Wikipedia talk:Draft rewrite of Notability (academics)

Guidelines

Moved from User talk:Megalibrarygirl § Guidelines

 – This is the correct venue. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:17, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Hey - I really like the new guidelines and your work to address this challenge.

It's a bit hard for me to contextualise, as I am unfamiliar with Wikipedia process but a few high level comments.

The examples of academy are UK/US (the RS and NAS) - it would be good to include a non western example, such as the Humboldt Foundation (I think!) or the Chinese academy of sciences.

I like the points on citations etc. this is very hard to express to lay folk, and you have done a good job here.

The focus on Chairs etc. is important, as this enhances reputation / evidence of the strength and qualifications of the academy. But there should also be a step to enable notable folk, who are earlier in their career, which can be managed by the external recognition with awards, to enable the pipe-line aspect of career to be drawn out.

I would name check~Unconscious Bias - as it's an important aspect. And perhaps to put that in the documentation, to ask editors to consider UB when deciding matching of notability criteria.

The drive towards quantitive assessment of recognition is good, but there is also a tempering with the measured input of expertise (and a recognition that the world is changing fast!).

Otherwise - I love that you are doing this. Can I promote this page via Twitter to get input from others? (edit - I have tweeted for input from others via https://twitter.com/BMatB/status/970755773423898625 )

BenBritton (talk) 20:25, 5 March 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by BenBritton (talk • contribs) 08:00, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

BenBritton Thank you so much for your input. We've been compiling data for quite some time and this is exactly the kind of information we need. We tried to put the varying thoughts expressed over several years all together before we brought it to draft on here. And yes, we should indeed incorporate other foundations and academies of science. Maybe there is a list of them that we could link to? Hmmm. I can link to systemic bias, as it is definitely an important point. I am unsure about twitter, but then I was unsure that we were ready to create the draft here too ;), as there will more than likely be backlash to change. I'll let others weigh in on that. Please feel free to edit it directly. Thank you again for your input, it is very much appreciated. SusunW (talk) 15:18, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

@BenBritton and SusunW: Thanks so much, Ben, for taking a look. It's going to be an uphill battle to change minds on this guideline and while us Wiki editors are able to see something is wrong, there are things that, as non-academics, we're not familiar with or aren't on our radar. Your input is very helpful, to echo SusunW. I'd say go ahead and tweet the link to it and see if any other academics can weigh in. Maybe Rosiestep and Ipigott should help decide. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:15, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Agree; I think it would be helpful to get more people's input. So, thank you, BenBritton for tweeting bout this to your followers. --Rosiestep (talk) 20:51, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Megalibrarygirl: I'm afraid I'm looking at your draft on changes to RfaProf for the first time as I decided I would probably not be able to contribute very effectively. When I review new articles, especially those on people from universities and the world of academic research, I have always taken a much more pragmatic approach than the rules set out by "specialists" in different areas. If people have made a mark, are covered in a variety of secondary sources or have received recognized awards, it doesn't matter to me what particular field they belong to. I do however sympathize with the need to revise these "Prof" rules as they have been used time and time in support of unjustified article deletions. The steps you have taken in drafting the amendments needed look very sensible to me. I agree it would be useful to have more eyes looking at this: how about Aymatth2, Charles Matthews, Johnbod and David Eppstein? (If you can suggest any female academics, so much the better.)--Ipigott (talk) 07:54, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm assuming the goal is to aim for criteria that lessen or at least do not amplify the biases still existing in academia? I have some suspicions which ones have that effect (e.g. I think that more credit for textbooks vis-a-vis research publications than academia usually gives could help, and that many society-level fellow awards have been making clear efforts for diversity while the national academies are still behind on that front) but it would be helpful to have actual data rather than just anecdotes that would provide some numerical measure of how much weaker or stronger the changed requirements would be and on what differential effect they would have.

Since you say you've been compiling data for some time, maybe you have some that bears on this? Because currently the draft explains why there is a problem but not so much (or at least not as persuasively) why the proposed solution would be a solution.

For instance, I have seen data according to which teaching-level colleges hire women with new Ph.D.s in mathematics at greater than average rates, that industry hires them at less than average rates, and that research-level universities do not have hire women at significantly different rates than their proportion of new Ph.D.s. So following that data, one much simpler way to increase the numbers of women deemed eligible for an article would be to declare that anyone with a tenure-track position, even at a teaching college, would be notable (analogously to athletes becoming notable by playing professionally). But such a drastic weakening of standards could backfire in other ways as a way to increase diversity: I also suspect that male academics are typically more aggressive at promoting themselves, for instance by writing autobiographical Wikipedia articles, and that having weaker standards for notability could increase that effect.

So again, I would like to see data suggesting that we are moving in a fairer direction, rather than anecdotes about specific women unfairly denied recognition. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:58, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

• I cannot add much. I suppose there is sometimes a reason for domain-specific guidelines like WP:PROF to justify an article on a subject that fails WP:GNG, maybe. The existing PROF guideline is far too long, and the peacock words should definitely be trimmed out. The proposed change to criterion 3 may go to far: The Black Horse Darts Team is a selective society or association. The new criteria 7 and 8 are not needed. If an academic meets GNG or ANYBIO they do not have to meet PROF - no need to repeat that. As for bias, most notable people are men from rich countries. I do not see how the guideline can change that. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:11, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for looking Aymatth2. Your suggestions are helpful. I think that if we have a solid proposal, then we're more likely to succeed with reform and even small suggestions, such as your point about criterion 3 are helpful. I'm not an academic, so I have blind spots. Maybe SusunW would like to look at criterion 3? David Eppstein do you have links to the data you mention? That sounds useful. I know of a woman who, in her research work actually took her name off of the published work so that she could help promote younger researchers. I'm not sure if she's typical, though. I'm really glad you came to take a look and I look forward to further dialogue. Feel free to add your own research if you think it will help. Thanks for tagging these two in, Ipigott :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:26, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Links to the study I mentioned: Flahive and Vitulli 1997; Flahive and Vitulli 2010. The "Vitulli" here is Mvitulli so she might have more to say (especially about whether I am accurately describing her research). Also this is specifically for mathematics so I don't know how well it generalizes to other subjects. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:37, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

The studies you mentioned (there is a newer 25 year study at http://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201803/rnoti-p326.pdf) *only* look at first jobs for PhDs in math from U.S. institutions. There is still a considerable gender inbalance in upper level positions at all research institutions, particularly the highest ranked ones. The data I obtained from the American Mathematical Society only was for first jobs. Mvitulli (talk) 17:36, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

This is very interesting, David Eppstein. Thank you, Mvitulli for the update, too. What do you think of the proposal? It's located here if you haven't seen it yet. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:31, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Although the study considered only first-postdoctoral jobs, my suspicion is that if one looked at more senior levels one would again find greater representation of women if one looked at both teaching and research institutions, and teaching and research positions regardless of institution, rather than restricting our attention only to top researchers at top research institutions. I.e. one way to help the imbalance would be to place greater emphasis on teaching accomplishments in notability. We already have criteria that can recognize such accomplishments (national-level teaching awards or well-reviewed or well-used textbooks can count for notability) but my suspicion (again without data) is that articles on such subjects have historically been less likely to be created because the kinds of people who make articles about academics have inherited the standard snobbery for research over teaching (myself included). —David Eppstein (talk) 19:36, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

It would be very interesting to see how many academics on Wikipedia have pages because of teaching awards and how many are there because of research-oriented awards. Does/should a single teaching award satisfy the prof test? I'm not so sure this is a good idea. I haven't looked at the proposal yet but when I get a little free time, I will. Mvitulli (talk) 03:32, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

David Eppstein I think your observations are on the money. Women do make up more of the teaching staff and are more likely to be asked to fulfill the service missions of universities,[1][[2]], [3] are less likely to receive research funding in most fields[4], [5], [6], [7] and are less likely to be on a tenure track.[8],[9]. Maybe the best way to deal with that is to hit it head on? Make point 7 state that the person is a teaching academic who has received an award for teaching excellence at the provincial/state, regional, national, or international level? (Provincial/state recognition is surely sufficient to show that someone has passed the bar of average, as they are in competition with others in their area from other universities. Probably an award from their own university should be excluded? It seems impractical to assert a national award in really large countries.) If that is done, then the discussion of department heads and administrators should be moved to #8? This would be more in line with what Aymatth2 said about not repeating criteria for anybio or GNG, but since it appears no where else, it needs to remain in either 7 or 8. And Mvitulli at present, no teaching awards are considered in PROF. SusunW (talk) 03:38, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

I think a strong case could be made that national-level teaching awards (such as, in math, the Deborah and Franklin Haimo Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics) would pass the existing WP:PROF#C2 criterion. The criterion only says "academic award", not "research award". I don't recall any cases that tested that, though. A state-level "Teacher of the Year" type award would probably not be counted as passing, because it does clearly say national. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:33, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm thinking we should move this discussion to the draft talk page, so Sue has her talk page back, but I have no idea how to do that other than to copy and paste it. And the present guideline does say that only national awards are eligible, but has no basis for excluding the others. I am certain that Canada has provincial awards, and am fairly sure that I have seen them in China, as well as state awards in large countries like Brazil and Mexico. In the US the various conferences, like this one [10] provide regional awards, as do CARICOM and PAHO in the Caribbean and Latin America. Why would these not be considered if they are based upon academic excellence? SusunW (talk) 13:59, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

