Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Science and academia/Archive 1

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Mathematics grading

Folks might like to have a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0#Mathematicians we've graded what we consider the me the top 150 mathematicians. Importance ratings are probably on the low side, as they are graded comparitly with each other. Most of these don't as yet have a rating tag on them. --Salix alba (talk) 21:36, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Awesome, this will help us tag our templates, thanks for sharing! --plange 16:40, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Biography of Rachel Adler

This individual's notability comes from her work as a Jewish feminist theologian; although she is a university professor, so far as I know she has relatively little notability as an academic and none as a scientist. Why the assignment here? Best, --Shirahadasha 18:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

supported?

What is the meaning of "supported" in the wording supported by the Science and academic workgroup in the template? Is it intended to mean that the inclusion of the bio is supported by the group, or that the bio comes under the range of interests in the group? I ask because of WP for deletion/Largest Colleges in Texas. DGG 04:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Mordechai Vanunu FAR

Mordechai Vanunu has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. LuciferMorgan 18:50, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Request for assistance

I would appreciate some help on the William Sears (physician) article. Dr. Sears is obviously notable, has many books out, and appears on many television shows. However, I have not been having any luck finding any reliable source biographies. Nearly every biography I've found of him uses what is obviously verbatim self-written copy. I haven't even been able to verify that he's genuinely an Associate Clinical Professor at UC Irvine, since his name doesn't show up anywhere on their website (that I can find). Of course, he may just be retired. Anyway, I could use assistance to help check his credentials. Thanks, Elonka 05:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Bill Gammage

I have done some work on this page. Is it possible for someone to look at it and make suggestions about what is missing/needs to be changed/needs improvement? There is a hint of a connection with Manning Clark, but I could only find one reference that said he had been taught by Manning and Dymphna, but could find no source. Stellar 18:25, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Chemists

I did some changes to the noble laureats from 1901 to 1930 and came across Alfred Nobel, Ascanio Sobrero and Théophile-Jules Pelouze. The statment that they meet in Torino under Pelouze supervision must be wrong, because neither Nobel nor Pelouze ever studied in Torino. They meet in Paris only for relative short time during the world tour of Nobel from 1850 to 1852. This after Sobrero comming from Liebig already been apointed as professor in Torino. This means that the biography inormations of all this chemists must be aligned to one fitting story! I will try my best to find some sources, but I already found one stating that : we no not know much about the time of Nobel in Paris.--Stone 12:58, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Who Are You Walter Anderson?

Is his the same walter Anderson from Saybrook Graduate School And Research Center? There is an external link on the disambiguation Walter Anderson, should it be replaced with a link to this article, or should the latter be add independently? trespassers william 14:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Biography of Arnold I Dumey

You need to get your facts straight. Arnold Dumey never worked for IBM. Around our house, he used to call them "Itty Bitty Machines", ironically speaking of course, since in the 50's their machines were gigantic. The hash coding reference is, I believe, correct, but he never followed up on it, and others who did work for IBM continued along the path he laid out.

He did not invent the postal sorter, but did write the bar code it needed to deliver the mail, a code we still see every day on our letters and packages. As is well documented, he was a cryptographer during WWII, working under the Freidmans at Arlington Hall on the German codes. After the war, he stayed in the army until 1952, and during that time took delivery of the very first comercially produced computer for his department.

In 1952, he retired from active duty and we moved to Long Island, where he went to work for his friend Jack Potter, at Potter Instrument. He left after a few years and went out on his own as a consultant. He counted trees and figured out paper pulp yield for Time/Life in east Texas, worked on the post office project, and also did an interesting job for the League of New York Theatres in the early 60's. They wanted to set up a ticket by phone system using the newly introduced Diner's Club credit card and the first generation of comercially available computers. Thus was born the first ticket by phone-credit card payment system ever! He was also a great raconteur, and some of his stories are on the web.

DivaG202 18:38, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Biography of Edward J. Steele

I stumbled across the biography of Ted Steele yesterday and found it written like an essay and unsourced. A google search turned up some information which I added and I sourced some of the other information. I tagged the article as an essay like. I was wondering if someone could have a look at the article and offer me some suggestions to improve the article. Jack Merridew has tagged it as a COI, although I don't actually have any interest in Steele and the only connection would be that my boss was taught by him as an undergrad (which i mentioned on the talk page). I think Jack Merridew's tagging may be due to an edit dispute we had recently, but I really would like to improve my writing skills. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. R:128.40.76.3 14:38, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Scientific Lineage

What does everybody think about adding a scientific lineage (for doctoral advisor or equivelent)? In science this is a pretty big deal (see Neurotree or Mathematics Lineage Project). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JShenk (talk • contribs) 01:55, August 23, 2007 (UTC).

converting metrics in scientific articles

I'm seeking consensus at MOSNUM talk for a change in the wording to allow contributors, by consensus only, to use unconverted metrics in scientific articles. Your opinions are invited. Tony 15:06, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

notability question

I have a question regarding notability criteria for a particular scholar/scientist to have an article about them in Wikipedia. Can anyone comment on what kind of benchmarks we should be shooting for here?

