Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)/Archive 11

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Adding a reminder for a core policy on independent sources

I added the following line, a direct quote from a core policy page, so that its fairly clear principle would act as a reminder in this guideline.

It is a core policy that "if no reliable independent sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it".

Certainly, a great deal of sources exist for any particular academic, but the principle that all Wikipedia articles should be based on significant coverage in reliable, WP:INDEPENDENT sources seems to have been forgotten here. Failing to keep it in mind, leads to a sort of academic nepotism... that having a profile on a university faculty website, being covered in their university's news blog, having published papers, or been mentioned in press releases equates to WP:Notability. I feel like the core policy statement is a pretty easy bar for most academics to surpass, but the statement will remind editors not to base articles largely (or solely) on sources close to the subject. Doing that threatens both WP:NPOV and WP:V. -- Netoholic @ 13:05, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

You are welcome to mention that at AfD. You do not need to mention it here. Chris Troutman (talk) 13:26, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

But at AfD, they are saying to mention it here. -- Netoholic @ 13:34, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

WP:V says (or more precisely, quotes WP:N) that if no independent sources exist on a topic, we should not have an article about it. It does not say that the article has to be based on those independent sources. Often, once notability is established in independent sources, non-independent but reliable sources are more useful in actually writing text. Academics are a case in point: they typically have many hundreds or thousands of independent sources covering their work, but the basic biographical information one expects to see in an article are easier sourced from non-independent sources like faculty pages. – Joe (talk) 13:54, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

A core problem here is that Netoholic is taking exception to the current formulation of WP:PROF when it comes to accepting the statements of universities, scientific societies as sufficient sources for establishing notability according to the WP:PROF criteria. User:Netoholic claims that the current way WP:PROF is formulated violates core principles of Wikipedia notability policies, and that thus they are exempt from following WP:PROF when, say, nominating an article that explicitly satisfies WP:PROF for deletion. I did tell User:Netoholic that if they want to change WP:PROF, they should bring it up here. What I meant was: bring it up in a transparent way, clearly stating where, in their opinion, the current WP:PROF was in conflict, and proposing to change those conflicting passages. User:Netoholic has apparently chosen to petition for changes without transparently stating what his intention is and why he is proposing certain changes. Needless to say, that is not what I suggested he do, at the AfD in question.

So, please: User:Netoholic, if you want to propose changes here, please be transparent about them. Point out those explicit statements you think are in conflict with other policy, or which you want to change, and see if you can get a consensus for the changes. Markus Pössel (talk) 13:56, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Also, it might be a good idea not to start too many discussions in parallel. Other users have stated in the AfD you mentioned what the problem with you setting aside WP:PROF is; going directly to WP:PROF to insert text supporting your argument into the guideline is not a very transparent way of having this discussion. Markus Pössel (talk) 13:59, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

The problem is a broad misunderstanding or gradual deviation from core policy, which is why I put that line first in the section. WP:PROF should give advice on how to apply core policy to the specifics of this field, but it does not get to bypass core policy. which requires articles to be based on independent, reliable sources. Non-independent sources are at best supplemental, but that section I added the core policy line to was explicitly about proving notability. Failing to make "independent" clear and present in that section is the flaw. I WP:BOLDly added what should be an obvious, clear, core policy and have come here to discuss it further. -- Netoholic @ 14:05, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable sources says it explicitly: Articles must be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. -- Netoholic @ 13:58, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

That is indeed an inconsistency, and I don't think it reflects the longstanding consensus on the use of non-independent but reliable sources. It's undoubtedly an edge case, but it may be worth adding a footnote to WP:V. In any case, if someone is notable under WP:PROF there will be independent sources that could be added, so I don't see the point of restating WP:V here. – Joe (talk) 14:11, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

That's not necessarily true. Someone could create (and has) an article for a professor based exclusively on non-independent sources. This is a notability guideline, not a general sourcing essay, so a reminder of the core principles is entirely appropriate, especially as this guideline seems to have drifted and people think that "reliable" is good enough. See the section of this talk page #Proposal for addition to specific WP:PROF notability criteria for the effects of that - the modified proposal accepted there only referenced "reliable" sources... and failed to mention independent ones. That's a deep concern. The #Confusion raised the issue of "independent" sourcing, but seems to have been largely ignored. -- Netoholic @ 14:18, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

You say it has "drifted" that way; I contend that this has been accepted as long as I can remember. I've written several academic biographies based mainly or entirely on non-independent sources, after checking that the subject is notable and therefore that they could be expanded with independent sources in the future (per Masem below). None of them have ever been nominated for deletion, presumably because they were of old men rather than young women. Remember that policy describes consensus, it doesn't prescribe it. Academic biographies are a low-traffic subject area where it is widely accepted that broad inclusion standards are good for the encyclopaedia and the risks of WP:POV material being introduced through the use of non-independent sources is low. We don't need to approach it with the same ultra-strict application of the WP:GNG as we do with, say, articles about businesses or celebrities. – Joe (talk) 14:37, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

I think there's a need to recognize that for PROF a few things:

1. that the criteria are for presumed notability. In that we are going to allow a standalone article to be had for any academic that (if they don't already meet GNG/BIO) meet the listed criteria. That is, meeting this criteria means that in time or with additional research, appropriate independent, secondary sources covering the academic and their specific areas of study should come to light as to meet the GNG; editors are given no DEADLINE to reach this, but this does mean that if another editor does a BEFORE check and cannot find anything, AFD is a completely fair option and those wishing to retain need to show sources then exist. (The whole situation around "presumed notable"). The GNG and the SNGs all use presumed notability, there is no reason this one should to.
2. For purposes of meeting the given criteria, this is a case where a non-independent or a primary source can be used, as long as that source is clearly reliable and validates one or more of the criteria. But as this guideline does stress already (Before Netoholic's addition), you still need to eventually drive towards independent sourcing. That points back to why this is a presumed notability, to give editors that time they need with the academic's article in the open wiki so others can help build on it.

