User talk:DGG/Archive 0.5

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General Archives:
2006: Sept-Dec
2007: Jan-Feb , Mar-Apt , M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D 
2008: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
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2022: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2023: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O

 

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ACADEMIC THINGS AND PEOPLE -- see the Schools Archive for High Schools, etc

Academic articles, what I think is important

In answer to a question from User:Dgandco about what constitutes the important requirements--as I personally see them

1. . Do not ever copy anything from a website, unless you fulfill the requirements of WP:COPYRIGHT. even then, it must be suitable.
2. . Read WP:BFAQ for information about conflict of interest and the necessary precautions.
3. . Read WP:PROFTEST from information about what counts as notability for faculty and researchers
4. . Remember the difference from an academic CV, which lists everything pertinent, and an encyclopedia article, which contains only information about the most important accomplishments.
   1. . List only major works: Books, the most important peer-reviewed journal articles, major awards, chairmanships, and so on.
   2. .Books are shown to be important by first, the nature of the publisher, and second, reviews in peer-reviewed journals. Include exact citations to such reviews, and third, being cited elsewhere.
   3. It is appropriate to list all the published books. Works in progress don't count for much.
   4. .Journal articles are shown important by fisrst, being published in excellent journals, and second, being widely cited. In the humanities, Scopus and Web of Science unfortunately dont work for citation counts--do the best you can with google Scholar.
   5. Overall number of peer reviewed articles is important, but do not actually list them all. Only the most highly cited or most recent or most significant. Usually, 5 is sufficient.
   6. Internal university committees are not usually of encyclopedic importance, nor is service as a reviewer. Editorships are. Positions as the head of major projects are.
   7. Teaching is only of encyclopedic importance if documented by major awards, notable students, or widely used textbooks .
   8. University administration below the Chair level is not usually important.
   9. Details of undergraduate work is not usually important, nor is any graduate work except the doctoral thesis research.
   10. work done independently after establishment as a full member of the profession in one's own right is what is important.
5. Remember the difference between public relations and an encyclopedia article
   1. Avoid adjectives of praise or importance
   2. Mention things once only.
   3. Mention the full name , & name of the university and department, only once or twice.
   4. Avoid needless words. Write concisely.
   5. Avoid non-descriptive jargon, and discussions of how important the overall subject is to society.
   6. Important public activities need to be documented by exact references to reliable 3rd party public sources/. don't use vague phrases about importance to the community and the like--list specific activities.
   7. .Do describe the research in specific terms, but briefly. Link to a few very specifically appropriate WP articles.
6. . follow WP style
   1. . Differentiate between External links, and references.
   2. . Link only the first appearance of a name of an institution or subject, but link all institutions and places
   3. . Give birthdate and place if possible
   4. . Use italics for book titles and journal titles, never bold face.

AND

• Be prepared to meet the common objection, "all professors publish. What are the third party sources saying this one is important" (dp) DGG (talk)

2007

SPARC

←I am a little confused by what happened to this page SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation you changed to a redirect yesterday --I see the speedy for the redirect but I did not notice the speedy or other deletion process for the original. In any case i want to recreate it as it is one of the things I know about & I'm sure i could do a proper article whatever may have been wrong with the first--If you're an admin could you restore it to my user space for the purpose? DGG 00:25, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The SPARC mess was confusing, I'll give you that. :) Someone — I don't know who — moved the SPARC article to the silly title SPARC - Scalable Processor ARChitecture, and created the new silly-titled page SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation. Someone else sensibly requested that SPARC - Scalable Processor ARChitecture be moved back to SPARC. I'm not actually an admin, so my contribution to the mess was limited to moving SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation to Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation, and proposing it for speedy deletion since its only content was a link to the organization's Web site. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete&page=Scholarly_Publishing_and_Academic_Resources_Corporation for the entire text of the page.) Since then, somebody else has speedy-deleted Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation (per my suggestion), and SPARC has been moved back to its rightful place.

If you would like to create an article about the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation, then Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation is the right place to do it. As long as you can find something encyclopedic to say about it, I wouldn't worry about the fact that a previous page on the topic has been deleted. --Quuxplusone 02:29, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Notability of scientists vs their science

Hey DGG (first off, congratulations on adminship). In this AfD you write "I cannot imagine that a paper written by a scientist could possibly be notable more than the scientist himself" which seems diametrically opposed to my thinking, so I thought I'd invite you to try entertaining it. If a scientist is notable (in the sense of passing WP:PROF) I would assume it is because their work is notable. Surely then they must be at least a degree more trivial than their work. For example, the Hershey-Chase experiment is a very important piece of science, which definitely belongs in an encyclopedia, but I'm not sure that Alfred Hershey or even more so Martha Chase are of the same level of notability. Similarly, Milikan's Oil-drop experiment important in a way that I just don't think the details of Robert Andrews Millikan's life are. Ditto Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority Study and Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment. In all these cases, the experimenters are certainly notable, but I think they are all less encyclopedic than their work. I guess this is what bothers me about the majority of the stubby little wikipedia entries for assorted professors, that their inclusion makes WP look like a cheap Whos-who unless their work is also encyclopedic. The writers of these bios seem disinterested in writing encyclopedic articles about their research topic, the benefit to WP of these articles does not extend to dissemination of knowledge about science, just the vanity, or vanity by proxy, of a puff-biography. Anyway, best of luck with the mop pushing. I'm certain that you'll do fine. Regards, Pete.Hurd 05:54, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, & I went back & adjusted the AfD comment,because you are right that I overgeneralized. Fuller reply in the works. DGG 07:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes please about citation count

Please yes a citation count would be good. I suspect the count will be high. Wenocur's major work includes the VC-paper, joint with Dudley which established values of VC-dimensions using hyperplanes and other techniques that were new. The paper with Salant is notable work. Her work on order statistics was new. in abstracting ideas of Einstein and Bose on gravitation as gravitation affecting numbers not particles. In other papers, the alternative proof techniques of identities were publically admired by H.S. Wilf. The indices of many books on neural nets contain references to her work with Dudley on VC-dimension. I personally have employed the order statitistic work and the VC work to analyze data and make predictions for clients. Currently, she is either self-employed or retired or semi-retired; she is not a young person, certainly over age 55. She corresponds with me, a humble consultant, but also with others who are noteable. I think she is tutoring now, also she mentioned, precocious children, and those who need to learn VC-theory for their work at universities or industry or consulting. I think she is also using mathematics for investment counseling in new ways. She won several awards from the U.S. Senate, the President of Temple University, New York City as a noteable woman of science and other awards. This is all I can think of, offhand, right now. Back to work now. Thank you. Alfred Legrand 16:08, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Gordon MacPherson

Not sure how you did your article search, but I got >120 peer-reviewed articles. Which still doesn't make him notable. What is needed is an independant secondary source specifically referring to 'Gordon MacPherson's important scientific contribution to x'. -Rustavo^{Talk/Contribs} 03:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

There are a number of people by that name, even in medicine. I was being very conservative--clearly over-conservative. I re-did it in Scopus to get a citation count, and found 58 peer-reviewed papers. I agree that I would in general not automatically consider an associate professor notable (that's the equiv. rank), but to my surprise, I found 427, 279, 250, 176, 146 citations for the five top papers. I think it covers the notability question. (I haven't put it all in the article quite yet. I find it much easier to cut spam down to size than to build up these over-modest articles.) Fiction writers get shown notable by reviews, athletes by competitions, scientists by citations. I can expand on this. DGG 03:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not the point. I strongly suspect that he is notable, but that is not the same thing as 1) knowing what he is notable for, 2) having an independant reference that establishes his notability, and c) having content in the article that discusses the thing he is notable for. Deleting an article doesn't prevent anyone from writing an article about that same subject in the future, it simply says that there's nothing in the current article that justifies having it. -Rustavo^{Talk/Contribs} 05:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I recognize you know the academic world, probably very well, so I don't have to explain why people there are important to start with (smile) (The next paragraph is what I have evolved as my standard reply-- it's addressed to people who do not know how scientists work, and I do not mean to sound as if you didn't know about this stuff--but it is better worded than what I can do on the spot)

• "We don't judge the work, even in subjects where some of us could, because this is an egalitarian place--we just show how other people have judged it. Notability for academics is typically established by their publications. People become professors by writing notable research papers. That the papers are notable is established by their being published in peer-reviewed journals. The review by two or more specialists in such peer review establishes those papers as evidence of N. For appointment, for promotion to associate professor of senior lecturer, they pass stringent reviews by peers, including particularly peers from other institutions.

this establishes notability much more strictly and reliably than we could here. The profession establishes notability; WP just records the fact.

In general, nobody writes magazine articles on professors, and they dont get a biography until they retire or die. Therefore, since notability in each field is judged by the standard of the field, and notability in this field is established by publications and positions, their publications and positions are always considered suffficient, as is explained more fully in WP:PROF., and consistently maintained at AfD."

"The standard there is more notable than the average." To be noticed by 400 peers is much more important that to be noticed by two book reviewers. To be noticed by more than 200 peers for several different publications is more notable than by being noticed by two book reviewers for several different novels.

Answers to specific objections: What he is notable for, is the subject of the papers. The abstracts are on PubMed for a description. There is no need to discuss the plot of a prize-winning movie to show it's notable. The recognition is sufficient. WP articles have to show their subjects are notable, by the standards of the field. They do not have to explain why the field holds them as notable; its best to get in some sort of orientation, but not essential.

The independent references are the papers themselves, and the are reliable because they have been published in peer-reviewed reliable journals. (in this case, of the very highest quality, and that can be shown too from Science Citation Reports). As a compromise rule of thumb, it seems to have been accepted that Full professors at research university are almost always notable, assistant professors rarely, associate, it depends. In this case, that many citation and papers would be enough even for an assistant professor, not that I can recall an assistant professor article here where he had such a strong record.

There is never much need to re-create an article about a scientist, since by the time enough people show up, it has become clear whether or not it's notable. If I can't get it rewritten or explained in 5 days I go on to the next. I do not defend the non-notable ones. (I do have a list of a few slip-ups when nobody noticed; when people write inadequate article that happens.) The article as it stands is sufficient, and these standards have been shown in multiple prior AfDs --I am not being idiosyncratic (actually, I should probably go back myself and make a list of informal precedents--there are no formal precedents here). DGG 06:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Librarian stuff

Hi DGG, I recognize your username from around the wiki (recently at some Afds I'm watching). I see you're an admin and a librarian, and that you've contributed to similar discussions in the past, so I'd like to point out the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Unusual university spam. I think it's about time we developed a clear policy about this sort of thing. As an established wikipedian and wannabe librarian, I've taken a great interest in this debate. Thanks for considering it! Latr, Katr 02:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your thoughtful reply. There seems to be a lot of hostility and misunderstanding around this issue, so I hope we can reach a satisfactory conclusion. If I go for my MLIS, I'll do the UW's distance-learning program, since I don't really want to move to Seattle. It sounds like a lot of fun, but I have to do my research and determine if the extra money I would be making would be worth the extra debt I'd be taking on! Latr, Katr 16:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

P.S. There is a similar thread that I moved just below the one in which you responded that you might want to check out. I'm taking everything related to that off my watchlist, as I seem to have unknowingly created some hostility between myself and one of the editors involved. If you would, please keep me posted if any new policies or guidelines are developed out of this. Thanks! Latr, Katr 17:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

RE: Past Presidents

A valid point about the references. They were already in the article (but rather hidden)and now I've given them their own spot at the bottom of the page. As having members with WP articles, the pickings are slim. But where you might see an AFD, I see a small project of sorts. Many of the people on that list are notable professors/teachers/scientists in their own right. So, I was planning to Start writing articles on a few past presidents of interest, and give them overdue praise for their contributions to education and science. I'd be happy to discuss this further, but probably not tonight--I'm off to sleep. Violadamore

academics

Thanks for your navigation. I added something from GGC’s old resume, which I found on the Internet and books from WorldCat and Amazon. I’ll be trying to add some more substantial info on both academics’ work from other sources.

I translated a few US textbooks on writing and related subjects. If you need any help with Russian, feel free to contact me. My e-mail is anstan@bk.ru.

Anstan07 10:01, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Blogs etc as references

I am wondering about when blogs become useful as references. Some blogs are written by known figures who are notable already from their other writing, or from their qualifications or expertise. Some are associated with people who give their real names and professional positions and credentials. Some science blogs have been highly rated. For example, Nature magazine placed a "review of some of the best blogs written by working scientists" on its website in July 2006.[1][2].

Some examples:

• Pharyngula (weblog) by PZ Myers, a biologist from the University of Minnesota, science category winner in the 2006 Weblogs Awards
• Panda's Thumb (weblog), with many professional scientist posters, also highly rated (second place winner?). Almost every poster I have seen on there already has a WP article, and is noted for other writing already. Usually with good sources.
• talkorigins not a blog exactly, but with many articles written by well-known professional scientists and well-sourced
• RealClimate, a blog produced by "real climate scientists at the American Geophysical Union"
• Aetiology, found at [3], written by Tara C. Smith, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in Iowa
• scienceblogs, a provider of science blogs includes many interesting and useful blogs [4]. Note that they are selective in who gets to blog, in fact.
• Nature itself hosts assorted science-related blogs [5]

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?--Filll 04:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

essentially, i think a review like that of Nature gives authority to the blog. The best way of establishing the authority is to write an article about the blog for Wikipedia. I think this is true in general for any type of sources which not everyone will recognize as notable without an explanation, and I have done so for a few reference sources, and have always intending to do more, including some blogs. Blogs run by magazines are like letters to the editor. Some places screen them very very carefully, some don't. (remembering again to distinguish from the letter to the editor type of short article, as in Nature). Something published in a blog by a recognized authority is an easy case--regardless of where she publishes it, she gives it authority. But remember to be fair about this--some blogs by those with whom we do not agree are also responsible.

so I encourage you to write some articles about blogs. Let me know & I'll look at them. DGG (talk) 04:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

For your consideration: A description of a science blog

Please take a look at my draft of an article on the science blog Aetiology, which appears here. Thank you.--Filll 16:49, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I have slowly improved this draft a bit and also, at your suggestion, started a draft on the author of this blog at User talk:Filll/Tara C. Smith. I think I am getting close to showing she is notable, but you tell me what you think.--Filll 23:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Smith has published 3 books, and taught at 4 different Universities, and has several journal publications as well. Smith organized the Iowa Citizens for Science (with a few dozen members), and been engaged in lobbying and organizing public Darwn events (1 so far, another upcoming in 2008), and an article about her activities in this area has been in the Des Moines Register. I think she is well on her way to notability, if she is not there already.

Her blog is rated number 7 in science from Nature, out of 46 million blogs evaluated. I count 4 print mentions (including in Cell (journal) and 5 cyberspace media articles about Aetiology (in addition to just 1000s of general blogosphere discussions on other blogs). Notable?--Filll 16:09, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Use of blog as source

At your suggestion, I have now built up Tara C. Smith's article to hopefully reach notability, as well as the article about her blog, Aetiology. Do you think these are now reasonable? Do they demonstrate notability? Can I now use them as sources at [6] ? If you think that this is a good source now, would you help me reinstate the citations on the article Physicians and Surgeons who Dissent from Darwinism for me? I have not found other sources, at least yet, because it is pretty obscure so far. If you know of other sources, I would welcome those as well. Thank you. --Filll 20:38, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Another editor has disagreed that the general audience, popular nature of the 3 books should be mentioned. They also disagree that the book reviews should be included. They also want to put personal information in the article, such as material about her d.o.b, ethnicity (???), family life, etc. I disagree with this, even though I can put it in there. Possibly the year she was born can be included, but I think the rest is sort of irrelevant. I want to concentrate on her professional career. Comments?--Filll 14:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Academic conferences

I'm not going to mention it on the Journals WikiProject (unless you think it is relevant), but I thought you might be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International Conference on the Gulen Movement as a way to gauge feelings for notability of conferences. I'd be particularly interested in a reaction to my comment "The question seems to be which academic conferences are notable? It is rare for academic conferences to get coverage outside of their specialised areas. Does this mean Wikipedia shouldn't cover them?" Thanks. Carcharoth 15:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course, picking a conference that hasn't even taken place yet might not have been the best idea... :-) Carcharoth 15:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

In my view, almost no individual conference is notable--the bar is very high. I can thing of a few exceptions--none of which presently have articles, nor would I at this time try to introduce them. The few that have made it as far as AfD, I've usually said delete. Series can be; in some cases their proceedings are major information resource. We need articles on most of the major ones--there are probably at least 50 in the sciences--though not 5,000. The current practice is usually to put them under the names of the sponsoring organisation. I may mention it at the project, because there is a related question of how to handle book series in general--but again, I'd want to get journals more throughly established first. 16:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC)== TfD nomination of Template:Trivia==

Template:Trivia has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Pixelface 20:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Columbia University's School of Continuing Education

Following up, please note - this paragraph is a word-for-word copy of page four from the school's 2006 Dean's Report.[7]

(details refactored)

I hope that's enough to demonstrate the problem: most of the page is copyvio from university publications, posted by single purpose IPs or accounts that either resolve to the university or are obviously related to it. The abuse is so blatant that bulleted lists aren't even reformatted in wikimarkup. Please speedy. Durova^Charge! 22:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

indeed yes--I perfectly well realised that it would all have been copied from various places. I left that edit summary just to prevent deletion while I reworked it quickly. I have now removed all the detailed sections and stubbified the basics. I think a stubbified article can serve a useful lesson--more on your page--our postings seem to have crossed. DGG (talk) 22:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: criteria for academics

Hi DGG -- I assume you're referring to Dlawer Ala'Aldeen? The way I work on AfD with academics tends to be to list all the information that I've found that I feel has a bearing on the notability of the subject, whether positive, negative or neutral, and then to see whether on balance I believe that s/he appears to have attained sufficient notice by his/her peers to meet WP:PROF.

I agree that citations are more important than raw numbers of papers, but unfortunately have access only to Google Scholar, which is partial at best. As to the professor vs other titles divide, that doesn't really make much sense in the UK at the moment, as we're currently transitioning from a system in which only heads of departments are given the title of professor to something more akin to the US system. In the meantime, what 'professor', 'senior lecturer', 'reader' &c&c means is entirely university and indeed department dependent.

My standards for keeping an existing article (that was created in good faith and without obvious conflict of interest) are significantly lower than my standards for creating a new article myself. Regards, Espresso Addict 21:50, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

h-index and CiteULike

Hi DGG, Thanks for the kind words regarding my work on h-index. Once I have some spare time on my hand, I'll try to work in some recent research on the topic. V interesting stuff showing that women in evo/eco have generally lower h-index even though other attempts to show impact of research show them level with men.

Regarding the CiteULike article, please tell me where you see a conflict of interest. I attempted to remove the direct quotes from the website that were previously in the article. And rewrote most of it. Also emailed the authors regarding the free status of the service (see talk page) for a justification why there's no statement referring to that on their website. They were responsive and said that there are currently exploring ways to support the site, possibly via contributions from companies, institutions, etc. Since this is in the making, they said, it might cause legal complication to place such a statement on their website.

Please let me know where you see a conflict of interest, so I can rework that part and remove the tag.

Best, Jakob Suckale 11:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC) -

replied on your page, and fixed it a little more and removed the tag. 18:09, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

will contact you by email to discuss. best, Jakob Suckale 10:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

ACM Multimedia

Where is the assertion of importance in this article? What are the notability guidelines for conferences and meetings? Robert K S 06:27, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

1. Speedy for non notability can only be used for the classes of material given as WP:CSD. Technical scientific, business meetings etc are not included among them. There has been very strong resistance to expansion of those criteria. 2. Further, according to WP:CSD A7 even for those things included any good faith indication of notability at all is sufficient to prevent speedy. If you doubt the notability, you may test it at AfD. 3. But since this is a major international conference of the major professional association in a field where professional conferences are the main avenue of communication, it will probably be held notable. There are no special rules for articles on these, just WP:N., but all major series of conferences proposed for AFD in the last 9 months have been held notable. Individual conferences have usually been held non-notable. In practice, the guidelines are determined by the decisions at AfD. But that's just my advice, and you have the right to test them. DGG (talk) 06:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice. I'm not sure you answered my questions. All articles have to assert notability, no? I do not doubt that ACM Multimedia is a professional conference, but it must point to some source showing that it is in order for the article to stand. You seem to be saying that, to the best of your knowledge, there are as yet no notability guidelines for meetings and conferences, and that each such article must be tested on a case-by-case basis through AfD. Robert K S 07:00, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

"Assert" is a very weak word. the subjects of all articles have to do much more than that, they have to actually be notable. For some types of articles, many of them give so little indication or assertion of any possible notability at all that it is appropriate to remove them quickly on the grounds that notability would not possibly be able to be shown. That's for speedy--it deals nicely with the real junk. I, like most admins, take a share in deleting a dozen of so each day. Everything else goes for AFD or PROD.

Most types of articles have no specific guidelines, in fact, just WP:N. It's the default, and the others are just specializations--and are every one of them not fixed policy but flexible guidelines subject to interpretation. All questioned notability for whatever reason gets tested at AfD, and any good faith registered user such as yourself has the right to bring an article there to test it. I am advising you it will probably stand, on the basis of my experience with the last year's worth of such article brought there, but that is just advice. I am not the person who gets to decide. The question will be argued, and the consensus of the people discussing it there will be followed. I will advise you that the article can in my opinion certainly be sourced, and you might want to try to look for some yourself--it takes less time than the afd nomination process. The rule is that articles are not deleted for being unsourced, only for being unsourcable. An appropriate intermediary step is to place a PROD tag on it, saying something like no sources given for notability -- see WP:PROD for the procedure -- and notify the person who wrote the article to give them a chance to source it. AfD s a blunt and cumbersome tool to get articles sourced and improved. DGG (talk) 07:59, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Wrong Assumption

Although I know wiki pages have been created for some penn state faculty members during these weeks, I have to say I only created the page for James Wang in fact (I trided to create the page for another faculty member I also really admire once, but I gave up at last due to not enough notability.) Please do not make ungrounded assumption. I do not think creating wiki pages for interested people is a problem. But I agree that WP:PROF and WP:RS should be measured. This is my first time to make effort to create and maintain a wiki page, so it might be not enough good in these two aspects due to my unfamiliarity to wiki editing rather than James Wang's contribution. That is why I am keeping remedying these two aspects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wendy xxy (talk • contribs) 04:23, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I apologize if I have overgeneralized. it does however appear to me --and to other wikipedians-- that the pages seem to have been created in some sort of an organized drive, as judged by the extensive similarities between the information presented , the formatting, and the style of writing. The rest of us here do think that creating pages for people where a COI exists is in fact a problem, because it leads to uncritical presentation as in these articles. People usually do better writing from a little distance. the net effect of this apparent campaign is going to greatly decrease the likelihood of articles being kept at Wikipedia. You may be able to tell from my user page here that i work very hard to keep the articles on significant faculty, but I can only do it for truly significant faculty and well-written moderate articles. In general articles on faculty run into some difficulty from those who do not understand that the publication of notable papers is what demonstrates notability. It is therefore necessary to be careful. You might want to follow the following guidelines: 1/avoid adjectives saying how important the work is 2/ only include the 2 or 3 most cited papers--in peer reviewed journals, as determined by an objective source, preferably Scopus or Science Citation Index, and give the exact number of citations from there. 3/List only significant prizes--not faculty teaching awards and the like. Outside major research grants do very nicely. 4/include full publication details of all the books, including the ISBN, and exact references to reviews of them in published sources. Publishers blurbs are not acceptable sources, no matter how important the guy who wrote them. I will be glad to offer further help, and i could do so particularly well if you could put me in touch with whoever is coordinating this project. DGG (talk) 04:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Academic articles, what I think is important

In answer to a question from User:Dgandco about what constitutes the important requirements--as I personally see them

1. . Do not ever copy anything from a website, unless you fulfill the requirements of WP:COPYRIGHT. even then, it must be suitable.
2. . Read WP:BFAQ for information about conflict of interest and the necessary precautions.
3. . Read WP:PROFTEST from information about what counts as notability for faculty and researchers
4. . Remember the difference from an academic CV, which lists everything pertinent, and an encyclopedia article, which contains only information about the most important accomplishments.
   1. . List only major works: Books, the most important peer-reviewed journal articles, major awards, chairmanships, and so on.
   2. .Books are shown to be important by first, the nature of the publisher, and second, reviews in peer-reviewed journals. Include exact citations to such reviews, and third, being cited elsewhere.
   3. It is appropriate to list all the published books. Works in progress don't count for much.
   4. .Journal articles are shown important by fisrst, being published in excellent journals, and second, being widely cited. In the humanities, Scopus and Web of Science unfortunately dont work for citation counts--do the best you can with google Scholar.
   5. Overall number of peer reviewed articles is important, but do not actually list them all. Only the most highly cited or most recent or most significant. Usually, 5 is sufficient.
   6. Internal university committees are not usually of encyclopedic importance, nor is service as a reviewer. Editorships are. Positions as the head of major projects are.
   7. Teaching is only of encyclopedic importance if documented by major awards, notable students, or widely used textbooks .
   8. University administration below the Chair level is not usually important.
   9. Details of undergraduate work is not usually important, nor is any graduate work except the doctoral thesis research.
   10. work done independently after establishment as a full member of the profession in one's own right is what is important.
5. Remember the difference between public relations and an encyclopedia article
   1. Avoid adjectives of praise or importance
   2. Mention things once only.
   3. Mention the full name , & name of the university and department, only once or twice.
   4. Avoid needless words. Write concisely.
   5. Avoid non-descriptive jargon, and discussions of how important the overall subject is to society.
   6. Important public activities need to be documented by exact references to reliable 3rd party public sources/. don't use vague phrases about importance to the community and the like--list specific activities.
   7. .Do describe the research in specific terms, but briefly. Link to a few very specifically appropriate WP articles.
6. . follow WP style
   1. . Differentiate between External links, and references.
   2. . Link only the first appearance of a name of an institution or subject, but link all institutions and places
   3. . Give birthdate and place if possible
   4. . Use italics for book titles and journal titles, never bold face.

AND

• Be prepared to meet the common objection, "all professors publish. What are the third party sources saying this one is important"

Appleton's Cyclopedia

Thanks for your note on the Resource Exchange. I had no idea, I'm not that familiar with American sources. But it sounds like we better remove that Cyclopedia altogether, or what do you think? Key to the city 12:37, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

As far as Resource exchange, yes. Nor do we need it. The period involved is now adequately covered by Google Book Search, and true sources are now readily available. But it is still useful where it can be confirmed elsewhere, and is still used academically--as i understand the question, it contains information not otherwise available, in many cases derived directly from relatives of the people covered or manuscript sources. But this is not really my period, and i think we need to investigate further the scholarly consensus. I think historians still do use it, but historians are trained in the use of multiple sources with the recognition that some will be unreliable and contradictory. Wikipedians in general do not have that skill. (which is why we here use secondary or tertiary sources and report all views expressed, being unqualified to do an adequate synthesis). DGG (talk) 12:52, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'll remove it. Sounds like it would do more harm than good in the Resource Exchange context. Key to the city 16:20, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this from the academic / reliability side. I had envision it as being similar to Britannica 1911, generally valid for the time in which it was authored, but out of date today. Originally, I had concerns about it from a spam perspective, because in April 07 there were over 60 distinct domain names which pointed to the famousamericans.net content. --Versageek 17:03, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there are all sorts of problems: the possible spam concern would have been using exclusively one of the several sites that offer it, but that can't really be avoided entirely any more than one can avoid listing JSTOR or project gutenberg. The copyvio is a serious matter until we find out which posted versions of the text are in fact original. I still think it can be used as a reference, but i would question an article where it was the only source. I've long been unhappy with not indicating exactly the material copied even when its public domain--I consider it an absolutely necessity to avoid plagiarism, though that view is not really the consensus here. And I am in general very unhappy with our use of the material from any of the older encyclopedia to fill our gaps, instead of writing properly sourced articles. Brittanica, & the Catholic Encyclopedia. that was a decision made way back, when WP was desperate for ordinary encyclopedic content--I wasn't here then, but even then I would have said it was a mistake, and now I fully support the project of revising every one of those articles. Now the old DNB is available as well, but at least it does have a good reputation for its period--though the older articles were not scholarly in the modern sense, and thousands of error reports have accumulated and been published. DGG (talk) 17:15, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

According to the Virtualology site, which is a copy & attempted revision of the notoriously unreliable Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, its revised biographies are arranged separately, as explained there "If you would like to edit this biography please submit a rewritten biography in text form . If acceptable, the new biography will be published above the 19th Century Appleton's Cyclopedia Biography citing the volunteer editor." from, e.g. [1] However, I see no firm indication that this is in fact the case, and would like to see some examples of this. Ones directly from Appletons are not copyvios. Ones modified from Appleton's are copyvios, because the Virtualology site is copyrighted. Unfortunately, the original ones are also known not to be reliable or accurate.( It is additionally plagiarism to use them with just the tag at the bottom, without indicating that the entire article was copied and what the exact source is.) I therefore doubt that any material from this site can ever be incorporated in Wikipedia. If unmodified, they are not reliable. If modified, they are not public domain. DGG (talk) 01:19, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Here are a few Edited Samples

John Baptist Lamy Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.johnbaptistlamy/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.jhectorstjohndecrevecoeur/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Johannes Megapolensis Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.johannesmegapolensis/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages John Mary Odin Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons johnmaryodin/ - 27k - Cached - Similar pages Manjiro Nakahama Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.manjironakahama/ - 18k - Cached - Similar pages Charles Francis Baillargeon Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons charlesfrancisbaillargeon/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages John Finley Rathbone Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons johnfinleyrathbone/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages John Taylor Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.johntaylor3/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages Cornelius O'Brien Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons corneliusobrien/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages Louis Amadeus Rappe Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons louisamadeusrappe/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Sister Margaret Bourgeois Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons sistermargaretbourgeois/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages Lucretia Maria Davidson Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors .... Edited Appletons www.lucretiamariadavidson/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Francisco Ximenes Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons franciscoximenes/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages John Francis O'Mahony Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons johnfrancisomahony/ - 23k - Cached - Similar pages John Adams Webster Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.johnadamswebster/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages Juan Jose Flores Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.juanjoseflores/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Francisco Jarque Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons franciscojarque/ - 19k - Cached - Similar pages Michael Joseph O'Farrell Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.michaeljosephofarrell/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages Juan Caballero Y Ocio Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons juancaballeroyocio/ - 19k - Cached - Similar pages Garcilaso de la Vega Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons garcilasodelavega/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Sebastian Garcilaso De La Vega Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors .... Edited Appletons www.sebastiangarcilasodelavega/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Juan Maria de Salvatierra Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.juanmariadesalvatierra/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages Diego Garcia de Palacio Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons diegogarciadepalacio/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages Edgar Philip Wadhams Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons edgarphilipwadhams/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages Agustin Davila Y Padilla Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons agustindavilaypadilla/ - 18k - Cached - Similar pages Andr6s Avelino Caceres Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.andr6savelinocaceres/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Paul de Chomedey Maisonneuve Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.pauldechomedeymaisonneuve/ - 19k - Cached - Similar pages Juan Jose Escalona Y Calatayud Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.juanjoseescalonaycalatayud/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages Lorenzo Hervas y PANDUR0 Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons lorenzohervasypandur0/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages Anne Joseph Hyppolite Malartie Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons annejosephhyppolitemalartie/ - 18k - Cached - Similar pages Mother Marie de L'incarnation Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.mothermariedelincarnation/ - 23k - Cached - Similar pages Atahualpa, Or Atabalipa (ah'-ta-oo-al'-pa) Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.atahualpaoratabalipa/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Dred Scott Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.dredscott/ - 24k - Cached - Similar pages John Joachim Zubli Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons johnjoachimzubli/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Elzear Alexandre Taschereau Virtualologywelcomes editing and additions to the biographies. ... Edited Appletons elzearalexandretaschereau/ - 23k - Cached - Similar pages John Joseph Kain Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.johnjosephkain/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages Felix De (ath'-a-ra) Azara Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.felixdeazara/ - 19k - Cached - Similar pages Felipe Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons felipe/ - 24k - Cached - Similar pages Santa Rosa OF Lima Virtualologywelcomes editing and additions to the biographies. ... Edited Appletons www.santarosaoflima/ - 19k - Cached - Similar pages Francisco De (cor'-do-vah) Cordova Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons franciscodecordova/ - 19k - Cached - Similar pages Frederic Auguste Bartholdi Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.fredericaugustebartholdi/ - 23k - Cached - Similar pages Bernardo Diaz Del Castillo Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons bernardodiazdelcastillo/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages Malta Capac Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.maltacapac/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages Miguel Grau Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.miguelgrau/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Francisco Orellana Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.franciscoorellana/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages John Nepomucene Neumann Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.johnnepomuceneneumann/ - 26k - Cached - Similar pages Alvar Nufiez (kah-bay'-thah-de-vah'-ka) Cabeza De Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors .... Edited Appletons alvarnufiezcabezadeyaca/ - 23k - Cached - Similar pages Apostolos Valerianos Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.apostolosvalerianos/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdez Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.gonzalofernandezdeoviedoyvaldez/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages --71.42.169.223 (talk) 21:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography 1887-89.

Currently a user is deleting all references to Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, a contemporaneous source of information for 19th c. Americans much as Giorgio Vasari's encyclopedia is for 16th c. Italian artists. That is to say, it's not just some random website. Talking to the user produces this kind of response to others, so I've just left a brief note. I hope I may be spared any personal contact with this user. The damage being done is not minor. I'm struggling to insert the following footnote in the few little articles I watch: "Dates and other biographical information in this article are drawn from Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography 1887-89." The website with on-line text is spam-blocked here (no one need explain that to me, please). I am posting here because the user's boilerplate edit summary is "clean up, & remove link see WP:AN using AWB" ——but I see nothing here that would justify wholesale, unconsidered deletions; tomorrow another such a one will no doubt slap demands for references and citations on the same articles. At any rate I leave this in your capable hands. No need to involve me further, please. --Wetman (talk) 18:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Appleton's is not considered a reliable source; articles sourced to it are being gradually cleaned up and more reliable sources sought. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:44, 10 December 2007 (UTC) absolutely so--notorious for inclusion of false biographies of non-existent people, see the article on it. This has been discussed here at some length. We are indeed removing all references to it, and all articles depending only on it for documentation will need to be carefully checked, and the facts in all articles using it as a source in any way re-verified elsewhere. DGG (talk) 18:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

We did our homework, despite some editors above maintaining the contrary. Without giving away too much, There are 202 known fictitious biographies such as Pierre de Vogué (http://famousamericans./jeanpierredevogue/) and Vicente y Bennazar (http://famousamericans./andresvicenteybennazar/ ) from the research Virtualology has done on the Encyclopedia. It was traced to one employee who was paid by the article and thus his work has been thorough researched over the years turning up the 202.

Most importantly, the BULK (approximately 180 of the false sketches) found are written on obscure European scientists who supposedly travelled to the America’s to study natural history. Examples of sketches include, the biography of Charles Henry Huon de Penanster, (famousamericans./ charleshenryhuondepenanster/) identified as a French botanist, whose bio parallels Nicolas Thiery de Menonville (whose genuine biography also appears in Appleton's). Nicolas Henrion's, (famousamericans./NicolasHenrion/) a French scientist listing reports that he arrived in South America in 1783, when Asiatic cholera was in full bloom. The epidemic first broke out in South America only in 1835. Miguel da Fonseca e Silva Herrera, (famousamericans./ migueldafonsecaesilvaherrera/) supposedly was a gold medal Brazilian historian, from the historical institute of Rio de Janeiro in 1820 but the society was not founded until 1838. Some good references on the topic are:

Barnhart, John H. "Some Fictitious Botanists." Journal of the New York Botanical Garden 20 (September 1919): 171-81. Dobson, John B.. "The Spurious Articles in Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography—Some New Discoveries and Considerations." Biography 16(4) 1993: 388-408. O'Brien, Frank M. "The Wayward Encyclopedias", New Yorker, XII (May 2, 1936), pp. 71-74. Schindlir, Margaret Castle. "Fictitious Biography." American Historical Review 42 (1937), pp. 680-90.

The rest of the boigraphies are IMPORTANT historical accounts of exceptional men and women whose deeds in the Americas were notable at the very least. These are a exceptional additions to the Wikipedia Project. It is wrong to blacklist these sites PS YOU HAVE TO ADD THE NET TO THE LINKS AS THEY ARE BLACKLISTED --97.97.197.9 (talk) 03:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I shall do some further checking, but my understanding as confirmed by my limited research work with it is that the biographies are based to a considerable extent on unedited personal information from relatives and similar unreliable sources. in the one or two articles cross-checked in Wikipedia, details are wrong. What is needed here are some expert opinions--i think I am in a position to obtain them, and i will do so in the next day or two. i would have no objection to a moratorium on article deletions in the meantime. Nonetheless, for the references added to articles, even if we decide they are reliable, they must cite appletons, with possibly a convenient link to the online version. DGG (talk) 06:42, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

As an aside, Wikisource is now collecting biographical entries in this work. s:Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography. IMO it is silly to blacklist this important work; editors may not have vetted every entry as well as they should have, but that doesnt mean every entry is bogus. By putting this work on Wikisource, critical analysis can occur on the talk page, and annotations can occur inline. John Vandenberg (talk) 12:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Prods

Please remember to give a reason when you enter the Prod. It makes it very hard to work with them otherwise.DGG (talk) 14:27, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi DGG,

A huge number (6000) of articles are listed at User:Eagle_101/potential_crap_3/4. These articles were prodded because they were listed there. I'm not about to put that in the edit summary, however. I don't want anyone to feel insulted that their articles were proposed for deletion because they are "potential crap". Firsfron of Ronchester 18:21, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

It just says "potential" . It isnt actually his view--you should read the notes--he says "This list contains all articles as of around October 17 that have no wikilinks and at least one external link....Some of these will need to be deleted. " It's just an algorithm for articles worth a look at that may, as he says, have been "items that were missed by RC patrol"

It is not a hit list for deletion, just for re-examination. You must use your own personal judgement. if you prod an article, you take responsibility for having read it and evaluated it. And you must then give a reason--your reason. DGG (talk) 18:32, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I've read the notes. I chose a small number of articles, and prodded most of them. These are "potential crap", and you can deprod them if you like, but then you must take responsibility for them. Firsfron of Ronchester 18:39, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I corrected that mistake right away, you know. Firsfron of Ronchester 01:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

yes, in correcting the prod of Robert Silverberg, the SF writer, winner of 2 Hugos and 6 Nebulas--and so asserted in the lede paragraph--you gave the edit summary "fix bot edit" ; looking at the timing, you were prodding them at the rate or 8 a minute, so you must indeed have been relying on a bot: a bot, deleting based upon a selection prepared by an automated screen.

Not only I, but two other editors have been deprodding the ones you have been placing, and commenting. But let's look at some of them, from myself and the other editors:

David Crichton a world champion freestyle skier

[David Ligare], a painter with works in MOMA, the Uffizi, and Thyssen-Bornemisza;

David Miln Smith on cover of Sports Illustrated as first man to swin from Africa to Europe across Straits of Gibraltar

David Edwards (ArtScientist) a professor of Biomedical Engineering at Harvard University & a novelist

According to WP:PROD,"Proposed deletion is the way to suggest that an article is uncontroversially a deletion candidate" DGG (talk) 01:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I am generally an inclusionist, David, but many of the articles I tagged are in terrible shape, and have been for months. If some are salvageable, salvage them. If some are tagged incorrectly, it can be fixed: they weren't speedied. I sincerely don't know why you brought up an article I correctly de-tagged myself. I suppose I could dredge through your edits and find something you'd mistagged and corrected immediately, and then bring it up on your talk page, making no mention of the fact that you had corrected it yourself right away. Firsfron of Ronchester 01:34, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if I am one of the "two other editors" mentioned, but I did de-prod an article in the group. Regardless I'd like to look past what seems to be a one-off failure to fully vet the prods, and look at a larger issue this action addressed, one which all of us are concerned about: solving the cleanup backlog and the many dubious articles associated with it.

At a steady 27K cleanup tag group count going on for months, despite efforts of many to clear tags (including myself at a few a week), it is clear that current cleanup efforts are barely holding steady. What does tagging an article mean if it is one in tens of thousands and the tag backlog is two years? The cleanup tag group fails to be meaningful and the information it provides to flag a problematic article is lost in a sea of other tags, old and new. We have effectively lost the use of a powerful tool to fix problems with Wikipedia. Too often now the tags are used as a flag for "I don't know what the hell to do about this mess, but I can't quite speedy it, so I'll stick a notability or wikify or general cleanup tag here and maybe another editor can figure it out." Probably have done that myself a few times.

The one-at-a-time effort is not working; an appealing solution is a semi-automated or bulk-processing approach to clearing out or cleaning up bad articles. I cannot fault Firsfron for trying this out on a small scale. I do have concerns with the actual implementation and side with DGG on the basic issues of over-prodding, but I certainly sympathize—no, more than sympathize—I support the basic concept of mass clearing, be it as tag removal or deletion of "crappy articles" when notability is neither asserted nor apparent.

Bottom line is that while I understand why this particular prod session is problematic, and why DGG and others are not particularly happy with the results, there are excellent reasons for experimenting with new solutions to the cleanup/bad article problem, if basic groundrules to avoid notability conflicts can be established and scrupulously followed. Any ideas? -- Michael Devore 02:24, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, Michael. I hope DGG won't mind if I respond to your comments here. I do apologize to all involved for stepping on toes here. My attempt was to help clear the backlog by prodding a few articles, not upset anyone by prodding notable subjects or potentially salvageable articles; I figured it was just a prod tag, easily removable by anyone if they felt it was justified to keep them. I'm not protesting any of the removed tags, but I see a danger in just doing this or this. Just slapping an unreferenced tag on an article won't help when it's been tagged for clean-up since March. These articles aren't improving, and no amount of adding maintenance tags will help them. The bot identified 6,000 of them (probably there are many more), so the 36 I prodded are a drop in the bucket. As I stated earlier, I'm generally an inclusionist: if something can be salvaged, it should be. But for the most part, these aren't being salvaged. They're just sitting there, collecting maintenance tags. Firsfron of Ronchester 02:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

If I might chip in here. One of the examples Firsfron gave of my 'unhelpful' edits was to deprod DataEase and tag it as unreferenced. Before Firsfron prodded this article, it didn't have any tags on it to indicate that it needed to be improved. DataEase is a highly notable piece of database software, and the article simply needs tidying up and references adding. I sympathise with Firsfron's frustration with the backlog of articles, but to prod an article with an edit history going back to June 2006, with dozens of contributing editors, and without any tags to prompt other editors into improving the article, is extremely poor. Irrespective of how frustrated you are or how big the backlog is, prod is only for uncontroversial deletion candidates. Another example is Darren Fleary, an international rugby league player. The article is clearly about a notable subject. It was a small stubby article, which had external links that could have been converted into references, and again it had no tags to indicate that the article needed improving before it was prodded by Firsfron. If editors are prodding articles that have been tagged as unreferenced or with unclear notability for some time, that's fine by me, but at least give other editors a chance to improve them first. Being on an editor's own list of "potential crap" isn't going to help anybody else to improve these articles.--Michig 09:09, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I've noted DGG's comments below, and appreciate them, both as advice and as editing motivation. I do want to state, though, that there's more to clean-up than adding an unreferenced tag: that article has no fewer than seventeen screenshots, all claimed to be in the public domain. The same user who uploaded all of these removed the clean-up tag originally on the article, and replaced it with this comment, which stayed in the article for over a month. This article needs serious attention. At best, it needs clean-up and referencing. At worst, it contains 17 copyright violations. Firsfron of Ronchester 11:08, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

It's on my list to go and try to clean this article up, but if you want to have a go yourself before I get the chance, please feel free to do so.--Michig 11:25, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

yes, looking at this one, I too see some problems. Unless it's really important software the detail seems possibly excessive--even if not copvio. But the images are claimed as PD, and this does not seem to have ever been challenged. If there's possible copyvio, challenging that is a good first step, as it can be unambiguous--and it does get attention. Looks like the article would hold without them, however. This exactly illustrates what I said about the need to go one article at a time. Michg's ,yours, and my comments on this particular article should be copied to the article talk page as a start of an appropriate discussion--an obviously better place to discuss the merits of it . DGG (talk) 11:28, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

• If I knew an easy way to improve the project, I would have have let people know before this. But there is no easy way, and there will never be one. Information systems don't work that way; they need constant upkeep, and the larger they get, the harder the upkeep is. Upgrading an information system to a higher level of accuracy is even more difficult. Yet we need to do so. The initial standards were too low, and the reliance upon community input too naive. The reliance of others on WP is greater by far than could have been imagined, and we must accept the responsibility to live up to the demands now being made on us
• I have spent my career working with even more complex information systems than WP, involving many times more than two million article sets of information, maintained in a cooperative way by widely dispersed and loosely coordinated organisations. They have needed to deal with a wider variety and amount of information and users than they were ever designed for, and it has been very difficult to get them to work at the necessary level. Yet they have keep going, and improved enough to at least minimally meet the needs. It has taken the patient dedicated work of thousands of people with many different skills, all recognizing that most of what they did would be only temporary, and would only just serve to get by, and would not fully solve the problem. But they have kept the provision of formal information to society from collapsing. I consider this is a wonderful thing to have collective accomplished, and I can think of no more rewarding career than to have supported in this way the world's other professions--even for a single generation.
• Let's apply this here. We are dealing with a new paradigm for the construction of a major information resource. Those who invented the powerful architecture did recognize the intellectual possibilities; no one could have fully imagined the social implications. some of it, like AI, has gone very slowly compared to what was predicted, some, like remote social networking, very much more quickly. I ascribe the strength to the existence of parallel systems: the 2.0 world consists of much more than Wikipedia, and different people will find their own homes within it. Let's look at our strengths--the strength is number and diversity of amateurs, and the retention of some respect for intellectual authority together with cooperative working. The pillars--comprehensiveness, NPOV, Verifiability, freedom from censorship, mutual respect. To work this way requires modesty. the responsibility for improving WP rests on all of uys, but is dependent on any individual one of us.
• I came here, and tried to rescue every important article, to upgrade everything I knew enough about, to add everything important in my subject, to supply every needed reference, to help everyone who needed it. I've learned my limits. But i've been also a teacher, and that is how to multiple one's efforts. We ourselves cannot do very much personally, confronted with the size of the problem. But we can maintain our own standards, and teach them to others. they in their turn will teach and recruit others. Like all organisations hoping to have a wide influence, we must grow or collapse.
• In a practical sense, there are strata of articles.