@SusunW, Mvitulli, David Eppstein, Ipigott, and BenBritton: I have moved the discussion. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:17, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Mvitulli I took a look at the proposed new guidelines and they look like an improvement at first glance. Can't say I fully digested them or their impact. I agree that a major, national level teaching award should satisfy the notability criteria. Have editors on WikiProject Women scientists and WikiProject Women in Red been asked to review the new guidelines? I still believe that having more women editors is a necessary ingredient in addressing the gender imbalance on Wikipedia. Mvitulli (talk) 18:42, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Mvitulli Thank you for your assessment. The draft was created by editors from WikiProject Women in Red. Keilana who created the WikiProject Women scientists has been asked for input, but is currently buried with real life commitments. If you know of any other academics who might be of assistance in arriving at a fairer assessment for notability, please feel free to ask them for input. SusunW (talk) 01:45, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Can't add much, this is a thorough and patient document, and most of the comments above strike me as productive improvements/clarifications. I appreciate the effort and the thought that went into this draft, and would welcome the revisions it suggests. Penny Richards (talk) 00:29, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for looking it over Penny Richards. Hoping to garner a wider review from women editors before it is presented to the community. Perhaps @Opabinia regalis and Alafarge: would have constructive comments for improvement? SusunW (talk) 18:22, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

The problem of the relative lack of notable women in science is a very real one and a very unfortunate one, and one that needs solution. Where it needs solution is the real world. The contributions WP can make is, first, to publicize the existence of women who are notable by the accepted standards, and we have a good distance to go here: More specifically we continue in WP to show the traditional bias against academic women by having a bias against those fields in which women have traditionally specialized: home economics, education, nursing, and so on. I have found it very difficult in the past to get keep results for AfDs in people in any of these subject areas--I consider this slight-disguised prejudice. We need to increase coverage of these areas.

Second, and much more important, to maintain its integrity of WP as an intellectual resource which will have the ultimate effect of encourage those to learn about science and other fields, especially in groups that might now be discouraged from these fields.

There are two false solutions: one is to use different standards for the accomplishments of the traditionally disadvantaged groups--I doubt anyone will explicitly propose this, for it amounts to saying that "she is good enough--for a woman"--the traditional sexist approach. The other, which I think I may be seeing here, is to lower the standard until we have a greater number of women. Frankly, I think that the equivalent. The purpose of the Women in Red & similar projects should not be this. I hope they have not adopted the canard traditionally taught by our society, that the accomplishments of women need preferential treatment to come anywhere near being considered as important as men. What they do need is preferential provision of opportunities to compensate for past inequities. The standard of accomplishment is the same for all humans. (I try to be impersonal in these discussions, but I'm saying this as someone who thinks somewhat more highly of both the intelligence and the judgment of women i have known than of men--in my family, among my friends, among my fellow wikipedians. DGG ( talk ) 04:22, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Pretty much agree with this. We can and should only reflect the real world. Imo we may already be approaching the boundaries of WP:N (broadly construed, as the lawyers say) by the mass selective creation of female biographies in some areas - all (the very few) female fellows of the Royal Society have had biographies since 2013, with new elections getting them instantly, but despite the situation improving greatly over recent years, some 20% (not counted) of male FRS elected 2000-2010 are still red (2000 for example). If you are really worried about unbalanced coverage, non-Anglosphere academics are surely a far greater priority. But I agree that some subject areas with more women are neglected. On the whole I think the current standards allow through at least as many academics as they should - probably leaning towards too many rather than too few. The draft as it is now would be likely to a) lead to more arguments and b) allow the creation of masses more short articles writing up faculty bios that get tiny readerships, and are only useful to make statistical claims about our coverage. Johnbod (talk) 14:44, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Focus

• A couple of comments: The creators of this proposal have obviously put a lot of thought and effort into writing this and it shows in the proposal. Unfortunately it shows a bit too much — the prefatory portion is 1890 words, the proposal itself is nearly 3500 words and there are 77 footnotes. Few editors will want to plow through that as an RfC and even fewer will have a firm idea exactly what the end result of the new guideline would be if passed. I would suggest that the introduction be cut down to a paragraph or two and simply state that the current PROF SNG does not adequately represent actual notability of academic professionals. For the proposal, just write out the new wording rather than the 'change this to that' formulation currently in use. Brevity and clarity usually run hand in hand and it is seldom that an RfC which is neither passes.
  The second thing I would suggest is that this change not be couched as having the purpose of addressing systemic bias. Yes it is important to address systemic bias but attempting to explicitly do so in a guideline rewrite pretty much guarantees that the RfC will be rejected. The whole thing is likely to be derailed by a discussion about systemic bias; if/how to correct it; and whether or not it is appropriate to do so in an SNG. It is, or should be, possible to write criteria which do not exacerbate existing inequities. That is, after all, a defining characteristic of good criteria. There is no real upside to spending nearly 2000 words which will win few, if any, converts and will polarize the proposal from the outset.
  As to the content of the new guidelines it might be better to scrap the current SNG and, in consultation with editors who are familiar with the academic world, simply write de novo criteria which accurately, or at least reasonably, represent what indicators there are which show an academic stands out from their peers sufficiently to be wiki-notable. From what I can piece together I doubt I would support the current proposal, not because I do not think PROF needs be to changed but because I think the end result is simply a weakening of the SNG rather that bringing it more in line with 'real world' notability in the academic world. Whatever the final result I would suggest the SNG make clear that meeting it is an inclusive not exclusive requirement ie just because someone is an academic does not mean they must meet a PROF criterion or that they can not be assessed under WP:NAUTHOR or WP:GNG or whatever.
  PROF needs to be fixed and there are systemic biases which need to be addressed 'out in the world' and on/within Wikipedia. I am, however, of the rather firm opinion that explicitly trying to do both at the same time makes it significantly less likely either will be addressed nor do I think the solution to either is to simply weaken the existing SNG. Jbh ^Talk 18:53, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Jbhunley thank you for your well-thought-out and measured commentary. It seemed to me that the easiest way to propose a change as major as this would be to prepare this document and then submit for comment only the changed guide. In that way, anyone wanting to see how it developed would have a reference and anyone only interested in the final result would have a KISS document. SusunW (talk) 19:40, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes. That is a good idea. Having a separate page which documents the reasoning behind the changes for those who are interested would be useful but would not put off the bulk of editors who are only interested in the end result. You may also want to look at how the rewrite of WP:NORG was done. The proposed changes were made on the SNG page and reverted so people could see a diff of what was proposed [11]. This was followed by an extensive discussion on the talk page about how to tweak things and get buy in from the editors who regularly watch the SNG page [12].

By getting 'buy-in' from the 'policy wonks' you decrease the chance of the RfC getting SNOW closed and you get a larger and broader group of editors who will work to convince/balance the Oppose !voters. As I am sure you know, notability criteria and the whole concept of notability on Wikipedia is one giant tar baby or one giant wall upon which to bang one's head depending on one's current position or perspective . Jbh ^Talk 20:10, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Jbhunley Thank you. This is exactly the kind of feedback we need at this point, IMO. Our basic thoughts were that if we could collaborate to analyze how and why they were so contentious and what would improve them, we could move forward with a proposal to the actual guideline. I think most of us at WiR had no idea how to work through the submission of it to RfC nor to change the policy pages itself. You have given us a template of how that might be accomplished. My technical skills are limited and don't really understand how to do those things you propose, but those are not my areas of expertise. I am good at analysis and research and can draft the changes we would like to make without markup, but from there, I'd really prefer to take a back seat and have someone with more experience in the process lead the way for exactly the reasons you state above. The goal is to improve the guideline, not have them tossed because of the inexperience of the submitters. SusunW (talk) 21:24, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

You are quite welcome :) If there is anything I can help with please feel free to give me a ping. You may also want to get some input from TonyBallioni who has recently shepherded through a couple of successful policy RfC's. Jbh ^Talk 23:02, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Nothing like diving into the fray Jbhunley ;) Tony and I have been on opposite sides of the fence on this guideline, as he has said several times that it was a good example and for all the reasons we have stated in this draft, our opinions on it differ significantly. But, that being said, having input from someone who has an opposing view and can reasonably debate the issues is, IMO, never a bad thing. SusunW (talk) 23:42, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Heh, for the record, I am highly supportive of PROF because it increases academic coverage for people who would not otherwise be covered, and I take flack for it from a lot of people because they think I'm a rabid inclussionist when it comes to academics ;) I don't remember ever clashing with you over it (well except for below), but you are right that I do think PROF is currently the gold standard towards which other guidelines should move towards. Doesn't mean I don't think it should be improved, but I highly value that it is perhaps the most objective of all of our inclusion guidelines. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:14, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

The best guideline is the straightforward one used by the profession: tenure at the very highest quality university, or, for those at other institutions, the equivalent accomplishments. I know best Princeton, and they do not give an associate professorship except to those who are of the highest standing in their field, high enough to be able to attract post-docs and graduate students. I've been associated with universities of lower standing also, even those that are considered research universities, and I would not say the same, and in the other direction of course people of great and deserved reputation can be found anywhere. We can;t try to make it exact or quantitative--fields differ, countries differ, and here we need to accept the equivalents of those who know them. Centuries differ also, and it is very difficult to judge before the late 19th century, and extremely difficult to judge in fields that do nto have the usual academic hierarchy. I think this would give essentially the equivalent of the current standard, I hope broadening it a little. (Personally, I am interested in even a little lower--but I'm not sure how low, and I don't think much lower would have general acceptance here.) DGG ( talk ) 04:50, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Exactly DGG the guidelines carry no context. Which is an important missing element from these guidelines. One cannot compare say Princeton, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (UADY) and the University of the West Indies (UWI) on the same criteria, and yet, they are held to the same standard because there is nothing in the guideline to indicate that geographical differences matter. UADY typically ranks in the top 15 in Mexico and UWI is typically ranked 1 or 2 in ranking scales for the Caribbean, making them some of their region's top universities, but any way you look at it, their scholars do not have the same funding available as would a professor at Princeton. The publishings of academics at both universities in general are rarely included in Google Scholar or Scopus (or even world cat). I can cite multiple examples, but the point is that without context, we are asking people to judge by a single standard, which is non-existent. SusunW (talk) 13:32, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

At present, most parts of the PROF guideline is universal, and it ought to be--science is an international enterprise, with a single body of knowledge. Therefore the factor of being an influence in ones field is universal: very many of the faculty at Princeton will meet it, very few at LIU -- to mention the two extremes where I have worked. If we're looking for notable researchers, this is what I think should be intended. Do you disagree?

