attempt to improve the Wikipedia article, I changed the words "the apparent scientific impact of a scientist" to "the apparent scientific effect of a scientist." In changing "impact" to "effect," I felt justified because I assumed that scientific articles should contain correct scientific terms. The word "impact" is a scientific term and has, for many years, meant "the striking or impinging of one body against another body." Only since the 1980s has it also been used as a lazy substitute by people who don't know the difference between "affect" and "effect." However, Crusio has reversed my change and has asserted that "This is not slang, 'impact' is an accepted term in this field." Thus, according to Crusio, this use of "impact" is not colloquial or beneath the standard of cultivated speech. This may be true since there do not seem to be any standards today, in speech or any other behavior. I would have thought that, of all possible fields, this use of "impact" would not be accepted in the field of science where it has unambiguously had its own meaning for quite a long time. The widespread usage of a word in the mass media does not mean that the usage is correct. This can also be seen in the current popular misuse of the phrase "begs the question."Lestrade (talk) 18:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Dear Lestrade, I agree with you about the deplorable state of English (I do know the difference between affect and effect, and all too often I see things in Wikipedia like "referances" and not just as a typo as some people use that systematically...). However, "impact" really is an accepted term in the field of scientometrics/bibliometrics, as can already be seen from the term Impact factor used to measure the "impact" of a journal. Etymologically, this may be incorrect, but it is a fact of life now.... --Crusio (talk) 18:12, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

text: I agree with Crusio. By the way, according to the OED we've got Coleridge, in 1817, to thank for the earliest record use of "impact" meaning "effect".--Phil Barker 12:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I also agree with Crusio. As a scientist myself, I can tell you that the word "impact" is very widely used now in academia exactly in the way Crusio used this term here. Nsk92 (talk) 15:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: the meaning is in fact a little more specific. The factor measures the cites in the first two years  after publication. It thus describes not the total effect of the works published in the journals, which is arguably best measured by the total citations, but the relatively rapid impact in the narrow sense, upon the field, just as in the analogy of hitting a ball.  Thus the factors are high in fast-moving fields like molecular biology, and low in descriptive biology.  Garfield used language carefully. (detailed cites available, if not already in the article) DGG (talk) 04:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There is actually a distinction between "impact" in a generic sense (the effect a scientist's work has on a field) and "impact" in the very specific bibliometric sense, as defined by the Institute for Scientific Information's Web of Knowledge citation database (link). (The latter is what DGG describes above.) Both usages are now well-established in the culture and tradition of science, so the term can be properly used here.Agricola44 (talk) 14:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

text: Not that it matters, but I wish Phil Barker would say where, in Coleridge's writings, the OED found that he used "impact" for "affect" or "effect." In Biographia Literaria, he used it to mean physical striking (Ch. V) and impressed contact (Ch. VIII).Lestrade (talk) 16:54, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Debasement

message: I've assessed this article as "b-class" and further categorized it in the "history of science" project, as I don't know how else to categorize a meta-discussion of citation.  The article has an instructive illustration, clear and concise explanation and appropriate references.  The external link section could be cleaned up, but the breakdown of different resources is helpful and (largely) clear.  Some claims require more explicit inline citiation (see the tail end of "criticism" or the "advantages" sections).  The criticism section itself should be rewritten as a series of paragraphs, rather than a disconnected list.  The second paragraph in "calculating h" provides an outstanding example of what such a section should look like.  Likewise, the "advantages" section is a little unclear.  Either way, the article is informative, NPOV and well sourced. Protonk (talk) 18:44, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  B class 

message: Can we just admit that the H-score is meant to measure the performance of academics within their age peer groups.  You simply can't compare an old & young person's H-score.  What an H-score tells you is when an old person has been either very prolific or has underperformed.  So you can use H-score when hiring full professors, chairs, etc., or even when assigning administrative tasks & teaching, but you can't use it when hiring young people.  204.52.215.123 (talk) 20:09, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  age 