As this is currently written, with a few words missing, it reads as an inclusion guideline, which WP does not do. We want editors to create articles on academics that have a strong chance of being expanded in time, but we can't assure each one ends up as a notable topic, and the rebuttable presumption allows us to re-evaluate such cases. I don't think the new text Netoholic added is needed only because it seems to be already effectively there. --Masem (t) 14:31, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

One more addition: for any of the other SNGs that have criteria that can be met, non-independent but reliable sources are acceptable there as well for presuming notability on the expectation independent secondary will come about. PROF is not unique in that fashion. --Masem (t) 14:44, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

When and to what degree a source is independent and reliable is a matter of context and of judgement. WP:PROF as it now stands states that for factual statements that involve zero interpretation, namely whether or not someone has been appointed fellow of a scientific society, or whether or not somebody holds a named chair at a major research university, or whether or not somebody has won a given scientific award or prize, the published statement of the organization in question is a sufficiently independent and reliable source. That is the part of WP:PROF User:Netoholic is deliberately (that is, per is own statements) not abiding by at the AfD was involved in when making this change to WP:PROF (which, as it happens, has since been revolved as WP:SNOW). That is the context in which this particular change came up. Markus Pössel (talk) 15:05, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

But Netaholic is right about that. If Prof. X is named an IEEE Fellow and we are using the IEEE website or the university the academic is employeed at to support this SNG criteria, its a dependent, but reliable source, suitable to meet the criteria here. --Masem (t) 15:14, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

ETA to that that as I outlined above, a dependent source to meet a SNG critiera for presumed notability does not violate WP:V; that only happens after a proper source searching ala BEFORE finds no independent sources where they would be expected, leaving only dependent sources there, at which point AFD is valid. --Masem (t) 15:16, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

You (and I) may see that the sentiment is already there (and also in the core policies), but a lot of people seem to be missing that. It also goes without saying that no one expects a full-fledged article to be perfect from the start. But likewise, when a new article that lacks independent sourcing is tagged {{notability}}, {{third-party}}, or likewise, those tags should be retained as long as they reflect valid concerns. That's not exactly been happening lately. -- Netoholic @ 15:08, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

When a new article is tagged with {{notability}} despite meeting the relevant notability guideline with sourcing that is exactly what that guideline states is adequate, then the tag is in error, reflects no valid concern and should be removed. XOR'easter (talk) 15:51, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

In my experience, Netoholic has long been on a mission to POV-push the idea that academia is overrun by liberals and that a lot of academics are liberal-leaning jerks. See, for example, Talk:Political views of American academics. Arguments to delete more academic bios should be considered in that context. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:20, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't think it has anything to do with politics. I suppose it could in a given individual's case. I think more the pushback we're seeing is that, now that we're seeing the way SNGs are going in practice, they do more harm than good, and result in quite a few permastubs that still are difficult to get deleted. ATHLETE is probably the primary offender here (especially with PORNBIO out of the way), but PROF is an offender there as well. We answer the question "Is it notable?" like we answer every other question on Wikipedia—we look to reliable, independent sources for the answer. They will answer one way or the other: Either they have said they are notable by extensively noting them, or they will tell us they are not when they have not done so or mentioned them only in passing. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 22:25, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

If you genuinely think Netoholic's recent behavior is about permastubs and isn't about gender politics, you are not paying attention. The articles targeted by Netoholic are not even close to stubs, and are uniformly about women. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:41, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

@Tryptofish: No, the concern is that for some reason PROF has gotten a pass on a core value of Wikipedia - that notability is shown via independent sources. There seems to have developed here the same sort of "fandom" which exists in several other notability guidelines and topic areas. A lot of professors are WP:Run-of-the-mill and never covered in independent media... yet they can have a vast amount of academic cross-mentions or citations - WP:SNG at its core. --Netoholic @ 22:56, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

OK, if you say so, but I know what my experience has been. In my experience, WP:PROF most typically excludes pages about academics who are too early in their careers, so it frequently justifies deletion of pages about persons who are on the edge with respect to GNG – despite the periodic complaints that it gives a pass to run-of-the-mill professors. Someone truly run-of-the-mill typically does not have independent sourcing establishing a significant impact in their field. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:04, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Well that is what we're talking about right? I'm proposing we reiterate more strongly in this guideline that independent sources are what establish notability. -- Netoholic @ 23:08, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

If such a reiteration was made, shouldn't it also come with a definition of what is considered independent or not? Because these things are not exactly black and white... For instance, if mention is made of an award or achievement in a university newspaper, the newspaper may be more or less independent, and even if it is a financially and morally independent entity, one could argue the mention might not have been 100% spontaneous and unsolicited. On the other hand, scientists regularly get funding awards in millions (in principle, based on independent reviews) with no mention in the (independent) media, when some kickstarter raising less money on snake oil promises attract the press's attention like bees to a honey pot. How does "independence" contribute to the reliability of the notability assessment in this context? Egaudrain (talk) 11:48, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