A few parts go school by school: The part on being President is now worded as a major institution, but in practice, any 4 year college will usually pass at AfD. The ones at the major places will usually be the more influential, but it's similar to what we use in some other areas (in politics, any mayor of a 50,000 or mote size city will always pass AfD. The level can change without the guideline changing--5 years ago, we accepted only > 100,000 )

A few parts go country by country, such as the winner of a national level prize (in all fields, not just this) There are many similar rules--in athletics the standard is usually highest national level, be in high or low on a world wide basis (for example, in Association football.) in politics, a member of any legislature counts for notability, whether its the US Senate or an individual state legislature in a small country.

I consider that your proposal will result essentially in a faculty directory. There might be good reason to have a free online faculty directory, and it might even be a good idea to have such directories as WMF projects. (It seems very possible that Wikidata could have such a function.) But they don't belong in an encyclopedia. DGG ( talk ) 17:12, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree in some aspects and disagree in others, DGG. Adding a sentence stating that "context, such as geographical location and era, should be weighed when applying the criteria", does not overmuch alter the guides, but recognizes that there are differences. I definitely disagree that the only academics considered notable should be researchers (though there is a recognized systemic bias weighted toward research). There are teaching academics who can meet GNG, artist, author, etc. and should be included in the encyclopedia. I also think that stating simply that the criteria for inclusion as an academic requires a higher standard than routine performance would curtail the possibility of a directory and eliminate the need for both the "average professor test" and "low-bar" language. SusunW (talk) 18:01, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

General comments

So, let me start out by saying that I am highly supportive of SNGs as alternatives to the GNG, both because of the systemic bias issue, but also because they are more objective, which I think is a positive thing. I am also highly supportive of PROF, which is viewed by even it's critics as the single most objective notability criteria. Along with DGG, I helped lead the fight in August of 2017 to keep PROF independent of the GNG: both in order to include academics who don't meet it but should be here, but also to exclude mediocre academics who are able to figure out marketing but have made no impact in it's field. PROF, for it's flaws, is likely the best example of how notability on Wikipedia should work in my view, and I want to see things move towards it. Making changes to make it better is always welcome in my view.

That being said, this proposal fundamentally misunderstands how Wikipedia works. As Jbhunley has pointed out, I've put through a fair amount of policy RfCs recently, and I've also been heavily involved in the discussion to make sure other notability reform RfCs got passed even if I was not the formal proposer. Something that I have learned through these is that major policy reform RfCs on Wikipedia only work if consensus exists for the proposal before the proposal is made, and if the policy or guideline change is a codification of a pre-existing consensus that has developed organically in the community. Proposing a major change without buy-in beforehand is either going to doom it to failure or is going to create a mess like the schools RfC (where I was a drafter, and which formed a lot of my views on this topic.)

With that in mind, what is being proposed here is a major expansion of what it means for an academic to be notable. There is simply not consensus for that in the community at this time. There are many who (falsely, IMO) think that PROF is too inclusive already and want to limit it as much as possible. That is going to put this as hard to pass from the beginning, and that is even before you count people like me, who support PROF, but might be skeptical of this expansion.

In terms of this particular proposal, I find the expansion regarding work in the commercial sector to be extremely troubling, and feel it would open up too much ground for more corporate spam on Wikipedia, which is the exact opposite of the direction that I feel we should go. I also have concerns with the provost/dean expansion, because it would have next to no impact at research universities, where provosts and deans are usually full professors and some may have a named chair, meaning virtually all of them are already notable. What it would do is open up the playing field for academic administrators at smaller schools, some of whom may even be associate professors that are good administrators, but who lack academic achievement (I can name at least one provost/dean who still only holds an associate professor appointment.) That seems to be working against the idea that PROF is trying to promote, namely that academics who achieve a high degree of success should be covered in Wikipedia.

Sorry for being a downer here, but I wanted to both give a perspective from "how consensus works" and "my thoughts on the proposal. I'll also ping @Tryptofish and David Eppstein: who are regulars at WT:PROF and might be able to give better commentary than me. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:55, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@Tryptofish and David Eppstein: fix ping. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:57, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

My own impression is that this proposal mixes up two different things: being exclusive vs being inclusive, and being prejudicial (for instance, biased against women) vs being more fair. I am sure that there are ways in which our current guidelines are biased, implicitly or otherwise. And I would welcome proposals that looked for specific causes of bias, found data supporting the claim that our criteria are biased, and sought to move the guidelines in a direction that would improve that. For instance, I think more attention to teaching awards, in parallel to the research accomplishments we more typically look for, could help address the bias inherent in the fact (shown in studies by Maria Vitulli among others) that hiring of new Ph.D.s at teaching-level institutions tends to be more favorable to women than hiring in research or industry positions. But to my mind, much of the motivation for this proposal is in the idea that being less exclusive will automatically make us less biased, with no data or more in-depth reasoning than that, and I'm just not yet convinced that that should be true. My impression is that it could actually be the opposite: studies have shown that men tend to be more aggressive self-promotors than women, and already many of our new articles arise from self-promotion rather than from disinterested editors. So if we reduce the barriers to self-promotion, we are going to get an even larger fraction of the new articles created that way, and therefore more on men and fewer on women. But I'm willing to be convinced otherwise by arguments founded in data rather than in vague talk of prejudice and inclusion. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:46, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

• This is a complement and extension, to what David E and Tony have said above:

First, and most generally: Wikipedia does not exist to right wrongs, except for the wrong of lack of access to verifiable encyclopedic information. Wikipedia exists to provide universally free and accessible information. People will use it for their purposes, and among them, we hope, will be righting wrongs. Our rules for inclusion are not aimed to improve society, or to rectify injustices, but to select the material that people will want to have information on.

The attitude that we should select the material that people ought to want to have information on is promotionalism and prejudice. It's what advertisers do. It's what paternalistic societies do, as do some aspects of traditional education. We judge what should be include based on several principles. Some are explicit: WP:V, that we we can only provide information about subjects where there is verifiable information available. WP:NPOV, that however strong and righteous and obvious and widely-supported our personal views on anything except the virtues and methods of freely providing verifiable information, we do not act on them in deciding what to include, or what to say. One is explicit, though it has limitations: the best guide to what people want to have information in is the that is is a subject about which we can demonstrate there is a demand for information (the main limitation is that to the extent information is inaccessible or censored, we need to extrapolate to what they would want to have information about if they could.) There is also a less explicit principle, though it too has limitations, that within any field it is the important things that people are likely to want information on, as best judged by the standards of the field (the main limitation is the existence of popular interest for the purpose of knowing about current topics of interest and discussion however intrinsically unimportant--as we do not judge, we provide this also.

Many fields have their own standards, and if we can determine them, we try to use them. (in politics, it's getting elected; in sports, it's winning; in art, it's getting collected; in books, it's getting read). Science (and scholarship generally) is a field with very well articulated formal standards, based on measurable factors--again, there are limitations, in dealing with aspects of primarily local interest. But for most topics, science (and scholarship) has a standard of judging that is world-wide and accepted by everyone in the general area, and by all of the world that makes use of it.

As for institutionized bias, it exists. It's caused by the prejudices and organization of society. But if people are interested in accomplishments, not just unexpressed potential, people can only accomplish what is socially , economically, and institutionally available to them. Were an encyclopedia of what is, not what ought to be. True, respect for individual genius and individual potential is attractive, for it permits each of us to think more highly of ourselves than reality warrants. But hat people do depends not only on their inherent individual nature, but their education and environment. (why would we even be concerned about education or equality of opportunity otherwise?) To a certain extent, people are indeed interested in those of marginalized groups or regions that manage to make some degree of accomplishment, even if it is less than the favored groups, and we do to some extent take this into account. :Scientists in many less developed countries are to a considerable extent unable to participate at a high level in some fields of mainstream science, which requires not just funding, but professional and institutional infrastructure, and their work may therefore have less impact on it. To some extent, we do take this into consideration, but it nonetheless does affect actual impact and general interest in their work. (why would we be even interested in economic and institutional development otherwise?). In a better world, we would have many more accomplished people. Providing information will we hope bring this about, and when it does it will be represented. Had we ten times as many important scientists in the world, we would have ten times as many articles.