message: This remark that one can refine the H index to get an index which can take values between n and n+1 and therefore is much better, is nonsense. If an H-index could easily be off by 1 or 2 or 3 or even 5 or 7 by using different data-bases, then it makes no sense what soever to rank university departments or top scientists by looking at differences in the first digit after the decimal point. Hopefully the work in reference [11] has been debunked by someone, and then another reference can be added that this proposal is thought to be nonsense by some reputable scientometricians. Gill110951 (talk) 11:06, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  irrational stuff about rational H index 

message: *Slowly but steadily, the article seems to be filling up with personal opinions, original research, and unsourced statements. Especially the Criticism section is becoming a mess. Most of these criticisms seem to be based on the idea that the h-index is not a perfect measure of impact/productivity and that, in fact, such a measure can exist. Obviously, capturing a scientist's whole career in a single number is rather ludicrous (although I admit that this remark is as much OR and POV as what the article now contains). Much of this stuff should be cut back and only the sourcable statements should remain. --Crusio (talk) 01:21, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Some of these are not problems. The article now does represent a range of views, and does not rely on primary sources. The comments about the weaknesses of it can perhaps be sourced better, but there is an immense amount of literature available.  I agree that it needs rewriting and better organization--the only reason I have not done it myself is because I do not have a NPOV here--I have had from its introduction a similarly low opinion about the value of the measure as Crusio. Nonetheless, there as at least one article on various modifications and aspects of this is each issue of JASIS. It seems to have attracted a good deal of information scientists--in addition to the bureaucrats who like things over-simplified)  DGG ( talk ) 13:56, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: DGG, while you're here, how widely is the h-index used in practice?  I'm on our college P&T committee and when we found the h-index listed on one person's dossier, no one other than me had even heard of it. (I share your skepticism toward the index -- at worst it reduces "deans don't have to know your field, they just have to count" to "now deans don't even have to count." ;-) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:06, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: *Over here in Europe the bean counters carry the day... The h-index is often asked for specifically when you apply for grants, positions, or promotions. Our institute is up for it's 4-year evaluation and everybody here is calculating her/his h, the h of her/his group, and even the institute's h... This, of course, in addition to the almighty impact factor... Publications are listed in two different lists, one of them so-called "rank A" journals (IF>7). All the things we have to do to avoid actually reading papers!! :-) --Crusio (talk) 10:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

text: *My impression is that use of H in tenure & promotion deliberations is on the rise, sometimes as a "sanity check" to lend confirmation to a decision and sometimes as a component of the decision itself. I have a friend at the senior professor level who says he now always checks H ... and he has sat on quite a number of P&T committees. Anecdotal, perhaps, but I think the trend is unmistakable. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 19:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have the same impression. (And I am happy about that. A few years ago, only the number of publications was taken into account. A paper totally uninteresting, published because of shallow peer-reviewed was equal to hugely acclaimed papers. And in my field, the advent of genomics led to papers with thousands of citations but hundreds of authors, which defeated the citation index. H-index is far from perfect, but as a bibliometric index, it is useful. Which does not mean we must judge only from bibliometric measures). It is on the rise, and it is respected. Our institute even used it to compare our production with other institutes, by superposing "clouds" of H-index, and also trace the evolution of H-indice since faculty employment. Nicolas Le Novere (talk) 20:06, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

text: *Just to add one more thing, it's a triviality to determine H using WoS by ordering publications according to number of citations. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 19:27, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I beg to differ. If your name is uncommon, mis-citations are very frequent (believe someone who has a space and an accent in his name). If your name is common, you gather the citations of all the homonyms. By experience, such a procedure is only trivial for 50% or so of scientists. MOREOVER, WoS is not a good source of citations for some fields, such as computing science. In fact, I systematically use WoS, Scopus and Google Scholar. And according to the publication, each of the three give a max.Nicolas Le Novere (talk) 20:06, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: So, you are saying that WoS systematically attributes papers to you that you did not write and/or overlooks papers you did write in their database? That would, in fact, be unusual. They do have a formal reporting mechanism for submitting corrections. If you're instead talking about searches that mess-up one's stats, then the queries are not sufficiently focused. For example, false-positives are easily rooted-out by further constraining upon subject area, institution, even department name. Finally, I think the notion that WoS is no good for compsci has taken on mythical proportions. There are compsci journals, compsci people do publish in them, and they are covered by WoS. Agricola44 (talk) 06:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The subset of cs that is published in journals is highly biased (some subfields publish regularly in journals, others have conferences whose proceedings are journals, others almost completely avoid journals). So when you use a source like WoS that only covers the journals and not the conferences, you get systematic distortions. That to me is a much bigger problem than if it were just a random but unbiased subset. —David Eppstein (talk) 12:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