I saw a number of wikipedia entries for scientists that, to me at least, do not appear to meet the notability standard. For example, is it sufficient if the person in question holds a tenured appointment at a good university, has published a fair number of papers (say 30-40), and has given a number of talks at good conferences? These items appear to apply to the majority of the people currently having tenured academic appointments at U.S. universities. But is this sufficient for having a wikipedia article about a person? I somehow feel that considerably more should be required....

I should say that I am a professional mathematician myself, so I would particularly like to hear opinions related to exact/experimental sciences and mathematics. Regards, Nsk92 07:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Science writer = scientist?

I've noticed that the biographies of science writers (e.g. Dava Sobel) are put into the category of scientist (or in the scientist stub category). I find this odd, since many of the best science writers, while scientifically educated, are not scientists. Should there not be a category for science writers instead? I don't know the reasoning for this, hence my question. Michael Daly 22:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a category for Category:Science journalists and Category:Science writers; they are within Category:Science occupations. --Lquilter (talk) 00:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
I highly agree with Michael, some science writers would like to elevate themselves to scientists which is absurd jurnalism, indeed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.114.36.136 (talk) 12:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Merge Fred Griffith with Frederick Griffith

If there's anyone out there with a little time to Merge Fred Griffith into Frederick Griffith, I think it would be a good move. I don't have the time to do it, but these two articles continue to coexist and I wanted to see if someone was up for it... Isoxyl 02:57, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Afd reporting difficulties

Hi, I found this project via the banner on Donald Sinclair (veterinary surgeon). Someone has proposed the article for deletion along with that of his brother Brian Sinclair who is not part of the project. I have tried to add the Afd entry on the projects afd page but it doesn't work - the link to 'edit this page' fails because their is no section 1. I then added the entry under people but it doesn't seem to resolve. The proposer appears to have marked both articles with a single Afd under BS. The Afd is here Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Brian_Sinclair. Perhaps someone who knows more about the proceedures (an Admin.?) than me can sought this out ? I've posted on Admin. Noticebord - Incidents [1] -- Daytona2 18:42, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Scholars and academics

Hi all -- Johnbod made a proposal for Category:Journalism academics that I think would work well for Category:Academics and Category:Scholars: Combine the two into Category:Scholars and academics; the subject tree for each of those two could also be combined into Category:Scholars and academics. If folks have thoughts or considerations, please chime in at Category talk:Academics. (Note: the new tree should crosslink with the various scientist fields in helpful ways but shouldn't otherwise affect them; it should just affect the two trees Scholars and Academics. For more on the background, see links at Category talk:Journalism academics and Category talk:Scholars by subject. Cheers, Lquilter (talk) 00:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Alice Cunningham Fletcher

There's a problem with the biographical information in this article. Please see Talk:Alice Cunningham Fletcher. —Viriditas | Talk 03:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Notability for scholars: Help, please

I would appreciate some input at Talk:Arno Tausch. This is an article that came to my attention, the subject of which is clearly a successful researcher in his field, but I don't see that he satisfies WP:N. I have not previously discussed this particular point of policy, and would like to know if I am off-base here. Thanks, --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 02:54, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Ashmole

Elias Ashmole has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

W S Bruce

The article William Speirs Bruce has the appearance of an abandoned project, since it deals only with the early years of Bruce's life and says nothing at all about his expeditions or his achievements. It's really a stub at the moment. Is anyone intending to develop it further? Brianboulton (talk) 18:33, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

John Bowlby

There are some substantial disagreements on this page and it would be very helpful if someone, particularly if there was someone knowledgeable on the subject, could come and give another view. Thanks. Fainites barley 17:42, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Pamela C. Rasmussen

I’m try to work up this article to at least GA. Since biography is a new departure for me, previous GA/FAs all being for birds, I’d welcome any comments for improvement on its talk page Jimfbleak (talk) 08:29, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Ravindra Khattree, statistician

Anyone here know about this chap? (Worth bothering with? Have I been too harsh on his discussion page?) -- Hoary (talk) 00:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Copyright violation on Harold Alden?

on Talk:Harold_Alden190.21.249.40 (talk) 02:54, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

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Medical Profession

Does this group ("Science and academia") cover the medical profession?Kwib (talk) 23:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Biography (science and academia)

A collection of Wikipedia articles is being collected together as Wikipedia 0.7. This collection will be released on DVD later this year, and will be available for free download. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

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Information for Bryan Brandenburg

user:The_rebellious_one —Preceding undated comment was added at 19:55, 3 November 2008 (UTC).

