Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)/Archive 5

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Festschrift -- criteria?

After looking into a recent COI issue I came across a professor who had recieved a Festschrift, since this is a book honouring a respected academic, should this be considered as criteria to assert notability of an Academic. Gnangarra 04:36, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

It has been cited as such (usually under WP:PROF #6) in several AfD cases, including one now active. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:51, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:PROF revision draft - revisited

Hello, all,

I am back from my wikibreak and have finally gotten around to working on the revision of WP:PROF again. As a reminder, a draft version is sitting in my sandbox, User:Nsk92/Sandbox3 and everybody is welcome to edit it. I made a few extra changes, mostly relatively minor, and had taken a look at the entire text. I think it is in not too bad of a shape right now (in any event, more practically useful and informative than the current version of the guideline) and I'd like to get moving on it and if possible, proceed with a replacement relatively soon, if there is consensus.

While we do not need to perfect and iron out every detail, there are a few things that deserve further discussion before any replacement is made:

• Are certain provisions, e.g. Criterion 2 re awards, too tight? (My own thinking here was to set the automatic bars, like Criterion 2, relatively high, so that easy cases can be dispensed with quickly, and to make most people go through Criterion 1).
• Do we need Criterion 6 (major academic/administrative posts, like the University President) at all? (My own thinking now is that it is better to keep it, since the issue comes up periodically in AfDs and there are periodic discussions re whether being a Dean or a Department Chair makes one notable. Having Criterion 6 will clarify these issues and set the automatic bar for administrators appropriately high).
• Do we need Criterion 7, re academic impact outside academia? I don't have strong feelings here. This criterion is a part of the current guideline so it could be kept on historical basis. On the other hand, I personally am willing to let people like Carl Sagan and Bill Nye go through WP:BIO.
• The draft is probably too exact-science-centric (since I myself and a mathematician and am less familiar with what's going on in Humanities). Perhaps some extra stuff re humanities, e.g. a few examples of awards there, could be added.

Please take another look at the text. Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 14:47, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd actually remove the word professor from the article (odd for an article that has an address of WP:PROF I know) and use just academic. Professor is used in so many different ways in some many difference countiries that the generic and more neutral academic is preferable. --Allemandtando (talk) 15:35, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

"the academic is more notable than the average college instructor/professor" this phrase does not represent a world view and represents systemic bias. College has a very specific meaning in many places in the rest of the world (the UK being one of them), so does instructor. For example in the UK, a college instructor would be someone who would teach you a non-academic subject at a college not a university. --Allemandtando (talk) 15:40, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

This clause has been a traditional part of WP:PROF and was copied in the draft from the current version of WP:PROF. I am not a terribly big fan of this clause myself, but some people do like it. It is rarely invoked at AfDs, and, since it is presented in the draft as an alternative, I do not see much harm in keeping it. On the other hand, if there is substantial sentiment in favor of removing this clause, I'd be happy with that too. Perhaps one could replace instructor/professor with "academic" there.

Regarding your other suggestion to eliminate the word professor from the guideline, I don't particularly like it. Most academic are professors and most professors are academics and in the colloquial usages the two terms are close. As long as the guideline actually mentions the issue of difference in academic ranks systems in different countries (as the draft does), I don't see a problem. Also, one of the things that is different in the draft compared with the current version is that in the first paragraph the draft tries to define explicitly the class of people covered by the guideline and to explain what is being meant by an academic and by academic notability here. Nsk92 (talk) 15:50, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Most academic are professors no they aren't - that comment doesn't represent a world view. --Allemandtando (talk) 15:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand. Could you elaborate? As far as I know, in countries like India, China, Japan and in Latin American counties most people engaged in academic research have some kind of an academic position (at a college or a university). The same is true for European counties, Russia, U.S. and Canada. Nsk92 (talk) 16:09, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

That is true, but emphasis should be put on the word most. In France, for example, many academic researchers work for one of the great research organizations CNRS, INSERM, etc. These people don't have to teach (although many do some teaching) and none of them have an official university position with the title "professor". In Russia, many researchers have similar positions with the Academy of Sciences. Even in the US, many researchers are not employed by universities, but for example by the NIH intramural programme, DOE, DoD, etc. And then there are of course all those academics doing research in industry. I think the majority of academics involved in research are, indeed, employed by universities (or colleges in the US), but I don't think it is even a large majority. --Crusio (talk) 17:04, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, although I still think of CNRS and NIH jobs as academic positions. One of the new things I tried to do in the draft (compared to the current WP:PROF version) is exactly to stress in the opening paragraph that an academic is somebody engaged in scholarly research and known for such research, regardless of where they are employed. Nsk92 (talk) 18:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Should criterion 8 (editor of a major journal) also include, e.g., program chair of (perhaps multiple) major conferences? It fits the same role, I think: peer reviewing at its highest levels.—Preceding unsigned comment added by David Eppstein (talk • contribs)

Hmm, I'd be a bit wary of making it a separate criterion. There are lots of conferences of varying degrees of prestige, including various paper-mill conferences with fancy names that make their money by charging huge fees to the participants. In general, it is much easier to organize a conference than to start a journal, and having this as a separate criterion might lead to too many needless discussions in AfDs. I'd prefer to mention being a program chair for a conference within the discussion of other ways of satisfying criterion 1 (item 3 in the Notes and Examples ection of the draft). Nsk92 (talk) 16:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

How is it a way of satisfying criterion 1, when it's about reviewing and selecting other academics' research rather than creating one's own? —David Eppstein (talk) 16:49, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Technically, you are quite correct. However, one does not become a judge of the work of others without having accomplished something first. So one could argue that serving on an NSF panel or being the chair of a program committee is an indirect indicator of the influence of one's work in the field. This explanation does sound flimsy, though... Nsk92 (talk) 17:03, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I am less familiar with NSF, but NIH puts a significant number of junior academics on its study sections. Some of these I would certainly not classify as "notable". Simple membership in such a panel is therefore not necessarily a sign of notability. Being the chair of such a panel is, of course, something completely different. I would turn Nsk92's reasoning around: if someone is notable, there will probably be many more indicators than just being on an evaluation panel or being chair of a program committee. I think it will be a rare case indeed where we would have to decide on the notability of an academic and only have panel/committee membership to go on... --Crusio (talk) 17:13, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Crusio. Pete.Hurd (talk) 17:16, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