@Egaudrain: re: university newspapers, that's certainly something we can decide and those specifics are part of the function that notability sub-guidelines perform... looking at the most common sources used in a topic area and giving advice about handling them. "Independence", per WP:V#Notability, is fundamental to how we know something is notable in the world... that the world cares about a topic enough or that the topic stands out above the WP:Run-of-the-mill. Wikipedia articles are meant to cover what is exceptional knowledge in the world - not WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Its how we know we aren't letting WP:OR rule our decisions. Its how we avoid covering something that is a conflict of interest between a subject and a closely-connected source to that subject. -- Netoholic @ 12:48, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

• If the argument is that government science agencies, or international learned society's, or award granting foundations are not independent of a professor, that argument is nonsense. And while it may be possible to speculate that no-one outside a university has noticed that someone has a named-chair, it is exceedingly silly to do so. And while someone could tendentiously argue that Cambridge University is not "independent enough" of the Lucasian Chair, others are free to call that argument idiotic, lacking in the common sense that all guidelines are subject to. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:10, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Let's use a similar example. If a major corporation posts on their website that one of their employees has won a major award or announces the promotion of an employee to a senior position... clearly the employer is not independent of the employee, right? Their website may be reliable, it might even be considered a secondary source, but it is not independent of the subject. If this promotion or award makes the employee notable, then some independent source (a local newspaper, a book author, etc.) will have noted it... that's what we're looking for when we decide notability on Wikipedia, per WP:V#Notability. -- Netoholic @ 01:33, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
    • Similar? Is the meaning of 'subject specific' not clear, we even have a doctrine on that called 'otherstuff'. At any rate, unless one is in a fictitious universe, scholar recognition awards are not given in pectore, they are given because someone-else whose opinion is worthwhile has noticed. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:42, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
• I looked at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leslie Kolodziejski and the associated bio page, and I'm actually a bit surprised at the snow keep. Pretty much all of the person's awards for academic accomplishment are "young investigator awards" (although I do recognize that this is not a young person). WP:PROF is typically used to make the case that such awards have to reflect the kinds of recognition that are given to outstanding senior investigators. Every time that I can remember, when someone asks at this talk page whether early-career awards are sufficient to establish notability, editors familiar with PROF have replied that such page subjects may well become notable with time, but that it is too soon to have a BLP when someone is at the beginning of their career. So I don't think the problem was with what PROF does or does not say. Rather, it looks like editors at the AfD either argued based on GNG (which is fine), or failed to realize that PROF could have been used to argue for deletion. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:53, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Clearly the latter, I think. Needless to say, no one looked at the citation index figures, which at her age should give an idea of her significance. Johnbod (talk) 00:08, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

These comments make no sense to me. I didn't participate in the AfD (it closed too soon for me to do so) but if I had I would have certainly argued that 13 publications with over 100 citations each, several as first author, is enough for C1. And lack of awards makes about as much sense as a reason for deletion as failing to become a university president — meeting only one criterion is sufficient, so not meeting a different one isn't evidence of anything. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:40, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

No doubt. But, unless I missed it, nobody mentioned the citation argument, which was my point! Do ask again if this also makes no sense at all. Johnbod (talk) 00:54, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Ok, but Tryptofish appeared to be saying that the pattern of early-career awards and no later ones "could have been used to argue for deletion". I disagree. It could have been used to argue for removing the awards from consideration, but that's a different thing. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:11, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's what Tryptofish was saying. I'm having unpleasant flashbacks to faculty meetings, because this discussion is getting very angels-on-a-head-of-a-pin. I really don't want to argue the AfD itself. My main point was, and is, that PROF really isn't something that lowers the bar for notability. And, whatever else may figure into that particular AfD, there is a valid reading of PROF that academic awards that are given for start-stage careers generally do not, by themselves, confer presumed notability in the way that truly major academic awards do when the page subject is at the peak of their career. That's why full professors are more likely to (maybe) be notable, than post-docs are. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:37, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

• Notability does not expire, early or late awards, if notable, would still be notable. If there is clear evidence that something possibly important was not offered or considered, and it "might" have made a difference, then why not contest a closing on these grounds? At the very least have a dialog with the closer to consider these things. I didn't look at the article in question but from what I see there could be the removal of an article that maybe shouldn't have been deleted. Otr500 (talk) 08:23, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

On a slightly different tack, let's remember that compared to many categories, the criteria for WP:NPROF are actually quite stiff. I've been sorting through the unassessed China articles, Category:Unassessed China-related articles of Unknown-importance, of which there are more than 5,000. I have to go through page after page to find an article that seems notable enough to spend the time to assess. Typical, for instance is Huage, a town in Hunan province, or Dahongmen Nan (South) station. If these are OK, then why are we worrying about professors? Just a thought....ch (talk) 04:08, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

The rationale of the guideline about independence is stated in the lede: the guideline is meant to ensure non-promotional, fair portrayal, without undue attention to the subject's own views, all that in service of a neutral point of view. For a valid argument (as opposed to Wikilawyering), that is the issue we should be discussing here. The subject of the articles in question is a person; are the institutions/organizations named in WP:PROF as suitable sources for specific statements about that individual suitably independent of that individual to ensure that we avoid undue promotion, unfair portrayal, paying undue attention to the person's own view, or otherwise deviate from NPOV?

