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Template:Did you know nominations/Simon Connell

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: withdrawn by nominator, closed by Flibirigit (talk) 15:35, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

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Simon Connell

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Created by FuzzyMagma (talk). Self-nominated at 09:55, 11 June 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/ Simon Connell; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

  • Thanks for your nomination. Unfortunately, this article will require a large amount of work before it is DYK ready. As it stands the article relies to a large extend on self published, primary or otherwise unrelable sources which has led to a significant amount of the article being original research or synthesis.
To give an example, quite a few details are sourced to likely self-written biographies on his university websites or publications he has appeared in. Let me know if you any further questions. Vladimir.copic (talk) 11:12, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
can you give an example of self-published work in this article? And A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. which is where I used his University webpage that describes his role, also see WP:BLPSELFPUB although I didn’t include any thing Wikipedia considers as self published work. Publications he has appeared in, like Nature, has a very high editorial standards and generally accepted as reliable sources FuzzyMagma (talk) 12:14, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
No problem. I'll give a few examples of self published, primary or otherwise not so reliable sources:
  • Google scholar is somewhere between a primary and self-published source. Academics can create their own profiles and edit them, and the citation information is for the most part automatically generated. This source supports the statement He has an h-index of 121 from publishing numerous articles and has been cited by many researchers. You could possibly use Google Scholar to say "Connell has a h-index of 121 over his entire career according to Google Scholar" but the rest of the information is analysis of a primary source.
  • I don’t need to add “according to” as its normally used to convey NPOV see WP:BIASED. There is no analysis if the source tells you the number of citations FuzzyMagma (talk) 08:31, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
  • A large amount of information is drawn from Connell's UJ website (essentially self-published and ABOUTSELF) and his African Scientists Directory profile which is an abridged version (almost word-for-word) of his UJ profile. African Scientists Directory is largely generated by the subjects of the profile themselves with limited editorial oversight (according to this website).
  • don’t see anything wrong with using information from the university website as I explained earlier especially for stating a something like where he was educated. africanscientists is now trimmed FuzzyMagma (talk) 08:31, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
  • removed the information from this source which was also written in other sources FuzzyMagma (talk) 08:31, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Connell's Academic.com profile supports large portions of text. Academia.edu is a user generated site that hosts/lists academic papers. It's not clear how this source is able to support the text given it is just a list of papers without a significant amount of original research using the titles of the papers as evidence of this - essentially primary sources.
This isn't exhaustive. A few ABOUSELF sources for simple facts are fine in the context of an otherwise reliably cited article but this article isn't there yet and the bulk of the information relies on these kind of sources. Vladimir.copic (talk) 23:10, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
A few ABOUSELF sources for simple facts are fine I didn’t use beyond few sentences in the small section about his Career. I’m glad you dropped the argument about information he published in Nature as self published as when you stated “self-written biographies on his university websites or publications he has appeared in” as these are not in the remit of self-published work. FuzzyMagma (talk) 08:31, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
Per the use of Google Scholar usage, the article doesn't just state the h-index number it also says "publishing numerous articles and has been cited by many researchers" which is original interpretation of the information presented by Google Scholar. Further, h-indexes are not as "factual" as you may think as they differ across platforms due to differing input information. I just checked Web of Science and, according to their calculation, Connell has an h-index of 77. Google Scholar's current h-index for Connell no longer matches the article.
I don't want to get too into the weeds right here. As I said above, this is just one of a few issues that would need to be sorted out before the article would be suitable for DYK. Vladimir.copic (talk) 23:48, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
the sentenced fixed to “As of June 2023, he has an h-index of 141 on Google Scholar from publishing numerous articles that has been cited by many researchers.” The articles that he published are more than 10 which makes the “numerous” description “factual” and they are cited more than 50k times which makes them “many researchers”. no WP:OR here, even mildly. There is a huge difference between "original reserach" and "paraphrase". See Wikipedia:No original research/Examples
@Vladimir.copic: please don’t tell me you don’t need to get into the “weeds”. You don’t oppose a nomination and then decide not to engage because you are being challenged. Writing a few sentences to articulate your thoughts is not as hard as writing a whole article, which you now want to dismiss based on things that are open to interpretation. I understand you clearly have no interest in fixing the article, but as you did with “Google scholar” you need to be specific so the article can be fixed or put it forward for a deletion discussion. I don’t need to write the article to your style but to Wiki’s. Thanks FuzzyMagma (talk) 05:35, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
Firstly, I disagree that stating publishing numerous articles that has been cited by many researchers isn't original research when it depends on an editor deciding what numbers equate to "numerous" and "many researchers". For all I know, these numbers could be very normal or even low for an academic working in that field and not remarkable at all.
I think that the overall sourcing issues in this article should be plain to most editors who have experience at GA or DYK. WP:SELFSOURCE states Use of self-sourced material should be de minimis; the great majority of any article must be drawn from independent sources. WP:PRIMARY states Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them. The article currently is based on 23 sources of which 16 (70%!) are either primary or about-self (depending on how the source is used some are both of these).
I do not believe it is my job as a DYK reviewer to go line-by-line through an article that as a whole isn't up to snuff but I'll give some more examples seeing as you have asked:
  • The following statement is sourced to a biography that (as I explained above) is likely written by Connell himself. This is not an appropriate source for a self-serving statement about another organisation. According to the South African National Research Foundation, he is highly regarded and acknowledged internationally for his accomplishment
  • The following statement is sourced to a paper authored by Connell and doesn't appear to mention CERN. Furthermore, he has been involved in engineering and technical activities related to the Beyond Standard Model search at CERN, which is focused on High Energy Physics.
  • The sources [1] [2] supporting the following statement are two of the actual presentations he has given, making them primary sources for this information and the statement OR. For this statement we need a source that says he gives presentations about this - not examples of it. In addition, Simon Connell has given presentations and talks about the African Light Source project.
  • As above, the sources [3] [4] are example articles authored by Connell not a source giving this actual information. Connell has contributed to the development and promotion of the AfLS, advocating for the establishment of this facility in Africa.
  • The following statement is sourced to two sources [5] [6] authored by Connell. Again this is a self-serving or promotional statement that would require reliable sourcing. The project has gained momentum and support from the scientific community.
As a whole, the article is shabbily sourced resulting in a baseline of OR throughout the article. Most of the reliable sources barely mention Connell and just reference him as part of a pull quotation. Sorry if this sounds harsh but, as a BLP, the article would basically need a full rewrite and search for better sources to make this DYK-ready. Vladimir.copic (talk) 07:14, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
fair enough and thanks for the very detailed explanation. it will take me time to address it properly even the part that I don’t agree with but most of your points still stand. I withdraw the nomination FuzzyMagma (talk) 08:02, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Nomination closed as withdrawn. No prejudice against renomination if GA status is achieved. Flibirigit (talk) 15:35, 6 July 2023 (UTC)


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