Template:Botanist

Hi! I'm just leaving a note here for anyone that's interested in a discussion about this template used on biographies of botanists. This falls under both WP:BIOGRAPHY and WP:PLANTS and typically those from WP:PLANTS have maintained the template, so I've started a small discussion on this and {{botanist-inline}} and {{botanist-inline2}} at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants#Template:Botanist. If interested, leave your thoughts there. Thanks! --Rkitko (talk) 14:39, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Editor dispute over article inclusion notability of homework assignments and verifiability in Luis von Ahn

Hello, I'm in a disagreement with a new editor over the inclusion notability of homework assignments and some verifiability issues. The community of editors around the Luis von Ahn article is somewhat lacking, so I'd like for some disinterested neutral third parties from this WikiProject to provide their guidance, especially on article inclusion notability criteria for academia. Arguments have been made over the edit history for Luis von Ahn, Talk:Luis von Ahn, and User talk:Copysan#Removal of material from Luis von Ahn. My arguments have been unconvincing to him, and his arguments have been unconvincing to me. Please leave comments over on Talk:Luis von Ahn. Thanks. Copysan (talk) 07:44, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

this material needs a source from outside the college to show its importance. There might even be one--he is known for things like this. They're more than routine. DGG (talk) 01:49, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

New editor at L.D. Britt

A new editor has started a bio with good potential at L.D. Britt. Dr Britt is the first African-American to receive an endowed chair in surgery at a major American medical school. I think this article has good potential, but it needs dramatic expansion. If anyone here can help, I'm sure that the editor would appreciate it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:53, 25 February 2009 (UTC) (who is not watching this page)

Martin Vahl (botanist)

Hello, I'd like to know the appropriateness of having the standard {{infobox person}} on this article. I added it, and was reverted for my troubles.

Additionally, this article needs input of more editors, since it appears to be undergoing a week old edit war.

76.66.193.90 (talk) 14:40, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

Everyone loves this so far, and I don't see why you wouldn't love it either.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 04:44, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

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Thanks. — Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 08:52, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

These alerts look useful so I have added a {{ArticleAlertbotSubscription}} template to the project page for this work group. If it works as expected then alerts should appear in Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Science and academia/Article alerts. If work group members do not want alerts going there, then please revert my addition. Meanwhile I will watchlist the above redlink so I know when the alerts start. 84user (talk) 23:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
It would be a good idea to either not use the |display=none parameter or to give a link from the homepage of the taskforce. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 13:57, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Francis Amasa Walker

I have completed a major re-write of Francis Amasa Walker and am soliciting other editors' input, edits, and corrections to the article. Madcoverboy (talk) 17:00, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Lester Dragstedt

I have expanded the original stub, but there's still quite a bit to do... could someone (some people) have a look at this, and expand it further? He had a very active life in academia (see the National Academy of Sciences' Biographical Memoir.

If I get a chance, I'll work on it further, but I am not an expert in biographies, or in scientists!

Thanks -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 15:14, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Academic journals guideline proposal

  • I have created a first draft of a notability guideline for academic journals. Please feel free to comment/correct/complete, etc. As it would seem to relate to this project, I am posting this notice here, too, so that interested editors can contribute either on the draft's talk page or here. Thanks. --Crusio (talk) 12:49, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Update to Template:WPBiography

Please note that priority assessments for this work group are now added by using the |s&a-priority= parameter in the {{WPBiography}} project banner. Please refer to Template:WikiProject Biography/doc for full instructions on how to use the banner, or feel free to ask any questions on the banner's talk page. PC78 (talk) 11:02, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

George Udeani

Some fresh eyes would be welcome here, especially on the question of whether inclusion of the h-index is warranted. There are a few dedicated editors here that had me violating 3RR without noticing (I self reverted within minutes). Any opinions are welcome, either on the article's talk page or at the AfD. Thanks. --Crusio (talk) 21:16, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Biography of David J. C. MacKay

I think the article on David J. C. MacKay needs looking at. There is lots of unsourced stuff on there. I don't think any of it is libellous, but I think it is important to get this right. I have recently added the only inline citations. One of these citations is mention in the Daily Telegraph list of Britons of the year, which is why I think this biog deserves a bit more attention. Yaris678 (talk) 17:26, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Carl Warburg

Can I add Carl Warburg to your project? See also the article Warburg's Tincture for more info. I have recently created both articles.--Roland Sparkes (talk) 01:58, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Thomson Reuters Names the World's 'Hottest' Researchers

I noticed the following announcement from Thomson Reuters: Thomson Reuters Names the World's 'Hottest' Researchers and thought that people with subject-matter expertise might want to create or expand articles about the people identified as "hottest researchers". Eastmain (talk • contribs) 02:00, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Requested change at Stephen R. L. Clark

Please see Talk:Stephen R. L. Clark for the details on the requested change. This is in reference to an OTRS ticket. Thanks! ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:38, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Cross Wiki spam on Frederic Fappani

... and Archetypal pedagogy.