text: "Especially the Criticism section is becoming a mess." Agree 16:10, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article issues 

message: The quote I have edited has so often been used out of context in the academic AfD page of Wikipedia that I have thought best to de-emphasise it by moving it from the lede to the body and add a proviso. Do revert if research exists. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:19, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. This quote is so frequently misused that I would not mind removing it from the article altogether. Nsk92 (talk) 02:16, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Institutions, nations and fields of study

message: Practically all of the criticisms of the h-index apply to practically all forms of bibliometry; they are not specific criticisms of the h-index.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.29.77.101 (talk) 14:25, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: When prominent groups publish your work as their own without citing you, they get the kudos and you suffer. Senior academics routinely place their names on works to which they did not contribute ("routine" in some fields). Both degrade the h-index for the person who deserves the credit, and inflate the h-index of the bullies. 2A01:CB0C:56A:9700:CD27:7068:5AEE:5938 (talk) 06:18, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism? 

message: It appears to me that this should be called the "h index", not the "h-index", according to WP:Manual_of_Style#Hyphens (and general English usage rules).
—156.106.216.156 (talk) 11:18, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Why the hyphen?

message: My recent edit about "successive Hirsch-type-index" was removed by User:Crusio for non-notability. I'd like to challenge that opinion. The article by Prathap alone is cited quite a few times (44 hits on Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.pl/scholar?q=%22Hirsch-type+indices+for+ranking+institutions%27+scientific+research%22&hl=en&btnG=Szukaj&lr= , Web of Science and other databases can be checked for comparison), Google web search shows 178 hits for the exact phrase of article's title. Reference 7 for example (also from 2006) has only 10 hits in Scholar: http://scholar.google.pl/scholar?hl=pl&q=%22Dubious+hit+counts+and+cuckoo%27s+eggs%22&btnG=Szukaj&lr=&as_ylo=&as_vis=0 . Therefore, I think "successive Hirsch-type-index" meets notability criteria for a single-sentence mention in the section about Hirsch Index variants.
Regards, Michał Kosmulski (talk) 20:08, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. --Michał Kosmulski (talk) 12:57, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability of "successive Hirsch-type-index" 

message: This site which ranks and academic journals tells the reader they can read about the H-factor on Wikipedia, and then links here.AerobicFox (talk) 04:48, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cited by scholarly source? 

message: Someone should create a page for , it's already mentioned in several papers in google scholar, like . Tijfo098 (talk) 15:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  AuthorRank 

message: This external link:
* Scholar H-Index Batch Calculator an online tool designed by Luca Boscolo that calculates h-index and other parameters.
has been deleted because considered as spam. It is not spam. It links to a very good software I designed for calculating the h-index and other parameters online. It sends the results by email in a cvs format. For more info please see (link removed- consensus is that this is spam). Also I'm not advertising my personal website, is an organisation of Italian Scientists working abroad, it has around 400 members, which includes professors and researchers working for Universities around the world, but mainly in UK. This software has been tested by the Via-academy's members and it has been using by many Italian Academics in Italy. The results of this software are under rewiew by the ANVUR, the National Agency for the Evaluation of Italian Universities.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luca boscolo (talk • contribs) 09:57, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've tried the above and it seems to work as it says, provided you apply the usual caveats such as checking the references are not duplicated, making sure you have specified the correct author, etc. There is no charge for use of the service, so on balance I think this is not spam, rather a useful tool for demonstrating the application of the h-index. Therefore I think the external link should stay. Norman21 (talk) 17:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: If the gadget did not work there would be good reason for deleting it from Wikipedia, but I see no reason why, if it does work, that fact should be sufficient to include it in Wikipedia. There are many such devices and Wikipedia does not need to list them all. The use of Wikipedia for self-promotion is generally frowned upon, particularly when done by spas, anons, canvassers, stalkers and possible socks (I don't include you in those categories). Xxanthippe (talk) 08:31, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