I'll continue about the desirable level of inclusion tomorrow. DGG ( talk ) 06:28, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you DGG for your comments. I was going to refer people to read the history. You, at the time these were originally approved brought up several of the points we raised in this document, though when we were drafting it, we had not yet read the history and did not know that. The major problem with the guideline is that it misrepresents what it is. It states that it is an "average professor test", which it is clearly not. There is no average, nor accepted standard for what constitutes notability for professorship and clearly this guide as it is written places a bias on research, as opposed to teaching. You state there are measurable standards, and yet the guideline gives none, using words that are not quantitative and are vague. It states that it sets a "low bar" but that is a misrepresentation that is acknowledged in the document's history. @David Eppstein: You have worked with me often enough to know I am not remotely interested in promoting anyone, nor is anyone involved in the project to my knowledge. We are interested in creating biographies on notable women whose contributions can be verified. We aren't going to balance the historical record, there just are not sources available to do that. Not fixing the inherent problems because someone might to write a self-promotional article does not seem to be a logical reason to leave the vagueness in the guidelines. Tony Balloni I'm truly not sure how to reply to your comments. We will continue to disagree on SNG and GNG. Meeting prof is irrelevant because the guideline is vague and because it excludes notable people who do not pass its criteria but meet other guidelines. Maybe you didn't read the text, which clearly says that the intent was to analyze the problem, get feedback, propose changes to the guideline with guidance from experienced policy editors before it was submitted for community review? "Proposing a major change without buy-in beforehand" was never considered or proposed. In fact, in the draft, one of our concerns was that it appeared that the previous changes to the guideline were never submitted for community approval. The draft is an analysis and discussion of the extant guide, not a formalized proposal at this stage. SusunW (talk) 08:56, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I did read the text, but I think you misunderstand what I mean by getting buy-in beforehand: our policies and guidelines only codify practice and existing consensus. They are not prescriptive but descriptive. Major changes to them only occur when there is a discrepancy behind how they are written and how we do things/how everyone thinks we should do things. The recent changes to NCORP are an example of this: they were a significant rewrite of the actual text of the document, but all they did in actuality was update the text to match the pre-existing consensus at AfD. Another RfC that I proposed was the update of the banning policy to get WP:THREESTRIKES added to it. This added some specifics, but in general all it did was codify the existing consensus that people who block evade more than once should be banned.

The issue with this proposal is that you are presenting changes based on what you think notability should be rather than what the community believes notability is. Your statement that the guidelines exclude notable people is by definition false: notability is a made up term that means “subjects Wikipedia has decided should be covered.” We define it and decide who is notable.

Currently, PROF represents a wide consensus for what academics should be included and excluded. There is a significant minority of people who strongly oppose PROF and think that it is already too inclusive (I think they are wrong, but they exist.) Those of us who support it as being independent of the GNG I’m sure recognize that it could be improved, but a lot of us likely have concerns with the promotion factor and a few other things mentioned here. Those two factors are enough to make this proposal dead on arrival.

The way forward to improve it if you think it has flaws is by participating in individual AfD discussions and making cases that the things you think should count should count (under ANYBIO or arguing for a looser interpretation of the existing wording.) If people start agreeing with you to the point where you’ve formed a working consensus, then the discussion to update the guideline will go much easier. This might sound counterintuitive, but in my experience the only time that policy reform RfCs are effective is when the outcome is easily known before you even launch the proposal. The way to improve the coverage of women and minorities on Wikipedia that you think are being unfairly deleted is to raise the point in AfDs, not to try to create new guidelines. The guidelines are designed to reflect the outcomes, not vice versa. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:45, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

TonyBallioni the only problem with trying to change guidelines through AfD is that nothing will change that way. People will go back to the original version of PROF and continue to use it as a yardstick. As a community we can, indeed, attempt to change the notability standards. We're doing that right now with this RfaProf Draft. There's nothing wrong with this approach and I think it's actually a good idea because it will probably allow editors to make good common sense changes before the full proposal is rolled out. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 15:56, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Megalibrarygirl, there is nothing wrong with this approach, but my point is that this approach almost always fails. The way to go about notability reform is almost always through arguing in individual AfDs and building consensus there. I also disagree with your point, re: AfD. You and I both have done a decent job in the AfDs we participate in on building consensus in ways that affect Wikipedia as a whole and not just the individual AfDs (you've done excellent work helping people understand how to find sourcing for notable women, and I like to think I've helped contribute to a shift in how we view advertising at AfD.) Shifting attitudes in individual discussions tends to have much more long-term impact than a large and divisive policy RfC that ends as no consensus.

To use an example: right now, I can't support this proposal and would probably be one of the most vocal opponents of it because of the clauses about industry and the expansion to include provosts and deans, both of which I think would open the floodgates for academics who are not successful in their fields to be let in. I am highly likely to be convinced, however, that someone who is a provost at an elite liberal arts college, a research university, or a national university in a developing country has met one of the other PROF criteria. Arguing that at AfD consistently over time would likely have a bigger impact than this RfC. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:07, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

TonyBallioni I think that's good: having someone like you who would be an opponent of the RfC is important. We need to have people like you to help us craft a useful proposal. This proposal isn't set in stone at all. I welcome change to the proposal and hope that you might feel BOLD in editing it. :) I agree that we can shift things over time in AfD for some issues, but PROF seems so entrenched right now. :( Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:18, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Building consensus through participation at AfD is very unlikely to create change. It is a hostile environment where Wikipedia:Bludgeoning occurs often. Several months back someone nominated a slew of women academics from Pakistan, who had decades long careers in a country where women have been killed for attaining an education. My comments were brief and mentioned that GNG was met and that PROF failed to take into consideration the situation in the Global South. Until DGG came to the discussion and stated that geography was a relevant component, the discussion devolved into walls of text that even mentioning location was special pleading. As soon as DGG made his comment, all the naysayers went silent. Our goal in moving a discussion here, rather than having the exhausting discussions at AfD was to get reasonable dialogue from people who both agree and disagree with changing the guideline. SusunW (talk) 17:16, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

My point is that a complete rewrite without building consensus at AfD first is simply not feasible and has the potential to actually have the opposite impact you want: having the community reject this as a whole when there are individual components (such as the teaching awards below) where there may already be consensus. Consensus at AfDs and talk pages first and then filters up into our guidelines, not vice versa. I don’t follow academic AfDs as much as I used to, but yes if there’s an issue with academics from developing or non-English speaking nations, then that is something we should fix there, and it can only be fixed by doing it from the ground up and by pointing it out in individual cases. That is the only way change ever happens on Wikipedia: efforts like this don’t.

The recent rewrite at NCORP took a lot of consensus building at AfD over years and a failed as a top down proposal before we were able find a consensus version. What worked there was essentially asking “What are our existing standards at AfD fit corporations and how can we explain that in a guideline?” It was a lot of work, but we were able to achieve a complete rewrite of the guideline based on what the community already expected. Moving forward here requires figuring out what people already agree on, seeing how it differs from the guideline, and then making that change. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:37, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

TonyBallioni Thanks for your input. As I primarily write articles on women from the Global South, from non-English speaking countries, and not from the US/UK, it is very evident that there is a problem. I can also say that I am unlikely to participate often or widely in AfD discussions. While you may see AfD as a place to build consensus over time, I see it as a space of hostility and entrenched positions where reasonable dialogue rarely takes place. If reasonable discussion in forums other than AfD are not viable alternatives, I see no way forward. My temperament is to avoid contentious conflict and my skills are better used in creating articles on notable women. SusunW (talk) 20:30, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks, Tony, for the ping. I was otherwise unaware of this draft and discussion until the ping. And I think that it is, frankly, appalling an oversight that nobody bothered to mention it at WT:PROF – so I just did. It will take me some time to digest all of this, which I have not yet done. But I am having a very strong gut reaction: it ain't broke, so don't try to fix it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:25, 29 April 2018 (UTC) Modified. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:25, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

No one mentioned it at the talk page of the guideline because we weren't ready to make any sort of recommendation. Gathering information, analyzing the problem, discussion in a safe environment were deemed important steps to take before we moved to discussion on the talk page. AGF that the goal always was to discuss it with the community (it states that in the draft), but not until we had determined what and why the guidelines are problematic for many women and minorities and what recommendations we might want to make. SusunW (talk) 13:43, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Safe environment? Safe from what? --Tryptofish (talk) 16:39, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

If you have to ask that, you are more than likely not a woman trying to edit on WP and have not received messages threatening bodily harm or inappropriate images with your photoshopped face on them, not to mention the varying levels of aggression. By in large, that does not reflect on the community as a whole, but it only takes one incident to make caution a prudent course of action. SusunW (talk) 17:14, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

I would never ask you to notify 4chan. But WT:PROF is frequented by the editors who care most about the guideline. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:23, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

• General comments on the draft. There has been some enlightening consideration of better recognising teaching achievements in this draft, but the suggestions put forward seem to be within the scope of the present standards. Many of the other changes suggested by the draft seem directed to dumbing-down the WP:Prof criteria. The consequences of this would be detrimental to the presence of women on Wikipedia. Some lower-level women academics would be caught in the net, which I presume is the intent of the proposers, but this number would be outweighed by the vast number of lower-level male academics aggressively clamouring to have BLPs about themselves. Some of these come from parts of the world where the gender imbalance is even greater than it is on Wikipedia. The result would be to make the gender imbalance on Wikipedia even worse than it is now. By lowering the standard uniformly, Wikipedia would, in this area, arrive at the same low reputation as Marquis Who's Who or LinkedIn. A solution would be to formally adopt a lower standard of notability for women than for men. This has been attempted before and has failed, but views can change. Xxanthippe (talk) 08:15, 1 May 2018 (UTC).

Xxanthippe our goals are not to dumb-down the guidelines, but rather make them far less subjective. Even the few changes to note that context of era and geographic region would be a help. Adding teacher awards would help, as would changing the textbook qualification. You and I have had the conversation before, we're just trying to create broader dialogue, as there is a lot of misunderstanding of what and who is notable and how standards vary widely in place and time. Thank you for your comment. I really appreciate your taking the time to read them. SusunW (talk) 00:48, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. I am afraid I am not sure which conversation you refer to, as I edit many different articles. In regard to this one, I wonder if it would be worth considering having two versions of WP:Prof? WP:Prof (male) would be identical to the present WP:Prof. WP:Prof (female) would be based on the current draft if consensus can be obtained on it. This will erect a higher barrier for males than females and so would help to mitigate the gender disparity issue. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:36, 2 May 2018 (UTC).