academic/administrative post

"Do we need Criterion 6 (major academic/administrative posts, like the University President) at all?" my thinking on this is still no. The rest of the criteria load very heavily on demonstrating the criterion 1 is met, impact of their work/ideas. I think major academic/administrative posts is really very different, more like the notability debates over whether this or that CEO is notable. My thinking is that (much like Cruisio's comment about it being unlikely that panel/committee membership alone would demonstrate criterion 1) that academic/administrative posts alone cannot demonstrate criterion 1, and that a notable egghead in a senior academic/administrative post would be better judged on raw WP:BIO grounds if the major claim to notability is academic/administrative post. Pete.Hurd (talk) 17:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Basically, I agree with the logic here and think that people like university presidents etc probably can go through WP:BIO anyway. However, the issue of Deans/Provosts/Department chairs etc periodically comes up in AfDs and it'd be good to have a quick way of dealing with it. As I said, my main reason for wanting to keep criterion 6 is/was to ward-off arguments that some-one who is a Dean is automatically notable. Perhaps another way of doing that is to add a special note that an holding an administrative post is not, in and of itself, an indicator of notability. On the other hand, if some-one is the director of a reputable independent research institute, in my view this does indicate automatic academic notability. Nsk92 (talk) 18:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

[ ... nodding head in agreement ... ] Pete.Hurd (talk) 18:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Preamble?

For discussion, a suggestion that a preamble/rationale be included. One cobbled together here in nutshell format. Pete.Hurd (talk) 17:10, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

It is certainly a good idea to have such a "nutshell" preamble. This particular version looks a bit too long, though, and it'd be nice to shorten it. Nsk92 (talk) 17:13, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Aye, it's way too long! Pete.Hurd (talk) 17:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Pete.Hurd (talk) 17:25, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks pretty good. I was editing the draft while you posted this, and put another version of a nutshell description there (sorry, I missed your second version before pushing the save page button). Feel free to replace it with yours or to try to mutate/combine them together somehow. I think it is better to work on the nutshell portion directly in the draft itself, since they are taking a fair amount of space here. Nsk92 (talk) 17:47, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

copied current version from Nsk92/Sandbox to here, prior to welding. Pete.Hurd (talk) 18:43, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

last draft from me for today. Pete.Hurd (talk) 18:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Journals

Current footnote 2 states "journals charging significant fees to their authors for publication do not qualify". What here is "significant"? Most open access journals charge authors between $1000-$3000 for publication of their articles. Do these not classify? --Crusio (talk) 19:07, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, good question, I am note sure. In my subject (mathematics), it is basically unheard of for reputable journals to charge per page fees to the authors. No serious mathematician would really consider paying $1000 (or even $500) to have their own article published, open access or not; such a thing is very much against the culture of the subject (and our grants traditionally do not have money for such things anyway). I don't know what the standards and conventions are in other subjects. Perhaps this footnote should be removed and the issue could be dealt with on a case by case basis. Nsk92 (talk) 19:18, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I submitted to PLoS Biology earlier this year, impact factor >14, publication fee US$2850... Pete.Hurd (talk) 19:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I am removing this footnote from the text. Who knows, maybe even in math the practices will change soon and open journals will take off (although I can't imaging NSF actually agreeing to fund such publication fees for us). Nsk92 (talk) 19:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Just chiming in late: the page fees for humanities journals often reflect the number of copyrighted excepts (even though they could apply fair-use to reproduce excerpts for free, timid journals rarely do) or expensive to reproduce images in the journal. If there are no art images or copyrighted musical scores in my papers, I don't pay anything. But once I start including many color images of manuscripts I need to start looking for grants to cover a couple thousand in costs. The same fees apply to many University Presses for books: ironically, it can often cost a lot more to publish with an extremely prestigious press (with high ideals of image reproduction and many lawyers) than with a self-financed press!

The many, many differences between fields make me want to keep WP:PROF extremely general. Once we start adding too many specifics that help with AfDs in one field, we're removing people's option of resorting to common sense in other fields where the specifics don't apply. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 20:28, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Major awards

I think the draft version's "major awards" are much higher than consensus has placed them. I don't think anyone has ever argued that a Nobel laureate or Fields Medal winner is not notable. If these are the level of awards needed for #2, then we don't need to have a #2. I tend to think that winners of awards a couple levels lower (Award winner for best book on Medieval Theology; best article on machine-learning) are usually notable. That level might be too low for some, but I don't think there's consensus for enshrining an award level much higher than that in print. (As a guideline, I think it can include some ambiguity and reflect differences in opinion among people who contribute to academic AfDs). -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 20:28, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

This is exactly one of the points that I wanted to have discussed and hashed out here. My original thinking, when writing the draft, was to have the bars for most items other than criterion 1 to be set fairly high (so that criterion 1 is the one most often used and the other ones are sort of shortcuts for fairly clearcut cases). I applied this reasoning to awards as well since it is difficult for people outside the academic area in question to judge the level and prestige of most awards and since criterion 2 would provide automatic proof of notability. On the other hand, as you say, that is not how the issue of awards is handled in AfDs in practice (Nobel prize winners never end up on AfDs and usually lesser but significant awards are considered sufficient). So perhaps it is better to write criterion 2 in a way that is more reflective of AfD practices and standards. That is, to leave the debate about whether a specific award is prestigious enough to the actual AfD discussions and to deal with it there on a case by case basis and to change the language of criterion 2 to something less stringent. I'd like to hear at least one extra opinion on this before editing the text, since my own feelings are rather mixed on the issue. I do think that things like named post-doc fellowships, standard NSF grants, internal university awards, etc, should be specifically excluded. Nsk92 (talk) 21:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree about those awards that always or never confer notability. However, it would be handy to have a list of awards that would be considered to confer notability, rather than each time hashing it out at AfD. Could such a list (to be updated when appropriate if an AfD has deemed some award to confer notability) be an addendum to this? --Crusio (talk) 22:05, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I have to say that I would be hard pressed to come up with a list like that even in my own field, Mathematics (apart from the obvious ones, like the Fields Medal and Abel Prize, there are quite a few rather prestigious awards by AMS and by other countries' math societies, a few by private foundations etc). Given the fact that there are very many academic disciplines and only a few of us here, it is not really possible to come up with a good list like that covering all academic areas. I think it is better not to be so prescriptive in the guideline and to formulate the general principles there instead, to be applied on a case by case basis in AfDs. Nsk92 (talk) 22:23, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Some comparison quotes from other notability guidelines on the awards issue.

From WP:MUSIC (for bands and musicians):"Has won or been nominated for a major music award, such as a Grammy, Juno, Mercury or Grammis award."

