Talk:Nobel Peace Prize/Archive 1

Archive 1

Table format

Its better to list the prize-winners as a table. The way its listed now -- tabbed new line -- is taking twice the amount of space on the page. Jay 08:43, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC) it is in fact like "no" or "know". This cannot possibly be an appropriate part of the article without a reference to how to interpret it. --Jerzy 18:21, 2004 Jan 16 (UTC)

External material

IMO, much valuable material at Peace-Prize nominations should be included, as there is considerable confusion abt this.

Arafat

It should be stated conclusively that Yassir Arafat funded terror. I tried to incorporate this but it was rejected.

Agreed. The article suggests that only people on the right-wing fringe believe that Arafat supported terror.

1988 U.N. Peacekeepers

The official presentation speech [1] does not mention Canadian forces. The description in our article is not supported by evidence. I am going to remve the reference to the Canadian forces. -Willmcw 23:20, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

Fairuse?

Can the acceptance speech images be used under the fairuse tag. I'm interested on adding an image to Tenzin Gyatso. Falphin 22:11, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

There are six pictures of him on the page already, so there doesn't seem to be an urgent need for a seventh. In any case, the page where it appears has a copyright notice.[2] What claim of fair use would you use? -Willmcw 22:37, July 9, 2005 (UTC)

Yes but they are all with the top sections. The image with a little color change is on several sits. I believe it can go under the pattern 1, 4,5,8(I haven't contacted the owner which I will do) 10, Yes. I don't think the original image is creative. Falphin 01:32, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I very well may be wrong since I'm not that familiar with this though. Falphin 01:33, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

The better argument may be that it is a publicity photo. I'm not expert either, but I do know that you should record your explanation and the website of origin, rather than simply saying "fair use". Cheers, -Willmcw 02:07, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

The darker side of the medal

Added a section on controversy. 195.70.48.242 13:25, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

That's apprecaited, and some of that controversy, at least, should be in the article. It'd be stronger if there were some sources or named critics. -Willmcw 20:14, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I've moved a paragraph here as it's unsupported POV and ablist.

The awarding of Nobel prizes during the Cold War was mired by a certain anti-communist bias. Both Sakharov (the 1975 awardee) and Gorbachev (the last Soviet statesman who was honoured in 1990) are seen as subversive figures by many people living in the former Soviet Bloc. In case of Gorbachev the prize is referred to as a paralympics medal by critics, alleging the recognition is merely a reward for his poor leadership skills, which greatly contributed to the empire's rapid disintegration. The 1953 Nobel Peace Prize awarded for the Marshall plan, some hold, cannot be objectively approved, as the nominally open US-sponsored economic rebuild plan was advertised as available to all countries in Europe, when in fact it contained numerous requirements, held by some to be humiliating, which effectively secured the absence of countries under the Soviet sphere of influence, even though these were the places worst hit by the destruction of WWII.

Andjam 15:44, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I've also removed the following paragraph as it contains unsupported speculation. It's seriously doubted by many whether nuclear suitcase bombs exist, let alone that deployments in Norway had a role in their creation.

The Nobel Peace Prize has attracted controversy for various reasons. Some have noted the assumed contradiction that modern-day Norway, the awarding country of the Peace Prize, is a member of NATO, seen by some as a partisan military organization, as opposed to the historically neutral Sweden, which awards the scientific Nobel Prizes. Since 1983 Norway's Parliament has leased the country's territorial waters and two of its ports as a permanent base and patrol area for the US Navy Ohio class ballistic missile submarines, forcing the USSR (later Russia) to hastily implement a "nuclear suitcase" controlled hair-trigger MAD mechanism in response. Each Ohio class vessel carries 24 nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, thus the 1985 and 1995 Nobel peace prizes, which were awarded recognizing nuclear disarmament efforts, have been described as apparently hypocritical. However the committee is fully independent from the parliament and the Norwegian parliament have no members or saying in the award issue. (A member of the committee cannot at the same time be a member of the parliament). In addition the committee include former members from all major parties, incuding those parties that oppose NATO membership.

Andjam 02:43, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Andjam, you are mistaken and totally misunderstand it. Please read more carefully next time. The nuclear suitcase is not a suitcase sized A-bomb! It is a classified suitcase, with contains advanced satellite radio communication systems and multiple biometric ID equipment (iris, palmprint, voice, numeric code entry). It allows the political leader to authenticate himself and order a nuclear ballistic missile strike via remote control even if he is abroad or far away in the countryside.

Such a system has existed in the USA for more than 35 years, and a highly trained armed forces officer always carry the 15 kilogram heavy brown leather suitcase within 10 footsteps of the president, day and night. You can see him in many press photos shadowing the president. Americans call the device as the "nuclear football". In 1996 (I think it was in 1996 maybe plus or minus a year) there was a scandal widely discussed in the press, when the Clinton staff actually forgot about the officer and his brown briefcase, and the presidental staff left in their limousine cars. The officer had to walk more than half a mile, alone, through an inadequately protected area and he only had a pistol for defence of himself and the classified cargo. Please note, without the code briefcase, the US president cannot initiate a nuclear first strike (but a counterstrike can be launched, if at least three top-ranked ICBM base commanders in diverse parts of the USA congregate their launch decisions via a complicated electronic communications system.

The USSR had no such "atomic code briefcase" system until 1983, because US missiles' flight time from CONUS to Moscow was about 25 minutes and that was enough to organize and launch the soviet counter-strike ICBMs via traditional wire and radio communications (the russians love to use morse code for ciphered transmissions).

In 1983, when the USA and Norway started to patrol Ohio SSBN missile submarines in the fjord and norwegian coastal water close to the USSR, the US missiles' flight time was shortened to 10 minutes to Leningrad (Sankt Petersburg) and 12 minutes to Moscow. This was too short for traditional response mechanism and so the soviet union could be decapitated with a suprise US missile strike and unable to respond. Thus the soviets had to hastily implement a "nuclear code briefcase" system for the political-military leadership (party secretary, general chief of staff, chief of red army missile force), so they could remotely authenticate the launch in less than five minutes.

Because the soviet electronic was inferior to western technolgy, and because the system had to be built so swiftly, it was not very reliable and satellite coverage for the enciphered communications was inadequate. This further destabilized the WMD situation in the Reagan era, when the USSR felt threatened in its very existance every day.

With all due respect, I don't see any real difference between what the two of you are saying. Andjam said that the stationing of SSBN's required (in the Soviet military mind) the creation of a hair-trigger retaliation system. Both of you have good insights which might better be added to an article on nuclear war planning, for example. (In the meantime - Please, gentlemen, no fighting in the War Room.) -Willmcw 08:22, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, while the nuclear-war history is correct, we need to be careful to avoid original research. Juxtaposing the Norwegian Parliament's putative control over the Prize with a particular action in the Cold War is not helpful. It is certainly appropriate to include general concerns about Norway's NATO membership (with all that entails), particularly compared to Nobel-giving-neighbor Sweden, which did not belong to a military alliance. However individual instances of NATO basings, whether naval, air force, etc., are beyond the scope of this article. If there is an actual controversy (and there is, to at least some extent), then let's quote the principle critics. But to list events in the history of Norway with the intent to say, in effect, "See, these are the dolts who give out the Peace Prize" would be bad for the article. -Willmcw 08:40, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Years not awarded

Other than the obvious (WWI/WWII), can someone help add the reasons for the various years when it was not awarded? Thanks --Dpr 03:03, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

They don't give reasons on their website. I'm not sure that there are any definitive, verifiable answers as to why they don't give the award in certain years. -Willmcw 04:27, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Reasons for the no award years for at least the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine can be found in Nobel: The Man and His Prizes, 1950. It's a bit more complicated than just stating that it was due to WWI/WWII. –panda 07:32, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Nominees