I think that would not be ideal, and doubt that it would garner support from the community. The biggest issues we face are simply making people aware of the disparity. We cannot change the gender and minority biases in academia and won't change the historic record as the social and media biases either barred women/minorities from participating or buried their accomplishments. It isn't an opinion that there is a problem in academia, they know that there is and it has been studied for decades. What we can do at the very least, is acknowledge that there is a problem. Pretending that there isn't disparity acerbates the issues. SusunW (talk) 12:54, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

That would be a non-starter, with absolutely no chance of being passed by the community (my first thought was that the suggestion was ironic, but perhaps not). Johnbod (talk) 13:04, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

I am glad that you had a second thought, although qualified with a perhaps. I do not see why to discuss a suggestion for reducing gender bias in the academic area of Wikipedia should be considered ironic, however unpopular the suggestion might prove to be. Already there have been two useful comments, from you and User:SusunW. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:25, 3 May 2018 (UTC).

• I've been thinking about the concern about appearing to "dumb down" the existing SNG. As I look over the draft proposal, what stands out very conspicuously is how, again and again, terms intended to denote excellence are proposed for removal from the numbered criteria. In Criterion 1, "a significant impact" would become "an impact". And that pattern repeats, a lot: removal of "highly prestigious", "major scholarly society", "a highly selective honor", "well-established academic journal", and so on. I'm receptive to correcting terms that are subjective, and I'm receptive to correcting systemic bias. But I can easily foresee some future AfD where an editor would say that the subject "had an impact" based on something trivial. Does getting a paper cited in two other papers by other authors in two other journals constitute "an impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources", regardless of the field of study, even in a field where high-impact work gets cited hundreds of times? If it's any broadly-construed impact, it sounds like the answer is "yes". My reaction is that it is dumbing down, even though it is not intended that way, and I'm sure that the community will tend towards the same reaction in an RfC. Removing those descriptors is a very bad idea. A better approach would be to make thoughtful modifications in the footnotes to the criteria, beyond what has been proposed so far, in order to clarify the meaning of (for example) "significant" in "significant impact", and to spell out how to account for systemic biases that need to be corrected. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:12, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Tryptofish Feel free to propose other wording. The goal is not to dumb them down, but to make them clearer. The problem is that "significant impact", "highly prestigious", etc. mean different things to different people. Context is important. I recall a discussion somewhere, can't remember on what page, that anything lower than OBE was not a significant honor. While that may be true in England, if you live on a tiny Caribbean Island and are selected for an MBE, it is a big deal. (I'd venture to say a really big deal.) In another article I worked on with David Eppstein, I found sources that the woman had a theory? named after her and her research partner. It was obvious that it had an impact, as other scientists worked to solve a piece that was unknown for decades. But was that a significant impact? I didn't even understand what she did, so it was impossible for me to judge. Thankfully David was able to take the sources I found and put them in context in the article.

If those terms "highly prestigious", "major scholarly society", "a highly selective honor", have measurable meaning, it would be far better to replace them with context, i.e. what is considered to be a highly selective honor and what is that based upon? Would it not be clearer to state "has received an honor from a society or organization which has adopted practices that uphold the integrity of research to ensure advances in knowledge and does not include polls of peers or students"? Likewise, what is "highly prestigious", "major"? Within the top 50 universities/publishers in a country? What if there is only 1 or 2?—Can these be held to the same standard as say Harvard or Princeton? Should they? What we see repeatedly at AfD is the application of US/UK standards to the rest of the world, primarily because the vague terminology used requires editors to judge based upon their own familiarity. SusunW (talk) 05:49, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd like to say this about clarity of wording. I agree to some extent that the word "significant" in "a significant impact", for example, is difficult to define with precision. But on the other hand, the phrase "an impact" is less precise than the phrase "a significant impact", not more. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:03, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

As always, as cogently explained elsewhere on this page by User:TonyBallioni, the standards adopted are decided by consensus not by fiat Xxanthippe (talk) 03:09, 10 May 2018 (UTC).

Tryptofish, I guess we will have to agree to disagree. The fact that other researchers in the example given felt it was important to solve the equation that had not been resolved indicated it was deemed to have import, how much or what the applications of that would be were not something I found in any sources. (She even stated in an interview that her own father, who was also a scientist did not understand her research, so how could I?) In the example given in the draft, when Sir William Henry Perkin discovered a dye that would not wash out of fabric, he knew that would have an impact. It took decades to discover the full implications of what those were. Sources often state that something led to further research, development of something, changed perceptions of something, etc.—a clear indication of impact—yet, often there is no indication given of exactly how that changes anything else. As editors, we follow sourcing, so unless sources define the impact, we are left without any means of making a judgment of the significance, especially if one takes into consideration that what might be deemed significant in the developing world might be mundane in industrialized countries. SusunW (talk) 21:12, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

OK. We'll both see what the community thinks when the RfC occurs. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:53, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Tryptofish, I apologize if I sounded argumentative. I am genuinely interested in dialogue and did not mean to sound dismissive of your point. (Tone is always missing from the written word). If "significant impact" were replaced with something along the lines of "measurable impact by leading to further research, changing perspectives, or developing protocols", maybe it would be more precise than the present wording? Clearly other words could be used, but I think we can give context to the intent, which is broad enough to cover international situations, but far less vague and subjective. SusunW (talk) 15:53, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Please don't worry, no apology is necessary. I think what you should take away from my comments is that what you have been hearing from me (and other editors) is a mild version of the much worse reactions this proposal is likely to get from the community. (I've been involved in a lot of proposals over a long period of time here, and it's surprisingly difficult to get any sort of change agreed to. Not that one should not try, but just that one needs to understand what to expect.) As for the language, something like that might work in a footnote to the criterion, but is too wordy to be in the criterion itself. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:21, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

I am all for revisiting, reviewing, and amending when needed, our policies and guidelines. I am for equal recognition, and even equal pay. I am 100% for looking at these from a point of view that bias not be a hindrance to editors nor subjects. My wife and I were team over-the-road (48 states and Canada) truckers for several years. She began at a time when a majority of male truckers considered only those women referred to as butches drove trucks. My wife is 5 feet tall, 120 pounds, and we hauled cars, swinging beef, and pulled a drop deck hauling equipment. The jobs were higher paying harder jobs. She was a little dynamite performing equally well with male counter-parts. When she became a senor driver her pay equaled mine and I was ecstatic. She retired off the road and I went more local but we are still together over 42 years now. She is a sweetheart that will take no crap. I have been a macho athletic strong-man, and she refers to me as her protector, but I do not intimidate her in the least. She owns a pistol she keeps in our bedroom for protection when I am gone and I don't even own one. I have three daughters that are amazing and my youngest is self-sufficient single mom, works on her own vehicles, does household electrical work and learned self-defense. She has worked construction right along with an all male crew receiving equal pay. She feels she has to be over-qualified because she is a female and this bothers her. She is 5'2", 130 pounds with blond hair and blue eyes. The harassment, in the guise of "flirting", or "compliments on her looks" caused her to start wearing baggy clothes so she wouldn't have conflict with the perpetrators.

I have stated this because if anyone even considers that I am not for equality they would be 100% wrong. I am certainly for equal pay for the same work. I had an issue with the drive for military equality in combat when a woman had a lessor physical criterion resulting in a gender gap. The current criterion is: "A male soldiers between 17 and 21 years old must complete 71 push-ups within two minutes, run two miles in 13 minutes, and complete 78 sit-ups to get perfect scores. Female soldiers in the same age range must do 42 push-ups, complete the two-mile run in 15 minutes and 36 seconds, and also do 78 sit ups to get full credit on each event.". Reports have shown this creates several issues that include males not respecting females because they are not considered "equal" and concerns that these relaxed physical standard can be dangerous in combat. The military is now reportedly moving to a "gender-neutral physical fitness test". A solution must be fair both ways but must also include reality.

In 2000 the New York fire department had 36 females out of 11,000 members. The physical standards are not relaxed. In 2017 there were 300 female firefighters in the London Fire Brigade (7%) with 3.1% represented in the UK. The criterion for selection, as far as I know, are mostly the same for male and female but some accommodation may have been implemented. Yes there is still a "boys' club" mentality. In 1999 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that there must be a need shown where a physical standard test be unequally applied to female firefighters before it can be accepted. There has been women inequality for ever. This became pointedly evident when a freed black male could theoretically vote when his former white female owner would have to wait for years.

Now! On Wikipedia I am disturbed by comments like on #5: "is highly biased and does not reflect the reality for minorities in the academic setting, which shows that on average 80-90% of full professorships are held by men, that women rarely hold even 20% of full professorships and only tiny fractions are held by minorities.". The relevance of the two does not make sense. Created systemic bias is one thing and should be fought. A fact that there is a disparity between male and female involvement is an area might have several determining factors that might not have anything to do with gender battles. Per User:SusunW a goal is not to "dumb them down, but to make them clearer" A bias towards any area in academics must be considered with sourcing in mind. We allow the use of academic sources to ensure fairness. Striving for fairness on Wikipedia is a worthy goal but we cannot try to correct a world of unfairness by relaxing our criterion if it is just to include women.