From WP:FILM (for movies):"The film has received a major award for excellence in some aspect of filmmaking". There is a footnote for this item:"This criterion is secondary. Most films that satisfy this criterion already satisfy the first criterion. However, this criterion ensures that our coverage of such content will be complete. Standards have not yet been established to define a major award, but it's not to be doubted that an Academy Award, or Palme D'or, Camera D'or, or Grand Prix from Cannes would certainly be included. Many major festivals such as Venice or Berlin should be expected fit our standard as well."

This actually suggests that these other guidelines require an award to be fairly major to automatically guarantee notability. Nsk92 (talk) 23:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that's far more stringent language than past WP:PROF related award discussions have been. Pete.Hurd (talk) 03:36, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Right, and I am still pretty confused on the issue and undecided as to what to do in the WP:PROF case regarding the awards criterion. Nsk92 (talk) 12:12, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I tried to strike some middle ground here. I changed the text of Criterion 2 from major awards to "highly prestigious" awards and added an explanation to Criterion 2 that major awards (Nobel etc) always satisfy it and that some other significant prestigious awards (e.g. prizes of academic societies) may also satisfy Criterion 2. I also added an item to Notes and Examples that lesser but significant awards and honors may be used to partially satisfy Criterion 1, with the caveat that things like named postdocs, internal university awards, standard grants, etc, do not qualify. Please take a look. Nsk92 (talk) 14:32, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

we don't really have this problem with Nobel prizes and the like. The usual meaning of major awards in WP is awards at a national scale that are the highest level for the area of the award. Sometimes lower levels are accepted also, such as the formal nominations for academy awards. Should we therefore accept the formal nominations for the Nobel prizes? DGG (talk) 16:02, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem with Nobel nominations in sciences is that they are never publicly announced (in fact, the screening committees are required to keep this info secret), and the candidates themselves are not told that they are or have been considered. So I think there would be a big problem with verification of a nomination. I would imagine that if someone has been seriously considered for a Nobel prize, they would be obviously notable on other grounds as well... Nsk92 (talk) 16:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I strongly suspect that sources supporting "seriously in the running for a Nobel" would very rarely meet WP:RS. I was about to suggest that some mention be made in the "Notes & Examples" section that the Film & Music equivalents for awards are what they are, but the "nominated for" presents a real kink. So now I'm thinking that specific mention of gravitas parallel to Grammy, Mercury, Academy Award or Palme D'or might not be that helpful, or would it? Pete.Hurd (talk) 19:06, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, I don't think it is necessary to explicitly mention Grammys, Oscars, etc, in WP:PROF, even for the purposes of comparison (in fact, it would be kind of out of style -:). And indeed, there is also a substantive difference there regarding the status of nominees. For awards such as Oscars, after the initial nominees are pre-screened, the list of "finalist" nominees is made public and being on that list constitutes a substantial honor by itself. There is no such process for major academic awards, at least as far as I know, and usually only the winners are announced. Nsk92 (talk) 20:09, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Whoops -- wrote a long response about how many profs end up getting a keep based on, say, 4 "probably"s and 2 "possible"s to the criteria without any of them being totally kept. Then went and closed the window instead of saving. In brief: good work on #2! I like the edit that seems to reflect this common outcome. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 16:26, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

general discussion

I've been trying to formulate a general approach to this, not yet in terms of the proposed criteria, and in starting, Idistinguish several entirely different situations. The central one that we are discsussing is
I. Those people known primarily as researchers within the 21st & late 20th century conventional academic system in the US and Western Europe. (I'm going to use US examples, assume the necessary translation). Here the situation is relatively easy to define. There's am established pattern of rewards, which corresponds roughly to academic rank. We can either use academic rank as a surrogate, or the factors that determine academic rank, which are number and quality of publications. The advantages of using academic rank is that it equalizes between fields--we do not have to consider the publication patterns in different subjects. The disadvantage is that we do have to consider the nature of the different universities. Obvious this criterion in general applies usually only to those in research universities or equivalents, but not all of these are equal. There is a considerable difference between being Professor of Mathematics at Princeton and at University of [ ] State. The first can realistically be assumed to be notable, the second might be, but the assumption cannot be made. There is of course no really reliable rating here--it all goes by reputation, which people attempt sometimes to quantify, without any general validation. We've ben making thesedistinctions routinely in our evaluations, and there is no problem at the high end, but just how far that high end goes down is another matter. At even the best university, some departments are better than others--and it changes with time. There's of course the subsidiary question of what level to use: tenure=associate professor, or full professor. The level we have been using is full, though I could argue for lower. (Obviously some pople at lower levels will be notable from the importance of their work--we even have a few postdocs that have been sustained at AfD.)
The most likely alternative is to go by publications: these can be counted, and the quality of the various academic publishers for books and forthe quality of various journals is generally agreed within a field--and for journals, there's a more-or-less acceptable numerical ranking from JCR. The question then is the count, which is very different in different subject. The standard tenure level for the humanities at the best universities in the US is 2 books, one of which at least must not be based on the thesis. The level for full is of course more, but it isnt that easy to quantify. The level in academic fields varies--at the best places its more than just counting. Fortunately,m there is a usable surrogate for quality of individual articles, the impact factor or h value, if used with full attention to he different subjects (I note the h value will not reflect the situation of a small number of very notable papers--there are dozens of modifications) This sort of evaluation really reuires some degree of subject knowledge--enough to know the publication patterns. We have such knowledge in most subjects, we use it routinely at AfD, and it is usually accepted. For fields where we don't, we go more by analogy.
There are also surrogates for research publications: large research grants, multiple distinguished students, editors-in chief of major journals, important prizes, leadership of major professional organizations. These will always be found to accompany academic productivity of a high order, but are often easier to demonstrate.
There's another possibility: Sometimes we attempt to judge the actual importance of the work, as experts would ion a tenure or promotion or grants committee. (In addition, such judgmnts require other factors we are even less equipped to judge--such a committee also looks into expected future productivity ) This I think a little risky--we have too few people who can do this objectively over the necessary wide subjects so the results are idiosyncratic. There are some subjects where the people here seem to think they have the necessary expertise.
And there is one further difficulty: not all disciplines are necessarily equal. There is an ungenerally unstated feeling here that even in good universities, professors of such subjects as education may be at a lower academic level than in the more conventionally rigorous fields. I don't want to discuss the merits of this position--it's rarely said outright at AfD, but often does clearly affect the evaluation. I don't know how to handle this one--in principle its distinction in the field that matters, not the intellectual merit necessary to give distinction in the field. But I admit sharing some of the common prejudices. DGG (talk) 08:19, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

IIa. Those known for research, but outside the developed country mainstream, are a special case, because, although there are many internationally known figures of true distinction there, there are also many whose importance is present on a national, but not an international standard. We have in the past been sometimes willing to judge on such a national standard in recognition of the developing nature of the academic systems, the need for freedom from cultural bias, and the difficulty of evaluating the equivalence of the evidence. To what extent this is appropriate in a universal encyclopedia renmmains unclear--I see good arguments for either position.
IIb Related, is the problems of people, often from such countries, in fields of study where Western academic standards and ranks and publication methods are not used, in particular the many traditional Islamic or Jewish or Hindu or Buddhist scholars--and sometime also US fundamentalists. I see no way to evaluate t hem, except by apparent eminence in their communities. Even so, the sourcing problem is often impossible, as the sources are unpublished or unavailable. I see no solution until we have increased participation of appropriately knowledgeable editors, who are able to convince the general community here of their objectivity. (The same is of course true of people working in fields sometimes called pseudoscience).