text: I've taken a look at this H-index calculator. In my opinion, the problem is not so much self-promotion as the fact that the calculator asks for the e-mail of the person doing the search and then claims to e-mail the search results to that e-mail address. This creates a serious privacy issue, as collecting e-mails of people interested in a particular kind of information is exactly the sort of thing that various spammers look for. I feel rather strongly that a link such as this should not be added to a Wikipedia page. Nsk92 (talk) 12:28, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Come on, asking for an email is not for spamming reasons, it is only because it is a batch calculation and the results must be sent later on in some way. I do not think it is a privacy issue, emails does not mean much, you can always specify a different email to get the results. If you really believe this is the only issue, then I can think another way of sending the results, for example getting a download link.--Luca boscolo (talk) 13:32, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Asking for an e-mail is not at all a minor issue. If the calculator simply displayed the search results right then and there, instead of e-mailing them, i would have no problems with adding the link. As it is, I am very much against it. Nsk92 (talk) 13:58, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I can not display the data immediately, because, as I said, it is a batch process. If we all agree this is the only issue, I'll change the software to provide a link to use to download the results when ready.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luca boscolo (talk • contribs) 14:10, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

text: Wikipedia:Other stuff exists. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:43, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

text: *I don't think there is a need for a separate article on h-index calculators. As for which ones to include, I definitely remember that PoP was discussed in some scientific journals (that's how I first found it), so that is a good reason to include it. I doubt that there are sources on the other ones, so that's a good reason to exclude them. --Crusio (talk) 10:53, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: **ok, then delete them all and add only PoP. Few articles will come out, very soon, on scientific journals discussing the Scholar H-Index Batch Calculator, after that, can I add the link on the H-Index page?--Luca boscolo (talk) 12:46, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

text: Thanks Protonk. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 03:16, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to add some as necessary.  However w/ a topic like the h-index, low content ELs are going to proliferate.  There are just so many different ways of measuring citations, computing the index and so forth. Protonk (talk) 04:50, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  New External Link 

message: I removed the external links at the top of this thread. The first statement with the links appears to be blatant self promotion WP:PROMOTION. Links that follow in the body of the paragraph also appear to be promotional (self promotional). This contradicts guidelines and policies. Wikipedia is not meant for advertising or personal notoriety. Please see Wikipedia:Autobiography, WP:COI. 
To be helpful, I believe a link to your own personal web page is allowed on your User page. I doubt it would be appropriate in any talk page discussions (of course there might be exceptions). ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 14:27, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Protonk. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 03:16, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to add some as necessary.  However w/ a topic like the h-index, low content ELs are going to proliferate.  There are just so many different ways of measuring citations, computing the index and so forth. Protonk (talk) 04:50, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Promotional links

message: I think there is now a need to create a new article/page for the H-Index Calculators, saying who they are and what they do and writing down indipendent com--Luca boscolo (talk) 06:53, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: H-Index Calculators Page

message: There are several articles cited in this article from 2010 and 2011. Hence, the choice to delete the edit on 22:58, 19 December 2011 to the "Alternatives and modifications" section due to "recentism" is quite unjustified. Thallium18 (talk) 16:57, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delete due to recentism 

message: The term h-index is formatted inconsistently in the article. Although in most places editors rendered it as h-index, in some places it is h-index or H-index. Could someone please provide a peer-reviewed source that makes the preferred capitalisation and italicisation clear? Ringbang (talk) 18:12, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I did some harmonization in the article. Now all instances use the h-index format. --Waldir talk 14:59, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Formatting 

message: I added information and links to the tori index and the riq index which are important to fight against the impact of the self-citations, and to reduce the effects of the academic age. They allow for meaningful comparisons across different fields with different citation practices. 45 Wuz (talk) 10:38, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  tori and riq indices  