Nominees are not verifiable or notable. Any college social-studies professor, any national egislator, etc can nominate an individual, and more than a hundred people are nominated annually. Nominations are kept secret by the committee. For those reasons I deleted a list of "High profile nominees". In addition, the inclusion of the list seems to have been to highlight people who are unlikely to get the award. -Willmcw 05:54, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. I like the idea of seeing who has been nominated for the Peace Prize before, but you do bring up a good point. Perhaps when someone finds a reliable source and lists notable people, besides those listed before, then maybe it could be reintroduced into the article. --crumb 06:33, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Nominations are meant to be kept secret for 50 years (I think), not in perpetuity. If you think the nomination process is too loose, then isn't it in the public interest that the public knows that? Also, I don't think the people listed were people unlikely to get the award. If Kissinger and Arafat could get peace prizes, would it have been impossible (if it weren't for invading Poland) for Hitler to get a peace prize for the Munich agreement? Andjam 10:57, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

If you can find an official list of 50+ year-old nominations then I certainly won't object to it. However I am not aware of any such list. The article already has a discussion of the nomination process. Yes, it is very loose, in common with many other awards. I suppose that it is possible that the Brazilian mystic/dietitian who claims to have received multiple Peace Prize nomination could get one too, or the Ohio car dealer who also claims a nomination, but let's deal in facts rather than speculation. -Willmcw 11:13, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Here's Hitler's nomination, from the official web site. Andjam 02:51, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I retract my earlier comment about (old) nominations being unverifiable, I hadn't seen this databse before. (apparently it is new). However it is a huge swamp. There were 136 nominations (some for the same people) in the first year alone. The real controversies are over who did and didn't receive the prize, not over who was nominated. -Willmcw 03:11, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Are you objecting to the list as it currently stood, or against any mention of who has been nominated for the prize? Were you concerned that the list reflected negatively on the Nobel foundation? Andjam 07:44, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

The list was just made up of the least-likely to receive it. What, exactly, is the point of listing a few random names? No, I don't think that the fact that Hitler was once nominated reflects poorly on the prize - it reflects poorly on the nominator. And that's exactly my point. Beyond saying the an enormous variety of people have been nominated, what purpose is served by listing particularly odd nominations? -Willmcw 20:48, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

If Kissinger or Arafat could get Nobel Peace Prizes, why is Hitler a "particularly odd nomination"? (As a side note, there were quite a few Chamberlain nominations. If Chamberlain won a prize but Hitler didn't, in some ways that'd be a greater departure from Nobel tradition than if both Chamberlain and Hitler won). Looking at it another way, why would someone make what they thought to be an unlikely nomination? What'd be the point if no-one outside the committee would know of it for 50 years? Andjam 12:52, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps you should look to the US Presidential elections for insight. Many people write in, often fictitious, people for office. I'm sure the majority of the write in's are NEVER publicized. Begging the question "What'd be the point if no-one outside the committee would know of it for 50 years" -Charles 08:49, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

If Hitler was not an odd nomination then why bother making a point of it? The psychology, sociology, and gamesmanship of making award nominations is a fascinating topic, but unfortunately I don't have any data on it. I'd generally assume that anyone who makes a nomination hopes for it to prevail, though it is also possible that some are done to curry favor. I'd guess that there is a good chance that every totalitarian dictator has been nominated. Though the nominators are asked not to publicize their nominations, some might do so. Again, what purpose is served by posting a list of five nominees out of the thousands of people who have been nominated? -Willmcw 19:49, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

The point is, though, that being a nominee means nothing. Which is why a list of "infamous" nominees is crucial, in that the individuals, as "prominent" as they may be, can be any nut who manages to get himself elected to a national congress, or passes tenure at a small private college. The point of that paragraph is to dispel any notion that a nominee is somehow "special". Calwatch 05:08, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

We may wish to post that the Noble Peace Prize has been used to make a political statement in the case of Jimmy Carter and IAEA both failures in efforts for peace and a safer world

130.236.83.55 19:45, 2 August 2007 (UTC)The nomination of Hitler was a protest. The background was that a number of members of the Swedish parliament had nominated Neville Chamberlain because of the Munich agreement. Erik Brandt, another member, thought this was outrageous and decided to formulate an ironic nomination of Hitler, whom he despised. However, when Brandt made the nomination letter public many people completely misunderstood it and thought he was serious. This caused him to withdraw it. Others understood what he was driving at, but thought it was improper to treat something as serious as a nomination for the Peace Prize in such a fashion. The correct version of the story can be read in Swedish newspapers from late January and early February 1939.130.236.83.55 19:45, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Swedish newspapers from 1939 are difficult to find. Do you know of any source for this material that would be more accessible? Or, if you have access to them, can you add the material and list the papers as sources? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

130.236.83.55 21:24, 2 August 2007 (UTC) Unfortunately I am at this point not aware of any easily accessible sources in English. In my opinion the Nobel Foundation ought to amend the "Hitler entry" in their database in order to clarify why he was nominated and why the nomination was withdrawn. Such an action would eliminate a lot of speculation among those who happen to come upon the entry without knowing the background. I have sent the Foundation a suggestion along those lines. In my opinion that's the best place to attack the problem. If nothing happens I will put together something that can be published here. The incorrect version was apparently broadcast in in Swedish radio a couple of years back and never corrected even though there were protests by people who knew the truth. I guess sensations are news, the more boring truth is not130.236.83.55 21:24, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

130.236.83.55 21:36, 2 August 2007 (UTC) Among those who completely misunderstood Brandt's letter were trade union members in his own district. They put together a very angry statement, which was published in various newspapers. I imagine that Brandt had to endure many difficulties even after he had withdrawn the nomination, people don't like to have been made fools of. 130.236.83.55 21:36, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

130.236.83.55 10:55, 4 August 2007 (UTC) The nomination of Hitler and the views of Brandt are discussed in Gunnar Richardsons recently published book "Förtroligt och hemligt", pp 144-148. The nomination letter is printed in extenso. R. also mentions that the nomination has been completely misunderstood in later years, for example during a radio broadcast in December 2004 when a representative of the Nobel Museum "explained" that Brandt probably was influenced by pro-Nazi sentiments and only withdrew the letter because of pressure from his party (he was a Social Democrat). Richardson immediately demanded a correction, since he was well aware of the real story. According to the book no apology or correction was ever published. Which is amazing as even the most superficial research would reveal Brandt's motives and his fervent opposition to Hitler. 130.236.83.55 10:55, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

That's excellent. Can you write up a few sentences which explains it, and use the book for the reference? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:22, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

130.236.83.55 20:30, 4 August 2007 (UTC)I guess so. Where should I put my contribution? Here so that you (or someone else) can edit the article in a suitable fashion or directly into the article? I have no idea of what the standard procedure is.130.236.83.55 20:30, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Not to worry. Editing an article is just like editing a talk page. You can add the text to Nobel Peace Prize#Nominations. The citation stuff is a little tricker - if you tell me the date of publication and the publisher I can add the citaiton for you. Editors will correct any mistakes, so there's nothing to be concerned about. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:40, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

130.236.83.55 17:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC) It's Richardson, Gunnar, Förtroligt and hemligt : kunglig utrikespolitik och svensk neutralitet under andra världskriget. Stockholm : Carlsson, 2007. I have also written a short piece about the nomination on my own web site, focusing more on the reaction in Swedish newspapers.17:29, 6 August 2007130.236.83.55 17:30, 6 August 2007 (UTC) (UTC)

That's perfect, and makes the incident seem less irrational. Thanks for adding it. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

India

• The list of peace prize recepient do indicate that it is mainly focused on people of European and US origins and more recently people of ever fighting communities in Middle East. It is notable that there is not a single citizen of India ever awarded a peace prize, despit many leaders of peaceful freedom struggle in India by Mahatma Gandhi, key person in in forming UN tbd, in early 90's and revolutionizing idea of better and peaceful living within diverse religions by Panduran Athvale.

Two residents of India, Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama, have received Peace Prizes. (Theresa may have been citizen, seeing as she lived in India from 1928 until her death in 1997.) The failure the award a prize to Gandhi is famous, and noted in the list (see 1948). -Willmcw 19:52, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Alfred & Dynamite

"..Alfred Nobel was the man whose inventions include dynamite and Ballistite, which led to the death of millions of people." Can dynamite really be said to have killed literally 'millions' of people? Certainly thousands, from accidental deaths, but one million people is a lot of people (presumably mostly construction workers and miners?) Perhaps by association, nitroglycerin and its derivatives in bombs may have killed millions, but I don't think you can say that Alfred Nobel's dynamite led to the death of millions of people. Is there a source on this statistic? I am inclinded to change this to "thousands of people" (i.e in the range 1000-999,999 rather than 1,000,000-999,999,999) if no one has any disagreement. Slugmaster 23:09, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikimedia

• Wikimedia as candidate
• Yes, adult-child sex is either child molestation or statutory rape in most civilized counties of the world. OTOH, Gay sex, sex between consenting males, is legal in most civilized countries. Yes, I have a POV. No, that does not prohibit anyone from editing Wikipedia.

BJAODN? -Will Beback 06:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

BJAODN... I fail to understand the point of the above reference. -Charles 08:54, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Month presented

Does this article tell which month/date the award is presented each year? If not, it should (if anyone knows). Badagnani 21:33, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Category?

Why is this article in Category: Wikipedia culture? - Michael J 18:14 10 May 2006

Because of this silly edit,[3] which was only partially reverted. My fault. Thanks for catching it. Cheers, -Will Beback 22:51, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Yasser Arafat

Is the country something that the committee annouces? If not, why is Yasser Arafat listed as Egypt? He considered himself a Palestinian and was head of the Palestinian Authority at the time. We list the Dalai Lama as Tibet even tho he is in exile in India. And if we're going by country of birth, then shouldn't Shimon Peres be Poland and Yitzhak Rabin be Palestine? Of course if the country is something that the commitee announces as part of their award and it was Egypt then there is no problem Nil Einne 09:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Reason for the Peace Prize Category Needs Correction

The article currently states that the peace prize came about because of the destruction of millions of people caused by dynamite. This "fact" seems to not be entirely correct. IMO, we should remove this and add in the NY Times statement instead.

NY Times' article states: "Nobel never explained his choice of prize categories. Chemistry and physics seem obvious choices because he was a trained chemical engineer...The reason for the peace prize is less clear. Many say it was to compensate for developing destructive forces. But his explosives, except for ballistite, were not used in any war during his lifetime, Tore Frangsmyr wrote in a portrait of Nobel published by the Swedish Institute in Stockholm in 1996."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/health/26docs.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5070&en=919b88628e82140e&ex=1160884800

--speedoflight | talk to me 20:17, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Why don't you make the correction? -Will Beback 00:18, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Carter and El Barradi

Should a change be made saying the reason they won the award was to send a political message to Bush. The Nobel chairman said Carter won as to kick bush in the shins. Since both have been failures and were not awarded for their efforts. Decato 03:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

This quote was apparently not made by a Nobel chairman, but by a former Nobel chairman who, presumably, was not involved in the selection. Have searched for a source of this quote and was unable. Please clarify. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.228.240.119 (talk) 23:40, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Why was there no prize awarded in 1928?

the nobel website simply states that the money was reserved. I am looking for a source. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by EnquiringMinds (talk • contribs) 06:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC).

RFC: Country – ambiguous or not

There is currently a request for comments at Talk:Nobel Prize in Chemistry#RFC: Country – ambiguous or not to discuss whether the country column in the table of Nobel laureates is ambiguous or not. Your comments in this matter would be appreciated. panda 14:05, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

RFC: Country data in Nobel lists

There is currently a Request for Comments about the country data in the Nobel lists at Talk:Nobel Prize in Chemistry#RFC: Country data in Nobel lists. Your comments would be appreciated. The results of the RFC may affect all of the Nobel Prize articles. panda 16:44, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Some RFC updates:

• You can find the definition of the country data included in the Nobel lists in the RFC under the point Country data defined.
• There is currently a consensus moving towards removing all of the flags in the Nobel lists unless someone can devise an acceptable scheme for them. This portion of the RFC (point 2) will be closed in 2 weeks, i.e., 31 October 2007 24 October 2007, assuming it is not challenged. That is, the consensus will be to remove all flags from the lists.

–panda 15:25, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

First awarded?

When was the first nobel peace prize given? If it was in Nobel's will, there's five years during which prizes could've been given (doesn't mean there were) that we don't have listed. Obviously, I don't know when it was.--190.74.126.248 21:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

As we can see from the list, the first prize was given in 1901. The Alfred Nobel and Nobel Prize articles tell us that Nobel's will did not give details for how the prizes were to be awarded, and the will was contested by relatives. So it took five years to fund the prize, create the committees, and make the first selections. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Yuan Longping (China) for Nobel Peace Prize?

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Yuan_Longping

What do you think? Is the contribution of Yuan qualified for Peace Prize nomination? (Personally I think he is qualified, but I would like to hear opinions of others) How much is his chance for a prize if he got nominated? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.48.248.67 (talk) 12:06, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Country of IPCC?

Shouldn't the IPCC's country be listed as United Nations instead of Switzerland? The Nobel website doesn't list a country, but lame lameWikipedia's own article on the IPCC makes no direct reference at all to Switzerland. --Tsk070 17:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree and i have already changed to UNO. Med 17:52, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I have done the same too for the International Labour Organization (1969). It's a UN organisation, despite it being located in Switzerland 80.164.88.91 (talk) 09:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Usage of "hobel_prize_medal.svg"

There seems to be confusion as to how(if?) to use this graphic: in the infobox of recipients.

Currently there is minor edit warring on various pages of people who have won (spurred by the recent Gore win), and currently there is a very inconsistent approach of how this should be represented. Many recipients do not have the image displayed and many also do.

I don't recall the history of how we arrived to the point of adding the icon after the name in the infobox, but we should at least determine its future.

Thoughts? Matt Yohe 21:45, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts here, if anyone cares: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Talk:Nobel_Peace_Prize#This_is_silly. --216.165.32.224 (talk) 19:07, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Intent of Award vs. Actual Awards

I didn't see any mention in this article of the apparent contradiction between the stated intent of the award

that it should be awarded 'to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses"

and the achievements for which it was awarded on several occasions

"Poverty awareness campaigner"

"Human rights advocate"

"for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace"

"for advancing economic and social opportunities for the poor, especially women, through their pioneering microcredit work"

"for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change"

Does anybody know what historical precedent is being used to award these prizes? Many of them are not consistent with the stated intent, and it would seem a worthy addition to the controversy section if anyone has more detailed information. I poked around the Nobel websites to no avail... FusionKnight 13:41, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

This sounds very like original research. There's bound to be tons of such commentary generated by the right wing noise machine over the coming months following Gore's award, but I'd never heard of any general problem with the criteria used up until this week. We shouldn't be hasty in using recent sources at any rate, should criticism be added. Chris Cunningham 14:07, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm just pointing out that this article states the intent of the prize quite clearly, but it doesn't explain why many of the awards have nothing to do with "fraternity between the nations", the "abolition or reduction of standing armies", or "the holding and promotion of peace congresses". There must be a reason, and I suspect following Gore's award many people are going to end up at this page looking for an answer to just that question. Does anybody know more details about how the committee awards the prize, and what specific criteria they use? It certainly seems they have exercised quite a bit of latitude over the years. I just think it should be addressed somewhere in this article (not OR, but a sourced explanation). FusionKnight 14:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

FusionKnight is right. That's the reason I went to the page, myself. I had recalled the "fraternity, standing armies, and peace congresses" criteria and was curious as to whether I had remembered wrong, or whether and how they were justifying it going to the cause du jour in recent times, rather than funding a new prize. In fact, I still haven't had the curiosity sated! 68.45.226.99 13:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Here are two links which go a little ways towards explaining the scope-creep of the prize over its lifetime. To select a couple quotes from the first Nobel Foundation page,

"The mention in the will of the "abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the holding and promotion of peace congresses" reflects the period in which the will was written. The approach today is to see it as pointing to general disarmament and the dissemination of the concept of peace. The most important provision, however, is contained in the term "fraternity between nations." This general and open provision has provided a basis for the wide definition of peace-related work which the committee has applied right from the start. The first Peace Prize, awarded in 1901, was accordingly shared between the Swiss founder of the Red Cross, Henry Dunant, and the French peace activist Frédéric Passy, one of the founders of the Interparliamentary Union. The inclusion of humanitarian work was promptly criticised as irrelevant to peace, inter alia by representatives of the peace movement. It has nevertheless remained an important criterion right up to the present."

"It is striking that although the committee based its work right from the start in 1901 on a broad range of criteria for what is relevant to peace, the struggle for human rights was for a long time not among those criteria... prizes of this kind have been controversial... Nobel himself evidently did not take it into consideration when writing his will in 1895. Nor did the committee when it began its work in 1901. It included humanitarian work, as we have seen, but not efforts aimed at human rights. The concept of human rights ... had been developed and given a special form as a cornerstone of the western world's constitutional democracies. But it had not played any part in international politics. So why did it find a place on the international political agenda after World War II? Why had the struggle for human rights not been regarded as relevant to peace before then? The main reason ... lay in the new threat posed by the twentieth century's totalitarian regimes, and more particularly in the experience of total war with ethnic cleansing and other horrors, all within the western world. This was a fundamentally new situation."

If we look at the officially printed criteria for nomination we see:

Criteria of the AFSC Nobel Peace Prize Nominating Committee:

1. The candidate’s commitment to nonviolent methods.

2. The quality of the candidate as a person and of her/his sustained contribution to peace.

3. The candidate’s work on issues of peace, justice, human dignity, and the integrity of the environment.

4. The candidate’s possession of a world view and/or global impact as opposed to a parochial concern.

Anyway, I think this is sufficient to show that there is/has been some contradiction, or at least controversy regarding Nobel's original intent and the direction in which the committee has taken it. I can try and write up a section addressing these topics, and post here on the talk page. FusionKnight 16:24, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

RFC: Country data in Nobel lists closing comments

This RFC has been closed. The following was reach by consensus:

• The country data on the Nobel Foundation list is the laureate's nationality (according to the book "Nobel: The Man and His Prizes"); knowing this, there are at least a couple errors for the laureate's nationality in the Nobel Foundation's list.
• The countries/nationalities should be included in the list.
• Use common names for the countries/nationalities. All variants of Germany should simply be called Germany except for West Germany, even though there never were any laureate's from East Germany. Only one editor commented on which variant of Germany should be linked to (the current one), so it's difficult to say if there is any consensus about that aspect.

For a list of inconclusive items, please see the closing comments. –panda 20:59, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

The discussion reference above appears on the talk page for the chemistry prize. Should that be used to support the appearance of the names of the countries and their flags on the page for the Nobel Peace Prize? (There was no consensus on use of flags in the Chemistry Prize discussion.) It seems remarkable that the swastika appears next to the name of Carl von Ossietzky, a victim of the Nazi regime. Is this the sort of "information" Wikipedia wants to convey? Or does it unintentionally suggest an affiliation of individual with a regime he opposed, who was incarcerated in a concentration camp by the very regime whose symbol now appears next to his name? Kablammo 13:34, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The RFC applied to all of the Nobel lists. It didn't resolve the flag issue. The choice of flag is due to WP:FLAG#Do not rewrite history: "use the historically accurate flag". See also Talk:Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine#Protection and Talk: Nobel Prize in Chemistry#Nazi-flag edit. The alternative is to use no flags, but there has not been consensus to do so. –panda 14:28, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Is there consensus to use flags? Does anyone else see the incongruity (to say the least) of placing a swastika next to an opponent of the Nazi regime? Kablammo 18:17, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

There's no consensus to not use flags. The de facto consensus has been to use flags since if you remove them, someone will likely place them back. See the closing comments of the RFC. If you'd prefer to see the flags removed, you can start a RFC about this. I personally don't see anything wrong with using a Nazi flag next to Carl von Ossietzky since he won the Nobel Peace Prize for criticizing Nazism, so it's highly relevant in his case. –panda 18:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. Here no purpose is served by inclusion of the image, and exactly the wrong message is conveyed by it. No one would think or infer that its presence indicated Ossietzky's opposition to Naziism; one would be more likely to infer allegiance. Kablammo 18:47, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest starting an RFC if you'd like the flags removed from the lists. You could also try discussing this with the editors who think the flags should remain (see Talk:Nobel Prize in Chemistry#Nazi-flag edit). I'm neutral. –panda 19:00, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Just a thought on Carl von Ossietzky, considering the Prize was awarded for his body of work preceding the creation of the Third Reich, perhaps the flag of the Weimar Republic would be more appropriate? Barring that, and if flags are to be kept, the description of why he was awarded the Prize needs to be improved to show that he was awarded the Prize for more than just being a pacifist journalist. Perhaps some details on the topics he covered. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 19:15, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

In the RFC, I actually suggested adding a column to the list for the country a laureate performed their work in but no one seemed interested. This table is different from the other lists in that there is no quotation from the Nobel Foundation's website about what the laureate was awarded for. You may want to work on adding that info, if you like. I've also added a small line about him in the Nobel Prize controversies article, in the first paragraph of the "involuntary refusals" section. –panda 19:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd quote WP:FLAG#Do not rewrite history "Where ambiguity or confusion could result, it is better to not use a flag at all, and where one is genuinely needed, use the historically accurate flag". Flags here are not "genuinely" needed, especially historical ones. You can't tell the number of stars on the US flag at icon size anyway, so, at least in this article, no one bothered to put the "historically accurate" American flag. The flag of Austria-Hungary is obscure trivia. The Nazi flag is controversial, because it is strongly associated with a particular ideology. The old Canadian Red Ensign, whichever version, is only recognizable by vexilophiles and a few history buffs. It is also pretty silly to use different flags for the same country on the same table. The purpose of allowing flag icons in tables was to save space and summarize information in the case of repeated entries. To have more than one flag for the same country essentially goes against that principle: it adds unnecessary information, and provides no uniform way of representing essentially the same entity (at least in the context of the article, borders and governments change and all that, but those issues are unrelated the recipients of Nobel prizes).--Boffob 18:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Historically accurate flags have been added to 2-3 of the lists, just not this one yet. Anyway, see my above reply if you would like to remove the flags. –panda 19:00, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I won't be the one to change or remove flags, but the guidelines can easily be used to justify removing all flag icons and enforcing this removal if there are perpetual edit wars over using historical vs current flags. The "Do not rewrite history" line requires flags to be "genuinely needed", and I just pointed out many reasons why they are not needed at all. This kind of edit wars almost always happens with use of the Nazi flag in non-WW2 related articles.--Boffob 19:19, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The WP:FLAG guidelines were also mentioned in Talk:Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine#Protection. No one has formed a consensus to remove the flags yet, however, which would, of course, end edit wars about which flag to use. –panda 19:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

You may want to make a new RfC just about the flag icon issue (the old one maybe had too big a scope), and how other editors to the Nobel Prize articles would interpret WP:FLAG in this context. Maybe that would help prevent edit wars, once a concensus is presumably reached.--Boffob 19:44, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Another project dealing with flag icons seems to be headed in the direction of including them where allegiance is implied (military bios, indicating allegiance to a service or nationality). Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Flag_icons. That seems to make sense; use the symbol of allegiance where such allegiance is present. Here it is not; while nationality may be a useful field, a flag adds nothing to it, and can in fact be misinterpreted. That is particulary true where the flag is freighted with the symbolism of the swastika. Kablammo 19:52, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I agree. Flags such as those of sportspeople or miltary figures may still arguably be decorative rather than informative, but at least they are verifiable. A sportswoman may verifiably have competed for Canada, or a soldier fought for the armed forces of France, for example. I don't believe the Nobel Prizes work like this though; perhaps someone can correct me if I am wrong. Adding flag icons, if it is done, must be historically accurate. Adding flag icons to Nobel laureates looks like original research, and divisive and crufty original research at that. --John (talk) 21:36, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Reason for Peace Prize

The article says, "Nobel died in 1896 and did not leave an explanation for choosing peace as a prize category." Cmon wikipedia! :)

Yet on http://nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/biographical/articles/tagil/index.html it says, Alfred Nobel's will prescribed that the Peace Prize was to be awarded by a committee of five persons chosen by the Norwegian Parliament (Storting) and should go to the person who accomplished "the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the promotion of peace congresses."

http://nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/will/short_testamente.html part of his will "The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiology or medical works by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm, and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting. It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not."

http://nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/will/will-full.html the full will

Zygnoda (talk) 08:48, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The will only states that he wanted prizes created, but it did not explain why the prizes should be created. –panda (talk) 15:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Panda. How and what do not equal why. There could be better sourcing for the section in which the sentence appears; there has long been speculation on Nobel's motives for the prize, and right now the only source cited on that point is an essay in the NYTimes. Kablammo (talk) 16:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

does it have any sense? at least not after 1991 ... a genocider took that prize( and he never refuse this claim on himself made by an ex colleague and then a president), bones of Nobel shakes... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.108.42.184 (talk) 01:25, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Communist Allegation/Controversies

This prize is often awarded to person who supported communism, such as Jimmy Carter and Oscar arias.. Therefore the real name for this prize should be Nobel Communist Peace Prize to suit it purpose more.. It havn't been awarded to people who really promiting peace i.e Ghandi but instead they award to these communist sympathsiers! This is why I made change to this article. 203.158.60.43 (talk) 05:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Leaving aside the nonsense in calling Carter a communist sympathizer, the reason that Ghandi did not get the Nobel Prize is that the Nobel Prize is not given posthumously. Had he not been assassinated in 1948, he is almost certain to have won it. Instead the prize was not awarded to anyone that year.--RLent (talk) 19:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

WHERE is the prize awarded???

The article says the Peace Prize is awarded annually in Atlanta, Georgia. The prize is actually awarded in Oslo, Norway. There is NO Atlantian king in attendence!!!

63.215.29.97 (talk) 01:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

This is silly.

I don't understand the point of having a hyperlinked image of the prize in each laureate's page next to their name. What makes this prize so special that it has placement priority over all of the other information on these pages, effectively drawing attention away from more important details, including the article itself? What makes the prize so special that only this prize is included as a hyperlinked image, and not, say, one for an Academy Award? It's not like this is a prize handed down from the heavens that distinguishes the human from the divine. The fact that there is a "controversy" section in this article that includes arguments about how some people should have gotten the award and others shouldn't have further suggests that this prize lacks the absolute authority in moral labeling that the placement priority of the hyperlinked images seem to suggest. I always thought Wikipedia was starting to overload on the number of useless little attachments one could add to an article, and now I'm convinced that this hyperlinked image means things are going a bit overboard. I suggest it should be taken down, or at least moved to a more suitable place in the article and as a simple text hyperlink.--216.165.32.224 (talk) 19:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's silly, but good luck in fighting it. Wikipedia has more than its share of folks who like adding decorative gadgets and other extraneous templates to articles, as the overuse of flag icons demonstrates. The inclusion of the Nobel Prize icon at the top of prizewinners' articles is Wikipedia at its dumbest, but making even common sense changes can be an uphill battle when it involves limiting gadget usage. I hope someone with enough time and energy does try to eliminate the Nobel Prize silliness, and I wish them luck. —Kevin Myers 13:38, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the icons have been oddly kept in a number of Nobel Peace Laureates, I began to delete some of them but there is a particular user who is adamant that they should be left even though they shouldnt be there when we refer to these guides {{infobox writer}}, {{infobox scientist}}. I think the icon should be restricted to the information below the image under the awards title.
Someone111111 (talk) 20:52, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

This is not just silly, it's a violation of POV. Where was this discussed? I want this re-opened. Kevin's point is spot on, about folks wanting to add extra crap into the articles, but this one constitutes a violation of policy. Please someone let me know where this was discussed and agreed upon. HuskyHuskie (talk) 05:08, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

There is now a discussion about this at Template Talk:Nobel icon. Zaian (talk) 19:39, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Mother Teresa

Currently, Mother Teresa is shown with Albanian nationality and an Albanian flag by her name. However, according to our article about her, Mother Teresa was born in what was then the Ottoman Empire and is now Macedonia, and took Indian citizenship long before winning the Nobel Prize. Although she was ethnically Albanian, it would seem that the Indian nationality and flag would be most appropriate for her. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:58, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of nitrogen fixation.

HE WAS NOT awaded the prize for Peace, considering the fact that he developed several poison gasses to be used on British, American and French troops during World War I. We should remove his name if there is no record of his peace prize.

Blix000 (talk) 03:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I haven't found any sources that claim that he received the prize, but many sources (including the official Nobel Foundation site) that say that in 1918, the prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section rather than awarded. (I am now trying to find out exactly what this means!) But Fritz Haber should not be in the list, he never received the prize for peace, but as you say, for chemistry, in 1918. --Bonadea (talk) 15:45, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Whence this quote?

Where's this from?

"In Oslo, the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee presents the Nobel Peace Prize in the presence of the King of Norway. Under the eyes of a watching world, the Nobel Laureate receives three things: a diploma, a medal and a document confirming the prize amount."

As it repeats much of what is stated directly above it, the unique parts should probably be paraphrased and incorporated into the rest of the text with an inline citation, but I can't figure out where it came from originally. /Ninly (talk) 22:07, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Nationality Dispute

Why is Elie Wiesel's nationality credited as United States when he was Romanian? This needs changing!

---Joebobs 06/10/08--- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joebobs (talk • contribs) 17:11, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Per the Nobel site, Wiesel is considered American. Doubtless this is determined by citizenship as opposed to country of birth. Franamax (talk) 08:36, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

POV?

I don't really think this text should be included in the article, if there aren't any citations or such:

"History now can testify w/o mistake that the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize awarding to Le Duc Tho by the Nobel Prize organization was a big blunder if not a joke."

It seems very POV.

Xavius, the Satyr Lord (talk) 07:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

And indeed, 30 minutes later that edit was reverted. I would have removed it also. Franamax (talk) 08:07, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Names in different languages

How significant is it to write laureates in native languages? This is not a biography related article and I see no importance of writing names in different languages. ^LeaveSleaves _talk 02:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Peace Prizes legitimately bearing the Nobel name?

• An editor has repeatedly added this material. I've copied it here for discussion.

A historical and legal study of Nobel´s testament, was published in Norwegian in October 2008. According to the author of Nobels vilje (Nobel´s will), Fredrik S. Heffermehl, a Norwegian lawyer, Nobel meant to support efforts for a world order without national military forces. Mr. Heffermehl concludes that the Norwegian Nobel committee and the Parliament have forgotten the intention of Nobel. After 1946 the peace prize ceased to challenge the military-industrial complex that Nobel wished to combat, expressed by Nobel through the three criteria in his will (brotherhood between nations, abolition or reduction of the military and holding peace congresses). Nobel did not establish ”a peace prize”, but wished to reward work for peace in specific ways and specific areas: Active, determined work for peaceful co-existense through international order, co-operation and disarmament.

In Nobel´s will the author has found a distinct drop in loyalty to the Nobel will after 1946. Mr. Heffermehl shows how the Nobel committee, originally composed of friends of peace, became a committee of politicians opposed to the content of Nobel´s testament.

In a matter of days after receiving the book Nobels vilje, the Swedish authority in charge of controlling Foundations initiated an investigation into whether the Norwegian Nobel Committee has acted in conformity with the will wrote Danish paper Information 11. October 2008.

Discussion

This material does not seem to have an adequate source. It appears to be an individual's theory. Per Wikipedia policies and guidelines, including WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:FRINGE, this material doesn't look like it should be in the article. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:47, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, on all three policy grounds. Nobel wished to promote peace, but not necessarily to combat the "military-industrial complex". Didn't Eisenhower coin that phrase round 1956 or so? In any case, if this novel theory gains ground, it will surely be discussed in multiple reliable sources, and will be worthy of inclusion at that time. Not now though. Franamax (talk) 01:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Response: The article clearly states that this is a report on a new study that is published in a reliable source, a brand new book that contains solid documentation of relevant history and law, quotes, references all along, the number of foot notes is 129. The main point of the book is a legal analysis, which has the support of top lawyers in Norway where the book on Nobel´s will was published. The quality of the material and conclusions was checked before publication, by two Norwegian lawyers, a professor of law and a Supreme Court Justice, and a Swedish lawyer and former parliamentarian. The legal theory that forms the main foundation of the conclusions is that the will/intention of testator is legally binding is elementary and fundamental law in Norway and everywhere else - so no fringe problem. The new work on the lack of respect for Nobel´s will has been covered by most major wires and news media all over the world (Fredpax (talk) 19:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC))

Franamax states: "Nobel wished to promote peace, but not necessarily to combat the "military-industrial complex". That is exactly what is demonstrably wrong. The book documents that Nobel offered specific directions for the types and fields of peace work that he wished to reward and support: The forces that in a later period have been termed the "military-industrial complex". (Fredpax (talk) 19:31, 29 October 2008 (UTC))

Could you please provide the name of the book/publication you are referring to? And also, you are saying that this has been covered by media all over the world. Could you provide any of the widely recognized international source, or at least an English source for this? ^LeaveSleaves _talk 20:01, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has an English article about this subject here: http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article2694859.ece TrondM (talk) 14:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Since he's been mentioned in a mainstream newspaper we might mention this, but it probably deserves only a sentence or two unless there are others who support the same position. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 18:32, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Info in wrong section

The last two paragraphs in the Nominations section don't have anything to do with nominations. The second paragraph in Nominations seems to do with Controversy, so perhaps that info could be moved into the appropriate section, but the third paragraph seems completely unrelated. Apollo reactor (talk) 05:43, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Picture of Dag Hammarskjöld

Why is there a picture of Dag Hammarskjöld right at the top? It seems a bit odd to single him out. Maybe it should be replaced with a picture of the award itself? Even the caption below his name seems to be more about him than about the award. I don't think the picture should be featured right at the top. What do you think? Ckannan90 (talk) 18:06, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

• Agreed...and removed! Wikipeterproject (talk) 22:25, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Relevance of Danish

Actually, I'm a Dane, and usually, we don't have much to be proud of. However, that doesn't mean that Denmark deserves credit for something to which we don't have any connection. Now take the Nobel Peace Prize... of what relevance is what it is called in Danish?--90.185.27.224 (talk) 21:22, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Nominating Hitler vs. irony

Just thougt that the article somehow should reflect that Erik Brandts nomination of Hitler was one of historys most miscalculated attempts at irony and that it's quite unfair to hang him out as being pro Hitler in an encyclopedia. The real story behind the nomination began when a couple of MPs nominated Chamberlain for his adventures in Munich. Brandt who saw through der Führers intentions, and the iminent war, decided to mock Chamberlains nomination by writing a bombastic letter recommending Hitler for the prize. I've seen the letter and, reading between the lines, the meaning of it is pretty obvious. Too bad though, the public of the 1930's wasn't the the public of the 1990's, the irony was lost on some journalists, people from his own constituency and a bunch of other MPs (especially from the oppostion, hmmm relation there maybe) and there were a heated debate. The following debate was even more strange when Brandt actually was one of the most outspoken anti-nazists in the swedish parliament.

And to summarize; I think the word ironically also should be there somewhere i the region of Brandt, nominating and Hitler. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.243.206.95 (talk) 23:10, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

why not Hitler, while gorbachev can have that prize hitler has also right, ahh sorry gorbachev genocided muslims not jews... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.108.42.184 (talk) 01:29, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

The article is factually wrong when it states that Hitler's nomination was "discovered" when past nominations were released. Brandt published his nomination letter in the newspaper "Tiden", and several other newspapers printed the letter verbatim. TrondM (talk) 14:27, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Mentions of nominations in WP in general

I have noticed a number of articles which cite the subject as nominee. My objection is not that the Nobel Peace Prize is not notable; it is. The flaw as far as WP is concerned is that the nominations are a very open process. In 2009, 205 names were submitted for the Prize. The nominations, unlike the award itself, are not at all discriminatory, and are often done for political ends by a politician or political entity which finds a sympathiser to submit a nomination for X or Y; what is more, the names of nominators are kept secret for 50 years, meaning that there is no deterrent to the loss of credibility as a result of making that nomination, however ridiculous or flippant. Notwithstanding, nominators (or nominees) sometimes happily announce the fact that X or Y has been nominated. The nomination of Adolf Hitler is just one case in point; other recent examples include Li Hongzhi and Rebiya Kadeer. Once again, I am not saying that the nominations are necessarily without merit, or that the nominees are undeserving; but I am arguing that they are undiscriminatory and are as good as worthless except in a rhetorical context. That is why I do not believe it does not warrant inclusion in WP articles. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:58, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree in general. Over the years I've removed unsourced or self-sourced nominations from dozens, maybe hundreds of articles. You wouldn't believe some of the folks who've claimed nominations, but they include a used-car saleman and a Brazilian nutritionist. There are two basic problems: one is that nominations are usually unverifiable, and the other is that there is no criteria for nomination. Any national legislator, college humanities professor, or past recipient can nominate someone, so that mst be at least several thousand nominators. Given that there are now over two hundred nominations a year, it is hardly exclusive and it really doesn't mean anything.

However over the years I've slowed my efforts to purge nominations because the field has changed. Now folks create whole campaigns which are easily verifiable, and there are some folks whose notability is solely tied to their publicized nominations. In one case, a group of about a hundred Third-World women was nominated, and we have articles on several of them that say little more than that they were nominated for this or that humanitarain activity. Another complication are the nominations of the American Friends Committee. That group received the award decades ago and they make an annual nomination based on careful consideration. Their nomination is an honor in itself. So I think it has to be handled on a case-by-case basis. However the presumption should be in favor of deletion unless there are special factors.   Will Beback  talk  04:01, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Under the "Controversy" section, personal judgement with no citation about Obama 2009

Hello,

I've never edited an article on Wikipedia, so this is why I bring this up in this forum. There is one sentence at the bottom of the "Controversy" section of the Nobel Peace Prize page that passes personal judgment, without citation, on recent events. When I clicked on "edit this page" I saw that the text written there is different from what appears on the actual page, and I don't have the technical wherewithal to determine how to make that change. I just thought it would be fair to bring it up in this sort of a forum, so that it's handled by someone who knows what to do.

Thank you! 24.126.102.6 (talk) 15:20, 9 October 2009 (UTC)gotmusikk

One sentence? There is now an entire paragraph on Obama that is nothing but a hatchet piece. Until somebody can write a neutral paragraph about Obama, it should come down. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.53.157.84 (talk) 15:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The current version of the Obama material is referenced, and I toned it down from what was there before. There's no question, though, that there has been substantial controversy over the 2009 award. — Gavia immer (talk) 18:33, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I too have never edited or posted on wikipedia, but I thought I'd alert everyone that while Ghandi's omission is controversial, it would be difficult to makes amends under the current Nobel Peace Prize Committee rules because the prize winner must be alive. 198.214.211.106 (talk) 19:33, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

oh, that content is "so-5-minutes-ago". This highly controversial section on controvery will be changing by the minute for at least the next few days. Enjoy the "technocracy" that is the 'Open Wiki'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrishibbard7 (talk • contribs) 19:41, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

{{editsemiprotected}}"preseidential" is misspelled on the last line of the Controversies section. Please correct to "presidential".

 Done by DB 103245.   Set Sail For The Seven Seas  12° 57' 15" NET   00:51, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Current Event

I will caution everyone from posting too much information about the President's award. I understand this is a current event and everyone is riled up, but this is not the place for excess information on this award. The President, in this article, should receive the same amount of space as all other mentioned recipients. If too much is posted, we will discuss reversion. GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 19:50, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

...though not restricted to the point of making unsubstantialted claims, I would guess, such as, though not limitted to, explaining the wording "perceived premature timing". Who perceived the award as premature? Is it characteristically unencyclopedic to explain that being nominiated 1 day after inauguration is premature? Or is it too much to add that this was the latest a winner of the Peace Prize has ever been nominated? I would think this is valid data to include in the "Controversy" section.

Moreover, should the data on Barack Obama be limitted to the same amount of space as the other recipients though the amount of controversy (which *is* the topic of the section) is much greater? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 15.219.153.78 (talk) 20:37, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I would argue that that comment does not belong under this section. In any case, you may have missed the point. What I suggested is that Users refrain from disproportionately mentioning the President over the rest of the recipients, I urged this in order to achieve equal mention of all. GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 20:40, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

GnarlyLikeWhoa!, I'm afraid you've missed the point. If the section is entitled "Controversy" wouldn't you expect each recipient to receive disproportionate mention, in proportion to the controversy that surrounds thier award? Do we need to add a single sentence to each recipient, even if thier controversy was insignificant? Or would you prefer to enact some kind of affirmative action to create equal dedicated word count?

No. Unfortunately engagement in discussion with you is over since all you speak is the language of loud. Surely reading any other article on Wikipedia--or any encyclopedia--would instill in your mind the need to add completely inclusive information to all items being discussed. Please sign your posts with four tildes. GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 21:03, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protect

{{editsemiprotected}} IP users are out of control. GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 20:18, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done Indeed. Just added protection before spotting your request. I've been monitoring edits for a while and protection seems necessary unfortunately. Adambro (talk) 20:23, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Hey I think the one given to Dalai Lama is really really really controversial. Most Chinese treat Nobel Peace Prize as a joke after the award is given to him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.7.69.124 (talk) 21:32, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

What "we think" isn't so important in Wikipedia, but if you can find reliable sources and it's relevant to the context of the article, by all means, make edits! Wikipeterproject (talk) 22:27, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Is Tibet in the country list in Wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.186.110.108 (talk) 07:29, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Lots more work needed...can you help?

The article is very, very thin and needs work. I expanded the sections on nomination and selection, but should the article just be about the process, with a bit of background and some discussion of controversy? It would be well served to include a discussion of the place of the award in society, the development of the what types of organisations and individuals have won the award and so on. That would really give the whole article a lot more weight. I might give it a go if I get time, but any help would be appreciated! The Norwegian Nobel Committee's website (nobelpeaceprize.org) has some really good information, and may be a good starting point. The page on the prize's history is interesting too. Wikipeterproject (talk) 22:36, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

important error in the translation of the part of the will describing to whom to award the peace price

{{editsemiprotected}}

i see that the translation of alfred nobel's will is taken from the english version on the website of the nobel foundation.

there are some important small errors in this translation that may lead english speaking people around the world to misjudge the justifiability of persons receiving or not receiving the prize or nominations to the prize.

the text:

who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

should read:

who has done the most or the best work for the fraternization of peoples and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the formation and proliferation of peace-congresses.

the original Swedish text as i read it from the scanned copy of the testament on the Nobel-foundations homepage reads as follows:

"som har verkat mest eller best för folkens förbrödrande och afskaffande samt minskning af stående arméer samt bildande och spridande af fredskongresser"

I am aware that this sentence reads a bit more awkwardly in the English language but it is nonetheless a significantly more precise expression of the last wish of a great scientist who was at his fullest senses and who wanted to make sure that the man who already had performed all these good deeds would be receiving the prize. The comma we would be missing from the current English version should have been there in the Swedish version as well to improve readability and it could if wished for, be placed. However the and can not be substituted for a comma, preserving the exact meaning of the phrase. I also understand the wish to to translate folkens to nations, however this does not either relate the true meaning. Itsameno (talk) 18:45, 10 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Itsameno (talk • contribs) 18:31, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

 Not done. Wikipedia is not for The Truth^tm. We say what the sources say. Please read WP:OR. Tim Song (talk) 19:50, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Contradiction - Did Nobel specify why he chose Norway?

Currently the article says

Nobel felt that the prize might be less subject to political corruption if awarded by Norway.

and in a different section

Alfred Nobel never explained why he wanted a Norwegian rather than Swedish body to award the Peace Prize.[5] As a consequence, many people have speculated about Nobel's intentions

Clearly these contradict each other. Either Nobel specified why he chose Norway or he didn't. Unfortunately neither are sourced. One has a source to the Nobel foundation website but it doesn't say anyway about whether Nobel specified why he chose Norway. My guess is it's the later but I don't like 'fixing' articles on guesses so I can't fix this. Nil Einne (talk) 20:20, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Nevermind found source on Nobel Committee website and fixed Nil Einne (talk) 20:28, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Information on first price winner is inconsistent with other articles.

From the article: "According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, there's significant evidence his friendship with Bertha von Suttner, a peace activist and the first winner of the prize, may have profoundly influenced his decision to include peace as a category."

But the article on Frédéric_Passy claims he was the first winner. Also the article List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laureates winner lists several price winners earlier than Bertha von Suttner. Erikedin (talk) 23:36, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Apologies, I screwed up. I misread her article saying she was the first woman winner into she was the first winner. I should have looked more carefully and also checked out some externals sources before adding that Nil Einne (talk) 08:00, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Laureate or laureate?

The Nobel Committee always capitalises "Laureate", and as the L(l)aureates are their prize winners, I am sure they can do what they like. But is it better English to use "laureate" without capitalisation? This is how the article reads now and I think it's correct. Wikipeterproject (talk) 15:49, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Number of nominators

At 03:39, on October 13, 2009 User:WhatamIdoing made the following addition to the Nominations section( (change in italics):

"...peace research international affairs institutes (the largest group by far, including tens of thousands of qualified persons representing thousands of institutions around the globe)

This change was marked with this edit summary: "Number of possible nominators; clarify meaning(lessness) of nominations"

While I am sure this is a good faith edit, it isn't referenced and, as such, seems a little POV to me. Is anytone able to find out whether there are indeed tens of thousands of people and institutions nominating? It seems a little illogical to me, given that only 200-odd nominations are received. Wikipeterproject (talk) 18:54, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if there's any way of adding up the number of qualified nominators, though if there's a source then we could use that. "Tens of thousands" is in the right order of magnitude, though. Every national legislator qualifies, and that would account for a few thousand. Certain Humanities professors also qualify, and that'd probably account for at least several thousand more. I have no idea how many peace institutes there are. I think we should avoid giving a number unless we've got a good source for it.   Will Beback  talk  20:55, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

My understanding is that the Nobel Committee sends out requests for nominations to selected ualified people. From reading the website ([4]), I don't get the impression that any qualified person can simply nominate. Correct me if I'm wrong! Wikipeterproject (talk) 21:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that one has to receive an invitation to make a nomination. That smae page links to a list of qualified people.[5] I don't see there anything to indicate that they are simply a pool from which the committee will designate nominators. As for why there are so few nominations, it may be because the nomination form is rather detailed. The number of nominations has been growing rapidly in the last decade, and nominations are more public than they used to be.   Will Beback  talk  21:49, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Here's the quote from the website: "Every year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee sends out thousands of letters inviting qualified people to submit their nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize." Maybe everyone's right. it seems like they do send out letters inviting qualified people to send in nominations, but they send out "thousands". Wikipeterproject (talk) 22:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree, these aren't contradictory.   Will Beback  talk  22:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

how

Would somebody please tell me what is the purpose of the nobel prize

This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject, but the answer is in the article. Wikipeterproject (talk) 21:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

2007 Controversy

Norway Should Apologize for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.251.254.172 (talk) 15:12, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

• That just seems to be a blog posting. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Jimmy Carter