IIIa. Teachers, and administrators, and the like are much harder to evaluate. Administrators, except for the top tanks of university administrators (President, Chancellor, and often Provost-- all in the US sense) they are usually not of particular scholarly note. Unless they have some special distinction that can be proven through good references, they're not likely to be notable (the case of college presidents I discussed a little earlier--they usually do have news sources and local importance in the area, and I think can conveniently be considered always notable). In almost all colleges and universities (again, I use these terms in the US sense, please translate as necessary). As for teachers, in most colleges and many universities, excellent and experienced teachers can attain the rank of full professor with less scholarship than necessary for researchers in the best universities. I find this tricky: I do not consider local teachign awards as meaningful. What can count here are such things as awards on a national basis or national leadership in professional organisations, just as for any profession. There are also textbooks. Though valid, in my opinion ur standards here need to be tightened a little, and that's a separate discussion.
IIIb In some fields of study, there are particular problems. Many Lawyers on the faculty of law schools are noted primarily not for legal scholarship, but for their legal practice, and will need to be evaluated as such--the standards here are not very satisfactory. Physicians, are often primarily clinicians--such designations as "Clinical Professor" are a good indication. Theyll almost always have published a few papers, but need to be evaluated on the notability as practitioners--this is a little vague too, though head of service in a major hospital is usually accepted as a firm indication of notability. Similar problems happen with agriculturalists and engineers and business people. Creative artists who are not primarily scholars are best evaluated on the basis of the artistic work the same as those not in universities--this seems generally accepted here.

Finished for now. I deliberately didn't map these on the current or proposed standards. DGG (talk) 08:19, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

General criticism

It looks like this is moving even further in legitimising original research.

Wikipedia covers what others have already written about. i.e. only of there exists a secondary source with coverage of the subject. If there is no independent biographical information on a subject, wikipedia should not be writing the first biography.

We should have no non-source-based criteria. No award qualifies a person for a biography. It is the commentary accompanying the award that qualifies a person for a biography.

Non-source-based criteria is subjective, parochial, and changeable. “Professor” does not always mean tenured, or even “any good”. Many journals charge money. Surviving review is helped by having friends. In some fields, publications and citations are far cheaper than in others. The prestige of awards changes with time, and is also subject to nepotism. Important work may involve only incremental changing. Wikipedians, as uncreditialed voluteers are not appropriate to judge these things. If you personally are well qualified to judge, then consider writing original biographies for http://en.citizendium.org/ . I personally would then be happy to accept a Citizendium biography as a sufficiently reputable and reliable source

There is plenty of independent biographical material out there. It may not be on the net, widely published, or free. Wikipedia already has a bias towards web-sourced subjects, and a real challenge is for it to gather reputable and reliable print-only sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:09, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

response. There is not such material, except for people after they retire or die, or win a really major prize or make a sensational discovery that gets by chance public interest.. The other material actually out there is not in fact independent of the source--it originates in statements prepared by either the academic himself or the PR office. Yes, one can find statements introducing speakers, but how do you think they;re prepared--they are usable for routine facts, but only to the same extent as the CV. Similarly a newspaper article on a scientist at a local university--where does it come from? Or a write up in an alumni paper?. It comes straight from the university PR office, who are often good at preparing fine sounding PR but in my experience usually rather poor in describing the reasons that show actual notability. ::Some other misconceptions: Full Professor 99% of the time in the US does indeed mean tenured, except for specific anomalies like visiting appointments. WPedians are perfectly able to judge what prizes are considered the most notable in all sorts of professions, academic or otherwise, and we do so all the time. similarly we can judge what counts as a first rate journal, or an academic press---there are objective considerations. As for nepotism and the like, that is equally likely to affect people writing articles in the press as in the academic world. As for differences in fields, this affects every area of Wikipedia. I could perfectly well say that all awards for porn actors and wrestlers are of inherently negligible importance, and based entirely on nepotism and personal connections. I could more precisely say and in fact do strongly feel that it affects the dfference between classical and popular musicians. Notability is notability in the field.

This is one general area where we can be objective. There are some others, music performers, athletes. We should take advantage of that. Research to determine notabilty is not OR in the WP sense--research to write an article is. DGG (talk) 08:30, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

A quick comment in relation to SmokeyJoe's post. I certainly disagree with much (probably most) of what you said, such as the statement that no award is indicative of notability in and of itself. Certainly not true, e.g. for such things as Nobel Prize, Fields Medal, etc, and also goes very much against the long-standing consensus in these matters, exhibited by the AfD discussions in particular. There is no WP:OR involved in checking whether or not someone received a particular award. Deciding what this information means does involve a judgement call, of course. But that is true about any notability information and also about verifiability, in most cases. We constantly do have to decide what constitutes a reliable source and what does not. Such discussions properly belong in AfD where people make such judgement calls and consensus of some sort is achieved. Regarding the insistence on the expressly biographical material in all cases and the claim that there is plenty of it availbale if one only looks. We have been through this discussion about 6 months ago when a merge proposal was discussed. It is simply not the case that for scholars, even fairly famous ones, there is a substantial amount of biographical coverage available from independent sources during their lifetime. This fact comes from the practices and conventions of academia as a profession. If we accept your thesis then almost all BLP articles about academics would have to go while even third-rate minor movie/TV actors would retain theirs. Clearly, an undesirable outcome which goes against the goals of Wikipedia as a project. Nsk92 (talk) 12:34, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

A quick thought regarding DGG's general comments. On the practical side of things, there are two issues that need to be agreed upon before a guideline revision is effected and both of which you mentioned: what to do with "administrators" and what to do with "educators".