Many of us choose to spend some time at least keeping the very worst and most destructive new ones out of WP in the first place. I don't do much of this, but i do delete a dozen or so a day. Looking at New pages, i think we are keeping up here. I was a skeptic about patrolled versions,but it seems to help.

The next part is of improving the totally inadequate articles, keeping in mind that stubs are acceptable, per WP:STUB--if notability appears likely, they do not even need references. The first step in this is to at least get them tagged so they do not escape attention. The second step is to get them worked on--the tag is sufficient that they will not be ignored indefinitely, for there are various clean up projects, such as wikiproject notability. the idea is to clean up the oldest first-but to do it with an eye to improving and keeping every article that can get improved enough to be worth keeping. Deletion policy is clear that deletion is the last resort for the hopeless articles. I do a little work with that project,and a bit with some others.

A later step is adding suitable references, not just to those without any but to those where they are really inadequate. This will be a long and slow procedure--it can take hours to do it properly for a single article. I try for one a week.

Then there is getting articles up to GA status. I honour those who to do it, but i find other priorities.

My actual priority, as people probably realise, is rescuing articles that would otherwise be deleted. i cant help them all, but I certainly try to help all those where I think it might make a difference. If people would only delete articles that they really thought hopeless, I wouldn't have to spend as much time on this. so i try to urge people to fix, rather than nominate for deletion, unless clearly unfixable.

Then I would have time for what i really want to do,which is improve the overall quality by adding articles on important things in areas I am most prepared to work on and most personally interested, where we do not yet have any. For example, we are still missing about 1/3 the members of the national academy of sciences.

• so in summary, I do have some straightforward advice--although I will not say it is exactly easy--try to improve articles patiently, one at a time, and encourage others to do so, one at a time. We ought not abandon the work, but neither can we expect to finish it. This was said of the whole world; it applies to our part of it. DGG (talk) 10:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree totally with what you've said. One of the problems, I feel, is that when articles are proposed for deletion, they are immediately visible to a large number of editors who monitor PROD's and AFD's (including myself), who will often take the opportunity to address the concerns raised by the nominator. Articles tagged as needing references, cleanup, etc., are generally less 'visible' - I know we can find these by the categories that come with the tags, but I find this less easy than reviewing the day's AFD's and PRODs. If I'm missing an easier way of finding articles that need work, please feel free to point it out. I quite enjoy taking deficient articles and improving them, but at the moment I'm unlikely to notice articles needing work that are not on my 1000+ article watchlist. I would imagine that there are far more editors regularly reviewing proposed deletions than routinely reviewing articles tagged as needing work, which is something that perhaps needs to be addressed in WP. --Michig 11:25, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Possibly the best reference for cleanup is found at the page Category:Cleanup_by_month, which encompasses all articles tagged with some form of cleanup notice. I refer to the page regularly. I further note, unhappily, that the heretofore reasonably steady 27K+ or 1.33% of all articles has just recently crept up to well over 28K, or 1.36%. Michael Devore 11:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Rfc at Regent University

Pardon me for being obtuse, but I am unclear what your position is. Monica Goodling is listed vis-a-vis her involvement in the Attorneygate controversy -- she is listed in the alumni section. The issue here is whether, in addition to that mention, a discussion involving her resignation and involvement in the scandal deserves a place in the Reputation section concerning the school. Thanks! ∴ Therefore | talk 07:44, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I see no such discussion in the present version. I recognize it is alluded to in some of the references. I do not see that as problematic. What exactly am I missing? DGG (talk) 01:10, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for being unclear. There is no other mention -- that is the issue at hand. Should there be? The pros and cons were discussed here but the RfC nicely summarizes the two positions. With your additional comments on the talk page, I now understand your take on it. Thanks! ∴ Therefore | talk 01:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Ram Chet Chaudhary

Hi DGG, You removed the prod from this article noting that there were enough publications to establish notability. However, these are cited only very rarely accortding to WoS of Google Scholer (the most is 17 citations, and I am not even sure that this concerns the same authos as it is on virusses and insects). Do you think it should be taken to AfD instead? Best, --Crusio (talk) 11:18, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I thought hard about this. One of the publications--the 3rd-- was a textbook published by OUP India, and it may have been a major one in the country. There are also publications from FAO Rome, & he's also enough of an expert to have worked on problems in many countries, so he can claim international recognition. I've run a lot of Indian scientists thru WoS, long before coming here, & the problem is that most of the journals that would cite them are not in WoS; most of them are not in GS either, though an increasing number will be with the growth of open access publishing. So if they work on regional topics, as he did, it is very hard to determine a true citation record. If they work on major scientific topics of world interest, then one can say the uncovered Indian work is not important, but one can't if they work on regional problems--regional Indian or problems are as important as regional US ones. And almost everything he publishes is technical reports or the like--but he works in technology, not basic science. I have checked, and there is no really good index covering Indian journals in any subject & certainly no citation index. One of the few things Princeton does not have is indexes covering world agriculture--I would have to ask elsewhere--but again, there is no citation index at all in the subject. I checked in Scopus, which covers the third world a little better--but still not well enough--& found one more publication. I can't even check on book holdings well, as there in no union catalog for India. And at this point I dont even know the University.

The author would be the best source of info if he is around, which he does not seem to be--presumably that's why you did not notify him. But to be sure I at least notified him now. The article should have been caught soon after submission, when there was more of a chance. Give him at least a chance to reply, and there are one or two more things to try. I want to see in the GS hits give any clue. And I will ask the agriculture and India workgroups at the least, & see if I can identify from the articles someone here who works on Indian agriculture. The situation is one of the limitations on our ability to work with some subjects and areas, but it doesn't mean the people there are unimportant. One could argue that our standards should compensate, or alternatively that we shouldn't try to cover them. I don;t really have an answer. Why do I spend time on this? it does seem inefficient. But I try to at least make some effort at world wide coverage, and mainly to encourage others. DGG (talk) 12:01, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Oops, I must have forgotten to notify the original author, I always do that, even if they don't seem to be around any more. Sorry about that. I agree that world wide coverage is something to strive for. So for the moment, let's wait and see if something comes up. Unfortunately, CNRS has no access to major agricultural databases, so there's not much I can do either. Thanks for your efforts. --Crusio (talk) 12:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Citation counts

I noticed your recent post on SA's talk page. How does one do a citation count? Thanks. Anthon01 (talk) 16:04, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Ideally you have access to Web of Science, the standard source covering the natural sciences and "hard" social sciences. Then you search for the author using the author finder feature, display the articles, sort by citations. Ignore any by other people that got left in there. Gets citations from the major English language Euroamerican journals. Scopus is an alternative, if the record doesnt go back before 1996; it's also more complete for social science in European journals. Google Scholar is tricky, you can't just use their numbers, you have to actually look yourself at each one to see what citations listed are from regular journals, because it includes a lot of other material. It is weak before 2000, & doesnt include everything. But it's the only available source for humanities, or where books are involved. In physics you can use arXiv, in computer science Citebase, in economics RePEc, in Biomedicine PubMed, but they are all incomplete. The number you get there will be a minimum. Use the free ones if you dont have WoS or Scopus, though--much better than nothing--if it's critical to notability I'll run it for you in WoS. And feel free to ask for more help if its anything tricky. DGG (talk) 03:56, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Baumgardner

Yeah, it was one of the more peculiar cases I've come across. What I wanted to know is if community consensus would be that a scientist could be notable expressly because he is a creationist. I don't think that Baumgardner would have been notable had he not been a creationist, but it seems that the community thinks that having an odd-ball opinion (even if it is only obliquely referenced) is enough to confer notability on a subject. Interesting! ScienceApologist (talk) 17:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

thinking further about it, the fact that those very respectable journals take his papers implies something more--peer-reviewing in most subjects like geology is usually blind, not double blind--the reviewers would have been aware of whom he is, and they would be expected to hold the general opinion of essentialy all scientists about creationist geology. It's not like some of the aberrant physics and cold fusion people, whose papers are published by journals that have a habit of publishing really dubious papers. All of his are in mainstream journals of high quality. As I said at the AfD, I think he'd rank as an associate professor, which is borderline. If he hadn't had a conversion & diverted his energies with nonsense, he would probably have done yet better. Much more commonly seen are people from a fundamentalist religious background who nonetheless become scientists and do good work--this to me is much more understandable. DGG (talk) 18:37, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Re: Compustat

Hey DGG, i dont know if you saw my last message regarding the compustat page. are you still planning on removing the spam? Bpossolo (talk) 20:44, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Yep, thanks for reminding me. did so last night. Still needs some citations, and then there are positive things to say that they didnt bother with. wouldn't have bothered if they were not in truth the very major resource they say they are. 18:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Edward (Ted) G. Jones

Hi David, I was about to try to provide you with some amusement by pointing out the speedy deletion nomination of this article, but I see you've been there already! Phil Bridger (talk) 12:15, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

what first got me interested in patrolling speedy was another case where a member of the NAS had been nominated for speedy deletion. I have alerted the perpetrator; about 20% of his speedies are being declined. DGG (talk) 12:18, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

RE: The Thing to DO

Thanks for your adivice I added the 3rd party review. Any help you can offer is more than appreciated. Looks like we're on the cusp nopw.Gkleinman (talk) 17:56, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The info that justifies Jane's Guide as a definitive resource is here can you help get that info into the right spot in the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gkleinman (talk • contribs) 18:58, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Citation counts

I noticed your recent post on SA's talk page. How does one do a citation count? Thanks. Anthon01 (talk) 16:04, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Ideally you have access to Web of Science, the standard source covering the natural sciences and "hard" social sciences. Then you search for the author using the author finder feature, display the articles, sort by citations. Ignore any by other people that got left in there. Gets citations from the major English language Euroamerican journals. Scopus is an alternative, if the record doesnt go back before 1996; it's also more complete for social science in European journals. Google Scholar is tricky, you can't just use their numbers, you have to actually look yourself at each one to see what citations listed are from regular journals, because it includes a lot of other material. It is weak before 2000, & doesnt include everything. But it's the only available source for humanities, or where books are involved. In physics you can use arXiv, in computer science Citebase, in economics RePEc, in Biomedicine PubMed, but they are all incomplete. The number you get there will be a minimum. Use the free ones if you dont have WoS or Scopus, though--much better than nothing--if it's critical to notability I'll run it for you in WoS. And feel free to ask for more help if its anything tricky. DGG (talk) 03:56, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Baumgardner

Yeah, it was one of the more peculiar cases I've come across. What I wanted to know is if community consensus would be that a scientist could be notable expressly because he is a creationist. I don't think that Baumgardner would have been notable had he not been a creationist, but it seems that the community thinks that having an odd-ball opinion (even if it is only obliquely referenced) is enough to confer notability on a subject. Interesting! ScienceApologist (talk) 17:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

thinking further about it, the fact that those very respectable journals take his papers implies something more--peer-reviewing in most subjects like geology is usually blind, not double blind--the reviewers would have been aware of whom he is, and they would be expected to hold the general opinion of essentialy all scientists about creationist geology. It's not like some of the aberrant physics and cold fusion people, whose papers are published by journals that have a habit of publishing really dubious papers. All of his are in mainstream journals of high quality. As I said at the AfD, I think he'd rank as an associate professor, which is borderline. If he hadn't had a conversion & diverted his energies with nonsense, he would probably have done yet better. Much more commonly seen are people from a fundamentalist religious background who nonetheless become scientists and do good work--this to me is much more understandable. DGG (talk) 18:37, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

2008

Tausch and Herrmann AfD's

Hi DGG. I really do appreciate the comments you've made. I have personal familiarity with this topic (as an academic myself), but not much experience with relevant WP policy. Are you arguing that anyone who publishes a certain volume of academic papers and books is notable? Shouldn't notability require a person to do something more than every lifelong academic does? Are you arguing that independent sources are not required to establish that an academic's "collective body of work" and/or his specific book is "significant and well-known"? "Notable" literally means "worthy of notice" by the general public; if the public has never noticed a person (i.e., no independent sources writing specifically about him), how is he notable? --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 01:23, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

1. Notable does not mean well known by the general public. It means recognized as notable within a persons field of endeavor. Notable chess players are the ones chess players recognize as notable, not the very few known to the world in general.
2. "an academic's "collective body of work ... significant and well-known"\? well-known again, within the subject. In fields that rest on books, this is measured by a significant number of good books at high-quality academic publishers, with reviews, and high citations. In fields that rest on journals, it's number of papers in high quality journals, and citations. so its not the count of either, but the recogition given to them. In the academic world, recognition is citation. Further awards & positions are typically based upon the publication record. You are right that counting papers --or books-- alone is not notability.
3. The standard i think of is full professor at a research university, as most never get anywhere near that far. Opinion varies--some people here accept Associate, some want a named chair. It's not the position in its own right, but that such universities give such positions only to the distinguished. We look not just at the rank in the university, but the rank of the university. (The university I usually have in mind is the one I know best, Princeton) "Every" lifelong academic does not reach such a standard. If you do, you will be notable. If you reach the level of full professor in a ordinary college, you probably wont be. But what will it depend on? The number and quality of your publications. How will they be judged? By journal quality and by citations. Publish 30 papers in Astron J with 5 or 6 having 100 citations each, and you'll get to a notable position. The average paper in most subjects gets about 1.5 citations.
4. The peer reviewers judge the notability in science. At the level of journals, of grants, of appointments. We just record it. We do not have to analyze the actual quality of the science ourselves, though from time to time you will see such a discussion.
5. Look back at faculty afds, and you'll see the various standards. the rule here isnt what I will tell you, or the way the policy pages happen to be worded, but what passes AfD. DGG (talk) 03:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Every full professor at a major research university is notable? I'm a little surprised that the bar is set that low. Note that I didn't say "well-known by the general public", but "worthy of notice". If I were going to be in charge of communicating the important things about my field to the general public, I would have focused only on those researchers who have written truly seminal works. The alternate standard you mention, of a named chair, is perhaps more aligned with my way of thinking. In keeping with WP:BIO, I might have required testimony from independent sources (which could be textbooks or other academic publications) that the researcher's contribution was particularly important. Has this standard been discussed in any particular forum, or just at AfD's over the years? If it really is established, then I guess I should withdraw these two AfD's. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 02:01, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

First, I do not suggest that you should withdraw the AfDs. Remember, the guys we are talking about here were not even tenured faculty anywhere. Just adjunct faculty, though the proponents of those articles tried to pretend otherwise. The notability depends on as much politics and politically oriented writing as on real academic work. I just made an added rather skeptical comment there. See what people will say, and hope for the good judgment of the closing administrator.

I do not go by general knowledge from the public as a whole, because that biases the encyclopedia towards politicians and movie stars. We are not making an encyclopedia limited to what's in the newspapers. WP is not an encyclopedia of popular culture. Though this is a general encyclopedia, it encompasses a great variety of special interests. No one person will be interested in all of it. The idea ought to be what a person might reasonable be interested in, not what will certainly be known to him. The level ought to be similar in all fields. The baseball players we include are the ones that baseball fans know about or are likely to want information on, and their historical counterparts. Same for chemists. If a chemistry beginning graduate student would or should recognize them, they belong here. Who should she recognize--essentially, the leaders of research groups in major universities. Personally, I think we could make a very good case for associate professors. If the chem department at Penn State or Cornell or Caltech thinks a person notable enough for tenure--well, I take their word for it. Some people say assistant Professors also, but I would say they have not yet proved themselves. Consider--do I recognize all the painters here? I don't, but if they have works in major museums (which in practice is the criterion), I think I might reasonably want to. I don't like to say named chairs, for it depends on the age and nature of the university how many endowed chairs there are--the old private universities have proportionately more than the great state universities. Another way of wording it, is the top level of every profession.

But my use of academic level here is just a shorthand for the necessary accomplishments. I wouldn't mind making it a sufficient criterion, except then we';d have to deal with what counts as a major university in each particular subject. But the general acceptance is that it requires accomplishments. As for policy, the only real definition of notable, is that what is kept at AfD is for the purposes of WP notable. No full professor article in a mainstream academic subject in science or the humanities at a major research university has been deleted --for the last 12 months at least-- for lack of notability, unless there have been some special reason (such as people who have had a primarily teaching function, or are at universities of doctoral , but not high research quality, or at universities where we cannot verify the quality, or in some fields where there is a general impression that the quality is rather low). The standards have been discussed more formally from time to time--start with WP:PROF and the associated talk page. Nothing is too firmly established to be changed at WP.

As for a positive way to go, we have a great deal to do in the academic world. Please take a look at al lthe redlinks in the list of members of the US NAS. DGG (talk) 04:03, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I understand the issues much better, and am generally inclined to agree with you. I've decided that these two are still on the wrong side of the criterion due to lack of evidence that their works have significantly impacted their field, but I understand and respect your position. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 04:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I might add that peer review is designed to gauge the quality of a work more than its impact. Most papers will get published if they are done correctly and are reasonably relevant to an interesting problem, but that doesn't make them important in any sense (I've published several papers of this type :) ). That's why I am inclined to consider citations much more highly than sheer quantity of published peer-reviewed work. That may be the difference between our positions on these two AfD's. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 05:01, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

we do not disagree--if i wasn't clear, I personally do not just count papers, and I don't think anyone does here, and that never has been the standard in science. We do look at the journals they are published in, and the numbers of papers that cite them. We dont usually go as far as to look at where the citations are coming from, but ive seen arguments on that too, in both directions. It is however generally considered that a several publications in Phys Rev Lett or PNAS or Nature is a good indication of significance. But in his field of study, the less mathematical "soft" side of the social sciences, citations are by no means as meaningful as in the sciences. Please check again what I've written. DGG (talk) 05:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Deletion Review for Master of Science in Information Assurance

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Master of Science in Information Assurance. Since you closed the deletion discussion for this article, speedy-deleted it, or were otherwise interested in the article, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Cadill (talk) 15:30, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the inappropriate deletion of this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Science_in_Information_Assurance

Please undelete the Master of Science in Information Assurance and include it in the large and growing category of masters degrees on this Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Master%27s_degrees

The Master of Science in Information Assurance degree page necessary to clarify the MSIA acronym, and to use as a reference for graduates as to the existence and validity of the qualification which is a growing degree program offered by several universities and cited and described many times on their websites.

The MSIA is as valid as the rest of these degrees recognised by wikipedia and is no different from the many other Masters degree pages. It should be included on Wikipedia along with them.

Acronym page and another degree which shares the same Acronym:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSIA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Science_in_Industrial_Administration

Please undelete this page as soon as possible. Thanks.

Christopher Carrillo Information Services Northeastern University Boston, MA

It was removed as an expired prod, and so you have a right to request undeletion & it has been done -- you didnt have to go to DRV--I would have done it. However, it will most likely be nominated for AfD by the ed. who placed the prod, or by me. The best thing to do is to se if you can references from professional journals or the like to the program--not press releases & not from its web site unless you are going to release it under GFDL--see WP:BFAQ for details. DGG (talk) 16:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

CAS and Wikipedia

You probably know this already from the mailing list, but just in case, FYI. Carcharoth (talk) 18:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you think you could mention the WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology discussion about ACS on the mailing list? I've notified Walkerma and Tim Vickers as well. Carcharoth (talk) 18:44, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment noted. Thanks for pointing that out. Carcharoth (talk)

Newspaper archives/enotes.com

Hello David, I found your name at the Resource Exchange page, so I try to receive some help from you ;-) (I do it here and not by mail, maybe some more people watch that ;-)) I'm working on an article about The Hotel New Hampshire at the German Wikipedia and found some nice-looking stuff (literature critics from 1981 etc) at enotes.com. Do you know anybody who has an account for the premium content on that page? Different approach: Do you know where I could find archives of relevant literature critics and newspaper articles of that time? (well, except searching every single american newspaper archive) Thank you for any hint or help :-) Best regards, --elya (talk) 20:09, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

there are many things there--just is it that you want?--I gather it's contemporary reviews of the book at the time, but are you looking for ones you know about, or are you trying to identify some? DGG (talk) 03:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi DGG, I'm trying to get as much secondary material as I can get ;-) As for reviews, the following seem to deal with the novel:

• Jack Beatty (review date 23 September 1981)
• Scot Haller
• Gene Lyons
• Caryn Fuoroli (review Date January 1982)
• Robert Towers
• James Atlas
• Eric Korn

These articles are interesting, too:

• The Hotel New Hampshire | Techniques
• The Hotel New Hampshire | Themes
• The Hotel New Hampshire | Social Concerns
• The Hotel New Hampshire | Literary Precedents
• The Hotel New Hampshire | Adaptations
• The Hotel New Hampshire Character Analysis - Salem on Literature

Well, I know it's a lot of stuff, but it would help me a lot to write a proper stub... --elya (talk) 09:39, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Paul F. Whelan

An article that you have been involved in editing, Paul F. Whelan, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul F. Whelan. Thank you. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Outstanding professor, but does not meet notability necessary to be in a encyclopedia. Even a full professor at a major university is not notable just for this fact. The article only relies on one single source which poorly supports the article, which is already poor, for two reasons: one, it is a primary source; second, part of the page is written in first person which means that the information has been stated by himself. Thus, it does not meet notability nor reliability. He is an outstanding professional and I am sure he is in the right track to become notable and appear in a encyclopedia.--Sebastian Palacios (talk) 08:14, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

An outstanding professor is by definition is appropriate for an encclopedia, just as an outstanding actor or politician or a fiction writer or musician. That's what the bio part of an encyclopedia is for: outstanding people. Notable is "worthy of note" and outstanding things are worthy of note. A full professor at a college is not necessarily outstanding, one at a major research university is, for it's the top of the profession. The major leagues in baseball are enough, not just the all-star team or the hall of fame. Primary sources are acceptable for the routine facts; the books and publication--which is what makes researchers notable -- is verified through outside sources. Your proposed standards here are higher than in any other human profession. Maybe that can be seen as a tribute to how many researchers are important in the world, but the effect is the other way round. DGG (talk) 16:40, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

"A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hiding/What_notability_is_not. No significant coverage; not reliable sources; not independent from the subject.

Politicians, fictions writers, musicians and athletes are good examples to support and idea. However, the difference is that such professions achieve notability just by being outstanding because they already involve a world-wide view; something that does not happen with a professor. Unless every outstanding professional is listed in a encyclopedia. For example, there are 15 millions engineers in the world. If we count how many outstanding engineers exist and existed, wikipedia will end up with double of the articles it already has. Now, add 9.5 million physicians worldwide, 15 million IT professionals worldwide, doctors, lawyers, and 1000 professionals occupations more.

A review of his biography, in his self-published biography reveals a lot of completed work which may seem very important to someone who does not know about computers programming. However, for someone who knows; it is not that important. His work on World Wide Web based Remote Access is just the creation of a course; NETvision is a software that even though excellently compiled and has logarithms developed in Java has no world-wide relevance,

However, if one looks at his current projects, those deserve attention and once completed they may meet the guidelines for notability. Some professionals set their goals too close and others one too far. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Agre --Sebastian Palacios (talk) 21:02, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Now, The paragraph immediately above is relevant. The actual notability of a researcher can be discussed. That a full professor in a research university is significant is a presumption, but not irrebuttable. There have been discussions of the scientific merits of individuals, but AfD and not my talk page is the place for them. How much detail it is appropriate to go into at WP varies. For computer people without academic positions--and I notice much of his career was not in the academic world--, it has normally been thought that the WP people here are capable of forming an accurate judgment, and many such discussions have been held. What level of expertise is necessary is also not necessarily obvious. In general, though, it has been held that the development of important software is notable, whether or not a breakthrough in the sense of original academic research.

However, Large numbers of notable people should not bother the encyclopedia There are about 3 to 4 billion people over 21 in the world, based on the WP article on world population. I think its reasonable to say that at least 1% of them are likely to be notable in one thing or other. that's 30 to 40 million articles. But probably for this decade only about 1/4 at most are likely to be in the area worked on in the English Wikipedia, due to cultural and linguistic limitations and the inevitable lack of a world-wide view. That's 10 million. We have 2 million already Let's go a little back--I see that it's assumed that 5 to 10 % of the people ever alive are living now. But we have progressively decreasing knowledge about their careers -- I think the potential articles might be another 10 million. Thank goodness we don't have to worry about the tree supply. Thank goodness we have more than a million registered editors. We ourselves and our colleagues here are the people to deal with this. If everyone wrote 1 bio a month, we'd do it in just a year.

DGG (talk) 00:49, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Brilliant calculations, but some corrections shall be made.

Only North America, part of Europe, Australia, and Argentina has a literacy rate close to its population number according to the CIA book fact. Therefore the 1% estimated, which is mere assumption, is reduced by mathematical probability from the number of humans capable of writing a reading –not saying that those who cannot read or write are cannot be notable because they can- is reduced to 0.82%. Now, if we count the number of people who are actually brilliant, according the U.S. department of education only 0.025 percent of U.S. population can pass an academic reasoning test without problem. Apply that rate to high-income countries, and apply a rate of the index between that rate to the literacy rate in medium and low income countries. People notable not for being brilliant can almost be dropped because the number is too small compared to 6 billion of humans. Add to that the rate of people who are actually professionals and you will get a percent rounded to two significant digits –because otherwise it would be zero- to 0.21 percent. Which is still 6 million articles. Anyways, this calculation is based largely on assumption, and has no relevance whatsoever. If we take the assumption of 1/4 of people, then the number is 1.5 million, and doubled 3 million. That again, a calculation based on assumptions has little relevance.

Anyways, the software NetVision is not important. It is something that can be accomplish by anyone with academic knowledge in Java, DCT, Improved FFT, 3D volume processing and surface rendering –which is common knowledge in different majors-. Compare that to software Viz, or even AutoCAD. If you compare the model space and paper space using controlling layers per view port, or check the Wblock Review or even a simple shifting filter; you quickly come to the conclusion that this software has no relevance whatsoever. I do not see a project worth of note other that the ones he is working on, and until they are not complete and evaluated nothing will change. People without knowledge in certain areas get to mistakenly assume notability that in fact does not exist. Thank goodness we have more than a million registered editors; and out of those, users with knowledge in different areas exist.

The conversation above is just about two different views of two users, and if continued will have the same relevance as if it is not because both versions have been explained already.--Special:Contributions/ ([[User talk:|talk]]) 02:30, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I did not log in and I did not read the message on my user talk. I apologize.--Sebastian Palacios (talk) 02:33, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I see our two calculations come out to the same order of magnitude, and order of magnitude was all I was aiming at. The actual problem as applied to present articles is is that you expect "brilliance" -- and i think that such a level of eminence is simply too high and inappropriate. The same debate has in fact been held other fields: there was a proposal that only medal winners in the Olympics be notable. That more or less comes to what you have in mind. Look at it this way, if there is stuff you don't want to read, and it's in WP, you don't have to read it. But if there are things you want to read about and it isn't here, there is usually no responsible internet source. Jimbo was basically right when he said the purpose of WP was to filter the internet. What you want is a reallyimportantpedia, and go right ahead and make your fork. Download the software, (I'm told it runs nicely on OSX or any other Unix, but you're the expert), take what you want from here, respect the GFDL license, and go to it. if what you provide is what people want, they'll use it. This is appropriate here, the discussions of his particular academic merits is what belongs on the Afd so all those discussing the article will see it. DGG (talk) 02:43, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand your point of view and I consider it too valuable. If there are things people want to read about and it is not in wikipedia, there is no "responsible" internet site that will supply the information. As a note, I checked the AfD discussion and the last post has a link to a much better source of information which definitively meets notability. As another note, even though I am a Christian (I think as well as you) I fell in love with the response about Wrestling and pornography. You leave me impressed by your professionalism. I have read your Bio and I am happy that people like you work for Wikipedia; it is like altruism. --Sebastian Palacios (talk) 03:12, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Notability

DGG, if you have a few minutes, would you take a look at the article for Prof. Dan J. Stein and let me know what you think of his potential for notability? The notability project has just asked WPMED to deal with a handful of uncertain articles, and I think that Stein is very likely to get a fair and accurate evaluation from someone like you. (I am much less certain of my own abilities in that regard.) If you don't have time, that's fine. (I'll watch your talk page, or you can find me at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine or on my talk page.) Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

unquestionably notable in my opinion, though inadequately written at this point. Chairman of a dept at a major university, director of an important research unit, visiting professor at another major university. coauthor of major textbook, and apparently the author of dozens of well-cited papers in major journals though they are not shown. He probably has a few honors too along the way. That's all that is needed. Any one of the above would probably be enough, per WP:PROF, to show him to be an authority in his field as an academic--though it generally happens that they go together, for those are the components of a notable career. He is likely the editor or coeditor of at least one journal, & that too would be enough, for that is a position going only to recognized authorities. This should all be documented from his CV, which is considered reliable for uncontroversial facts about his career. The article needs publication details for the textbook, a list of his most cited papers--pubmed will do, and a coherent list of his positions and his degrees. Further, a sentence or two be written showing just what he does specialise in for his research, and its significance. There are, to be fair, a few people who insist that there be publications written about him from a biographical point of view, but this is a minority position--the usual view is that the third party evidence for notability comes from the peer review for his positions and his published work. But in his case there are probably one or two articles about him in one or another of his roles, and they should be found.

the problem is with physicians who are notable mainly from their clinical work, and not their academic positions and publications. Here we look for evidence of directorships of major institutions or of clinicial services, & generally it is necessary to find articles about them.-- but in that case there usually are.

there are a few problems, though they do not seem to appear here. One must differentiate between professor and clinical professor, which at least in the US is much less significant. Watch for people listed as professor when they are actually assistant professor or associate professor---those are just intermediate steps along a career. In the case of plastic surgeons and sometimes other visible specialties, there is a lot of self advertising, and people get puffy PR articles written about themselves. If there's enough of it in major news sources, they can be sometimes be considered important, just as any other publicly celebrated figure, though I tend to be very skeptical and look very closely at the actual accomplishments. Additionally, at the end of a career or as an obituary often a celebration of some sort is held, and something is published magnifying all accomplishments beyond what they truly are--these are third party sources, but they tend to need careful reading for the vague statements of "had a major influence on..." common in such instances. One must also delineate the publication actually in major peer reviewed journals from conference talks and press releases, neither of which count. Sometimes one gets popular books--if they are best sellers they count as for any author--sometimes a person of no actual accomplishments in a scientific sense turns out, unfortunately, to be notable this way for things like self-help books.

and there's something here that might cause a problem. He works in the behavioral sciences. The different schools of thought there are often controversial, and someone will be accepted within only a narrow cult of practitioners and patients; there are usually news accounts and popular books to support it, and if there are enough they are, again unfortunately, sufficient, as for any other dubious science or pseudoscience. But more troublesomely, someone actually in the mainstream will have the opposition of a patient lobby--this tends to be the case with things like chronic fatigue syndrome, or autism, or attention deficient disorder and similar diseases--good people here are sometimes challenged on WP by POV pushers, and need careful defense.

Experience with doctors and other academics is that about 1/3 of them write or have written for them overblown exaggerated PR style pieces, and about 1/3 have articles with too little, often from directories or people who think an articles saying "She is head of surgery at X" to be sufficient. In either case, they may or may not be actually notable, and one has to look for material rather than take the article at face value, positive or negative. It's not just doctors and academics, it happens in other positions too. At least the academic world has a clear hierarchy which can serve as a guideline. DGG (talk) 12:50, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I've linked to the books listed and found a few quick sources. Obviously it needs a major expansion, but it's at least improved a bit. Thank you, WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Greek scholars in the Renaissance

Hi Dave. Could you please explain which ones you are reffering to specifically, as I have created several, and why they will be challenged (I was carefull to add citations to all)? I am already looking for a list of their works in any event.Thanks.Xenovatis (talk) 09:30, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Ransom Research Center links

Hi DGG, I recently noticed a situation that I thought might be of interest to you. On my watchlist in several places this evening I noticed a user adding links to special manuscript collections that are at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. The editor Sashafresh did this pretty widely and was given a link spam warning User talk:Sashafresh#link additions. I assume the editor in question is a librarian or researcher at the Center, hence why I thought to mention the situation to you. On the one hand, I can see how it could be a very useful resource if more librarians helped connect Wikipedians with their resources; on the other hand, I see the potential for abuse. In the cases I looked at, the Ransom Center does have some remarkable manuscripts and such that would be of definite interest to the serious researcher. Anyways, I don't really plan on intervening in the situation, but thought I'd flag it for you. --JayHenry (talk) 00:44, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

As you say, these will have to be examined individually. There's been previous discussion on this question, with respect to him and others, and the bar for adding such resources is very high. There are justified examples. There's a better solution, of course: to get copyright release for the first page of a manuscript, put a GFDL tag on a web illustration, and add it to commons. The legends will then show the institution. Adding these otherwise requires prior consensus on the article talk page, which might be obtainable for some of them. Let me try to get into contact off-wiki. DGG (talk) 02:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#Questionable_journals.

Could I invite you to this discussion related to further tweaks to the Scholarship section of WP:RS. I want to try and get this right. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 20:43, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

RE: Southern Wesleyan University

In reponse to your edit summary (please specify on talk page and see what can be resucied or rewritten) I am sorry to say that I do not have the time at the moment to do so, what template can I put on the page saying that it is a copyright violation but I do not have time to sort through what is and isn't bad about it, like a 'this article needs to be de-copyrightified' template. All I know is that the article is 98% written by 68.159.83.92 or 66.147.10.2 who I presume are the same person. Thankyou.  Atyndall93 | talk  08:44, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

To start, put {{copypaste}} on it, and then list on WP:Suspected copyright violations--and I will follow up myself--it was too late in the day yesterday. DGG (talk) 13:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for mentioning that articles on individual meetings of scientific congresses usually get deleted. I found this one interesting because the National Tuberculosis Association identified it as a pivotal event in the founding history of that Association and I've added a note to that effect to the article. Deleting this article and writing something on the recurring congress event sounds just fine to me. I wouldn't be able to put any time in on that sort of project any time soon, but I have saved off a copy of the Sixth Congress article for safe keeping. So if you are interested in nominating the Sixth Congress article for deletion feel free to, you have my blessing. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 08:39, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Sreiffmarganiec

As the reviewing administrator, I did not delete the article, though it needs more information to show your accomplishments, including major publication -- with times cited. See WP:PROF. It will almost certainly be nominated for deletion very quickly, and may not stand. I do not think the Treasurer position will be held sufficiently significant. Any prizes or editorships? DGG (talk) 15:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your decision not to speedy-delete the article. However, your advice to the user, copied above, betrays a confusion between an academic's resume and an encyclopedia article about that academic. An academic's resume may list his accomplishments, publications (with times cited), and prizes, and is by definition non-neutral. By contrast, an encyclopedia article about an academic, adhering to NPOV, must be written from reliable, third-party sources that are actually about the academic in question. I.e., publications written by an academic are no help in writing a neutral encyclopedia article about him, no matter how many times they have been cited. Moreover, introducing an academic's citation counts into Wikipedia amounts to a previously unpublished selection of (positive) information about that academic and, as such, runs afoul of NPOV. In sum, I see your advice to this user as, unfortunately, an encouragement to maintain a polished resume in Wikipedia. I therefore ask that you refrain from so advising new users in the future, instead encouraging them, perhaps, to contribute (sourced material) to articles in their areas of expertise. Please help maintain the integrity of Wikipedia as a neutral encyclopedia. 152.3.246.228 (talk) 18:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Notability for an academic researcher is the notability of his or her research: this is demonstrated by the acceptance of publications about the research in multiple peer-reviewed journals, and their citation by others. It is further demonstrated by appointment to notable positions, and the award of prizes and other honors, such as editorships. In all cases, these are done by other parties, experts in the subject. They are the 3rd party independent reliable published sources, print or online asked for by Wikipedia; they judge the notability better than us--we just record it. Your argument about citation count is unjustified: those citing the article are the experts and entitled to express the opinion of the author's work. We always accept expert opinion as evidence. We also accept the subject's official web site or equivalent as the authority for routine facts about his career. That his papers have been published where it claims can be proven from outside reliable sources, as normally can his degree and his position.

You are entitled to have your position that outside biographical writing is required, but it has not been accepted. Based on the frequency with which my advice is followed at AfD, I think I have the consensus right. As far as I can recall for at least the last year, every scholar with a clearly sufficient academic record has been kept at AfD. (I have sometimes also supported ones with borderline records, and there, the consensus is, as would be expected, variable.) The question here will be whether the record is sufficient, and, as I advised, further evidence is needed--I am not myself certain whether I will or will not support it there. You can challenge it at AfD, but I remind you that you will need to register for the purpose--it cannot be done as an anon from an i.p. address. I'd suggest you look at the result of previous AfDs in similar cases first, as a guide to what arguments are accepted here. You would more usefully help find evidence of notability, for we always try to improve articles and deletion is the last resort.DGG (talk) 23:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your detailed response. I would note that in your discussion of notability you seem to be mistaking recognition, or accomplishment, for notability; the people who appoint academics to high positions, or who cite their work frequently, aren't judging notability, they're judging the quality of the academic's work. However, in my original comment I was not questioning the subject's notability, nor calling for the article to be deleted. My concern was with your seeming encouragement of the new user to use Wikipedia for self-promotion. Of course, that was NOT [added later--forgot important word!] your intent, but that's what your advice to the user reads like. 152.3.247.41 (talk) 12:37, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Notability for academics is the quality and importance of their work. As athletes are notable for the athletic feats, and painters for their paintings, academics are notable for the academic work they do. The paintings are recognized as important by critics, and the academics by other scholars. The term "notability" as used in WP is a convenient shorthand for "significant enough in some way to be in the encyclopedia", and those recognized as eminent in their fields are significant enough. I don't know what you think the standard is if its not eminence in their area, but having the 2 RSs is just a crude way of deciding if nothing else is applicable, and is qualified so much by WP:NOT and BLP that it is in practice meaningless.

As for self-promotion, we have no prohibition of COI or autobiographies, as long as the person is sufficiently notable, and the article objective. We say we discourage it, but probably most of the good bios here of contemporary & recent figures are started by people with COI. Of course, it is not very common that the subject really does do it right, and it usually takes a good deal of editing and skepticism. You should look at the detailed editing I do in such cases to see my standards that way, & my several daily delete !votes at AfD. My experience with academics is that if they do it themselves, about 1/3 of them don't say enough, and another 1/3 say too much. If it's written by a student, they usually say the wrong things entirely. If it's written by the university PR office, they expect us to be impressed by adjectives & it generally needs a complete rewrite. I've taught a few of the PR people how to do it, but it doesn't come naturally to them. I find the advice in WP:BFAQ very relevant & I generally recommend it, although It was intended for a different audience. DGG (talk) 15:14, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Academic bios

Not sure which ones you mean. The only one that I prodded and you de-prodded was Sara Roy. The others you've recently de-prodded I agree are notable at first glance.

Sara Roy's first book, published by Pluto, isnt really academic, in my opinion. She certainly wouldn't qualify for tenure on the basis of it; I don't know about the second, which appears to be substantive. Remember, however, she remains a research associate, which is not really equivalent to a tenured academic. I urge you to reconsider, that article's nothing but a coatrack. --Relata refero (disp.) 22:19, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see the other one, the Hughes article. A better case there, definitely, three books that are apparently from an academic press. I still think that fails WP:PROF as currently written unless the collective corpus is notable, or the individual books made a splash. But I won't take it to AfD. I urge you to take your concerns to WT:PROF. --Relata refero (disp.) 22:42, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

• Roy I consider borderline, and I will defend only weakly. Coatrack means more than that, it means using the article to talk about the issues extensively, and that doesnt seem the case. We need to actually look at the influence of the work and citations to it. I do recognize what the editor involved was doing, & its enough to get rid of the really inappropriate. It's hard to judge cumulative work for people in the humanities, where its a matter of individual books in most cases, and the influence is more important than the number. I like to work with bibliometrics as a tool,but it can't do everything. Yes, I'll join in the current round of WP:PROF. The basic question is where to set the bar, and I'll take anything as long as its reasonable and consistent. But you will see some people thinking that it has to be famous. Movie stars & politicians get formal bios while they are still alive, but usually not scientists. And almost never people in the humanities. DGG (talk) 23:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

CSD on the Royal College of Surgeons

"Whatever their location, the Membership is concerned to fulfill the prime purpose of the College. Quite simply this is the maintenance and promotion of the highest standards of surgical practice and surgical training. Until very recently, the College has been concerned almost entirely with the setting of standards and the conduct of examinations designed to ensure that these standards are being maintained. Today the College is increasingly concerned with the provision of surgical education and training in addition to maintaining and enhancing its historic role. Dr Helen Dingwall has published a new History of the College "Famous and Flourishing"."