For the specific cases of criteria 2, 3, 5, 6 and 8, I think it is very clear that they are. If you think they are not, you should take the basic principles of WP:IS and see if there is any conflict of those principles with those WP:PROF criteria. When an academy presents a fellowship to an individual and reports this bare fact, or a university gives a named chair to someone and reports this bare fact, or a journal hires a chief editor and reports this bare fact, or an organization gives an award and reports on that fact, is there *any* non-absurd, non-outlandish scenario in which adding the reported fact to the person's Wikipedia article will result in a deviation from the required NPOV, would constitute non-encyclopedic promotion, result in unfair portrayal, or would give undue attention to the individual academic's own view, all of this due to a lack of independence between the individual academic and the organization in question?

I think this shows very clearly that in those cases, the individual in question and the organization in question are suitably independent of each other to satisfy WP:IS. Markus Pössel (talk) 14:09, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

A university giving a named chair to one of its staff, published in a university release, is nothing short of a non-independent source. It is not that non-independent sources cannot be used, but at the end of the day, when the academic's article is improved as much as it possibly can be, it still needs independent sources as the most significant elements. The case of a uni giving an academic a named position, sourced only to the university, is fine as a detail to include, but we clearly need independent sources about this academic, whether they are related to the named chair or not. Now, of course, this is where the institute's reputation and notability come into play. If someone got a named chair at a place like HArvard or MIT, I would fully expect that an independent source could be found to support that. The case we want to avoid is where an academic gets a named chair at the University of Shady Practices, which no one else picks up on. That's the equivalent of a business giving its employees its own award and deeming that notable. --Masem (t) 14:20, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Exactly as Masem said. since this is a notability guideline, all we care about is what threshold meets notability. Additional sources which are non-independent can always be included as long as they aren reliable and aren't self-serving/promotional. Stated another way... if you can't write a bare stub using only indepedent sources about a subject, then it probably has no future on Wikipedia. Everything beyond that is bonus. -- Netoholic @ 14:29, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

"Independent" has a specific meaning given in the lede of WP:IS. Please tell me where, in those specific cases I have mentioned, the organization in question is not sufficiently independent of the individual for the purpose of WP:IP, that is, sufficient independence to ensure non-promotional, fair portrayal, without undue attention to the subject's own views, to ensure NPOV. That is the key question here, as far as I can see. Markus Pössel (talk) 14:54, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

@Markus Pössel: Should we hold an RFC and confirm whether the community agrees with you that a university is independent enough from its employed professors such that a profile on their website of that professors is enough to satisfy WP:V#Notability (particularly in the case of BLPs)? -- Netoholic @ 15:10, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

You will definitely need an RFC for your proposed addition at some point, after having passed the brainstorming phase (have you already alerted the relevant projects? sounded this out at the village pump?), and made an effort to draft a consensus version. As for consensus regarding what I just wrote, the current wording of WP:PROF is clear evidence that the current consensus is that for the purpose of establishing the criteria I named, the sourcing by the university/academy/etc. is sufficient. And I ask you again: What non-absurd case can you think of in which the procedure currently stated in WP:PROF regarding university statements as sources leads to self-promotion, unfair reporting, abandoning NPOV, giving undue weight to the person's own view? If you don't have an answer to that, what is your rationale for changing the rules in this particular way? Markus Pössel (talk) 15:41, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Who writes the profile page? In most cases the subject academic is the one that actually wrote the blurb and gave it to someone at the university to post it - like these [1][2][3]. If they didn't directly write it, certainly if there are any errors or corrections, the subject academic would directly work with their employer to get the profile corrected. When they win an award, write a new paper, or some other change, they likewise contact the university to ensure it's kept up to date. In most cases though, they just manage it themselves on their department website (or the database that feeds it). -- Netoholic @ 16:22, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Alternate wording

Current: Academics/professors meeting any one of the following conditions, as substantiated through reliable sources, are notable.
Proposed: Academics/professors meeting at least one of the following conditions are presumed notable if they are substantiated using multiple published, reliable, secondary sources which are independent of the subject and each other.

This is based largely on WP:Notability (people), just dropping the "significant coverage" part and replacing it with the specific criteria listed here that relate to academics. This way, an academic article doesn't need to demonstrate such a broad set of coverage. Instead, either multiple sources for one particular condition (let's say for their position or an award), or a combination of couple sources each covering separate conditions, is sufficient. -- Netoholic @ 14:29, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

No, this is an even more substantial change. It would imply one can't use non-independent sources to show that someone meets the PROF criteria. This is unrealistic (universities are the best sources for whether someone is a professor, scientific societies are the best sources for whether someone is a fellow, etc.) and doesn't reflect current consensus at all. – Joe (talk) 14:37, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

PROF is a notability criteria and per WP:V#Notability independent sources are a strict requirement. WP:PROF can explain what that means in the context of academics, but it should not be attempting to bypass such a strict requirement stated on a core policy page. And you, as an editor, should not advocate for it to do so. If, as you seem to think, an employing university is independent of its employed professor, then this wording change won't affect that. -- Netoholic @ 14:49, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Of course a university isn't independent of the professors it employees. It is an excellent source on who those professors are, however. This is why the "drift" towards equating independent and reliable sources is unhelpful. They are two overlapping but different categories. WP:N and WP:PROF require that independent sources exist; neither bar us from using non-independent sources where appropriate, e.g. to verify certain claims of presumed notability. – Joe (talk) 14:54, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Again, please go back to what WP:IS actually means by independence in this particular context. The requirement is not that there be no possible connection between the subject and the source whatsoever. The requirement is for the two to be sufficiently independent to ensure that we are not including self-promotion, unfair reporting, or content biased towards the subject's point of view. In this sense, which is what matters in this context, prestigious university's are sufficiently independent of their professors to provide suitably NPOV reporting on basic facts such as whether or not a certain person holds a certain named chair. So no, WP:PROF is not bypassing that requirement at all. It does what the requirement, as spelled out in the lede of WP:IS, is meant to do. Markus Pössel (talk) 14:57, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I do want to stress again that to meet a subject-specific notability guideline, you just need a reliable source, it does not have to be independent (but preferably yes it should be). In time it is expected under presumed notability that independent secondary sources can be added, but this is not a requirement if one is talking about starting an article based on one of NPROF's criteria. --Masem (t) 15:12, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