I don't know if it's the right place to talk of this, but I suspect we have a case of Cross-Wiki spam here. Here's the message I let on Talk:Frederic Fappani :

See fr:Discussion:Frederic Fappani/Suppression (2010) & fr:Discussion:Frédéric Fappani/Suppression (2007). Look for : "Frederic Fappani" -wikipedia or : "Frédéric Fappani" -wikipedia on Googlesearch (and compare to the results for : "Clifford Mayes" -wikipedia to get a better understanding of the article Archetypal pedagogy). Should I add that Frederic Fappani has responsabilities in Ed. Cursus, which publish his books ?

I think it could be candidate for Article for deletion (for lack of notability) and Archetypal pedagogy should be reveiwed, but my english is way too poor to do it myself. Does somebody think I'm right about Frederic Fappani ? Chaoborus (talk) 00:09, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Somebody here ? Chaoborus (talk) 01:42, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Joseph Sambrook

Joseph Sambrook (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Uncited stub, Otrs ticket regarding inaccuracies and could use a look from a person who knows a bit about cloning , or at least I think that is his field, regards. Off2riorob (talk) 18:11, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Scientist article review request

One of the articles tagged within the scope of this WikiProject is being reviewed at the moment. I'm leaving a note here to ask whether anyone active in this WikiProject has time to review the article (David A. Johnston) and leave suggestions, either on the article talk page or at the review. As one of the contributors to the article, I will say at the review that I've left this notice here, but if you do leave comments at the review it would be helpful to those assessing the review if you leave a note saying how you became aware of the article. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 12:12, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons

The WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons (UBLPs) aims to reduce the number of unreferenced biographical articles to under 30,000 by June 1, primarily by enabling WikiProjects to easily identify UBLP articles in their project's scope. There were over 52,000 unreferenced BLPs in January 2010 and this has been reduced to 35,715 as of May 1. A bot is now running daily to compile a list of all articles that are in both Category:All unreferenced BLPs and have been tagged by a WikiProject. Note that the bot does NOT place unreferenced tags or assign articles to projects - this has been done by others previously - it just compiles a list.

Your Project's list can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Science and academia/Unreferenced BLPs. Currently you have approximately 1333 articles to be referenced. Other project lists can be found at User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects/Templates and User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects.

Your assistance in reviewing and referencing these articles is greatly appreciated. If you have any questions, please don't hestitate to ask either at WT:URBLP or at my talk page. Thanks, The-Pope (talk) 17:31, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Stephen Ambrose

An editor who seems very close to the subject has added substantial content to the Inaccuracies section of the Stephen Ambrose article. There are a number of problems with the section; it's tendentious and verbose. It's also misleading. The Sacramento Bee article referred to was not an independently researched article; it simply described the dissatisfactions of the railroad buffs and listed their assertions of inaccuracy. The section also relies primarily on a single source that may not be reliable: the website of the complaining railroad buffs.

There is no doubt that Stephen Ambrose was guilty of errors in his writing. I'm concerned about the quality of writing in the Criticism section, the personal agenda that may be exhibited there, and overall, whether it meets WP standards.

I'm really trying not to get into an edit war with the railroad buff editor, so could someone please have a look at the Inaccuracies section (and the Criticism section as a whole)? Thanks! 75.2.209.226 (talk) 13:27, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Carl Linnaeus assistance

Hello,

I am currently working on the Carl Linnaeus article to bring it to FA status (although GA will be the first goal). Many improvements have been made already but there is a lot to do still. Basically everything except the Biography section needs an overhaul.

Linnaeus is an important part of this wikiproject and I am wondering if there are anybody here who would like to assist me in bringing it to FA status with me (or just do some editing)? If you are, you're more than welcome to contact me on my talk page or Carl Linnaeus talk page.

Thanks, Esuzu (talk • contribs) 12:29, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Alfred Kinsey

The biography is becoming the focus of some aggressive editing that has deleted well-sourced material about his work and replaced this with material about the controvery surrounding his work instead, thus turning it into a WP:ATTACK which WP:SOAP-boxes focusing mainly on criticisms that arose many years after his life. Mish (talk) 19:29, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

John D. Lambris

is a researcher of the complement system. I managed to save his article from speedy deletion, but not having any experience writing about academics, I have trouble expanding the article. Could someone help? There are links to various news articles about him on the talk page of the article. Thanks! PrincessofLlyr royal court 16:06, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Samuel Victor Perry

Help! Anyone who has a handle on biochemistry, could you have a quick look at Samuel Victor Perry. I'm coming from a Rugby perspective on this one and I could be miles out on what I've put together on his academic work. Thanks in advance. FruitMonkey (talk) 22:10, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Oskar Kuhn

FYI, Oskar Kuhn has been nominated for deletion. IT seems to revolve over whether he is alive or not. 76.66.192.55 (talk) 07:25, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Three Laws of Robotics

Hi

Having had the article Three Laws of Robotics delisted from FA I am trying to start a little initiative to get it back up to FAC status.

Please can anyone who has a specific interest go to Work required and look at the problems listed and comment on any ideas they may have in the section Addressing the problems below it.

Any responses please place in the relevant section after the Proposed solution header

Thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 02:52, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs

Throughout 2010, many Wikipedia editors have worked hard to halve the number of unreferenced biographical articles (UBLPs) from more than 52,000 in January to under 26,000 now. The WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons has assisted in many ways, including helping to setup a bot, which runs daily, compiling lists of all articles that are in both Category:All unreferenced BLPs and have been tagged by a WikiProject. Note that the bot does NOT place unreferenced tags or assign articles to projects - this has been done by others previously - it just compiles a list.

Your Project's list can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Science and academia/Unreferenced BLPs. Currently you have approximately 1485 articles to be referenced. Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/UBLPs by other WikiProjects lists articles by their more specialised WikiProjects and Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/UBLPs by region does likewise by regional WikiProjects. A list of all projects that are being tracked can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/WikiProjects. You can also use the WP:CatScan tool to generate lists of whatever interests you - for example, this search generates a list of the 43 articles which are both unreferenced and in Category:German scientists or it's subcats.

Your assistance in reviewing and referencing these articles is greatly appreciated. We've done a lot, but we still have a long way to go. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask either at WT:URBLP or at my talk page. Thanks, The-Pope (talk) 13:57, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Johannes Hevelius

FYI, there's a dispute going on at Johannes Hevelius (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article and talk page for 7 years now, about whether this guy is German or Polish. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 20:29, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Lack of third-party sources

The below discussion has been copied/pasted from Talk:Wim Crusio, as it applies to more than that single article and may be of interest to editors here. Some references that have been moved or removed from the article can be seen in this earlier version. --Crusio (talk) 16:37, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

This article is, almost exclusively, sourced to Crusio's own papers. This is problematical particularly in the 'Research' section, where it attempts to WP:SYNTH Crusio's overarching thoughts and aims based upon them. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 09:26, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARY:

Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources, though primary sources are permitted if used carefully. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.

I don't think this article currently comes even close to meeting this standard. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 09:35, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

  • As I (fortunately :-) am not dead yet, nor (unfortunately :-) have won a Nobel Prize, nobody has written an article about "Crusio's thoughts". (Nor will this happen very often except for the most notable of researchers, such as Nobel Prize winners). The closest to this are review articles that I have written myself about my own work, which of course even though reviews are still primary sources for the purpose of this article. So how do you propose to solve this? Delete the research section? Some reviews by others have mentioned my work, of course, but digging that stuff up would be a major undertaking and each separate mention would only be a detail in that particular article. (It would seem to me that this is a problem particular to all scientist bios, not just this one, so this discussion should perhaps take place somewhere else (like the wikiproject on scientist bios). --Crusio (talk) 09:52, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
  • I'd suggest having the [article's 'research' section] base itself on review articles that place your article within the context of the wider research. This would also have the advantage of putting some editorial distance & perspective between the article and yourself (which its creator, UB1Talence, clearly failed to do). Basing an article solely on the basis of your published work cannot help but result in an article that is either a laundry-list of your articles and their findings, or one that crosses over the line into WP:SYNTH in order to create some form of narrative from them -- and I think the current article suffers from both problems. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 10:10, 23 November 2010 (UTC) [Clarified, a bit HrafnTalkStalk(P) 11:05, 23 November 2010 (UTC) ]
  • But if you do that (and I am talking now more in general than just about this article), then the article becomes about the research and it is not a bio any more. If I write a bio on somebody (whether for WP or an obituary for a scientific journal), I describe the things the person did and (if available) mention something others have said about this work (but if it is non-controversial stuff, that is often not very easy to do). In an obit, I would probably add my personal value judgment (obviously not appropriate in WP). A bio should be primarily about the person, not about the wider research. It's generally easier to write about dead scientists, because if they are notable, there are obits available (which are secondary sources). It's usually also easy to write about controversial figures (varying from fringers to people working on subjects that are controversial, pedophilia or something to do with politics, for example). But how about all those other notable scientists? --Crusio (talk) 10:27, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Whereas if I write a bio for Wikipedia, what I do is first start with what third party sources state about the topic, then fill in any narrative gaps or details from primary/affiliated sources, where absolutely necessary. If you're writing an obit you're meant to know the person & use personal knowledge/do original research -- Wikipedia doesn't (and realistically can't, given its current structure) work that way. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 11:10, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes, I agree, but my whole point is that third party sources are exceedingly rare for the vast majority of scientists. Primary sources will be plentiful, though (inherent to being a notable academic) and are admissible for uncontroversial facts. I agree that you're going to skate on the borders of OR... --Crusio (talk) 11:19, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
  • This is most probably why WP:PROF has the following caveat: "It is possible for an academic to be notable according to this standard, and yet not be an appropriate topic for coverage in Wikipedia because of a lack of reliable, independent sources on the subject." The unfortunate fact is that a worthless (from a scholarly point of view) crank is more likely to generate secondary coverage than a solid-but-less-than-stellar legitimate scholar (for which we can blame the news media's love of novelty). This means that, excepting those in the top tier, having a Wikipedia article about you in your lifetime is more likely to be a mark of shame than of respectability. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 11:28, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