1) First, regarding "educators". I'd like to channel most of them through [[WP:BIO] and that is what the current revision draft, User:Nsk92/Sandbox3, does. I think the focus of WP:PROF should be on people known for their scholarly research. The obvious exceptions are people who won major awards in educational area (they are few of them and they'll probably pass WP:BIO anyway) and those who actually enage in academic research (perhaps on educational subjects) themselves. For everybody else, in the absence of a significant publication record and therefore of a significant record of the use of their work by others, it would really be too speculative and too ORish to try to make notability decisions regarding them.

2) Regarding administrators. Here the logic is basically the same (either they should be required to pass WP:BIO or they should be able to pass WP:PROF based on notability of their research), but a practical consensus decision on how to treat the issue in the guideline is necessary, since this issue does frequently come up in AfDs. For that reason the issue does need to be addressed in the guideline in some specific and explicit way. a) One possibility is to say explicitly that no administrative rank, in and of itself, is sufficient to demonstrate academic notability and that people holding high administrative positions are required to either pass WP:BIO or to pass WP:PROF based on its other criteria (related to notability of their research). This is one possible approach. b) The other approach, currently utilized in the draft (is to say that only the highest level administrative positions (such as university President etc) automatically guarantee academic notability and that lower positions (Dean, Provost etc), should generally be required to pass WP:PROF in a standard way or to pass WP:BIO. I have a bit of a preference for the second approach since it does allow a quick shortcut for people like university presidents, institute directors, etc (again the issue of those periodically comes up in AfDs), while functionally accomplishing the same thing as option a); so it will be a useful time-saving device. Nsk92 (talk) 13:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree with both--that;'s why I treated them separately, to show the differences. As for college presidents, perhaps it should be a general rule that the head of any institution with an article of its own is notable, or at last of those outside some certain classes (I cant see it for high schools). This would really simplify discussions. Just want to mention that at most research universities, provost is a title of very high distinction, being in fact the guy whose main job is to arbitrate who actually gets hired and promoted. But such people are always academically distinguished, so there's no problem--and the title is used very variously elsewhere. As for heads of institutes, it depends--again, at the very least we mean institutes with an article of their own. DGG (talk) 00:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

General comment. Most other special notablility criteria, particularly those in popular culture such as our criteria for sports figures, entertainment figures, and pornographic actors, are designed to make it easier for people in these categories to be included by specifying various additional ways to establish notability over and above the general criteria (the subject can either meet the general criteria OR the additionl criteria). The criteria for academics, however, has long had the peculiarity of making it harder to get an article on an academic into the encyclopedia by establishing additional requirements for establishing notability over and above the general criteria (the subject has to meet the general criteria AND the additional criteria). The net result has been to tilt the encyclopedic balance in favor of popular culture by making it much easier to include a pornographic actor or similar popular culture figure than an academic. I don't really understand why the encyclopedia should be doing this. It doesn't strike me as accurate that academics are less important or contribute less to knowledge than popular culture figures. One argument given for tougher criteria is that because the business of academics is publication, an average academic will often meet the general notability criteria of having ones work covered by two reliable sources, and it's been perceived that ordinary academics shouldn't be included. But why should this be? Given the direction the encyclopedia has taken on many other topics in favor of increasing inclusion to the point where it now includes articles on many elementary schools and highways, why shouldn't it include ordinary academics if that's the result of the standard notability criteria? Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 14:01, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

That's logically not true; you can always drop back from any guideline and justify a keep on notability alone. But I the main notability guidelines are not have they published, it's "has there been material written in reliable, independent sources about the subject", and I've seen the academic guidelines used to keep articles that could barely turn up a bio on the inside of a book cover, much less any independent source about the subject. The notability guidelines are not and have never been about the value of the subject of the article.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:05, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Prosfilaes. The problem with academic publishing is that this is indeed what academics do and that this is in and of itself not a notable activity: the majority of scientific publications are not even cited once. Furthermore, whereas several book reviews in reputable sources may establish notability for a novelist, the academic habit of citing sources is very different and sometimes even rather casual (it is estimated that a large proportion of citations are actually wrong....). Most scientific articles cite about 30-40 other articles, reviews cite sometimes several hundred. The value of one single citation is therefore not very high, hence the argument I sometimes see in academic-related AfDs that "his article has been found important by no less than 7 other scientists" is not really very impressive. In short, I think it is perfectly reasonable to insist on a solid citation record as evidence for notability. WP:PROF just indicates that a few such citations are not sufficient to establish notability. In addition, as Profilaes notes, a bio should be kept if it passes WP:BIO independently of WP:PROF. The latter, I feel, is a clarification of WP:BIO for the special case of academics. --Crusio (talk) 15:33, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Prosfilaes and Crusio here. Academic notability means primarily notability within the academic profession. Simply publishing papers is just an indication of an academic doing their job, noting particularly notable there. Same for a moderate number of citations. In fact, as a matter of personal preference, I would have liked to see a bit of a tightening of the current WP:PROF standards. However, I think that getting a more clear and practically useful update of the current guideline is a higher priority. Nsk92 (talk) 15:42, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Historical aspects

This is a point I left out last night. Before the rise of the modern Western academic system over the period 1800-1900, not only were there many fewer professional academics, but publication standards were much more various, and notability other than by publishing much harder to determine. Technically the standard of being covered by other encyclopedias tends to be met, because the biographical encyclopedias tend to list them all--even if they give very little information (many of our articles on these are copied from deWP, which accepts such sources even without exact citation). It is however extremely hard to find biographical details except for the most distinguished, and we're left with no more than a list of books, whose importance is very hard to determine 2 or 3 hundred years later. I see no solution here except continuing to accept the information in other encyclopedias.
Additionally, my comments on the less developed countries apply to the US before 1900-1920, where most professors in distinguished colleges were not really scholars in a world-wide competitive sense. They are however usually in encyclopedias of the period, though without much in the way of details.
For many oft he historical figures, it's simpler to go by university, for a list of successive holders of a major chair, and assume all of them to have been notable in their period. (I am of the impression the same problem applies to many other early figures in other professions, and is solved more or less the same approximate way..) 00:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

A few quick comments in regards to your suggestions. I modified the explanation of criterion 6 a bit to explicitly require that an academic institute would have to be notable (in the sense of WP:N) if we are to consider the director of such an institute to satisfy criterion 6. I also added a minor qualifier regarding Provosts of major universities although I myself probably would prefer to leave that out (in major universities provosts will be serious scholars anyway who will surely satisfy other criteria of the guideline). Regarding historical figures (from 19th century and before). There was a bit of a discussion of this issue back on May-June. I basically think that with such historical figures we don't have much of a choice but to essentially go through WP:BIO, to avoid getting dragged into WP:OR. E.g. having an encyclopedic entry in one of the older encyclopedias seems sufficient for that purpose. These kinds of cases have not frequently come up in AfDs yet (at least not that I can remember) and I don't think there is an established consensus on how to deal with them as of yet. So I would probably prefer to avoid discussing them in detail in the guideline for the moment. Nsk92 (talk) 04:13, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Recent (now resolved) mass A7 deletion of academics