My suggestion would be a consideration of reviewing the criterion with a goal of working to establish one at a time. This is hard to do when the arguments are all over the place creating confusion that could result in nothing happening. I participate in AFD's and I need a fair criterion that can be equally applied regardless of gender. Too vague and a want-to-be Wikilawyer will attempt to exploit this. An idea of splitting the criteria into WP:Prof (female) and WP:Prof (male) would be an attempt to correct a wrong with an equal or worse wrong. Equality means equal. I had this type of discussion concerning harassment. There should be no harassment period, regardless of gender or any other circumstance, so making a female only harassment inclusion was counter to the goal. Otr500 (talk) 14:35, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Provost/Dean etc.

Criterion 8 proposes that persons working as a dean, head of a department, provost etc. in certain areas (why only these areas?) should be deemed notable. The proposal misunderstands the concept of notability. Notability is having ones activities noted by others. Scholars and researchers are deemed notable if the ideas and discoveries that they create are noted by others in an agreed verifiable manner. The holders of the above middle management positions no doubt do worthy and essential jobs but, in that capacity, they are not noted outside the web sites of their institutions. Middle managers in corporations, government and other bodies are not considered de facto notable. Why should universities be different? This looks like special pleading for universities which I suspect many Wikipedians will not accept. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:36, 2 May 2018 (UTC).

I would say "if the things they do are noted by others", because research contributions only cover some of the PROF criteria. But I agree with you re deans and chairs. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:34, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

My concern is similar. Deans and provosts of larger universities are already going to be notable as researchers in most cases. Those of smaller ones may or may not be, but an administrative posting does not impact their notability in these cases. TonyBallioni (talk) 10:56, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

I think we need " definitions" here since we are aiming at something with international implications. These terms are used differently throughout the world and across institutions and academia in general. Dictionaries usually give general meaning with can only be useful with context in dealing with global issues. I said this due to the growing problem I am currently observing with regard to academics and academic position and how editor's background influence how important they thought the position is. –Ammarpad (talk) 14:43, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

In the North American context, provost means chief academic officers (not CEOs) of higher education institutions, and deans are the chief academic officers of colleges and schools within universities. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:20, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Of course, academic managers in the better institutions are likely to have academic records that pass WP:Prof#C1. That may not be the cases for mangers in lesser institutions who would therefore be found notable notwithstanding. It does seem that to give administrators a free pass under guidelines designed for creative scholars and researchers does amount to dumbing down. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:26, 3 May 2018 (UTC).

Whilst I broadly agree, WP:PROF says, near the beginning: "For the purposes of this guideline, an academic is someone engaged in scholarly research or higher education, and academic notability refers to being known for such engagement" - in other words being "engaged in higher education" does not need to involve "scholarly research" - presumably leaving teaching and management or administration. Johnbod (talk) 02:53, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, but they still have to be noted by others for doing something, and routine administration is not going to lead to that. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:17, 8 May 2018 (UTC).

Proposal

@SusunW: Based on the feedback here it might be worth considering working to expand PROF to specifically address teaching by proposing your criterion #7 as an addition to PROF rather than attempting to pass a complete re-write. Doing this will, based on the research mentioned above, help address the gender imbalance this project is concerned with while filling a hole in the SNG which is easily defined and supported. I think a good case can be made for that limited expansion based on bringing parity to teaching vs research accomplishments and it will allow for more people to be included without weakening the SNG.

I re-read PROF and see that it is an inclusive alternative to the other notability criteria so there is really no need for the new Criterion #8 or Criterion #9. The only thing you 'loose' is the weakening of criteria be removing significant etc. In any event I firmly believe that removing the significant etc caveats would not pass at RfC.

@TonyBallioni, DGG, David Eppstein, Megalibrarygirl, Rosiestep, and Mvitulli: what are your opinions on making a more focused RfC to add some form of this proposal's Criterion #7 Teaching awards to PROF? Jbh ^Talk 15:50, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I think adding a criteria based on prestigious teaching awards would be a positive thing, yes. I don't like the current national award wording, as there are plenty of national awards that don't mean much (I can create an international award right now, but it won't mean anything.) That is something that can be fiddled with, however, to get the correct wording. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:58, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Jbhunley I agree with TonyBallioni that adding prestigious teaching awards is a useful thing. I wonder how we might decide on the criteria. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:00, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I think that prestigious (e.g. national-level) teaching awards should already count for criterion 2. But they're very rarely used for that, and I think we could work to modify the language of #2 to encourage more (for instance by explicitly calling out that kind of award as something that does count. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:50, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree that modifying the language for #2 regarding national-level awards is a good idea. International ones can be very important (like the Global Teacher Prize), or can be tricky if the award is not well-known. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:35, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I think we could likely modify criterion 2 to make this clearer now without the mess of an RfC. That type of tweak could likely find consensus quickly on a talk page. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:41, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Jbhunley That would be a positive change, thank you. I would like to see geographic location addressed as well, as it makes a significant difference on what criteria are applicable. The statements "average professor test" and "this guideline sets the bar fairly low" should be removed entirely, IMO. Neither are accurate and the second one refuted in the historical comments of its creation. The bar is intentionally set fairly high and should be acknowledged that that is the goal, rather than implying otherwise. SusunW (talk) 17:30, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

• I would strongly oppose this, think this has limited usefulness, because essentially all present teaching awards are in-house awards, and awards by an institution to its own faculty are meaningless. This is true not just of teaching, but for in-house research awards and all others. In a university of very high quality, everyone who receives such awards --research or teaching or anything else -- will be notable, because they will almost always all already be notable research professors in the usual way. But if not particularly distinguished college X awards a "most notable researcher award" to one of its faculty, this doesn't make that person notable, because it is quite possible that none of the research faculty there are notable. And even if a few are, these awards are given to a different person each year, so the pool of actually notable faculty will soon be exhausted. For teaching, it's even worse. A best researcher award can be given on the basis of grants and publications (in practice in not particularly distinguished colleges, grants, because few of the faculty will have them). But a best teacher award is almost always given at least at such colleges, by the percent of the excellents in the student evaluations. I don't think that has much to do with quality of teaching--it's an award for "best liked faculty by students" which might sometimes be best teacher, but is just as likely to be best entertainer, or best at convincing the students they have actually learned something whether or not they actually have.

The criteria for awards showing notability in WP:PROF is " highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level." Are there any such teaching awards at all? DGG ( talk ) 21:23, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

DGG [13], [14], [15], [16], Deborah and Franklin Haimo Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics, 3M Teaching Fellow SusunW (talk) 22:17, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

SusunW, I am considerably enlightened, and have modified my statement above. Looking at the examples you gave,

Deborah and Franklin Haimo Awards does show notability--you are certainly right there & I'm glad to be informed about it. Most of the ones who have present articles are also notable researchers; some , such as Jennifer Quinn and (probably) Michael Starbird do not, but would meet WP:AUTHOR and probably also the textbook provision of WP:PROF); I think a few may be notable primarily as educators in a more general or organizational, but I need to look further. I would expect similar of the ones who do not yet have articles.

(I'll be looking at the others a little later) . DGG ( talk ) 23:30, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

@DGG: I certainly didn't intend to include institution-level teaching awards, or as you call them in-house ones, but only the sort of "highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level" already recognized by WP:PROF#C2. I think the awards that I grouped today into Category:Mathematics education awards would all qualify, for instance (or at least the ones aimed at university-level teaching rather than secondary teaching). The MAA also gives regional distinguished teaching awards, at a level that is subnational but beyond a single institution; I'm less sure about whether we would want to count those. But the Haimo award, for instance, comes with an award citation that describes the recipient's contributions to education beyond their own home institution, and is certainly a national-level award, so I think it should satisfy #C2 without having to look for any additional evidence of textbook publication or whatever. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:24, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

I note that Category:Mathematics education awards are all American, with one Canadian. I may be wrong, but I don't believe that teaching awards for university education that have any kind of status really exist in the UK, or I expect Europe. If they do, I can't see them in Category:Educational awards in the United Kingdom, or indeed outside America in Category:Education awards by country. I'm dubious about including a criterion if it can only really be met in Nth America. Johnbod (talk) 01:26, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Johnbod the ASLO award is international, and I also included links for South Africa and Australia above. I think they are out there, we just don't have articles on them. As research and awards for research garner more attention (and obviously money for the universities). This one [17] is Chilean. SusunW (talk) 04:51, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

1)There may be a sprinkling, but it is essentially a Nth American thing. If any constituted a "highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level", certainly UK ones, we would have articles on them. 2) I thought we were talking about teaching awards? 3) Do you think the Chilean award would be a strong argument for notability? Johnbod (talk) 14:01, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Johnbod We are talking about teaching awards. The Chilean one is part of the National Prize for Education Sciences (Chile) per [18]. I have found quite of few of them in various Latin American countries, but they are usually within another scheme, i.e. the Mexican Asociación Nacional de Universidades e Instituciones de Educación Superior (ANUIES) gives the ANUIES Prize, which has four awardees in the categories of: contribution to the development of higher education; production of a masters thesis on the development of higher education; production of a doctoral thesis on the development of higher education; and innovation in teaching practices. Obviously the first 3 categories are not within the scope, but the fourth clearly is. [19]. Similarly, the National Francisca Radke Education Prize in Colombia has almost identical categories, with the teaching excellence award requiring 20 years service. [20] I haven't looked in other European countries, but will try to do that over the next several days. SusunW (talk) 16:10, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

I think the reason the prizes in that category (the ones I found articles about on Wikipedia) are all North American is less to do with this kind of award being a uniquely American thing, and more to do with the bias of our editors to create articles on topics that are covered by English-language sources. There are certainly such awards in commonwealth countries beyond Canada [21] and presumably also in non-Anglophone countries; they're just harder for Anglophones such as myself to find. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:25, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Oh, yeah? Find anything in the UK that comes close to the spec given & I might start to believe that. Johnbod (talk) 23:28, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

