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Last I heard, Wikipedia doesn't want to carry an article for every university professor or scientist who has published some papers. In glancing through Wade's e

Last I heard, Wikipedia doesn't want to carry an article for every university professor or scientist who has published some papers. In glancing through Wade's entries, it seems like many of them are just published scholars without any additional notability. I wonder if Wikipedia's notability rules are being uniformly respected here, or are they being selectively applied based on the gender of the person? I think it's great that Wade is bringing more visibility to lesser-known female scientists, but if we are valuing that, I think we should do so regardless of the subject's identity. Maybe Wikipedia should relax its notability rules a bit for scholars. If you are inspired to downvote this, I would be curious to know if you disagree with my proposal, or just dislike that I brought up the issue at all.

robswc 4y ago
I was curious about this very thing. At first I thought this was a really cool thing she was doing. I think everyone should be rewarded for their hard work, research or discoveries. I guess I can't say I'm a fan of the way she went about this though, after reading some of what she's written: Her comment: "The problem is not that she’s not notable, or that @Wikipedia editors are a bunch of sexist trolls waiting to jump on the bio of an impressive scientist" Seems to be in reply to this comment: "There is a lack of significant independent coverage. Getting an award from the local YWCA does not help her meet any notability criteria. As a for notability as a scientist, my search in Google Scholar found a grand total of 1 citation of papers she has authored or co-authored. Just because she works for the government doesn't mean she can't publish papers (and she has), the only restriction is if her work is classified. Her participation in the discovery of element 117 appears to have been very minor. Her name does not appear in the Oak Ridge publication "The Discovery of Element 117". Her Oak Ridge autobio says her part of the discovery of the new element was to "contribute ... to the purification of the Bk-249 used to help discover Z=117". Sounds like a very minor role in an undertaking involving a large number of people. I don't see convincing evidence that she is notable as a scientist or meets WP:GNG. I agree with the others who cited WP:TOOSOON as an issue." This is all found on the wikipage that was part of the original article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Clarice_Phelps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio... Which I honestly find pretty reasonable. If you were to make a Wikipedia article for every college professor, we'd have a pretty bloated Wikipedia, lol. That said, I really do hope that maybe we could focus on quality vs quantity. I don't doubt that there are 1000 people out there deserving of a Wikipedia page... I also don't doubt that perhaps some of her examples don't really qualify, given Wikipedia's guidelines.
- berkes 4y ago
  > Which I honestly find pretty reasonable. If you were to make a Wikipedia article for every college professor, we'd have a pretty bloated Wikipedia Why would that be a problem? What is such a Long Tail costing us? It's not like there is scarcity like a libraries' bookshelves or pages in a journal. And what would be the line of bloatedness? Maybe it already is way too bloated, and a wikipedia 10% the current size is better?
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    Names especially tend to cluster which makes signal harder to find in noise. Wikipedia is meant to be searchable.
  - robswc 4y ago
    >Why would that be a problem? I imagine it would be harder to navigate, especially in a few decades, if every combination of First name, Last name had a couple entries. There's already 7 for my name. Sure, you could say its not that much harder to navigate... but you can't say it makes things easier or "better." I would honestly defer to Wiki contributors and maintainers on this, as I'm sure they have better reasons... but my intuition just tells me that letting Wikipedia be a dumping ground for any person that published a paper would just not end well. >Maybe it already is way too bloated, and a wikipedia 10% the current size is better? Perhaps. I think they should do a lot more "merging" of topics.
  - ElCheapo 4y ago
    Why not have 8 billion entries for each and every one of us? If you remove any popularity boundary then this is the only logical conclusion
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  This tweet seems to be the source of that remark from her; it is difficult to say who exactly the sexist troll remark is directed at since it's worded in a sly way which says the problem isn't sexist trolls. https://web.archive.org/web/20190210190740/https:/twitter.com/jesswade/status/1092340411664867328 https://web.archive.org/web/20190210190740/https:/twitter.co... It's a very trollish way to accuse somebody of being a sexist troll. Like if I were to say to a third party "Jim and I had an argument.. the problem ISN'T that Jim is a fascist asshole, but rather that..." Strictly I'm not accusing Jim of being a fascist asshole, but really I am.
tgv 4y ago
I have published, and I definitely don't want, need nor deserve a wikipedia entry. I'd say too many people already have one. If a scientist has made a bit of school, fine, but otherwise: no entry just for having published.
- robswc 4y ago
  Yep. I've also won awards and have published a paper (co-authored) but I imagine if I were to create a wiki entry it would be deleted under the same exact standards.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  Same. God help any of us if we're required to start maintaining our own wikipedia pages along with linked-in, pub-ed, CVs etc...
  - petee 4y ago
    Lucky for you Wikipedia considers editing your own page to be a conflict of interest, and is frowned upon. Article subjects are routinely reminded that they do not own their article, as it should be a reflection of notible sources that exist
    - LatteLazy 4y ago
      All the more of an issue: if an ex or disgruntled whatever starts a page about me, I am unable to correct it or get it deleted? For once I am glad us brits have such insane liable laws... :)
      - petee 4y ago
        If it were entirely factual, based on notible sources, and met the usual criteria, then no it probably wouldn't be deleted. If it is factually incorrect, or has no approved sources then it would be fairly easy to get help either deleting the offending material, or even having the article deleted outright. Wikipedia has a few ways to report issues, but even just asking an administrator on their talk page to take a look, is fairly common. Wikipedia takes living persons more seriously, and has higher standards than other articles. Beyond just reverting, some edits are irretrievably deleted if warranted. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_liv...
thelock85 4y ago
> I think it's great that Wade is bringing more visibility to lesser-known female scientists, but if we are valuing that, I think we should do so regardless of the subject's identity. _we_ are not because the initiative and productivity of Jessica Wade isn’t there, not because of notability rules. Yes, some lesser known scientists were deleted but that seems to be a second order challenge. The “valuing” comes from the group or individual effort to make it happen which in turns forces a serious consideration of rule changes.
- civilized 4y ago
  I think the gendered aspect here comes from Wade's willingness to disregard Wikipedia's rules and Wikipedia's general permissiveness toward her behavior in particular so far, not merely her initiative and productivity. If it had been allowed, you can pretty much guarantee there would have been an effort to put every scientist on Wikipedia by now. Wikipedians love science and they love the niche, which is why notability thresholds exist in the first place. And they are taken seriously and enforced - that's why there's so much discussion of them on Wikipedia. For whatever reason, these rules matter to the community. This is not to say Wade did anything wrong. But this is the context. Hopefully this all spurs a reconsideration of the rules. The current situation is obviously unfair.
petee 4y ago
Lowering notability to allow more entries will just lead to a flood of mediocre articles not backed by much, which wikipedia already has a problem with. The end effect is new articles don't get the attention they need, existing articles will get less attention as a result of more articles to patrol overall -- I've already seen less popular subjects become targets of vandals or activists, sometimes its subtle perversions of facts; with only a couple page watchers, these are far more likely to pass under the radar. Articles can go years with offensive or misleading info if not attended, which is fine for run if the mill articles, but not for pages about living people, where the content can affect their lives or employment.
- petee 4y ago
  I wanted to write a bit extra about wiki policy, less my opinion and more an interpretation of the current state of policy enforcement: In theory wikipedia aims to be a mirror of the current times. As they say, if wikipedia was around in the 1500s it would say the sun revolves around the earth, according to notible sources at the time, like it or not. A gender bias in wiki entries then in theory would also mirror biases in our current media, i.e, if news is only written about men scientists, then thats all there will be for notible sources. It would be more effective to petition news sources to write more comprehensively about women in science, which is the real problem, instead of just fighting policy on one website. The end goal should be to fix the bias at the source, not lower wiki standards to fix a problem created elsewhere.