See WP:AN#Mass speedy deletion of Fellows of the Royal Society. Someone added stubs on 60 Fellows of the Royal Society; some other ignorant admin didn't recognize this as a claim of notability and speedied them all. Now undeleted again, so the drama is over, but might be of interest to editors here as an example of what can go wrong if we aren't more explicit about notability when writing new stubs. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:17, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

A disturbing episode, but it certainly does demonstrate the need to clarify the guidelide and make certain things more explicit, lest next somebody decides that being a member of National Academy of Science is not notable. Nsk92 (talk) 03:38, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Proceeding with the replacement?

Since the discussion has kind of stalled, I'd like to propose that we proceed with the actual guideline replacement in about 5-7 days or so, unless there are objections or someone feels that there are still some significant issues with the revision draft that need to be hashed out further. The draft itself, at User:Nsk92/Sandbox3, can still be copy-edited and tweaked in the meantime and everybody is welcome to do it. Nsk92 (talk) 17:22, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll give it a look. Comments forthcoming. DGG (talk) 03:49, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

General Comments

I recognize this is a rewrite and clarification along the same lines as the present, not an attempt to do it from a radically different perspective. So considering that, There are some overall problems.I stat these a problems, not that I necessarily have a suggestion--what suggestions I do have will follow.

1. Vagueness of key term. Defining acadmics as notable is the have published significant work is not getting us very far in the way of precision. We may need this to indicate that this is sufficient without evidence of anything else, but otherwise it's just the substitution of one undefineable adjective for another. This is just one example, the problem occurs throughout the guideline.eg. important figure, well-known work.
2. Related, but particularly problematic: The reliance on the word notable, as in notable award. Unless this means any award with an article in WP, then it uses a term we know to cause problems. If it does, then it relies upon the problematic word as applied in other guidelines.
3. The provisions are duplicative. It is impossible to meet most of them, without meeting several others. I recognize some are more confenient to demonstrate, but that doesn't explain all of them.
4. More of the actually relevant things we look at should be in the guidelines: position, citations. (even without redoing it totally in that sort of prescriptive direction)
5. It is necessary to be explicit that this alone is sufficient, regardless of the general notability guideline, and specifically that 2RS is neither necessary or sufficient. (while still saying that a person who's an academic can be notable for something else entirely under other guidelines. )

Details forthcoming.DGG (talk) 16:52, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

As this is intended to be more of a useful heuristic, I don't see that your point 3 ("The provisions are duplicative") is really a problem. As long as there is substantial consensus on each item, that the items are not totally independent dimensions seems to me to be a plus, rather than a negative. Pete.Hurd (talk) 17:08, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Does the preamble not address your point #5? Would a strengthened preamble be enough to do this? Pete.Hurd (talk) 17:10, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I am with DGG on the importance of including the last point (if there's consensus that that's what we believe): everything else on the page seems to make it harder for an Academic to have an article than a non-academic while the waiving 2RS for academics who make this guideline balances that nicely.

I also agree that we should be relying more on positions rather than significance or notability of awards. It seems more NPOV to say "let universities judge who is significant" and (going a step further) let non-WP institutions judge which universities are more significant. In the U.S., I think the most neutral arbitrator of institutions is the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, but it doesn't directly discuss quality. The National Research Council/National Academy of the Sciences graduate school rankings also have high respect, but they're updated only every decade or so and don't include non-Ph.D. granting programs. Finally, the elephant, U.S. News -- much less agreed upon, but probably still useful as an outside source for roughly classifying institutions in the U.S.. (As far as I know, none of the "international/world-wide" university rankings have become important or oft-referenced sources within higher education; but perhaps individual countries have their own ratings systems?). In any case, I'd be more comfortable with saying that an academic at a certain rank at a certain level of school (perhaps Assoc. at the top U.S. schools, and full at the second-tier of research institutions) is notable in itself. That to me also removes much of the bias of fields that I see often in WP (no, we won't find an art historian with a high web-of-science index; it doesn't matter if the top award in French literature is unknown to us), and moves the judgment calls to the realm of experts.

(Finally, yes, I know, universities are dens of nepotism and bias, but I refuse to believe that WP is both less biased and more informed than a tenure board at a top university). All the best, -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 17:38, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Most of these published rankings of institutions are very US-centric. That seems problematic to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:47, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

A few quick comments re DGG's and other's points. I am not sure what exactly could be done about points 1 and 2: ultimately, all notability guidelines have to and do involve certain subjective and undefined terms like "major", "significant" etc whose interpretation is left to the reader. Perhaps one should make it clear (e.g. by wikilinking) in certain cases that "notable" (for awards, journals, institutes, etc) means satisfying WP:N. I don't think it is possible (or desirable) to explicitly define such adjectives without getting into a logical loop; the best one can do is to give some examples; and maybe a few more should be added. I don't have a problem with addressing no 5 more explicitly, say in the preamble or somewhere else; should be relatively easy to do. Re no 3, there is some duplication but, as Pete Hurd noted, there is not much harm in it and it serves completeness purposes (other notability guidelines do that as well). Regarding no 4, I am not sure what is meant here. Citations are already explicitly discussed in the text (much of criterion 1) is about that and for positions we do have a separate criterion now for named chairs. I would not be comfortable going much beyond that in starting to rank universities in various ways or saying that a tenured position in this or that university automatically guarantees notability while in another one does not. There is too much arbitrariness in trying to formalize anything like that at the level of a WP guideline, there are too many variations between disciplines and countries and ultimately things like that go against the spirit of the other notability guidelines and the past practice in relation to WP:PROF. I think the guideline should concentrate on the key aspect: verifiable evidence of having made significant impact in one's academic field. Everything else ought to be largely secondary and in my view the other criteria (apart from criterion 1) are largely convenient shortcuts for dispensing quickly with fairly obvious cases (such as a named chair or a fellow of the Royal society). There is really no need to make an explicit rule saying, for instance that a tenured professor at the university X (say NYU) is automatically notable but at the university Y (say Stony Brook) is not automatically notable. In all likelihood a tenured professor at NYU will easily pass the other criteria as well, and figuring out what and how to say about comparing the stature of different universities would be a giant headache. Moreover, blanket rules like that would set the bar too low for my comfort and would veer too much towards credentialism. It is true that the tenure process at most universities is much more rigorous than anything that happens on WP. But, in my personal opinion, having earned tenure at a good research-oriented university is not yet, in and of itself, a sign of academic notability. I do tend to view academic notability as being "a cut above the rest" in one's field. In most cases the granting of tenure does not actually imply this (what it does imply is that an academic produced a substantial amount of very good and solid work that is highly regarded by his/her peers), and I would prefer to look for a more direct evidence of one's research having made significant impact. Nsk92 (talk) 18:24, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Re DGG's points #1&2 and Nsk92's comments above. I agree that further reducing the ambiguity of those terms, or reducing their use in the guideline is going to be really problematic. Can I suggest that if the new version doesn't make this aspect worse than the current version that we proceed with the new version unless we have a concrete (or probably workable) idea/proposal that would make it better? DGG, do you think the current version is a step backwards? IMHO "eg. important figure, well-known work" are made a lot more concrete in the drafts "Notes and Examples" section than the equivalent concepts are in the existing version. Pete.Hurd (talk) 19:16, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, in relation to point 5 from DGG's post, I added a paragraph to the introduction stating explicitly that WP:PROF is an independent guideline from the other notability guidelines; it is a bit muddied up there but please take a look and see if the same point can be made more clearly. I also made sure, by wikilinking to WP:N, that at least the adjective "notable", when used in the text in relation to scholarly societies, institutes, etc, is understood in the WP sense defined by WP:N. I think that with most of the other adjectives it will really have to be left to the readers and to hashing things out during AfDs to actually interpret them. Probably a few more specific examples of awards in the "Notes and examples" section would be helpful and I hope that somebody can add them (especially maybe mention some prestigious prizes in the Humanities). I do agree with Pete Hurd's last point. I do not think it is possible or desirable to come up with a perfect text; all pages on Wikipedia are living things that change fairly quickly anyway. I would settle for a marked improvement over the current text of the guideline which I hope this draft is. In fact, I think that in terms of WP policies and guidelines marked incremental improvements are better than revolutionary overhauls (but if one waits too long, the latter eventually become necessary, with all the unpleasant mess that revolutions bring). There are many small ways in which the revision draft is a marked improvement over the current text of the guideline (clarifications re named chairs, elected fellows, administrative positions, the scope of the guideline, collaboration distance, etc). Many of these issues keep coming up in the AfDs and the present text of the guideline is getting rather more out of step with the practice. In view of this I would settle for an imperfect but improved text now, rather than a highly polished and perfected text 3 months from now. Nsk92 (talk) 21:14, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I took another look at the current version of WP:PROF and I think that the problem with various undefined adjectives, such as important, significant, well-known, etc, is actually significantly -:) worse there than in the revision draft: in the current text of the guideline the main criteria themselves are less specific and more abstract, and there are fewer examples that actually explain what they mean. So in this regard the new text is probably an improvement. Nsk92 (talk) 01:30, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

With great respect for all the work that Nsk92 has put into the rewrite, I think if I had to decide between the current version and the proposed revision, I would go with the current. The current version is quite a bit more general in terms of fields while being shorter. The clarifications made in the new version are helpful, but (nearly?) every example comes from the natural science, engineering or mathematics and thus I think it will create more disagreements when it comes to humanities, arts, and social sciences AfDs than it will clear up. I've tried to find a way to embrace the rewrite, but reading both of them through from top to bottom again now, I don't think I can. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 20:59, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The examples come from natural sciences because I am a mathematician and because that is what I am more familiar with. This problem should be easily rectifiable with the help from others here, including you. I would certainly welcome any additions of humanities-specific examples and I have asked for them several times and I still hope that others will add them. I am doing it again now: please add some more humanities-related examples to the draft. I did try to add some things that are specific to humanities such as mentions of reviews of books in considering satisfying criterion 1 and in pointing out the need to heed the differences between publication and citation rates between humanities and natural sciences. I agree that more could and should be done but I don't think the current version of the guideline is actually better in this regard: it is a lot more abstract with fewer examples of any kind. I don't see that as an advatage since in practice this means that the guideline (in terms of its particulars) is largely ignored and various particular points are fought over and over in AfDs. Nsk92 (talk) 21:34, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

As another humanities-related example, the new text specifically discusses the possibility of looking at the WorldCat data on how many libraries hold a particular book when assessing notability. This argument has been used in AfDs a number of times, mostly by DGG and at least once by myself, and it relates specifically to humanities (since in natural scciences most publications are articles rather than books). Again, the current guideline text does not have anything of the sort, while the WorldCat argument has proven successful in a number of difficult AfD humanities related cases. Since humanities AfD cases are often particularly difficult to judge, it would be nice to have this point explicitly mentioned in the guideline, as the draft does. Nsk92 (talk) 21:49, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Another new provision of the draft that benefits both humanities and natural sciences is the named chair provision. I remember that this issue came up a few times recently in AfDs in relation to people from humanities (I remember some cases from law and philosophy). E.g. this AfD here Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Karen Hanson for a person who has a named chair position in philosophy. Thankfully the AfD was closed as keep anyway but having a revised guideline in place would have been distinctly beneficial in this case. Also, here is an example of an AfD where I successfully argued a keep (this time for a classicist) on the Worldcat data grounds:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eve Adler. Again, the article was kept, but it would have been helpful to be able to point to something in the guideline in this case. Nsk92 (talk) 22:39, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Move to proceed with the replacement