That's possibly fine for a fresh article (and would rightly deserve a cleanup tag), but this guideline is what people would refer strictly to during a deletion discussion, so emphasizing independent sources is necessary... and in line with the broader WP:Notability (people) and WP:V#Notability most importantly. -- Netoholic @ 15:15, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

If you have an article that is only based on dependent sources, and some effort at BEFORE search has been made to find some independent, secondary sources and none have emerged, then this is valid approach and the AFD should focus on finding sources or discussing the existing ones. But AFD just based on "there's no independent sources" without a reasonably strong BEFORE effort will likely be kept because you haven't provided any reasonable evidence of why the rebuttable presumption of notability should be challenged. (But this also works the other way, in that if there is evidence that no more sourcing appears to be available, those wishing to keep can no longer rely on NPROF and must show the sourcing does exist.) --Masem (t) 15:30, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Again, WP:IS gives a description and examples for what degree of independence is necessary, and what the rationale for demanding independence is. By those criteria - avoiding self-promotion by the academic, avoiding unfair reporting, not giving undue weight to the personal views of the academic in question, maintaining NPOV - a university is sufficiently independent from any one of its employees. Markus Pössel (talk) 15:56, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

No, a university is definitely not independent of an academic it employs. (There might be something to say of a academic in a different school but within the same university as potentially independent, but definitely not adminstrative aspects of the university or the school). This is not to say that you can't meet NPROF #5 with a university's press release - that's minimally sufficient to pass NPROF, presume nobility and allow the standalone article, but if no other independent, secondary coverage of the professor exists and proven out by a BEFORE-like search following that, then AFD is proper. --Masem (t) 16:02, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

You are focusing way too much on a literal interpretation of the words of rules, and way too little on the purpose of the rules. Why do we require independent sources for most kinds of articles? Because sources produced by the subject cannot be trusted to be honest about the subject. Now, which do you think is more likely to be honest about a professor at a university: the university's official web site, or a churnalism puff piece in the non-technical media about that professor's amazing breakthroughs? I know which one I'd prefer. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:24, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Chiming in to agree with everything David Eppstein has written here. This proposal is a non-fix to a non-problem. --JBL (talk) 17:03, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

This is how independence for any organization is considered within the framework of WP:NCORP (which schools do fall under nor exempt from). Dependence doesn't make it a bad source, but we ultimately need more to show importance of the professor/academic outside the university's bounds. So yes, actually a write-up in something like C&ENews about a professor getting a named chair is a tons better source for notability purposes than a university press release. It shows someone completely unrelated to the university writing for a reliable source considers this important. Now I will agree that the larger the university gets and the more hierarchical its structure becomes, there can be some distancing for considering independence: eg while several CA universities fall under the same state program, a professor from UCLA writing about a professor at UCB is not a dependent source, even though both arguable are part of the same larger program - there's just so many levels of hierarchy that separate them. --Masem (t) 19:47, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

"Employ" is rather unfitting in several scholarly circumstances concerning this guideline, for example, the major institution chairs at issue here, are recognition of an academic by strongly independent others (others that may just as soon want to kill the chair holder, if one knows anything about academics). Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:31, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

NPROF#5 is justified for this reason: at least with named chairs at certain institutes, that's a sign of accomplishment that should be readily documented by other independent sources separate from the university. That's why a dependent source from a university is fine for presuming notability, but to get past the presumption and get to what is expected in the long term to meet GNG, we need more independent sources about the profession (whether its about the named chair or not). --Masem (t) 19:40, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

This proposal is basically gutting WP:PROF and making it subsidiary to WP:GNG, which it is not currently. I am strongly opposed. The current guidelines work just fine. What is broken about academic deletion that you want to fix by making such a major change? —David Eppstein (talk) 16:18, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Not at all. GNG requires significant coverage. PROF allows for specific criteria. But both guidelines are required by WP:V#Notability to use independent sources to prove notability. -- Netoholic @ 16:37, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Very occasionally we run into an article on an academic for whom nothing can be verified. In those cases, we invoke WP:V. No change to WP:PROF is required to handle the issue, and it's far too rare a case to use as a pretext to tear down a perfectly well-functioning notability guideline. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:40, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

What's broken in that process, for example, is the fact that for the most part, professors themselves write their own university blurbs and then pass them on to other university staff to post them online. We cannot rely on things like that to be used to demonstrate notability - just like we would not allow a upper management profile on a corporation website to demonstrate notability. Those sources can still be used, in a supplemental way, but not for notability. -- Netoholic @ 16:41, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