message: This bullshit is going to kill science. How would the giants of science be rated according to this index? Don't think to modern physicists only, just think about every science, in every era. Gnome-against-trolls (talk) 22:05, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Easy to answer. Take a look of the citation data for Einstein, Maxwell and Dirac on Google scholar. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:54, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: So these indexes are a good "tool" to evaluate the impact of works in the field of physics only? What about other natural sciences or formal sciences or even humanities? I had read long time ago about criticism against the whole "publish or perish" matter, if I'll find those sources, I will propose to include such section in each relevant article.Gnome-against-trolls (talk) 04:18, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: There has already been extensive discussion (almost ad nauseam) of all these issues on the policy pages and its talks and their archives. I suggest you look at these first. Best wishes. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:02, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Where exactly? The publish or perish article includes some relevant criticism, should I look in its talk page, or even elsewhere?Gnome-against-trolls (talk) 09:38, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: h-index and WP:Prof. Xxanthippe (talk) 10:52, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  The END of science  

message: Anonymous editors have been repeatedly adding the following text to the article:
*The L-index has been proposed . It accounts for the number of coauthors, the age of publications, is independent of the number of publications and conveniently ranges from 0.0 to 9.9.
My own opinion is that this is WP:REFSPAM, it is an insignificant aspect of the subject, it is only one of what Google scholar tells me are 31500 articles on the h-index, among which it has no better claim to fame than any other, as a newly published article it is too soon to have accumulated any impact, and Wikipedia is an inappropriate choice for publicizing new research. Accordingly, I have semiprotected the article, not to prevent this material from ever being added, but rather to redirect this from being an edit war into a discussion where we can build a consensus about what to include. That way, I hope, we can make a decision based on Wikipedia policy rather than including things based on how persistent their proponents are. As such, other opinions are of course welcome here; what do the other editors of this article think? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:21, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The Belikov paper has so far proved to be of little interest and should be excluded from the article. WP:Semiprotection should be made indefinite to stop this trolling. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:59, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed L-index 

message: Please note that SCImago Journal Rank uses an h-index (or H index) in their journal ranking: 
http://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=21100230018&tip=sid&clean=0
Maybe the article should be updated with a section on this.  (Simiprof (talk))  —Preceding undated comment added 16:26, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Journal H index 

message: The article states the following:
First we order the values of f from the largest to the lowest value. Then, we look for the last position in which f is greater than or equal to the position (we call h this position). For example, if we have a researcher with 5 publications A, B, C, D, and E with 10, 8, 5, 4, and 3 citations, respectively, the h index is equal to 4 because the 4th publication has 4 citations and the 5th has only 3. In contrast, if the same publications have 25, 8, 5, 3, and 3, then the index is 3 because the fourth paper has only 3 citations.
:f(A)=10, f(B)=8, f(C)=5, f(D)=4, f(E)=3　→ h-index=4
:f(A)=25, f(B)=8, f(C)=5, f(D)=3, f(E)=3　→ h-index=3
According to the definition in bold the first example should have an h of 4, because the 4th publication (sorted from most to least citations) is equal to that position and the 5th publication has a value of 3.
By the same token, the second example should have an h of 5, because the 3th publication (sorted from most to least citations) is bigger than the position and the 4th publication has a value of 3, therefore is less than the position.
Additionally, this goes in accordance to the explanation and examples found in the university of waterloo and the university of wageningen.
David Eppstein since you reverted my change to the page, would you care to clarify why is the second example correct even though it does not conform to the definition?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chibby0ne (talk • contribs) 02:06, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The h-index is the position, not the value at that position. In the second example, "the last position in which..." is the third position, so h=3. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:13, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oh I see now. Thanks for the clarification. Perhaps the definition should bolden the word position, because I failed to see this subtlety with the given numbers of the examples, in two different occasions. --Chibby0ne (talk) 02:21, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Example given in "Calculation" section might be erroneous 