The entire thing is copied from http://www.rcsed.ac.uk/site/345/default.aspx (the paragraph at the bottom). I'd say half the article does qualify as "obvious copyvio". Ironholds (talk) 12:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks./ The article can only be deleted via speedy if the whole thing is copyvio. If half is, the thing to do is to rewrite or delete that half. DGG (talk) 14:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC) I have looked again, and I still do not see the copyvio, except for a sentence or two. Of the paragraph you quote, only the 2nd sentence is in the article. I'm restoring the article with that sentence or two rewritten. . Discuss on the talk pageDGG (talk) 14:39, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I have figured out the problem--the link you gave was to the page for the College at Edinburgh, and of course it did not match--I see the correct page now & I'm rewriting the article to eliminate the copyvio. Sorry about that. DGG (talk) 14:47, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

J. W. Snyder's spam

I'm delighted to read the advice you gave this guy. I am more cynical, and feel that his COI history is so blatant and profound, and his record so dubious, that I'm less willing to cut him slack than you are; but your advice is quite sound. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:09, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Vattikutti Question

Hey, quick question on this AfD, which I don't feel out of place discussing because you've already !voted. I could substantially re-write the article but when the nom is an admin arguing loudly for deletion, is there any chance it will be kept? Honestly, I don't want to waste time re-writing more than I did which just addressed the main advert issues if it's only going to be deleted. Thanks _Cari ^{Fellow Travellers} 03:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

to the extent that my own keeps on sometimes dubious articles are sometimes accepted, its because I am known to be willing to work on improving them--the time to do it is immediately at afd, not just promises for the future. Do it now, and call attention to it at the afd. If by any chance the article is rejected, your better one can be used either for deletion review, or for further improvement and then insertion. Ironically, I just this minute came here and saw this after going back to that article and elaborating my earlier opinion. Loud self-assured talking does not always have much to do with the results of an afd, and one particular admin's view of the effect of COI is not necessarily the consensus. DGG (talk) 03:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. FWIW, I've never found you to be as adamant in your POV to be arguing with keeps/deletes, as it may be. I just wasn't sure when admin overruled consensus. I'll go work on it a little more per your suggestion. I already noted in a comment to one of Hu12's that I'd done some clean-up to demonstrate notability from external sources. Talk to-Cari^{the Busy Bee} 03:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

the proof that admin views as opposed to valid policy arguments does not overinfluence afd decisions is that admins are usually to be found on the opposite sides of anything interesting. In fact, one gets to be an admin in considerable part because people respect one's views as expressed at AfD and similar discussions. DGG (talk) 03:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I don't think there's a single admin who I haven't thought "HUH?" about one of their decisions/comments but I usually at least understand where it's coming from/based in, even if I don't agree. I did a re-write and left a note, we'll see what happens. I'm not so passionate about this article that I'm going to spend hours on it, but it does appear notable. I think I'll request it to be userfied if it's deleted and I can work on it then Talk to_Cari^{the Busy Bee} 04:07, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:PROF revision suggestion

I am trying to "test the waters" to see if there is enough interest in revising WP:PROF to better reflect the arguments that are actually used in practice in academic-related AfDs. I've put a note about it at Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics) with a somewhat more detailed explanation. There is also a link there to a possible draft of a revised version of WP:PROF, which is located in my sandbox, User:Nsk92/Sandbox3. Since you regularly participate in academic-related AfDs, I'd like to hear your input about this idea, both in general and in terms of specifics. If you have some comments, please post them at Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics). You are also welcome to edit User:Nsk92/Sandbox3 in the meantime. Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 20:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I made a start at commenting, and also at adding & subtracting some things to the guidelines. You beat me too it. I don't want to move too fast though, because many of the people who will want to comment are busy at this time of year.  :) DGG (talk) 21:37, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Google scholar

Jens Elmegård Rasmussen gets this on Google Scholar. I don't know how to weigh "scholar hits". In your opinion, how does this effect WP:PROF? --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 19:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

He is Associate Professor of Indo-European Studies at Copenhagen. Given the small number of publication with few cites, how do we evaluate him against other specialists in that particular subject? If we consider his speciality to be Tocharian, it's the sort of example that might seem to indicate he absurdity of the "importance in the filed" when pressed to the limit,. His most cited work in GS has 20 citations & we could compare it with other work in the subject. But we really need to do is to use the right database; since citations to an 1989 German book on this subject would not necessarily be expected in GS, GS is worthless here except for this very preliminary look--the most cited item there on Tocharian only has 20 citations to it, & its a dictionary. WoS & Scopus don't cover this subject adequately; we need Linguistics Abstracts Online, but it isn't working for me just now. He is editor in chief of a journal, which is his strongest claim to notability. We need to check whether it's the leading journal in the field. It is the only journal in worldcat on the subject of Tocharian. But it's in few libraries, and the subject might be covered better in somewhat more general journals. Personally, I'm prepared to deal with this like we do athletic teams: people with tenure in major universities are notable, in which case he is; or one could hold out for full professor, in which case he isn't. I am aware that people here are trying to enter all the linguists in Denmark, or so it seems--but perhaps the solution is to decide to be equally comprehensive everywhere else. It's like the disproportionate number of football players from Brazil--do we cut back on them, or expand the other countries and the other sports? DGG (talk) 01:01, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Most troubling about WP:PROF is that it looks like it requires a prof to decipher the applicability of its notability standard. The average Wikipedian contributing to afd's would have no idea how to frame a given profs speciality and then how to compare it to other scholars in that field. Although comparing it to athletes is a good idea, in reality it proves far more difficult. With most athletics you have a starting point - whether the person in a professional in the top league in any country. However, for profs, the average Wikipedian doesn't know where even to begin the analysis. Best, --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 03:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

go to a good library school & we'll teach you how to decipher citation analysis and all sorts of curious but useful things. My original motivation for it was exactly to figure out these sort of mysteries. But how to work with esoteric subjects in the humanities will be in the advanced part of the program. FWIW, I found this the most difficult & interesting question of the week so far. (smile) DGG (talk) 03:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

(different subject) I've had past experiences with nobility hoaxes, and I suspect another one is afoot. This new user, Dlkeller999 (talk · contribs), has just created a few nobility articles and they smell fishy. Would you be able to verify that the source provided by this editor backs up the article content?--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 05:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

there is support at least for the Clifford article. & possibly for the others. They probably are in fact sourced to the book indicated, but that does not necessarily prove that it is correct. It is a genealogical work, not a historical one, but widely held in libraries. The position of sheriff is notable, if there is actual historical evidence. De la See, to my surprise, does have a genuine reference, though not one with a very high degree of confidence. I may nominate one of them for lack of notability, but it would need to go to AfD. It sounds to me like uncritical amateurism, not fraud. But that's the state of most of the historical articles here. DGG (talk) 04:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Boston University Pub: Please don't delete!

DDG, I am so thankful that you stumbled across my submission... and thought it worthy of deletion! Please help me to improve my additions to Wiki, and to make that article a worthwhile piece. The Pub itself is an establishment beloved by many of the BU community's members. Wiki, and its free-share encyclopedia livelihood, is one of few places where the Pub's long history as an important university space can be recorded! Your suggestions are welcomed with open arms... just please be patient and don't delete! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Becs6452 (talk • contribs) 19:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

see your talk page for the best suggestion I can make; I'll give you a chance before I nominate it for deletion--and then it's not up to me. I have been wrong before about what gets kept after I've nominated for deletion, but I doubt if I'll be wrong this time. DGG (talk) 19:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

FYI, I've added an {{Oldprodfull}} tag to the discussion page for Boston University Pub (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) to document that the WP:PROD was contested ... this is one that I would have seconded, BTW ... Happy Editing! — 72.75.78.69 (talk · contribs) _{21:54, 27 May 2008 (UTC)}

Notability

Hi DGG,

Why has it to be the only from major universities? What is a majore university?? Which is more important - the research publications or the books? Thanks. JRN08 (talk) 23:51, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

More precisely, full professors at major research universities are always notable researchers, because they are appointed by the judgment of their peers on that basis; this applies with particular force to holders of professorships in the UK universities, where there is only 1 full professor per subject, and to holders of named professorships in the US. At other universities, they might well be notable for their research as well; but not necessarily, for sometimes their main distinction will be in teaching . What counts as a major university can be disputed at the borderlines, but Cambridge University is unquestionably among them. For people in the humanities, research publications of importance are invariably books by major academic publishers; for people in the sciences, peer-reviewed articles in major academic journals; for people in the social sciences and applied fields, it varies. The academic world looks at not just quantity, but quality: quality is determined for books by the distinction of the publisher, the number of libraries holding it, and the reviews; for journal articles, by the quality of the journal, and the number of citations. The quantities in different academic fields varies, but for Graham N. Stanton, the holder of perhaps the most famous professorship of anything anywhere, the list, as would be expected, is remarkably impressive. He furthermore is editor of the most important journal is his subject, and the major academic encyclopedic bible commentary. One can dispute the middle, but this is the top. Wikipedia does not determine who is a notable scholar--the academic world determines it by their criteria, and shows it by their appointments and distinctions. We just record the fact. Just as we don't determine who gets signed by a major league baseball team--the true experts do, and we record it. DGG (talk) 01:03, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

"Tenure committee"

Re Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alison Mawhinney: You know, I was thinking the same thing when looking at another article and considering whether the subject passed WP:PROF. I find myself sounding more and more like my old college profs — "You need more source material!" "That's not a reliable source!" I suppose that's what we should be doing if we're putting together an encyclopedia. - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 03:36, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I have added Mawhinney's publications to her article - would you care to re-review the page for reconsideration? Thanks. Rotund, but sweet (talk) 12:19, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, 3 articles total in 2 years does not make for significance in the academic world in any subject. Does not mean she may not eventually become notable. DGG (talk) 12:48, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

It is not the 3 papers; we need to see the number of citations (in books or research papers), websearch, invited papers, is it scholarly work etc.,. One work with 10 or more citations is enough if it is a basic type (theory). Application related may requre more citations 20 or more. Again about the books- scientific books might be easier to write comapred to the Liberal arts related e.g writing a fiction might be difficult to do- - again who reads it is also important.

Writing one or 2 papers in pure mathematics or in theoratical physics is very difficult. Tennured is also important.

JRN08 (talk) 12:10, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Dr's Curry

Hey, thanks for your comment. To be honest, I don't have any real knowledge of either Dr. Curry. I saw a deletion of a poorly named article that deserved to belong, so I did some research and got the oceanographer one up and running. The other one I moved to a geophysicist page, in order to assist in disabiguation. They do have similar backgrounds, although their degrees appear to be from different locations. Their focus is different to: ocean-saving as opposed to resource-utilization. I'll see what I can do to research the geophysicist (all searches I do regarding Dr. Curry and Exxon bring up a woman who is quite an environmentalist, and her name was all over the Exxon Valdez incident" BMW(drive) 11:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it may be in this case necessary to actually verify the degree. The possible presence of the three people is a little disturbing. Please let me know what you find. Do you have Dissertation Abstracts available? If not, I'll try to get to it later today.DGG (talk) 17:32, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:PROF revision draft - revisited

I am trying to restart the process of revising WP:PROF and have posted further comments at Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)#WP:PROF revision draft - revisited. Please take another look there and see if you have further comments. Of course, you are welcome to edit the draft itself too:User:Nsk92/Sandbox3. Thanks a lot, Nsk92 (talk) 15:31, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Elaine Riddick Jessie

Hi, I noticed that you axed the prod and notability tags from this article. However, I still fail to see how this article asserts notability. My understanding of WP:BIO is that a person is not considered notable for being connected to a notable event, especially if their role in said event is no different from thousands of others. I admit, she has garnered some media attention in the wake of the public apology for the Eugenics Board's action, but that has been, from what I have seen, exclusively in the context of articles about the state's apology, and not articles about her and/or anything that she has done to bring about this action. In fact, I suspect that the only reason she is mentioned in these articles is because she is one of the few surviving victims, which I don't think is any reason for us to consider her notable. I would support a merge with the Eugenics Board of North Carolina article, but I think this article should be deleted. Steve Carlson^Talk 18:25, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The articles, published in the context of the apology, deal with her earlier experiences also. The fact that one of them was published 4 years after the revocation is a clear indication of continuing interest, which is usually accepted as satisfying NOT NEWS. But you are of course welcome to try AfD--who knows what will happen there. Personally, I think it would be more useful to look for material to provide fuller coverage of the whole set of events. DGG (talk) 18:35, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The fact that there was an article about this 4 years after the fact proves that there is still interest in the Eugenics Board (WP:NOTNEWS), yes, but does it mean there is interest in her? I did actually spend some time on Google trying to find other sources. However, most of the content about her seems to be lifted straight from wikipedia (really annoying, is that legal?), and the independent sources I did find were the same as the others - they primarily discuss the Eugenics Board and the apology, and have a very brief inline discussion of her experiences. It seems like she is the "poster child" for these stories, the face they attach to the story to make it more human, but none of these articles are actually about her in any significant way. Does that make her notable? Steve Carlson^Talk 02:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate the clarification of what I agree is the basic question, not just here, but on many articles of similar nature, which is how to deal with the representative individuals used in newspaper feature writing--the Poster Children. My answer to that, is that we follow the media. If they use the particular individuals in this way, I consider that it does make them notable. Probably we need a general discussion. DGG (talk) 03:58, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take it to the WP:BIO talk page, although I think that WP:ONEEVENT may address this. Please chime in with your perspective! Steve Carlson^Talk 05:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Phage meetings

Can all other groups have their own meeting pages on Wikipedia? Seriously, is this an allowed use for article space on Wikipedia? I can't imagine this qualifying as encyclopedic? But, you're more knowledgable here. The page includes a talk page invitation to continue using Wikipedia for announcements of meetings. I've never seen a group use Wikipedia like this. --Blechnic (talk) 18:42, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Interesting question, I've wondered about it myself. (and in fact I too questioned the page when I first saw it) It's not really primarily a current list of programs in a promotional sense, but a list of past conferences, some but not all of which are in fact are famous (not merely notable) series of academic conferences that would quite possible merit individual articles for the series (but not the individual conferences). We accept bibliography articles, so perhaps a good case can be made for why we should accept these also.

As for the promotional part on the talk page, I will perhaps add a note explaining what can and cannot be included in Wikipedia , and what the purposes of the encyclopedia are. But we do include future sceduled events if they are notable enough, and some of them are. Of course everyone is not only welcome but encouraged to add appropriate material to Wikipedia articles, but the wording you mention is a little troubling. DGG (talk) 19:40, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Then these should be sourced as to their notability. There is nothing of the sort in this article. There are, however, like the yellow pages and the e-mails I get from my professioal associations, e-mail contacts so the group can continue to use Wikipedia as their private advertising space. --Blechnic (talk) 19:37, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

For individual series of phage meetings to get a separate page, that series has to be sourced enough to show notability. for t he concept of phage meetings in general to get a page, one just needs to show notability for the concept of phage meetings in general, which in fact is quite easy. One does not have to show notability for the individual items of content on a page, just relevance. If we list a bibliography of printed works on bacteriophage, we do not have to show notability for each of them, just that they are relevant content. If the author of that page had intended to give pages for each individual meeting, your statement would be correct.

You are thinking of a thing like List of notable phage meetings, which in general would be considered to require an article on each or the possibility of making one. Actually, it turns out that I can't find a formal guideline on this; I can find precedent for requiring it at AfD for lists of alumni, or people associated with a place, but not really for anything else. The criterion for inclusion of an item of content in an article according to WP:NOT, is just that it be "important", not defined further. Now, this article in question is intended just as the equivalent of a bibliography. The only evidence for that which would be necessary is a link to the meeting, or evidence of significantly held published proceedings, and some indication of professional sponsorship--which is all that is required for an item in a bibliography. But I will check it once more for language that indicates more than this, which I agree would not be appropriate. DGG (talk) 21:10, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

ides the recently added tidbit at 1972. Graham87 04:02, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

adding books

I have a question that I think you might be able to answer. I noticed that User:Kokugakusha has added two books by the same author to an article that I watch and, since I know the subject of the article well and didn't recognize the author's name, I decided to see what else this user has done. Looking at his contributions page, it seems that every edit he has made has been to add books by the same author to different articles, without edit summaries or talk-page postings to indicate the appropriateness of the sources. In at least one case the addition seems reasonable (though it should be listed under 'further reading' instead of 'rerfences', because it was not a contributing source for the text of the article), but in others it looks like it might be self-promotion that doesn't improve the article. What is the best way to address this? – SJL 16:27, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Looking in worldcat, I see Starr's books are held by many libraries,and have reviews in major academic journals. The odds are he is a notable author and/or academic, both under WP:PROF and the general rules for people. , and that an adequate article about him could be written. But adding references this way is a borderline case of spamming--I will give some appropriate advice. Don't assume it's the author, it might just as well be someone who knows about his importance. I agree the Kawabata one seems appropriate--yes,the References heading really should be changed to Further Reading, so change it if you like, but I do not think it matters much. In the other cases, the reference may well be too narrow for the very general topic. As it is apparently your subject, you should use your judgment here rather than mine--remove it with a suitable edit summary, like "seems too narrow--please justify on the talk page" and discuss it if needed.DGG (talk) 20:23, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Great, thanks for your help. – SJL 03:44, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Alfred Holmes

DGG, thank you for your comment in the relevant discussion. I have added my own comment to yours, stating that the assertion on the article that he is the main observer appears to be an opinion, not fact, since no reference/source has been attached to the assertion. EasyPeasy21 (talk) 08:56, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center

I came across this situation in AN/I by accident, and I eventually saw that you had commented. This was an unfortunate situation, and it highlights, once more, the damage done by people readily assuming that IP edits are some kind of vandalism. While the IP editor was apparently a clueless volunteer, and simply did not perceive the problem -- and I'm going to guess, never saw the warnings, etc. -- I can understand why the IP was blocked, but -- it only took a little AGF and checking to figure out what was going on. All the edits were adding a note to articles where there is a major collection at the Center. One edit was in error, actually, the editor added it to the wrong article, different bio with the same name. I've created Category:Papers in Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center for a generic solution, and I've added the category to a few articles. But there is more. For the first two articles I checked, there was a more thorough biography, at least in some ways, hosted at the Center, than we have on Wikipedia. I'd consider those biographies as a relatively reliable source, in themselves, and they certainly seem better written than much of what we have! In any case, I don't see any attempt to treat these edits as good-faith edits. They were reverted, typically without comment. No discussion in Talk. This happened early on, not just later.

We could say, "All's well that ends well," and I think damage has been averted here, except that a lot of work was put into removing these harmless edits, and now there is the work to replace them, at least with the category. In some cases, the archive is significant enough, I think, to warrant actual mention in the article.

But how many times are IP edits removed without comment like that? I've been getting more involved with articles out in the wild and wooly, and I'm seeing it quite often. IP editors don't usually complain, except for the really pesky ones, who will simply edit war, and that can be a long-term nuisance. If we are going to continue to allow IP editors, we should treat them with respect, don't you think? It's looking to me like nobody bothered to check to see what the Center was, and whether or not the fact added was true. Too much trouble, I expect, for a mere IP edit. It wasn't a bot. Too slow. Simply a volunteer adding from a list of names he or she had from the Center. --Abd (talk) 23:05, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

you may be interested in keeping track of WT:SPAM and WT:RSPAM (and WP:COIN.)--and also Hu12's talk, if he returns. And see the earlier discussions at those places. But in patrolling spam, or COI articles, one does tend to see it everywhere--and that's in a sense excusable, because there is a remarkable amount. I've seen some really incorrect large groups from noncommercial people. Perhaps the only way is to continue an adversary approach--some people concentrating on keeping stuff out, and others in rescuing. The general issue of getting people to be considerate and polite especially to beginners may be a lost cause in online groups--at least till we get enough nontraditional participation. . DGG (talk) 00:11, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

We need nontraditional participation.... Wikipedia is fouling its nest, I'd say. How badly is hard to judge, for a long time, we could drive away several editors for everyone actually recruited, and still grow. I think those days are past, actually. Thanks. --Abd (talk) 00:23, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:PROF revision draft - move to proceed with the replacement

I would like to try to give another try and make a motion to proceed with the preplacement of the WP:PROF guideline by the revised version. I made a post to the talk page of WP:PROF to that effect and I'd appreciate if you comment there, one way or the other. Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 15:02, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Any further suggestions? Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 16:04, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you have any further modifications to WP:PROF revision draft? I see that you made a few changes (they all look fine to me), but your last message at my talk page mentioned Tuesday night, so I'd like to double-check with you before moving further. Also, if you are done, please leave a note at the WP:PROF talk page. Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 04:16, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

still at it--doing more than I though i would at first, so its taking longer. DGG (talk) 04:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to bug you again, but could you please give some idea when you might be done with WP:PROF draft revisions. It has been a week since your last edit there... Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 15:03, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Re: Psych

As you have noticed, I am a Wikipedia novice and, consequently, my article-writing skills are terrible at this point. I want to thank you for your comments because they will hopefully help me improve.

Per your message, I could use help with something. I would like to make a table for the article's alumni section so that one can organize it alphabetically by the name of the student, by the year in which a degree was received, by the type of degree that was received, and alphabetically by the name of the employing institution. Is it possible to do this? Would be able to help me with this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gyan Veda (talk • contribs) 13:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

See HELP:Table and HELP:Sorting -- it's set up for you, no coding skills necessary, & works well. It can be done in html, but since, like a typical computer help page, they gives all the details & variations, you may want to read instead the excellent chapter in John Broughton's Wikipedia: the Missing Manual an O'Relly book. Parts are online free, Princeton may have the whole thing as an eBook, but the paper is I think the best format. DGG (talk) 14:49, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Psych

Thanks for the compliment. I have never been to Princeton. KnightLago (talk) 01:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC) FWI, the compliment was for figuring out what was wrong with (one part of) the place from a laudatory article on it. DGG (talk) 15:58, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Ecclesiastes 12:12

"the assertion that someone has written a non-self published book book in any subject is a clear assertion of importance" - oh, dear Lord, that makes my heart break just to read! I'm an author, book reviewer, bookseller and long-time member of the National Writers Union; do you have any idea how many new books come out every year, even when you screen out the self-publishers? Most of us harmless Grub Street hacks will never be notable; and certainly most of my one- to three-book friends are not, nor would they assert themselves to be. This concept, if accepted, would open up the gates to endless floods of vanispamcruftisement! I cannot accede to your request. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC) (yes, Dave, I know you're a librarian [weren't you a Wombat at one time?]; but librarians aren't subjected to as much of the petty end of the spectrum as booksellers and reviewers are, and see less of the dross and more of the substance)

I never said it was enough to be notable, just avoid speedy, at least in the case of an apparently significant book, and certainly in this case when supported also by published articles. Speedy is deliberately worded very loosely to permit any good faith assertion of notability to pass and be judged by the community. I agree most of the people who have written a single book wouldn't pass notability, but the point is that this is most of the people -- some would, and no one admin should be able to judge that for the same reason we don't speedy books themselves at afd. someone in the field at least should have the opportunity to check for reviews and citations and library holdings and sport things by recognition that need further checking. As for librarians, we get junk enough but of a different sort. I'm not sure I catch the reference to wombats? I invite you to find a suitable wording for what counts as passing speedy, but in this case, since there was material besides the book, I am probably going to Deletion Review, not to support the article particularly, but to establish that your standard of "indication of importance" is too high. DGG (talk) 18:10, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Obviously we disagree. Ah, well; certainly not the first time! (As to the wombats, that's a Stumpers-L reference.) --Orange Mike | Talk 18:52, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

DGG - I completely support your position. The point here is not to have an exercise in the use of rhetorics but to operate on the basis of evidence and community feedback to make sure Wikipedia remains true to its purpose of providing useful information written by open and transparent consensus [8]. I'm disappointed to see Orange Mike continue to ignore the feedback from the community. I hope it's not the case for other articles he's been reviewing. Were you able to take the "Deletion Review" action you mentioned?

Alex Omelchenko (talk) 04:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

WoS

DGG, in the PROF draft you write that "Additionally, they list citations only from journal articles--citations to articles published in books or other publications are not included". I don't think this is cormpletely correct. WoS (I'm less familiar with Scopus) will list citations in journal articles TO books/bookchapters/etc. It will not list citations FROM books/etc. When I look up somebody's h-index and citations on WoS, I always run both "search" and "cited search" and join the results from the two if necessary, although I guess that's bordeline WP:OR. Anyway, I think you already know all this and perhaps you just went a bit too fast and wanted to write "Additionally, they list citations only from journal articles--citations from articles published in books or other publications are not included". Good work so far! --Crusio (talk) 09:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

a-ha. I knew I would have to explain there more fully. WoS (and Scopus also) includes chapters in serial works as source items, in series like Advances in .... with a running title and sequential numbering, and does so by treating them as if they were journals. Their precedent for this is that Medline has always done just the same; this is really the only way to make sense with a series like Advances in Genetics, most or all of which do not bear individual volume titles. It still makes good sense with series like Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences even though each volume has an individual topic and title, but are almost universally known as a set. But one also gets such references as Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology 888:1111, where the volume is actually the proceedings of a single miscellaneous conference printed in what is really only a publishers series. This sort of thing gives obvious problems to librarians, especially in print Most medical libraries in the US at least cope with this by actually shelving all these items as series, even the numbered publishers series. Most other libraries don't do it to that extent, and it gives problems to people who use more than one library. For the way I handled it see [9] and [10], both unfortunately not updated by my successor. They show almost all the possible variations. The data is in the online catalog, true, but much harder to interpret. Cited works in WoS, of course, includes everything referred to by a source item--in the case of Humanities Citation Index, even non-bibliographic items like paintings.

And there are a few more complications to add, like the Open Access citation indexes such as Citebase, and the so far unsolved problem of linking all the references to the different published and posted versions of an item--not to mention coping with inaccurate and ambiguous names. I recommend for completeness using WoS supplemented by GS and Scopus, and examining every individual item. The need to examine each item is why naĩve mechanized h-index counts are inaccurate. For distinguishing the clearly notable and the non-notable though, anything even roughly quantitative works. The true problem here, which does not of course both academics working in their own single field, is the wide variation in publishing patterns between different subjects. I've yet some more to say at the page for the draft. DGG (talk) 15:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

National repository

Hi, I noticed you are the creator of this article and I am wondering if it wouldn't be preferable to absorb it into Legal deposit. I assume most, if not all, "National repositories" have legal basis for their actions, so it should fit in. If I am correct, turning your article into a redirect page and adding any relevant details according to country would be the best course of action.

DGtal (talk) 12:35, 15 August 2008 (UTC) ; P.S. I like your screen name ;-)

there is only a remote connection. Legal deposit libraries are a by product of licensing under copyright law, by which all books that are published need to be deposited with the central authority. Originally this served primarily for the purposes of censorship, and governmental control over the publishing industry. The printers simultaneously made use of it to assure their exclusive right to print. and the development of copyright to protect literary property was very useful in the commercial development of the industry. The advantage of using these deposits to form a de facto national library followed, and remains the chief function of the deposits.

However, national repositories are not set up to provide either governmental control or copyright protection. Their purpose to to ensure access by all members of the community to work that has ben publicly paid for. . They can of course also serve as devices for governmental control over what is produced at a secondary level, but the primary level this control is asserted is at the provision of funding for the research. And, finally, the relationship of national repositories is quite deliberately to restrict somewhat the rights of the copyright holder, by requiring that there be some degree of free public access to the publications derived from public money

Naturally, the same institutions can operate both: the National Library of Medicine, the US Legal Deposit library for publications in the medical science, also serves, through its PubMed division, as a national repository for the papers produced as the result of publicly funded US NIH grants.

And, true, in a sense, there is a shared basis principle--that the public should have some access to published material. DGG (talk) 21:05, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Your comments are interesting, but some of your facts are only correct in some countries. I'll try to seperate the points. Some may be obvious to you, so be patient.

History: The first modern "legal deposit" (I'm ignoring the Library of Alexandria#Collection for now) was in 1537 in the Kingdom of France (see section "Similar Laws Around the World") and was indeed meant to create a national collection, though not for general public eyes. The next law, in Sweden 1661, was indeed meant for mainly censorship reasons.

Copyright and legal deposit: The relationship between these two legal terms is quite interesting. In some countries, like Monaco, there is a connection - if you fail to deposit, you don't gain copyright. In others, like Israel, these are largely seperate legal processes, so failing to deposit does not cost you your copyright.

The US case: The US law is quite unique (see Legal deposit#United States). Sending a published work to the United States Copyright Office guards your copyright, but it is not a legal requirment (theoretically, if you don't fear copyright infringement, there is no reason to send a copy). This office then distributes the copies between LOC, NLM, NAL etc. and some, unwanted ones, are donated to public libraries or exchanges (I can show you examples in my Israeli library). In other words, the US has no legal deposit (except for federal material). Pubmed does a great job of indexing articles (from the whole world, not only US), but the NLM is not a technically a legal deposit.

Global view: you treat the "national repository" as a place to allow "free public access" to publically spent money. This is a very noble view, mainly correct in the US, where the Federal Gov. relinquishes copyright, but is untrue in most countries (even democratic, not to mention totalitarian), where access is limited and Gov. copyright upheld.

Back to our discussion: Are "National repositories" equal to "legal deposit"? You are correct this is not always the case. Rethinking the point, I suggest that being a "National repository" is a classic job of any National library. Strangely, if you make a list of "classic NL jobs" almost no NL's actually meet all criteria, but that is not the issue here. Maybe the named articles should actually be absorbed into National library, but maybe not.

DGtal (talk) 08:35, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

all the more reason to keep them separate, when one considers the various possible combinations. Our articles need considerable expansion, both for current and historical practice. Your statement of the legal deposit situation in the US as you gave it here is obsolete, though the one in the article is technically correct, while confusing the two issues. There is a mandatory deposit, and has been since 1978, though that is technically independent of copyright.--as I found out to my considerable surprise a few years ago when I had to formally teach the subject. On the one hand. as you say, legal deposit & registration is necessary for the eligibility for statutory minimum damages, rather than only actual damages--an unregistered work is still under copyright, published or unpublished from the moment or creation. But there is nonetheless required deposit, since the law has been changed to the European practice: quoting from Copyright Circular 1, p.9 [11]

"Although a copyright registration is not required, the Copyright Act establishes a mandatory deposit requirement for works published in the United States. See the definition of “publication” on page 3. In general, the owner of copyright or the owner of the exclusive right of publication in the work has a legal obligation to deposit in the Copyright Office, within 3 months of publication in the United States, two copies (or in the case of sound recordings, two phonorecords) for the use of the Library of Congress. Failure to make the deposit can result in fines and other penalties but does not affect copyright protection.Although a copyright registration is not required, the Copyright Act establishes a mandatory deposit requirement for works published in the United States. See the definition of “publication” on page 3. In general, the owner of copyright or the owner of the exclusive right of publication in the work has a legal obligation to deposit in the Copyright Office, within 3 months of publication in the United States, two copies (or in the case of sound recordings, two phonorecords) for the use of the Library of Congress. Failure to make the deposit can result in fines and other penalties but does not affect copyright protection. " The detailed description is in Circular 7d., and the legal text in USC 17.

The current NLM deposit requirement is something different and additional to this--it's a technical regulation of the US NIH, under the Secretary's power to adopt tegularions for grants. This history of this is another matter entirely. The last thing we want to do is combine articles which are individually unclear..I will try to expand at least on the US legal deposit section above in the next few days. DGG (talk) 04:32, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

You definitely suprised me. After you update the relevant articles here I will update the hebrew ones. DGtal (talk) 09:30, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

surprised me too. I found out a few years ago when I had to teach a course on copyright and discovered how out of date I was. DGG (talk) 09:32, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

The strange thing is that, if I am correct, the LOC doesn't keep all the books it gets, so you could claim they aren't really doing their job. Strange, very strange. Regarding "National repository" - I guess there is no evil in having an article that describes the concept. Trying to give a complete list might be a waste of energy because it is usually done by the NL. Perhaps we should just give a few "out of ordinary" examples and say this is generally the job (and one of the defining tasks) of the NL, and this collection is limited since all deposit laws have limitations (not required under X copies or for certain types of publication). Maybe a mention of national archives can also clear the picture a bit. DGtal (talk) 09:46, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

LOC does not keep all the books it gets submitted to it, and never has. Popular myth entirely. There is a typical role of a national library, but many do more and some do less. This can & should be discussed is some detail library by library for the major countries. If I eveer get clear from the need to defend articles on notable academic proposed for deletion by people who don't think anyone without the Noble prize is notable, and defending articles about fiction from those who who think that the plot and characters are unimportant material, I will return to where I started, which is to improve the articles on librarianship. Fortunately, there are a number good librarians around here, but of course we need many more. DGG (talk) 09:59, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Just note the line "In Australia, there is the " needs completion. I assume National Library of Australia is the answer. Unfortunately in Hebrew I seem to be the only librarian that comes often, at least my Library article is a FA, maybe it will help someone. DGtal (talk) 10:12, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:PROF revision draft - move to proceed with the replacement

I would like to try to give another try and make a motion to proceed with the preplacement of the WP:PROF guideline by the revised version. I made a post to the talk page of WP:PROF to that effect and I'd appreciate if you comment there, one way or the other. Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 15:02, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Any further suggestions? Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 16:04, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you have any further modifications to WP:PROF revision draft? I see that you made a few changes (they all look fine to me), but your last message at my talk page mentioned Tuesday night, so I'd like to double-check with you before moving further. Also, if you are done, please leave a note at the WP:PROF talk page. Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 04:16, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

still at it--doing more than I though i would at first, so its taking longer. DGG (talk) 04:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to bug you again, but could you please give some idea when you might be done with WP:PROF draft revisions. It has been a week since your last edit there... Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 15:03, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

New policy proposal and draft help

Wikipedia:Scientific standards

I have drafted a new proposal and would like help in clarifying, adjusting, adapting, and improving it. It is based on five years of work here at Wikipedia (not always the prettiest, I might add). I think it summarizes the opinions of a great majority of editors as to how to handle scientific situations. This proposal serves as a nexus between WP:NPOV and WP:RS for cases where we are dealing with observable reality. It is needed because there are a lot of editors who don't seem to understand what entails best-practices when writing a reliable reference work about observable reality. I don't pretend that this version is perfect, and would appreciate any and all additions, suggestions people may have for getting to some well-regarded scientific standards.

Note that these standards would apply only when discussing matters directly related to observable reality. These standards are inspired in part by WP:SPOV but avoid some of the major pitfalls of that particular proposal. In particular, the idea that SPOV even exists is a real problem. However, I think it is undeniable that we should have some standards for writing about scientific topics.

See also WP:SCI for another failed proposal that dovetails with this one. I hope this particular proposal is more in-line with the hole I see in policy/guidelines for dealing with these situations.

ScienceApologist (talk) 20:00, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I have added a section that I think necessary for balance. I doubt you will like it, but I think it necessary to express the rue meaning of POV. I have not yet attempted to harmonize it with the discordant elements in some of the previous sections, some of which I consider rather clearly remarkable violations of NPOV, objectivity, and the way i think a properly skeptical scientist looks at the world. DGG (talk) 00:10, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I find nothing wrong with the content of what you are writing and essentially I think the same thing. One bit I do find strange is this "primary approach" issue. My idea is the following:

1. A religious/philosophical/spiritual/metaphysical/etc. article should discuss all ideas about a subject relevant to the main approach to the article. Virgin Mary is the Christian ideas about the Virgin Mary; Reincarnation is about the various reincarnation-believing groups' approach to reincarnation and so on.
2. Most ideas are utterly irrelevant to science because they will deal with things other than observable reality
3. If and when such an article happens in the natural course of development to discuss a particular idea that is contradicted by or is supported by scientific evidence, the idea is first presented from the perspective of the main approach to the article.
4. Issues which have scientific evidence should have the scientific evidence that is directly relevant to the issue and nothing more. The evidence should be presented simply and straightforwardly without attempts to exaggerate, inflate, marginalize, or eliminate it.
5. Article continues on, unaffected by the scientific evidence presented.

That's what I envision. I think it is very close to what you envision too.

Now, I do have some issues with your particular choice in wording AND I think that your section can be combined with the previous section, but I think that we really are much closer than you suspect.

ScienceApologist (talk) 01:17, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I did a quick cleanup of your prose (which I really did like). Can you see if I garbled anything or messed up? Please fix as you see fit. ScienceApologist (talk) 01:33, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

The process is known as dialectic. I tend to do these slowly--we actually are close, because i wrote mine mainly in response to the section directly above as an alternative to rewiting it. Needless to say, it is much easier to write consensus statements about this sort of thing than to actually apply it to real articles, when all the differences become manifest. Will you be at the NYC picnic sunday? DGG (talk) 01:47, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes! Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. Hegelian rules, etc. With regards to the picnic-attendance, unfortunately, I will not be there as I have another engagement to attend to. Give my regards to all present. ScienceApologist (talk) 01:58, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

• I took a quick look and I like it. It met the "I thought this already was a policy" check. :) Protonk (talk) 01:52, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Ecclesiastes 12:12

"the assertion that someone has written a non-self published book book in any subject is a clear assertion of importance" - oh, dear Lord, that makes my heart break just to read! I'm an author, book reviewer, bookseller and long-time member of the National Writers Union; do you have any idea how many new books come out every year, even when you screen out the self-publishers? Most of us harmless Grub Street hacks will never be notable; and certainly most of my one- to three-book friends are not, nor would they assert themselves to be. This concept, if accepted, would open up the gates to endless floods of vanispamcruftisement! I cannot accede to your request. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC) (yes, Dave, I know you're a librarian [weren't you a Wombat at one time?]; but librarians aren't subjected to as much of the petty end of the spectrum as booksellers and reviewers are, and see less of the dross and more of the substance)

I never said it was enough to be notable, just avoid speedy, at least in the case of an apparently significant book, and certainly in this case when supported also by published articles. Speedy is deliberately worded very loosely to permit any good faith assertion of notability to pass and be judged by the community. I agree most of the people who have written a single book wouldn't pass notability, but the point is that this is most of the people -- some would, and no one admin should be able to judge that for the same reason we don't speedy books themselves at afd. someone in the field at least should have the opportunity to check for reviews and citations and library holdings and sport things by recognition that need further checking. As for librarians, we get junk enough but of a different sort. I'm not sure I catch the reference to wombats? I invite you to find a suitable wording for what counts as passing speedy, but in this case, since there was material besides the book, I am probably going to Deletion Review, not to support the article particularly, but to establish that your standard of "indication of importance" is too high. DGG (talk) 18:10, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Obviously we disagree. Ah, well; certainly not the first time! (As to the wombats, that's a Stumpers-L reference.) --Orange Mike | Talk 18:52, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

DGG - I completely support your position. The point here is not to have an exercise in the use of rhetorics but to operate on the basis of evidence and community feedback to make sure Wikipedia remains true to its purpose of providing useful information written by open and transparent consensus [12]. I'm disappointed to see Orange Mike continue to ignore the feedback from the community. I hope it's not the case for other articles he's been reviewing. Were you able to take the "Deletion Review" action you mentioned?

Alex Omelchenko (talk) 04:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Matthias Kuhle

Please point me to the bit in the above article that indicates importance/significance. It looks like a massive COI attempt at somesort of self-promotion to me and all I see is resume/C.V. stuff with some books he may have supposedly written. Jasynnash2 (talk) 15:29, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

saying one is has a position such a significant executive in a major orqanization or professor at a major university or anything of the sort is an assertion or indication of notability enough to pass speedy. Almost any good faith assertion will do--read WP:CSD and the discussions on its talk page. The bar is much lower than WP:N. Given his publications, it's probably going to pass afd,though I have not checked how widely he's cited, which will be the determining factor. You can verify the books at WorldCat. You can do at least a preliminary check at Google scholar--and see the comment I left at the author's talk page. We do not delete for COI!! DGG (talk) 15:43, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay let me make sure I understand the above. Saying you are the CEO/Chairman of the Board/etc counts as an assertion of notability? Just that? Saying you are a professor at "a major university" automatically counts as an assertion of notability? Forgive me if that makes no sense to me. After looking more deeply into things (including the idential article that existed with a misspelled first name) I did find some stuff that mentioned the name (but, couldn't read any of it). I've got no plans to take to AfD. I'm just trying to find somesort of consistency from the admins on these things. Is it oaky to ask you (and the other admins) to be like really really specific in edit summaries and such on stuff like this? Jasynnash2 (talk) 16:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

two levels: example 1/ Saying someone is president or chairman of the board at a notable company if it can be shown from the company web site is actual notability,and even if it has not yet been shown, that's only reason to find the reference, not delete the article via speedy or any other process. Most people , not quite all, agree on this, but most such articles are kept at AfD. Further, saying one is chairman of the board at any company that anyone might possibly think notable is an assertion of notability. Saying one is a corporate officer in a lesser position or a lesser company is usually not enough for actual notability except for major officers of really major companies {e.g. CTO of Apple is notable) but that too whether or not actually notable is an assertion of notability enough to defeat a speedy, and almost all admin agree. example 2/ saying someone is a full professor at a major research university is almost always enough for actual notability, and is trivial to verify, althugh not the literal standard of WP::PROF, because almost always enough recgnition of importance in the field can be found, and has been confirmed for almost all cases brought to AfD in the absence of special circumstances; saying someone is professor at any university or college is an assertion of notability--it may or may not be enough to pass AfD, even when verified--it depends on rank, nature of the school, and accomplishments, but it passes speedy. I point out that whether someone has written books is trivial to verify.

The principle is that speedy is only for articles that beyond any reasonable question are not notable. Anything that might, if true, give rise to a good faith debate, is not a speedy--whether about notability or anything else. Even copyvio-- Unquestionable copyvio is a speedy -- probable copyvio is a suspected copyright violation, not a speedy, and can be blanked, but not deleted. Purely promotional articles which cannot reasonable be rewritten are speedy; if it might be possible to rewrite them, they are not, and require afd. "No context" unclear enough enough to literally make it impossible to figure out what the article is about is a speedy, dubious context is an afd. And so forth for all the criteria.

This is not an extreme position. Many, probably about half, of admins say that speedy is not for any article for which there is any good faith doubt at all, even if it is not reasonable in terms of WP standards. I have proposed limiting it to those with a reasonable doubt, and this did not obtain consensus. As it stands, the wording of CSD holds: unquestionable, not even reasonable question.

True, some admins are ignoring the plain language of WP:CSD, and speedy deleting articles that assert but don't support notability, or that they think will not likely pass AfD. Unfortunately, at present if carried to deletion review, the current attitude is that such deletions are sometimes supported if it appears really unlikely. This is an artifact of the limited number of people who bother to show up at deletion review. When 1000 active admins, and no policy on precedent, many decisions will inevitably be wrong. Just find me any group of a selected 1000 people who agree on anything! Humans don't work that way. Admins as a body are not totally consistent, and though we should work towards getting them more consistent, experience shows we won't get all that far. Only a project directed from above with the equivalent of a supreme court can be consistent. If you want consistency, you need a dictator. There are such projects, such as Conservapedia.

The reason behind the principle, is that no one person, admin or otherwise, is qualified to decide on notability if the matter can be disputed, only the community. Similarly , no one admin is qualified to decide on blocking if it is disputable--any other admin can reverse it, and force a discussion at AN/I to see what the community thinks--not just the community of admins, but the entire community, for anyone can give an opinion there. analogously, bureaucrat is a position of very high trust, but no bureaucrat can individuallypromote a person to admin--it take a community decision at RfAdmin. Arbitrator is a position of the greatest trust we can give, but they too decide as a committee. DGG (talk) 20:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Pemberton (anthropologist)

Inherently I agree with you - I get very concerned that xfds for anything to do with Indonesian project rarely have anyone from the project deal with them - in most cases the project is dead/quiet/low numbers of eds and I honestly as an individual cannot cope to defend or maintain a project single handedly - the others who try to cope are limited in time - so please understand that where you come from - I would agree - and where I come from it is hard to try to argue things when my fieldwork notes are locked way and I will be away for the coming week :( - please keep up the good work as I am sure the whole xfd process is something that needs to keep the place working and honest - myself included - cheers SatuSuro 00:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC) To clarify - I agree with your criticism of the article as it stands - but my capacity to rescue my argument re the impact of pemberton's position in new order era foreigners writing about the place are potentially in some locked away records - or OR my first hand experience and the stories I picked up from some friends in Solo at the time - all very colourful and great stories but totally unwritable in a wikipedia BLP article - as to who was who and doing what - shame about that SatuSuro 00:41, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

If it gets deleted, add the additional refs & material and try again--if you wish, I can look at it first, to see if there's enough. Just remember we need published refs. DGG (talk) 00:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that (that is generous of you), but dont hold your breath, it might be a while before I get to the stuff - and hey I spend my life trying to convince eds in the Indonesian area to supply WP:RS - been there, too many times SatuSuro 01:02, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Fish Info and Services

Hello, I noticed that you had input in a previus deletion discussion. The article looks like it may be deleted by the same group of people who started the first discussion, without imput from you or others who contributed previously. I thought you may liketo know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.246.82.69 (talk) 02:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC) fair enough. DGG (talk) 02:56, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Mokshan script

One Moksha user recently added sources re Moksha script. Will need some more time to collect good quality pix and tables for the article. It is not a hoax as well as Old Hungarian script or Slavic runas--Numulunj pilgae 13:46, 6 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Numulunj pilgae (talk • contribs)

The Commonwealth Medical College

David, is this article notable? Wim --Crusio (talk) 23:45, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

A medical school is notable. As a part of a university , it almost always gets a separate article if there's information available. As a free-standing one like this, it would certainly be notable, like all other institutions of higher education. Plans for one that have reached the stage of intending to admit students for Sept 09 indicate that a great deal of work and funding has already been accomplished--it's analogous to film that is well into production. That preliminary accreditation has been achieved is also highly significant. it does need references, of course, and some more information. DGG (talk) 01:37, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense, thanks! --Crusio (talk) 10:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

FYI, the original editor TCMC has started adding text which is on the spammy side to the article. I've left him a note on his talk page asking him to either fully reference anything he adds or, preferably, stick to the talk page. Feel free to trout me if that's out of order. MadScot (talk) 16:42, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Millennium Shakespeare

Could you please take a look at Millennium Shakespeare? In its current state, it is probably eligible for deletion as blatant advertising, but perhaps it could be salvaged. I can't find references for it, but I may be looking in the wrong places. -- Eastmain (talk) 18:21, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

amazing. Not just the pervasiveness of the advertising, but the degree of incoherence. As best as I can make out it's an illustrated young person's edition/ I can't salvage this. If their edition ever does get noticed, I shall probably come across the reviews, and then it will be time. DGG (talk) 21:05, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I see another ed placed & then removed a speedy tag. There's no sense in using prod--I suggest afd if major rewriting is not done quickly. DGG (talk) 00:00, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

That was a bit of a mix-up, I was removing a CSD from another article and accidentally pasted it there as my next action while trying to remove more material by hitting paste rather than cut. I've trimmed most of the fat from the article but even with what appears to be the relevent details, I still cannot make heads or tails about what it is actually being discussed. --Cameron Scott (talk) 00:11, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I just found a coherent listing on UK's amazon: [13], giving the series website, [www.millenniumshakespeare.com.]--and the worldcat listings for the 3 vols available so far are at [14]. A series rewritten as prose stories in simplified modern language for children , abridged, and with modern illustrations from various artists. -- just conceivably an important work; it will probably get reviews, even if it's really awful. The publisher -- and the editor-- do not seem to have published anything else of any significance. But one of the people listed for the King Lear is Jeffrey Kahan, an actual Shakespeare scholar of some importance & that is enough reason not to reject it out of hand. Probably does get an article. Excerpt at [15] to compare with the famous 19th century Tales from Shakespeare at [16] DGG (talk) 00:51, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Is there more i can do?