robswc 4y ago

I was curious about this very thing. At first I thought this was a really cool thing she was doing. I think everyone should be rewarded for their hard work, research or discoveries. I guess I can't say I'm a fan of the way she went about this though, after reading some of what she's written: Her comment: "The problem is not that she’s not notable, or that @Wikipedia editors are a bunch of sexist trolls waiting to jump on the bio of an impressive scientist" Seems to be in reply to this comment: "There is a lack of significant independent coverage. Getting an award from the local YWCA does not help her meet any notability criteria. As a for notability as a scientist, my search in Google Scholar found a grand total of 1 citation of papers she has authored or co-authored. Just because she works for the government doesn't mean she can't publish papers (and she has), the only restriction is if her work is classified. Her participation in the discovery of element 117 appears to have been very minor. Her name does not appear in the Oak Ridge publication "The Discovery of Element 117". Her Oak Ridge autobio says her part of the discovery of the new element was to "contribute ... to the purification of the Bk-249 used to help discover Z=117". Sounds like a very minor role in an undertaking involving a large number of people. I don't see convincing evidence that she is notable as a scientist or meets WP:GNG. I agree with the others who cited WP:TOOSOON as an issue." This is all found on the wikipage that was part of the original article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Clarice_Phelps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio... Which I honestly find pretty reasonable. If you were to make a Wikipedia article for every college professor, we'd have a pretty bloated Wikipedia, lol. That said, I really do hope that maybe we could focus on quality vs quantity. I don't doubt that there are 1000 people out there deserving of a Wikipedia page... I also don't doubt that perhaps some of her examples don't really qualify, given Wikipedia's guidelines.

