Talk:William Chomsky

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Untitled[edit]

I have adjusted the format of the references to our standard, 2/ Added the info about Gratz College, from his published article. It's important with respect to notability. . And it is necessary to expand this with some reference to his work from third party sources, not just a list of his publications. There should at least have been an obituary. And a little more about his life & education & positions would be appropriate as well. DGG (talk) 21:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Inherited Notability?[edit]

The only source is a book about Noam and an obituary only published because he was related to Noam. Notability is not inherited, and until the article demonstrates an independent claim to notability (not just claiming that he was one of the "foremost grammarians" in an obituary only published because of his relation), I think that the tag should stay. Feel free, however, if more sources are provided that establish notability, to replace the tag with another, or remove it altogether. Inanygivenhole (talk) 01:00, 23 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

He was one of the most prominent Hebrew grammarians and advocates of modern Hebrew in the 1940s-1950s (certainly in the United States), and being the father of Noam cannot detract in any way from his notability on other grounds, so I'm afraid I strongly disagree with the tagging of this article. AnonMoos (talk) 22:05, 23 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Can you show me how he meets WP:ACADEMIC? A claim in an obituary that he was "prominent" does nothing to meet this. You're continuing to make claims without justification. And again, I wish to implore you to use less hostile edit summaries in the future. Inanygivenhole (talk) 22:14, 23 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How can I be "continuing" to make such claims, when my comment above was the first I made on this topic?? In any case, I consulted several works of his for my dissertation, and another one is rather close to my computer monitor right now as I type this, so I'm really not dependent on some obituary which I've never read for an evaluation of his importance in the field. Sorry, if you took offense, but I did not not find your tagging to be very constructive or useful for article improvement, and your apparent determination to impose your will on people who probably know more about the subject than you do did not seem to be very good etiquette... AnonMoos (talk) 22:33, 23 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I already called you out on making claims without support on your talk page. Frankly, the way that Psychonaut has gone about things has been much more helpful and constructive to the project. His providing a reliable source has established notability, and he has done so in a civil, friendly manner here. Inanygivenhole (talk) 05:33, 25 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but I really haven't been impressed by your attitudes and actions from the beginning, when you chose to officiously intervene on a subject which you seem to know very little about (since if you did know something about it, you would have been very unlikely to proceed in the way that you did), and I feel no need to justify myself in your eyes by pulling out formal sources. In fact, the shoe is on the other foot -- what evidence can you give that you have a positive role to play in improving this article? Thank you for your answer on this point. AnonMoos (talk) 00:18, 26 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Once again you fail to assume good faith. Am I suddenly required to be an expert in the fields of the various articles that I edit? I wasn't aware of that! My actions are first and foremost to improve the encyclopedia, which is why I tagged the article instead of putting it up for deletion. I found the sources pretty tenuous at best and had trouble finding more than passing mentions elsewhere. As it stands, I'm waiting on info about that reference from Psychonaut. You've done nothing but sit there and incessantly complain about my attitude. How are your actions at all aimed at improving the encyclopedia? All I'm seeing here is a bad attitude and a lot of complaining, but not a whole lot of helping out. Inanygivenhole (talk) 07:14, 27 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure you have good intentions at some level, but you would have been a lot less annoying if you had been less emphatic and assertive and superior in tone concerning subjects which you seem to have very little knowledge about. If I had knowledge of secondary sources asserting Chomsky's importance, I would have adduced them immediately -- but all I have is first hand knowledge obtained by consulting several of Chomsky's works over the years, including for my dissertation. Chomsky didn't make any big "breakthrough" that a layman could understand, and of course his writings are not up to date with the latest 2014 trends in linguistics, but he knew a hell of a lot about certain aspects of the field, and those who have an interest in those particular topics will naturally consult Chomsky. I don't particularly feel obliged to go out and research secondary sources for someone who seems to have the attitude that the less you know about a subject, the more you're entitled to edit an article about it... AnonMoos (talk) 17:51, 27 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So you're not helping out and you're not voting. Have you done anything but complain? Inanygivenhole (talk) 02:04, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If there's any "voting" involved (not sure there was), then I vote to keep the article, of course. I have first-hand knowledge of Chomsky's relative importance in the field (easily enough to merit a Wikipedia article), but I don't have secondary sources at my fingertips, and your overall approach to this and related articles has not had the effect of motivating me to undertake strenuous researches to turn up such documents in order to satisfy your apparently rather uninformed objections. AnonMoos (talk) 03:33, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm talking about voting elsewhere, not on this page. I was hoping that common sense and context clues would tell you that. Re: "I have first-hand knowledge": that's great, but can you provide sources? As for my approach, most of the deletion debates agree with my assessment, and all of them have shown enough difference in opinion and provided good arguments on both sides to where I feel the good intent behind my actions is shown. If you have a problem with that, as I've said before: don't just assert it, provide evidence. Until then, your accusations are baseless, unfounded, cowardly, and rude. Inanygivenhole (talk) 04:38, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Under Wikipedia's own rules notability is not inherited, but these rules do not apply to the rest of the publishing world. If a reputable independent publisher decides that someone is important just because they're related to someone famous, and proceeds to publish a biography or obituary of them, then under Wikipedia's rules that publication is now a reliable source which establishes the subject's notability for our purposes. —Psychonaut (talk) 23:08, 23 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, it looks like William Chosmky has a biography in the Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd edition, Vol. 4, pp. 665–666). —Psychonaut (talk) 08:55, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A short one, at that. I'm curious: how many of the articles claims does it back up? There's remarkably little citations in the article and I haven't had time to fully cross-reference them with the obituary and only source. Inanygivenhole (talk) 21:05, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't read it. I only noted its presence in the encyclopedia's biographical index. —Psychonaut (talk) 08:52, 27 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yiddish[edit]

Not sure why the Yiddish form of his name was removed from the article: זאב כאמסקי. That's how his name would have been recorded in local Jewish records around the time of his birth. AnonMoos (talk) 20:07, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]