I didn't say UK, I said "other commonwealth". I think the fact that we have significant university-level mathematics education awards in Canada (already listed) and Australia [22] shows that it's not a uniquely American phenomenon. For that matter, the UK also has institution-level teaching awards [23] [24] [25] although I'm not sufficiently familiar with their national awards to know whether there are any such at the national level. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:30, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

And I didn't say maths - any subject will do. Johnbod (talk) 23:34, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Do the National Teaching Fellowships count? —David Eppstein (talk) 23:35, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

I doubt it - firstly I'd never heard of them! There are over 800 of them, up to 55 added a year. All very worthy people no doubt, but I don't think it makes them notable. Poke around in the "directory" a bit. I've looked at the Australian one, which seems to have 3 awards a year. In the 2015 batch, 2/3 of the citations conclude "For his long-standing contribution to the Maths Olympiad program, his contribution to the Senior Problems Committee and his general contributions to Mathematics, Norm/Daniel is a worthy recipient of the BH Neumann award." Hmmm. Johnbod (talk) 23:44, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

This year's New Year's Honours included KB's to academics Timothy David Melville-Ross, Iain Richard Torrance, Alan John Tuckett, Dame Commander OBE to Janet Patricia Beer, etc., in part for their contributions to education, etc. So high-level awards exist, even if the award itself is not devoted to education. But in any case, I don't buy arguments of the form "my country doesn't offer this kind of award so the rest of you shouldn't pay any attention to them either". —David Eppstein (talk) 00:12, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Obviously those do not need the proposed changes to have weight. I'm saying that no country outside the Americas seems to have teaching awards that constitute a "highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national [or international] level" and you have yet to pursuade me otherwise. I'm only taking your word for it on the Nth American ones, btw. If you've ever seen international groups of mid-ranking military - majors to colonels say - you'll have noticed that the Americans and some other countries have blocks of decoration ribbons you could hang as curtains, because they get an award for every course, posting etc etc, while other countries have only 1-3 decorations, but they probably had to kill people to get them. Same thing. Johnbod (talk) 00:58, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Your military fantasies are far from relevant here. We have already listed many non-US awards, but each time you keep moving the goalposts and saying "that doesn't count". I don't see the point of continued engagement on this point. If a country has an award that recognizes excellence, with in-depth and convincing coverage of why their awardees are deserving, it should count. If a country has a culture of failing to reward excellence (and I don't count UK as doing so, even though you seem to be) then it's their problem that their academics won't earn notability that way, but it shouldn't prevent us from noting the accomplishments of people in less anti-intellectual places. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:16, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

For me, anything about teaching (as distinguished from scholarship) as a notability criterion seems laden with problems. Indeed, the debate just above shows how difficult it will be to create agreed-upon demarcation criteria. And if we go by the existing practices in academia, teaching excellence simply is not a criterion for determining academic distinction. Maybe that's not right, but we cannot WP:RGW. I appreciate the focus on national and international distinction as opposed to "in house", but I tend to think that really widely recognized distinctions of that sort will end up being covered by GNG. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:25, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Considering that the mandate of universities world wide includes teaching and research, and that there are teaching excellence awards, I am not sure that I understand the argument. If evidence shows that only about 25% of academics are employed as "only researchers" and only around 20% work solely as teachers, it is clear that the majority of academics perform dual functions.[26], [27], [28], [29] Focusing solely on research awards is a one-dimensional approach. If sourcing is available which indicates that the person has been recognized for teaching excellence and the criteria of the award shows that it is highly selective, why would that accomplishment not count toward notability? SusunW (talk) 14:10, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

I've taken part in a very large number of university tenure decisions, including at universities that explicitly say that they consider teaching to be important in evaluating tenure. Yes, it's true that most research-active faculty members also teach. But every time that I have observed, all the nice talk about teaching fades away when tenure decisions are being made. Tenure reviewers rarely pay any attention at all to teaching. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen splendid teachers denied tenure because the research wasn't good enough (and I've never seen a splendid researcher denied tenure because the teaching wasn't good enough). The rare individual whose teaching is so impactful as to attract very wide notice is likely to pass GNG. But to determine whether someone is notable based on an academic SNG, we have to go by existing practice in academia. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:27, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Not wanting to make assumptions, but would your experience Tryptofish be in the Global North? I ask because there is some empirical evidence that shows the focus in the Global South leans toward teaching. SusunW (talk) 17:43, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

There seems to be some U.S.-centric attitude here. There are plenty of high achieving women academics in the the Global South like Michelle Simmons who pass WP:Prof easily without any need to diminish its standards. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:33, 6 May 2018 (UTC).

That's an interesting point. I'm in the US. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:45, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Michelle Simmons is Australian, and so that's a misinterpretation of what "Global South" means, as Australia, despite its location, is not a country that the term intends to include, or that faces the problems someone in say, Nigeria, does. Battleofalma (talk) 10:34, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Textbooks

Thanks for looking DGG. I'd also be interested in your thoughts on whether a single textbook which has gone into multiple editions or been translated to multiple languages would be acceptable. As it stands the criteria requires authorship of several textbooks; however, if one textbook has been republished multiple times, it is clearly significant. I recall writing about a Russian academic wherein a single textbook had been republished over 30 times, and translated into at least 4 languages. No publisher is going to expend funds to publish a text repeatedly which is not sold. SusunW (talk) 00:49, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, one is enough, because almost nobody write two highly notable textbooks (pauling wrote 4, but I can think of few other examples); if it looks like they do, one is usually a simplified version of the other. But there are some problems--in the past, we sometimes acepted very scanty evidence , just proof it was used in several colleges. It should mean the leading or paradigmatic one in the field. For examples, see List of important publications in chemistry -- a few of these are key papers, but most are textbooks. (most similar lists in WP are mainly or entirely books or articles or other publications establishing a field & therefore of historical interest). Almost every one I know was also written by a distinguished researcher. This may not be true in other fields, especially the applied sciences, where a textbook may be the easiest way to establish notability.

But there's another problem: In medicine particularly, and also in other fields, (not just science--it's true in law also) a book is normally known by the original famous author, but most actual modern books are multi-author, sometimes with hundreds of different authors, only a few of which may be notable.

So where I think this is mainly going to be useful is in the applied sciences, and in textbooks for elementary and secondary schools. DGG ( talk ) 03:53, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

There was an AFD (result keep I think) a few years ago for a prof who had managed to get himself into the happy position where it was impossible to obtain a particular rather common UK low level professional qualification (HR? something like that) without spending a fortune on his no doubt very tedious textbooks over several modules, as all the exams were based on them. I didn't think he was notable for his university work (according to the refs produced) but that he was for the textbooks, though they were not strictly for an academic subject. I wish I could remember who or what - anybody? Johnbod (talk) 03:00, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

It's important to remember that notable ≠ meritorious. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:06, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Archive the debate

This debate has taken place in draft space and therefore can be deleted. I think the debate has dealt with many important issues and should be readily available to editors interested in WP:Prof. I suggest that it be preserved for posterity, possibly as an archive of Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics). Xxanthippe (talk) 03:12, 10 May 2018 (UTC).

I cannot imagine why an active draft would be deleted, but then, I fail to understand many proposals for deletion. I concur that it should be preserved, but only if we are still able to access it to continue the discussion. SusunW (talk) 16:01, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and moved it to project space. There's been enough debate here where userfying doesn't make sense, and draft space isn't really used for drafting proposals. Keeping it in WP space will prevent G13 from applying 6 months after any discussion is done. I've also changed the name to be more descriptive (not tied to the name, and making it a PROF subpage might make more sense in the long run). TonyBallioni (talk) 16:08, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Teaching award example

As an example of the kind of article that I think should already count for WP:PROF#C2 based on prestigious international-level teaching awards (an idea that received some pushback above with Tryptofish saying "anything about teaching" is "laden with problems" and DGG expressing doubt that any major international awards exist and advancing the idea that the only way to be notable for teaching is to also be notable as a researcher or textbook author), I created today a short new article on Judith Gal-Ezer, an academic in Israel who works in computer science education and has three major international awards for her development of a national-level high school curriculum in the subject. She has moderate but not outstanding citation counts for her related research in CS education (so the case for #C1 is possible but not strong), and is not to my knowledge a textbook author, but I think the case for notability via #C2 is clear: the awards are from the multiple major professional societies in this area, they are international (as they are from organizations centered in the US but given to an Israeli), and the award citations clearly document the work she is being recognized for. The citations themselves are in-depth, reliably published, and independent of the subject (though not of the awards they document), so I think she also passes WP:GNG. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:14, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

No doubt you are right that she is notable, but these are not teaching awards in the sense discussed above. The two award citations you quote both mention "outstanding research" among other things. I don't see that changes to the criteria are needed for her to pass WP:PROF. Perhaps we shall see. Johnbod (talk) 03:03, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Her citation record is good also, considering that scholarly publication is not her prime aim. The awards, although crediting her with research achivements as well as teaching, clinch the deal and show that such cases can be found. However, one high-level case should not be used as a precedent for acceping standards lower than this. WP:Prof#C4 is passed already and changes are not needed.Xxanthippe (talk) 03:14, 11 May 2018 (UTC).

I'm not arguing that we should lower or even significantly change our standards. I'm arguing that #C2 already allows us to attribute notability for academics who have been recognized more for their contributions to pedagogy than for other types of scholarship, and that it wouldn't hurt to add a comment to the standard saying so. And that "those are not teaching awards" comment above looks like the No true Scotsman fallacy to me — the sort of thing I would expect to hear from someone who has already made up their mind that teaching awards can't provide notability, so when they see an example, their first reaction is to reach for a rationalization for why it can't really be a teaching award. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:59, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I presume that you are not alleging that I am a Scotsperson, true or otherwise; WP:outing is not allowed (smiley). I agree that this example shows that change to WP:Prof guidelines is not needed in this area. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:29, 11 May 2018 (UTC).

Of course not! Everyone knows that's a Greek name. (Although the only person I remember meeting with that name in real life was Chinese-American.) —David Eppstein (talk) 05:59, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

No, he was talking about me - as usual he prefers to cast aspersions rather than argue his case. These are very clearly not the type of "teaching awards" the sections above were discussing, namely (sigh) awards given for teaching rather than research, and only given for teaching, and on a regular basis. Johnbod (talk) 12:45, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

as usual he prefers to cast aspersions rather than argue his case. I can't see evidence for this. I suggest that you either produce the evidence or withdraw the allegation. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:07, 12 May 2018 (UTC).

Three sections up will have to satisfy you - I'm certainly not going to trawl through all his contributions. Johnbod (talk) 23:49, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

I can't see anything there. Can you give a diff? Xxanthippe (talk) 00:35, 13 May 2018 (UTC).

Maybe editors might continue that in user talk? --Tryptofish (talk) 17:59, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree with other editors that this example does not indicate a need for any kind of change to the guideline. Whatever else may be the case, that's the main issue that concerns me for the purposes of this discussion, and I'm reasonably confident that our existing processes for evaluating notability have this one covered (there might even be a case for GNG here). If by any chance the page gets taken by somebody to AfD, I'd like to see a mention of that here, because I think the editors here would be interested in that. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:03, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Bibliometric evaluation

Bibliometric sources

So far I like this new proposal much better than the old one. Thank you for your work! One point that I had some issues with is the bibliometric sources. On one hand, in the long introduction, the goal of reducing bias in favour of the Global North against the Global South is clearly stated. On the other hand, Criterion 1, 1-2 currently states "To count towards satisfying Criterion 1, citations need to occur in peer-reviewed scholarly publications such as journals or academic books as may be included in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index,[41] Social Sciences Citation Index,[42] or the Web of Science Core Collection." It feels a little bit counter intuitive to me that the guideline would require the use of a specific database, especially when this database is behind paywall (thus not easily accessible to individuals in institutions that wouldn't have the means to subscribe to it), and especially when this database is maintained by a private organisation using opaque rules. I know from experience that WoS refused inclusion of some journals on the ground that "there were enough journals in that field already." On top of that, the following sentence clarifies that there is no single database that is reliably exhaustive. I would thus suggest that we refrain from pointing to WoS explicitly, at least in isolation. Maybe a section could be added about what sources are available, and WoS could be listed there amongst other bibliometric sources? Egaudrain (talk) 17:52, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Egaudrain feel free to rewrite or modify anything at all that you think would help. As we said in the beginning, it was drafted as a way to start conversation to get to more specific language, rather using terms that lack real measurable means of application. What sources we can use, what sources have limitations, what will help us in evaluation are all important factors. I would also state that we have not moved forward on the draft in several months as there does not appear to be any way to implement any of the changes discussed above that would make the guidelines more inclusive. SusunW (talk) 23:04, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Disparities across fields

As acknowledged in the current proposal, different fields have widely different publication habits, from publication frequency to authorship attribution. Being listed as a co-author as part of a collaborative group of hundreds of authors, like it happens in physics, is not the same as being the sole author of a philosophy paper. Publication rates and citation rates are also directly affected by these habits. I am wondering if the point listed in Criterion 1, 1-3, of having at least 1 publication per year (on average) is satisfying for all fields. It is certainly a very low bar for certain fields (like, e.g., genetics) but could be deemed rather high for other fields (like philosophy or history)? Are people here confident that a one-size-fits-all publication metric can be achieved? Of course there are always other ways to justify notability. But I think it is worth having a robust discussion about this. Egaudrain (talk) 17:52, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm very dubious "1 publication per year (on average)" works at all for many book-led fields in the humanities. There are also far fewer journals in many areas of the humanities. We already usually don't give much weight to citations in most humanities fields. Johnbod (talk) 02:00, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, for them writing books and getting reviews of their books are much more important. And on the other hand, in (say) computer science, one publication per year would be worrisomely low. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:13, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

It is true that there may be considerable differences of citation patterns between fields. That is why one always compares like with like - philosophers with philosophers and physicists with physicists, never philosophers with physicists. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:18, 4 October 2018 (UTC).

Side-by-side presentation

I've had a read through these proposals at the request of user:Battleofalma, but I found it very difficult to understand what some of the changes proposed actually are (I'm especially confused regarding proposed new criterion 8). To try and help matters I've created a side-by-side presentation of the current and (my understanding of the) proposed criteria at Wikipedia:Draft rewrite of Notability (academics)/Side-by-side. I've made a couple of small alternative proposals as well.

I am think most of the proposals are good, and I hope the few hours I spent preparing this will help others as well, so please comment and correct. Thryduulf (talk) 17:39, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Your side-by-side comparison makes it clear that this proposal waters down #1 to what could easily be interpreted as "at least one citation by another researcher", far too low for notability, and that the simplified version of #3 includes society fellowships like FRSA for which the bar to entry is not high. The new criterion 7 would set a lower bar for textbook authorship (one notable book) than for authorship of other kinds of books under WP:AUTHOR (generally, at least two notable books), and the new criterion 8 is entirely redundant with GNG. I'm not convinced that any of these changes are good ideas. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:06, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Thryduulf's side-by-side makes plain that this rewrite is designed to lower the bar because we already presume notability too much in other fields. That's a race to the bottom ala WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. I am opposed to the proposal, accordingly. We regularly keep biographies about academics of questionable value and those professors certainly come here to advertise. I say this having written 17 biographies about professors. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:35, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks for doing this very helpful presentation, Thryduulf! I have to agree with the two above - we don't want this. Johnbod (talk) 20:44, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the vast amount of systematic work you have done in writing this comparison of the present and proposed scheme. It is clear that the proposal would dumb down the academic criteria to basement level and allow the entry of floods of tyro academics who wish to advertise themselves in the way that concerns Troutman. The proposal is not wanted. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:32, 25 July 2019 (UTC).

This draft clearly went in the wrong direction, attempting to grossly reduce or eliminate virtually any criteria. Over the last few years we have been raising the criteria of almost all subject-specific areas. That includes Sports, Companies/Organizations, Broadcast, and I believe others.

There's also a serious Righting Great Wrongs problem here. I lost count of the number of times I ran into sexist/racial/nationalist discrimination while reading the draft-page. In a perfect world 50% of our articles would be on women. But we don't live in a perfect world. Throughout almost all of history and throughout almost the entire world, various group of people have NOT had equal opportunities for education, advancement, achievement, and recognition. Category:20th-century_presidents_of_the_United_States is 100% male and 100% white. 100% of the articles in that category will forever be 100% male and white. No amount of fabricated-notability for non-notable individuals will ever change that. We can't fix history, can't fix the world, and can't retroactively provide education and opportunity and recognition to people who didn't receive it. Our job is to build a perfect encyclopedia. We document subjects and people who have achieved Notability.

This draft was never been submitted for consideration and there has been no substantive work on it in 4.5 years. I'm going to tag {{Failed proposal}}: Consensus for its implementation was not established within a reasonable period of time. If someone wants to revive work on academic notability, I would advise working from the current Academic guidelines as a base rather than attempting to build upon this draft. This draft is several years out of date compared to the current Academic guidelines, and the last several Talk posts have almost all been opposed to the draft. In particular the responses and general community direction has been for tightening standards rather than lowering them. Alsee (talk) 10:33, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Scholia to support this idea

I am writing to express my support for this re-write and development of the discourse. I am a developer of the d:Wikidata:Scholia project where we are somehow trying to connect academics with their list of publications. As this proposal advances the conversation, I would like to offer these profiles to compliment biographies of academics by presenting a wiki-based solution for presenting their work. These profiles depend on having bibliographies and that creates some new challenges, but in many cases, I think articles will benefit from having this kind of access. These profiles and this system are still experimental, but check it out in the case of the examples in these boxes on the right.

It often happens that tenured faculty who have worked for decades and published hundreds of papers either fail to meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines, or they meet them but their articles are thin on content. I have great respect for Wikipedia's existing WP:Reliable source guidelines and practice of choosing to include information from those reliable sources. I do not intend to change that by suggesting anything radical, like for example, suggesting that Wikipedia drastically change its quality control model by attempting to crowdsource WP:Original research and publication. I do feel that simple statements of fact which are necessary for understanding a biography, include claims of occupation, field of work, and institutional affiliation, and the bibliography itself are often only in primary sources and not what we normally include. Wikidata has a process for curating this sort of information, and I think that as we discuss what an article for an academic ought to contain, Wikidata has some content and insights which offer new possibilities for our publishing.

If anyone wants to add a Scholia template to an academic then feel free. Anyone can also curate bibliographies in Wikidata. Adding thousands of papers to Wikidata is not a problem; adding hundreds of thousands might be. Wikidata has about 20 million papers now in the experimental meta:Wikicite project. There are perhaps 200 million papers total. Sorting this at scale is a future challenge which we can delay for now but eventually, I think we will be able to link academics to their publications, and also have some structured data to describe their careers and the topics on which they commonly publish. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:36, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Proposed change to criterion 4 (several textbooks)

Editors watching this page might be interested in this discussion, since it proposes a milder form of a change suggested here. – Joe (talk) 14:54, 13 June 2020 (UTC)