The blurbs, saying that they're the world expert in underwater basketweaving, sometimes or often. The facts about their positions, on official university sites, never. To take a case in point, I know of a colleague whose Google Scholar profile lists his position as "(somebody's name) Professor", the form used for named chairs. He does not have a named chair, and no university site lists him as having one, because the external site is subject to his influence but the university's official department roster sites etc are not. "Independent" means and should mean beyond the control of the subject. In that sense, many university publications are much more independent than journalistic sources. And when an academic wins an award and the society giving the award writes up a blurb on what they did to win it, even more so — I've participated in that process (as chair of the award committee for an award notable enough for us to have an article on it) and there was zero input by the winner into what went into that blurb. It was independent. When a major commercial publisher lists the editorial boards of their journals, there is no way for a dishonest academic to get their name added as editor in chief when they are not really. It is independent of the subject, again. Basically, that's true of most of the existing criteria — the sources they demand are already independent by any reasonable interpretation of what independence should mean. It is only your unrealistic, literalist, cannot have any connection to the subject, that pretends they are not independent and casts about looking for sources written by journalists in the vain hope that their lack of employment ties with the subject will make them more honest. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:56, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: Tell me, would you be totally comfortable voting 'Keep' in an AfD for a barebones stub about a university professor with the only source being their university profile? -- Netoholic @ 17:20, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

If that profile said they had a named chair, at a major university (say R1 in the US, or equivalent elsewhere), for a chair that is given for scholarly achievement rather than to promote younger faculty or to provide a slush fund for an administrator, then yes. The process by which those things are given out is rigorous and independent. They have been noted (by being given this distinction), therefore they are notable. However, very few academic AfDs concern people with named chairs; the ones that are are usually created either by point-pushing anti-academics or people ignorant of the system, and are quickly snow closed. Most of the other WP:PROF criteria would not be easy to satisfy through information on a university profile alone. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:38, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: Would you consider it a conflict of interest for you to comment on Wikipedia PROF guideline changes, when you have a Wikipedia page about yourself and sources (David Eppstein#References) which might be affected by these guideline changes? -- Netoholic @ 17:42, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

No. That's stupid. Do you consider it a conflict of interest to write about people, when (for all I know) you are a person? —David Eppstein (talk) 17:44, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I also agree with the points put forward by David Eppstein: this is a non-solution to a non-problem. Information put out by a university is reliable enough, and secondary sources, such as newspapers, mostly rely on the university information or information supplied by the subject. We still have to exercise judgment on a case by case basis. There is a difference between a factual statement that someone is Endowed Chair of Underwater Basketweaving and the (unacceptable) statement that someone is the best underwater basketweaver in Utah. ch (talk) 19:58, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I would not have a problem with this:

Current: Academics/professors meeting any one of the following conditions, as substantiated through reliable sources, are notable.
Proposed: Academics/professors meeting any one of the following conditions, as substantiated through reliable (and, for subjective qualifications, independent) sources are notable.

I say that while noting that we would not change the notes to Criterion 5, which continue to cover the use of "publications of the appointing institution". --Tryptofish (talk) 19:53, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

On the subject of alternate wording the only necessary change is to make "are notable" to "are presumed notable" to match the purpose of all notability guidelines. --Masem (t) 20:04, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree with "presumed". --Tryptofish (talk) 20:09, 2 May 2019 (UTC) Struck. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:27, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I do not. Either they are notable or they are not. Either this guideline tells us how to determine whether they are notable or they are not. "Presumed" is weasel wording that encourages people who disagree with the current guidelines to argue and argue, repeatedly tag clearly-notable academics with notability tags, take snow-closed deletion nominations to DRV, and other tendentious behavior. It does nothing to actually clarify how academic notability is determined, and much to unclarify it. It is not an improvement. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:22, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

That's not how notability guidelines work as otherwise this becomes an inclusion guideline and WP has no inclusion guidelines. We want to encourage editors to start articles on topics (academics here) as long as they have shown that there's a likely chance they can be expanded and surpass the GNG baseline. But we can't allow such articles that are created like this but have reasonably no chance of meeting the GNG to be kept indefinitey, we need to route to delete them. That's why all notability guidelines presume notability, its is very easy to pass the initial mark so that the article is out there and others can edit. We just need the ability to offer a rebuttal to the presumption should no further expansion can be done. This is why it is important to stress there is no deadline to get these articles to improve, and that the onus is on the AFD nominator to lay out the argument that no further possible expansion can be made (the BEFORE check). Both of these nearly always favor retention of articles, and there is no rush to remove articles as long as they meet the basic NPROF. We just need the ability to "clean out" entries that simply have no way of ever being shown notable by exhaustive source research.

All the issues you list are behavior problems. AFD nominators are expected to review past AFDs of the topic and make sure they are arguing very differently or avoid rapid fire nominations. DRV is not AFD, and should only be used if there were issues in the process, etc. This is all stuff actionable at ANI (particularly on repeat offenders), but has nothing to do with presumed notability. --Masem (t) 21:01, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

"That's not how this guideline works because Wikipedia doesn't have guidelines like this" is circular reasoning, invalid reasoning, not helpful in identifying any issues with the current guideline that need fixing (if indeed there are any), and not helpful as an argument for why different wording would be better. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:05, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

First, it needs to be recognized that notability in WP terms is that a topic has been noticed by independent third-party sources - this is to meet WP:NOT#IINFO (and in the case of bios, WP:NOT#WHOSWHO. WP:N via the GNG is to show that that's being done by asking for secondary, independent sources that cover a topic in detail.

The subject-specific notability guidelines came about because it was recognized it was difficult for some topics to show this without a great deal of research, and because WP's an open environment, it was better to allow these articles to be created on minimal evidence they would likely be notable, to encourage volunteers to help expand. They were not meant to be inclusion guidelines where once a topic article passed the criteria it would be kept automatically without question. Hence the whole reason of presumed notability, allow a lot of topics to have standalone articles to encourage volunteer improvements, with a means to weed out those that don't show notice by independent, third-party sources. An RFC a long while back determined that SNGs can't override the GNG (where this is spelled out), so NPROF must follow the idea of presumed notability. --Masem (t) 21:41, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Masem, I'm sorry, I haven't read all of the above. The problem with the guideline (as you may be pointing out) is that it contradicts itself. The nutshell says that biography subjects must be "the subject of significant coverage in independent, reliable, secondary sources". Then it lists nine exceptions, without acknowledging them as exceptions.