berkes 4y ago
> Which I honestly find pretty reasonable. If you were to make a Wikipedia article for every college professor, we'd have a pretty bloated Wikipedia Why would that be a problem? What is such a Long Tail costing us? It's not like there is scarcity like a libraries' bookshelves or pages in a journal. And what would be the line of bloatedness? Maybe it already is way too bloated, and a wikipedia 10% the current size is better?
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  Names especially tend to cluster which makes signal harder to find in noise. Wikipedia is meant to be searchable.
- robswc 4y ago
  >Why would that be a problem? I imagine it would be harder to navigate, especially in a few decades, if every combination of First name, Last name had a couple entries. There's already 7 for my name. Sure, you could say its not that much harder to navigate... but you can't say it makes things easier or "better." I would honestly defer to Wiki contributors and maintainers on this, as I'm sure they have better reasons... but my intuition just tells me that letting Wikipedia be a dumping ground for any person that published a paper would just not end well. >Maybe it already is way too bloated, and a wikipedia 10% the current size is better? Perhaps. I think they should do a lot more "merging" of topics.
- ElCheapo 4y ago
  Why not have 8 billion entries for each and every one of us? If you remove any popularity boundary then this is the only logical conclusion
MichaelCollins 4y ago
This tweet seems to be the source of that remark from her; it is difficult to say who exactly the sexist troll remark is directed at since it's worded in a sly way which says the problem isn't sexist trolls. https://web.archive.org/web/20190210190740/https:/twitter.com/jesswade/status/1092340411664867328 https://web.archive.org/web/20190210190740/https:/twitter.co... It's a very trollish way to accuse somebody of being a sexist troll. Like if I were to say to a third party "Jim and I had an argument.. the problem ISN'T that Jim is a fascist asshole, but rather that..." Strictly I'm not accusing Jim of being a fascist asshole, but really I am.

tgv 4y ago

I have published, and I definitely don't want, need nor deserve a wikipedia entry. I'd say too many people already have one. If a scientist has made a bit of school, fine, but otherwise: no entry just for having published.

robswc 4y ago
Yep. I've also won awards and have published a paper (co-authored) but I imagine if I were to create a wiki entry it would be deleted under the same exact standards.
LatteLazy 4y ago
Same. God help any of us if we're required to start maintaining our own wikipedia pages along with linked-in, pub-ed, CVs etc...
- petee 4y ago
  Lucky for you Wikipedia considers editing your own page to be a conflict of interest, and is frowned upon. Article subjects are routinely reminded that they do not own their article, as it should be a reflection of notible sources that exist
  - LatteLazy 4y ago
    All the more of an issue: if an ex or disgruntled whatever starts a page about me, I am unable to correct it or get it deleted? For once I am glad us brits have such insane liable laws... :)
    - petee 4y ago
      If it were entirely factual, based on notible sources, and met the usual criteria, then no it probably wouldn't be deleted. If it is factually incorrect, or has no approved sources then it would be fairly easy to get help either deleting the offending material, or even having the article deleted outright. Wikipedia has a few ways to report issues, but even just asking an administrator on their talk page to take a look, is fairly common. Wikipedia takes living persons more seriously, and has higher standards than other articles. Beyond just reverting, some edits are irretrievably deleted if warranted. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_liv...

thelock85 4y ago

> I think it's great that Wade is bringing more visibility to lesser-known female scientists, but if we are valuing that, I think we should do so regardless of the subject's identity. _we_ are not because the initiative and productivity of Jessica Wade isn’t there, not because of notability rules. Yes, some lesser known scientists were deleted but that seems to be a second order challenge. The “valuing” comes from the group or individual effort to make it happen which in turns forces a serious consideration of rule changes.

civilized 4y ago
I think the gendered aspect here comes from Wade's willingness to disregard Wikipedia's rules and Wikipedia's general permissiveness toward her behavior in particular so far, not merely her initiative and productivity. If it had been allowed, you can pretty much guarantee there would have been an effort to put every scientist on Wikipedia by now. Wikipedians love science and they love the niche, which is why notability thresholds exist in the first place. And they are taken seriously and enforced - that's why there's so much discussion of them on Wikipedia. For whatever reason, these rules matter to the community. This is not to say Wade did anything wrong. But this is the context. Hopefully this all spurs a reconsideration of the rules. The current situation is obviously unfair.

petee 4y ago

Lowering notability to allow more entries will just lead to a flood of mediocre articles not backed by much, which wikipedia already has a problem with. The end effect is new articles don't get the attention they need, existing articles will get less attention as a result of more articles to patrol overall -- I've already seen less popular subjects become targets of vandals or activists, sometimes its subtle perversions of facts; with only a couple page watchers, these are far more likely to pass under the radar. Articles can go years with offensive or misleading info if not attended, which is fine for run if the mill articles, but not for pages about living people, where the content can affect their lives or employment.

petee 4y ago
I wanted to write a bit extra about wiki policy, less my opinion and more an interpretation of the current state of policy enforcement: In theory wikipedia aims to be a mirror of the current times. As they say, if wikipedia was around in the 1500s it would say the sun revolves around the earth, according to notible sources at the time, like it or not. A gender bias in wiki entries then in theory would also mirror biases in our current media, i.e, if news is only written about men scientists, then thats all there will be for notible sources. It would be more effective to petition news sources to write more comprehensively about women in science, which is the real problem, instead of just fighting policy on one website. The end goal should be to fix the bias at the source, not lower wiki standards to fix a problem created elsewhere.