:-) Crusio (talk) 11:38, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I've wondered about this too, basically wondering if a highly cited paper is evidence of it being significant enough to be discussed in a bio. Looking at the discussions above, I'm not sure if anyone ever looks at this - would Wikipedia talk:No original research, Wikipedia talk:Verifiability or the village pump be a better place to discuss it? SmartSE (talk) 16:48, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

  • That might indeed be better, the large majority of academic bios will be affected by this kind of thing. --Crusio (talk) 16:58, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Thinking about the above discussion further, does a Wikipedia-style-process have anything to add, for a solid-but-less-than-stellar legitimate scholar (one lacking substantial secondary-source coverage), that their own university homepage couldn't handle better (without the hassles involved in a third party making sure that it's up to date, that it doesn't get vandalised, and not having to worry about OR)? Yes, for the truly top-tier researchers, an encyclopaedia article may be necessary to pull all the information together from diverse sources, and/or to avoid embarrassing them by making them blow their own trumpet. Likewise for the infamous cranks, it is better to collect together the world's collective opinion on them rather than let their own self-serving websites act as the public's main source of information on them. But otherwise, I think it's more reasonable to let them decide for themselves how much of themselves they want to put out on the internet, and how much privacy they wish to maintain. I may be wrong, but I think Wikipedia's main strengths are in collecting and summarising information -- strengths that are completely irrelevant when information is slim and already concentrated. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 17:05, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