Markus, you seem to have a very positive view of the value of a BLP, but there is another side to it. We deal every day with people pleading with us to remove negative material from their BLPs, or to delete the pages entirely. These are often BLPs originally written by or on behalf of the subject, where they failed to anticipate the consequences of anyone being able to edit it. Making sure that everyone borderline notable has a BLP arguably leaves people with a millstone around their necks.

Don't underestimate the misery an unwanted BLP can cause. Anything negative that happens to the subject will appear as the first hit for their names if RS write about the issue, and RS may be more likely to write about it if the person has a Wikipedia article. The issue needn't be anything the rest of us would see as negative, by the way. It might be something that's upsetting only to the subject and their families (e.g. years of birth, former partners' names).

For these reasons, whether to create a borderline BLP is something that needs careful consideration, especially for someone at the beginning of their career. That's why we have WP:BLP1E, which makes sure we don't create articles on otherwise low-profile people who become involved in one notable event. The BLP and notability policies help to keep people safe. Please bear this perspective in mind when suggesting changes. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:58, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

A very important issue raised by SarahSV. My view is that consent should be obtained from the subject of a marginal BLP before it is written. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:28, 2 May 2019 (UTC).

@SlimVirgin: SarahSV, the issues you raise are as far as I can see completely separate from the discussion going on here. I think that the current version of NPROF is a good basis for judging notability among academics, capturing what it means to be notable in a scientific/academic field. The peculiar change suggested by Netoholic would not improve our ability to filter out notable from non-notable academics; their only practical effect would be to exclude some notable academics. Hence my opposition. Also, note that this is not about borderline notability. The criteria this change would affect are yes-or-no: does someone have a named chair? Notable. Did someone get a prestigious award? Notable. Nothing borderline or even ambiguous about this (which adds to the absurdity of Netoholic's proposed re-wording). I have no strong opinion about involving borderline notable BLP subjects in a discussion about whether or not there should be an article about them, and am willing to follow any consensus that might emerge. Markus Pössel (talk) 16:42, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Those shouldn't be treated as exemptions. They are allowances to allow for getting a standalone article going, but not sufficient to meet the GNG in the short term, with the expectation that they can be improved in time as more people look for sources to add. If several years (10+ yrs) after an academic has died that the only thing we can say to reliable sources is they held a named chair after a thorough review of sources, we shouldn't have that article. But we want to err on the side of inclusion as much as possible, so having allowances (not exemptions) is fine. If they are being treated as exemptions, then we have a serious problem that this is not following expected behavior that all of the other notability guidelines have, hence why it is causing problems. --Masem (t) 22:18, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Masem, I would say they're definitely treated as exemptions. That's what the guideline effectively states.

Xxanthippe, I considered suggesting something for the BLP policy along those lines, namely getting the informed consent of borderline-notable people. I didn't do it because it throws up further problems, in particular that you're expected to keep the page updated and to troubleshoot any problems, so that you effectively become their Wikipedia PR person. And the problems can be considerable after, for example, marriage breakdown, divorce, remarriage, children from different marriages, where the RS have not kept up, but the subject is demanding changes.

One solution might be to develop the kind of letter we have for requesting image releases, and making clear in that letter that the page creator has no special influence over the content, should not be expected to act as a Wikipedia contact, and might stop editing the page at any time. But that's the kind of letter the WMF lawyers would probably have to be consulted about, so that the wording didn't create any legal obligations, and I don't know whether the WMF would want to risk discouraging people from creating BLPs. SarahSV ^(talk) 22:55, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

All of the WP:PROF criteria DO already describe kinds of recognition by independent sources. C1 is about whether the person's publications have been recognized in citations by other academic publications written by other authors and reliably published in journals and books. C2 is about whether the person themselves have been recognized by the people who hand out significant awards. C3 is about whether the person has been recognized by an academic society, with the recognition taking the form of an honorary level of membership. Etc etc. All of this argumentation comes about because some tendentious editors refuse to believe that these recognitions themselves are independent, and are asking for a level of indirection, other sources independent of the body doing the recognition taking note of the fact that they have recognized somebody. It's ridiculous. If a movie has major-newspaper reviews, for instance, we let those reviews be used as evidence that the movie is notable; we don't demand that (as occasionally happens) we can find independent stories doing meta-analysis of the reviews and describing the movie as having a record number of bad reviews. If we are writing about a species, we use the publications about the species as evidence that the species is notable, rather than demanding publications that overview the publication history of works about the species. But for some reason, when it comes to academics, forms of recognition such as fellowship in a major society are put down as "non-independent" and instead we have to look for newspaper stories generated by journalists copying press releases from the subject's employer about how great their employees are, as if this process of journalistic copying somehow makes the article more independent than the society that did the recognition. It's bullshit.

