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The role of WP:PROF with respect to WP:N

Espresso Addict, I consider my addition “This test may be considered as exception to a rigid reading of Wikipedia:Notability where the content is uncontroversial, verifiable and neutral.” to be a reasonable statement of fact of current practice and a reflection of consensus here on the talk page, and if you disagree, you should give a better explanation. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:05, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Whoa, let's not put the cart before the horse. I'd say that when changing a Wikipedia guideline, we have to be rather careful, and a specific discussion of a concrete proposal is needed before a substantive change is made. The previous thread was still about the merge proposal, and that thread was extremely long, tangled and difficult to navigate. I am happy to move on and to discuss a specific edit proposal for WP:PROF, but IMO it has to be done separately. So, please, let us first see an explicit formulation of the rationale for the change first and at least a brief discussion specifically of that rationale and that change by the interested users, before claiming consensus and editing the guideline itself. Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 11:38, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Kevin, I have reverted your good faith edit of the main article for now. Let's have a specific discussion of Joe's change first here, on this talk page, before modifying the actual guideline. Given Espresso Addict's objections, I think it is premature to claim consensus here. Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 16:04, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

• WP:N boils down to: "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject."

No problem. I was bold and reverted. But I think that Joe is right. --Kevin Murray (talk) 16:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

(1) I don't think that WP:PROF is an exception to that rule.

(2) I don't understand precisely what you mean by a "rigid reading" of WP:N, and don't feel that a long explanation would be useful.

(3) I don't see how adding that sentence to WP:N helps understanding the relation of WP:N to WP:PROF, which seems pretty clear to me in the existing guideline, which states "A subject is presumed to be sufficiently notable if it meets the general notability guideline below, or if it meets an accepted subject specific standard listed in the table to the right." Espresso Addict (talk) 01:46, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Joe (or Kevin, since he supports Joe's modification), could you please state a brief rationale for it here? (The preceding discussion thread is so long that it is hard to fish stuff out of it. I do not yet have an opinion about Joe's modification myself). Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 16:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with EA. This is not an exception, its a specialized interpretation, explaining what is considered to be the appropriate way of applying the standards here. This is true with all the other specialized guidelines. The guidelines on athletes, of local politicians, on al lthe rest of the cases, are examples where something more has to be explained abut what counts and what doesn't, because--in each case--the understanding of how the field works needs some further clarification. I do not agree with all of the special rules here--I think that some are too generous and others too strict. Some I think are merely convenient arbitrary compromises. But we shouldn't word these as a exception--thats downgrading the importance of having these kind of clarifications. I wish we had more in other fields also; it would cut down on some of the repetitive unnecessary work at AfD. We;'re actually doing fairly nicely here in practice--most articles here brought to AfD find a clear resolution, with discussion focusing, asit ought, on the ones that are borderline. DGG (talk) 08:07, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

The rationale was to clarify a bit. I thought it would be uncontroversial, and would not be actually changing anything. I thought I could distill something out of the extensive discussions above. I suppose things are a bit touchy with the merge proposal. There is no urgency. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:06, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Merge tag

I propose that the merge tag be removed. It is clear that there is not concesus for a merge. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:06, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree. --Kevin Murray (talk) 17:32, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Nsk92 (talk) 17:35, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

This seems like something we can all finally agree on. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:43, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Aye... Pete.Hurd (talk) 23:03, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:FLAG-SCL

Hello, fellow editors ... I would appreciate any feedback and comments on my draft WP:FLAG-SCL protocol and other Flag protocols ... Happy editing! — 72.75.110.142 (talk · contribs) _{02:31, 20 April 2008 (UTC)}

Time to reconsider the guidelines

1. The person is regarded as a significant expert in his or her area by independent sources. 2. The person is regarded as an important figure by independent notable academics in the same field. 3. The person has published a significant and well-known academic work. An academic work may be significant or well known if, for example, it is widely used as a textbook; if it is itself the subject of multiple, independent works; or if it is widely cited by other authors in the academic literature[1]. 4. The person's collective body of work is significant and well-known. 5. The person is known for originating an important new concept, theory or idea which is the subject of multiple, independent, non-trivial reviews or studies in works meeting our standards for reliable sources. 6. The person has received a notable award or honor, or has been often nominated for them.

There are six guidelines. Omit #6 and the list could be a summary of what qualifies an individual for tenure at any major university.