message: This article has some bias and statements made without concrete sources and representation. The statement related
to a certain H-index is equivalent to election to National Academy of Sciences is flaw. Also the source to 
that statement is not accessible publicly. This does not represent formal view of the National Academy of 
Sciences and should be removed. Comments welcome. 
Also, h-index does not reflect top work of authors is a fact and it is clear from the graph. H index took the middle of 
the spread. So,  editor Xxanthippe should not revert things right away without communications with other editors. And there is nothing wrong stating facts and helping readers to understand. 2405:800:9030:2C47:28:AD81:44C5:1EB5 (talk) 15:14, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless you can make a case against Ivars Peterson's piece in Science News, you ought not be removing cited content claiming only that it's biased. Do you have a citation for NAS's formal view? Chris Troutman (talk) 15:34, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, the NAS will be informed. A person's published view in Science News does not represent the whole National Academy of Sciences's formal view. I believe it is too early to even allow such general statements to be made. Election to the National Academy of Sciences are based on many factors, not merely a h-index.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2405:800:9030:2c47:28:ad81:44c5:1eb5 (talk • contribs) 11:47, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: But that section of text starts with  We're not construing this as the official NAS view nor are we intoning that membership is based upon h-index. The citation is one person's view, which informs the reader. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:51, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: To Remove Certain Statements that are not well sourced 

message: Following reference to game-theoretic evaluation of h-index was reverted
* The h-index as a decision criterion for research founding agencies sets up rules for a competition between scientists. The game theoretic solution of this competition implies raising average length of coauthors' list inter alia. 
Excuse: "Thanks, but consensus is eeded for this edit" 
Let's assume that "eeded" means "needed". Consensus is needed, if at least two different opinions exist.
Let's assume that the other second opinion is the boilerplate prosa: 
"... this is WP:REFSPAM, it is an insignificant aspect of the subject, it is only one of what Google scholar tells me are X articles on the TOPIC, among which it has no better claim to fame than any other, as a newly published article it is too soon to have accumulated any impact, and Wikipedia is an inappropriate choice for publicizing new research."
This second opinion is based on the same argumentation as the h-index itself and does not maintain WP:NPOV. h-index is based on the idea of 'impact' as the criterion for 'to fame than any other', no matter which means were used to manipulate this very 'impact'. The criticism of h-index mostly attacts this idea. We need a consensus on the criteria for judging relevance of references critisizing h-index other than the h-index itself. It is wrong that criticism of a certain concept is ruled out by application of the criticised concept in order to judge the relevance of criticisizing arguments. For instance, somebody might otherwise argue that he is the only expert in a certain topic and rule out any critisim by the argument of being not expert opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Geysirhead (talk • contribs) — Geysirhead (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. 
:No RS here. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:31, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: According to its preface, the papers in this workshop proceedings are peer-reviewed. But the other objections that Geysirhead dismisses without an actual argument as "boilerplate" all look valid to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:05, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  "No chicken without egg" and "No egg without chicken" would both look myopically valid to anybody. Replace "egg" with "impact" and "chicken" with "wiki-reference" — and presented arguments obviously increase attention inequality. If there are indeed X articles on a certain topic, a summary of this topic should include an intersection set of information pieces from all of these articles. This would favor originality different to h-index, which favors quantity. Attention inequality proponents would favor h-index and deletion of this reference from the criticism section. Inequality proponents have rarely any other motivation than their own privileged position in the status quo. Geysirhead (talk) 10:35, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Instead of speculating about possible motivations of other editors, you have a better chance of being listened to if you address the (valid) issues raised by , not the persons. --Randykitty (talk) 11:53, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Reference to game-theoretic evaluation of ''h''-index

message: The information in this section is already contained in the linked articles. It should be shorten it to 3-5 lines.--Geysirhead (talk) 07:45, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternatives and modifications is too long 

message: Is it really that specific range of years (forever?) or is it just the last 5 years from today's date? It's confusing that that specific range of years is stated, unless it really is just those 5 years and not just the last 5 years from today's date. Yarnalgo talk 22:46, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  "articles published in 2016-2020" 

message: * Currently we have : "For example, an author with only one publication can have a maximum h-index of 1 (if their publication has 1 or more citations)."
* Why not "For example, authors with only one publication can have a maximum h-index of 1 (if their publication has 1 or more citations)."?
* Why can't the singular "an author" be replaced by the plural "authors" so that the pronoun "they" can be easily understood by non-native speakers?
BeginnersMind (talk) 21:52, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammar