Talk:Shlomo Sawilowsky/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Academic Adviser v. Dissertation Advisor

The previous editor has confused the "academic advisor" with the "dissertation advisor" and "major professor". At the Ph. D. level, there may indeed be an "academic advisor" different from the "dissertation advisor/major professor". In that case, the "academic advisor's" role is to help the student with the plan of work, and other logistics pertaining to course work and qualifying exams. However, the "dissertation advisor" and the "major professor" are one and the same (and at many universities, is also the academic advisor.68.43.236.4 (talk) 03:20, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Cats

Regarding the deletion of Chabad Rabbis cat because he is also in the Chabad Hasidim (sic). If he is both, he could be listed as such. If you feel strongly about it, the redundancy would require deleting Chabad Hasidim, because every Chabad Rabbi is a Chabad Chasid, but not every Chabad Chasid is a Chabad Rabbi.68.40.156.178 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:33, 9 September 2009 (UTC).

I don't think he belongs in the Chabad Rabbis cat because although he does have ordination, he does not practice. And in case you didn't notice, the only people listed in the Chabad Chasidim cat are non-rabbis. Yehoishophot Oliver (talk) 05:58, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Please re-write this article in the tone of a neutral encyclopedia article.

The tone of the article Shlomo Sawilowsky concerns me, as being very point of view and (not just positive but) euphorically positive. It needs to be re-written in a more neutral tone.

The article lists a series of "fallacies" exposed by Sawilowsky, many of which require substantial qualification, imho; could labeling the results of living persons as "fallacies" counter Wikipedia policy regarding living persons?

Thanks. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 17:42, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It is ironic that "substantial qualification" of statistical claims published by others and accepted by textbook authors and statistical software packages are not necessary, whereas a demonstration of counter-examples and extensive Monte Carlo results published in peer-reviewed outlets contradicting those claims require "substantial qualification".

Sawilowsky's publications exposed flaws in statistical claims that were published by others - not flaws in living people.

Why was the reference to the sale of the Hyatt was deleted? If it was because of the source ("blog"), perhaps a more suitable reference can be found. The hotel was put up for sale as a result of the politial attacks. The activity of AERA, an educational institution, was a part of a wider political movement to economically punish a company for not agreeing with their political point of view. 141.217.105.21 (talk) 14:06, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Is that citable? I find that whole section poorly cited at the moment and was looking at trimming the content, are there any reliable sources to support all these claims? Off2riorob (talk) 14:10, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure which section you are referring to. If it is the AERA section, I moved some of the detail to a footnote. I also asked above if some editor can replace the "blog" citation (I don't think the web page was a "blog" but I don't know) with a more suitable cite.

I also removed some adjectives that were positive (e.g., innovative).

Being familiar with many of those articles, I can see where some of the statistical results can be characteried as "limitations" instead of "flaws", so I have rearranged them accordingly. Some of the terms may sound POV, such as "flaw" of the rank transform, but results that show a 100% chance of making a false positive is a flawed statistic. For example, suppose you have a drug that the FDA just won't let you take to market because they discovered it is just a sugar pill, and there are NO experimental results showing a positive effect. If you use the rank tranform (in a designed factorial experiment), Sawilowsky's results show you can have a 100% chance of rejecting the null, meaning a 100% chance of saying the drug works when in fact it is just a sugar pill. That meets the dictionary definition of a flaw, and is clearly non-science.141.217.105.21 (talk) 14:34, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I've found this link: http://www.sdbj.com/industry_article.asp?aID=77915344.420788.1719497.2939526.5791829.446&aID2=132260 regarding the sale of the Hyatt. I would assume the San Francisco Business Journal is a sufficiently vetted source for wiki. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.217.105.21 (talk) 14:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes that looks a lot better. Off2riorob (talk) 14:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I had the time so I put in the San Diego Business journal link.141.217.105.21 (talk) 14:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Nice one. Off2riorob (talk) 14:58, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Kiefer.Wolowitz: I agree with you. The entire article is like an advertisement, trying really hard to make him sound notable. Many more fact tags are needed too.Iulus Ascanius (talk) 00:34, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

ANOVA Page Wiki Warriors

And so it has begun. I welcome editors from the ANOVA page, who predictably have turned their attention to this page. The first edit was useful - it deleted material once in the body of the text, subsequenlty relegated to a footnote, and now eliminated. Unfortunately, it will leave the issue for which that material was placed into the article in the first place unanswered. AT the Math Genealogy website, many entries have advisors who only served as disseration advisors to math students; others also advised students outside of math (e.g., physics, chemistry, psychology, etc.) The question is OFTEN raised "How many of the descendents were actually related to math?" The material deleted by the previous editor, in classifying this info as wikipuffery, leaves that question unanswered. Moreover, the question is sometimes raised, "of the non-math descendents, how many are at least quantitative-related (e.g., the physical/social sciences vs the arts)? Now, that question too cannot be answered.

The current wiki warrior did not go to this discussion page first and ask if such detail is necessary; instead the material was just deleted.

Similarly, the material regarding the resignation was loped off with the suggestion it was a non notable event. That is certainly an opinion, and again, I note the editor did not come to this page to ask if this material was notable. However, once the material is considered non-notable by an editor, I would leave it out, and request other editors to voice their view on if the event, the resignation of a president from the highest office for social and behavioral science statisticians, is notable, when the reason was the mixing of political opinion with science.141.217.105.21 (talk) 19:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

What are you on about? Off2riorob (talk) 19:29, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

An hour prior to these edits (not your comments), I made some technical edits on the ANOVA page (e.g., work was attributed to someone in 1994 that was actually done by someone else in 1985), and I met considerable resistence. When that happens, wiki warriors go to pages the other editor has participated in and hacks them. It is a blight on the thousands of earnest and honest editors in wikipedia.

In the current case, one edit (from the ANOVA web page editor) helped resolve how to handle minutae that is nevertheless important (i.e., just delete it), but in another case, just simply decided to delete long-standing material without discussion on this page on the basis of her/his opinion.

Not being a wiki warrior, I accept the first edit, and although I don't agree with the second, I didn't revert it - I just asked other editors to voice their opinion on the notability of the resignation. If the consensus is that it is not notable, the delete away!141.217.105.21 (talk) 19:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I never edited nor visited the ANOVA page, please stop these silly and unfounded accusations. Marokwitz (talk)

If you weren't included in this then accept my apology, but who said I was referring to you?141.217.105.21 (talk) 20:00, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Dear anonymous, perhaps read Wikipedia:Assume good faith before attacking other editors. The removed information had absolutely no encyclopedic value and was cited to a primary source. This is an encyclopedia, not a trivia website. Marokwitz (talk) 19:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia:Assume good faith include deleting long-standing material without asking for a discussion on the discussion page from other editors who have worked on an article?

If you are referring to the breakdown of disserations, agreed it is minutae, but hardly trivia to the intent of the Math Genealogy website. If you are referring to the resignation, see comments above. 141.217.105.21 (talk) 19:58, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I understand almost nothing, I am off, regards. Off2riorob (talk) 20:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Complaint about vilification wiki warrior

Your labeling of other editors as "wiki warriors" is particularly inappropriate given your recent writing of an article defining wiki warriors: Each of your definitions directly attacks the intentions of the editor, not behavior, and is therefore against the Wikipedia policy of "assuming good faith". Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 23:57, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I assume your comments are directed to EDSTAT because I see that is who signed the deleted wiki warrior page you referred to. You make a good point.

However, if you check the remarks of the editors who chose to delete that entry, the material WAS considered appropriate for Criticism of Wikipedia and was so stated. Acceptable 3rd party mainstream journalistic articles used terms such as, for example, "editor idiots" and "editor bullies", for which the term wiki warrior, which is used by many, is supposed to be a more benign designation. Here is a cut and paste of EDSTAT's references: .

I will paraphrase a editor who asked another editor why long-standing material was deleted without the benefit of recommending it first on the discussion page? How is that action compatible with "assuming good faith". To that, I add another question: When someone states something is incomprehensible, they should make specific reference to what is incomprehensible, and why they believe that is so.

When someone states something is not notable, they should state under which (among the almost countless) notability requirements the factoid fails to meet, not simply so state and edit.

These points are relevant to this page; it seems that perhaps your comments are relevant to the edits on the ANOVA page. I haven't read ALL of that discussion page, but if I understood the point, the criticism was more about why priority was given to an expository author instead of the one who actually did the original work. I would have thought editors with technical expertise would readily accept corrections to errors of priority.

Furthermore, it doesn't seem at all to me that the appellation that you are troubled by was directed at YOU. I haven't gone back far in the history of edits, but there is no indication that the attribution error was YOURS.

To summarize: all editors are welcome to edit. However, in the absence of the types of material wiki rules support immediate deletion without discussion, there are methods which are unilateral (which are assumed not to be in good faith) and methods that are team based (which are assumed to be in good faith). Furthermore, technical corrections regarding priority should be applauded, and not be the basis of flame wars, for which wikipedia is very famous for (see citations.) Think about it; I have. 68.43.236.244 (talk) 04:19, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Edits by Kiefer.Wolfowitz

Most of these edits really improve the format and flow. A few issue however.

• Singling out JASA as a core journal is POV, when the Current Index to Statistics, the professional indexing service, defines 367 journals as "core" journals in statistics (see new link's .pdf). JMASM, Sawilowsky's journal, is also listed in CIS.

• I don't see anywhere on the page where Sawilowsky is claimed to be a mathematician. Therefore, the choice of Mathematics Review seems inappropriate. Mathematics Review is not a comprehensive data base for applied statistics and data analysis, particularly for social and behavioral sciences (e.g., education, psychology, sociology). There are many such journals in those fields that cater to applied statistics and data analysis that are not included in MR.

• Here is a quote from Harvey Coonce, the founder of the genealogy: "Please notice: Throughout this project when we use the word "mathematics" or "mathematician" we mean that word in a very inclusive sense. Thus, all relevant data from statistics, computer science, or operations research is welcome." In fact, a perusal of many of the entries show dissertations on allied fields broadly defined. The third most prolific person listed, Percival King, has 100 dissertations listed, of which almost all are on properties of radio and microwave antenna propagation!141.217.105.21 (talk) 14:40, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

• Regarding the change from Simultaneous career to Rabbinical career. It doesn't appear Sawilowsky has a "Rabbinical" career (see discussion at top of Discussion page on "Cats"). Perhaps Simultaneous is not the best description, but it doesn't seem like he is/was a pulpit rabbi or a talmudic instructor in a rabbinical college. It just seems like he has made contributions to the literature in another part of his career to another discipline.141.217.105.21 (talk) 14:48, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words, because I expected to get blasted (given today's editing of my user page, which I reverted!). Forgive my spelling mistakes and imperfections, because it's late here:

* MATH REVIEWS: I tried to say something balanced about Sawilowsky, without removing the true statement that he appears as number 2 at the math geneaology (MG) project in terms of numbers of doctoral students "produced" --- this statistic seems to give the wrong impression about the nature of the dissertations supervised---not up to Kolmogorov or Teman or Lion's students' standards, for example. I would prefer removing the true (but imho misleading) statistic from the math geneology project and my caveat about these mainly being in "social studies" (I wrote "sciences" but that's too generous, imho) and "applied statistics"; similarly I would prefer removing the MG statistic and my caveat about the low significance of Professor Sawilowsky's work as judged by Mathematical Reviews (MR). Of course, MR's coverage is uneven and geared towards mathematical statistics and probability, but it does review a large number of publications by the best statisticians. For example, I would bet that Akritas has many papers reviewed. That Professor Sawilowsky has published so many papers with so few reviews does say something about their standing as mathematics or even statistics.

* JASA as a "core" (sic.) journal: I should have written, "highest ranked", since "core" has a more precise meaning. I think that JASA and JRSS A publish some of the best social-science statistics papers, and that Akritas apparently wrote at least one good JASA paper motivated (at least in part) by Professor Sawilowsky's studies is a quality indicator.

* RABBINICAL: I chose "rabbinical" just because the article mentioned several degrees or acomplishments or schools having the word "rabbinical", and the previous headline needed improving. Perhaps another editor (with familiarity with Judaism and Professor Sawilowsky's tradition) can suggest a better title?

Thank you for your helpful comments and needed corrections. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 01:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The recent edits have clarified the fields of contribution by Professor Sawilowsky's students, with (I trust) careful documentation---certainly to my satisfaction. Thus, this discussion may now be moot. (I think that the article now has the tone of an encyclopedia article.) I thank the editors for their good works, and for the good-faith tone of the recent discussions. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 03:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

My edits were done simultaneously as yours, so they were lost when I saved them. (I never saw that happen before! A "conflict" notice came up that someone else saved at the same time.) Reconstructing them from memory, the ISI SCIENCE Web of Knowledge database, which is NOT comprehensive for social sciences, has Pierre-Louis Lions with 358 citations, Akritas with 100, and Sawilowsky with 51. Lions is a mathematician, Akritas a Math stats prof, and Sawilowsky an applied stats prof. Anyway, notability is not based on such measures. Wiki notability for profs include being designated as "distinguished" by the university, president of a national scholarly organization, yada yada yada.

I also mentioned I agreed that the genealogy stat is misleading, but that Markowitz deleted (jan 5) the footnoted material on the breakdown of dissertatoin topics, calling it "wikipuffery" which is not a wiki term. That is why I restored it.68.43.236.244 (talk) 03:34, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

FYI on Akritas and Math Reviews

Michael Akritas has 86 articles listed, maybe half having a professional review, somewhat less being a quoted abstract, and some are not reviewed at all. Professor Sawilowsky had 2-3 papers noted, with no professional reviews, and only one abstract quoted (there was an erratum noted, so really only 2 papers were noted).

Once again, Math Reviews is inappropriate. The Sawilowsky page doesn't claim he is a mathematician, and Math Reviews has POOR coverage of applied stats/data analysis in the social and behavioral sciences. Once again, wiki notability for profs is not based on Math Reviews. See [Wikipedia:Notability].

Moreover, Lions has to date only 11 doctoral students, Akritas has even less at 8, and Sawilowsky has 57 (of 102) in applied stats/data analysis.68.43.236.244 (talk) 04:00, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I've added citations on MathSciNet, and highest cited (first author peer-reviewed) article on google scholar.

• Teman: 104 MG, 279 ISI Science, 2 MathSciNet, 37 Google Scholar
• Kolmogorov: 79 MG, 190 ISI Science, 213 MathSciNet, 937 Google Scholar
• Sawilowsky 57(of 102) MG: 51 ISI Science, 3 MathSciNet, 113 Google Scholar
• Lions: 11 MG, 358 ISI Science, 365 MathSciNet, 929 Google Scholar
• Akritas: 8 MG, 100 ISI Science, 123 MathSciNet, 325 Google Scholar

68.43.236.244 (talk) 04:23, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

A "doctorate" with a write only dissertation should be an embarrassment to the Professor and University. Maybe the citation of the Mathematical Geneaology statistics was intended to criticize Professor Sawilowsky?

There are two Lions: The father was a leader in French mathematics for decades.

Compare Mathematical Reviews and its treatment of John Tukey ("data analysis"), Harold Hotelling, Ken Arrow, Peter Whittle, Herman Wold, Karl Gustav Jöreskog, Peter Bentler, etc., (all of whom apparently have some connection to the social sciences). Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 04:50, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I think to continue pushing MR when the point has been made numerous times and not refuted that Sawilowsky's page does not claim he is a mathematician is pushing a NPOV. I don't understand why you are ignoring this and are being repetitive. I also don't see the point in citing Google scholar and such. I think the editor above who cited the notabilty standards has said all that needs to be said.166.217.228.81 (talk) 19:53, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I spent a little time on google and found Sawilowsky has stat publications in these journals. How many of them are indexed in math reviews?

• Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics
• Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation
• Model Assisted Statistics and Applications
• Statistics in Medicine
• Communications in Statistics: Computations and Simulations
• British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.217.105.193 (talk) 13:01, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
• Biometrics
• Psychological Bulletin
• Psychometrika
• Psychological Methods
• Annals of Emergency Medicine
• Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development
• Perceptual and Motor Skills
• Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
• Journal of Experimental Education
• Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
• Review of Educational Research

I looked up one of his students who has published this: Todd Headrick (2010, Statistical Simulation: Power Method Polynomials And Other Transformations, CRC Press). If I had the time I could follow up on his other students, but what is the point?68.43.236.244 (talk) 03:47, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

A venerable colleague responded that a book-length study of Fleischman's method of simulation fills a much-needed gap in the literature!Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 21:40, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Revert Deletion of Math Genealogy Page

The material on the MG was deleted by 99.157.58.22 who wrote "(Removed inaccurate statements about Mathematics Genealogy Project's scope and inclusion of all dissertation committee members as "advisors".)

It is unclear what is inaccurate. Regarding its scope, see [4], where it states, "Please notice: Throughout this project when we use the word "mathematics" or "mathematician" we mean that word in a very inclusive sense. Thus, all relevant data from statistics, computer science, or operations research is welcome."

Regarding inclusion of all disseration committee members, see [5] where it states, "20 June 2009—Today we are pleased to announce the rollout of a new version of the database that runs behind the scenes of the Mathematics Genealogy Project's website. For the majority of our records, this will have no noticeable impact. However, the enhancements now allow us to record more than two advisors, jointly awarded degrees, and multiple doctorates properly."

Therefore, 99.157.58.22's deletion was reverted.141.217.105.228 (talk) 16:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Mitchkeller, you cannot delete based on "assertion". If you can point to some review on the Math Genealogy page, then cite it BEFORE you delete. There are many mathematicians/statisticians who are listed on MG, and then, ALL their doctoral students are listed, even though some or even most may not be mathematicians/statisticians, etc.

Yes, we do generally include all doctoral students. However, they must legitimately be doctoral students and not just students on whose committee a mathematician served. Mitchkeller (talk) 02:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

In fact, Harvey Coonce (the founder) also included a number of people himself in the genealogy who don't even have a doctoral degree: e.g.: Charles Hermite, who only had a B. A.

In some cases, Harvey gave his reasons: e.g.: Leonhard Euler: "No dissertation, no advisor, but we show a link to Euler to show a connection in our intellectual heritage. (hbc)" (http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=17864). The '(hbc)' are the founder's initials.

In other cases, Harvey lists a committe memeber FIRST before the disseration advisor: Joseph Liouville (http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=55185), whose advisor was the Chemist Thenard, and Poisson was just a committee member.68.43.236.244 (talk) 01:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The reason is Liouville matriculated in the applied science college, where all dissertations were signed by Thenard even if he was ignorant of their content. Liouville thanks Poisson for the idea and direction for his dissertation topic in an article (in French) Liouville published in his journal.

There are other cases in reverse. For example, Julius Ruben Blum's 1st advisor is listed as Michel Loève, who had nothing to do with his dissertation, but as the major professor of record signed it. The dissertation topic and advising support came from Lucien Marie Le Cam, who was Blum's classmate who had graduated the year before him.

There are many more such cases. In fact, almost none of those listed from 1300 - 1600 were mathematicians by degree or trade. Most were philosophers, doctors, physicists, etc.Edstat (talk) 02:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I am the Interim co-Managing Director of the MGP, slated to succeed Harry Coonce in the immediate future. I am currently undertaking a review of Dr. Sawilowsky's record. Many of his "students" are being purged at this very moment. We do not issue statements on our site about undertaking a review of one individual's record. Edstat has a much better understanding of our policies than the contributor who is arguing here. We do not recognize "statistics advisors" in our database. Direct communication from the PhD-holder about Dr. Sawilowsky's contribution to their dissertation work may cause us to reconsider including an individual under Dr. Sawilowsky, but this will be considered on a case-by-case basis and will be reviewed by the Managing Director and possibly the Advisory Committee. Mitchkeller (talk) 02:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

What is it that I don't understand? If it is about math, are you purging Matthaeus Adrianus (http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=125794), who has 77241 descendents? He was a linguist whose career was entirely on translating Jewish literary works into Latin. He is not known to have any connection to mathematics, regardless of how broadly it is defined. What about George Schneider? Although he was a student of Erhard Weigel, his dissertation had nothing whatsoever to do with mathematics of any kind!

If it is about "committee's", what about Vito Volterra, who is listed as a 2nd advisor for Paul Pierre Lévy. Lévy's dissertation was apparenlty influenced by Volterra's work, but there is no evidence the two ever met, much less that Volterra served even as a "statistics advisor" or "committee member" on his dissertation. Based on what you are saying, you could purge a good chunk of the entire data base!68.43.236.244 (talk) 04:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

This seems to be getting out of hand. First, a technical correction. If I read their web site correctly, Mr. or Ms. 68.43.236.244, it wasn't Eulor who didn't have the degree, it was Lagrange.

Second, Mitchkeller raises a good point, that I would assume as an employee (or volunteer or whatever) of the genealogy website he can answer. If a doctoral student had a minor area in statistics, and the statistician is the "cognate" advisor, does that count in the genealogy?

We do not recognize minor areas, so no, such a "cognate advisor" would not be counted in our database. Mitchkeller (talk) 13:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Its not my website, but it seems to me that these matters should be well defined and uniformly applied. If not, then the genealogy data base is questionable, and I would recommend removing the entire reference to it on Sawilowsky's entry and whereever else it appears, as well as deleting the reference to the genealogy here [[6]] Edstat (talk) 05:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Perfect consistency is simply not possible in a database of nearly 140,000 individuals, many with unique circumstances that would not fit a strict policy. We add 1,000 new records per month based on user submissions. We generally do not have time to research each case individually. Much like Wikipedia, the community polices our database and alerts us to oddities, which we then do investigate. If there are specific records one wishes to question, there is a contact address on the website. We are happy to investigate that record or relationship, as we have in this case. Generally, we recognize an individual's official doctoral advisor as recorded by the university. However, the project is also about preserving our intellectual heritage, and thus there are older records where there was an unofficial mentoring or influencing relationship that we choose to recognize. As time progresses, we intend to change the labels on these relationships from "advisor" to "mentor" or some other appropriate title. Since Sawilowsky is no longer in the MGP's top 50 advisors after last night's update, I believe it is completely appropriate to remove it from his entry here. However, a Wikipedia entry for the MGP overall is appropriate, as the Project is valued and respected by the mathematical community, as evidenced through its relationship with the American Mathematical Society. Mitchkeller (talk) 13:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Editor Mitchkeller is correct. A demand for perfection would cripple all such social-media projects, which operate in good faith.

IMHO, the Mathematics Genealogy Project information at the bottom of mathematician biographies is quite useful for the public. Today's discussion (above) is the first criticism I have seen. Mathematical scientists generally are very appreciative of this project's pro-bono work, and it has the support of not only the American Mathematical Society but also the Clay Institute, etc. A suggestion to purge references to this project (widely) should be resisted, imho!

Sincerely, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 16:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I would alert other editors to the discussion, where I asked for clarification of the claimed innacuracy (made by this editor, who has since identified himself as Mitchkeller. I believe that Mitch Keller's work has been helpful to both projects. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 16:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC) Did I act improperly by suggesting that an editor act in the real world? Sincerely, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 16:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I think your action was appropriate and made me think more carefully and clearly. Considering the number of times the MGP is referenced on Wikipedia, it's appropriate to have an identifiable MGP staff member who contributes to Wikipedia. Mitchkeller (talk) 17:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

___________

References

Mathematical Genealogy

General discussions of the Mathematics Genealogy Project do not belong here, but should be carried out in appropriate fora, especially the Talk page of the Mathematics Genealogy Project and with the advice of the mathematicians in the Project:Mathematics. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 16:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Revert last 2 edits

The two most recent edits are quite a stretch. Reverting was safer than trying to rehabilitate incorrect edits.

The preface to Kelley's book calls Sawilowsky "my statistical hero" and she notes the book is based on his lectures. The book by Headrick is based on his dissertation and other publications with Sawilowsky - which is evident by either reading the title or (gasp!) reading Headrick's book. Clearly these are examples of Sawilowsky's mentorship. However, if the wiki Editor of this concern wishes a citation to her preface and his disseration and joint publications, ask for it and I will happily provide it.

Regarding the breakdown of disserations, they have been detailed in previous versions (from being in the body to being in the footnotes). It would be helpful if new Wiki editors read some of the eariler posts, because otherwise the material's editing becomes circular.

A citation is already given for most of the disserations from the Math Genealogy webpage, but after the flurry of incorrect "deleting" based on no known information, what is left is hopelessly incorrect - many of those deleted were in fact Sawilowsky's students or Sawilowsky was the 2nd Advisor; and some of those left on their web page were in fact students for whom Sawilowsky served either as the Cognate Advisor or Committee member. The haste to do wiki editor's dirty work has sacrificed accuracy for the agenda of the wiki editors.

The request for citations of 102 doctoral disserations is unusual - I haven't seen 102 footnotes on any other entry in Wiki. However, if the consensus here is that a new precedent should be started, I will (when I get the time) provide 102 links to DAI.

As to the proclivity for African American and female Ph. D.'s in applied data analysis, I can only go on the gender as indicated by the first name, so I have also emailed the prof asking who is what gender. I hope the Wiki editor will not ask for a DNA test, or later decide this constitutes original research. In any case, I will accept this endeavor, and then go through as many mathematicians as I can in Wiki and apply the same standard, seeing as how this is the new precedent.

I also propose, instead of a new round of Wiki flame wars, that any discussion about putting back in documentation for the 102 disserations that has previously been deleted be done on the discussion page, instead of a series of edit/revert edit/revert. 68.43.236.244 (talk) 01:42, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Response from the Prof: "I'm flattered and amused by the interest. I have a good relationship with Coonce - in fact I have published an ad pro bono publicizing his web site in JMASM for years. Much of the information that he posted (and was recently deleted) was originally submitted by me. I apologize if I have misunderstood the requirements, but in my defense the definitions have become unclear. I have no interest in correcting it; if my former students notice it and want to correct it that will be ok with me. In any case, you are correct - many of the entries on his web site are now incorrect by the new definitions. FYI, WSU is soon updating its webpages for all colleges and schools to a new format, and my c.v. will be posted. Anyone interested in the particulars of my former (and current) doctoral students, or any other aspects of my career, will be able to retrieve this data."68.43.236.244 (talk) 03:11, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a forum for original research, so it is inappropriate to cite 102 dissertations supporting your synthesis (which is already in the article). What is needed is a reliable published source making such statements --- a reliable source preferably not closely connected with the biographical subject, the esteemed Professor Sawilowsky, whose manifold virtues have never been in question . . . . Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 11:57, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

"manifold virtures" is a bit over the top, don't you think? In any case, DAI is certainly a (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_sources) tertiary source, and if the material is challanged, which apparently it is, then 102 links to DAI should be an acceptable repsonse to that challange.68.43.236.244 (talk) 23:13, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I did not mean to exaggerate, but I believe that anybody working in multivariate analysis and even design of experiments has had to think more about their craft because of Professor Sawilowsky, and I only wish there were more professors like him. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 17:41, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Play nice!

Maybe it is time for all of us to step back, for 24 hours, at least for my sake!

If you do not want to share a time out with me, then please try to try to be exemplary WP editors, whose comments here should be shown to new editors as good examples of avoiding mutually assured destruction, okay? ;) Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 23:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Revisions to this page

I have taken into consideration every criticism raised on this page in making edits to the entry for Shlomo Sawilowsky. I argue it is notable that he has written entries for an encyclopedia, because by definition, that is a secondary source. It can be improved by someone looking up the page numbers and adding that to the references. If not, then someone who is registered should nominate this article for deletion.

I would like to thank all the editors who have made thoughtful suggestions for the improvement of this article.141.217.105.228 (talk) 17:19, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Ever read WP:POINT? If someone deletes from an article "unimportant" information which you consider to in fact be important to the subject ... do not delete most of the remaining article as "unimportant". Grow up. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 17:23, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Ever read this Discussion page? Don't come in w/o reading it and insult me! If you read this discussion page, you will see I implemented every concern/complaint that editors have raised. I would tell you to grow up, but better advice is to read the discussion page before you flame me.141.217.105.228 (talk) 17:27, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Material added is questionable & proposal for deletion

AJRG added information on a journal. However, an editor above noted linking to the journal page is not a secondary source, and furthermore, the prof is the editor of that journal. I don't know if AJRG is a student of his (of which I have falsely been accused of), but unless the journal is linked to a secondary source, I propose deleting the information.

AJRG also added a link to WSU's directory. According to editors above linking to the prof's webpage or other webpages which he is related to is unacceptable. Unless an independent secondary source is cited, I propose to delete that as well.

Also, I'm questioning whether the information on authoring the encyclopedia entries is acceptable. There is no secondary source saying Sawilowsky has authored this; it is just a link to the encyclopedias themselves, which is probably original research. An editor above has also objected to original research, so unless someone can find a secondary source indicating he has authored encyclopedia entries, I propose deleting that as well. (In addition, the three encyclopedias are commercial publications, so this also appears to violate linking to commerical products as an advertisement.)

To be fair, I will give all this some time before I make the proposed deletions. I don't want to delete without fair warning as did 141.217.105.228. 68.43.236.244 (talk) 19:30, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm a newcomer to this discussion, so please forgive me if I've overlooked something. First, while the journal page and the university directories aren't sufficient to establish notability by themselves, even a primary source may be used under certain conditions which this use of both the journal and the directory appear to meet. I didn't actually see any assertion that linking to the prof's webpage or a directory is unacceptable.

See comments by Iulus Ascanius68.43.236.244 (talk) 21:40, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Second, here's a source that indicates the encyclopedia entries. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:47, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Yep: WP:PSTS specifically says primary sources are OK if they make easily verifiable descriptive statements that require no interpretation. So a citation to Journal X's document saying Y is its editor is fine. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 19:53, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Wow - VernoWhitney - very exellent sleuthing in finding secondary sources! And along with Gordonofcartoon, these comments would have been very useful in arbitrating the silliness above! Bravo! We could use more editing of this calibre.68.43.236.244 (talk) 21:40, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Image restored

Note: reason for deletion [7] was bogus. File:Shlomo s sawilowsky.jpg has a clear assertion of release into public domain by the copyright holder. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 20:02, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

That is my error. On many web pages I've seen the copyright info in the text, w/o having to go to the commons page. Because I didn't see it here I assumed it wasn't a public domain jpg.68.43.236.244 (talk) 21:40, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

On revising this article

I'm one of the accused. (It’s hell being unregistered. I have been made to feel unwanted by a registered editor who uses a pseudonym and explains on his website because he wants to remain anonymous!) For the record, I have been falsely accused of being one of the Prof's students. Here is a brief summary of the concerns mentioned by other editors on the discussion page: (1) remove information that is original research, defined as any sentence that isn’t linked to a secondary source, (2) remove any link that is not considered secondary by that editor, (3) invalidate any information from the prof’s university's webpages because it isn’t independent, (4) remove any mention of his doctoral students (see Emmy Noether’s web page!), (5) remove the number of his doctoral students, (6) remove mention of his doctoral student’s achievements, (7) denigrate the quality of his doctoral students’ dissertations, (8) denigrate his publishing because it is not cited in a specific math resource even though he isn’t a mathematician, (9) remove "distinguished" because it s a Peacock even though his university gave him that title, (10) remove bullet lists of topics he has published on that have impacted his field because it reads like a tourism guide, (11) remove the bullet lists because it is euphoric, (12) remove mention of his journal because it is of questionable value and not a core journal (which it actually is) (13) remove mention of his journal because he is the editor, (14) remove link to his journal because that isn’t a secondary source, (15) any remove any information on the achievements of his students because the article should focus only on him, (16) delete information solely for the sake of making the entry shorter, (17) delete information on him that isn’t found in two or three mathematician’s entry, (18) revise this entry because he is “closed-minded”, (19) remove material on him being president of a national organization because it isn’t national enough (or some such reason), (20) remove material on his resignation from the presidency of a national organization because resignations aren’t notable (even though there is a Wikipedia entry on just such a topic, (21) delete a statement that the number of women and Blacks as his graduates is unusual (which it is), (22) delete any link to an independent newsletter of a national organization because it contains a column he wrote, (23) recommend deletion because the subject is at most “marginally notable”, a term undefined by the notability definition, (24)there were links to "primary" sources, which are not permitted. These are just a few of the concerns other editors, all registered, that have been raised. I am one of a few who have been combating this silliness, along with 141.217.105.228. He has apparently decided to switch instead of fight, and now I’m agreeing with him. So if you plan on restoring something that other, registered editors have protested against, it may not be appropriate. 68.43.236.244 (talk) 20:28, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion for VernoWhitney and/or Gordonofcartoon

You both seem to be level-headed. I suggest you restore this entry to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shlomo_Sawilowsky&oldid=350014564 , and then make edits that you see fit, given the contentiousness on this discussion page.166.217.99.73 (talk) 22:11, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

An afterthought: Given the COI discussion, you should probably mention if it applies to you.166.217.99.73 (talk) 22:25, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

OK by me!68.43.236.244 (talk) 22:30, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Reverted to suggested version, will look through it later to see what the issues are if nobody beats me to it. As far as COI: I have no idea who this person is and only came across this article today while scanning Recent Changes...which is to say no COI. VernoWhitney (talk) 23:17, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

GREAT! I can't speak for anyone else, but I promise to keep a time out until you say you are done. I recommend if you need a source, ask for it first before deleting, although you seem to be better than any of us at finding sources!68.43.236.244 (talk) 23:30, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

You both seem to be level-headed

Thank you. I've no issues for or against the subject, and I'm absolutely sure an article viewed as neutral by the general criteria here would raise no problems regarding notability. We just don't need these kind of WP:POINT complications. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 01:10, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to restore this version, prior to 141.217 making a WP:POINT. These edits removed many external links as should be done per WP:ELNO and removed information about the content of a journal which does not seem necessary in the article. Please explain if and why you think these edits are problematic. Smartse (talk) 23:51, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I trimmed some but not all of the parts about the journal, but the only external links that I saw were removed are the selected publications which I'm going to leave alone for now until I look at some other articles about academics and see how they're generally handled, so I'll take a look at that tomorrow morning. VernoWhitney (talk) 01:20, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

OK. Among other aspects, I'm not happy with the Contributions to the statistical literature section for sheer overkill of detail, and a certain amount of editorial ("often raising interesting questions of practical importance" - who says?). Nor the Mentorship section; this is the only article here I can find that lists publications of the students of the subject. And first para: original research, particularly "Notable for this discipline, approximately half of his graduate students are female ... and one-fourth are African American". That's clear OR unless someone else has synthesized the data to make that statement. Second para: just non-notable detail that's not about the subject. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 17:56, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I've been looking over it and I agree. Contributions should be good with the first sentence and the last paragraph probably as is, and then some summation of the middle, probably combined with his publications section to replace the unsourced lists that currently make up the bulk of that section. Other academics I've looked at don't generally have publication lists, so i think using them as citations for statements about the kind of papers he writes would be a better way to use them than the current "Sampling of publications" list. I haven't found any sources for the grad student ratio thing, so i think the whole Mentor section needs to go. Does that sound acceptable? VernoWhitney (talk) 18:37, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for summarizing, I completely agree. Contributions section should be massively shortened for the reasons stated by Gordon. Sampling of publications should be eliminated since this is not a vita. The entire mentoring section is original research, and the listed books (except for one co-authorship) are all by other people, as noted by Gordon. This article should only cover Shlomo's works, and a summary at that. The photo should also go since it is not public domain, but rather lifted from a commercial website.[8] I would still also like to see a secondary source on the SIG deal - namely that someone else cared enough to note and discuss the event. Currently, the only source is Shlomo's own primary statement. The rabbi stuff is completely unrelated to his professional work, but I'm OK with some of it staying merely because most bio articles come with some personal info. That's a start. Iulus Ascanius (talk) 10:26, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd already tagged the photo as disputed copyright status for that reason, but it's hosted at Wikimedia Commons which I'm less familiar with, not here at Wikipedia, so I'm not sure if there's a faster track to get someone to else to take a look and possibly delete the file. I'll go ahead and start some of the editing now. VernoWhitney (talk) 11:56, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Peace Train

Now I've been crying lately,
thinking about this Talk:page as it is
Why must we go on hating,
why can't we live in bliss

Cause out on the edge of darkness,
there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this Talk:page,
come take me home again

Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 21:13, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be nice

if editors would be fair and consistent? Once again, Sawilowsky's notability must be based on the appropriate standard. Consider PsychInfo, the database published by the American Psychological Association. This is an appropriate secondary resource for Sawilowsky's publications and contributions. Now, it was argued by an editor above that he pales in comparison with the following, who to paraphrase, "have some connection to social sciences":

290 citations for Frederick Lord (educational psychologist associated with ETS)
274 Sawilowsky
80 Harold Hotelling (principal component, canonical correlation and "T-square distribution" in multivariate analysis)
11 Abraham Wald (K.W. economics)
5 Karl Gustav Jöreskog (APA life achievement award winner; LISREL gets 300 thousand Google hits; MLE factor analysis)
2 Herman Wold (Wold decomposition in time series, directed acyclic graphs, partial least squares, causal inference, utility theory, consumer demand theory)
1 Peter Whittle (multivariate time series, spatial statistics, hypothesis testing, control, factor analysis, strategic sampling, etc.)
0 Michael Akritas (Penn State, nonparametric & multivariate statistics)
0 Ken Arrow (economics, political science, sequential analysis, dynamic programming)
0 Peter M. Bentler (UCLA, structural equation models, psychometrics)

So, lets please "stop the bullying" as an editor above mentioned.Edstat (talk) 03:20, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I mentioned these statisticians as examples of social-scientists whose work has been reviewed by Mathematical Reviews, since this editor or another Sawilowsky fan claimed that Mathematical Reviews was terribly biased against statistics in the social sciences. (I don't remember anybdoy mentioning Lord, though.) To save space, I'll mention some of the main contributions of each person to the right of the above names (rather than duplicate the list). Most of these are or were members of national academy of sciences and all are/were professors at leading departments at leading research universities; in contrast, Professor S. is doing good work at the education school at Wayne State University, and (as I wrote before) I wish there were more statisticians like him. (I trust that I avoided the phrase "pale" which has inappropriate connotations in the context of Sawilowsky's religious/ethnic background.) Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 14:42, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Google scholar returned c. 19 500 articles for "Jöreskog, Psychology" and 477 for "Sawilowsky, Psychology". The mismatch between the Jöreskog and Sawilowsky would be even greater if you would search under these names and economics, etc. Similar statistics would hold for all of the above but Akritas, whom I cited for work of high quality (with "proofs" rather than "simulation studies") reviewed by Math Reviews; I mentioned Akritas to give an example of how Sawilowsky's work had had a good influence on statistical theory. I am sorry if this and previous statements by me seem like "bullying", and ask that the editor think about the times I have volunteered references and arguments supporting Sawilowsky. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 14:57, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for being civil and editing your own work. The point of citing APA's database is because Sawilowsky was on the Editorial Board of the "Quantitative Methods" section of Psychological Bulletin, the flagship journal of the APA. Although the QM section has since spun off into its own journal (Psychological Methods), during its many years it became to psychology what Biometrika was (but unfortunately hasn't been since the 1980s) to biology/zoology. The point is his work is cited in the journals listed above, and on that score he is certainly notable, even if those journals are not the favorites of mathematicians. The point also is that psychology, which is a major contributer to the field of applied statistics relies very little on the works of all those you reported except (naturally, the psychometrician) Lord. The bigger picture becomes clearer if you carefully read the notability standards for academics, where it goes to great lengths to point out some search engines work well for some disciplines, but poorly for others; and what is considered highly notable in one area may not be the same for another. If that point can be honored here it will defuse a lot of the angst.Edstat (talk) 23:49, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Your search must have made a mistake on Jöreskog, for the reasons stated. The APA doesn't give lifetime achievement awards for people with 5 citations. Try searching "Jöreskog OR Joreskog OR LISREL" for unique contributions; searching for structural equation modelling, maximum likelihood factor analysis, covariance models, would usually result in papers with at least one cite of Jöreskog and his students and colleagues. Ditto with Hotelling: Search for "Hotelling OR Canonical correlation OR Principal component OR T-square*". Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 09:39, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Not directly on this topic, but FYI: I adjusted your edits this morning: the source we have says he authored 24 encyclopedia entries not 20, and I don't see a source saying that he mentored 57 dissertations in applied stats - so I changed the phrasing to only use the number (49) provided by the Mathematics Genealogy Project. Finally, the pdf you linked to regarding his resignation neither mentions his resignation nor the quote you added, only the general situation. I removed the citation and suggest that you find a different source, or the paragraph should be removed or thoroughly rewritten. The primary reason I trimmed out what I did before, was that there just weren't WP:SOURCES backing up what the article asserted. VernoWhitney (talk) 12:00, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I understand what you did. What I did was actually count them in the table of contents. There may be 24, but I could only find 20. It could be more were published in yet a different encyclopedia. We can leave it at 24 because that is sourced, but the missing 4 should be documented. I'll look again at the .pdf on the resignation to see if I can understand what you are asking for.Edstat (talk) 13:18, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, I just checked the .pdf. I don't see the resignation information - probably this was published before he resigned, so I'll look for another citation for that. However, I do find what I would characterize more than just "the general situation". It says this: "As you know, on October 17, 2008 Lorrain M. McDonnell (AERA President, 2008-2009) and Felice J. Levine (AERA Executive Director) sent out a second email to all AERA members regarding an economic boycottee...because the primary owner..."may a very large individual contribution to an action group promoting passage of Proposition 8", and "bring economic sanctions for or against proponents of any plebiscite certified by a state government, or economic sanctions against proprietors of legitimate businesses who are contributors to one side or the other of a lawful public referendum."Edstat (talk) 13:29, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, I suppose I must be using a broader definition of "the general situation". It's clear that he dislikes the sanctions, but it doesn't address his actions after his rebuttal letter (or whatever you want to call it) which seems to be the part you felt was relevant to the article (and I would agree that his further actions in this situation are more notable than the letter, I just don't know where to look to find a source for this). VernoWhitney (talk) 13:59, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

If I understand sourcing correctly, I can cite an encyclopedia directly. I have 17 of the 24 so far, so I'm going to put them in existing footnote. I think this is very cumbersome, and personnaly would prefer just to list the name of the encyclopedias, but we can try it this way.Edstat (talk) 13:51, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

For these purposes at least, yes, you can cite an encyclopedia directly. It's not contentious and we have another source backing up the number (in general at least), so primary sources in this case are fine. VernoWhitney (talk) 13:59, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I put them in, but I couldn't figure out how to put them all under the existing footnote ("9" I believe). If someone can do that it would look better than the string of superscripts. Not to be repetitive, but I liked it better when just the names of the encyclopedias were listed.Edstat (talk) 14:08, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Archive Recommendation

The length of this discussion page has gotten to the point that the auto-recommend to archive now appears ("This page is 96 kilobytes long. It may be helpful to move older discussion into an archive subpage"). I would recommend that VernoWhitney and/or Gordononcartoon consider writing a brief summary of their revisions, and any major issues that appear to be outstanding, and then archive up to ther summary.Edstat (talk) 13:29, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I think archiving would be premature. 96K is not very large, for a talk page. Nearly all the comments on this page were placed since the beginning of 2010, and many of them are relevant to the ongoing discussion. EdJohnston (talk) 13:42, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Interesting point of view. Have you recommended to Wikipedia that they adjust the auto-advice to be based on a larger size, and on based on date? I do agree that they are relevant to the ongoing discussion, though, which is why I proposed the most neutral editors to summarize what has been done and what may be any ongoing issues.Edstat (talk) 13:51, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

We can set up an archive based on date so only older sections get archived, but for now I'm with EdJohnston, I think they're all fairly relevant to newcomers if there are any until the article actually settles down content-wise for more than just a couple of days. VernoWhitney (talk) 14:06, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Mentorship source

Currently the first reference in the mentorship section is "[9] Amstat News, October, 1998." The link mentions awards, (which appear to be better sourced in the lead paragraph) but not the quote. In trying to dig up an appropriate source for the quote I found the Amstat Archives which link to the October issue, but after running through it I saw no mention of the quote or him at all. Can someone else take a look and see if I just missed it or can User:141.217.105.228 point us in the right direction for the quote since you added it? VernoWhitney (talk) 18:25, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not clear what you are looking for. I went to the link and found this: "Sawilowsky Wins Two Awards: Shlomo Sawilowsky, a professor of statistics, psychometry, and research design, was the recipient of the 1998 Wayne State University Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award, and the College of Education's Excellence in Teaching Award. WSU is a Carnegie Research I institution, ranking it in the top 75 of the nation's 3,000 universities and colleges. The first award was presented by University President Irvin D. Reid, who noted 'Professor Sawilowsky's exceptional record as an academician is reflected in the excellence with which he mentors graduate students. As one student wrote, 'In Dr. Sawilowsky we have a relentless champion when it comes to motivating and encouraging us. The second award was presented by Dean Paula Wood, who noted, 'His teaching has won him a coterie of fiercely loyal student devotes, and all those who leave his classroom must surely do so knowing they have been taught by one of the best. From the AMSTAT News, October 1998"

I put in bold what I think is the quote you are referring to.

I'll go back through this evening with a clearer head and look at the sentence again and see if I know what I'm talking about. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:23, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Ok, so I was apparently still out of it when I wrote that, let me try again. The sentence in the article says "The AMSTAT News ... noted <quote>" where the source says "University President Irvin D. Reid ... noted <quote>". The source is AMSTAT, but the quote isn't from AMSTAT, it's from Irvin Reid. So, I guess my first (coherent) point is that the sentence needs to be reworded to reflect who said the quote. Now, for my second point, what we have appears to be a teritiary source, AMSTAT quoting AMSTAT quoting Reid. What I was trying to do this morning was find the actual secondary source (in this case, the actual Amstat News issue) that contains the quote itself (plus any other context it may provide). VernoWhitney (talk) 00:00, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

In an unrelated manner, I didn't know how to put the encyclopedia references together under one footnote, so they are strung out accross the page. Plus, I'll be adding others as soon as get a copy from the library, which will add even more. Is there some way to subsume all of them under the one footnote?Edstat (talk) 21:11, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I know there's a way to put footnotes on a footnote, which I think is the best we can do. That will leave just the one in the main text of the article. I can do that (or at least try, I haven't done it before) later tonight too. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:23, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done Now any further encyclopedia entries can be added to that same part of the article, only they start with <ref group="note"> instead of just the usual <ref>.

Mediator medal for VernoWhitney?

Thanks for doing a good job and settling this down. I have some ideas for some changes, but I don't want to upset the balance you have achieved. I hope you get one of those medalian thingie's I've seen some editors' display on their talk pages. I wonder if you are a negotiator in the real world? Maybe you could help the Dems and Repubs get along? BTW, the Prof's email address is available by going to his journal! 68.43.236.244 (talk) 21:36, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, I think I just happened to show up after it had already settled down since the article was all-but-deleted already, but you're welcome, I suppose. If you have (or anyone else has) ideas for changes and don't want to jump in and possibly disrupt things, then just go ahead and suggest them here and someone else can either a) implement them or b) explain why it's a problem. If you're talking about WP:BARNSTARS, anyone can give them - even you. And finally, no I'm not a negotiator in my day job. VernoWhitney (talk) 01:25, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

If I can figure out how to do WP:BARNSTARS I will!68.43.236.244 (talk) 04:06, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Plan to revert last two revisions by Kiefer.Wolfowitz

The last two edits by Keifer (presumably made before VernoWhitney' suggestion to discuss here first - otherwise despite your suggestion) make two one-sentence paragraphs, which is taking what was prose and turning it back into bullet lists without the bullet. The one-two punch of different editors here will then lead to accuasations by others that this is a tourism guide for a city. Therefore, I propose to revert back to prose where those sections are put back togehter. The non-Jewish and Jewish disciplines are probably fine enough distinctions. If the preference is no, then I propose to expand on the two one-sentence paragraphs with detail and citations, etc. I'll give it a day before doing so.68.43.236.244 (talk) 04:06, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

On second thought, I think I will just leave Kiefer.Wolfowitz's arrangement, add some detail and citations to prevent it from looking like the dreaded bullet list. I'll do so in a day or so.68.43.236.244 (talk) 04:22, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Never mind - edstat did it last night.68.43.236.244 (talk) 12:38, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

This Talk page has calmed down in the last week, but I still want to urge relaxation and "good faith" assumptions, please!

My editing separated the psychometric (or educational psychology) content from the statistics material, so that it would more accessible to the reading public. I added links to explain the (imho) technical content; I was pleased that more knowledgeable editors improved the linking and expanded the content.

This seems to have been a cooperative phase of editing. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 19:21, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Kiefer. I agree, it does make it easier to read. Unlike what 68 claims, I never said that bullet lists or arrangement of content are bad in any way at all. In fact, I support that. What I do not support is posting of content that is not notable, like a list of many topics the subject has been interested in or a list of books by other authors, which therefore only serve to make it look like the subject has done more than he actually has. Just because something is true and referenced does not mean it is notable. This is what I meant with the comment on tourism brochure for a small town (not a city, as 68 states). They invariably try to make their town sound important by listing off facts or activities which are quite true - but every other podunk has similar characteristics.

Thankfully, most of that content has been removed, though I still feel there is some. Being second author as a graduate student on a paper that won a minor state-level award - when the notability page specifically says that awards as a student are not notable? Resigning from a group that is open for anyone to join and leave? And moreover an AERA interest group president is not the highest-level elected post in a major society. That would be president of AERA. There are more than 160 special interest groups in AERA, which means that there must be thousands of other people just within the field who have served as SIG officers. Iulus Ascanius (talk) 17:16, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Sawilowsky presented that paper as the first author, not the second author. According to the date presented, he was not a graduate student, he was already a professor. In addition to the local (i.e., Florida) paper award, the national group of AERA awards "State/Regions" papers only at their national annual conference, and 1986, according to their proceedings bulletins, was the first year, meaning this was the inaugural award of its type given by the national oranization. I don't know what they do now, because I was only able to find up to the mid-1990s online. Wiki maintains a page specifically for people who resigned from a group or position that is "open for anyone to join and leave", and presumably anyone who has a bio on wiki, or even if one hasn't been written yet, is eligible to be included in it. Therefore, I will link this entry to that page when I get a chance.Edstat (talk) 20:30, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I have now checked [[10]] and although it is an orphan and there is a request to link to it, the criteria for inclusion appears nowhere, and the discussion page is blank. Most of the entries are elected government officials, but many are appointed, and some are neither. In any case, it doesn't seem like that page is well formed at this time.Edstat (talk) 21:01, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I feel that it should be kept in mind that there are different standards of notability for articles themselves versus article content. For example: being an AERA interest group president does not establish notability enough to write an article on every interest group president, nor is it important enough to list on the AERA article, but as it's relevant to his academic career it can be listed here. Or more generically, think of it as an extension of birthdays: being born on June 1 doesn't make you notable, the article about June 1 shouldn't list everyone there who was born on that day, but it can be included on the articles of the individual people who were born then because it's at least reasonably encyclopedic. VernoWhitney (talk) 17:46, 30 March 2010 (UTC)