But I am bothered on another level. I'm new here and I am puzzled. I went today to an article, saw that it was tagged, read the rules, and put up what I thought was the sort of info that would establish notability. Then I looked around wikipedia. Single episodes of Buffy the Vampire slayer have pages. Newly-published novels. Novelists with one novel out. Art-house movies. Totally insignificant Hollywood movies have whole pages. It looked to me as though every actor who has every appeared on screen and every player who has walked onto a major league field seems to have a page. But professors have this long list of qualifications. Obviously, I have a bit of an ax to grind. But hear me out. Professors write things that matter, even when those things appear exclusively in academic journals. It can be useful to watch the young up-and-comers. Useful for them to have pages so that when they pop into the news people can look them up. Useful to be able to do a quick check when you run into something written by someone in a field you don't follow and want to know who he is. But mostly I am bothered by the double standard. Professors are public figures. Why do one-game ball players get their own pages, and people like Bakhle who is doing work that people pay attention to do not? Can we talk about this?Butler stacks (talk) 00:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)Butler stacks

Note that this rant, disparaging as it is to creative work, was also posted to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Janaki Bakhle‎.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:15, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't see it as disparaging at all, and perhaps you had best review WP:BITE before commenting in future. --Relata refero (disp.) 05:54, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

"Newly-published novels. Novelists with one novel out. Art-house movies. Totally insignificant Hollywood movies"... compared to say professors with one book out. I would be surprised to see very many newly-published novels or novelists with one novel out that haven't hit the big time quickly, that don't have notability by being noted.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:12, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not going the trivialize the work of novelists or professional athletes, but I will say that having an article on Nicholas J. Hopper and his research in cryptography might contribute to a better understanding of cryptography in general. I mention Hopper because some of the early discussion about notability for academics took place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nicholas J. Hopper, and articles about him have been deleted several times for lack of notability. I don't think we need to exclude academics who are not "more notable than the average college instructor/professor" because most academics are doing notable work. Omitting junior faculty members is likely to do more harm than good. Authors who have had a book published without subsidizing the publication, whether the book is published by a commercial publisher or an academic one, whether or not they are academics, generally have enough reference value to warrant an article. Editors who might want to create an article on a professor are likely to be discouraged by the attitude towards academics sometimes shown in AfD discussions epitomized by phrases like "just another professor". --Eastmain (talk) 03:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Do we actually have independent sources on any of these? They aren't, as a general rule, WP:V. Nor have I seen an article on most of them that is more interesting than their resume.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:12, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Being an academic myself, I confess that I do think that having encyclopedic articles on scholarly and academic subjects is somewhat more important than those on some transitory popular culture subjects. However, lowering the inclusion bar for articles about academics is not the answer (if anything, the bar set in this guideline probably needs to be raised somewhat). Between academic topics and academics themselves, it is certainly much more important to include WP aricles on academic and scholarly topics rather than people. An encyclopedic article about an academic only becomes useful if it helps the reader understand the development of a particular subject and see who is significantly influencing it and how. Much (probably most) of academic work, while certainly useful and credible, is not really particularly notable (this is true for both junior and senior academics). In fact, in most cases, when we write a scholarly article, we cannot predict what will happen to it and whether it will become influential or quickly forgotten. I have to say that I find the state of most currently existing WP articles about academics to be rather unsatisfactory. They rarely give more than basic bio info and maybe a list of selected publications. These kinds of articles are not particularly encyclopedically useful. They don't really tell the reader anything substantive about the development of a particular subject. A good article should try to explain which ideas, techniques, results etc a particular academic has contributed to the field and how his/her work actually influenced the field. I think one of the reasons for this state of affairs is that the existing WP:PROF bar is a bit too low. Having more stringent requirements would force people to write more substantive articles and prepare them better before posting them on WP. Lowering the bar to include essentially every tenure-track (or even tenured) professor would have the opposite effect. We would get a bunch of uninformative resumes dumped on WP, often for vanity reasons. Nsk92 (talk) 12:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