I deleted the reference to the Jimmy Carter in the list of controversial awards. Not only was that NOT controversial, Jimmy Carter's name does not even appear on the web site cited as a reference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.170.248.2 (talk) 20:13, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Al Gores name was added to the same sentence, but he too is not mentioned on the web site cited because he sacrificed a baby goat due to a belief in witchcraft. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.170.248.2 (talk) 21:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I have added Al Gore's name again because the reference referring to Mother Teresa's winning the prize as illegal equally identified Al Gore winning the prize as illegal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.76.164.99 (talk) 23:40, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

That reference claims that 55% of all Nobel Peace Prizes ever awarded were "illegal", based on one author's opinion that they don't meet the prize definition in Nobel's will. That lawyer is entitled to his opinion, but it doesn't amount to a genuine controversy; I have removed the material that used it as a source. — Gavia immer (talk) 00:01, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Omissions

The omissions section incorrectly lists Mother Theresa as having never received the award. She won in 1979. Msdeller (talk) 22:35, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

She doesn't appear in the cited reference as an omission either! Wikipeterproject (talk) 07:08, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Change to heading of Template

For a proposed minor change to heading of Template, see Template talk:Nobel Peace Prize#Heading to Template. Davshul (talk) 18:45, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Subliminable (but clearly deliberate) POV in "Nobel's will" quotation

User:Spiff made two small edits - both marked m, and with edit summaries saying Improved quotation, added important "preceding year" clause... added emphasis. The "improvement" was quite obviously to "emphasise" the fact that Barack Obama was awarded the prize without having spent the preceding year as US President, clear POV. Not only this, but this actually makes the quote somewhat inaccurate as the "during the preceding year" is from a completely separate sentence to the rest of the quote text (though it is IN the will). I have removed this "improvement" from the quote. _ɹəəpıɔnı 21:52, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Two style nits

I rearranged the conjunctions and sentence adverbs to clarify what I think what was the intended contrast -- cases where Nobel's inventions were used to violent ends versus cases where they were put exclusively to peaceful purposes. Also I changed "whilst" to "while". "Whilst" is either poetic or archaic, and neither seemed intended in the context. --Jeffreykegler (talk) 01:23, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

"Whilst" is current usage in the UK, though even there it's popularity is declining. See "While". A general rule when it comes to deciding between US and UK spelling is to follow the original usage in the article. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (spelling). However in this case I don't think there's be any objections to your change.   Will Beback  talk  07:00, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

My apologies re "whilst". My references confirm that "whilst" is still acceptable as current British English. If I had the edit to do over, I'd leave the "whilst" alone.--Jeffreykegler (talk) 18:52, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

No problem. Just don't try to change "Yoghurt" to "Yogurt". ;)   Will Beback  talk  19:22, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

This is all wrong!

We all know this is how the Nobel Peace Prize is decided:

1. Mix a secret potion
2. Roll the ancient dice
3. Hire a focus group
4. Have a human sacrifice!

'FLaRN'(talk) 03:34, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

F*** off you loser — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.108.69.221 (talk) 08:40, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

2010: Nobel´s intention distorted by Norwegian parliament?

Does anyone else agree that this section seems to give undue weight to one particular man's work. No problem citing him, but does it justify quite so much text? 194.70.181.1 (talk) 09:31, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Deletion of section "Recipients who met untimely deaths"

An editor has deleted this entire section on the basis that it is trivia. How do the other editors feel?

"Peace Prize recipient Carl von Ossietzky died in police custody. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohamed Anwar Al-Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin were assassinated." http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Nobel_Peace_Prize&diff=402710405&oldid=402693160 Ghostofnemo (talk) 17:09, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

This seems like an effort to add original research, implying that the Prize was a factor in their demise. If some respectable secondary source has made this point then that'd be different.   Will Beback  talk  22:26, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The article on List of United States Presidents notes which ones were assassinated, in the "About this list" section. Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:54, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

It only lists those who died wile in office, and is not restricted to violent deaths. A comparable list here would include only those who died before the next person received the award, and would similarly include all causes of death. While there are books on the assassinations of presidents, are there are similar sources that discuss the deaths of Nobel Prize winners in the year immediately following the honor?   Will Beback  talk  03:31, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

There is a certain linkage linkage between winning the Peace Prize and having bold enough views that you might get killed (or left to die) for having them. There is probably a greater linkage between having bold views and not living long enough, you have to still be living to win a Nobel. The latest award may bear the first out, who knows. But until this becomes a subject of unified commentary, we should avoid commenting on it as a unique subject. Within a prose section discussing outcomes for all the recipients, this would be OK. Perhaps a mention in the "Reaction" section, and not just deaths either, what about Aung San and Liu? Is there an overview piece on this that could be sourced? Franamax (talk) 05:05, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Those are good points. I'd make a further observation about prize winners versus presidents. I think we can agree that the presidents were killed because they were presidents. If they had not been elected, it's unlikely that they would have been the targets of assassination. OTOH, can we say that any of these people were killed because they won the Peace Prize?   Will Beback  talk  05:13, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Will Beback. The meaningless word "untimely" is surely meant to imply that there is a connection of the sort Franamax posits, but without a good, solid secondary source for that assertion we should not imply this. Likewise we shouldn't be picking out only some untimely deaths of Nobel laureates to imply a strong connection; with the possible exception of Jeanne Calment, all deaths are "untimely". — Gavia immer (talk) 05:16, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Picking up on one of Franamax's points, the people who win the prize are often troublemakers (trouble for those who prefer to continue strife), and people like that are always in danger. If Gandhi's death hadn't been so "untimely" he undoubtedly would have won. The same may be said of other potential recipients. I bet we could find a source that says something about winning the prize and being an endangered activist.   Will Beback  talk  05:31, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem with the addition of properly sourced information in that vein. — Gavia immer (talk) 05:40, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it's notable if someone died as the result of an assassination (or died in custody) as this is highly irregular and therefore notable. It could be considered one of the hazards of being a public figure. Ghostofnemo (talk) 15:25, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

There's no question that assassination is remarkable enough that it should be noted in the biographies. What isn't clear is why it should be noted here. Would "list of Harvard alumni" have a special section on those who died violent deaths? I doubt it. Again, provide a source and there won't be a concern.   Will Beback  talk  01:15, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The Nobel Prize Committee notes that King was assassinated on their web page here (last line): http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html So it was notable to them. I haven't check the others, but I could use these Nobel Prize bios for references if you like. Ghostofnemo (talk) 12:30, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

At this point we're having the same discussion in two places. I'll respond at the "List" talk page.   Will Beback  talk  12:42, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Nobel Peace Center

In what way could Nobel Peace Center be mentioned in this article (now it is only a link in section "see also").

Maybe the center has on display pictures of all the recipients? Maybe the center has on display at least one of the awards and/or diploma/certificates?

(The center is a commercial venture but that in itselft does not disqualify it from being mentioned in a notable setting.)--155.55.60.112 (talk) 10:48, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Already one 2012 nomination

Not sure where this info belongs but former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is in the proces of being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 18:37, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Nomination are not really notable. There is a very low threshold for nomination, and the prize committee asks that they not be publicized. Since they do not confirm or deny nominations until fifty years have elapsed, the nominations are only known when a nominee or nominator announces them for publicity purposes.   Will Beback  talk  22:20, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

EU Nobel

EU deserves the Nobel prize absolutely. EU experiment establishes peace in Europe. Every EU citizen, especially Greeks are thankful to EU members and to Nobel price committee. Thank you all for bringing peace & austerity to us all. --Filippos2 (talk) 07:19, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Irena Sendler

This article states, "Whether Sendler was in fact a candidate is unknown as nominee information is kept secret by the prize committee for 50 years.", but the Irena Sendler article says she "was nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize". There is a lengthy discussion of the issue at Talk:Irena_Sendler#Nobel_Nomination. Whatever, the two articles should be made consistent. Art Carlson (talk) 10:14, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Formatting problem

There's text that is bold but I don't know how to fix it. Can someone help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.246.32.175 (talk) 06:11, 12 October 2013 (UTC)