I'd like to make one more pitch and propose a motion to proceed with the replacement of the guideline by the revision draft (currently at User:Nsk92/Sandbox3). I think that in many ways the draft is an improvement over the current guideline text. Judging academic notability is difficult and I think that the revised version does a better job of indicating what the main quantity to measure is (the impact of one's academic research) and of providing practically useful guidance in evaluating academic notability. I feel that for people who are not academics themselves and who are not academic-related AfD regulars, the revision draft provides distinctly more helpful practical guidance in this regard than does the current guideline. Many of the perennial AfD issues are explicitly addressed and clarified (the definition of an academic and the scope of the guideline, the issues of named chairs, university presidents, collaboration distance, etc). It is true, of course, that the draft is certainly not perfect and has weaknesses such as the issue of undefined adjectives and a bit of a slant towards natural sciences over humanities. However, I think that these weaknesses are ultimately outweighed by the improvements. The issue of undefined adjectives is actually worse in the current text of the guideline and the revision draft does have substantially more examples that clarify what they actually mean. In terms of humanities, as I explained above, this is a rectifiable problem (caused in large part by the fact that I myself am a mathematician) and one that can be addressed with the help of others and one which I have tried to address myself as well. I would also argue that there are certain things in the draft that specifically benefit the humanities and that improve the situation over the current text of the guideline in regards to the humanities. E.g, especially, the examples discussing using reviews of books, and using WorldCat data (see my posts above), as well as provisions re named chairs and editors-in-chief of academic journals. The bottom line is that, in my opinion, as a practically useful guide for evaluating academic notability, the draft is an improvement over the current text of the guideline, which is rather abstract and rarely invoked in terms of its specific criteria. I would appreciate if people express their opinions on whether proceeding with the replacement now is a good idea. Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 14:56, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• Support. We can argue about the remaining vagueness in the new version, or likely overlaps between its clauses, but I agree that on all counts it is clearer than the current one, and (in cases where they differ) a better line to draw. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:15, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support. Darn, David beat me, I got an edit conflict! :-) Excellent job Nsk92! --Crusio (talk) 15:17, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support Even if imperfect, it is very much improved, IMHO. me too on the thanks to Nsk92 for doing all this. Pete.Hurd (talk) 16:44, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support, as the proposer. Nsk92 (talk) 17:18, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
• Note: DGG has requested[1] 48 hours to suggest some wording changes. I think we should certainly wait for his input. Nsk92 (talk) 19:59, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
• Neutral: I've expressed my concerns about the wording above. What I haven't done enough is expressed my confidence in the people working on this project. If the people who have contributed to the draft think it is an improvement, my overall respect for them leads me to think that I'm probably incorrect in my opposition. I believe that they have at heart the best interests in the encyclopedia and in developing good articles on academics of all fields. If they believe that the new guidelines will help, then I will not stand in the way of proceeding with unanimous support. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 23:34, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
• Comment: I am in the process of clarifying some points, and will finish tonight. I am editing the draft, but in such away that the changes I would make can be discussed individually. As a general guide, the wording is overspecific for mathematics and related subjects, and special wording for the humanities is needed. I am trying not to slant it too much in the direction of my general view that the criteria should be broadened. DGG (talk) 18:44, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I looked over your edits so far and basically I quite like them. Nsk92 (talk)

• Comment The first thing that is striking is that it is much longer than the present version. The first two sentences are excellent. A much better, more useful and more reflective of practice, definition of academic than before. In fact so excellent that they make the entire remainder of the preface quite unnecessary. I think it should be cut out entirely or put at the bottom in Notes & Explanation. (The part about interaction with other guidelines duplicates what is said immediately below, and is unnecessary.) Below the numbered items in the criteria section, I think only the "average professor" test should be retained, the rest should go to N & E. In N & E, things like Festschrifts or published collected works, which should be decisive, are underweighed. Finally, to DGG, because I agree with him of course - slant away! ;-).John Z (talk) 22:46, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

• comment I like what David Eppstein has done to address John Z's point above, I see no thumbs down... Pete.Hurd (talk) 18:22, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Replaced

In the absence of any opposition, I installed the new version. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:09, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. DGG (or the others) may still want to clean up the language a bit, but this can be done directly in the guideline text. Nsk92 (talk) 16:07, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity

I agree that there is tons of self promoting trash on WP, especially about pop culture, the Internet community, and other fields. However, I think there is also some pandering to the academic community. Many academics, although they might be wonderful people doing great work for the public benefit, have WP articles that merely report the positions they have held and the papers they have published. The articles are more like resumes and hold no interest for any reader, except in the case that someone wanted to "check up" on the person. Borock (talk) 00:29, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

We are here to be informative, not to be entertaining. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:36, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

We are here to be encyclopedic and useful, neither of which these articles are. Nor is an article that tells you nothing about the person who is the subject of the article, and which no one is reading anyway, particularly informative.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:36, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

This may be drifting off-topic, but I'm becoming increasingly unhappy with "encyclopedic" as a description of what we do. It's so tautological that it can mean anything at all. I do agree, though, that it's better to describe the academic's work itself than the record of his or her work. It's more difficult, though: it requires actual understanding. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:38, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not tautological unless we take Wikipedia as the prime example of an encyclopedic. One of the things that distinguishes Encyclopedia Brittanica and friends from Who's Who and friends is the fact the first doesn't have biographies that are merely a list of positions and papers.--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:35, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Stubby biographies are an inevitable result of the way Wikipedia is organized (i.e. anybody can edit). That's not a problem. As for the other, "encyclopedic" as used on Wikipedia is often tautological, but there are certain things implied in the use of the word "encyclopedia," which has traditionally been a compendium of relevant knowledge. Most people only get into an encyclopedia if they have done something so significant that many people know of it (hence the general notability criterion). Academics are an interesting special case because they are in the business of generating knowledge, and information about who they are is often useful in referencing or placing knowledge in context. Going at least as far back as the Encyclopédie, there has been an emphasis on thought and the originators of thought. This distinguishes the general-purpose encyclopedia from a simple catalog of popular things. RayAYang (talk) 12:23, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I think the innumerable bio stubs (where probably no additional info -apart from date of death- will ever become available) of obscure football players and other sports figures (for whom it is enough to have been on the field during a split second in some "higher league") do more to discredit Wikipedia than the much smaller number of stubs of academics.... --Crusio (talk) 12:45, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there is way too much football and music, as well as minor geographic locations. I was just sent here from an AfD on a scientist. One thing I have noticed is that if a business engages in self-promotion the article is quickly deleted, the same with people trying to break into the music scene -- one of the most common things you see on the AfD page. Articles on academics are not so often nominated for deletion.Northwestgnome (talk) 16:55, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

It's my strong impression that WP:AUTO and self-promoting articles aren't really deleted anywhere. Bands and musicians get kept or deleted depending on how they measure up to WP:MUSIC, Companies and organizations by how they measure up to WP:CORP. I havn't seen any deletion of articles passing those criteria merely because they were self-promotional, but I have seen them (properly) gutted to stubs. It's certainly my opinion that biographic articles on academics are orders of magnitude less valuable to an encyclopedia than articles on the subjects of their research, but cutting back on the former isn't going to lead to more of the latter. IMHO, if I had to point a stick at a particularly low signal to noise ratio of articles, it would be in the direction of things like this and that others clearly disagree. Pete.Hurd (talk) 17:36, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I have defended the game sites because they get people involved in WP, and maybe some will get interested in other things and make a positive contribution. Come to think of it, much the same could be said for the academic bios. :-) Borock (talk) 00:29, 26 August 2008 (UTC)