I found this AfD and became intrigued. the more i dug, the more I realized that this was a unique and notable project... even if it is never released... but I think it will be. The involvement of NASA and JPL in an animated/educational/scifi/adventure, with the involvements of a great many notable atars, make this one quite interesting. So I spent a few hours and turned this stub into this fully fleshed-out article. I would love your input towards additional improvements. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 19:26, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

you're doing ok, but there may also be something in science magazines, even if not in google. Problem is finding them. DGG (talk) 23:12, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Online archives of SF literature and film magazines? NASA press releases? Hmmmmm... much to consider. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 23:47, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Offline from Torkel Franzén RfD

(I'm taking this offline from the Torkel Franzén RfD since we agree on the point that's relevant in that context, and I don't want to waste the project's time with "meta" stuff.)

Actually my "review" of Torkel Franzén's book would be very negative, but I'm asking for a keep, so I think I'm safe from the charge that I'm arguing for a keep based on my own review of TF's book. If the math profession had reviewed TF's book that way I would, he'd be a "delete" for sure. Though perhaps you were saying that I was making the case for notability based on my strong dislike of TF's book. :-) Actually no, though, it's just that I've gotten the sense that TF is well respected by others and I'm trying to figure out how to document that.

FYI, I've been in touch with the author of the best book on Gödel's proof for the layperson (Rudy Rucker, the book is Infinity and the Mind). Rucker has never even heard of TF, despite the fact that TF's book criticizes Rucker by name. That would argue for non-notability, but under the Wikipedian rules of evidence, it's just irrelevant hearsay, I gather.

I'm new to RfD discussions, and I will admit my attempts to state the case for TF's notability are awkward. Thanks, --Jeffreykegler (talk) 05:38, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. I understood that. Your argument there was perfectly correct and appropriate. I couldn't think of a better way to word it to clarify that. But I thought it was a good place to make the point, because others had been discussing it on the terms. And, of course as you realise perfectly well it doesn't necessarily matter--a notable bad scientist can be notable none the less, just like a notable bad movie. The actual quality is rarely argued in Wikipedia except on computer and math related topics, though once in a while the neuroscience people do similarly. Otherwise there aren't enough expert types to matter. (We will argue whether someone is respected, however, and this is usually done by analyzing the quality of the journals he publishes in or quality of the publishers of his books.) My own feeling is the notability in this case is a little borderline, but there is some disagreement over whether it just includes people like him, or just excludes him. Typically it depends a little on subject--subjects people disrespect get judged more strictly. DGG (talk) 12:52, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Copyvio tag

Hiya.. I'd tagged that article as obvious copyvio due to the large amount of quacking in the vicinity; the obviously cnp'd sentences with unformatted ref numbers and the editor in question has put up copyvio work (which may have been his own) before. // roux   18:22, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you about the origin--but I will not delete via speedy unless you find the published copyright source--even so, based on contributions to other articles, the author is a Professor of Information Science who has been inserting copies of his work "Core concepts of information science" --and possibly other publications, into WP and giving us licenses for it. See for example Talk:Cognitive authority Now, if this is from a published article not the test, he may or may not own the copyright. Even if it were student work, the more usual case, I can think of a number of scenarios by which this would not be a violation: If it is in fact his own work, it may not be a copyright violation. for example, he may have originally submitted it to class, and then posted it here, in which case he would still have owned the copyright and his release of it to us under GFDL would be valid. He might have posted it here, and then published it--in which case it would not be a violation either, no matter what copyright notice might be on the published work, for he would have previously given us an irrevocable license. Only if he published it prior to posting it here would it be a violation. And even if he copied it from another source, it might conceivably not be a violation, it it were published in a public domain source, such as an open access journal. Knowledge organization (management) is not really a suitably written Wikipedia article in any case, but that is not a reason for speedy. DGG (talk) 19:28, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, fair enough. My general feeling about copyvio is 'shoot first, get explanations later' due to potential legal issues. I'd rather see a slightly mistaken speedy and undelete than have WMF served with papers, y'know? // roux   06:39, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

my atitude is different. We should absolutely not include known provable copyvio. Our reputation for doing this is important. Our reputation for care here is harmed when we also exclude things that just might possibly be copyvio, because then it implies we are not carefully examining situation. Same as my view on BLP: strict when it applies, but narrow to only when it applies. DGG (talk) 08:45, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, well, agree to disagree then. // roux   10:42, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

2009

Pedram Hamrah

Hi, I've been editing an article on Pedram Hamrah (possibly an autobio, but I am not sure about that). At first I put a notability tag on it, later I removed it again as I thought notability was sufficiently established. Now I start doubting again: Hamrah is instructor at Harvard and is also listed as postdoctoral fellow with another lab there, and that seems pretty junior for being notable. I would appreciate if you could have a quick look at the article and let me know what you think. Thanks! --Crusio (talk) 11:10, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

PS: [17] he is listed as a current postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Reza Dana, who is the senior author on some of Hamrah's most widely cited papers. --Crusio (talk) 11:22, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

People nowadays stay as postdocs for longer and longer times, and it is possible that they may do sufficient important work there to become notable as an authority in their field--I am aware of some people who might be considered such. He's in such a group of permanent postdocs, often called associated researchers. Normally, someone at his level, 12 years past his boards, would have a regular faculty position, but possibly he'd rather stay at Harvard than have one elsewhere. One has to go then by the publications -- he's about the level where one would expect of an excellent assistant professor in the subject-- 20 peer reviewed papers in Scopus, citation counts 80, 77, 73, 47, 43, all in first-rate journals. Even in medical science, where citation counts are high, this is pretty good. The next step is to see just who is citing him & what they say about his work. This can best be evaluated by someone who knows the actual subject. I'd concentrate on the spammier ones. I think spam is more the danger to our credibility than people of borderline notability. DGG (talk) 16:58, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

You're absolutely right! Thanks. --Crusio (talk) 17:13, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Sourcing question

Hello David, hope your holidays were pleasant. Question: is it acceptable to use the background-of-the-invention section of patents listed in Free Patents Online ([18]) as a source? These are often exceptionally concise and well-written summaries of current technological issues, which is useful. (Example: [19]) Presumably the background section of granted patents is vetted by US patent attorneys. Thought you would know what the official WP stance is. Best wishes, Novickas (talk) 15:08, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

There is no official stance on this, and I would suggest asking at the RS noticeboard, and making sure the chemistry Wikiproject knows about the discussion. My preliminary thoughts are as follows:

1. . We are talking about US patents only. But the degree of review of US patents varies at different time periods. The degree of review in other countries varies.
2. . There is invariably a very long publication delay.
3. . In chemistry and biochemistry, which is what I know best, patents are accepted as references, are fully covered by Chemical Abstracts, are used as publication in curriculum vitae, and are often the sole source of information on compounds. But, as Crane's classic Guide to the Chemical literature says " Statements in the technical journal literature can more safely be presumed to be based on experiment or experience." , and, "patents are continually issued on subject matter the real nature of which is not understood" and "scientific theory or understanding may have little or nothing to do with a case" As I understand it, what is vetted is the claims.
4. . What can be claimed in the body of the patent is subject to technical rules, and it is in the interests of the patentee to claim as much as possible. General statements about classes of compounds, as distinct from actual descriptions of specific ones, are purely hypothetical.
5. . But you are talking about the introduction only. It is in the interest of the patentee to try to pretend that as much as possible of his work is novel. The examiner usually is supposed to try to to limit this,with respect to material directly bearing on the novelty of the claim, but to a much lesser extent on the general knowledge of the subject. The final text is a process of negotiation. Much patent litigation subsequently hinges on whether all the literature was in fact disclosed. In the introduction to a scientific paper, however, though one wants to show the originality of one's work, one also wants to demonstrate how thoroughly one understands the literature,and how much of the previous less well understood material one's own work explains--so one generally tries to say as much as possible, and a reviewer will both try to find what one has neglected to find as evidence of ones possible lack of competence, and try to cut back the overgeneralities.

In short, I think one could use the information there, but I would never quote such a source as proof that there is no work beyond what it says there. (if you ask this elsewhere, feel free to copy this as a start) DGG (talk) 16:36, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Will think this over, thanks. It can be discouraging, you know, the search for one or two online references that state the obvious, in lieu of bits from seven or nine refs to make up one concise statement. The single refs are awfully handy when you're short on time but want to create a reasonable stub. What I had in mind is only the "BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION - 1. Field of Invention" section. In this instance [20], the statement "Crude shale oil differs from crude petroleum because, in addition to saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbons, it contains hydrocarbons, both saturated and unsaturated, in chemical and/or physical combination with a substantial amount of nitrogen, sulfur, and oxygen when compared to the elemental levels of petroleum crude. It is because of this property that crude shale oil requires additional treating when shale oil is refined by conventional petroleum refining techniques and procedures." Very limited, and would seem to be stating the obvious; a basic justification of the need for a patent. (The field-of-invention section seems to always follow claims - that ordering kind of undermines its credibility). "Description of the prior art", on the other hand, is clearly open to contention. A search of "freepatentsonline.com site:wikipedia.org" shows that the site is mostly being used here to support claims rather than to supply background info; that's why I was worried that it would be challenged as unreliable. Don't know if, or how often, these are challenged; I would think that, barring major breakthroughs, that section would be OK. Thanks again. Novickas (talk) 02:49, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I do not disagree with you, but it'll be one more thing to keep defending, & then people will try to use entire patents for even the wildest fringe that was ever patented. But for material like this , the really good source is Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology. Pity it isn't free, for it's in my opinion the best encyclopedia every made in any subject at all. BTW, the reason for the sequence of parts in a patent is that patent abstracts usually include only the claims, as the key section. DGG (talk) 05:00, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've decided against trying it; as you say, it could be a slippery slope. Still seems a shame in some ways - the writing is so good nowadays - compares well to the newer SEC filings. I have access to Kirk-Othmer at work. Their intended audience, tho, is some levels above ours. Compare, for instance, the above patent application to KO's oil shale abstract: "Production costs for crude shale oil are generally much higher than those for conventional crude oil, in part because of the high concentrations of heteroatoms in the crude shale oil." [21] Heteroatoms would need to be glossed in a (Good or FA) WP article, while the patent application explicitly states the problematic atoms. Its US-centrism is also a little off-putting: "Several commercial oil shale operations exist, but these are all outside of the United States" - what's with the "but"? and "Shale oil asphalt is the most promising of these products" - ignores world crude oil prices and energy independence issues. Those items aside, I'll probably resort to KO at some point. Can't argue with its gravitas and prose. Novickas (talk) 13:43, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

"Possibly distinguished in its field"

Re: this prod removal. "Possibly distinguished in its field" could be said of any random academic. Demanding that we "First look for references & wht he may have published" for each of the thousands of unsourced vestigial stubs on wikipedia before deletion, is (i) against WP:BURDEN & (ii) creates an enormous and unreasonable assymetry between the time needed to add a barren (i.e. unsourced and uninformative) stub and the time taken to delete the same -- leading to their continued proliferation to the detriment of wikipedia. I'm AfDing it. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 04:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with you about the way to do deletion, about the burden & the asymmetry. I think nominating for deletion without checking for sources oneself is reckless and unhelpful, and against the intent of basic WP deletion policy, that deletion is the last resort. It ought to be made impossible when the question is notability. I further think the asymmetry is the opposite direction, between the extreme ease of nominating for deletion and the much more difficult one of creating or saving. Therefore a concern for symmetry requires one to be exceptionally careful in deleting to correct for this. I also think you misinterpret WP:Burden. The burden is to prove an article should be deleted. The policy you refer to deals with V, with providing sources for a challenged statement, where indeed the burden is on the one who asserts the statement. Not here. Yes, certainly, the demonstration of notability ought to be done properly by the person who wrote the article, but if not , then it is the responsibility of all editors to try to improve it. If it appears impossible, or if one fails in a reasonable effort, then one nominates for deletion. Whether he will prove notable or not, the afd will decide. I agree with you to the extent that he possibly may not be distinguished in his field. What we need is some evidence. DGG (talk) 05:12, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

turns out he is distinguished: a very major book by Cambridge Univ Press, among other things. I admit to being a little surprised how easy it was to show this. I too failed my own expections a little, for I should have done this when removing the prod & added it then. DGG (talk) 05:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

It is reasonable to expect those proposing/nominating deletion to investigate articulations of notability contained in the article. It is not reasonable to expect an open-ended search for anything that might bring notability. In cases such as this, nothing of any substance has been 'created', so it is not a matter of "saving" so much as re-creation from scratch, whether the article is deleted first or not. WP:BURDEN goes on to state "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." Taking that in conjunction with the first sentence in that section, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the burden for finding "reliable, third-party sources" to prevent deletion "lies with the editor who adds" an article. Certainly the burden lies with them to give some articulation of why the topic is worthy of further investigation. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 05:57, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

The phrase is "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found" , not" If the author finds no.. " I agree that the burden is primarily on the author. I think further,that any who thinks it unnotable because there are no sources should confirm whether there are no sources to give. I shall continue to gather consensus to make that an actual formal requirement, both to help articles and to avoid wasting the time of the community at AfD. DGG (talk) 13:57, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

It is impossible to "confirm whether there are no sources to give", as one can never prove that there isn't, in some obscure bookcase, in some obscure library, a book containing material on a topic. This is why the only efficient policy is to have the burden of proof on those creating an article to demonstrate an article's notability. They are the ones who are supposed to know (i) what an article is about, (ii) why it is supposed to be notable & (iii) where the sources are. Expecting this from editors who simply come across a badly underformed article is unreasonable, and will lead to a plague of these articles -- as they are far easier to create than to delete (the article that started this argument would have taken at most 5 minutes to write). If you want "to avoid wasting the time of the community at AfD" then don't un-prod articles with only trivial content. Such trivial content is inconsequential to the task of creating any sort of useful encyclopaedic content on the topic, so deleting it doesn't harm any legitimate purpose. I will close by noting that, in spite of all the huffing and puffing of 'keep'ers on the AfD, Harold Hoehner‎ is still simply an unencyclopaedic resume+bibliography, lacking any third-party sources, that in a more rational system should have difficulty passing a prod. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 15:41, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

we seem to have some disagreements. I hope we will have several tens of thousands of more articles on academic people of similar and greater distinction, and I expect that the consensus will agree with me. Actually, this is what I came here to do originally, after seeing articles for members of the NAS actually put up for speedy without anyone checking the person's cv to see whether someone in a distinguished position might be a member. You are welcome to argue that people who publish multiple major professional academic books that are found in hundreds of libraries are not notable. As all of the ones from major publishers get reviewed, there will be sources, so I doubt you will get much agreement. I certainly do not defend all academics --I have probably voted to delete more of the nonnotable academics than most people: I was in the middle of nominating one for prod when I saw your message.

I routinely unprod every article in any subject I understand that I think might be fixable or where the deletion might be controversial--my experience is that's only about small percent of the ones I look at, so I don't expect a flood of Afds. I agree that there are too many afds, and the answer is that many of the current unchallenged afds might have better been prods--I too try to use it when possible. As for the article, you are right the article needs some additional sources, such as reviews of his many books.

I expect to disagree with other people sometimes, and I encourage them to ask my reasons, but I am surprised to get such intense challenges as this, because usually people just argue against me at the AfD or whatever. Perhaps you recognize you fell into the same trap I almost did, of assuming that someone with his background

My goal in this--which is a goal much too large to succeed unless others help me-- is to see improved every new article that's fixable, and delete the hopeless (which is about half the total submissions). Probably at the moment we make a considerable percent error in both directions. I think your goal is to keep every new article that is already good enough, and delete all the others. That approach will lose about 25% of the potential articles, and about 25% of the potential new good contributors. Our ultimate goal is the same--to keep out the spam and the nonsense and the unimportant. You are willing to tolerate losing good articles and contributors to make sure of doing that. I am wiling to tolerate some borderline articles to make sure of keeping all the good ones.

In my view, what really harms the encyclopedia are not borderline articles, but spam and bad writing and error. Getting rid of those is what's important. But what harms us even more at a more fundamental level, is the loss of potentially good contributors, for if we continue to lose more than we gain, we will stagnate into obsolescence. DGG (talk) 16:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Your account of the speedy-nominated NAS member leads me to a polar opposite conclusion from yours. From my perspective, any article that gives the impression that a NAS member is so lacking in notability as to be a speedy-candidate is sufficiently misleading and sufficiently vacuous that wikipedia would be better off having no article at all until somebody can be bothered spending time to write a decent stub on them. This is also why I consider an articulation of notability to be so important -- and why I'll tend to be quite dismissive of articles that lack such an articulation -- they give no fertile basis for expansion -- they are bland inconsequences providing no germ of information (e.g. specialisation in a specific doctrine, book of the Bible, or such in Hoehner‎'s case), that some editor might likewise be interested in, and so be interested in expanding.

How many contributors, who start off writing short, unsourced stubs (and similar), go on to be valuable contributors? How many of them either wander off to do something else, or simply continue to create malformed articles until dissuaded? My experience of such editors is that they're generally disinterested in either editing beyond a very limited range of topics, disinterested in wikipedia policy, and disniterested in cleaning up their messes. Productive editors, in my experience, tend to be disinterested in boldly going forth into creating new articles until they have learned the system sufficiently well tinkering with minor improvements to existing articles. There may be some confirmation bias in this perception, but I don't think its completely wide of the mark. People tend to be creatures of habit -- and the habits they bring with them to wikipedia, and the habits we let them develop, are likely to be the habits that will stay with them for the period of their contributorship. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 17:36, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

are you actually saying that the man is not notable because the topic he worked on was not important? I wonder if that might be some cultural bias. It also show the misunderstanding of the academic world--the topics most people work on are fairly narrow--But for someone to actually specialize and write a monograph on a topic with such enormous literature as an whole book of the bible seems to me a very broad topic, and that CUP published it and half a thousand libraries bought it exceptionally impressive. Famous people --people at the level of Nobel prize winners--have made their entire careers based on one feature of the life of a specific species of mold, or even a single group of genes, or the structure of one single protein, or the discovery of one type of subatomic particle, or one physical law.

as for a stub not being superior to no article, all I can say is that such is very fortunately not the present Wikipedia policy; many more people have the will to add to an article than start a new one. The idea of most articles being good at the start is simply incompatible with an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, which inherently builds up in a cumulative process.

but more generally, I agree with you about people coming in with bad writing habits; the solution is to teach them better. Not to reject their articles, not to nominate them for deletion and hope they notice it and have time in 5 days to fix it up, but to work with them to improve it. The difficulty is that this takes even more time than fixing an article oneself. i have time to fix (or write) maybe 5 or 6 short articles a week, but working with one or two beginners to help them develop an article themselves is the most that I can manage. The more of us that do it, the better it will get done. I said I came here to add articles, but that's only partially true. I also came here to help others do so. No matter how unteachable someone appears to be, the first step is not to throw them out the door. Even a harsh schoolmaster saves that for the proven dunces. DGG (talk) 19:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

BGC

I see you're on-line, possibly. If you have a minute, can you do a prose edit of an article I just started, Berkeley Geochronology Center? I would appreciate it. I asked at WP:Geology, also, the botany editors tend to stalk me and edit my prose, so if you don't have the time or interest, someone else will get to it, but I might like to try to shape it up into something nicer, sooner. Thanks. --KP Botany (talk) 01:20, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

first pass done; I assume you are now writing bios of Garniss Curtis and Paul Renne. I will revisit the article at that point. DGG (talk) 02:20, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. It never fails to amaze me how much I need a fellow Wikiepdia editor in real life. Yes and yes, watch-listed redlinks on both. Surprised not to find Curtis article. Renne's a bit obscure outside of the world of geochronology so no surprise to find him omitted. --KP Botany (talk) 08:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC)06:36, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, that's the depressing part of Wikipedia, seeing how many world-class scientists are omitted from their own articles and from other articles. I can barely find Curtis mentioned in Wikipedia, not in the Zinj article, not in the Java Man article, not in the paleoanthropology article, not in the K-Ar dating article, not in the geochronology article. --KP Botany (talk) 08:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The academic humanities are even worse. And so are the engineers. The humanities is lack of interest, the engineers difficulty in documenting as well. And for physicians, we're top-heavy for the specialties that need to advertise. Check the missing people for the US national academies. The omissions from subject articles has a different cause: the tendency of COI people to enter just the bios and take no further interest. DGG (talk) 09:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't quite understand the last comment about the COI people entering just bios?

Ah, well, that was a frustrating few hours through science biographies on Wikipedia, trying to add just one article, and winding up red-linking my watch list beyond repair. Also added Kenneth Farley, so we don't have to add him at the last minute. One problem with engineering bios is the limited amount of biographical information available in the public domain on the web. Every time I tried to start an engineer bio I was thwarted by the only reliable biographical information being locked in the, oh, what is that engineering archive IEEE, or whatever, which I can only access at school. I do know about the missing engineers, but don't have the resources on hand to remedy that. I wrote the Curtis and Renne bios from scratch and attached sources from their BGC bios and the first google hits that came up, Wrote the Farley bio from his CalTech web page and a Wikipedia article, deletionists be damned.  ;) --KP Botany (talk) 09:42, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

the COI people enter the bio, but do not think to edit the subject articles. And my experience is the academics (and their family & students) show their COI almost as frequently by entering over-modest non-explanatory pages as overly self-advertising ones. The hardest of the engineers are the non-academic ones known in the profession as leaders, who do not necessarily publish at all. Businessmen likewise. DGG (talk) 09:49, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, yeah, I know what you mean. Still it's an easy omission for new editors to make because the task is rather demanding, but, imo, it's almost more important to get the information in the subject articles than to just enter a bio. The Curtis article was depressing for the magnitude of his omission from Wikipedia and the need to add the information about his contributions to paleoanthropology and geochronology to so many articles. He was only in a few articles, the Louis Leakey article, at least. Renne's probably one of the best known geochronologists in the world, for his contributions, but he also is a major international collaborative scientist, yet he is largely ignored and unknown outside of the scientific community. Acalamari and I occasionally edit some of the overly modest biographies, so I know what you mean in that area also. Yes, in engineers this is the area I tried to work in, civil engineers, mostly. They have newspaper articles, they've built structures (modern ones, mostly), but there is no biographical info. --KP Botany (talk) 10:00, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Robert M. Price

In regards to this: I spent three hours before nominating the individual looking through various databases and news sources to find reliable secondary information to prove his notability. I found hits for the two other Robert Prices, but not for this one. Your statement seems to say the opposite but provides no evidence. Your statement also seems to fail criteria under WP:AUTHOR, as having a lot of works is meaningless. Please back up your statement with reliable secondary sources or strike it. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:21, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I would have helped to indicate the search you had made at the nomination, but I do not see I said that you had not done so (as I sometimes have with some other editors)--I assumed you had searched, for I know you are generally careful. As for what I did say, I stand by it: having several books with hundreds of copies in libraries and being published by major publishers in the field=some degree of popularity. DGG (talk) 19:47, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:V doesn't say that an author is notable by sales, nor does having books in a few hundred libraries mean that he is even close to a best seller. Your radical take on inclusion would now include almost every single obscure journal out there. The mere fact that this "cult favorite" and "best seller" is forced to work at an unaccredited school because no one respects his scholarship or what he says in a serious academic way, let alone is willing to report on him in credible news, shows that he fails BLP inclusion. The whole page is heresay from Lovecraft blogs. The page is a coatrack. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:55, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

You raise several issues

1. I have !voted to delete a number of journals, some in the last few days. There are some people who would include every peer-reviewed journal, but I am not sure I accept that. As for obscure journals, and other obscure topics in the humanities, I am certainly as inclusionist as reasonably possible. I came to Wikipedia in the first place in good part for that very purpose--and to improve the quality of the ones it already had. our content in that area. Surely you know that some other people here tend to regard much of what all academics in the humanities do as obscure?
2. As for what counts as cult literature, opinions differ. What is one person's serious profession is another person's cult interest. The history of scholarship in the humanities has shown the progressively broadening the sphere of genres to which serious attention is paid. I see 24 academct heses on Lovecraft [22], including 4 for a Ph.d. I see MA theses from Brown and Columbia and OSU.

The AfD is the place for discussion on the notability of the subject. DGG (talk) 20:35, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

DGG, my point is simply this - BLP requires us to be careful about notability. We need third party reliable sources. I searched. I tried to find them. I couldn't. If there are some sources about the books, then sure, the books can be included. But for a BLP we need biographical information from reliable sources that prove notability. The books were not ground breaking enough for the scholar, professor, or author criteria. There is not enough third party sources about his life. He did very little beside write some controversial books that didn't even get much show outside of a few blogs, some dedicated propagandist groups, and the such. Please find reliable third party sources if you truly feel this page needs to be here. Right now, its just a coatrack for a large group of IPs. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:58, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

since the article is primarily about what he can certainly be proven to have done, which is to write certain published works over the span of his career, I do not see how BLP comes into it. One's books being controversial does not make them less notable. this being my talk p., I end the discussion here. The AfD is the place where you can continue if you like, but I've said I think I need to say, both there and here. DGG (talk) 22:10, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

DGG, if the article is about what he has "done", i.e. summaries of what his books state as fact, isn't that the very definition of coatrack? This is a named page. Thus, it has to be a biography. On that very basis alone, it should be deleted. If you think that information on the books should be saved, then please state "create a new page for the books". This is a biography, not a page for the books. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:18, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

You could not be more wrong. Articles about people are primarily about their accomplishments, and so the consensus is--unanimous except for you-- the afd has closed as a SNOW Keep. this topic is now closed here also. DGG (talk) 02:45, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Consensus test on university topics

You previously commented on the RFC on the notability of residences at colleges and universities. A consensus test has been posted to evaluate what, if any consensus, has been reached on the issue. Please go and comment at: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities#Consensus test. Madcoverboy (talk) 18:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Dr. Ramesh Prasad Mohapatra

Hi DGG; I don't think I'm hallucinating...the text is an almost exact transcription of the two web sites noted in the speedy deletion nomination. Thanks for your attention, JNW (talk) 03:39, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

sorry, I only saw the first of the two sites. Thanks for correcting me. It's gone now. DGG (talk) 03:43, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. It's back up again, apparently in identical form... JNW (talk) 03:54, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I've now protected the article against re-creation under the same name. It might be useful to check the users other contributions, since they seem to be on the same general subject. While we don't want to lose a specialist contributor, if he's adding copyvio, he has to be stopped. DGG (talk) 04:04, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

DGG/JNW, This content I am adding is not just copy and paste. The web site http://mohapsa.tripod.com/rpmohapatra is the web site developed and maintened by my self. I thought it would be easier for me to add things in stead of writing it again. I am currently adding stuff and put the hangon tag on top so that you guys show enough courtsey till I finish. He was a very notable archaeologist whose contribution is very significant for Orissan Archaeology, Art, Culture and History. I am fully aware of the and believe on copy right violation on Wiki. So definitely I will not add any thing that is in-appropriate.

Trust this will give you enough reason. Thanks in advance for your co-operation.

Please see WP:COPYRIGHT. The easiest way of handling this is to put a license for GFDL and CC-BY 2.0 on the web page. Copyrighht is one of the things where we have to follow the rules. Let me know when you;ve done that, and i will restore the article. DGG (talk) 04:36, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

DGG can you please let me know how I can put a license for GFDL and CC-BY 2.0 on the web page. Once I got to know how I can do that I will put the request right away.

Appreciate your help on this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tikoo s (talk • contribs) 14:22, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I have already sent an e-mail and placed a licence for GFDL and CC-BY-SA CC-BY 2.0 on my webpage http://mohapsa.tripod.com/rpmohapatra. Can you please restore my page on Dr. Ramesh Prasad Mohapatra at the earliest.

Thanks in advance..--Tikoo s (talk) 15:07, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

DGG I have been waiting for your action on my article. Please let me know when that can be taken care of.--Tikoo s (talk) 00:36, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

No issue just let me know when you do it!!--Tikoo s (talk) 01:14, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Lots of people can scrape through the eligibility criterion for notability. Every building in every American university is named after some person, whose names do not find mention in Wikipedia. In Orissa, there are many people I know personally that have received a lot more recognition than R. P. Mohapatra. I don't think they are eligible for a wikipedia page.

The section "Selected Research Articles" lists 39 research papers written by him. Every faculty in every university publishers that much, and in more significant forums. Not one of those articles was actually published in a peer-reviewed journal. If they were, I invite Tikoo_S to provide the impact factors of those journals. Books published by unknown publishers like "Cosmo Publications, Delhi," or "D. K. Publications, Delhi," are unknown. There are hundreds of such books that are much more current and up-to-date.

If R. P. Mohapatra's earning doctorates from relatively unknown universities, like Utkal University, is shown in the introductory paragraph of Ramesh_Prasad_Mohapatra, it only goes to reflect the person's insignificance.

I hope my negative comments are not misconstrued as attacks. The reason I am raising this issue is because Tikoo_S has been citing those entirely unknown publications everywhere:

• [23]
• [24]
• [25]
• [26]
• [27]
• [28]

There are more...

These are topics that are not even closely related. A person whose expertise covers this wide a range, must be quite someone!

Either that or Tikoo_S is spamming, which I strongly believe to be the case. In fact ALL that Tikoo_S has contributed to in wikipedia is adding stuff on R. P. Mohapatra everywhere possible. I am almost certain that Tikoo_S, whose last name is also "Mohapatra", is none other than R. P. Mohapatra's son.

In December 2007, I had placed a warning in Tikoo_s's talk page. Frankly it was a headache to undo all the advertising that Tikoo_s had done.

SDas (talk) 14:12, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

buildings in American universities when named for people are typically named after either 1/ the person who gave the money, who is generally an extremely rich philanthropist who would get an article, or 2/ the parent, child or wife of such a person--who usually but not always is non-notable. or 3/ a noted college figure like a former president or particularly distinguished professor--who would get an article, or 4/ a particularly distinguished alumnus--who would get an article--or 5/a politician connected with the university in some way--who would also get an article, or 6 /sometimes some miscellaneous person whom they wish to commemorate--who may or may not be notable. Examples from Princeton: Firestone Library, Guyot Hall, Woodrow Wilson School, Burr Hall. Frist Campus Center , Baker Rink -- all people who would get an article

39 research papers written by him. Every faculty in every university publishers that much -- the average number of faculty publications is between 1 and 2. Of course, it's much higher in major universities.

people who I know personally -- so write articles about them, if you can find printed sources.

DK Publishing is one of the major Indian academic publishers, and one of the best known, at least to me.

journals most of his articles are published by journals associated with his museum. This is normal for archeology and similar fields. They are in any case probably much less important than his books, as usual for the humanities.

In any case, the place to challenge notability is not here, but at AfD. The article does need some improvements, like most WP articles. DGG ( talk ) 16:50, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Buildings in US Universities also go by small donors. I can name a few myself, such as Adams Atkins Arena, CSU (I just randomly picked one).

Citation count: I was not aware that the average publication count is so low. Nevertheless, 37 papers is quite low.

"people I know personally" - I consider it unethical to add entries of personal friends. But there are well published people whom I do not consider to be meritorious enough.

DK publishers - I am not sure if it is the well known DK publishers or some other one. I could be wrong. One needs to verify. An ISBN number perhaps?

As an experienced user fconaway and I discussed after a simple google search, link provided by the user, and the user tikoo S's singular focus on R P Mohapatra, in Dec 2007, that the user is most likely the son of R P Mohapatra, the question of ethics naturally arises.

My concern is the insertion of references to R.P. Mohapatra's papers in irrelevant places - Bhubaneswar being a case to point. That's spamming, and in Dec 2007, after a discussion with fconaway, a warning was placed. My main purpose is not deletion of R P Mohapatra, but to stop tikoo S from adding citations to R. P. Mohapatra in places like Bhubaneswar, inspite of being warned before. Deleting R. P. Mohapatra is secondary, but should be discussed.

My apologies for placing the speedy deletion tag. I was not aware of the difference between AfD and that. I thoguht they were one and the same.

Thanks,

SDas (talk) 17:36, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

He published a book on the archeology of Orissa. Is there a better one? If not, his would be appropriate to cite for the archeological background. If there is a better one, add it. I do not consider this as a spam link, nor would it be for any archeological monument in the state. DGG ( talk ) 18:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes there most certainly are, which I'll add within a few days. Nevertheless, in Dec 2007, on the basis of a discussion with an experienced user (who I think was also an administrator), a warning was given to tikoo_s. And I don't think archaeological references are quite needed in an article on the modern city of Bhubaneswar, when a government tourism site will suffice. Adding one's own father's/relative's publication is IMHO self promotion.

Thanks

SDas (talk) 18:38, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Added later: User Tikoo_S's very own homepage: http://mohapsa.tripod.com/ says "Welcome to Manisha & Saroj Kumar Mohapatra's homepage". The last name matches that of R. P. Mohapatra, and is not at all common in India.

SDas (talk) 18:26, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

It's good to know there are better books. Add them. In fact, if you know the topics, the most valuable thing you could possibly do for Wikipedia right now is to add better references for topics like this--in general India at Wikipedia seems a poorly referenced subject area with many articles having only very vague citations, or relying on travel guides and the like. But Wikipedia covers not just the present world but the past, and we certainly do cover the history of a city, including early history--in fact, if the amount of material available is sufficient we often make a full article out of it. WP is not a travel guide--a travel guide gives what pressent-day visitors to the city need; we give comprehensive coverage of all aspect. Archeological references are certainly needed; do not take them out unless you can find better ones covering the archeology. We do not rely on government tourism sites if we can do better--they are sometimes useful, sometimes inadequate. See WP:RS for some general guides to what's considered best. Nor do we rely on what is covered elsewhere on the web in deciding what to cover here. We only rely on them for details not worth covering here, such as very minor characters in a soap opera. And again, if you want to challenge the article, use AfD. DGG ( talk ) 19:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

DGG, I am sorry to bother you again, but as you are already involved, I request your attention again. :) While I do not think that Ramesh Prasad Mohapatra deserves a encyclopedic entries, I realize that it is moot, and up for discussion. However, the issue here now is personal attacks directed at me by another user tikoo_s in the user's talk page. Thanks.

SDas (talk) 20:58, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I am not all that happy with the contribution of either of you to the discussion, and the best thing to do is stop commenting on each other. At the moment there is nothing underway which would lead to the deletion of the article If you wish to nominate the article for deletion, do so by WP:AFD--but if so, confine your comments to a short paragraph explaining the reason you think him not-notable. And be very careful to comment only on the article and the subject of the article, not each other. The likelihood of deletions is something I cannot specify-- AfD discussions are unpredictable and the result is not up to me DGG ( talk ) 21:23, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I do intend to follow up on your recommendation. However I want to do it after this issue settles down. I am not aware of wikipedia's processes for article deletion/moderation, but for the record I haven't indulged in personal attacks of any kind. I will find time to familiarize myself with the rules before suggesting AfD (as I did yesterday), and/or requesting moderation. The crux of the matter is the issue of someone putting up a wikipedia article and citing an immediate family member in several others, which in my judgment is COI. I do note that the user has already voluntarily begun to remove some of the citations that he/she had added earlier, which in my view was not relevant - which was my original concern.

In the interim, I'll just go about contributing to wikipedia as usual. Thanks again for your advice. SDas (talk) 04:21, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Declined speedy on Joseph Haslag

In declining the speedy did you note that the author did PR for the subject of the article? User talk:Jacknaudi/Joseph Haslag, Talk:Joseph Haslag It's your call, I'm not going to AfD, I'm not even going to watch anymore, but I do hope wp doesn't get clagged up with PR dross. Bazj (talk) 00:15, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

writing bios with COI is discouraged but not forbidden. Good PR people can be an asset, if they follow the rules-- see our FAQ (on businesses and other organisations). Many people write such articles poorly--professors & their helpers tend about 50:50 to omit the stuff that shows their notability (presumably thinking it obvious), or to enter a lot of spam and irrelevancies including every book review they ever wrote. If they do it OK, good. If not, and they meet WP:PROF, we add or subtract, as needed. COI is a warning that some editing is likely to be necessary. The chairmanship and the publications almost certainly show him as a major figure in his field, and meet the requirements at WP:PROF. Thearticle does need some improvements, & I will follow up and make sure that they are made. Nominate for speedy as promotional when there is no core for an acceptable article. See WP:CSD for the formal standard. If you're dubious about an article and it does not meet the standards for CSD, consider using PROD.DGG (talk) 01:09, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

David Yermack (finance professor)

Not really sure what to do with this. I saw you removed a PROD in June 2008. It does demonstrate some notability, but the article is problematic in its current state. Also, if it is to remain, shouldn't it be at David Yermack? Currently, that link is a redirect to this article. Enigma^msg 22:21, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

thanks for noticing this. It was originally entered as the right name, and had been (incorrectly) moved. I moved it back. A full professor at NYU Business School, one of the most distinguished in the world, is almost certainly notable by WP:PROF, though the things that show it need to be added--mainly in this case, his major publications and their citation record. I see no reason for a notability tag, as the article has a 99% chance of passing AfD. Though only editors-in-chief of major journals are automatically notable, being an Associate Editor of major journals is a non-trivial accomplishment, and we usually add this material--though we remove lists of where people have merely reviewed for,which is a trivial accomplishment. Similarly, being a visiting professor at distinguished universities is also a significant contributing factor to notability. so I added this back. I'll watch the article. DGG (talk) 04:41, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Texas A&M Foundation

I left a comment in response to your comment at the AfD for Texas A&M Foundation; I don't know whether you saw it or not. —Emufarmers^(T/C) 19:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

responded there DGG (talk) 19:22, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Eli Whitney Program at Yale

Think the idea of deleting this page is gratuitous. The Eli Whitney Students Program at Yale is one of the more unique undergraduate experiences for non-traditional students available in the USA, providing a superb education at one of the world's best universities that is normally reserved for students coming directly out of high school. The page has been used as an informational resource for many potential Eli Whitney Program Students--I am one of them and I know of others who have found out about the program through Wikipedia rather than through Yale's own site. If Wikipedia is about sharing information, I can't see why anyone would want to delete this page. Eli-whitney-yale (talk) 15:13, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

any references from published sources outside Yale?DGG (talk) 17:53, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

None I could find. Cheers Dlohcierekim 20:55, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, AfDwill decide.DGG (talk) 21:27, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Request for advice

Dear Sir,

I found you under the list of inclusionists and decided to ask you kindly for some advice. I would be grateful for your suggestions anytime you find convenient, I do see you are very busy on here. I am new to Wikipedia and do not know much about its inner workings. I created an article about a friend and colleague of mine whose efforts I believe should be noted. He attempted to change some things regarding standards for translations in the Eastern European Republic of Croatia. Among his numerous achievements (check article for details), he had academic papers published and one of those papers is being used as required reading at Germany's University of Tubingen. National television in Croatia covered his activism. All statements in the article are sourced really well with online third party sources as well as actual tv screenshots of his initiative being covered on national tv. Be that as it may, an editor of Wikipedia has tagged the article as questionable notability. I have since that tag added additional sources, provided my constructive arguments about the article's notability, jumped through hoops. Other than the editor's brief opinion that he did not believe article was notable, no real response was offered to my efforts (see talk page). It seems a little strange that one person's subjective view of something being notable or not (mind you, notable, not famous) can wreak havoc on another person's hard work. How are these differences of opinion resolved? How can I remove the notability tag that was placed on article? Do I simply have to keep the tag on for weeks or months and than provide arguments if it is placed for deletion at mercy of others? The article name is Kresimir Chris Kunej. Thank you in advance for your response, Respectfully, Turqoise127 (talk) 17:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I am not in the least sure that he's notable. The only thing that might be a deciding positive factor per WP:PROF is that the article is used for a course reading list, but that alone is borderline. The two small articles in the newspapers might be, but you need to link specifically to them or at least give the print source. They have to be more than mere mentions to count according to WP:BIO. The way this will be settled is when the community decides after it's been take to WP:AFD, if someone does. I may do it myself. It is not me who will make the decision. Administrators don't do that here, we just enforce the community decisions and the community standards. I will give you the advice based on my experience: the odds of it being kept are less than even, but AfD is not predictable DGG (talk) 23:23, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Senate of Serampore College (University)

Hey, I started a conversation at Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Universities#Naming conventions and heard that you might already have some experience with the Serampore article. Care to join? I'd love to hear more about your past work. It looks like your merge proposal disappeared via this edit. The editor who removed the template didn't bother to mention that in the summary. King of the Arverni (talk) 22:18, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I am delighted to have the chance to go back and add to the confusion. I knew this would come back and haunt me. DGG (talk) 03:08, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm terribly sorry if this is an inconvenience to you but I, for one, am glad to have your input. It was actually quite fun to read your contribution to the discussion. I started the conversation because it seemed that the parenthetical title was inappropriate, but I'm not experienced enough to have encountered many of these cases. Might you have an opinion on that particular matter? I know it's not quite what you'd focused on before, but I'd still consider your thoughts on the matter to be rather invaluable. King of the Arverni (talk) 14:58, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

		The Special Barnstar
		"There is no human institution where the accidents of history are preserved in more peculiar ways than higher education." Very true. Thank you for taking so much time and care to explain in this case. Pointillist (talk) 12:41, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Your message on my talk page

When I nominate academics for deletion, I use the prod-nn template for convenience. I attempt to follow WP:PROF. I will ask you not to deprod or make keep arguments based on some sort of WP:books-are-super-good-reasons-to-keep-academics rules known to and understood by you alone. Abductive (talk) 17:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The template is only relevant for WP:BIO and the GNG; it is therefore not irrelevant for anyone, but it is incomplete in these cases, for it does not help with WP:PROF; the use of WP:PROF is not unique to me, but rather firm consensus asa guideline. I think I will follow my own judgment about what arguments are relevant at AfD:--the publication of books by respected academic presses shows an influence on the field and will meet WP:PROF. As for deprodding, anyone can deprod for any reason at all, & I consistently deprod any article on any subject where i think AfD is more suitable, regardless of my own opinion of whether it will pass AfD or whether it ought to. You may notice that i consider many of your prods perfectly reasonable. I do not think AfD necessary for assistant professors, once I confirm the fact of few publications or citations. It would of course help if you did that, and said so, per WP:BEFORE. At the moment, people are permitted to ignore BEFORE, but I certainly hope policy will change in this respect, and that nobody will be able to nominate for deletion unless they have made a full reasonable try, and failed. G is only the first step. DGG (talk) 18:11, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I guess I was a little touchy about certain previous material on my talk page. However, I will point out that other people are arguing with you about using the publisher of the book (as opposed to the WorldCat holdings of the book) as evidence. For example, I think that just about every single university press is notable and respected (supposedly there are only 129 of them in the US). WP:PROF doesn't say anything about books the way that you do (there is mention in there about books needing secondary sources such as reviews to be considered under Criterion 1; see notes 4, 12 and 15 in the examples and footnotes 3 and 4) Especially note that footnote 4 says "The meaning of "substantial number of publications" and "high citation rates" is to be interpreted in line with the interpretations used by major research institutions in the awarding of tenure". Of course it is great if one gets a book out, but who else is going to publish these except the university presses? You will note that I don't contest all your deprods :) Abductive (talk) 19:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

To expand on footnote 4. The other publishers of academic books of similar reputation are Elsevier, the academic side of Wiley/springer, the many professional societies such as the American Chemical society, the many learned european publishers such as Brill, and all the specialist publishers in art and music and some other areas. I do not consider all University presses equal, either. We tend to weigh the major presses more highly, just as the academic world does. People will often say, for example, that a single widely-held book by OUP or MIT or Princeton or Harvard is definitive proof of N. The distinction is between an academic research-level book, and a popular one, or a textbook. A popular bio, for example, will generally not make someone notable as a researcher, though it might as an author. University presses publish popular books also, particularly about the home state. It serves only as a rough screen. Note that the publishing of academic books in the humanities is so dramatically unprofitable that no press does it without multiple peer reviews, usually three at least. The importance of a book can to some extent be determined by reviews--though they tend to come a year or two or three afterwards, and also by whether libraries buy it (normally with faculty recommendation or approval), which is faster, since they do during the first year or never. These are both done by qualified people estimating the merit of the work. Ultimately, the importance is judged by the citations, but in the humanities this can take decades. We have to judge meanwhile by what objective information we have about what people in the field think notable. The sciences and the social sciences that publish in a similar fashion in journals, are very much simpler. We can judge as all academics do, by the quality of the journal published in , and the citations count. DGG (talk) 22:29, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• So, if a guy has a couple of books that are published by the best university presses, but is still an assistant prof, would it not be probable that his tenure committee did not view that as enough? How long after the book is out do we have to wait? On top of that; shouldn't very recently having published a book (without any reviews or other RS, of course) be a case of "not notable yet" and require the deletion of the article without prejudice? Abductive (talk) 22:39, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

If he did, he would immediately get promoted to associate, or leave. At research universities, one cannot remain an assistant professor more than 7 years. There are a few universities, like Harvard, which have in the past given tenure to almost nobody, but hired their associate professors from elsewhere. An assistant professor there publishes 2 books, and then gets a job at an equally good university as associate professor. Or , if he only publishes 1, a job as assistant professor elsewhere or , more usually, associate professor at a lower level university. Berkeley & Princeton, to name two I know well, usually give tenure to anyone productive enough. Sometimes they dont, for one reason or another, and the person then gets a tenured or sometimes untenured job elsewhere just like after Harvard. As you go down the scale, things get much less stringent. In many cases, the book does not have to be actually published, just accepted--a tenure committee can be friendly or difficult about this as they please--its the place where there is flexibility. Post publication reviews in the humanities tend to be very eccentric, as they are usually written to prove that the reviewer is smarter than the author. . The critical reviews are the 3 or more referees reviews and --often--competition for a subsidy--to get the book published in the first place. Where all this is discussed in great detail are in the issues of the magazines Chronicle of Higher Education, and Academe.