If you think this type of information is important, why not improve existing articles to add it? Wikipedia is a voluntary organization, and attempts to force people to do things tend to have very limited effectiveness in volunteer-based organizations. Trying to force people to stop writing imperfect articles is more likely to result in people not contributing at all than in more perfect articles. Wikipedia's policy has long been to have very few core requirements and to make these requirements very simple and clear. So long as the information presented is verifiable, reliable, and neutral, our general policy has been that it is much better to have an imperfect article that fails to say everything that might be said than to have no article all. We should expect volunteer-generated articles to start out imperfect, and we can always improve them later. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 17:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I have always viewed the notability criteria for academics as an exception to our general policies. Our general policies make clear that all that's required is coverage by multiple reliable sources. Because publications are academics' business, many if not most academics pass that threshold. Anything more stringent represents a deviation from our policies, plain and simple. However, as a practical matter, academics tend not to like our core policies, tend to want a more selective approach, and tend to want to use importance as a ground for inclusion rather than coverage by reliable sources. Realizing that as a volunteer organization our ability to force academics to behave differently from the way they want to is limited, and that moreover we need academics and their expertise (and their desire for perfection) more than they need us, we accept non-compliance and indulge these tendencies as a modus viviendi. However, I would recommend against any further deviation from core policy than what we already accept. We can only indulge so much. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 17:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[To Nsk92:] People won't write better articles if the guidelines were tighter, the existing standard of articles would just get deleted more quickly. Only regulars at AfD even read the guidelines, while most people starting articles are newbies or IPs. I agree many articles on academics are currently poor, but Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia, the articles don't have to be perfect to start with, just sufficient to provide a skeleton which other editors can flesh out. Deletion doesn't help the article to develop, and the line in the deletion log inhibits editors in future who might be able to write a good article from bothering to even start one. Espresso Addict (talk) 17:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

You could be right about this, I am not sure. A part of the problem is that at the moment relatively few people from academia are involved in editing WP articles. Yes, WP is a communal enterprise but at the moment the community involved in editing academic artcles and articles about academics is just too small and it cannot adequately cope with giving proper attention to the articles that are being created. So in practice, the situation with most stab-like articles about academics is that after having been created they are not substantially improved afterwards and remained in fairly poor shape for a long time. It does seem certain that to me that if the standard is lowered, the problem will substantially proliferate. It is true that most newcomers do not read the guidelines before creating articles about particular academics. So you are correct that raising the standard may not improve the quality of the initial versions of the articles about academics after they are created. But an AfD nomination or just a notability question tag might actually induce people to improve such articles, but providing more details, citing more sources, etc. I do not have a firm or well-defined opinion about the wisdom of raising the bar in WP:PROF but I do dislike the idea of lowering the standard to the situation where any tenured academic would pass.

I do have a suggestion of my own regarding WP:PROF, along a completely different angle. I think the current version of the guideline gives the appearance of a fairly narrow definition of the notion of an academic as someone who is a university or college professor. I personally think that an academic is someone who is engaged in scholarly research and is notable for their scholarly research. There are plenty of people like that working in the industry (e.g. at Microsoft), in the financial sector, self-employed, etc. It is perfectly possible for such people to be notable for their academic work (many of them are) and they should be regarded as having passed WP:PROF in such situations. In a number of AfD's I have seen people make a point that so-and-so is not a professor and therefore is not covered by WP:PROF. I would like to see this point clarified in the guideline. Nsk92 (talk) 18:53, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I should clarify, I'm not in favour of either lowering or raising the bar at this time. I don't think it matters much if an article isn't improved in a relatively short space of time, as long as the existing article isn't complete rubbish (or defamatory, of course). After all, print general/specialist encyclopedias usually have several years between editions. AfD is not, in my opinion, the right forum for improving articles; suggesting deletion of articles on notable people just because they need improvement tends to be a big waste of people's time, even if the article in question does end up improved.

I'd agree that the current guidelines are rather biased towards academics who work in universities, but if you want to propose a more inclusive wording it would be probably better to start a new thread. Espresso Addict (talk) 19:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

You must recognize the difference, however, between an academic X having published a reliable work, which basically every academic including junior ones will have done, and X being discussed or profiled in a reliable work, which is rare. The latter is the normal requirement for notability per WP:N. I know that Nicholas Hopper, for instance, has a number of papers of varying degrees of influence but that doesn't mean that anyone has ever written about him in a reliable source. I think the mistake is in conflating the notability of a creation with the notability of its creator. Mangojuice^talk 17:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The reason why we concentrate on those in the academic profession is that there are visible criteria., since they have to publish, there is a structured series of ranks, and there is regular participation in a rewards structure of journal editorships and visiting professorships. Thus we can tell what we need to tell, the people who are recognised in the profession as being notable by the criteria there. We can see this, and judge accordingly without having to evaluate the intrinsic notability of their work, for which we are not qualified. We rely on the ones who are, and their evaluations in their 3rd party independent reliable published sources for peer-reviewed publications and citations and the can be measured. For those in the industrial or other sectors its different. in some areas there are patents, but then we have to distinguish the actual significant exploited patents, because it is the practice in many fields to patent everything possible. Some industries do participate in the academic system to some extent, and that helps, though distinguished industrial scientists rarely publish as much as if they were in the academic sphere. Some companies have their own rewards systems--I've argued that IBM & Microsoft Fellows are notable. and there are awards. But an example of our incompetence to do this is that almost none of the members of the National Institute of Engineering have articles, and that would be considered undoubted notability -- we do noteven have a category!!. DGG (talk) 22:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, what I meant, for the most part, was people employed outside academia who are engaged in traditional academic research (which may be a part or in addition to their non-academic career). There are many people in the private sector and in the government who publish research articles in scholarly journals, give talks at scientific conferences, etc. These people can and often do achieve traditional academic notability without actually being employed as university/college professors. I would like for this to be stated explicitly in the guideline. Regarding patents and technological innovations in the industry, I agree with you that these issues often present a more difficult problem and I would be more catious about applying WP:PROF to them, for the reasons you stated. Nsk92 (talk) 01:09, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't particularly find the guidelines useful. Why don't we stay with the basic one; that someone besides the author and friends have written something biographical on the subject?--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:05, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

That is required of all articles. It's nice to have a guideline like this, though, because it can give people a rough sense of the importance of a subject, so that we don't delete a topic that probably is notable just because it's not currently sourced. It's like WP:MUSIC that way. Mangojuice^talk 12:06, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

And the next two people to respond to me state that actually following that rule would be too restrictive. It's nice to have a guideline like this only if it doesn't take over the core rules. Frankly, I think WP:BLP encourages us to delete biographies that aren't currently sourced.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. WP:BLP encourages us to delete biographies with negative or controversial claims that aren't currently sourced, and encourages us to source all such articles. Mangojuice^talk 12:08, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

As a regular participant in AfDs regarding academics, I do find the WP:PROF guideline useful. I think that it will need more, not less, detail in the future. Stating that anyone whose work has been cited by someone other than the author or the author's friends is notable would set the bar too low. Requiring somebody to have written something biographical about the person would set the bar too high (in academia, in most cases, one does not biographical type articles written about them until the person is dead or is just about to retire). Nsk92 (talk) 12:36, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

exactly. requiring earlier biographic information is basically limiting living academics to the Nobel Prize or equivalent. Even for the members of the National Academy of Science & the Royal Society, the official bio comes as an obit. Ditto for most reference sources. Why? The reason is in part because the career of an academic is not over till then, and one doesnt want to have the one or two bios that might be on record in print reflect only part of the accomplishments. Obviously, that doesn't affect us, because we can & do add as appropriate. What sort of people in general get bios when alive--mainly people in professions that rely on public relations: politicians, media people, wrestlers, that sort of thing. Academics are in general neither notable nor interesting for the details of their life history; they are interesting because of the work they do, and that's what a user would mostly want to come here and read about. (and there is a similar problem with businessmen.) DGG (talk) 00:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not really that high of a bar. An academic author with even one book will usually have a bio blurb on the book jacket; authors who write mainly papers are still covered in department newsletters, talk announcements, some journals include bios, and so on. Yes, if we wait until a national newspaper writes a biography about someone, that's asking too much. But some biographical information in a reliable source, which is really all we need, should not be hard to dig up for a really established academic. Mangojuice^talk 12:08, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

there are only books in the humanities, usually. And a book jacket blurb is any way if anything a less reliable source than an official website. The website is under the supervision of the university--the blurb is done by the publisher's advertising agency. I am reluctant to use such blurbs even for routine information. For people in the internet era, there's almost always the official website, which is recognized as a good source for non controversial bio. It always lists the important part of the bio--degrees and positions and awards and publications. Where the person was born and went to high school is of very borderline importance in any case, & has no relation to notability. Pre internet era, we usually end up relying of biographical dictionaries & encyclopedias, as we do with most earlier bios in otherfields also..

Proposed revisions of the guideline

I know that major guideline rewrites are rarely a good idea but I'd like to give it a shot in this case anyway if there is sufficient support.

I have been actively participating in a fairly large number of academic and general BLP AfDs for a couple of months now. My experience shows that, while valuable overall, in its present form WP:PROF is considerably less useful as a practical guide (especially for newcomers) than other notability guidelines such as WP:BIO and WP:MUSIC. The problem is that the specific criteria listed in WP:PROF are not very well defined and the focus is not on what actually is typically being discussed in various AfDs (such as citation rates, reviews, etc). I noticed that on a few occasions where people actually tried to use the specific language of WP:PROF (rather than when making general references, such as "per WP:PROF"), the guideline proved to be fairly confusing and I found having to argue based on precedents rather than based on the guideline language in such cases. E.g. "regarded as a significant expert" and the clause about textbooks fall into this category. A few examples of problems of this kind coming up in AfDs are: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William E Brown (university presidents issue), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andrew Colin (mathematician) (significant expert interpretation), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Laurence Clancy (textbooks), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vaidyanathan Ramaswami (2nd nomination) (general confusion about what to look at when discussing academic notability), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jim Falk (the article was kept, quite correctly, but mostly based on arguments not clearly articulated in the current guideline; the nominator's assertion "I still don't see how he satisfies any of the WP:PROF criteria" was not explicitly addressed as such).

I have attempted to produce a (rather preliminary) draft version of a revised guideline which is available in my sandbox: User:Nsk92/Sandbox3. I have tried to give a more precise definition of the class of people to be covered by the guideline (there has been some confusion and disputes about that in AfDs as well) and to list the actual criteria that, in my observations, people actually use in practice in academic-related AfDs.

I'd like for all of you who are interested in this guideline to take a look at this draft, and see what you think about the general idea of using this draft as a starting point. If there is sufficient consensus, we can proceed with further discussion and refinements (I should stress that the specific bars for various criteria in the draft reflect my personal preferences for the moment; they obviously would have to be adjusted and refined further based on whatever discussion might follow). If there is no sufficient appetite for a major revision at this point, I can certainly live with that too and might think about more incremental changes in the current guideline text.

You are free to edit my sandbox draft User:Nsk92/Sandbox3 in the meantime.

Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 01:27, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

• First general comment--I congratulate Nsk for starting what has long been needed. I think this is a very hopeful approach to a revision, though it will need some tuning at the least. I do not want to get into the details yet, but some of them will need adjustments to accommodate the different systems of higher education. In general, I think there are very few factors that are important by themselves alone--it is usually a combination--this is natural, because they are interdependent. (i.e., one gets prizes because of one's contributions to the field). I think first this should be written more generally, as general factors, a few specific indications that are accepted by themselves alone, and then the notes. To what extent this should be started anew or worked into the existing structure is secondary to deciding on the criteria, and I suggest we consider that separately. I would not like to move fast--this will take contributions from various sources, I'd like to do a version myself--but this will be impossible till the coming holiday weekend.(Memorial Day in the US). The basis for this should be what is in fact being accepted at AfD.

More-specific comments: (to be expanded on gradually)

1. All major research universities are not equal--some are of much more significance for notability than others, in the sense that all the full professors at Harvard are probably notable, but probably only some of the ones at Penn State--though Penn State is certainly a major research institution. This will vary somewhat from field to field. The named chair distinction is particular biases towards the private universities with their large endowments from private donors, often naming chairs after themselves or their families: there are proportionately many more named chairs at Princeton than at Berkeley, though they are overall of about the same distinction as universities.
2. National Academies. The Académie française, the Royal Society, the (US) National Academies are all certainly firm indications of notability. I am not sureof some other countries, especially in the developing world with smaller systems of higher educations. I dont want to show cultural bias here--inedeed I've often suggested (successfully) interpreting the criteria liberally for people from such countries), but there has to be a recognition of reality.
3. Fellows. Fellowship status in different academic discipline societies are not of equal significance. I think we'd have to go society by society.
4. A clearer distinction is needed between the criteria in the humanities and other book-based fields with the sciences and other periodical article based fields--and also with the technical report-based fields such as computer science. Citations dont work well for the humanities.
5. I do not accept "appointed academic office" except at the highest level, president of a US college or above, or Deanship of a really major professional school. I've modified the criterion to account for this.
6. I added editorship of a major journal in the field--this applies to editor in chief. This has been accepted as a deciding factor in many AfDs. It would not apply to editorial boards, who are often composed of as many people as possible.
7. I added a statement about faculty in the fine arts, who can alternatively be judged by the criteria appropriate to their art.
8. I separated the statement about notability in other fields--obviously this applies to all types of people--a professor however unimportant who is a world champion figure skater, say, or much more likely a member of a legislature, is notable for that & the criteria here are irrelevant.

I have not yet even looked at the notes. DGG (talk) 21:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

DGG, Thanks a lot for your comments. A few brief remarks.

1. The named chairs. You are right that this tends to somewhat favor private universities. Nevertheless, I think it may be worth having this criterion in the guideline. My thinking here is the following. I think that the main and mostly used criterion should be Criterion 1. The others, like the named chair position, a major award, being an elected member of a prestigious academy, etc, are meant to be, at least in my mind, shortcuts for dispensing with relatively clear cases. So for these shortcuts I wanted to set up a relatively high bar which, by itself and without spending more time, would guarantee notability. One can then cite them quickly and move on. For most people, a more detailed argument for satisfying Criterion 1 could be made, where things like lesser awards and honors, editrships of journals, etc, could be contributing factors.

2. I basically agree with you here and probably some extra provisor is required.

3. I hope it should be possible to find some language that sets a sufficiently high bar here without explicitly listing the societies in question (which is probably not practical).

4. Fine by me.

5. I don't have strong feelings either way here. I put the "president of a university" category mainly because it came up during several AfDs. I don't know what the others think but I'd be willing to drop this item completely. If a real academic is a university president, they would be notable under other criteria anyway or could go through WP:BIO. If it is mainly an administrator or a political figure, I am also willing to let them go through WP:BIO instead.

6, 7, 8 Fine by me.

Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 21:53, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

DGG, I noticed that you removed the criterion "The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity" from the draft. I meant it basically as a carry-over from the current version of WP:PROF about people who write highly popular general audience books on academic subjects or are frequently quoted in the media as academic experts. I do not have a strong opinion about retaining this criterion. One could argue that such people will pass WP:BIO anyway. But I'd like to make sure that you really did mean to delete it since your post above does not mention this point. Nsk92 (talk) 22:04, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I've put this one back in for now, pending further discussion. Nsk92 (talk) 22:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll just chime in here with a thanks for starting this process and an endorsement of DGG's points on a general basis. I'll have to take a closer look later on. --Dhartung | Talk 22:51, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Aye, per Dhartung, thanks. As for #5, the "president of a university" category agree with (and maybe go beyond) Nsk92's that administrators ought to be judged by the yardstick of WP:BIO. An academic's work is, on average, equally spread across three classes of tasks, 1) research/scholarship, 2) teaching 3) administration. Any given academic weights their effort unequally, and WP:PROF seems intended (to me at least) to emphasise research, to weight teaching-heavy academics as being less notable, then there is a difference of opinion on how to treat those most heavily involved in administration. My view is that department heads, deans, etc. ought to be judged by standard WP:BIO (multiple independent sources of them as a topic) standard, if their case for notability is via administrative work, department chair, faculty dean etc, rather then scholarly impact. Others have advanced the opposite view, that such administrative standing confirms status as a scholar, and I think that view holds sway at AfD. That's a topic that may be worth addressing explicitly in a new guideline (I see no need to debate it further, unless someone else is particularly keen to). Best regards, Pete.Hurd (talk) 23:16, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Re: "emphasise research, to weight teaching-heavy academics as being less notable, then there is a difference of opinion on how to treat those most heavily involved in administration": so, just like the academic tenure and promotion system, no? Anyway, I don't have a lot of detailed commentary to add at this point but I do agree that this effort to clarify the guideline and to make it more similar to what we actually do in AfDs is a good thing. One point I do think should be made somewhere, though: the draft guideline is very present-centric. We do and should apply different standards to academics from years past. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:22, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

"just like the academic tenure and promotion system, no?" I suppose so, but I'm not arguing that this is because it reflects the one true metric of academic notability, but if the rationale for WP:PROF is that academics become notable for their academic work, but aren't subjects of WP:RS coverage, then I think WP:PROF ought to focus on the aspects that relate to their academic work. I see no reason for academic administrators to be any more notable than administrators in any other type of organization, so my little point was why have administrative criteria in WP:PROF? Pete.Hurd (talk) 02:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Interesting point about present-centric, I must confess that I have not thought about this. Something more will certainly have to be said. Perhaps something about publication of collected works, memorial journal volumes, awards and lecture series named after specific people, etc, as going towards satisfying Criterion 1. One might make some of these into separate criteria. E.g. I would probably be willing to accept that if an academic's collected works have been published by a reputable publisher, that makes the person notable. Nsk92 (talk) 23:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a different tack, but for historical academics I would think 1) they are more likely to be the subject of WP:RS sources and meet WP:BIO, and 2) I'd feel that they would be not be notable if they fail WP:BIO and their work doesn't deserve a paragraph in a general WP article on their subject. I realize this is more stringent than WP:PROF is one present cases, but... Pete.Hurd (talk) 02:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

For scholars from before the 20th century I'd probably agree with you, at least as a practical matter. But there is a group of scientists/scholars who worked in the mid-20th century, in the pre-internet era, where things might be different. They have not yet made it into the history books but evaluating their academic impact now is more difficult since most academic publications from before 1970s are not yet electonically indexed. I think it is a bit unfair to apply the WP:BIO standard to this group of people (here is a possible example: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/D. Bap Reddy), yet we don't really have much else to go on. I personally would be mostly OK with deciding that anyone whose collected works have been published by a notable publisher is automatically considered notable. Collected works usually contain some biographical data but possibly not enough to pass WP:BIO by themselves. Another factor that could be taken into account, as at least a partial indicator of notability, for this group of people if they had a notable award or a lecture series named after them (again, probably not what WP:BIO is talking about). Nsk92 (talk) 02:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

as for administrators, the problem with teaching and with administration is that it's much harder to find objective criteria & there is much less in the way of public mention. I agree that the sort of dean who wasn't a major academic is not all that likely to be notable--deans of student life and that sort of thing is really a separate profession in the US & I don't want to encourage articles here.

as for historical figures, it's a different matter under the general criteria, if they are in a standard biographical dictionary, they are now fairly uniformly being considered notable--on the grounds that first we're a superset of what is in other encyclopedic works, and second there is undoubtedly more information, but it takes a great deal of work to unearth it. For continental europe, the German directories are extremely complete in this regard, and there are a few people who are systematically and successfully making stubs for everyone listed in them, usually working from the deWP articles which are based on those directories, generally without exact citation. They're among the few people at enWP working on the humanities, and I woudn't want to discourage them. There are similar works for Eastern Europe, but no systematic effort yet, while the people entered from them have generally been sustained at AfD, in some cases over my negative !vote there--I've actually been pretty skeptical. But as for our criteria, they'll all generally have a book or two, and the acceptance can be shown by being in libraries. I agree there is a problem with minor local dignitaries who hold some sort of academic appointment, and also with gentleman-scholars likewise. --I think we'd do well to insist on at least a locatable major publication to consider them an academic. DGG (talk) 16:49, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding administrators, my personal preference is to discourage articles about them unless they can show bona fide notability for scholarly research or if they pass WP:BIO. However, there is still a good reason to explicitly say something about them in the guideline since these cases periodically come up in AfDs. In the current draft I have set the automatic bar for administrators at a fairly high level (university president, institute director, etc). One of the goals in doing that explicitly was exactly to counteract AfD arguments that some administrator is notable because they were a Dean or a Provost somewhere and to force them to go through WP:BIO instead. An alternative approach for achieving the same result might be to explicitly state that academic administrators, regardless of the level, are only notable if they can satisfy one of the other criteria or pass WP:PROF. I personally somewhat favor the first option since in a number of cases it can still serve as a useful shortcut/quick notability test for real academics who happen to have high administrative posts.

Regarding non-living scholars, I did add a few things into the text regarding partial factors for demonstrating notability, such as publication of collected works (we might seriously think about making that a separate criterion sufficient for demonstrating notability), producing PhD students who become notable scholars themselves, having academic awards and lecture series named after a person, memorial journal volumes, etc. This certainly deserves further discussion. However, while it is necessary to say something applicable to historical figures, we should not overdo it either, and the emphasis needs to be on BLP cases since that is what the great majority of the AfDs are about. Nsk92 (talk) 21:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The part about having notable students seems a bit too close to WP:INHERITED for comfort, to me. In some rare cases it may be appropriate (I included a statement of that nature in Johannes de Groot, although I think he's sufficiently notable for other reasons as well) but it's a direction we should be careful with. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:04, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree w David that notable students == inherited notability. Pete.Hurd (talk) 03:29, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I have removed it from the draft. Nsk92 (talk) 03:33, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I want to applaud Nsk92 for taking the time to review and alter the guidelines -- I'm trying to take a Wikibreak now, so I'll just say a few comments. The new guidelines are helpful in their specificity, but they are much more science focused than the current WP:PROF -- yes, all the academies and awards listed are simply examples, but all of them are awards for scientists. Coupled with a growing emphasis on citation counts, the new guidelines will probably make it much harder for humanities and social scientists to enter. In addition, the rules seem more than just a clarification, but also a general tightening of notability guidelines. In particular, the "average professor test" is gone -- I know that that's probably too vague to be generally applicable, but it has helped guide me in how to judge the other criteria of WP:PROF. "Is this the type of award I would not expect an average professor to have earned?" I know that others disagree with the average professor test, but I think that it should be discussed separately before being removed. Thanks, -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 20:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

What you say about emphasis on sciences is very true. The examples listed are from sciences simply because, as a mathematician, that is what I am personally more familiar with. I would certainly want more examples added covering humanities and, in general, probably a more detailed discussion related to humanities to be included. I hope that people more familiar with the humanities than myself will provide substantial input here and edit the text. I am not sure what happened with the "average professor test". I don't remember deliberately removing it myself; I might have done it by accident or maybe someone else editing the file removed it. I am perfectly happy to put it back in, at least for now, and to have a discussion about it at some point. Regarding the general tightening of the guidelines, that is probably true, and, again, it reflects my personal bias. Again, it is certainly something to be discussed and to be modified to whatever consensus is. I have my personal prefernces but they are not very rigid and in general I am much more interested in having a functional guideline rather than in setting the bars where I personally want them to be. Nsk92 (talk) 21:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I just looked at the text and the "average professor test" is still there, taken verbitim from the current version of WP:PROF. It is located a little bit above the "Notes and Examples" section. Nsk92 (talk) 21:16, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

My mistake -- I somehow missed it even though I was looking specifically for it. One issue in the humanities, is that one of the main qualifiers of notability tends to be hard to ferret out: having added a significant idea or view to the discourse. If we're looking for something objective, in book-producing fields, number of reviews of books is a pretty good determinant of notability. Also the words used to introduce a citation ("in her groundbreaking account of the Great Schism...") tend to be more important than citation counts. But even then one has to learn to read scholarly understatement ("It would be unwise not to note X's account..." = X's acct. is supremely important!), and not believe that scholars compliment each other the way pop movie critics praise films.

Another issue that arises is that the same prize or admission to a scholarly society is often given to people in different fields or at different stages of the career and carry widely different weights. To take one example I know something about: an artist who wins the Rome Prize is (IMO) immediately notable -- it's usually given to the top American artists in their 40s. A composer is likely notable, but not necessarily (they tend to be less far in their careers). A historian who wins the prize at the tenured level almost certainly is, at the untenured, possibly or nearly. At the pre-doctoral, unlikely in itself. There are lots of similar prizes.

Though, maybe b/c of where Wikipedia is in its coverage of the humanities vs. the sciences, it's much less common that there are real AfD debates for humanist scholars. New articles tend to be slam-dunk major figures or no-brainer-delete graduate students. The tough cases (associate professor with a few articles and a book with only two reviews) are so rare, maybe it's best for us to still go with our guts and not try to formulate definitive policy yet. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 20:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Over average

A comment about:

An alternative standard, "the academic is more notable than the average college instructor/professor" is often cited.

Roughly speaking, this would mean half of all academics on should be considered notable! (Of course, I am here substituting median for mean, but I guess the point is clear). While we are at it, why not "define" notability as being slightly less average than average? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.78.83.211 (talk) 20:29, 28 June 2008 (UTC)