  • Well, I don't disagree with you, but that is not what the community at large seems to be thinking. Going through recent AfDs of academics bios, you can see that people with an h-index of 10-15 or a few articles with >100 cites are considered notable. This bar reminds me of the old "professor test", where an academic was judged notable if he was above the "mean professor". These scores are (in most fields) rather mediocre and will ensure thousands of bios of people where there will be a lack of third party sources. When I first came to WP and started participating in such AfDs (which I have largely abandoned now), I had my own unspoken "test", the "Crusio test": to be notable somebody needed to be clearly more notable than myself (because I regard myself as only slightly above the mean)... :-) In any case, the reality is that I never see a bio deleted on the grounds that the person is notable but there is a lack of sources, the assumption always being that if WP thinks someone is notable, then the sources must be there somewhere. So I see three options: 1/ change the notability standards so that only the most outstanding academics meet it (not likely to happen...), 2/ accept that WP will have thousands of boring stubs on academics with hardly any info beyond (perhaps) a birth year, an alma mater, their field and workplace, and some citation info, or 3/ accept a modest amount of OR and SYNTH in this kind of bios to give a brief description of their work (which, after all, is what makes them notable). Perhaps somebody else can see other possibilities, though. --Crusio (talk) 17:28, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
  • I think my basic philosophy is that Wikipedia should do what it (a largely-anonymous many-hands collaborative process) does well. This would not seem to include things that require non-trivial amounts of OR. WP:PROF, as it is written, seems to acknowledge this, by stating that a topic requires sufficient independent/secondary information that an article can be written without non-trivial amounts of OR. The trouble is, as it is currently interpreted, you are right that this caveat is largely ignored. This means either obviously-bad stubs or laundry lists, or potentially subtly-bad articles where it may not be possible to verify if the tone/conclusions of the "modest amount of OR and SYNTH" is mistaken or malicious. Given such a "modest amount" (and malice or simple bullheaded misunderstanding), I could probably present you as an unsung genius, or a deadwood has-been. I don't really want that sort of power -- I cock up enough things trying to play by the current rules (as, I would suggest, does everybody else on occasion) -- and I don't really want to give that sort of power to my fellow editors. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 18:02, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Well, as I said above, I don't disagree with that. Personally I could live very well with WP:PROF as it is, with the requirement for secondary sources stringently applied. Unfortunately, that is not the praxis and I doubt you or I can change that. WP:PROF is widely accepted, except that nobody seems to care much about that sources requirement. So for all practical purposes, we're left with options #2 and 3 above... I'll take a break for now, let's see if any other editors have something to contribute to this discussion. --Crusio (talk) 18:24, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
  • One option is to merge/redirect academic bio articles lacking third-party sourcing to the article on their employing institution. This means that (i) a policy-noncompliant article doesn't exist, but (ii) nothing is permanently lost if/when third party sourcing comes to light. It also has the advantage of (a) legitimately avoiding an AfD & thus (b) forcing the inclusionists to actually demonstrate that the sources they're claiming add significant information to the article, rather than simply trumpeting their existence on AfD. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 03:09, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
since most universities have between 100 and 2000 current faculty that would be suitable for this treatment using our present standard of notability, and that past faculty would be equally suitable also, this is not practical. One possible way around this would be to have articles on individual university departments as a routine. As fort the usefulness of full articles, I note that this information is readily available on university web pages only for current academics--for everyone who retired before about 2000, the only likely encyclopedic source will remain Wikipedia. The standard for WP:PROF at present is actually the same as for everyone else: relative importance in their fields. The GNG is just a tool for this, and that the GNG guideline helps less in this subject than it does elsewhere is an artifact of what the popular press tends to be interested in. We, fortunately, are a general encyclopedia and have more comprehensive coverage. As a comparison, the deWP, one which in general has much more restrictive inclusion standards than we do, includes academics on the same basis as we do, though it accepts the mere inclusion in a biographic directory as sufficient.
To follow up an earlier point of Crusio's, it would indeed be possible for me to findall the citations to his work, and extract and summarize what was said about it. Not every citation will actually discuss the work substantially, but some of them will. If we are going to literally follow the GNG, I could extend this to the Associate professor level of notability, a level we do not generally accept, and I probably could go yet further in many fields. It requires some literacy in the subject matter, as any article does, but I see no OR or SYNTH necessary, besides the editorial judgement that is needed in all Wikipedia articles. Professors are notable by their published works, and their works have titles, and to meet the current criteria, will either haver extensive citation histories or be reviewed. DGG ( talk ) 00:51, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Project AfD

Please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Sternberg.Wolfview (talk) 10:45, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

John Fraser

There is a page for John Fraser (academician) and John Fraser (academic). They are the same person. Can anyone here tell me which is the correct naming format? HornColumbia talk 03:18, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

  • I would go with "academic" (John Fraser (academic)). "Academician" is sometimes used for people that are a member of an Academy of Science (this is done especially in Eastern Europe/Russia). --Crusio (talk) 07:16, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
I've proposed that John Fraser (academician) be moved to John Fraser (academic) as the latter is newer and has no past or current content not present in the former (apart from a different picture). See Talk:John Fraser (academician)#Requested move. --Qwfp (talk) 14:05, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

wandered into doing some work in your area, appreciate any tips

I kinda wandered from a science article itself, into doing some BLP work (finding some guys had pages already, so wikilinked, others deserved them so established). I'm pretty new to the BLP (or DP) world, so any tips appreciated. Am just hacking away, now.TCO (talk) 18:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Samo Stanič

This is a curious case. This article (probably an autobiography created by User:Sstanic) has some claims that at first sight appear to be rather incredible. However, they pan out... Stanic did his PhD in 1999 and is currently an associate professor. From his homepage it seems he also has a considerable teaching load. He has over 400 (!) publications. I looked him up in the Web of Science and his articles have been cited more than 11,000 times and he has an h-index of 52. So far, this seems like there is no problem with notability. The problem starts when one starts looking at the different publications. I've checked a dozen (sorry, no time to go through all of them...) and they are all papers with dozens of authors. Stanic never is the first or last author. Most (all?) seem to come from something called the "Belle Collaboration" (see Belle experiment). Authors are listed in alphabetical order, except for the first ones (between 1 and 4, as far as I can gather). So how do we judge the notability of this person? If he is notable, then are all other participants in this project also notable? After all, they all have many highly cited publications. Should I take this to AfD? Opinions are welcome. --Crusio (talk) 16:36, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL --Qwfp (talk) 16:50, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
Are the citations from articles in respected journals? JRSpriggs (talk) 19:11, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Yep, otherwise I would not have seen a problem but just PRODded it. --Crusio (talk) 21:04, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
Huge collaborations are the norm in particle physics. From the information presented, he seems to be a typical mid-career academic in this area. Djr32 (talk) 19:46, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Does that mean that you would advocate to take this to AfD? --Crusio (talk) 21:04, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
Based on the information presented in the article, I'd agree he doesn't meet WP:PROF. Personally, I can't face dealing with AfD, as it's always such a bruising experience! Djr32 (talk) 21:25, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
Personally, I don't like taking new user's articles straight to AfD without some form of prior warning, so (after failing to find a more specific template) I've added {{primary sources}} to the article. Arguably, 3rd-party sources aren't absolutely required here, but they'd certainly help. I'd give it a few days, then consider WP:PROD before resorting to WP:AfD, which is often jargon-filled and not an easy process for new users to understand (I speak from personal experience..). Qwfp (talk) 22:00, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
I've also added a message to the creator's talk page, using a combination of the start of {{Welcomeauto}} plus most of {{Uw-autobiography}} --Qwfp (talk) 22:24, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
An interesting issue of wide applicability for Wikipedia. The Belle experiment has 400 contributors. How to deal with them? Maybe it would be best to restrict notability to the handful of leaders unless notability can be demonstrated explicitly? Xxanthippe (talk) 22:10, 18 January 2011 (UTC).

AfD

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andrew G. Bostom since it is part of this project. Jaque Hammer (talk) 11:40, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

James C. Garland

A touch of help on this one please. I copyedited and developed it a bit from something quite inadequate, but am unsure as to what temps to add, or what I can legitimately add, on the talk page. It looks like it fits in the Science and academia project, but also in projects for Princeton, Ohio/Ohio U, Miami U too. Unfortunately I've been to various project pages and they seem a tad opaque for me regards asking for assistance. Be glad of some help here. Acabashi (talk) 20:26, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper

I currently have email contact with former astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and may be able to ask her specific questions to expand her article, and bring it up to B Class. Any suggestions? Gamweb (talk) 21:03, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Expansion of Ernest Fourneau

Hi! everybody. I have created the French page fr:Ernest Fourneau, and there is now its equivalent in your language. If my English makes me able to talk with other contributors, it does not allow me, as you can see, to contribute on main pages. At least, I would be very pleased to help to expand the English page about this very important French chemist and pharmacologist. Salut à tous, bien cordialement. --Thierry (talk) 19:53, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

COI and notability at Perry R. Cook

The biography of Princeton professor Perry R. Cook was recently tagged for lacking notability and for COI because a student of his, Ge Wang, has edited it in 2004. The editor who did the tagging already falsely accused me of being a sockpuppet of Wang, so in order to remove any suspicion I propose that someone from this task force, which is linked on the article's talk page, should work on improving the article instead of me. FuFoFuEd (talk) 22:49, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs - the final surge

Since early in 2010, many editors have assisted in the referencing or removal of over 90% of the Unreferenced Biographies of Living People, bringing the total down from over 50,000 to the current 4,861 (as of 15:51, 1 June 2011 (UTC)). We are now asking for your help in finishing this task. There are two main projects which are devoted to removing UBLPs from en.Wikipedia:

All you have to do is pick your articles and then add suitable references from reliable sources and remove the {{BLP unsourced}} template. There is no need to log your changes, register or remove the articles from the list. If you need any help, or have any comments, please ask at WP:URBLPR or WT:URBLP.

Thank you for any assistance you can provide. The-Pope (talk) 15:51, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I endorse the suggestion above but urge nominators of AfDs to carry out WP:Before thoroughly before nominating. Otherwise matters like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parviz Moin will arise. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:45, 1 June 2011 (UTC).

Biography Paul O. Müller

I would like to add to the biography of Paul Otto Müller, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_O._Müller, and would like to kindly ask for help and advice regarding the insertion of private, non-citeable information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Paul_O._Müller. I would also like to add a portrait photo. Alpfm (talk) 20:01, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

List of winners of the Mathcounts competition

There is a new weekly section on the main page called "Today's featured list" and I have nominated List of winners of the Mathcounts competition to have a spot here. There has been some opposition to the nomination and it looks like the list could become a removal candidate very soon unless the quality of the list is improved. If you are interested in maintaining the list's featured status and seeing a summary of it up on the main page, your help in improving the article would be greatly appreciated. Neelix (talk) 03:41, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

DYK nomination for C. A. Patrides

The DYK nomination for C. A. Patrides needs to be reviewed.

Thanks!  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:24, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

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