Less formally, the question at tenure decision in any subject, not just the humanities, is whether the person has proven himself sufficiently that he will be an asset to the department for the rest of his career, and continue to attract graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty. An associate professor is someone whose colleagues are reasonably confident will do so. Anyone who actually follows through on that becomes a full professor after a few years., An appointment as assistant professor in the first place is a reasonable hope that the persona will rise to the tenured level. We could rationally put the cutoff at any of the three. (and remember that this is all at first rate places. At a community college, to take the other extreme , only a fw of even the distinguished full professors are likely to be notable. Other places fit somewhere in the middle.

My understanding of the present consensus is that full professors at good places almost always in practice get held notable, though the arguments vary. There are sometimes exceptions for fields where people here have a prejudice rightly or wrongly that they are not very demanding. I would personally support extending the same arguments to associates, on the ground that in other professions one does not have to be a star to be notable. Even the members of a state legislature are notable., though they are not political stars. That this is not recognized here is I think the bias against the formal academic world held by many WPedians. I've omitted the really difficult part--what counts as a first-rate place? Not all research universities are the least bit equal. In practice we've usually had some high degree of consensus about that here. Whether I would extend this to assistant professors as an routine matter is something i have, frankly, not myself decided. Nor will I press that, because we would need to establish the associate professors first. .DGG (talk) 23:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we should have a cutoff anywhere. There are a few assistant profs who are notable, some associate profs who are notable, and a more than few full profs who are not notable. Since it takes very well informed tenure committees a few hours at least to decide on these things, how are we to be able to, being pressed for time and not experts in the field? That's why we should rely on Reliable Sources. For example, if a review article says Dr Wonka is has "revolutionized our understanding of" anything, I would take that as a lock for notability.

According to this there are 1.7 million postsecondary teachers in the US, with an expected growth of another 0.524 million by 2014. (I know that these are not all college profs, but there must be hundreds of thousands of them, just in the US.] According to professors in the United States 29.5% for US profs are full profs. Again, this gets into the hundreds of thousands range for the worlds profs. Abductive (talk) 00:50, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

29.5% of US profs are not full profs in major research universities. Those last three words are the key, because that's where important researchers are mostly found. Judged as a researcher, an assistant professor at Stanford is much more likely to be a notable researcher than the most distinguished person at most 4 year colleges. But you have it right about tenure committees--they are they ones to judge. We accept their judgements. Myself, i like clean categorical decisions that don't require individual debate about hundreds of thousands of entries. DGG (talk) 01:45, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Roman K. Kovalev

If this gets nommed for deletion review, can you let me know? I don't think this should have been deleted. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 05:45, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree. But I wouldn't go to deletion review -- it could be said he just went by the !votes, and not enough people who would have wanted to keep participated --which can be interpreted to mean they did not care enough or feel strongly enough. There is a better way: What I think is needed is to find some references to his work by looking in likely books, though this may take a while. Then it escapes G4. I find there is a distinct misunderstanding here about Central Asia--I have been unable to successfully defend articles about scholars working on it, or journals in that field, because there are so few scholars and consequently so few references--and the literature is in large part in languages & most people here can barely read, such as Russian, or cannot read at all, such as Turkish & Persian & probably Chinese & Urdu. (perhaps that need for languages explains why there are so few people in the field!). The needis to get it recognized that in the more obscure fields a half-dozen good articles & a book are notability, references or not. DGG (talk) 20:38, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

and there's an interesting alternative: Citizendium, which has no notability policy: Cz Topic Choice. Do you want a copy of the article to put there? Or maybe I will. The licenses are now compatible. DGG (talk) 20:56, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't use Citizendum and am busy enough with wikipedia! :) I suspect the reasons you gave and the status of the school and the way the article looked like a cv made this academic's article vulnerable. He's one of those scholars who hasn't got to the stage of their career where they have written monographs (which will come in time), but is producing shorter detailed works (articles) on small topics. He is however the editor of Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, which can't be that bad because Thomas Noonan -- a famous scholar of the topic-- has contributed too. Certainly beats, say, Michael Simmons (author) in terms of notability. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:51, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:PROF any passing professor

Why do we have WP:PROF if any passing professor meets the requirements, per your reasoning? And please note that I didn't nominate the Talk page for deletion. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 05:57, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Which of the criteria listed in the numbered section of WP:PROF does George Boyer meet? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 05:59, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

"any passing professor" is not quite the same as a full professor George Boyer at one of the highest ranking research universities in the word, Cornell. The usual result is that all of them are found notable, because of the influence of their publications--in this case it will be the reviews of his book, and their wide presence in academic libraries. The criterion is no.1 in the guideline, and that's how it is shown. (actually the others are almost never necessary but sometimes convenient) Then ones who are usually found non-notable are Assistant Professors, and generally Associate Professors, and faculty at lesser colleges. I've reminded the author of the article that some more documentation is needed. If he doesn't provide it in a few days, I will. You could help most by looking for the book reviews yourself. DGG (talk) 06:38, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not trying to be difficult. I do respect your views on deletion, though we frequently disagree. But what independent reliable sources demonstrate that his research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:02, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Impact is proven by primarily by citations to the articles & the books. I have not yet done that analysis; But I think it will certainly prove to be high because of the secondary indications of impact I will mention in the next paragraph. Citations to one's work is exactly what is meant by the term impact or influence in the academic context. It's the key basis on which academics are judged, promoted, get awards, get grants. It's what the whole system of scholarly publication is mostly based on--though there are other factors also. (& yes there are oodles of refs to that effect). Technically, it can be argued that such citations fulfill the requirements for RSs; since this would give much too low a standard, the WP:PROF rules were adopted not primarily to increase the number of academics included, but to judge by appropriate criteria.

It can also be judged by multiple publications in first rate journals, because almost invariably it is only papers in such journals that get heavily cited. Further, such publication is in most fields extremely carefully regulated by peer review, so only important work is included as judged by the other specialists, thus showing they think it important. It is shown by books from first-rate academic publishers--such publications go through a very rigorous peer review process--more so than journal articles, since books are very expensive to produce. The importance of the books is further shown by reviews, just as for other books. It is also shown by the wide distribution of the books in scholarly libraries (There's an excellent new paper to that effect by an expert, JASIS 60:1083 which I will comment on more extensively later.) It is also to a considerable degree shown by appointment to a professorship in a major research university, as this requires the decision by the department colleagues, who do not appoint undistinguished people to such positions. I trust their judgment more than ours'. The people are notable whom the experts in the field consider notable. You are welcome to disagree. DGG (talk) 19:29, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

But what I'm seeing from what you're saying is that any academic who writes a lot automatically qualifies, even if their books are nonsense. There's no reliable commentary as to the notability or impact of his writing. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:15, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

It depends where they write. There are first-rate journals--and the criterion for this is that the papers in them are highly cited. And it isn't automatic, because it correlates extremely well with all the other indications. People who have published multiple books with first rate university presses tend to become full professors at major universities very quickly. it's a special case of the general rule that people who do great work win prizes. The prizes here are the appointments at the top of the ladder. The impact is the reviews and the citations. In another, it's the appointments, which at that level are what is earned by doing widely recognized work. A full professor at a first-rate university is expected to be good enough and well-known enough to attract graduate student and post-docs and junior faculty to work there. (An assistant professor is someone who they think might reach that level, an Associate professor with tenure, someone they are pretty sure will). "They" means the true peers, the established full professors in the department, the ones who give the rewards. That's the theory: the applicability to any particular individual has some degree of variation. DGG (talk) 23:08, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Can you take a look at this? David Epstein (law professor)]]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Epstein (law professor) The closing statement by the nominator (nom withdrawn) is rather derogatory and isn't related to the discussion of the AfD. I'd rather an admin take a look and correct it than do so myself. -SpacemanSpiff (talk) 06:14, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I found an way to reword it. I'm thinking about a courtesy blanking. DGG (talk) 06:45, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

So-called apamming by learned societies etc

Thanks for your thoughtful comments on this issue. Ultimately, of course, we non-admins just have to do as we are told (whether we agree or not) as it's you guys who have the power to delete us and block us. So I guess there's not much point arguing about it.

It would certainly help though if the "tone" and "approach" were to be a bit less overbearing and autocratic when pointing out "spam" to editors. Of course, I understand the point about the dangers of attracting purely promotional activity but it's often perfectly well intentioned and stems from a desire to provide the fullest information possible. I also find this idea of COI in wikipedia bizarre. If you work for an organization, you are likely to have a fair bit of expertise on how it works and therefore pretty well qualified to edit on it. That's not a COI, surely? PointOfPresence (talk) 08:50, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

You are right, but the problems are not easy to fix.

1. There is an inherent conflict between writing about what you know and not writing about what you are involved in. This does not affect people who write about hobbies--it does not affect me when I work on English history, or about things we're only generally connected with, as when I do the bio of some geologist or chemist. In theory, you are supposed to wait until such an incidentally interested person happens to come along. In practice, we often do more than that. The bio of my graduate advisor was missing. He was clearly qualified as a member of the NAS; as nobody did it, I eventually did & in fact won one of our internal awards for filling the gap. It helps to have an established reputation when one starts. or to go slowly and check with people who are well known here.
   1. But there are problem. for example, I could have written that bio to omit the fact that his best known book is so well-known because it made a prediction about the future of biological science that turned out to be as totally wrong as a prediction can be. If you write about your organization, you might implicitly pretend it accomplishes all of its goals. You might assume all of its publications are equally well-received. You can place excessive links for our customary practice, and be annoyed when they are removed. You might exaggerate the importance of some of its features or events.
2. It's inevitable that any human organizations--especially a very large one--even that tries to be egalitarian-- develops at least informal power structures. If you want a guide to our ethos, I recommend the free online version of How Wikipedia Works by Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, and Ben Yates (also available in print).
3. Our impoliteness to beginners is a well-known disgrace--see WP:BITE for an essay on this. Many admins try to ameliorate this, but the prevailing tone is that of a convention of 19-year old science fiction fans, with some irascible elders of the previous two generations mixed in. We even have a rule that says, in effect, if you want to change something, don't be reluctant to start a fight about it, WP:BOLD
4. This is a unique medium. There are no real precedents for something this size without top down control that actually produces a widely useful product. Even to people who have been here many years, things can seem peculiar, and often are. The only practical thing to do is to learn to work the way it works, and gradually try to affect things as you learn how . DGG (talk) 16:38, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

What do you think of this?

What exactly is this: Professor of Modern History, Glasgow? Abductive (reasoning) 07:03, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see you have seen it before. Well, what do you think of making them into navboxes? Abductive (reasoning) 07:08, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think navboxes are overused, when a simple list would do as well--as it does here. Graphics of this sort should be an exception when needed, not routine. (Admitted, I tend to be verbally oriented--even so, this is a topic likely to be of interest to people who are equally verbally, not graphically oriented). In particular I don't see the point of navboxes for people unless there is some value to the sequence, not just the individual people. Fine for successive Mayors, or anything where it really is of interest who came before or after. But I don't see this here; it matters who all of them are, not who came after whom. This serves at present a checklist function : red links that should be filled in. Such links serve as a guide to systematic work, per WP:RED--especially in a case where somebody who could do one of them is likely to be able to do the others. Additionally, there could and should be added some information about the professorship in general- there's usually some information about the foundation or the endowment. DGG ( talk ) 19:56, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Coverage of academics is so very uneven…. Abductive (reasoning) 21:11, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

grey literature subjects

• Grey Literature International Steering Committee (GLISC)
• European Association for Grey Literature Exploitation (EAGLE)
• Grey Literature Network Service (GreyNet)
• OpenSIGLE
• System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe (SIGLE)

All of these are currently listed, and are close to expiring, at Proposed Deletion. Please review for copyright violations and to see whether multiple non-trivial published works exist. All that I've done is cleanup, to make the articles legible. Uncle G (talk) 13:56, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

• I was sort of hiding from this. merges suggested, but I am not sure which ones to merge into which. Possibly SIGLE into System, and GLISC and Eagle into GreyNet. Some do have refs already I may rewrite & condense enough so that copyvio won't be a problem, but I've asked the author to try first. DGG ( talk ) 16:21, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
  • You can't hide from us. ☺ Anything that you can do to solve the now-identified copyright violation problem is a good thing and would be most welcome. Uncle G (talk) 23:53, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

List of German rocket scientists in the United States

Hi DGG Thanks for adding those references. I don't think there are a lot of editors watching/working on that page, so good work adding in some substance. That said, having been reminded of the topic I took a look at the Operation Paperclip article and frankly it seems to me that we have two rather mediocre articles instead of one better article. Since 90% + of the scientists who came to the US did so under OC, I wonder if we could merge the two together and include a brief post-scripta about the legacy of the German rocketry technology in the US after the OC auspices officially ended (affecting the last few figures in the list article). This would involve redirecting the GRSUS page to the OC page and then replacing the list section in the latter with the substantive material in the former. It seems to me from the point of view of offering encyclopaedic information about the topic, reuniting the two is of greater service to the a reader. Anyway, I am interested in your thoughts and, if you would be agreeable, to check te results of such a merge which I think could be achieved rather quickly. I don't want to do a merge though without your support, though. Eusebeus (talk) 18:51, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I found it checking PRODs. There are a number of other pages involved also, and the topic is capable of substantial growth. I 'm not sure it's reducible to a single page--I could see instead an increased number, considering we are talking about a/the recruitment of German scientists b/their specific contributions on the rocket program--some of them worked elsewhere c/ the coverup of Nazi affiliations respecting many of them d/the coverup of Nazi affiliations among German academics in general by the US and e/closely analogous situations with the Soviet Union. The current paperclip page is dominated too much by the qy of the coverup of Nazi affiliations, although this was equally for German academics who remained in Germany--as you probably know, there's a good amount of current interest and publication-- primarily in Germany, at long last--with special concern over jurists and physicians. (I intend to add some material on Nazi human geneticists) In any case, that 10% is going to be a problem. But the main reason I want to keep it separate is because seen just as a list, there should be a high priority in getting articles on the unlinked--separate lists seem to work as a psychological incentive. I have not checked yet to see what's on the deWP. DGG ( talk ) 19:55, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Scientist bios

Over the past several years, I have seen you remark several times that WP lacks good coverage of scientist bios. I had not given this subject any special thoughts, until Firefly posted a bio of myself. FF complimented me on my modesty in taking that bio to AfD, but that is not really correct: I am as vain as any researcher ;-) Having created several bios for others, I feel a bit hypocritical in proposing my own one for AfD. However, I edit WP under my own name and as WP life goes, that means that you're free game whenever there is a conflict on some other article. (It is obvious to me that had I been editing under a pseudonym, FF would not have created this bio and Hrafn wouldn't have slammed it). Any scientist can do without a WP bio slammed with notability tags and unflattering angry discussion on its talk page (the tags can be removed, but not the talk-page discussion). Anyway, I am digressing. One problem that I see with scientist bios is WPs (justifiedly) frowning on COI editing. We have all seen way too many fluff pieces written by their subjects. However, COI editing can work out well and I think that the article on Genes, Brain and Behavior, edited by myself (with a clear COI) but checked by other editors (yourself and Headbomb), is a good example of this. My idea is that it could perhaps be encouraged for scientists to write an autobio article in their userspace, which could then be checked by appropriate other editors who might (after correcting any POV) eventually decide to move it into article space. Checking an article would be much less work than writing it from scratch (even if done seriously meaning checking sources and searching for possible unfavorable material that has been omitted) and this way we could perhaps get an increase in this type of articles. In addition, if instructed properly, these autobios would most probably include more details on the research done by these individuals than nowadays mostly is the case, making not only for more but also for better bios. An additional advantage would be that the vetting before it is moved into article space would greatly reduce the probability of an article being slammed with tags and would spare good faith but non-notable persons the humiliating experience of having their bio go through AfD (wouldn't help with the vanity bios, but I don't mind the feelings of those persons too much...). What do you think of this idea, is it realistic? --Crusio (talk) 10:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

About half the bios of this sort are done by people with some degree of COI, & I agree this does not disqualify. What is needed is guidance. When scientists write their own bios they tend to fall into one of two errors: they give a minimal single paragraph as in a faculty list, or the give a full multi-page CV. You'd think people would know to look for a similar article and do likewise, but it would help to have standard templates--preferably as fill in the box types. I'd like to do it for many other types of articles also.

I'm not sure prevetting would help, certainly not as a requirement. I see an increasing people in all fields doing them by choice. We could perhaps have a way of suggesting it as a possibility--but I am concerned that it would just add complexity--the system is intimidating enough. You are right, thought, that it would avoid the embarrassment of having to tell someone they're not notable enough. Perhaps what we need there is some other word than notable and notability. Perhaps we need a simple arbitrary inclusion rule anyone can understand. (What we really need is tact and discretion, but let's be practical.) But we can conceal talk p. discussions, by archiving, or even as "courtesy deletions". At the very least, we can be sure to make them NOFOLLOW. Ideally, we should do everyone likely to be notable by bot in advance as a stub--I think I could write a conceptual algorithm to use on a faculty list, or a list of holders of a chair. DGG (talk) 08:13, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anil Aggrawal

• Although this AfD seems to be mostly on the scientist, there is also a journal involved (Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology). Despite the seemingly "vanity" title of the journal, this is a less clear cut case than it might seem at first sight. --Crusio (talk) 11:15, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Matthew Watson

Dear DGG I notice you contributed to the debate about Matthew Watson and his deletion. I think you made some factual errors in your contribution which have since been requoted on the deletion review for the article. Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2009 November 21#Matthew Watson

Would you consider clarifying or reviewing you position?

With articles on academics, if DGG can't find a reason to keep the article, then in my experience, there's none to be found.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 20:28, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

You argued with respect to Matthew Watson "Delete: Two articles and a book is not notability."

I think this is substantially wrong - Watson has Two single authored books published by leading publishers, around 30 articles - some in key journals.

You also state "Few Assistant professors are notable"

This is not appropriate as Watson is now a full professor.

User: Abductive suggested I should contact you to see if your concerns had been met.

I have worked more on the article on a page in my user space User:Msrasnw/Matthew Watson but would like it restored but I have been unable to gain any support for this due to what I think has been miss-information. Best wishes anyway (Msrasnw (talk) 00:32, 22 November 2009 (UTC))

Many thanks for you help and advice! (Msrasnw (talk) 01:05, 22 November 2009 (UTC))

I'm always willing to reconsider, and to fix errors I make. As for your draft, try making it less promotional and I'll look again. First step is to cut back, way back, on section one. This is not the place to argue his theories. . "This approach Watson and Higgot argue is increasing in its practioners." is not acceptable in a Wikipedia article. If you're going to use Krugman etc. as references, make sure they say something specific about Watson, and give the page numbers Then, it might help to eliminate your section 3.1 and 3.2 as neither of them is significant. An additional suggestion is removing the adjectives of praise. DGG ( talk ) 04:52, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Scama school

Hi regarding my nomination of deletion of this advert..Skema it is you say notable but needs a lot of work, would you please point me in the right direction.. this is from the talkpage there...posted by the creator of the article ..."Hi, I'm sorry. I have created the web page for my school... just because it didn't exist. By lack of time, I used official texts indeed produced by the school." I see an advert, fro a paid school, is the level of notability in paid schools very low? I don't want to waste my time, nominating, how low is the guideline, the corner shop down my lane with a utube link and a twitter...I see you are at least making a couple of edits there...so lets see how it grows, regards Off2riorob (talk) 22:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I did the first round of cleanup-- look at the way I edited this--my "couple of edits" removed the 3/4 of the article that was advertising. It is a university level business school, awarding graduate degrees--at least one of its two components certainly did--and all such are invariably notable. By paid, you probably mean "for profit", but For profit and not for profit schools are handled the same way; in any case this claims to be a nonprofit one. The exception to presumed notability is trade schools that are not at university level and do not award degrees. If the shop in the corner is of this size, it might well be notable, so by all means try to look for references. But first you might try helping out this article by looking yourself for references, per WP:BEFORE. They should have been put in by the first editor, of course, and he has been reminded of this & it's on my list to follow up. I take a very strong course in deleting or trimming promotional articles. I've deleted a few today already,and I'm just getting started. DGG ( talk ) 22:18, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

G11, thanks, perhaps I should become a bit more inclusionist, I see something like that and its not that I want to delete it, but I want to see the money. I had a look at the search and added a template, there are a few independent citations, thanks for the advice. Off2riorob (talk) 22:23, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Skema school., business

Hi DGG, remember this? Skema Business School . The article is becoming a primary sourced advert edited by a single editor (a former student they state) I mentioned it to them on their talkpage User talk:Julien Schmidwhat do you think is the way forward? Off2riorob (talk) 18:01, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for commenting and helping out DGG, also...Happy Xmas to you and yours. Off2riorob (talk) 20:42, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Paul H. Lewis

I don't think this professor passes WP:notability (academics). Being a full professor doesn't guarantee notability, unless he is a distinguished professor of has a named chair. He looks like an "average professor" to me. Maybe he is notable as an author per Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#Creative_professionals. Nonetheless, I added a notability tag to the article for now. Regards, PDCook (talk) 20:56, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

1/an "average professor" is an associate professor. Being a full professor does not guarantee notability, but there has not been a single full professor at a major research university that was deleted at AfD for three years now. Toulane is a research university, but it may not be of the very highest standard,so there is some question. It will depend who published his books, and whether they got substantial reviews and have substantial library holdings. Neither you nor I can tell from the very skimpy article, which is why I marked it for expansion. (In fact he might hold a distinguished professorship--the article is not adequate to about any aspect of his career. We should not assume inadequate articles = inadequate notability . I see quickly in Amazon eight book doing it properly g in worldCat, I see 12 plus his thesis, & 2 or 3 of the 12 have been translated into Spanish. The publishers are good ones in the subject including Prager and UNC Press. Some are all are pretty certain to have gotten significant reviews. This shows him as an expert, and meets both WP:PROF and WP:CREATIVE as an author. are essentially certain to get reviews. If nobody else adds them to the article, I will. But since you really should have checked before nominating, perhaps you will. Of course it was the authors;' responsibility in the first place, but we can;'t assume Wikipedia contributors are perfect; we need to help them and their articles. DGG ( talk ) 01:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello DGG: Astronomical Society of Dharmaraja College

I'm referring to the following article you have deleted previously: 19:48, 1 March 2009 DGG (talk | contribs) deleted "Astronomical Society (ASDRC)" ‎ (A7: Article about a group or club, which does not indicate the importance or significance of the subject) Astronomical Society of Dharmaraja College is one of the very few active astronomical societies in Sri Lanka. The number of acievements it has got in local and international arena in last two or three years are immense. For example, 7 out of the 15 students selected to the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics in last 3 years are ASDRC students. Moreover, it has conducted a substantial number of projects to popularize Astronomy in Sri Lanka. Therefoe I think that ASDRC undoubtedly reserves a space in Wikipedia. I've created a new article on ASDRC in my [user page] removing the alleged student names and undue weight which would've violated the wiki policies. I'll be extremely thankful if you take necessary steps to relocate the article in Wikipedia. Astronomyinertia (talk) 09:20, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you have references providing substantial coverage from 3rd party independent published reliable sources, print or online, but not blogs or press releases, or material derived from press releases? DGG ( talk ) 15:58, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

The society currently does not possess an official website. But you may have seen that Astronomical Society of Dharmaraja College is appeared on the College website. It seem that all other apperances are directly or indirectly related to the achievements of the member students of the society. Does that count? There are published articles in print, on local and provincial newspapers. But again it's only the achievements are appeared online. Can you please tell how to resolve this problem? Astronomyinertia (talk) 06:25, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

2010

unaccredited institutions

with respect to Florida Christian University , I said at [29]:

As reviewing administrator, I deleted the article because it was a copy of the university home page. Do not copy from a web site -- first it's a copyright violation, but, even if you give us permission according to WP:DCM, the tone will not be encyclopedic and the material will not be suitable, as this was not. . For further information see our FAQ about businesses, organizations, and articles like this. As a guide to what needs to be written, consider the following:

Our basic rule as an encyclopedia is WP:Verifiability. Normally, we regard universities as notable, but I could see no information on the web site that clearly showed its status, or even demonstrating its real existence except directions to its headquarters. We have not always considered non-accredited colleges notable, unless the status can be shown by references providing substantial coverage from 3rd party independent published reliable sources, print or online, but not blogs or press releases, or material derived from press releases. It is not accredited by any recognized agency; it claims to be except from regulation in the state of Florida, presumably as a religious institution. It is not clear to me under just which section it falls, since it does not meet the requirements of paragraph (f), as the degrees do not have the necessary religious specification. [30] . Presumably it meets the exemption under paragraph e, as meeting the former requirements of section 236.085 (1)b [31]. (However, tIam not a lawyer). It is stated to be a member of the Florida Council of Private Colleges, which includes a number of faith-based institutions It is not clear whether it is an exclusively online institution; it claims "with learning centers in more than 50 countries" [32] but I see no documentation of this.

Please keep this all in mind when you rewrite the article. If I , or anyone else here, is not satisfied with it meeting our requirements, it will be nominated for deletion by a regular deletion process. DGG ( talk ) 11:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for leaving your comments at Wikipedia: Village pump regarding my proposal to tighten up WP: Prof.I did not really think there was any problem with the article on Hjalmar Sunden; no one ever suggested deletion of it, I was just using this example as a case in point of how we might make WP: Prof a little less vague. I was interested you mentioned something called "WorldCat". It seems that in my discipline, services available years ago (such as systems where you could type words in a computer to find out published books) are less accessible now in these days of the World Wide Web (I think I was thinking of Psychinfo or something like that). ACEOREVIVED (talk) 00:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

They are accessible, but only in major libraries. But you are in a university, so they should be available. PsychInfo is still there, [33] and does include books, and gives a narrower level of subject indexing. DGG ( talk ) 01:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I think I have a bridge you might be interested in buying

this was less than helpful. This is, presumably, a BLP. At least, we can give it the benefit of doubt of being a BLP, we don't even know the subject's first name, nor if he is alive, or if he ever was. On account of the article giving zero references, not even dodgy googled ones. Just none.

Seriously, how long have you been on Wikipedia? Not long enough to realize that people will make things up as they go along? Especially if the topic has anything to do with India? Here, Mr. Sambasivan is "Neuro Surgeon & President of World Federation of Neurological Societies". That's funny, because there must have been a mix-up at WFNS, because their website claims their president is one Peter Black of Harvard.

You are not doing the project, or anyone, a favour, of extending the benefit of doubt to absolutely every piece of trash people park in article namespace. Thanks. --dab (𒁳) 09:25, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I use my own judgment & experience about what is likely to be sourceable. Sometimes I am wrong, but not often. We'll see on this one--I am perfectly open to the possibility that I might be in error. If what were asserted were harmful in any possible way, I'd have deleted the article myself. I am not the least reluctant to delete articles--if you check my log, I have deleted so far 9815 articles in my three years as an admin patrolling prod and speedy. I asked for the mop in the first place so I could delete the actual trash that I found while trying to save articles.

I was in a bit of a rush yesterday, but I have just now verified it in PubMed, where he has 18 articles--considering the generally weak PubMed coverage of India, this is significant. I will of course add it to the article. You could have done the same. It is rather common for academics to use only initials for their first name, especially in some countries--it seems rather common in articles about people from India in all subjects; I do not take it to mean they are imaginary. In fact, that's how PubMed lists him, and how he is listed on his papers. I did find his first name in Scopus, which makes an effort to add them, & added that also, along with citation counts to show notability (Scopus, alas, is not freely available, so perhaps you could not have done that part, but I'll check there on request for any article). I am aware of the possibility of exaggerated accomplishments. He may have been president in an earlier year--or he was an officer of a branch of the society. I'm looking for a complete list, not just a current one, but I may find the position in one of the papers in pubmed. since this is a major medical school, it does not sound implausible. The university web site does not seem to be working except for the main page, or it would be much easier. BTW, I do not understand your suggestion to merge to the college page, because if he is not in fact notable, we would not include him there. WP is not a faculty directory. If he does have an article, only then do we list him as one of the distinguished people from the university. I look at a lot of university pages, & one of the things I routinely check is additions of people without articles or not obviously qualified for one, & I always remove them.

Confirms my position: First look for sources, & if not found, only then nominate for deletion. The opposite approach, delete if nothing is visible on the face, is what does not help the project. I would word it much more strongly than that if this were a general discussion. DGG ( talk ) 18:30, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

thanks for the additional item. I think your removal of currently unsourced information about his honors was inappropriate, though, as was your hypercriticism that the links showing him at the medical school and hospital did not specify his exact position. One could dissect almost any bio article except the FAs in that manner. DGG ( talk ) 18:35, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

About WP:PROF

Please refer to [34]. Here are additional thoughts.

1 or 2 papers with 20 citations each might be sufficient for notability if that work considered basic and fundamental to the subject. For example, we do study the work of Newton, Leibniz, Euler, Fermat, and Pascal... in colleges and so their work is found in textbooks. Their work is not difficult to understand, but they are very basic and fundamental to the development. Here is an example of Vijay Kumar Patodi who died at his young age. Any work appeared in standard textbooks or work that is basic and fundamental to the subject might be considered for notability (it could be 1 or 2 works).

About 10 to 25 years ago, many Ph.D.s in Physics and Math especially in the US left academia for a job with software industries to get good income. There are like this that left behind their good research work done during their Ph.D.s. Under the present guidelines set in WP:PROF, it would be difficult to account for them.

Chair/Head in the US colleges/universities: “but it always is one of the higher ranking ones--as they need to have the respect of their colleagues.” Most of the time, respect comes mainly from the behavior. If that is the case, it would not be fair.

From WP:PROF 1. Item 1: The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources. (Set the guidelines what h-index or Google scholar finding is accepted for each science, engineering, liberal arts subjects etc. Link it to another page). 2. Item 7: The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity. (This is vaguely written, needs paraphrasing) 3. Add a new item 10 describing how his/her work is basic and fundamental and is introduced in college textbooks/wiki pages (This is somewhat similar to item 4 from WP:PROF). Wiki pages might be important too for wiki notability (This sounds like Erdos number 1 or 2!)

Also Use commonsense and be considerate depending upon whether the person is no more, age (Seniority) and backgrounds etc. --kaeiou (talk) 00:25, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Fields and periods differ. first, in earlier periods in the sciences, most of the important publications of most workers were books, not journal articles. The modern methods of science education and the organization of scientific research and publication are generally consider to have arisen in Germany in the second half of the 19th century, and earlier examples are different. . Fortunately,the earlier periods are covered well by works on the history of science, so we can rely on secondary sourcing and coverage in specialized encyclopedias. The book tradition continued longest in mathematics, which is characterised in contrast to other subjects by a greater dependence on books, by having longer but fewer journal articles than other subjects, by a very long time to citation as compared with the experimental sciences. As a result, impact factor does not have the same significance--certainly not the 2 year impact factor traditionally calculated by WoS. No information scientist , to the best of my knowledge, has ever claimed that naïve citation analysis worked across subject fields--although there have been many attempts to find a normalized measure.

We are not capable of judging what work is "fundamental" -- this is the task of historians of science, and we can of course report what they say. But this is not usually relevant, because this essentially corresponds to "famous" and notability is much less than being famous. What appears in textbooks varies by subject field also. In medicine , for example, it is the convention of even basic textbooks to contain essentially complete bibliographies of their subjects, often including work below the level of what we would necessarily consider notable. In a physics textbook, on the other hand, there will be references only to key works of the famous. In some fields, such as, organic chemistry, there are textbooks with each style of referencing.

As I mentioned, it is indeed very difficult for us to judge the notability of scientists in industry, just as you say. Where there are formal distinctions we use them, as for IBM fellows. But the inadequacy of our coverage is also due to lack of interest. While members of all the National Academies are considered unquestionably notable, we have articles on most of the current member of the National Academy of Sciences, but of only a minority from the Institute of Medicine, and a farcically low number from the National Academy of Engineering. I've always been meaning to start a project to correct it, but , like most of my writing projects here, I've been diverted into rescue. We need to remove junk, but it would probably be better to leave marginal articles alone, and concentrate on writing the missing major ones.

As for chairmen, thinking of the departments I know at Princeton and Berkeley, it takes more than behavior, though administrative talent and congeniality certainly help. Without exception in such universities, the choice is from among the top people, basically because the provost needs to trust their recommendations. Even at schools of much lower quality, which i also know , but refrain from naming, the chairman is normally someone who will project as good an image of the department as possible, including in terms of scholarly competence. Schools can of course cary, which is why this is not a formal criterion.

As for WP:PROF, I consider the way items 1 and 7 are written is deliberately vague, because it is impossible to make generalities. Nor is there a need to make them, for the level we accept is better defined by see what level we accept in practice for the different fields. Considering the diversity of fields and subfields, I do not think we could prepare a valid table. I especially distrust anything based on Google Scholar, because they use unknown standards, and change them, sometimes quite radically. Unfortunately, in some fields of study there is nothing else available. There is beginning to be some work showing that the numbers do in fact correlate within a field with WoS & Scopus--I should probably review it among the review i was talking of of current scientometric measures. I do not see the need for no.10, as i said above--in many fields it simply corresponds to famous, in some it is inappropriate, and is in any rate covered by no.1. I see no urgent need to change. As guidelines go, the WP:PROF guidelines work very well and uncontroversially. When there is major dispute, it is because of some extra-academic reason, such as the association of someone with a particular religious or political movement--sometimes people will try very hard & unreasonably to get borderline people with these characteristics in Wikipedia, and sometimes people will try very hard and equally unfairly to get them out. This is even more acute with people representative of fringe academic subjects, or unpopular academic ideas.

Personally, my own preference is to use broad all-encompassing criteria: I would simply include everyone who is a full professor at a research university. Agreed, probably 25% of them wouldn't really deserve it, but I don't think it matters. It's as understandable a criterion as being a flag officer, or appearing in an Olympics, and the fact that some of these too may not be notable in a common-sense way doesn't hurt us. Some people here have suggested we go down to Assistant Professor--and here I think that level would be low enough that we'd be verging on NOT DIRECTORY. We do need some notability standards to avoid being ridiculous. DGG ( talk ) 01:13, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. One final thought: Computer science (CS) is historically a byproduct of Math and Physics. On an average, CS professors (say notable one) tend to publish 5 times more than the Math professors and also have higher number of h-index/citations. May be it is because of the nature of the subject within CS. How does our current WP:PROF guidelines see these numbers differently for CS and Mathematics? They cannot be the same. There is out there who vote fails to understand the complicated abstract disciplines in mathematics. Witting a paper in abstract fields such as Topology or Lie Algebra etc. are much more difficult when compared to writing a paper dealing with algorithms, networking, database, security and so on. Likewise with the other subjects. I wonder who they are voting on wiki. What percent of professors take interest voting on wiki on notability nomination? Is it 5% or less? I also see some amount of bias involved when it comes to whether he/se is from US (they are favored). Likewise there is some kind of bias involved coming from politics and religions while voting. Thanks. --kaeiou (talk) 03:07, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Computer science is a problem because of the specialized nature of its publication pattern, where the publications that really rank the highest in most specialties are those republished from the proceedings of a limited number of highly important conferences. The usual criteria of what amounts to a peer-reviewed paper apply, but have to be used in a specialized fashion. In fields other than engineering, conference papers are secondary to journal articles, but here its the other way round. It's not numbers, but type of publication that's the primary difference. In both fields, a few very influential papers are worth more than any number of mediocre ones--which is exactly the problem with the h-index.

As for faculty, some care a great deal too much, and some have such a low opinion of us they couldn't care less. Our job is to counteract the positive and negative bias by writing articles in a NPOV fashion ourselves, and not leaving it to university press agents and enthusiastic but ill-informed students. Very few of them are here, but a great deal more ought to be and I think will. The problem is they need to accept our rule that their formal authority gives them no particular credibility here--those who can;t adjust to it tend to get very angry at being challenged. In some but not all Wikipedia areas , there is a fairly significant representation of excellent academic people--many of them try not describe themselves as such, but just let it be evident in their work. DGG ( talk ) 03:17, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks DGG. One more: Recommendation: After writing a new page, it is recommended that, after one month if you think that if someone has flaged it for notability check, you nominate it for an early afd or ask help from admin to nominate. Thx. --kaeiou (talk) 17:48, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I do understand the afd process and I have followed it technically. The difficulty with me and many is how wiki defines the WP:BEFORE. They have failed to list the tools that users need to identify whether a particular page needs the afd process. I recommend wiki listing in WP:BEFORE all the tools such as [35]that wiki admin uses to find out why someone is not wiki notable. That should solve my problems of nominating wiki pages for afd process. Thx.--kaeiou (talk) 02:31, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

In practice, it means to search where things would likely be found, which is something to be gained by experience. But as a rough guide we have the automatic search appearing with an AfD nomination--ideally , it should occur before--and it only works if the title of the article is actually a good search term. For most current non academic topics in politics or sports or the arts, I find the most useful search to be Google News Archive. If a US topic of that nature yields no results, it's certainly indicative of problems. For anything academic or historical, Google books + google scholar. (in principle everything in GB is supposed to be in GS, but it just isn't so). For topics in popular culture that if notable would be widely discussed in google, google is a good place--otherwise it gives too many hits and needs checking very far down. For books, the place is worldcat. WorldCat also now searches all book reviews that appeared in journals covered in Muse or JTOR, so it is very useful in seeing if an academic book is significant. For the publications of an academic author in science, Scopus or WoS, which are unfortunately not free, so people use PubMed in biomedicine and Google scholar for the rest. You are right that this should be written down and kept up to date. I'll give it a try. Nobody can search everywhere, which is why there's the 7 days for people to look.

But the key thing is simply to say where you looked! If someone sees you did anything at all, they can check the other places. (It's also good to give a link to your search, so people can see if a better search term might help.

However, I disagree with you about : "After writing a new page, it is recommended that, after one month if you think that if someone has flaged it for notability check, you nominate it for an early afd or ask help from admin to nominate." If after one month nobody has added anything, there are two steps to take: one is to remind the author. the second is to look again yourself. A third, if it looks like it ought to be notable but you cannot find anything, is to ask at the Wikiproject. That;s what the wikiproject banners are for. but this depends on degree of non-notability--if it's borderline, I now just leave it be, in order to get rid of the stuff that's way below borderline. It's when you think its completely or mainly bogus that you need to be sure to follow up. Leaving these things in is very harmful. It's tempting when cleaning house to take off the top layer of dirt, but what is really needed is to get at the utter filth that's hard to spot. DGG ( talk ) 03:13, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I would like to see the URL of these: WorldCat, Scopus or WoS, UAD search in WP:BEFORE or in a separate section called "help for afd - Tools". Does Wikipedia have a license for Scopus or WoS? Can these licenses be shared with users? What is the process to withdraw a nomminated afd? Sorry for asking so many questions - Saturday/Sunday are the only major days that i try to spend time here on wiki -also during evening hrs if possible. thx.--kaeiou (talk) 15:02, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

WP does not have a license for Scopus or WoS, nor is it imaginable that we would get one. The rate for each of these databases, depending on the size of the college and options, is usually between $20,000 and $100,000 a year--and upwards. As we are open to anyone in the world ... , we'd destroy their customer base. However, the possibility of getting access in some manner to some commercial databases has been discussed on the Wikipedia lists, and I am willing to open negotiations with the various providers, but these two are among the least likely. If however you are enrolled at a college, it is probably that one or both of these are available, and if they are, they are almost certainly available off campus and you can connect through your library interface as a bookmark. DGG ( talk ) 18:55, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Citing h-index on BLP without OR?

Hi, DGG. I have not been able to locate any policy or comment regarding how an h-index might be added to BLP's of scholars. Someone is adding h-indices to sex researchers (fine), and someone is removing the one that was added to the Ray Blanchard page (which I do not edit myself). Is looking up an h-index on scholar.google or other engine OR or is it considered permissible?— James Cantor (talk) 13:36, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I do not consider h-index a valid measure of anything, even with in a subject, though some others are not as skeptical. Most of the academic activity in bibliometrics for the last year or two has been trying to find alternatives to it. The problem is that none of the dozens of suggested alternatives have been sufficiently accepted either at this point. Raw h values without adjustment for subject are particularly meaningless. Biosocial topics include a number of subfields in which the literature citation patterns are very different. I consider h values usable here only in argumentation, not in an article. What I will sometimes say in an article is the fact that, e.g. " X has published 20 peer-reviewed articles of which 10 have been cited 10 times or more in other peer-reviewed journals". Google scholar covers more than peer-reviewed journal articles, and what it covers is not exactly known, as the company refuses to specify. It has clearly been getting broader with time, and now includes quite a variety of non-commensurable literature types, not all of which have scholarly significance. Which articles have had them added? I will try to find a more acceptable way of presenting the data. DGG ( talk ) 17:07, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

• Although obviously not ideal (to say the least), I consider the h-index at least somewhat useful. In real-life academics, it is still very common to judge a researcher's production by the impact factor of the journals that he publishes in. This is a perversion of what the IF was intended for and as an editor, I don't really like the fact that my editorial decisions may have direct consequences for someone's career. Many articles published in high-profile high-impact factor journals are never or rarely cited and some articles published in much more modest publications are highly cited. At least the h index evaluates somebody on an individual level, not at the level of the mean citations of all articles published in a certain journal. I also think that h is more sound from a statistical viewpoint, being basically a non-parametric measure. The IF is a mean value, calculated over a distribution that is highly non-normal (because it is J-shaped), which will make any statistician howl with indignation. In addition, I have personally always been amazed about the fact that scientists, used to presenting their data as "means +/- sem" and testing for significant differences between groups with different means, suddenly all forget about variance and variability when talking about the IF... Just my two cents...

On a more practical level, to calculate h from Google Scholar constitutes OR, I think. (Although I use a Firefox add-on called "Scholar H-Index Calculator", which automatically calculates h, g, and some other indexes whenever I do a GS search, so perhaps thatis not OR...) Using the Web of Science, one might argue that it is not OR: one looks up the "page" of a certain researcher and the h is displayed. Of course, if the researcher's name is "John Smith", this is different and a lot of OR has to be done then to extract h. Another disadvantage of Google Scholar is that I find it highly imprecise. Being somewhat vain like all researchers, I have on occasion looked up myself in both GS and WoS. Some articles that received many citations according to WoS get much fewer on GS. And then suddenly I find some obscure commentaries that according to GS received 50 or so citations. Upon checking, it then turns out that it is the article that I commented about that was cited, or some such error. Amusingly, for the longest time GS severely underestimated my h, but when I checked just now, it actually is higher than what I get from WoS... (Of course, this is partly because of the kind of errors that I just mentioned). In short, when I write my annual reports, I mention h as given by WoS, not GS, and when evaluating others, I do the same. --Crusio (talk) 17:33, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I was not arguing for going solely by IF of the journals in which someone published. Though not all articles in top level journals are highly cited, article there are much more likely to be so than journals published elsewhere; that there are some exceptions does not negate the generality. The responsibility of an editor and reviewer is precisely that of being the first level screen for the quality of the work--the second and decisive level is the subsequent citations. My objection to the h index is that it disregards the highest level work--the actual notability at the highest level is a factor of the wide influence and importance, which is shown by the best papers. It is the highest portion of the Pareto distribution which is the significant part for scientific creativity, not the tail, and not even the middle. That said, for notability in a Wikipedia sense, we are not limiting ourselves to the highest level, which would correspond to famous--any more than we limit ourself to those athletics who have come first in the Olympics.

We both agree that for various reasons the calculation of a h-index from GS is invalid. Myself, I think almost all the reasons apply to WoS and Scopus also. I suppose I should do an essay here (possibly an article, as it won;t be OR) summarizing the various bibliometric proposals--but the field is not static. The best place to see the state of things is the archives of SIGMETRICS-L. And in the context of the question asked, it was asked in a field where the literature is fragmented, with no real consensus about the value of the different scientific approaches. DGG ( talk ) 18:14, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities

Thank you for your comment. I'm new to this project, and so I'm curious the best way to proceed with the kind of guideline I proposed. I fully agree with your response. A lot of these issues came up because a particular editor nominated a lot of dormitories en mass. I think those AfDs may playout on their own, but how do you think the best way to proceed is for a guideline and for the AfDs that are still in discussion? Shadowjams (talk) 06:20, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

There are two approaches to rule-forming at Wikipedia. One is to adopt a formal guideline, as outlined in WP:POLICY; the other is to do something consistently. The second is normally much easier--see WP:OUTCOMES. To adopt a guideline one needs first to propose it exactly, then invite discussion, and after a month, some uninvolved administrator will come and decide if there is sufficient consensus. But even a formal guideline does not settle the matter, because the community can always choose to interpret it as it pleases and make what exceptions it wishes. The discussion you have begun is the right way to go for now, and I will follow it up. The next step there it is to make a formal proposed guideline page, or section in an existing page, once we know what we want to say. In this case, it would I think be best added as a paragraph to the section Student life, on the page Wikipedia:College and university article guidelines . As for the afds, they must reach a conclusion. If they do not reach some degree of consistent conclusion, there is almost certainly not enough consensus for a formal guideline.

For the best discussion of the whole matter , see the free online version of Chapter 13, "Policy and your input" , in How Wikipedia Works by Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, and Ben Yates (also available in print) . DGG ( talk ) 15:16, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

2011

criteria

(from an AfD): When judging based on a borderline publication record, I look not just at the count of publications and of citations, but the journals in which they were published. Judging by the CV, in this case they are basically very good specialized journals, the leading ones but only in narrow fields. There are known in the most widely read and most rigorously refereed biology or science journals: even one of the papers being in Nature or PNAS would have made this a weak keep. If I had to give evidence for that being a good criterion, I learned this from the provost at Princeton, in a talk explaining the criteria he uses. DGG ( talk ) 04:25, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Check on a "University"?

Is there any independent way, such as an accreditation system, to check on an outfit calling itself a University in the US?

I ask because of this little walled garden which appeared today:

• Laissez-faire fraternity
• Georgian International University in Philadelphia
• Georgian International Academy in Tbilisi

I have already taken the Fraternity to AfD, after declining a speedy, because I can find no refs independent of the University. The Fraternity has "endorsed" a book written by the University's President, Zviad Lazarashvili; the University has a scholarship in its name; and it has already awarded the University the "2012 Laissez-faire Medal of Freedom." It all seems rather incestuous.

The one that concerns me is the "International University" in Philadelphia, which claims to have been founded in 1812 (though its website was only set up on 19 May this year) and to have 1,200 students. The article references are extremely thin, many to books by Zviad Lazarashvili published by the University Press, whose only publications on Google Books or Amazon are by him; his other books have been published by CreateSpace and BookSurge, print-on-demand companies. He does not appear in Google Scholar.

Such references as I can find are mainly the University website or about the Press publishing Lazarashvili's books. Beyond all the obvious problems of puffery, I am wondering whether there is anything real there at all, or whether at best this is something that is just starting up.

The "Academy" in Tbilisi seems a bit more real. JohnCD (talk) 19:51, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

We have often kept articles on unaccredited universities, btw, but they have to be accurate. My own feeling is that if they are at all notable we should, because we at least can be an objective source of information on them. But the utter minimum , of course, is real existence.

I looked first for what is easy to verify, some names of alleged major writers for whom the schools in the university are named. "Janet Mathewson" is a very minor 20th c. non-notable novelist., "Winford B. Johnson" is a non-notable chemical engineer with 1 paper, 1 thesis & 1 patent. This sort of thing is enough to cast major doubt on everything.

As you found, I confirm that the "president", Zviad Kliment Lazarashvili, (while having nothing in worldcat or google scholar) is real , with a few actual books , e.g. [36] & [37], published either by vanity publishers or by the university. The best match for the head of the press Dr. Ihejirika, is probably WC Ihejirika, who has written a few papers on contemporary African religions.

Since the Wikipedia article on the University is a copy of its web site history page, [38] I have therefore simply deleted the article on the Philadelphia University as a copyvio. If anyone tries to reinsert it or argue permission, we can deal with it then.

I have edited the page on the Academy to remove all references to GIU, as material failing verification. The Google translation of its actual webpage is [39]. There is no reason not to think it real. For all I know, they may be attempting to establish a branch in the US, but they need to prove it. And until it does get established, it is not notable.

Good work. DGG ( talk ) 20:40, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I just came to this page because I was going to ask you about this also - because on the Tbilisi Academy [40] I am unable to find any independent sources to confirm it exists either. Have you been able to find anything that suggests that isn't also a hoax? I'm having my doubts about it considering the fact the article was written by the same editor and I can't seem to locate anything to verify it actually exists. ConcernedVancouverite (talk) 20:57, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Not a lot of independent confirmation, certainly, but one wouldn't expect so much. I did find a mention here, and the website (what one can Google-translate) somehow seems more real. It doesn't give me the same this-looks-like-a-scam feeling the US one did. JohnCD (talk) 21:32, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Basically I agree with JohnCD's impression. I am reasonably confident that if I cannot find sources on a US university, that it does not exist: I know the language; I know the educational system; I know the likely sources; almost all of them would be easily accessible to me. For a university in Georgia, where all the sources are in a language I cannot read in an alphabet I cannot even pronounce, and very few of the potential sources even in Georgian are accessible to me, and I furthermore do not know the educational system well enough to know what is or is not likely, I am much less willing to draw conclusions-- I am going to some extent by the existence of at least purported photographs on the web page, by the rough collaboration that the Georgian historical events mentioned are real and correctly dated, and that, from what I do know of the higher educational system in the USSR and its successors, the academy's history seems probable enough. The article at least makes some sense. The Philadelphia one does not. As a way to go forwards, the various names need cross checking, and the difficulty of possible multiple transliterations, including possible transliterations through an intermediary language, does not help. That the same person might write an article based on the true Georgian university, and its hoped-for but not yet real expansion to the US, is plausible enough. I am also thinking that in the last few years some rather unlikely and poorly sourced articles on over-ambitious european educational institutions of various sorts have turned out to be real, though it has sometimes taken quite a while to establish this. Most total hoaxes entered here sound different: much more smooth and impressive, just about something else or something wholly imaginary. The other way forward is to go top-down--find information about higher educational institutions in Georgia, and see if the information mentions others but not this. My preferred option is to see what response we can get from the contributor. DGG ( talk ) 21:40, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, DGG. I should have spotted the copyvio, that would have saved time, but I'm glad to have your view in case of future arguments. I have already explained WP:V and WP:N to the author; we'll see how he reacts. One more point that adds to my suspicions: Lazarashvili's books on Amazon have a total of 14 customer reviews, and every single one gives him five stars! That must be some kind of record. JohnCD (talk) 21:50, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

If he does assert permission for the material, some actual documentation will show up on OTRS and I will be able to see it there. DGG ( talk ) 21:53, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the response, DGG. Yes, if we could get some confirmation that would be a good thing. I tried to find lists of Georgian Universities and couldn't find it on any of them. But likely, if it is a real school, there is a language issue as you suggest. Do we have any reliable established editors familiar with Georgia that we could ask for an opinion? ConcernedVancouverite (talk) 00:06, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Discussions about citations for notable alumni

Dear DGG, you have always been a Dean to us occasional editors. Please enlighten me on an issue being discussed with another editor here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Muhandes#Citations_on_QES_page To roughly summarize the issue, he insists on citations for all alumni listed on a school page, such as this one QES, HK, even tho those same citations already appear on the alumni's bio pages. I cited MIT Alumni as example to show that as long as those citations appear on the people's bio pages, they would be considered verified. I thought the bio page would serve as hub to verify everything about that person. Please advise. Much obliged.--Kgwu24 (talk) 02:49, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

replied there in some detail. Nobody questions that everything must be sourceable, but this is not the same as saying everything must be explicitly sourced inline, or even in the same article. Such lists are mere summaries. DGG ( talk ) 03:50, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your eloquent response, as usual. It seems a trivial matter that the guy would hang on so hard-nosed. There is at least one kind of unintended consequence for having the citations on the school page. Since it's primarily visited by students, those who are not familiar with Wiki will misread that the citation is to support notability. Just imagine the implication -- someone winning a high school scholarship is considered to be notable.--Kgwu24 (talk) 04:35, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

People here often hang on to trivial matters with great determination. Our way of working makes it easier, for someone who is really determined can keep at it obsessively. This is relatively non-trivial compared to some of the things the most persistent fights have been about: the most recent is when to use hyphens { - ), as compared to en-dashes ( – ), -- even though most computer users cannot tell them apart on the screen. ( I generally use -- in comments, though I know it is not permitted in articles where I must use an en dash without spaces—like this. ) and whether or not spaces go before and after. Even with references, there is no agreement about whether they should always be required in-line (they are for FA), and the various styles of referencing (footnotes are not the only acceptable method, though some think they should be). Precisely because the matters are trivial one can give long arguments in each direction, none of which can be definitively refuted.

Your comment that the footnoting confuses referencing for notability is correct, but there are other reasons also. Excessively footnoted articles are hard to read; footnoted articles are extremely difficult to edit; the current Wikipedia methods of inserting footnotes are confusing to the extent that they keep people from contributing at all (I use ProveIt though I dislike parts of it); most important, it detracts from concentrating our attention on the really questionable material. DGG ( talk ) 17:54, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

ELs

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:20, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

thanks. I don't want to give the impression that there is conflict between us about the general matter of handling ELs--improper ELs are something we both consider it a priority to get rid of. DGG ( talk ) 00:01, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I think first I do owe you an apology, when first looking through the contributions, I actually thought it was you ... there is considerable overlap in the articles both edit, and of the 'opposers' of XLinkBot you are one of the strongest. But things clearly did not match up (even though there were some points that made it likely, others made it very unlikely). I decided to wait and see whether the IP would screw up (which they did in the end).

It would be good to have a re-analysis of the reverts of XLinkBot. I've done an analysis of 30 MySpace reverts quite some time ago (1-2 years), and at that point, 29 of the reverts were 'good' ('superfluous links': MySpace of individuals or old members on band-pages, non-existing MySpaces, unrelated MySpaces, plain spam, fanpages, etc. etc), only one was a case where it was the actual MySpace of (IIRC) the band (though the official bandpage was on that page as well - I would describe that as 'I would not have reverted, but not added either'). I did a couple of months ago a quick-check of 10 YouTube reverts, and that contained 2 copyvios .. a significant concern. Yes, more and more YouTube become official, still way way more is either unsuitable in the first place, not official or even plain copyright violation, I do not believe there is a major shift in the percentage of official video's on YouTube.

Surely, there will be reverts of good links, but I think we need to see it in percentages of the total reverts on a domain (and if the percentage of reverts of good links, in relation to the badness of the other reverts, becomes too high, then indeed such domains should be removed from the list). If you put yourself to it, it is possible to find a lot of allowed YouTubes, Twitters, MySpaces, etc. etc. (see the edits by the IP that started this discussion). But I still believe that by far most of them, when added by 'new' users (who are not aware of our policies and guidelines), are not suitable. Of course, all should be personally analysed on one end, on the other side, reminding editors quickly that they have to take WP:EL/WP:NOT/WP:COPYRIGHT etc. into account is also important. And with 18 edits which add external links per minute (46 links added per minute) it is impossible to check them all by hand (and preferably in the first couple of minutes after addition). XLinkBot is extremely soft, tries to be friendly, especially on its first revert. And it does not get too often to AIV. One needs to 'push' it, and most of the editors that get to a level 3 or level 4 warning do go 'yell' at the bot first .. if only this IP would have done that after having been reverted 4-5 times, I might have noticed earlier and resolved it (I've now added a detection for this to the bot); we've had workarounds built-in ever since the very beginning of the bots that work this, most now also accessible to all admins on-wiki). This type of editors, editors who are continuing to add good links and are continuously reverted, are pretty, if not extremely, rare.

Hope to see you around. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:50, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I recognize the same problems you do. I rework a lot of organization pages, and I remove youtube and the like from the EL section if there's a regular web page, just like I remove all the links to the internal pages of the main site. (Hey, can you think of an automated way of detecting that particular problem?) (What I see more of in the areas I work is valid Facebook pages than YouTube pages, but I avoid working in popular music and related areas, which I think is where YouTube is prominent). Certainly the percentage of bad links to such pages is on the order of 99%, but that 1% is still a substantial number. I recognize the need with our volume of material to have computer assisted tools for editing; I don't consider the problem is mainly with the bot--or other bots, but the editors who think like bots, or who completely trust them.

However, I admit that I have extended good faith a number of times when it hasn't been present and other people would have been more skeptical; I prefer it to the opposite. Incidentally, I have carelessly edited a few times when logged out , but I think I have always asked for oversight. I don't do POINTY things, but I will sometimes defend those who do if I think the point is important. I know I am working in some areas fairly near the limits, and so I try to be extra careful not to go beyond them. DGG ( talk ) 21:32, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

That 1% is about the amount I guess that gets reverted wrongly on that type of links. I do agree, of those editors in that 1% some will be bitten (what, of all the reverts, good or bad, some will be bitten by a friendly remark that their link is not appropriate), and that is an issue, but also a small part of editors is bitten when you leave a (non-bot) personalised message on their talkpage. I do that sometimes, and I do still get yelled at, or blindly reverted, or editors just never return. I know, c'est le ton qui fait la chanson (sorry, don't have a reference for this quote), but sometimes that 'ton' does not even make a difference.

You said somewhere, that you manage to convert promotional editors .. you actually have to group them. You have the promotional editors who are here to promote a person, a company, or an organisation - editors who are often specialists in an area and would be an asset to Wikipedia when converted - you have the 'promotional fans' - who only care about their subject and putting them in the best possible light, they don't care being converted and doing something else - you have the SEO's - who are only out for money, they edit what they get paid for (and often, also their own company when they are here anyway) - and true spammers (sildenafil, tramadol, muscle enhancers ...), they only care to have their links here. Every converted specialist is one, and that should certainly be an attempt. But also of those, if you approach them with silk gloves and hugs and kisses, some will be bitten, while a friendly remark does also convert editors sometimes (I do see the 'I did not know that, I'll take more care in the future' messages).

One of the issues is the IP or new editor, who is boosting with activity, and picks up the policies and guidelines really fast. Those editors should be made exempt from XLinkBot (whitelisted) as soon as possible, but they are difficult to detect in the plethora of edits. XLinkBot now alerts me of editors who have more than 9 messages from XLinkBot, either way, such editors need to be looked at (either they are genuine editors and should be whitelisted, or they are slow spammers and should be blocked for a bit of time to actually get the message). Maybe the note "Due to the nature of what the bot does, it will occasionally revert additions which may have been appropriate. As an RC patroller you are always required to make sure vandalism is obvious and uncontroversial, please do not revert someone who reverts or 'undoes' an XLinkBot edit based solely on the bot reverting the addition originally." on User:XLinkBot's userpage should be strenghtened and expanded, and be linked from the AIV-reports the bot produces (see IPuser-reportstring and user-reportstring in User:XLinkBot/Settings, there also the messages the bot leaves can be adapted in 'real time' (settings are loaded before every revert; feel free to adapt if necessary, please do check if the messages it actually leaves are formatted properly, they are concatenated in a bit complex way). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:56, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

SPA list on deletion review; User:109a152a8a146|109a152a8a146 and WP:PROF

Dear DGG, I was wondering if you could give me some advice. I'm a bit annoyed to be listed on Mathsci's list of SPAs at the deletion review page for Energy Catalyzer, as I clearly shouldn't be on this list. I've asked him politely a few times on his user talk page to remove me from this list, but he hasn't responded to it, except to delete my post. I really don't think he had any right to put me on list, and I'm a bit miffed to be branded a SPA. I was wondering if there was anything I can do to get my username erased from it, as I think it's something of an insult. Thanks, 109a152a8a146 (talk) 12:14, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes it seems you are not, but it is not worth the trouble. The page will not remain active much longer; Just go on and work here, though to avoid confusion in the future., you may want to pick a different user name. BTW, please take a look at WP:PROF, and some of the related AfDs to get a better idea of our standards. DGG ( talk ) 15:08, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks DGG. About the WP:PROF, maybe you would like to discuss this with me? I was wondering about these guidelines, since especially criterion 1 seems a bit flexible to me. I interpret it to mean that only academics with an exceptional impact on their field warrant an article, while others think that just being a professor and having any published research is sufficient. I don't really have a very strong opinion about this, but in my view the current guidelines only support inclusion of highly (whatever that means) influential researchers. I would tend to agree with this as otherwise WP might become a 'professors' directory', but for example the German WP explicitly assumes notability of any professor. I'd be interested to know your views on this (in either case you were right in removing the tag from Roland Benz because of the Wisdom professorship, I must have missed that somehow). Cheers! 109a152a8a146 (talk) 16:30, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

exceptional = famous. "Exceptional" is not the criterion in any other subject. We have articles on songs that have charted; they don't have to win awards; we have articles on books that get multiple reviews; they don't have to win prizes. We have articles on politicians in state legislatures--they don't have to be in the national Senate. We have articles on everyone who has competed in the Olympics, regardless of how they placed. and so on. Notable is a little more than merely significant , but certainly much less than famous. In many subject fields, we use the GNG, which defines notability by references. I think personally we over-emphasise it, but it's quite firmly accepted. This won't work for researchers: it's much too broad--anyone who has published papers and had them referenced, if the references discuss the work other than merely listing it, would meet the GNG. That essentially includes anyone who has ever been a post-doc in science. On the other hand, requiring articles about them in newspapers and the like doesn't work either, because in most fields newspapers only write about those few who work on something controversial to the public. And full bios in the usual sense aren't published until someone retires or dies.

What I give you is the consensus, as shown by a great many AfDs. The only ones that are exceptions are in fields which some people here regard as for some reason intrinsically not very important, or having very low standards, such as education; or, sometimes, in fields where the person has gotten themselves involved in pseudoscience or religious or political controversy and people want to keep the article out on those grounds. (I don't defend these positions, but it happens they prevail.)

The German WP assumes notability of any professor, and in the classical European sense, we regard a German or UK professorship similarly, equating it to full professor and head of department and named chair. Now that much of Europe is adopting the US standards of lower ranks that are still called professor, we at least will limit it to full professor. The full professor standard is not actually formally accepted here. I personally would certainly accept it for those at research universities, but it's not part of the formal guideline--some of the others here who work in the field here oppose it. But in practice, someone who is a full professor in a major research university has almost never been deleted in WP in the last 4 years at least, at least in the absence of one of those two earlier factors. There is some leeway in definition of major research university, but in practice its pretty clear. At present, we do not normally accept a full professor at an ordinary 4 year college who has published very little beyond their thesis. So much for the current standard.

But Personally, I think the coverage should be wider. The rank of significance both in the profession and the world that corresponds to those we accept for popular entertainment is in my opinion the equivalent of any faculty member with tenure at any university or a major 4 year college in the US, or equivalent position elsewhere. The rank we accept for some sports is in my opinion even lower and much more ephemeral. This is still very different from a faculty directory, which accepts any full time faculty member.

I think we need much more coverage of the traditional academic subjects to match our coverage of popular culture, and the simplest way to start it is with biographies, which are much easier to write than subject articles. It's not necessarily a matter of bias, from my having spent all my career in such an environment--some of the people here with the relatively stricter attitudes have done just the same. If you stay here a little longer, you will find me described as an extreme inclusionist. I'm not really, certainly not in all subjects, but I want balance, and I think the danger to the encyclopedia is not the inclusion of marginal individuals, but the inclusion of promotionalism, regardless of importance. That's where I do my deletion--I think it's about 12,000 items by now. The rule I would like is that if a reasonable person might expect to find it in a comprehensive encyclopedia, it should be here, but what is here should be reliable and informative. DGG ( talk ) 17:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Wow, that's what I call a comprehensive answer! I wouldn't go as far as you in supporting the inculsionist view, but you do have a very compelling point to make by comparing articles on academic subjects with the coverage on pop culture topics. The reason why I wouldn't go as far as you with regard to inclusionism is precisely because of the problem of promotionalism, which unfortunately also exists in academics, especially these days. I've certainly seen cases where the importance of an individual has been artificially inflated on WP (although in most cases not by the individuals themselves, by the looks of it). I know that in principle there is no logistical reason to not have an article on almost any academic (or any topic), but I do disagree with WP being used for promotional purposes. There is also the problem that merely using the title of full professor as a measure of notability may exclude researchers at institutions that do not give out such titles, e.g. institutes not directly affiliated with universities. I would therefore prefer a measure of notability that is independent of rank or title, but rather based on some direct indicator of scientific impact. Otherwise the bar for inclusion becomes skewed towards full professors. I guess this all has to be judged on a case-by-case basis. The AfDs I've generated largely concern articles that seem 'fishy' to me in terms of promotion or inflated importance, but I don't mind if they don't 'go through' as long as there is a fruitful discussion. I'm sure we'll cross paths again, and I'll keep your comments in mind when proposing deletions or participating in discussions. 109a152a8a146 (talk) 18:14, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

there is no necessary correlation between promotionalism and notability in any field. I have seen ridiculously promotional articles from very senior scientists, sometimes prepared by the department PR staff, but sometimes by the person themselves. I have also seen very short factual basic articles on people who are not conceivably notable-- a two-line article about a post-doc, and sometimes an eminent scientist will write so short and modest an article that one has to actually check for publications to realize they're important. . This is true in other fields also. Local non-notable businessmen may write articles that are by no means promotional--in fact, they do rather often. Notable ones may try it themselves, and do it right, or try it themselves and get it hopelessly wrong; if they use a professional, most of the time even the better professionals write too promotional a piece--regardless of notability .

The reason for going by rank is that it is field-independent. the faculty at, say, Yale, can judge who is a major figure in their own field much better than we can, & if the faculty in any one department get out of line about it, the provost will correct them. Why on earth should you think that impact does not correspond to academic rank? It's the basic criterion. The problem using it, is that it cannot be evaluated numerically across fields, and, except at the extremes, can not measured numerically with any degree of validity, Every issue of each information science journal has at least one article proposing a new variation, there's so little confidence in anything available, and normally they don't attempt to validate it outside a single subject. Consider the most widely and stupidly used, h index. A person publishes 10 publications, all with 10 citations: h=10. A person publishes 8 publications with 10 citations and 2 with 500; h=10. In most subjects, the 2nd but not the 1st will be notable--& in humanities in some subjects, even the first can be a distinguished record. . This is an entire academic field of research, much watched, because everyone likes to rate their colleagues.

Why shouldn't the bar be skewed towards full professors? If it isn't, something's dead wrong about the system--as it has been in some places where rank is a matter of time-in-office. What I think you are looking for, is a measure of who, in the early stages of their career when not yet tenured, will become important. Everyone in academic administration would like to find that also. But we don't consider notability as inherent talent, but actual accomplishment. I wish other fields had equally good standards as the US/West european (and now becoming world-wide) system of academic rank--almost none of them do. DGG ( talk ) 23:41, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Becoming a full professor is quite often just a matter of time in office, and that is precisely the problem. This matter-of-course promotion is now becoming less common, but it was very widespread in the past. I'm not looking for an early-career talent predictor, but for a measure of actual impact, and if you will, accomplishment. This is not given by simply being made a full professor. Putting the emphasis on titles also unnaturally raises the bar for researchers not directly associated with universities (e.g. CVI or certain MPIs, or even companies). A lot of research these days is done outside of the traditional university setting, and even that system is fortunately becoming less byzantine. I don't care what academic rank somebody holds as long as they have demonstrated substantial impact in their field. This is different from looking for a predictor of future impact and using that as a criterion. In short, I haven't seen any evidence that a full professorship (in any system) automatically equates to scientific notability. 109a152a8a146 (talk) 09:52, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

In one sense you are right: the effectual bar in the US is at the promotion to associate professor, which carries tenure. No major research university would ever appoint someone to tenure unless they were quite sure they would qualify for full professor also. I take this as an argument for extending the inclusion to associate professors, and if there is a strong publication record, we've sometimes accepted them at AfD & I intend to keep trying on occasion. This is however not the case in Europe, where the distinctiveness of full professor has been much stronger. Now, there is another sense in which full professor might be an appropriate class for notability , more so than associate+full: notability in the profession comes with recognition by the network. Whether someone does work of greater creativity at younger ages depends on the individual and the profession--it is more true in Math than any other subject. But by the time they are full they will have larger grants, bigger work groups, and more connections---they of course go together. They therefore will have a greater influence on the profession.

Recognition of non-university research is more complicated here, and so are research positions in universities that carry special ranks, but the easiest way of handling them is to correlate with the equivalent publication records for people who do hold the academic ranks. The problem is much greater in industry, where people normally don't publish, and it can be very difficult to figure out notability. But some easy obviously notable cases exist, & there are a few thousand articles to do for the members of the US National Academy of Engineering & the Institute of Medicine--almost none of whom have articles.

Obviously rank is not the only criterion. But I continue to consider it a clear demonstration that the profession considers the person notable. But to a certain extent its irrelevant for practical concerns, because there have been no cases where the article has been deleted, except the special cases I mentioned (& those outside the Western academic system.). I don't consider the organization of research universities dysfunctional except in terms of efficiency, most of which is due to management and funding problems. But it produces quality as surely as the 19th century German system on which it is based did. It's a curious paradox that the quality of the US education system is so utterly dismal--at every level except the research level.

I challenge you: which of the full professors at Yale are not notable? (I pick it because I've no connections with them--the actual places I do know well are Princeton and Berkeley.) DGG ( talk ) 06:17, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I do not contest that most of the full professors at Yale (at least in my field) are notable; but then I know them personally and wouldn't say they were even if I did ;-) I don't think that this is really a valid question, as Yale is really one of the top universities. A more relevant question would be: Which one of the full professors at a middling university (I hesitate to name one for reasons of propriety) is notable? I'm not saying that none of them are (some are truly exceptional), but a large number of them just are not (and I would include myself and most of my colleagues in that category). Being a professor (especially in the older generations) is pretty much a career choice, rather than a real achievement. Recognition by your peers is, but not every professor is highly respected by his/her peers. At the end of the day it is just a job, which you can strive to do well. Some actors or managers are very notable, but most are not. It doesn't mean they are rubbish, just that they are not notable. The chairman of a company that sells sheep dip in the Outer Hebrides may be more capable than the chairman of, say, Volkswagen, but he will not be notable because of that. 109a152a8a146 (talk) 12:49, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the nature of the university matters--and is the fuzzy part of the standard I use. To avoid fuzziness, normally I use such an argument only when the university is as unquestionably major as Yale, and thus almost always the quality of the university is not one of the matters disputed--if it were, I would not use the argument. I've been very much more careful & restrictive in my wording as it goes down the scale. The most expansive definition of major== just considering the US == can be interpreted as the 108 universities in the Carnegie RU/VH (very high research activity) list [41]; I would not use my argument for all of them in all fields; for many of them what you say can be right, and these are the ones you refer to as "middling" -- again, depending on the field. (even for the top ones, it is possible that there may be periods when a few of the departments may not be as good as the others; even for those not on the list and some colleges, some departments can be first-rate & recognized as such.) . For as a more selective group it's hard to define them; there are various listings, but there's no obvious cut off point. However, knowledgeable people usually agree for a specific field in a specific university.

There are many cases where we have a formal standard that indeed is rather too permissive at the boundaries--the clearest example is all Olympic athletes. There are some cases where the "generally recognized as major" distinction comes in also: the example most familiar to me is the pop music requirement for charting, which only counts what the people in the field here consider major charts.

However, you've said in a current AfD that the Harvard Medical School is not one of the school where all its full professors are notable--you also said there that the number of citations necessary for showing notability are for at least a few papers to have citation counts in the thousands, I therefore suggest that your standards are unreasonable and should as little be accepted here as if someone insisted on including all Assistant Professors at any college. DGG ( talk ) 00:30, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I have not said that full professors at Harvard are not notable; I have only said that the subject of the article doesn't seem notable to me, and I could not find any indication that he indeed was a full professor. I found one fleeting reference that he was an assistant professor at one point. Maybe he was a full professor, but there is not reference for this. Also, I have never said that allthe full professors at Yale are notable. The ones that I know (and probably most others) are, but that doesn't exclude the possibility that some aren't. I also think that merely asking for 100 citation is pretty low; this would include a large number of postdocs and possibly even a few PhD students. I agree that my '1000's' may have been a bit over the top, but also I'm very surprised that there are not more citations, the field seems to be much less active than I thought... I still stand by my statement that citations in the low 100's aren't much to write home about.

In principle I agree with you that full professors at 'major' institutions are likely to be notable because these institutions usually get to pick and choose. Still, I don't thing being a full professor there determines notability, the two are only usually closely correlated. Outliers do exist. 109a152a8a146 (talk) 13:13, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Outliers exist. There were even a few Nobel prizes awarded that seem very strange looking back at them. Agreed that sometimes articles saying Prof. are not really professor; these sometimes come from overenthusiastic students. The question is, how many AfDs is it worth debating to remove a few outliers, keeping in mind the frequency of our own errors; if we debate each one, and get 10% of them wrong, are you saying the outliers are greater in number than that? "the subject of the article doesn't seem very notable to me," is one of our classic non-arguments. You say that, I say the opposite, and where are we? counting !votes, votes that at Wikipedia are going to include both the knowledgeable and the unknowledgable. So the votes we're counting actually depend on which of us is more persuasive, not which of us has the better arguments. (the Socratic argument against rhetoric, not mine, but I even if I hadn't thought so before, the general run of proceedings at Wikipedia would have surely convinced me.) If you're only been here a short time, you won't have realized the extent of our gross inconsistencies. There's this tendency in some academics here to not think that people in their field are notable. I put it down to their using the standard of the own aspirations. DGG ( talk ) 17:17, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

That is very true... and also the reason why there should be an objective measure of notability. I just don't think that an academic rank or title is a valid and objective measure. Not every article needs to be discussed, but debating an occasional article that lies on the edge of notability is a worthwhile exercise as it may enable us to decide on a verifiable and independent measure. I also agree that 'I don't think X is notable' is not a valid argument; however, 'I don't think X is notable because Y' is. 109a152a8a146 (talk) 18:11, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Dan Littman

You know the guidelines better than anyone else I know when it comes to academics. Please take a looks when you can. I had just tagged for notability, original creator thinks it doesn't need it. Rather than debate, I would leave it in your experienced hands if you have the time. Dennis Brown (talk) 19:57, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

certainly notable, as is generally the case for full professors at a leading world-famous research university like NYU (I used the word "generally," which I think vague enough to accommodate the various views: there is considerable disagreement about whether it is "always the case,", ""almost always the case" or 'very often the case" -- my own view, as I think is well-known, is that it is always the case, and the problem is only in deciding which universities it applies to. However, not everyone working on these articles agrees with me, including some of my most trusted friends here, so I am not sure "always" would be the consensus position at this time. My argument is similar to that on many other topics--we have much to gain by not having debates about every one of the tens of thousands of articles involved. We hare more harmed by inappropriate promotional articles about academics --just as about everything else--than we are by slight variations in the standard of notability. Time spent at AfD on determining borderline notability is time that should be better spent in patrolling new articles (and re-patrolling the older ones). Much better to have a simple standard, and concern ourselves with content. But in any case, this particular full professor is notable, but, as is often the case, the article needs a little rewriting isn't done in quite the best way to show it, and I will either do some rewriting or at least offer some advice for doing it. I apologize for not going into the details here, but they'll be clear in the finished articles, where the citations will show him an expert in his subject. DGG ( talk ) 05:48, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

(and for over 100 earlier discussions on this & closely related issues from my talk p, see my topic archive, User talk:DGG/Academic Things and People talk ). DGG ( talk ) 05:50, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

2012

Academic centres of learning

Hi, thanks for your comments on the Institute for Bible, Theology & Hermeneutics, you were right that it doesn't meet notability requirements and so I was about to merge some information but some other editor added a re-divert before I could get to it (pity, not really polite!). Nevertheless, I wanted to take you up on your comment on my talk page about centres of study at universities. I do think that if they are notable enough to have garnered third party coverage they should be included separately rather than under a faculty page as the importance of some centres is unique relative to the faculty. In some cases the centre engages with research that may be overwhelmed within the rest of the faculty but nevertheless emerges as a critical seed that grows to become an influential focal point in that field. I note for example another page that I set up, Centre for the Study of Religion and Politics which brought together some highly influential people including Nobel prize winner Desmond Tutu, Cardinal O'Brien and Gustav Gutierrez. That these people were willing to put their name to a centre indicates that there is a critical need for that area of study and that in of itself is an important message. I look forward to your thoughts. Also, thanks for making the effort to personalize your comments and give me time to consider the feedback rather than jumping on the "delete" or "redirect" buttons. --Ddragovic (talk) 12:40, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

You were mentioned at WP:EAR regarding something to do with university professor notability

here, in fact. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:18, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in there and, frankly, I wish I had gone on to say what you ended up saying there. Interestingly, there is a dispute at DRN on which your comment that the "most troublesome tag-related problem is edit warring over NPOV tags" directly bears. Your input there might turn the trick like it did at EA. (And, BTW, I hope that I did not misattribute the idea that professors are inherently notable to you. If I did, I apologize.) Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 13:30, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

basic rules

All full professors at major research universities have sufficiently demonstrated that they are recognized experts in their subject to meet WP:PROF,and that WP:PROF is an alternative to WP:GNG. This is not a formal rule, but almost all AfD have had this result, except in fields where people here have doubts about the rigor, such as Education. (Major: in the US, Research Extensive in the Carnegie Classification + schools of similar rank; elsewhere, similar level). The rationale for this is that this is the basis on which people are promoted to such rank at such universities, and their judgment is more reliable than ours.)

For those at lower level institutions, this is not automatic, and the judgment goes by individual cases; the rationale is that in such institutions people are often promoted to this rank based on lesser accomplishments or for other qualities than being a recognized expert in their subject.

For Associate professors, automatic notability is not generally accepted, but is determined case by case. AfD results vary, but imho are usually reasonable. Personally, I think it could be extended to them on similar grounds, but this has not had consensus. ("Associate" = the US rank, and corresponding ranks elsewhere)

For Assistant professors, and corresponding ranks outside the US, it similarly goes case by case, and almost all AfD results have been "not notable". I agree with this.

Additionally, in the humanities most full professors in the highest level universities-- ,-- have written two or more books that have reviews in RSs for notability, and thus meet WP:AUTHOR. In the very highest level universities, this applies to Associate professors also. In other fields, where tenure usually depends on articles, not books, this doesn't work as frequently, but it sometimes does. Similarly, in the fine arts, many people at various academic levels will qualify by WP:CREATIVE.

For that matter, if one argued on the basis of the GNG, we could find for almost anyone who has published one or more important papers that the 2 or more of the papers referencing them contain substantial discussions of their work. This would require examining the actual papers, as the mere fact of being cited does not necessarily or even usually mean there is substantial discussion of the work. If I really tried, I could probably find this for many people even at the post-doctoral level. As this result is contradictory to most people's intuitive feelings on the appropriate contents of an encyclopedia (as distinct from a faculty directory), it shows imo the uselessness of the GNG in this subject. Before the WP:PROF standard became accepted, I did use it when it matched my intuitive view. If we return to GNG-worship, I will go back to using it.

Where the GNG is used here appropriately , is for people at any level whose work happens to strike the fancy of newspaper writers. I don't consider most such people notable as academics, but since the public will read the news accounts and want some objective information, it's reasonable to have the articles here. (I have sometimes objected to isolated news accounts as being based on PR if it seems really counter-intuitive). DGG ( talk ) 17:39, Apr 24. 2012

Stevens Institute of Technology page

Hi DGG, I saw that my original note on your talk page was archived, so I'm adding this to make sure it doesn't get lost from your radar as there is clearly a lot of incoming requests on your page! This is the link to the latest correspondence, ready for your review. Talk:Stevens Institute of Technology#Updating_page_along_guidelines_for_college_and_university_articles

Thank you! QueenCity11 (talk) 14:36, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

haven't forgotten: I will get there tomorrow or this weekend. DGG ( talk ) 05:18, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Great, thank you! QueenCity11 (talk) 21:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

"I haven't forgotten. I'll get there soon. DGG ( talk ) 19:18, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the update - very much appreciated! QueenCity11 (talk) 20:00, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I still haven't forgotten. Some discussions this last week were rather long to deal with, & I'm a little behind. DGG ( talk ) 03:48, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

No problem - I appreciate that you have been keeping me posted. Yesterday I spent some time updating dead reference links since Stevens switched over to a new website. Thank you again. QueenCity11 (talk) 13:15, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi DGG -- Just wanted to check if you have a sense of when you may be able to review. I am getting pressed for an update and want to report back with the latest. Thank you again! QueenCity11 (talk) 16:22, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I shall try to get to it this evening. DGG ( talk ) 16:25, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi - Just wanted to check if you think you'll be able to review soon. I appreciate all the help and guidance you have provided thus far. If you would prefer that I look for help from another editor at this point, that is fine - please just let me know. Thank you! QueenCity11 (talk) 11:55, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the Stevens Institute of Technology

Was this ever completed? Silverseren^C 21:20, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

It will be this weekend. I know I've said it before two or three times, but I'm feeling embarrassed enough to actually do it, instead of trying to learn something I haven't done before (last week, the new version of the New Pages list, this week, AfC.) DGG ( talk ) 21:28, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Hey, i've been procrastinating plenty myself. How long has it been since I helped out at PAIDHELP? I spent yesterday working on Man With A Mission and trying to decipher horribly machine translated Japanese news sources. So, yeah. But i've pledged to work through the PAIDHELP page today and get everything done. Silverseren^C 21:43, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you!

For cleaning up City University of Seattle! Your editing expertise is much appreciated and respected by this lowly Huggle jockey. Cheers! Jim1138 (talk) 00:12, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I have just begun. DGG ( talk ) 03:43, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

CityU of Seattle

Hi DGG, thank you for your message on my page. Sorry that I have corrected the article about CityU befor I've read your advice. I appreciate that you insist on beeing neutral in the tone of an article. But when the Swiss authorities have accused the headmaster of the CityU of fraud than I am not sure how you could say what happened without using the appropriate expressions, in this case "allegations" and "fraud". The article is (as I have written) not about a subsidiary. So for a reader it is of minor interest to read something about the Swiss branch, but if you want to inform you about the reputation of something or someone, than it's quite intersting to read about allegations of fraud. And I have of course read the Wikipedia policies about neutrality. They say that while neutral terms are generally preferable, this must be balanced against clarity. And ok, I don't think that the expression "allegations of fraud" is per se not neutral, but even if that should be the case and the term is not neutral, in my opinion it's the most clear description of what happened. This is, not just a university program that became unstable.Please tell me what you think about that, kind regards, saintcyr. PS: I think it doesn't matter whether someone has a personal involvement with the issue he's describing as long as his point of view is candid and based on facts. I think some of the best articles here are written by people with a personal involvement with the issue they are describing. But though you seem to think otherwise I can assure you I have no personal involvement in the CityU. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saintcyr1 (talk • contribs) 22:51, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

The matter must be included, but it can be done a little more subtly than you did it, as I shall demonstrate there. Among the techniques for doing this is use the word once in the article as a quotation; it need not be repeated. (And we'd need the quote not just in English translation, but in the original language used.) And it certainly must not be used in the section heading.: we do not make moral judgements, and through things are reported as there are, summaries must ber as absolutely neutral as possible. that goes for edit summaries also: loaded words should never be used there. And we consider the very word "allegations" to be non-neutral. And the entire section should be summarized, to avoid disproportionate weight. If negative information is reported disproportionately or loaded words used more than necessary, it gives the impression of holding a grudge, not of NPOV writing. It is my responsibility to prevent anyone from using Wikipedia for such a purpose, just as it is to prevent it being used to cover-up serious matters. DGG ( talk ) 23:09, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying your point of view, but I still disagree with you on that. So I have opened a discussion on the matter on the CityU talk page. Saintcyr1 (talk —Preceding undated comment added 04:46, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

DGG's a tenured and well-respected administrator with a reputation for even-handedness and an excellent grasp of our policies. You would save everyone's time if you just took his advice on how to present such a controversy without disputing it. Jclemens (talk) 05:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I've commenting further, on the article talk p., Talk:City University of Seattle. I've tried to explain the standard WP policy, and also my general approach to this particular type of problems. DGG ( talk ) 18:39, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

City University of Seattle

This article has come up at OTRS and I'm trying to get a handle on its current state. I see that some sourced negative statements were removed (diff) and then some unsourced positive statements too. (diff). I trust that this article has gotten the attention it needed and is under watchful eyes, but could you help me to understand why it was appropriate to remove all of the negative content as well? I briefly looked at the [German] sources and 3 of them looked initially ok while 3 clearly did not. Just looking for a little guidance if you get a minute. Cheers! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 23:05, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I've neglected following up this one. I'll email you about it in a few minutes, as some of it is indeed on OTRS, and I need to give an opinion about individual motives. DGG ( talk ) 23:28, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

tomorrow, actually--it's a little complicated. DGG ( talk ) 09:17, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject NIH

Greetings DGG. I was looking at WikiProject NIH and it appears to be pretty inactive. Since you and one other are the only apparently active members I wanted to ask. Kumioko (talk) 01:58, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

the articles there certainly still need work: classic promotional institutional pages, in many cases, (much probably copied, and needs ref to the sources, though it US-PD) and overly brief summaries in others. Perhaps if its just the two of us we could simply divide them up. DGG ( talk ) 02:27, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

I would certainly be glad to help out. I looked through some of them and your right theres definately some work to be done. I also noticed there seemed to be some that weren't tagged yet. I was also wondering if you think it would be ok if I did a couple things.

1. I would like to add the project to the Joint projects list of WPUS. The articles are already covered by both projects so it might help them a little and slightly increase the visibility of the NIH project.
2. I would like to expand the title on the template to spell out Institutes of Health. Of course I would leave the existing one as a redirect. I have had a couple folks ask me what it meant already (along with WikiProject SIA and AAA) so it might help a little.
3. There are several articles that aren't tagged yet that I would like to add to the project if you think that's ok. Kumioko (talk) 02:39, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

seems reasonable--just go ahead. I will look at some of the more extensive articles and do some trimming. (and some splitting--they include the bios of the Directors of the various institutes, but these people are sufficiently notable that they should be covered separately). I suggest you copy this discussion onto the talk p. of the project. I appreciate it very much that you're getting this re-started--I confess I had entirely forgotten that I meant to work on this. DGG ( talk ) 06:05, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

I moved the template to {{WikiProject National Institutes of Health}} and updated the template example on the project page. I will add it to the WPUS Joint prokects list shortly. Kumioko (talk) 15:25, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Graduate Library School, University of Chicago, 1928-1989.

Hi David, this article could use some help from you. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 17:32, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

It will get it, but not immediately. DGG ( talk ) 01:19, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Google scholar anomality

Hi DGG. In a past deletion debate one year ago which I found mightily suspicious (the submitter and the very last voter turned out to be single purpose-accounts in hindsight) you argued from your professional experience that worldcat holdings of about 100 and 2-3 reviews two years after publication would be normal. I took a look again and Duchesne's 2011 book "The uniqueness of Western civilization" has risen since from 60 to 160 university holdings and, according to his homepage, received 10 reviews by now (leaving out his reply to Elvin and amazon). I noticed Brill has published a paperback version this year, so they seem to consider the book a sales success. However, on Google Scholar the book still is listed as cited by none, even though many of the reviews can be retrieved via its database. Frankly, I cannot make sense of this. Do you have any idea and do you think his WP bio has reached the threshold of notability by now? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:26, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

GS citations are erratic, and their standards change, and nobody knows what they are. In the humanities, citations of a book are slow to develop as compared to journals. First, the book will only be cited by those at libraries who have the book, while a few of his articles are in widely held journals. Second, there is the time factor: a 2011 book will show up in a library about 2 - 12 months after publication, a journal shows up immediately after publication. And in the humanities, if someone reading a work decides to use it in an article, they would typically write the article in the next 2 - 12 months , and it would take in the humanities somewhere from 9 to 24 months before it was published. If the citation was to be in a book, of course it would take at least double that time at each stage and sometimes much longer.

Additionally, his writings are from a definite pov, not widely popular at present in the academic world. A very few people will write using his work to support theirs; more will use it as something to refute. But the key qy. is whether he is well known enough that anyone would want to specifically write to refute him, or whether they will just include him among the other theorists they are refuting the next time they write on the general subject. .

As for actual notability , you will have noticed that at the AfD I made no keep or delete comment. I limited myself to critiquing the bad arguments,particularly those from BG. I consider it borderline by my own standard for notability as an academic: whether a person is a full professor at a research university or of equivalent quality. The usual requirement for getting there in the humanities is at least two books from major scholarly presses. Brill is in most fields a minor press, except for near eastern studies, religion, and related subjects; and UNB is a good but not superlative university. Of his journal articles, some of them are in important journals--but most are in a few journals of a rather specialized nature. The publications list should have included only peer reviewed journal articles, not book chapters. What also influenced me is that the article was written in the typical way to make slightly important subjects look more so: material on the importance of his student work, on the importance of his advisors, of those he has debated with, of those who replied to him, What influences me now much more is that too much of the article is a close paraphrase of his web page, which I carelessly did not think to look at during the discussion. if I had, I would said delete.

If you want to try it again, rewrite it from scratch. But I do not think there is enough new information; even if BG stays away from WP the result might be the same, and another delete decision will make it much harder in the future. What is needed is another book--it would be much safer. DGG ( talk ) 18:29, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion. Best Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:02, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Wayne State University Department of Physics and Astronomy

Regarding your comment about Wayne State University Department of Physics and Astronomy and suggestion for deletion (and your comment on the talk page).

Dear David,

I think your information about this department is quite outdated. I already provided a small list of notable faculty with national awards and methods bearing their names in standard textbooks. Here is a list of people that are defined as "good enough" for you with their h indices:

• Giovanni Bonvicini (HEP experiment) h=78, 49 papers with over 100 citations
• David Cinabro (HEP experiment) h=82, 62 papers with over 100 citations
• Tom Cormier (nuclear experiment) h=70, 55 papers with over 100 citations
• Sean Gavin (nuclear theory) h=26, 6 papers with over 100 citations (he is a PECASE winner (major national award))
• Robert Harr (HEP experiment) h=76, 49 papers with over 100 citations
• Paul Karchin (HEP experiment) h=79, 59 papers with over 100 citations (he is a DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator award winner)
• Alexey Petrov (HEP theory) h=31, 13 papers with over 100 citations (he is an NSF CAREER award winner (national award))
• Claude Pruneau (nuclear experiment) h=70, 55 papers with over 100 citations
• Joern Putschke (nuclear experiment) h=64, 48 papers with over 100 citations
• Sergei Voloshin (nuclear experiment) h=80, 68 papers with over 100 citations

Those are people from nuclear and particle physics only. For condensed matter and atomic physics:

• Gavin Lawes 3 papers with over 100 citations (he is an NSF CAREER award winner (national award))
• Boris Nadgorny papers with over 100 citations (he is an NSF CAREER award winner (national award))
• Jogindra Wadehra 4 papers with over 100 citations

Is this not a place that has distinguished academics? BTW, according to this, Cormier is not at the top. This department built significant components of STAR detector at BNL. I can continue, but can you argue otherwise?

AlexDetroit (talk) 17:20, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Jacob School of Biotechnology and Bioengineering and possible merge

I notied that you had placed a redirect on this article which had been reverted. To encourage resolution via Talk, I've added a Merge suggestion and opened it as a topic on the previous redirect target. AllyD (talk) 17:23, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Talk:British Studies Seminar, University of Texas at Austin

Could you provide a subject template (we have the place template) for this article? --DThomsen8 (talk) 21:11, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Help clean Cal Poly Pomona

Hi, DGG

I noticed that you are involved in cleaning Cal Poly. I think these pages need to be deleted or merged. I need your input.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronco_Pep_Band (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cal_Poly_Pomona_presidents (merge with List of Cal Poly Pomona people) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Poly_Universities_Rose_Float (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronco_Student_Center (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_California_Marine_Institute (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poly_Post (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Poly_Pomona_Broncos (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Poly_Pomona_Broncos_men%27s_basketball (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Poly_Pomona_University_Library (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLA_Building (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._K._Kellogg_Arabian_Horse_Center (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Poly_Universities_Rose_Float (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Polytechnic_University,_Pomona_academics#Agriculture_.288.29 (delete/merge)

Thanks, --Fredthecleaner (talk) 20:29, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

the way this sort of situation should be handled is to start at the bottom, with the least notable . I've nominated the one of the Rose Float for deletion; the list of presidents should be merged to the main article--it's appropriate content there, and all the successive presidents are notable & should have articles. At the opposite end, the article for their athletic teams is a perfectly justifiable split, similar to what is done routinely for such universities. Whether articles on individual teams should be merged into depends on their significance. Since the basketball team won a NCAA championship in 2010 there's a case for it--I'd need to see how other such teams are handled. The various centers need looking at, but we'd ordinarily mention these in the main article, and redirect/merge, not delete. The CLA building might be notable. The student center building should be merged to the student association, but I'm not sure the combination is notable: there is little content. I cannot see why on earth you included the agriculture section of their academics article--it's already properly merged. The question is whether that entire article should be merged into the main article as a section. Articles on bands and libraries and newspapers are acceptable when they are indpedently significant; that is probably not the case here, but they should be merged/redirected, not deleted. According to :[WP:Deletion policy]], deletion is the last resort. Wanting to delete rather than merge seems quite inappropriate. (Sometimes there is a problem of not getting consensus to merge, and the practical solution can be an AfD, though that's not formally what it should be for.) DGG ( talk ) 23:48, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Not that it affects the note, but that is sockpuppet I blocked. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 01:53, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

so I noticed after I wrote it when I went to his talk p to warn him that the strange mix of including articles that should surely be deleted, and those that should not, indicated a possible negative conflict of interest. As I've said at I think it was an/i, during many of the discussions involving this college and NYU-Poly, despite the article proliferation and recriminations on both sides, some of the material is usable, and some is not. If I can get a day clear from immediate fire-fighting, I'm going to do all the necessary merges. DGG ( talk ) 01:58, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

On a completely unrelated note: since getting the bit I've been working hard on my content creation,improving on what was noted as a weaknesses at RfA. I've 20+ new articles, which is more than the last 6 years combined. 1950s' American automobile culture is my latest and best so far. Of course I had a tremendous amount of help, but thought you might like to know I've not forgotten why we are here. I expect to aim for GA and FA with this article in time, my first for both. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 02:09, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Academic institutes and departments

Not sure if I should post this here or on my talk page (so I added it to both) - Thank you for the offer to help. I compiled the information from several sources which are listed in the references, I think the main info came from here: The faculty profile: http://www.design.upenn.edu/people/malkawi_ali-m The board profile: http://www.gord.qa/index.php?page=board-of-directors I added quotes over sections that would have been exact copy/paste – such as the mission/goals statements/descriptions, etc. (such as www.design.upenn.edu/facilities/resources-school).

Both the center and QSAS articles had previously been published (not by me) and on Wikipedia for a few years before I created the Ali Malkawi article. I updated the other pages with current information such as links to articles that were current since there were postings about lack of sources/link rot (since I found them while I was creating the Malkawi page). Would I be able to add additional links to sources for any of these articles in the future? I would like to understand how to post in a way that does not create a conflict/appears promotional.

Regarding the center page, it had been up for a while, published by another user. The merge had been discussed on the talk page. I think it should have its own page. From what I understand, it functions as a separate entity – with different goals, objectives, mission, members, projects, offices, events, than the school of architecture. I did find a lot of independent sources listed under “T.C. Chan Centre” that could be added. Just trying to understand why it would be difficult to defend--in the past I have read Wikipedia articles about other departments or centers within large universities that have their own pages. I think that this center has coverage and has work that is notable for Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is new to me—still learning. Thanks. Energy22 (talk) 15:01, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this is the place to ask, because busy people are more likely to see it on their own talk p.

The two questions are separate: should an article be deleted, and will an article be deleted. WP is not known for consistency, is erratic about following precedent, and will sometimes make exceptions to most rules if people really want to. I have to give you realistic and safe advice, based upon my experience about what will probably happen. (I have my own views, but though I can tell you what they are, I would be misleading you if i told you to rely on them. I do not get to make the decisions; no one person does.) So, on the basis of my experience here, I think that in practice almost all articles on research institutes or centers within a single department have been deleted or at best merged; they usually get kept when they are particularly notable free standing centers within a university. (Ones you may see around otherwise are sometimes there because there is some special justification, but sometimes because there was an erratic or biased conclusion to an argument, or even that they've escaped notice)

The technical guideline is WP:N, and more particularly WP:ORG; the key question according to the guidelines is usually whether there is substantial enough coverage and whether it is independent & not based on press releases. The decision for keeping or deleting is usually based primarily of the nature and quality of the sources, with only subsidiary consideration of the actual merits of the subject. (I think it should be the other way around, but I know I am in the minority--and if I am in a situation where I am the one to judge, I judge according to the general consensus.) Apart from the sources, there is a general tendency to not make articles for subordinate structures within a larger administrative unit: It took quite a while to establish that such entities as medical or law schools in a university should have separate articles; we have also been able to justify most well known separate journalism and architecture schools; we have not done nearly so well with most colleges of education or business. (This undoubtedly reflects the biases of the average editor here, but such is the state of things.)

I work a lot on these subjects,and I for years have tried to persuade the community to include as full a coverage of higher education as possible. I personally think it best to confine my efforts to the college level, and only the most famous departments, trying to be sure that at least these ones are covered. For research centers such as TCChan, I will support only the strongest. I consider this one borderline. There's no point arguing it here; when I bring it to AfD, and I will do so if I do not get agreement to merge it. The community will discuss it there, and some one else will decide what is the consensus. On the other hand, I think I will be able to say that the QSAS program is independently notable because of its wide adoption, & has good sources to show it.

To give you some idea of the arguments you will have to meet, for the center I will argue that almost all the coverage is internal to the university, or based on student papers, which cover all university events indiscriminately, or is based upon Press releases; and that the importance is based upon sponsoring one meeting of a symposium, publishing one journal, and having engaged in one important international project which should get its own article--and that everything else is local. I urge you to try to find enough good sources to meet these objections, and if you do, the article will be kept.

I should also have mentioned the page PennPraxis, added by a different editor a long time ago "the clinical arm of the School of Design" is in my opinion the least defensible of all: The descriptive half of it should go in the main article, but it is already mentioned there in one sentence, which is probably the appropriate length--its an integral part of the program. The casino material might go in the articles on SugarHouse Casino and Foxwoods Casino Philadelphia, if it is even significant there. Those who have written the current versions of the articles didn't seem to think so. This one I shall certainly redirect to the school unless you can find more material , preferably up to date material, The procedure if you disagree would be to revert my move, and then it can be discussed. DGG ( talk ) 20:37, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

2013

Coursera

Hi DGG--I hope this finds you well, with none of your toes frozen off. I was wondering if you could have a look at Coursera, just to go over it and see what minor or major improvements you could make or suggest. As the late Whitney Houston put it so succinctly in "How Will I Know", "I'm asking you cause you know about these things." Also--do you think this business model stands a chance? It seems so unlikely to me, yet everywhere I look I see stuff like this, even at my own school. Thanks in advance, Drmies (talk) 15:55, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd suggest converting the business model section into prose, & I'll look for additional references. As for success: the financial question is whether people will actually pay for this, but the examples of payTV etc show they will, if the quality is high enough. What costs most is the supplementation by group discussion & tutoring if they include that, and students will pay for that also, if they can thereby get credit at their college for less than the college would charge ordinarily, & if widely adopted, it is possible that this may be enough to pay for a free service as well. The educational question is whether this will degenerate into lecture-only, and thus dilute the quality of college instruction. But what is the actual quality of much conventional college instruction? DGG ( talk ) 20:03, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

List of big-firm partners at Tulane Law School

Looking at some page histories, I see that back in 2009 you spearheaded a discussion of whether the Tulane University Law School article should keep its long list of lawyers who were partners at Vault 100 law firms. You argued (correctly, in my opinion) that such a list was not the sort we maintain on Wikipedia. It looks like this discussion went from Talk:Tulane University Law School/Archives/2015#Partners at Vault's Top-100-Most-Prestigious Law Firms to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities/Archive 6#Notable alumni, where it appears to me the consensus was that the list was not appropriate: one editor strongly argued to keep the list but the others more or less all agreed with you. Nevertheless, it seems that since then, each time someone has tried to delete this section they have been reverted with an edit summary stating that consensus had agreed to keep the list.[42][43]. Was such a consensus actually established somewhere? Would such a list be allowed at another law school's article? Thanks very much for your input. (I'll watch for your answer here.) --Best regards, Arxiloxos (talk) 20:28, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I removed this obvious spam, though if it is restored I cannot take the actual admin action that may be thought necessary, because I both edited and commented; some other admin will have to do that. DGG ( talk ) 20:55, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree with the deletion, and I added a link to the old Wikiproject discussion for anyone who may be interested. Best, --Arxiloxos (talk) 21:49, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Medical College of Georgia Wikipedia page

Hello DGG!

Just saw you redirected the Medical College of Georgia page to the Georgia Regents University page, History section. I'd like to request that you undo this action, with the caveat that I know this can be confusing.

GRU used to be MCG - the Medical College of Georgia was a standalone university back in the day. However, the university grew to become Georgia Health Sciences University, and the Medical College of Georgia became ONE of the university's colleges.

On the Georgia Regents University web site (http://gru.edu/colleges/medicine/index.php), the Medical College of Georgia is listed as one of the nine colleges in the university. I believe the page you've redirected is the page for the college, so it's a sub-set page - not a historical university page.

I'd love to talk about it with you - please get in touch with me? Thank you!

Email: crule@gru.edu, or of course on my talk page, or here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GRUcrule (talk • contribs) 14:52, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

You are correct that it is customary from medical schools at a university to have a separate page; therefore, I intend to rewrite the page, and I think I said so on one of the talk pages, probably the one for the university as a whole . The reason I deleted the prior page is because it was almost entirely a copyvio from the university site;it had previously been deleted as a copyvio also, in several versions. I'll give a further explanation on your talk page tonight; there are acceptable ways to go forward, but also unacceptable ways. DGG ( talk ) 15:43, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good - I'm our Social Media Coordinator, but this is a recent position, so I haven't been involved in editing any Wikipedia pages prior to late January. I look forward to learning from your work. Thanks for the speedy reply! GRUcrule ( talk ) —Preceding undated comment added 16:24, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

WP:COIN#Fairleigh Dickinson University

Hi DGG, I thought you should be aware that Mfuzia responded to your block proposal a few days ago. Crcorrea hasn't responded, though he/she hasn't made an edit since February 19 so I wouldn't expect a response. --Nstrauss (talk) 18:18, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

thanks, I followed up,saying I do not plan to do anything unless there are further problems if there are, please let me know,for I do not havetime to recheck everything that I ideally would want to. DGG ( talk ) 01:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Merton Professor of English Language at the University of Oxford - notable?

Hi DGG! I wonder if you had time to offer some advice on an AFC submission. Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Suzanne Romaine seems light on significant coverage in secondary sources, and has been declined at AfC for a paragraph about the person's academic work not having inline citations. The creator of the submission has asked about this at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk#Review of Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Suzanne Romaine. The person seems perhaps to meet WP:PROF (criterion 5?) and seems to be an academic of some significance. What do you think? Arthur goes shopping (talk) 17:19, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

• Unquestionably notable. One of the provisions of WP:PROF is a named professorship at a major university. Nothing further has to be proven, and official sources do to prove it. DGG ( talk ) 23:01, 10 July 2013 (UTC) .

Sarah Franscesca Green (AfC academics)

Can I get a second opinion on something? I'm having a mild dispute on Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Sarah Franscesca Green, who I believe satisfies criteria 5 of WP:PROF by being a Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Helsinki and previously serving the same named appointment at the University of Manchester - both posts are verifiable by the respective entries on the universities' websites. Other AfC reviewers have declined the article and the creator is asking questions on the help desk. Can you clarify this person meets the notability criteria? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:43, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I accepted it. The publications plus the position make for notability, tho reviews of her books need to be added. I personally think all full professors at a major university meet WP:PROF. Opinion at AfD has not consistently supported me--some of the experienced eds. regularly discussing the topic do not think it necessarily sufficient except for the traditional UK style universities where there is one professor of something. I have almost always been able to show such people notable, except in fields against which there is a prejudice, such as education or other traditionally female-dominated fields. But it's likely enough to accept any AfC that's ok otherwise. (In addition, anyone who has published two books at good publishers which have received significant reviews meets WP:AUTHOR, which is actually an exceedingly loose criterion, tho in this case the book reviews need to be shown.

The request for secondary sources is unnecessary, when other criteria than the GNG is being used. The university site is a reliable source to prove the position; the books prove themselves--though I generally add the WorldCat reference for them & verify that they are actual books rather than just reports, and journal articles are proven by the journal references themselves.

I am systematically examining all the hundreds of declined AfCs for for academics to see which I can rescue, and this AfC was on my list. I could go much faster except that one of the things that always needs to be checked is copyvio from their university site. And, of course, I try to improve any accepted article to our customary format & referencing styles. It is unrealistic to expect new users to learn these perfectly before getting articles accepted. Nobody should be reviewing who does not know how to fix articles or at least know correctly & specifically what is actually needed and clearly explain it to the new editor in detail, rather than just use the temp[late.

AfC is notorious for people using their own private ideas of the WP standards, whether to decline or accept. Thousands of promotional or even copyvio AfCs have been accepted over the years, and we need to locate & get rid of those articles if they can't be quickly fixed. DGG ( talk ) 16:45, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, and for passing the article. My general understanding is that a named appointment means the academic world at large has decided your work is worthy of note and should be published to further the understanding of human knowledge - which, to me, is what "notability" is all about. The problem with professors is their work isn't typically distributed to the general public, so inherent notability acts as a "free pass" where we assume the sources must exist, but are non-trivial to access. Schools and villages are two other classes of article that regularly come under fire for "not enough sources", but can be passed via an alternative guideline. And, as I recently discussed as a meetup, the general opinion is that there are a large amount of people holding public office in African governments who would pass WP:POLITICIAN, but we don't have an article for them.

As you've no doubt seen, AfC has come under fire recently, partially for its technical design, but partly because there's generally insufficient good judgement in reviews. I think the "canned responses" you get in the helper script is one of the most damaging things, and most of my work at AfC is on the help desk, where writing a tailored response to the particular problem is required, and generally gets better results. I don't think enough people work with the article submitters - even if somebody submits a non-notable promotional piece, there's still the opportunity to teach them basic notability and verifiability policies, so if they go away understanding Wikipedia better, that's a plus point. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 08:25, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

(1) The key word there is "named" appointment. Some professorships are endowed or memorial appointments, normally pay somewhat to considerably more, and are considered great honors. The longer-established school have many of them, others a few. A named full professorship of this sort at a major university is recognized by everyone working on the subject as notable.

(2) You are absolutely right about a AfC. And I agree that the ideal solution for someone who writes an article that will never be acceptable is when they realize it , and withdraw the submission themselves.There's a message I use, modified as needed : " If you decide that the article cannot presently meet our standards, you can facilitate matters by placing at the top a line reading : {{db-author}}, and it will be quickly deleted.. When you have the necessary material, then try again. I do not want to discourage you, but to urge you to continue to contribute."

(3)general principles of notability later tonight. . DGG ( talk ) 16:35, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

FDU

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Fairleigh Dickinson University and PublicMind. Thank you. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:43, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

saw it there before I saw this. Article is deleted, & recommended an indef block. DGG ( talk ) 23:14, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll just note that your comment that you "will certainly send the contents to any uninvolved editor who wishes to use themas a start for a proper article" might be read by a tendentious editor as an invitation for meatpuppetry (of which there's already a history). Just beware. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:34, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the hint; I adjusted the wording. DGG ( talk ) 05:04, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Notability of Richard K. Lublin Teaching Award

I am on the verge of AFDing it. I actually thing this kind of stuff may be encyclopedic, but is there a policy that backs it up? If not, an AFD discussion could result in one... what do you think? (If you reply here please ping me somehow). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:50, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

There is an inactive guideline at WP:Notability (awards) relevant guideline, unless one wants to go by the GNG: besides the in-house publicity each year, which is not independent, there will be news references for when it was established, but they too will almost always be in the college papers, and therefore also not be independent. There is very rarely anything else substantial.

As for arguments used successfully at AfD, we have almost always considered that an award which itself confers notability to be appropriate for an article, just as we consider an articles on a named professorship usually appropriate because it confers notability. I do not consider most in-college awards relevant to establishing notability, and in fact I usually remove them from articles as mere puffery. There could perhaps be exceptions, for major in-house awards from the very most famous universities, and conceivably Duke is one of them. (My own view would be to doubt it unless there is clear evidence of some sort)

Another argument used for awards is whether the majority of the awardees are notable, independent of the award--as judged in the usual way, either by having WP articles or being unquestionably qualified for them. A few of articles on the individuals have WP links; others have external links which show clear qualification under WP:PROF, either at the time of the award or later. Spot-checking, about half of the total probably would not meet WP:PROF. DGG ( talk ) 19:51, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

So do you think we should AFD this article or leave it be? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:54, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Four profs

When you have time, could you give me an opinion on these four?

• Fred Botting
• Simon Morgan Wortham
• John Mullarkey
• Scott Wilson (Professor in Media and Cultural Studies)

They are all recent creations by a new user who has posted a number of articles about the London Graduate School, an "interdisciplinary research organisation in contemporary critical theory", part of Kingston University, and its staff. Two lecturers have been speedied A7. I have advised her to study WP:PROF before writing any more.

Even better, if you can give me advice on how to assess this kind of article, I might have less need to bother you in future... Regards, JohnCD (talk) 19:51, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

The easiest way to assess anyone in a humanities subject is to look for possible notability under WP:NAUTHOR, searching for the individual in WorldCat. In those fields where academic importance is built around book publication, this is usually a simpler criterion to evaluate than WP:PROF--in my personal opinion a little too inclusively in some cases. For example Bolting has published several books each held in hundreds of libraries; as there are therefore undoubtedly reviews, he is notable. The article is however written in ignorance of our standards, putting emphasis on listing the courses he is teaching. It needs to be rewritten. For the others, similarly, though the books are not quite as widely held. I will give some advice to the editor involved, and look at the deleted articles. I created a redirect from the correct name , London Graduate School, without the title, and I will also deal with the AfC.

Unless we ourselves write articles properly on notable authors and scholars, we leave an unfortunate opening for those likely to be affiliated with the institutions to do so improperly. DGG ( talk ) 01:33, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Inclusion philosophy

I'd like to follow up on your comment: You said:

I will generally restore all articles on full professors at major universities,

I have a list of 699 people. It may not be your area of interest, but it is to me. Every single person on the list has won a medal at an international basketball tournament. These aren't small affairs, it includes the Olympics and some other events, the most notable international events in the sport. My current task is to do a writeup on their participation at the event, and add it to their biography.

Less than half have biographies. It pains me every time I search for one and don't get a hit.

I think such a player is at least as notable as a full professor. I think almost every one of them (some rare exceptions) deserves an article. It wouldn't be hard to come up with a template that creates a bare biography, including Reliable Sources. I won't do this because I think it is a bad idea, but if I did generate, say 400 biographies, and someone deleted them because they weren't adequately referenced, would you restore them all and either fix them yourself, or expect someone else to do it?

I'm not arguing that a full professor at a major university shouldn't have an article. I am arguing that when someone creates what is barely more than a copy of their bio, and expects us to fix it for them, we shouldn't feel obligated to do so.

We are all volunteers. We all ought to have the right to decide what content work we want to do. I have roughly 400 bios I'd like to write sometime, and I don't intend to spend time on a full professor, no matter how worthy, if I'm not personally interested. I hope I am wrong, but I am getting the impression that you think the fact that an editor identified a likely notable subject, and did little else, that this act imposes an obligation on the community to create the article for them. Again, I hope I'm wrong, but I don't know how else to interpret your reaction. Please let me know why my interpretation is wrong.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:49, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

The basic facts of their career as derived from the biography is a good start for an article. I would much rather go systematically, and make the thousands of new articles needed but even if I did, it would still basically consist of the basic facts of their career, as derived from the official biographies, and the list or summary of the accomplishments for which they received recognition. This is enough for a valid stub. It provides the basic information, and then we can eventually go further. Most WP articles grow by starting with that sort of stub.

Most of what is submitted does not fit into a standard WP format; if it is essentially their bare CV, it needs rewriting into sentences, and the necessary material added; if it is from a PR office, it needs trimming and rewriting and adding the material PR people omit but which are the facts that show notability; if it is from a naïve student, it needs rewriting and expansion. It could be argued that I am wrong in my strategy--that I would accomplish more by letting these go, and working from the most notable in the various specialties. If someone wants to do that, I would strongly encourage them to do it. But I do consider that when someone identifies a notable subject and writes an article sketch, we have collectively the obligation to make articles out of them. We are here to make an encyclopedia, and it is due to our lack of people in most subject fields, that we have not made the articles already before they are asked for. And it is more specifically our failure to adequate guide the people who submit inadequate articles that they languish in AfC. Nobody need do this individually, but we should do it collectively. When I screen G13s, I postpone the deletion of anything in any such that I think might make an article that passes AfD . I was unable to get consensus that everyone should do this, as most were too intimidated by the number of articles without considering the effects of collective work.

Nobody needs to do it for everything--nobody could do that competently. I am perfectly willing to take on the burden of completing as many as I possibly can. I can do this the more easily if I can screen them as popups before they get deleted.. If they have been deleted first, I need to take the steps necessary to view each one, before I can select the few worth working on--as I work on about 2 out of 50, it take twenty times longer.

I do not ask that you do this rewriting, since indeed everyone can select what they want to work on--I do hope that you not hinder my ability to do myself the ones I want to work on. It's a request; you're not required to by any guideline. (It's not just academics, by the way--I also rescue people who on the face of it who meet the basic criteria for politicians and writers.)

At present, I have a list of about 300 identified afc drafts to rescue, and I will rescue them over the next year or two even if they get deleted first. But I have caught only about 1/3 of the ones that I should do, and I want to catch the others. I know I will never catch many of them, because there is no practical way to quickly view all deletions. To the extent identifying them is uncomplicated, I can do more rewriting. I have already rescued about 100 articles from AfC that I think adequate, and removed deletion tags or not deleted an equal number that need further work. And for about 50 that I checked, I identify mainspace articles that were written or moved after the draft had been rejected that should not be in mainspace, and I try to get them deleted. Careful checking works both ways. Anyone who wants, can see what I delete and do not delete from my log and contributions. Probably most people trying to do something this with almost no assistance would have given up long ago, but i know how much positive work can be accomplished if even a single person steadily works at it. DGG ( talk ) 19:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Library holdings

Hello DGG! Thank you for your note at my talk page, I appreciate the feedback. I will look at those articles you listed this weekend and do some cleanup on them. I'll also try to be more mindful of promotionalism in the future. I'm curious about your technique of judging notability by library holdings, as in the Jedediah Bila AfD - it seems useful especially for pre-internet authors. Do you use Worldcat to find that information? How many libraries do you think are necessary for notability? --Cerebellum (talk) 01:51, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I use WorldCat most of the time. But WorldCat requires interpretation for 5 factors: First, it covers mainly US and Canadian libraries, with a lesser coverage for the UK and Australia and New Zealand, a very scanty coverage of Western Europe, and little else, so it requires careful interpretation when used elsewhere. Second, it covers almost entirely English language books, for in the US only the largest academic libraries buy anything else. Third, it covers current holdings, so what libraries had 50 years ago is not represented, so for older books of shorter spans of interest such as popular fiction it requires correction also. Fourth, how many titles count for a book to be likely notable depends on the type of book-- mainstream novels and important nonfiction are much more represented than esoteric subjects. I go by the experience of having looked for many books of all sorts, and one can do the equivalent by comparison with books known to be notable. (I have sometimes used comparisons to say that a work is or is not a major work in a field) As a fifth factor: editions must be combined to get a true picture, and the way libraries report holdings this is not always easy. As a result I usually report holdings as approximate figures. For major current works in popular interest academic subjects like economics, a notable book would have at least several hundred. For experimental fiction that fits no standard genre, only a few dozen libraries might buy it, but it can be just as important. For fan-oriented books on games, libraries usually buy very little, because they get outdated very quickly. For some of the kinkier sexual topics, libraries don't buy at all. A scattering of small libraries often indicates author gift copies.

The official WP standard is book reviews. But library holding correlate nicely with book reviews, because libraries buy largely on the basis of such reviews, especially for public libraries.

Outside the US, holdings can be gotten from the catalogs listed at WP:Booksources But none have nearly the depth of coverage in their own countries that WorldCat does in the US. -- but there is the very powerful consolidated search facility of Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog at [44]. DGG ( talk ) 03:41, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Ruth Morris Bakwin

I am minded to accept this, which I have just restored on request after a G13 deletion. What do you think? JohnCD (talk) 10:18, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

borderline. I find it difficult to evaluate first [ ] in [ x ]; it means something if x is a nation, perhaps a state, but its more open to question if it is at a specific school, even a very important one. I'll add the book holdings, which are substantial. but it is difficult to evaluate joint authorship. The directory includes 3000 entries in 1500 pp., Based on the finding aid to the papers, which is the most reliable factual source, I'm not sure she was Professor--Professor is often applied rather loosely to physicians & it's not in the finding aid. . The award is not the one from Hobart Smith College, at least its not on the award web p; a/c the finding aid it is an inhouse NYU award. If the criterion is whether she'd pass AfD , it's uncertain but I'd be willing to give it a chance. DGG ( talk ) 11:13, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I have accepted it, we'll see how it goes. She and her husband have some quite highly cited papers. JohnCD (talk) 11:41, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Stephen Zaccaro

So, in your opinion, every article suppose to be something like this: Stephen Zaccaro? Like, I still keep the h-index and Google Scholar reference because I don't want anyone denying their notability, just because I find them heck knows where. The reason why I did this is because user Kudpung have removed my auto-reviewing privilege after he stumbled on some non notable people in some of my articles, one of which lacked sources. So in order not to step on the rake again I decided to use Google Scholar as a prime reference. If its not O.K. to do it, what is? Like, For example, I can't find any info on Israel Cidon, just because of his name. You see, Google throws me either articles related to his papers or to Israel the country. I would more then happy to make a good article, but I will need help with some of them because of my fear writing about something that is not notable. For another example you can see this guy: Hans Westerhoff, which I tried to improve, but kept Google Scholar just in case. You see, if I wont add it, someone might delete the article as a list of publications isn't enough.--Mishae (talk) 01:45, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

WP is intended to be an encyclopedia to give people information when they want it, and when they want to find out about the career and accomplishments of a person, they normally want more than just the minimum bare numbers. This is true in any subject: people want more than just the statistics, In some cases we can do not better, but where we can do better, it is normally not thought good practice to do just the minimum, and several people have been told they could not autoconfirm their own articles because of this--and I think in one or two cases, even required to use AfC. I and others have tried very hard to prevent the actual rejection of such articles, and we have usually succeeded, But it shouldn't be necessary to make the argument, because everyone should share the burden of producing at least moderately substantive articles.

Normally for an academic there are at least two two sources of information: the individual's own offical CV, and the record of their publications and citations. Sometimes there will just be the publication record, but this can at least be shown fully. If there are books, they can be listed and some idea of their importance given from library holdings and the reputation of the publisher and sometimes the citations and reviews. If there are only articles, then besides giving the number and the total citation count, we can indicate what they are about, and give not just the h value but the much more informative information about what the most important publications are and what their citations are and where they were published. Normally we do not do a full analysis of every publication that way--such would be for a more specialized encyclopedia. But we should be able to at least give the highlights.

for anyone I think clearly notable in a field I understand, I will try to fill in details, but there is too much work to do it myself--too much for me to do even 1% of what is needed. I agree with you however that if in a particular case you cannot, you should at least give what you do give--if nothing else, the citation record indicates to me what is worth working on further. I'm not at all saying you shouldn't give the GS counts, but to urge you to keep trying for better. DGG ( talk ) 05:12, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

So, this is the best I could have done with those guys: Israel Cidon, Hans Westerhoff, Idit Keidar, Zoi Lygerou, Hui-Hai Liu. There are many people with similar (if not identical) Chinese names and last names, I will appreciate any help.--Mishae (talk) 15:57, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I rewrote the article on Lui, using only the sources listed in Google. It could be expanded further, by describing the work published in his major papers -- some articles do that; I normally leave it to others, I do not think there is evidence he was born in the US, since his first two degrees are from China. tho it may be in some of the chinese pages listed in Google. Perhaps you can do the others similarly. BTW, on what basis are you selecting these individuals to write about? Just curious. DGG ( talk ) 04:21, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Simple, believing in future GA and FA articles (let alone DYK) and just because they are notable and not listed in Wikipedia (some only present in one language sections, others no where to be found). Plus, I just wanted to do something other then plants, and because of my autism I move every project up couple of steps at a time! :) I do require some copyediting unfortunately. :(--Mishae (talk) 04:28, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

If you go a step at a time, just remember to add that {{underconstruction}} tag at the top--it's near the end of the list on Twinkle, (and if they are in another languages WP, please be sure to add the link.)I'm still a little curious how you pick these particular ones--where do you find them? I ask because figuring out what articles are needed here is a difficult art & I'm tying to compare how different people do it. I can't keep up with all your articles, but I know where to find them if I do have the time to add to them, even if they have mistakenly gotten deleted. DGG ( talk ) 05:27, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Simple, I type in the last name of any person in Google Scholar search engine (the top ones are almost always top ranked). Plus, its just my luck and magic I guess. :) I usually write a full stub at least, with journals and other notability requirements. But sometimes I go 2 or 3 steps at a time by writing a Start or a C class article (I have numerous of such on plants). The only problem, the bigger the article, the more chances I end up with copyedit issues, since I afraid of any copyvios on my part. If you have Skype, by any chance, I can send you my articles that way, so that you can check some of them at least. By the way, you mentioned that you might help me with the deleted articles? Can you help me here?--Mishae (talk) 15:10, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

A professor bio AFC that I accepted

Hi DGG, does this AfC acceptance seem OK to you? The submission had previously been rejected four times, but the individual seems to me to meet items 3 and 5 of WP:ACADEMIC. I thought I would check with you because I am still a little uncertain about these criteria. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 10:14, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Unquestionably notable for exactly the reasons you specify, & an adequate article. Many of these professor bios were wrongly declined in the past on various irrelevant grounds; They need reliable sources to show the career and the publication, not third party sources. They do not need inline refs unless there is something controversial. The notability criteria at WP:PROF are explicitly an alternative to GNG, and if they are met, GNG need not be met also, tho it often is. Even good editors who don;t regularly work with these articles often use the wrong standard. You are right not to be impressed by what people said before: your own judgment was better. DGG ( talk ) 10:27, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

OK, I am confused

In the AFD for Michael Scanlan, it appears you are saying that in an article about a professor there is no need for independent reliable sources that provide significant coverage. When I read WP:PROF, I keep seeing it specifying coverage in reliable sources.

In the "This page in a nutshell:" box it says: "Subjects of biographical articles on Wikipedia are required to be notable; that is significant, interesting, or unusual enough to be worthy of notice, as evidenced by being the subject of significant coverage in independent reliable secondary sources." and "This notability guideline specifies criteria for judging the notability of an academic through reliable sources for the impact of their work."

In the "Criteria" section it says: "Academics/professors meeting any one of the following conditions, as substantiated through reliable sources, are notable."

In the "General notes" section it says: "It is possible for an academic to be notable according to this standard, and yet not be an appropriate topic for coverage in Wikipedia because of a lack of reliable, independent sources on the subject."

Am I misreading what you are saying or am I missing the point of WP:Prof? GB fan 12:06, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Reliable sources are needed. Independent reliable sources are not. The official posted CV of an academic is a reliable source for the facts of their career .We always require verifiability. For the GNG, but not WP:PROF, we require more than that the facts of the bio be verified; we require the sources to be of a particular nature to prove there is sufficient public attention. The relationship between specific notability guidelines and the GNG varies, but for WP:PROF it is specifically stated as an alternative, not a supplemental requirement. DGG ( talk ) 18:46, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Please help with the page for Martha Nell Smith

Martha erred by editing her own page but many of us around the globe are distressed by recent editors/administrators blocking access to her page and disallowing us to add sources. The best edit is this:

Martha Nell Smith is Professor of English and Founding Director of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland, College Park, most well known as one of the foremost Emily Dickinson scholars of our time. In 2012 she made headlines bringing the second photograph of Emily Dickinson to light..

But subsequent editors have deleted all references and disallowed any edits. Help, I know you care about female academics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.27.225.219 (talk) 16:06, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I comented. DGG ( talk ) 00:52, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Three other editors added substantial, thoughtful, and verifiable edits today and were shut down utterly; all that work is lost. Can you please weigh in again? How are Emily DIckinson and literary experts supposed to improve anything when editors who know nothing keep erasing? 69.80.107.88 (talk) 16:11, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

2014

Notability of awards

I'm sure you probably know a lot more about the notability of awards than I do, so I wonder if you'd mind taking a look at this article and this article. I originally PRODed them but they were dePRODed by the creator without really addressing the issues. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:30, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

A usual criterion is whether the people have articles--they don't seem to , but in some fields, that can be our error.-- especially if the prize is being awarded for work before about 2000. An award that is regarded as conferring notability is obviously worth a WP article, but some others may be also. (And yes it does tend to be circular)

There is no question that the major awards of the IEEE are notable ; they also have awards for education and for service--at present we would probably not consider any of them notable. Awards for best paper of the year are a borderline category, awards for best paper in a particular journal in a particular year even more borderline--tho there are some fields where one particular journal is the only really impt. one. These awards are from a IEEE special interest group, the Technical Committee on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TCPAMI), It is possible that its major awards might be notable also. From the description of the awards at their web site the Mark Everingham Prize might be, but the standards are very vague & only 1 has yet been awarded. For the Helmholz, I'm not sure--it's specifically intended to recognize old contributions, and I haven;t seen that particular niche before. But there is no way I personally can really tell--this needs an expert in the subject field, which is computer vision. For the technical requirements of GNG, it would need a check to the extent they are considered notable by independent references. Since the IEEE is by far the most impt society in its field in the world, looking for non-IEEE RSs is possibly irrelevant; it might be enough to look at those outside the CV group, but very possibly everyone impt in the subject is part of that group. It makes sense to judge who among minor players is impt by what major players say about them--judging the major ones by what the minors think seems a little odd to me. Since this Technical Committee is clearly intent on entering everything they do at WP in a coordinated fashion, it will need discussion. In general for a topic like this, I think it is better to go straight to AfD. Given their apparent determination, certainly so. I am curious what the experts will say on these two--& possibly on their other awards also. DGG ( talk ) 23:14, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

and see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PAMI Young Researcher Award DGG ( talk ) 00:42, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that detailed explanation. I have sent each article to AfD. I have suggested in each case that merging with the parent article might be a solution, but without the lists of recipients of course. You may wish to comment there. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:28, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

The New School for Public Engagement

Good afternoon,

Thank you for your review of my article The New School for Public Engagement. However, I do have a suggestion concerning its rejection.

A couple years ago The New School changed the name of their Milano division from Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy to Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy. Wikipedia had simply updated the title of the article and updated the content. Since The New School for Public Engagement is an update to the now late The New School for General Studies can we just change the article title and update the content similar to Milano? Keeping in mind that The New School for Public Engagement is the division that includes Milano, yet Milano has its own Wiki article. Please advise. Mickeyallen (talk) 17:47, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I think that makes sense--since the review, I have wondered if my decision was actually correct,considering the other New School pages. To avoid any confusion, I have moved the page myself, and you can update it with appropriate referenced material in the usual way. For convenience, what you had written on the AfC page is still in the history of Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/The New School for Public Engagement, right here But please be sure to indicate the exact relationships in the history section--and the moment, they are not entirely consistent. My appreciation to you for suggesting this solution. DGG ( talk ) 01:04, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Open University of Switzerland

Someone is asking me about Open University of Switzerland. It has only two primary sources. I have not looked for other sources but let's assume for the sake of conversation there are none, or very few. Might it be a candidate for AfD? According to WP:School, it must meet the general notability guideline. However, I have seen many secondary school articles with little or no secondary sources. I also brought a university to AfD once and was told that accredited colleges were notable regardless of sourcing. Yet I can't find any guideline that says that. What am I missing? Thanking you in advance for you help. -- — Keithbob • Talk • 04:20, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

There are two separate questions: notability of colleges, and what to do about this article.

Guidelines are codifications of what we do at WP. They can be established in two ways: by formal processes, or by practical consensus. Written guidelines have two limitations: they are very hard or impossible to change, and regardless of what is written, any guideline or even policy needs to be interpreted in actual cases. We decide case by case, and many is the written guideline and even policy that is in abeyance because we do not follow it. (Indeed even one of the core principles, WP:NPA, is not observed in any real sense, and we keep having difficulties about the true meaning of anybody can edit.)

If you prefer to see it in terms of the GNG, remember that WP:N is explicit that the GNG is the usual, but not the only, way of determining notability. And even WP:N itself, is a guideline, not policy. There is no policy for notability, beyond that implied by WP:NOT. (in particular, NOT INDISCRIMINATE). Schools are not unique here--we also accept any populated place that can be shown to have real existence. We also accept all people in certain categories, such as Olympic athletes and members of state legislatures. All we need for any of these is verification: WP:V is a true policy, in the sense that we do indeed always follow it & nobody has seriously suggested otherwise. It would be just as much so if it were not written down.

Put simply, we have never, in the last 6 years at least, deleted an article on a true degree granting university on the basis of lack of notability.

We have deleted institutes of higher education for other reasons. We certainly delete those that fail verification. We delete articles that are copyvio unless someone decides to stubbify them, & we delete pure advertising-- I have personally deleted at least a hundred college article. We usually delete ones that do not offer degrees. We are sometimes a little diffident about community colleges, and often merge them. Even for true colleges, if there is very little information beyond the name, we sometimes combine them into combination articles. And, while we do not absolutely insist on accreditation, we are rather skeptical about unaccredited institutions, and have deleted a few where we are not convinced of the true rather than the claimed status (this is especially true of traditional religious schools not organized in the EuroAmerican patten). There are also serious special problems about higher education institutions in some parts of Asia, where their true nature, & whether their certificates are essentially degrees, can be very hard to determine. And of course, in an era of online-only schools it can be very hard to determine what is meant by "real existence", an example of an excellent innovation giving excellent opportunities for innovative abuse.

There are true problems with this one: it is a relatively small private European business school, and the question can be raised upon whether it is merely a glorified trade school that pretends to issue degrees. It is nationally licensed, and tries to pass that off as accreditation. It is accepted by some trade bodies, and some decidedly non-official groups, and tries to call this true accreditation. Ref 7 does not say what the article claims it says. (it turns out to be "ranked among the best online universities in Switzerland"--I need to check where it gets its numbers from.) And even some of this quasi-accreditation is for the parent group, ABMS Education Group, not this particular university. The article lists a great number of fields in which it claims to offer even Ph.D degrees. And it advertises itself on its web site, tho not in the WP article, as "2 accredited degrees in 1 year: MBA and DPhil" In other words, I have some doubts myself about it. I have tried to write honest articles about such places before, and had considerable difficulties. My suggestion is not to delete the article, but to read the sources with a skeptical eye and use quotations for the claims. I'd love to find some truly reliable sources for all these schools that rely less upon what they say about themselves. DGG ( talk ) 05:40, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi DGG and thanks for the comprehensive response. I am well aware that GNG has "exceptions" like athletes, academics, some organizations (like those on major stock exchanges) as well as cities, towns etc. But sometimes there are written guidelines for those such as WP:Athlete or WP:Academic etc. Schools seem to be one of the informal consensus exceptions and I appreciate your detailing of it. Cheers! -- — Keithbob • Talk • 16:30, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Centre national de recherche en anthropologie sociale et culturelle

Hi DGG, I just encountered Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/National centre of research in social and cultural anthropology. This is apparently an Algerian governmental social sciences research organisation, which publishes a review journal and also publishes its works in various other journals. After the AfC submission was declined twice, the submitter sought help elsewhere and was told that basically the organisation is just not notable and they should give up. I'm wondering if this may be a misinterpretation. Do you have any thoughts? Thanks, Arthur goes shopping (talk) 12:20, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

There are no real rules for AfC, and everyone reviewing articles does as they please. (There are steps being taken that should remedy this somewhat, but they are not yet in effect.) Informally, the standard for acceptance is whether the article is likely to pass a community consensus at WP:AfD, which is the only actual mechanism for determining whether any article is accepted; the usual definition of "likely" is 50% -- AfD can be unpredictable and inconsistent in the way it interprets the guidelines and whether it makes exceptions, so even the most experienced people here cannot really predict in advance. (My personal estimate of the inaccuracy is that AfD has a 10-20% error rate in each direction; AfC I think wrong about 30% or the time, again in each direction, if one considers only the submissions that would pass WP:CSD--there is of course a substantial amount of unquestionable junk, just as in New Pages)

Therefore, the best course for an AfC whose acceptability is debated is to accept it and give it a chance. Anyone who disagrees can go to AfC. The operating principle of WP is that the community makes the decisions, and individuals make decisions only when they are confident they are acting for the community.

I have accepted the article. This is not a judgment that I necessarily think it notable--If it does go to AfD, let me know, and I'll consider what I what to say. Remember that inclusion in other WPs is a good but not conclusive criterion. It will be interesting to see if the article is challenged at the fr and de WPs. They are both normally stricter than we are, though they use somewhat different criteria, with less formal emphasis on details of sourcing. DGG ( talk ) 18:23, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Michael_L.J._Apuzzo#Michael_L.J._Apuzzo

If there is something that I can do to expedite this article to become published, please let me know. Many thanks for your time! By the way, JzG sent me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.151.120.4 (talk) 00:52, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I just gave you some detailed advice on your talk p., User talk:207.151.120.4. I would simply have fixed it myself, but I had difficulties rewriting some of the statements in the article, which were value judgements that would have had to be eliminated if they could not be sourced. DGG ( talk ) 06:01, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks for your quick response! I think it would be necessary to eliminate most of the uncited claims. I was not able to find references for those. If possible, please do what you can to get this thing up. Eliminate anything that cannot be published. Thanks again! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.151.120.4 (talk) 00:36, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

I have a list of 200 articles on faculty I need to work on. What is the rush--do you need the publicity? DGG ( talk ) 03:15, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Manuel Mora y Araujo

David, Thanks for your interest in this long-stay resident in AfC.

He's one of the leading political analysts of his country, writer of several books and often quoted in the Press in comment on political affairs.

I'm sure his notability would not be argued if based in the USA or Britain. See many of the entries in List_of_political_scientists. But if academic career and published work are not sufficient to establish notability, then the only Press mentions are quotes such as those you have taken out.

Such a figure will only appear in the Press for his quoted comments - not to report events of his life. This will change when (we hope not for a long time) his obituary is published.

Or what else can be done to get him in Wikipedia? (No personal interest here and no copy-and-paste - all my own work). Why did I pick this subject then? You'll see I have tackled a few Requested Articles from Spanish-speaking countries and this was one.--Noyster (talk) 12:35, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

The standard for transferring an AfC to WP is that it not be likely to be deleted at AfD. It is perfectly possible to put it in mainspace anyway, but there is no point in doing so if it is not going to stay there. There are two main things necessary: the most important is to demonstrate that his work is important by references made to it by others. The best way of doing that is to locate reviews of his books in periodicals, or substantial discussions of his work. This may not easily be possible from outside Argentina, and this sort of problem is the key reason we have difficulty with articles on people from outside the English-speaking world. (And you are correct that obits make article-writing easier.) The second is to rewrite the article in paragraphs, not bullet points,making sure you do not copy the exact wording of any of the biographical sketches. When you do this, you need to add the exact titles of his degrees and his positions-- use the Spanish titles, as the English translations may not be an exact equivalent. (In particular he is listed as being "rector" of his university in one of the Spanish sources, not Dean. . A rector can sometimes be head of a university, but I gather this is not the case, since that university is headed by a president. Separate the purely academic career from the business career at a consulting firm. I can adjust the details to our standard style for academics if you can get the information--let me know when ready. (There is also likely to be an objection that he has no article in the Spanish WP, not that their notability standards are necessarily the same as ours.) DGG ( talk ) 14:04, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Query on my updated submission

Hi DGG, thank you for your previous efforts and accepting my submission of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_W._Van_Arsdale. I have updated it through this morning when the latest newspaper article including Peter Van Arsdale's comments was published. I was wondering whether you could take a look at my entry and see if it complies with Wikipedia's standards. (I am working on the photo's copyright.) Since I added a lot of citations and references I would assume that the entry is no longer an "orphan". Thanks again for your work! Cees — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cmvbeek (talk • contribs) 19:16, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

One problem is there needs to be a section ==Biography== that gives his birthdate and birthplace if available, his education starting with high school (link the schools). This can include the first paragraph of the Career section. Another is that the Choice Reviews need to be links, and you should look for & add other reviews as footnotes (a librarian can help here). As for the awards: whom was the Stewart award from? HS alumni awards are not significant, and were the other two awards to him personally (it says through Rotary). Each of them needs a reference, Otherwise it's just style: 1. Don't use vague adjectives, e.g. "many cases" where the actual reference is to one case, 2. Don't use jargon, especially unnecessary jargon, e.g. "many countries", not "many countries worldwide" 3. If he co-led an expedition say who he co-led it with. DGG ( talk ) 18:53, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Need a second opinion about a rejected scientist

Hi David. Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/David L Peterson was rejected at AfC. I had a look at it and in my view, there is enough there to establish notability. Could you give me a second opinion when/if you have time? Here's the query from the draft's very discouraged creator. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 16:32, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Notability based on what? The subject seems to fail WP:ACADEMIC. I'm not sure that he gains notability because of being a member of IPCC, since it was the IPCC that received the Nobel Prize, not him specifically. (and it was the Peace Prize, which is becoming a dubious award) The IP is located in Seattle (where the university is) so I assume the author has a conflict-of-interest. I'm just not seeing enough. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:46, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

I was thinking more in terms of his citation index and library holdings (DGG's advice is invaluable on that) and the other awards he's received. It's probably is someone from Seattle who knows him or of him and thinks he should have an article. Articles about profs are often written by their students. That in itself, isn't a reason to reject the article. Voceditenore (talk) 17:51, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

articles about profs are most frequently written by university pr agents, who do not know or care what is necessary to demonstrate notability. They have also increasingly been known to hire commercial paid editors, who are sometimes more likely to know what we want.) Many are written by students, but they're usually a little different, use naïve language, lay emphasis on teaching skills, and are rather sloppy about grammar. The very worst are the ones they do themselves. And since he has a new book coming out, this might be a publisher's blurb. First step is to check for copyvio.

the book holdings are substantial, but not sensational; However, he has several papers with citation in the 300s., which is very high in any subject, and therefore I think he passes WP:PROF. But the article is inadequate. We need publication details on the books & if possible book reviews, and refs to 2 or 3 of the most cited articles with citation figures. We also need such basics as birthplace, and fuller education, including not just the phd , but undergraduate degree and postdocs. And there is puffery that needs removing.

Here's the real problem I could easily rewrite this in about 15 minutes. But shouldn't we ask the editor to do so, even tho dealing with them & instructing them might take longer? If the editor doesn't respond adequately , should we first of all have to keep track, and then do the rewriting, or let a notable person be omitted because of low quality writing? DGG ( talk ) 19:15, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree about the real problem. I have no answers to that either. Anyhow, I checked for copyvio. It's not copied from blurbs but reads and is structured somewhat like one. The 2014 book is already out (published by Springer). He's the co-editor and has written several chapters in it. I've left suggestions for the creator on how to improve the draft, based on yours plus some of mine. Let's see what happens. I rather sympathise with him as he seems to have based it on articles for other scientists in the area which are incredibly poorly referenced and have been around since 2007/2007, e.g. Thomas W. Swetnam. The one on Steve Running is somewhat better referenced and he holds a named chair but also rabbits on about "sharing" the IPCC Nobel Prize. I'm wondering what would have happened if that had been submitted through AfC today? Best, Voceditenore (talk) 08:48, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

National Endowment for the Arts grants and WP:PROF

How important is winning an National Endowment for the Arts grant for academic notability? Does it confer automatic notability, or is it just one factor, or does it not matter very much? Bearian (talk) 19:46, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

it is not by itself sufficient,but it helps--I think it would help more in the performing arts proper, than in an academic field. I'll look at the article. DGG ( talk ) 00:30, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Professor Michael Nimier

Dear DGG: When I found this page at first I assumed that this was a notable professor and started to look for sources. The first one I found was [THIS]. Does this make him more or less notable? —Anne Delong (talk) 03:17, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

More so, but it will be rather tricky to write a proper article. As you will see, I've started rewriting, but this is one of the situations where it will be necessary to verify the degrees claimed, as no trust may be placed in their web site. DGG ( talk ) 02:56, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Thomas Straub

Dear DGG: I came across this old Afc submission, but I'm not having any luck figuring out if he's notable. Want to try? —Anne Delong (talk) 19:33, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

nor am I sure. Some of the various Swiss business schools and their faculty are difficult to judge. I think this needs a more general discussion, and I am trying to decide whether to send to MfD, or accept and send to AfD. It will get more attention at AfD, but doing it that way is a rather unusual route. DGG ( talk ) 05:17, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Russell Targ & including individual papers

Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering about including an article subject's papers? I thought that we generally do not include a list of papers published except in the article body when a particular paper is specifically discussed as per coverage in a reliable independent source? There is also some discussion about COI issues on the talk page. Anyway, hopefully I won't drag you into any conflict or morass (what is the plural of morass?) but I saw it on my watch list and was wondering about the policy on published papers. You seemed a good person to ask. Thanks. Candleabracadabra (talk) 23:04, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

In dealing with an academic, we usually list all their books, and, if in a field where notability depends on published papers, (optionally) their most important papers. generally judging by citations. This is a special case, where it is necessary to show that he has credibility as a scientist, regardless of the quality of his work in parapsychology. I'd add citation data, and leave them in. I would especially leave in the papers relating to parapsychology that were published in mainstream journals. More important, we should be presenting his work, including what other people think of it, but not with a POV of trying to debunk it. I think the manner of inclusion of his views on Geller prejudicial. The opinions of others about Geller belongs in the article on Geller, not here. Please copy to the talk p. if you think it helpful DGG ( talk ) 23:29, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks. Leaving in "most important papers" certainly creates a large gray area. There was some discussion of citations on the talk page, so I will leave those already involved to resolve the issues. The citation numbers also seems a potential problem, because doesn't it depend a lot on how popular a particular subject is? I realize popularity is a measure of influence, but I'm not sure it's the only one? And it would vary on the subject field wouldn't it? For example the more esoteric or specialized a subject area the lower the citation numbers one would expect to find.

Anyway, I appreciate your insights and thank you for taking the time to share them with me. I'm going to think on it and stay out of that discussion.

As far as presenting a subject's work and including criticisms of it without trying to debunk a person's views and work seems to be a rocky road when it comes to "fringe" subjects on Wikipedia. I can see both sides of the argument. I think at the very least that subject's views should be explained straightforwardly from his or her perspecitve first. Often things are picked out (cherrypicked) to make them look silly or text is larded up with pejoratives to smear people with unpopular views. Anyway, more to think about. Thanks again. Candleabracadabra (talk) 23:40, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

An example of my last point would be the use of the term denialist and denialism. I think it's fine to note that someone is viewed as a denialist if it's well sourced. But just saying someone "is" a denialist seems clearly wrong and biased. It passes a judgment and presents a subject in a way that's clearly non-neutral. Someone who believes in God may well think that atheists are denialist. I understand the word has a particular meaning and application, but my point is that just because someone has an unpopular view does not mean they are in denial. They may just believe in the minority view and evidence supporting it. Certainly there are semantic games used to win arguments. I don't think we should be a party to them although we can certainly present them. Was Galileo a denialist for being convinced that the sun was the center of the ppsolar system]]? His views were not popular at the time. Or at least that's the legend. I know there were others before him.. Anyway, have a nice eve. Candleabracadabra (talk) 23:50, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this can be a narrow line to walk. Personally, I agree with what you say: I prefer to avoid characterizing people in single terms if the meaning or implication is negative. I think it's fairer just to state the facts of what they write or say, and leave it at that. There are usually nuances and qualifications involved. If the the term is widely used, the fairest thing is to use a quotation, and make clear the qualifications & bias of the person being quoted I would like to say, only quote from a neutral source, but for some topics there is no neutral source. DGG ( talk ) 03:26, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Baruch College

Hi there. I noticed this on the talk page of the Baruch College article and thought I'd contact you. I made an edit to that article today, and while doing that I noticed the alumni and faculty list seems to again be peppered with non-notables. Deleting names from lists is always tricky, and I'm not big of the "no article = delete" method, because the rules for embedded lists permit important individuals without articles to be listed (with a source). However, I'd be comfortable deleting the faculty who seem to have been randomly added. Thanks for you input! Magnolia677 (talk) 12:56, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

As distinguished alumni lists go, this is not particularly bad. The criterion is having an article or being obviously qualified for one. Of the non-faculty people without articles, I see only only one that is borderline: Ellsworth, because ambassadors to small countries have not always been held notable, You removed Tendler, who is CEO of a major company, so I'm going to restore him as almost certainly notable on that basis. As for the faculty without articles: CUNY distinguished professors meet WP:PROF, and the others if full professors very probably do also---Baruch is not quite at the standard of a major research university, but it comes close in many subjects..; in particular Korenman would have been certainly notable had he been on the CEA, but has an extraordinarily high citation record and will meet WP:PROF. Additionally, regardless of WP:PROF, the editor in chief of a major newspaper is almost certainly notable , CEOs of major companies are notable. That leaves as dubious: Aronson, not on the current faculty, 1 medium-successful book; ; Gold, who is faculty, but not full time, and whose companies are mot particularly major; Myers, who is also not full time and I am not sure ever held the rank of professor & Executive Director of a society ≠ President; Lazaro, who needs further checking as a special case; I will remove the 4--anyone who disagrees, can try to write an article.

Of the ones who do have articles, some may need checking: Spielvogel's article shows obvious COI; Two might seem at first glance dubious but possibly are OK: Michael J Freeman (who appears twice, & once is enough) is apparently notable on other grounds; Connor's notability is not in my subject DGG ( talk ) 21:12, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Links to archives

Hallo David, the editor with the poorly-chosen username KCL Archives (talk · contribs) added a lot of links to collections of the papers of subjects of articles - the first example I found on my watchlist was Bowlby. Dormskirk (talk · contribs) has reverted all of these, with edit summaries "Please do not add links to your own organization (see WP:ELNO)" and "‎ (per WP:LINKSPAM)".

Two complications:

• after the poor choice of username was pointed out, it looks as if the same editor has been editing as IP 137.73.18.77 (talk · contribs)
• and their boiler-plate text for additions says "The paper of ..." rather than "The papers of ...", even in a case where it's 158 boxes of papers (example.

My reading of WP:CURATOR and Wikipedia:Advice_for_the_cultural_sector is that archivists etc are positively encouraged to improve the encyclopedia by providing External Links to their resources where "the link gives readers critical information uniquely relevant to the topic": a major repository of a subject's papers seems to me to fit this description.

What do you think? PamD 23:23, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

The usual practice is that we permit and encourage this if the collection is the main collection of papers about the subject, but not if it is only incidental holdings. This means each instance needs to be evaluated separately,and it also means that boilerplate additions are not generally a good idea. I would recommend that new editors doing this make the suggestion on the talk pages of the articles, but I think editors who have done enough work here to be trustworthy could do it directly, and that would include official Wikipedians in Residence.

They should go in the EL section only if there is a full online summary or at least description to link to--otherwise the better practice is to add them to a separate section, such as Archival sources. It does help our readers to know where the principal archival records are. If used to document a specific point--and the published summary is sufficiently full to actually document it--they could go as references. Pam, can you check them or do you want some help? I'm a little busy, as the G13 notices will indicate.

Incidentally, it seems almost impossible to explain to people why our username policy prohibits corporate names, and I have come to think we would do much better to accept the French and German WP policies of permitting them, after due authorization thru OTRS. For now, I'd advise the ip to consider something like "John at KCL archives" , which we consider acceptable. DGG ( talk ) 00:48, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Wise words, all to be agreed with, and I have myself occasionally added links to interesting archives. In this case, where dozens of similar links to the one archive were added in a short time, it is hard to imagine that each one was given the careful consideration required. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:26, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

yes indeed. But sometimes it happens that they were done justifiably, since the new editor does not realise that doing so is extremely imprudent. Still, we need to check each of them, because it is still possible they might all be relevant. . DGG ( talk ) 08:49, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

A justification for making an honest mistake, I see. But despite that, I think the observations we have made are correct. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:26, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

The links are to specific collections of papers within the archive, not just a general link to the archive. But they are badly formulated - typo of "paper" for "papers", and no link to the collection itself at Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives. I would like to offer the enthusiastic editor (most recently editing as 137.73.18.77 (talk · contribs)) some advice so that they can enhance the encyclopedia by adding appropriate links. One I've looked at was 158 boxes, but another couple seem to be only a couple of documents, so not all the links seem worthwhile.

Is there advice anywhere general on linking to archives like this? If not, could I ask which would seem to be better, taking John Winthrop Hackett as an example:

(a) The text sentence "Hackett's papers are in the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King's College, London." (with a ref to the description at http://www.kingscollections.org/catalogues/lhcma/collection/h/ha05-001) (a1) in the "Legacy" section, or (a2) in a new "Archival sources" section

or

(b) "Hackett's papers in the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King's College, London." as a bullet point (b1) in new section "Archival sources", or (b2) in "External links"? PamD 13:49, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Michael Hanna & over-deleting academics

The problem as I saw it is that the article was essentially a prosified version of a résumé, which as written (a) didn't even make any substantive claim that its subject actually passes any of our notability rules (which as you know require more than mere confirmation of existence), (b) was completely unreferenced, and (c) to all appearances the article subject created it himself, and then detagged it himself when another editor quite correctly tagged it for {{autobiography}} and {{notability}}. I'd be happy to sandbox it if someone can demonstrate that viable references actually exist with which it can actually be turned into a real encyclopedia article instead of a misplaced LinkedIn profile, but actually salvaging it as a keepable article is going to require a lot more than merely toning down one or two slightly promotional sentences. Bearcat (talk) 13:23, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Bearcat, any of these are reasons for deletion; none of them are reasons for speedy--please undelete. Speedy does not require proof or likelihood of notability, just indication of some significance, and head of UCL's neurology unit is an indication of importance. Unsourced has been specifically stated many times as an insufficient reason for speedy deletion; Autobiography similarly is not reason for speedy. Being based on a linkedin profile is not reason for speedy . Unsatisfactory does not equal speedy, only unsatisfactory because of the reasons at WP:CSD. If you want to use afd after I've cleaned it, use afd. DGG ( talk ) 22:25, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

As written, the article entirely correctly qualified for speedy under both G11 (unambiguous advertising or promotion) and A7 (article which did not make a substantive claim of notability), and I am not changing my mind on either of those points. You're correct that COI/AUTOBIO are not in and of themselves reasons for deletion in isolation, but those aren't the reasons I pulled the trigger — I did so because the article's basic writing tone was not encyclopedic in the first place, and because the article lacked even the slightest hint of sourcing to support even the slightest hint of a notability claim that actually passed one of our basic inclusion rules. And if the COI/AUTOBIO problems are true of an article which also meets one or more of the criteria that are reasons for speedy deletion, then they do constitute extra confirmation that the intent of the article was fundamentally advertorial rather than encyclopedic. They're not the reasons for deletion, but they do constitute corollary evidence in favour of the criteria that were the actual and stated reasons for deletion. As I said, I'm perfectly willing to sandbox it, but I am not willing to simply restore it to articlespace wholesale in its current state. Bearcat (talk) 22:47, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Bearcat, This is the first time in 7 yrs I've asked a fellow admit to revert a speedy, and been refused, tho certainly some have restored, and then gone to AfD for a community opinion. (I do want to make clear that I am not arguing it's a viable article at present, but just that it isn't a speedy.) I'm so surprised that I've looked further, and it seems that you have been frequently going by your own interpretation of "corollary evidence" instead of the actually deletion policy. Before I decide how to follow this up, I want to give you a chance to look at the other examples on your talk page. DGG ( talk ) 04:48, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Firstly, I did restore the article to draft space so that it can be worked on, so I'd thank you to avoid the assertion that I've refused to cooperate. But the article, as written, is a prosified version of a résumé which would require a fundamental rewrite to become properly encyclopedic in nature.

And I'm completely comfortable that nearly all of the deletions you singled out on my talk page were completely consistent with CSD as written. Asserting a topic's existence is not the same thing as asserting its significance — if it were, nothing would ever qualify for A7 at all — and all of the articles in question asserted existence but failed to assert significance, and/or were promotional in nature.

For starters, Cousin Matty did not assert (or source) its subject to be a "significant performer", but rather simply asserted his existence as a radio host on a single local radio station and then immediately devolved into a morass of unverifiable POV descriptions of his program ("fun", "energetic", "zany", etc.) which did constitute "advertising/promotion" — and nothing in the article actually constituted any substantive assertion of significance at all.

Similarly, I'm struggling with your certainty that Dollar Business is published by a "major" publisher — the company didn't have a Wikipedia article by which I could verify how "major" or "minor" it was, so I searched on Google and learned that the company was founded only one year ago and The Dollar Business is its only holding in any form of media. That doesn't make it a "major" publisher, but a small startup — which left me with only "this magazine exists" as a notability claim. And Uniiverse, too, completely failed to make any substantive assertion of significance — it documented the company's existence, certainly, but nothing in it rose to the level of asserting significance at all.

Like Hanna, Chattarji was a prosified version of a résumé, not an encyclopedic article about him; Stritesky was a literal résumé; and Carvalho was barely more than a résumé section — and the posting of résumés does fall under advertising/promotion. I most likely would have let all of them go if they'd been formatted differently than they were, but all of them had clearly promotional objectives that fully met the standard of requiring a fundamental complete-from-the-ground-up rewrite to become even remotely appropriate for inclusion in an encyclopedia.

I will grant that I deleted the school under the wrong criterion — I apologize for overlooking the fact that A7 excludes schools, but in reality it was actually still speediable: because it failed to make any mention whatsoever of where the school is located or what school board runs it, and absolutely nothing at all linked to the title, I had absolutely no way to identify where it could be redirected to. And for all of those reasons, it still qualified for speedy under A1 (insufficient context to identify the subject). If you feel strongly enough about it, I'd happily restore it just to redelete it A1 instead of A7, but it was fully speediable as written.

I mean, you're certainly free to disagree with me about whether something should be speediable or not — we're not all going to agree about anything on here, I know that. But the fact that you have a different opinion doesn't inherently mean that my reading was objectively wrong — I still don't see how any of the articles you singled out made substantive enough assertions of significance, as opposed to mere existence, to have made them nonspeediable. Bearcat (talk) 23:30, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

{U|Bearcat}}, I appreciate the detailed answer; please have the patience to read my reply--this is a disagreement, not a quarrel. I want to wait until tomorrow to look at them all again before re-examining details, and perhaps you are right that there is no point in analyzing them further between us. I am personally not concerned in the least about any of the articles, actually--they are just examples. .I was initially mainly concerned that you seem to be using a different standard that I think is outside the range that admins use here, but of course there is a straightforward way of settling this, which is DelRev. To some extent, each of us obviously using a somewhat different standard--despite attempts at precision, the CSD standards have a considerable element of judgment, and in any case I doubt any of us has a less than 5% error rate.

I have become somewhat more concerned that you do not take the customary measure that decrease the effective error rate: not to delete single-handed except on vandalism and the like (and for some technical deletions); assuming the nominator, not being an admin, has a 10% error rate, it decreases the errors to 0.5%, and I think it's futile for any WP process to aim at better.

I have become much more concerned now that I have realized you do not inform contributors before or even after. (again, this doesn't apply to vandals necessarily, or people making bad jokes, but I think it does have to apply to everyone else) Maintaining good relations and encouraging even initially unsatisfactory new contributors is the single most critical factor under our control to preserve WP. Very few people whose article is rejected ever tries here again (except of course the determined trouble-makers)--few even complain about the rejection, which at least gives us a second chance, they just go away , but most of them could be kept if we dealt with them better--and the first step in dealing with them better is to talk to them. What would anyone think of a person or organization that throws away your applications or submissions without even acknowledging or telling you?

Way back, my motive in becoming an admin was to deal with incorrect deletions, and I said so at the time. I've mostly been doing deletions myself unfortunately, DGG

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Stephen M. Sheppard and revising faculty academic bios

One more distinguished professor for you, DGG. I added a Google Scholar Report, which is rather low. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:16, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Basic cleanup steps for professors (and much of it applies to all bios):

1. Remove all "Professor", "Prof.", "Doctor" and "Dr.", Ph.D, or M.D except in the lede sentence or as actual titles of positions or degrees. For every use of first name alone, substitute the last name. For every use of full first and last name, substitute the last name, except in the lede sentence or if needed to avoid confusion.
2. Then, for every use of the name more than once a paragraph at the most, substitute "he" "she" or the equivalent.
3. remove all adjectives of praise: famous, renowned, prestigious, world-wide, transformative, seminal, ground-breaking, etc. referring to either people or institutions or discoveries; even "well-known". In all of these, nothing needs to be substituted.
4. Consider replacing "expert" with "specialist". Replace "across" with "in" or, if documented, "throughhout" Remove all similar jargon. "
5. "best-selling" etc. needs to be justified by specificity and a third party quotation. Just remove all these throughout the entire article, or add a {{Fact}} "First" similarly needs a third party source.
6. Move the most important factor of notability to the very first phrase of the first sentence where nobody can miss it: not "A.B., an expert in something, who has taught at Wherever for 23 years, is the Distinguished Professor of" , to "X, the Distinguished Professor of ... at Wherever, is a specialist in something....
7. Remove complicated sentences of birth place and date to the section of biography. The lede sentence should just have the dates, eg: "(born 1945)"
8. If they have written books and work in the humanities or history or Law, or any field where books are the main factor of notability, remove journal article section entirely. If there's a section on conferences, etc., remove it in all cases.
9. The list of degrees received and dates is critical information. It goes in a section labeled ==Biography==, right after the lede paragraph. If you find it at the end, the article was unmistakably written by a press agent, and will need careful checking for copyvio.
10. In fact, the likelihood of copyvio is so great that I usually prefer to rearrange or alter most of the text.
11. Books need to be sourced to Worldcat, not Amazon or the publisher. Bio facts are sourced to the person's official page at the university. These should all be formatted as references, so there will be a conventional reference list DGG ( talk ) 20:16, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Just noticed this useful list. One comment (in case you've got this chunk of text ready to paste in elsewhere in future): in point 7, about dates, I think the standard format for the lead sentence is "(born 1948)" not "(b. 1948)". Your point 6, about moving the main claim to notability to the very start of the article, is really important - so many poor articles start by telling you the subject's parentage or other irrelevancies so that you have to plod through a lot of verbiage to find any assertion of notability. PamD 14:07, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

fixed, though perhaps even just the date is clear enough for everybody. thanks. (as for 7, press agents writing an academic cv tend not to realise what are the key factors. Hidden in the last paragraph among society memberships, will sometimes be "National Academy of Sciences". DGG ( talk ) 21:06, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/European Conference on Visual Perception

Dear DGG: There are thousands of references to papers that have been presented at this series of conferences, but I can't seem to find anything independently written about the conferences themselves. Maybe you have a better idea where to look?—Anne Delong (talk) 13:58, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Conferences are a problem I've been meaning to work on. There are only a very few conference series in the world for which there are truly substantial third party references, but there are many of great importance: the situation is similar to journals. In practice, tho we don't word it that way, the effective criterion for journals is that papers there are highly cited (as measured by the impact factor from Journal Citation Reports). This can apply to conferences also. The difference is that for most conferences, the papers there are preliminary results and not rigorously peer reviewed & therefore not highly cited as compared with journal papers by the same authors. There are two classes of exceptions: ones where the papers are major review articles in the field, and ones in engineering where they are the basic means of publication. I'm not sure about this one. Ido not think it is one of these exceptions, and I think the publications are mainly just abstracts, as is common with many conferences. I would need to check, & I cannot do it this week.

But personally, I would include in WP articles about all journals used as references here, and all major conference series, however, I doubt this would have consensus. The compromise solution is therefore to write the articles about the sponsoring society and have a section on the conference. That is probably the best thing to do here.

The main thing I think we want to avoid is writing articles on individual conferences in a series. This would amount to our being a nonselective index or bibliography. DGG ( talk ) 23:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Stephen M. Sheppard & Restatement of content guideline

One more distinguished professor for you, DGG. I added a Google Scholar Report, which is rather low. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:16, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Basic cleanup steps for professors (and much of it applies to all bios):

1. Remove all "Professor", "Prof.", "Doctor" and "Dr.", Ph.D, or M.D except in the lede sentence or as actual titles of positions or degrees. For every use of first name alone, substitute the last name. For every use of full first and last name, substitute the last name, except in the lede sentence or if needed to avoid confusion.
2. Then, for every use of the name more than once a paragraph at the most, substitute "he" "she" or the equivalent.
3. remove all adjectives of praise: famous, renowned, prestigious, world-wide, transformative, seminal, ground-breaking, etc. referring to either people or institutions or discoveries; even "well-known". In all of these, nothing needs to be substituted.
4. Consider replacing "expert" with "specialist". Replace "across" with "in" or, if documented, "throughhout" Remove all similar jargon. "
5. "best-selling" etc. needs to be justified by a third party quotation. Just remove all these throughout the entire article, or add a {{Fact}} "First" similarly needs a third party source.
6. Move the most important factor of notability to the very first phrase of the first sentence where nobody can miss it: not "A.B., an expert in something, who has taught at Wherever for 23 years, is the Distinguished Professor of" , to "X, the Distinguished Professor of ... at Wherever, is a specialist in something....
7. Remove complicated sentences of birth place and date to the section of biography. The lede sentence should just have the dates, eg: "(born 1945)"
8. If they have written books and work in the humanities or history or Law, or any field where books are the main factor of notability, remove journal article section entirely. If there's a section on conferences, etc., remove it in all cases.
9. The list of degrees received and dates is critical information. It goes in a section labeled ==Biography==, right after the lede paragraph. If you find it at the end, the article was unmistakably written by a press agent, and will need careful checking for copyvio.
10. In fact, the likelihood of copyvio is so great that I usually prefer to rearrange or alter most of the text.
11. Books need to be sourced to Worldcat, not Amazon or the publisher. Bio facts are sourced to the person's official page at the university. These should all be formatted as references, so there will be a conventional reference list DGG ( talk ) 20:16, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Just noticed this useful list. One comment (in case you've got this chunk of text ready to paste in elsewhere in future): in point 7, about dates, I think the standard format for the lead sentence is "(born 1948)" not "(b. 1948)". Your point 6, about moving the main claim to notability to the very start of the article, is really important - so many poor articles start by telling you the subject's parentage or other irrelevancies so that you have to plod through a lot of verbiage to find any assertion of notability. PamD 14:07, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

fixed, though perhaps even just the date is clear enough for everybody. thanks. (as for 7, press agents writing an academic cv tend not to realise what we consider the key factors. Hidden in the last paragraph among society memberships, will sometimes be "National Academy of Sciences". DGG ( talk ) 21:06, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Academics: Articles in List of Works

I'm puzzled by one change you made to Janet Zollinger Giele. You deleted all scholarly papers from the list of her works with the breathtakingly sweeping edit summary "we do not include articles." Is there a Wikipedia policy / guideline / discussion to that effect? I couldn't find one, but my search skills may not be good enough.

Wikipedia:Notability (academics) specifically mentions an academic's scholarly articles. It would be strange if they shouldn't be listed in the article when they can form part of the body of work that establishes notability. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works encourages complete lists of works. And featured articles about academics often include articles in lists of works (Ben Gascoigne, Marcus Ward Lyon, Jr., Barbara McClintock, Gerard K. O'Neill, List of works by Joseph Priestley (broken out presumably because of length), and Alfred Russel Wallace, to name a few). How does that jibe with your experience? Worldbruce (talk) 21:12, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I hadn't finished my revisions of the article; I normally revise an article over a series of days to have a chance to think about what I'm doing. I think some of the material in the article is excessive--I would normally turn the references from the book reviews into footnotes and considerably shorten the amount that is quoted. I was even before you wrote considering adding back some of the papers--I often realize after a bit that I've curt too much in the first pass. If you want to add them now, go ahead & I'll look at them more carefully.

I have always considered that MOS lists of works is primarily concerned about literary authors. My general practice is that for most academics in fields where the notability depends primarily on published books, I just list the books; for those in fields where notability depends primarily on papers, I list the 3 or 4 most cited papers (or those otherwise the most important) & any books. Most other editors here specializing in academic bios do similarly. That doesn't prove we're right, of course.

More generally, the depth of coverage of an article should be proportional to the importance of the subject. This of course is a matter of judgment. Giele is a very important sociologist, but I don't think she could really be classified as world-famous in the sense of being well-known to people outside the subject. At the extreme, consider making excessively detailed articles about minor subject as promotionalism, and people who insist on keeping such details have sometimes had their articles deleted at afd.

For the other articles you mention, I think some of the lists a little excessive, and in some cases not well chosen. But some of the people, like McClintock and Wallace, are actually world-famous.

With respect to separate articles for scientists: Priestley is not only a scientist, and a list of works for him as a separate article might be a justified exception, & I suppose if it makes sense for his minor religious and political works, his scientific ones should be included also. The lists for Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Glenn T. Seaborg, and Thomas Hunt Morgan include books only. I don't see that we have such an article for Einstein or Newton; it would be justified for them if anyone. DGG ( talk ) 01:23, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough. I wouldn't have been so taken aback if the edit and summary hadn't been so broad. I won't second guess you as your work is in progress. It's certainly possible that the selected articles section needed to be more selective. It may even be the case for Giele that her books are a sufficient description of her published works. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing something, and that Wikipedia does include an academic's articles (at least in some cases and to some degree). Worldbruce (talk) 07:28, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello, talk page stalker here. Funny you should be asked this question; a similar one was put to me a little earlier. We seem to agree. I do have some qualms about this, though: while I think that a list of articles is unnecessary, for photographers I happily leave (and even create) lists of (mostly minor) exhibitions. Why the latter but not the former? (Do I perhaps have a double standard here?) -- Hoary (talk) 09:05, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

RM Hogg: is this enough for an article on an academic?

Hi DGG, wanted your input on an academic without an article, RM Hogg (Scholar search). First author on several highly cited books (G Scholar h-index ~17), but otherwise no specific accolades. czar ⨹ 16:47, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

h index is useless in the humanities--it is only applicable to fields where notability comes from the writing of articles. Google Scholar is not of that much help, but the thing to look for in GS is materials that are very highly cited, which usually do show notability. It seems he is the the editor or author of some major works. The best database for a quick check in the humanities is WorldCat,[45] and this confirms it: he is the editor of one volume of the major encyclopedic history of the English Language, the co-ed of the standard one volume work on the subject, & the co-author of the major work on the Grammar of Old English, and a good deal else. Next step is to find his academic position, which from the LC authority file [46] was University of Manchester , and gives his north and death dates. There will almost certainly be major obituaries and the like. First place to look is TLS. One of the VIAF subpages[47] give a ref to the Guardian obit, with a quote, Sept. 20, 2007. This information alone is enough for an article stub. (I've gone into the details as an example of the way I check these things) DGG ( talk ) 22:47, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

2015

Academic Departments

Very few individual academic departments are notable. That's not my personal decision, but the consistent practice of the community. For practical purposes, without going into the rather elaborate Wikipedia jargon, the requirement is world-famous. The basic requirement for inclusion of any organization is coreferences providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements. Very few academic departments can meet this requirement. In addition, a requirement for an article on an academic department (or any organization) is that the article be non-promotional--that it be directed towards what readers of an encycopedia might want to know, not what the organization might want to tell them.

Your department does not meet either part of the requirement. But the primary reason for deletion was not advertising, but rather that it gave no indication whatsoever that it might possibly be important in any sense, let alone world famous. I should have specified that as the reason, and I apologize for any confusion. It was for good measure, very difficult to understand. The title didn't even say what university it was in. The text was written in English that would need to be almost completely rewritten, even if it had been famous. There were no references except to its own site.

I also removed your edit inserting a direct link to your department in place of its name at the university article. We do not include such links. We linkonly to the main university web site. The reader can generally find the web pages of individual departments from there. DGG ( talk ) 16:06, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ibn_Sina_Medical_College_(2nd_nomination)

Interested in your thoughts here, if you like. Jytdog (talk) 21:21, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

For my first 2 years here, I helped establish the principle that every institution of higher education is to be considered notable; ever since then, for the following 6 years, I have successfully defended it. It is almost never even challenged, which is more than I can say for most of our guidelines. (there are sometimes exceptions for unaccredited institutions whose real existence is not all that clear, but that doesn't apply here) DGG ( talk ) 22:43, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand why you did that, but congrats for setting a policy-in-practice! I have withdrawn the AfD (in word only at the AfD - I don't know how to formally do that) If you like, I would be interested in hearing your rationale - not to argue, just to learn. Jytdog (talk) 23:18, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

The argument I made is that if one searches carefully enough, especially for potentially notable alumni, it is possible to meet the GNG for high schools and colleges most of the time, depending on the usual argument over whether sources are sufficiently substantial, etc. It would also be possible to show this for elementary schools a good deal of the time. The results in practice depended on how hard they are argued and searched for more than anything about the school itself, and have an equal amount of error in each direction. Every last one of them was at the time argued, and we therefore spent a good deal of effort at AfD, without getting any more precise results than if we accepted all the high schools and rejected the elementary schools. (Most of the discussions were for high schools; it is accepted as being all the more true for colleges.) As a compromise, it was accepted that high schools and up were notable, but primary schools would not ordinarily be notable. We therefore avoided about 10 afds a day without adversely affecting the encyclopedia. Everyone, thse arguing in both directions, realised things were better that way.

As contributing factors for the acceptance of the result, was the general view that they were appropriate for the encyclopedia considering the interests of our writers and readers; that there was limited opportunity for spam; & that they were good articles for young beginners. It's essentially the same argument by which settled geographic places are notable, but not necessarily unsettled geographic features. Both of them have proven very stable compromises.

They rely on the notion of presumed notability as a concession to those who thing the GNG the main factor. I do not, personally think it ought to be, and I have supported every effort to set a demarcation line based on something intrinsic to the subject. There are stable similar compromises for many types of athletics, for popular music, for astronomical objects, for academics, for scientific journals, for government officials , for some types of local institutions, for national vs subnational associations, etc. I don't agree with the demarcation lines in some of them, but I support all of the compromises. I consider the GNG to reflect the bias of the internet, and that if we really worked at finding sources we could make nonsense out of it.

The entire rationale for a notability standard at all is a little shaky, as compared to most of our other rules. The original rationale is so we look like what people expect an encyclopedia to look like. This was extremely important in the beginning , when people already had an expectation based on the print encyclopedias they knew, and it was necessary to establish ourselves as a serious project. The better reason is that lowering the bar too far leads us to become an advertising medium. It is much easier to control what we have an article on, than to control the content of articles. If we are more or less inclusive, we're still an encycopedia ; if we accept advertising as articles, there's little point in existing, because the internet does as well by itself. DGG ( talk ) 00:14, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to write all that, that all makes sense. The only argument I would have, is the "limited opportunity for spam" thing. A good chunk of COI stuff I deal with (I won't hazard a guess on the percentage, but it is not insignificant) is raw academic boosterism - maybe the state of higher ed today would call for an examination of the assumption? I do hear you on cutting down on un-necessary AfDs - there is great value to that. Jytdog (talk) 00:25, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

I've said it all before :). As for promotionalism: I was thinking primarily of high schools, where the sort of promotionalism in their articles is usually trivial to remove, and goes as soon as someone notices it. Colleges are much more of a problem.especially because so few of us even occasionally try to clean them up (except that there are now consistent efforts to remove non-notable alumni) Almost every US college & university article on WP is written by PR staff, except the few written by over-enthusiastic alumni. The alumni are worse: just like all fans, they don't give up. The PR staff are usually local PR staff, who are generally incompetent as compared to the people who work in industry. They follow a standard pattern, which is remarkably similar to the one-page descriptions in college guides. I don't know if there are people training them, or whether they copy each other.

I hadn't seen the boosterism essay you linked to--thanks!. I think I'll add to it. I also added a little to WP:College and university article guidelines.

I've decided to check some of the university FAs, to make sure we aren't specifying well-written but promotional articles as examples. DGG ( talk ) 03:14, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Writing articles about academics

I have created a number of articles about academics recently and I wanted to get some advice from you on how to write such articles, what should be included in them, etc. Everymorning talk 17:10, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

forthcoming, probably tomorrow. DGG ( talk ) 19:34, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I will get there, probably Saturday. In the meantime, look at Chad Orzel, which I deprodded. A full article in Contemporary Authors is proof of notability -- and that article usually lists books review also)It's available online as part of Gale's Literature Resource Center, available thru most public libraries DGG ( talk ) 04:30, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, the only problem is I don't often edit from a library (unlike yourself, I imagine, since you are a librarian). But I'll keep that in mind the next time I stop by a library. Everymorning talk 02:50, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Most large city libraries have it available to library card holders remotely. You only have to visit once, to get a card. DGG ( talk ) 18:19, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Any word on when that advice is coming? It's been about 3 weeks now. Everymorning (talk) 20:58, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

=

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ali Montazeri

Am interested in your thoughts on this AfD, and specifically on the issue I have raised. I have no idea how you are going to !vote on this, and am curious. Jytdog (talk) 19:44, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Lots of naive discussions of citations from others, but the actual analysis speaks for itself. You did of very good job of editing, btw. For someone of his importance I would have done if it needed, but its great to have such competent help. DGG ( talk ) 04:36, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words but all I did was clear away the most fetid of the promotionalism. The remaining directory entry ( i will not it an "article") is promotional; this person cannot have an actual WP article as there no sources from which to write one. The directory entry exists because someone is trying to promote this guy. So I have just polished a turd. It should not exist in WP per NOTDIRECTORY and PROMO.

I am going to try to raise N standards around WP. I am trying because a bunch of people seem to think we should and more importantly they undercut efforts to make meaningful changes by pointing to things like changing N.

But everybody has pet projects and is willing to fight to the death to protect notability guidelines and essays that allow fake "articles" to exist in WP, that are really directory entries or worse. The journals people do it, the academic people do it, the radio people do it, the music people do it, etc. It will be a waste of time, but I will try. So it goes. Jytdog (talk) 05:27, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I'm willing to go to some trouble to maintain proper standards of notability based upon objective evidence that shows someone is a leader in their field. WP:PROF is one of the very few guidelines we have that follows a rational approach to inclusion policy. I fell so strongly about objective guidelines that I support them even when I think them overly broad (as for sports) or much too narrow (as for politicians).

I can and will argue as I think appropriate & necessary using the GNG in either direction, but it's a totally useless intellectual activity that I think detracts from the encyclopedia . You may possibly have a case about directory entries (though we have about 2 million directory articles), ut I don't see how the article is PROMO. Anyway, looking at it from your direction, even so you're attacking articles that we do have in a field where we do not have anywhere near enough coverage--if you want to attack directory entries--why not do it a field where e have overcoverage. Or do you really think academics unimportant?

Of course we have information to write an article we have what's important about academics: their position and their published work. In each case that's third party information based on the university authorities and the editor of the journals and the citing authors. The decisions of peer reviewers and peer authors in the aggregate are much sounder basis for an article than the uninformed comments of journalists in most current day newspapers.

one of the differences in what I and most others do here, is that I'm willing to fight even for what other people consider important. Tolerating and supporting each other is the basis of a cooperative encyclopedia. There's real promotionalism in WP that's much more dangerous and compromising than even the original version of this article. You're losing perspective. DGG ( talk ) 05:58, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. I know that lots of people have identified various fields in WP that they think are particularly .... bad. Some people focus on where they believe there is lots of "paid editing", some people focus on where there is lots of COI, other people on various forms of POV or bias, systemic and otherwise. I know people think that what I care about is COI/paid editing. They are wrong but I let myself get trapped too often in that box.

My work is primarily about NPOV - ensuring that articles summarize high quality sources.

NPOV is what my entire Userpage is focused on, and has been focused on, for a long time. (it comes down to finding high quality sources and accurately summarizing them)

Lots of people have said we should address the paid editing problem at least in part (and in some quarters, primarily) by raising N standards.

I agree with that. It would solve lots of other problems too.

I don't understand -- at all -- how anybody can support raising N standards, and at the same time support any guideline that allows automatic green-lighting, even when we cannot actually write a WP article about something because there are not multiple independent sources with significant discussion of it. (In other words, it isn't possible to write an NPOV article about it)

I mean it - this completely baffles me and in my view comes down to special pleading. And each Wikiproject points to the special pleading that other Wikiprojects do. Which means we will never succeed in raising N standards for any field in WP.

If, on the other hand, Guy is correct and NOTDIRECTORY has been effectively abandoned, I need to rethink what a "WP article" is and my approach to NPOV.

But as it stands, in my view, the approach to N that allows PROF and JOURNALs and RADIO to create and keep directory entries, is what allows crap articles about business executives to exist.

(and what is promotional about the article about the guy who is subject of the AfD, is its very existence in WP. It was created as part of a promotional campaign, and upon examination it fails GNG and should not exist in WP at all. It is no different than artIcle about some business executive that gets created, gets looked at, and should get deleted.)

So what do people mean when they say "raise N standards"? How is it coherent and consistent? I really don't understand (obviously). Please explain how this makes sense to you. Please. Jytdog (talk) 22:05, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

I should acknowledge that I made a mess of the discussion at PROF. I did that badly. Jytdog (talk) 23:00, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Btw, i just read your userpage, and see that your thoughts about GNG and N are completely different. Hm. Jytdog (talk) 06:11, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

yes, they are, and I've made no secret about it. Besides what I do on wiki, I've talked about this at many events. This has been my general approach for about 7 years now--the main difference from then is that 7 years ago the problem of using WP to advertise was not as widespread, and I was much more willing to rewrite such articles than I am now. Under current conditions, I'm very much more concerned about fighting promotional editing than about disagreements on the level or criteria of notability. DGG ( talk ) 04:43, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

But in making arguments in actual cases here I always give an argument based on the conventional rules. I will then sometimes supplement it with additional reasons. I use my own concepts in deciding which articles I'm going to argue about. I will not personally defend an article that clearly meets WP:N and which I do not think appropriate unless I can find some other policy-based reason. DGG ( talk ) 08:21, 17 March 2017 (UTC)