WP:PROF should be seen as a more strict requirement, not a lesser one. For most academics, the existence of "multiple, reliable, independently published" sources commenting on their works (i.e. what they are noted for) is a ridiculously low bar: go to Google Scholar and check that their publications have been cited more than once. Instead, typically we require hundreds or thousands of citations, that is, hundres or thousands of reliable, independently published sources, to obtain notability through C1. We shouldn't need to impose additional hurdles on top of that, of needing multiple low-quality non-academic journalistic sources commenting on their hundreds or thousands of citations. That way lies a Wikipedia in which most articles on academics are about the publicity hounds who go to the effort of getting journalists to write repeatedly about them despite their minimal accomplishments, exactly the opposite of what we're trying to achieve. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:12, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Notability related to academics is to make sure we are avoiding simply compiling a list of people in the field - If all that can be said about a person is that they got named a fellow in a professional organization or got to a named chair, and nothing else, that's simply not appropriate. (Mind you, I'm well aware other bio-based notability guidelines have generally been more loose and overly inclusive, but we've already nixed one of the worst offenders, PORNBIO, NMODELS is on the table, and I would not be surprised that NSPORT is next, to a degree). A good bio article on an academic will have more than just this honor, but a brief bio (early life and career and highlights of their research, this later important to explain why the academic should be included). There is certainly a positive connection to the 9 criteria given and getting this type of coverage eventually per DEADLINE. We want you to create them when there's a clear likely chance it can be expanded. But we know that that is not always 100%, and there are mitigating circumstances that can come up. So that's why it is presumed notability, so that when we have those exceptions, we can delete those even though we presumed them notable before. --Masem (t) 00:44, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

We are already avoiding "simply compiling a list of people in the field" by setting conditions that most people in the field will not pass. "If all that can be said about a person is that they got named a fellow in a professional organization or got to a named chair, and nothing else" then we already know just from that bare statement that they must have accomplished something that impressed their colleagues. They have been noted. Their being given this recognition is a form of noting them. Therefore they are notable. It is not a question of "oh, maybe somebody else will notice them and write about their favorite restaurants and their vacations in Ibiza" like we might expect for celebrities famous for being famous. The recognition is already there. And it is never the case that there is nothing at all to say about them beyond that, because there is always a record of scholarly publication and usually one that is too long and too technical to adequately summarize. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:10, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Which is why the NPROF criteria are good subject-specific notability criteria. I'm talking about the extremely exceptional case where for some reason or another nothing more can be written due to lack of other sourcing; we need a way to oust that case. I fully agree with you that the bulk of these criteria nearly universally means that additional sourcing to explain the impact or importance of the academic's work is out there, but it impossible say that with 100% assurance. Using presumed notability gives us the means to remove those cases (probably far less than 0.01% of all academics.) To compare, one of NSPORTS criteria is to presume an athlete is notable if they have played a professional game. This presumption has been challenged on numerous occassions when the only details about the athlete that is in the article is about playing a professional game. In nearly all those cases, interested editors have found additional sourcing, but in a few exceptional cases, have found no further sources, and thus have agreed to deletion. That's the same type of thing here.

Basically, calling ths "presumed notability" does not impact how this guideline is to be used for nearly all cases of academics. It just brings the wording in line with the other notability guidelines.

And to stress, unlike Netaholic is arguing, an academic article that is presently only sourced to a dependent but reliable source that shows how one of the 9 criteria is met is completely fine and should not be challenged, unless one has fully exhausted researching for any other material and has come up short. --Masem (t) 01:59, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

No, I'm not arguing that. I would prefer that, under a strict observance to WP:V#Notability, that no article be even started without some independent sources... but I'm not naive to think that it never happens. But this page isn't a guideline on how to start a page about an academic - it documents a specific set of criteria that can let a page to stay in the long-term. That's why "presumed notability" might be weasel-wording it, but it agrees with the wording on WP:Notability (people) or WP:Notability in general. -- Netoholic @ 02:45, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Break 1

Masem, the edge case you are looking for is when someone passes C1 only. The other criteria are never edge cases. Very occasionally, we get an AfD in which someone has a good enough citation record to pass C1 but we cannot find any sources about them to say anything other than they wrote a bunch of well-cited papers. They happen so rarely that I don't remember when the last one was, maybe once a year or once every couple of years, but they do happen. When they happen, my opinion is that they pass WP:PROF (they are notable) but that we should delete anyway because of WP:V (there is nothing we can verifiably write about them). Your quest for making a guideline that is 100% foolproof, that will cover even the most exceptional cases, is misguided first because there are a lot of fools out there and providing them ammunition is a mistake, but more importantly because verifiability is not the same as notability (if it were, we would have countless articles on people whose life details are verifiable from minor local newspapers but insignificant) and already covers what you want covered. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:24, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

But you can't say that 100% of the time, meeting one of C2-9 will always assure additional sourcing. Its a strong hypothesis that thats the case, but you cannot state absolutely because the set is effectively infinite. My issue is that all other notability guidelines stress the importance of presumed notability, as to help support the process around AFD (including the importance of BEFORE). You are worried about behavioral concerns that happen already and are not associated with how notability guidelines are worded. And it is not just about meeting WP:V, but also showing why someone is important using secondary sources as to meet NOR and NPOV , and thus not indiscriminate to include, per NOT. (WP:AUD is the language that is used to prevent those countless articles on local persons.) --Masem (t) 04:58, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I can certainly state that I don't recall ever seeing it and I've been diligently following most or all of the debates on Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Academics and educators for years. I don't know why you think rules have to be absolutely perfect; the perfect is the enemy of the good and if we ever actually did run into something that just wasn't covered we could invoke WP:IAR. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:53, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't recall seeing a case like that, either; I've been watching and participating in Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Academics and educators for a couple years now. XOR'easter (talk) 17:45, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Overall, I find I concur with @CWH above: the proposed modifications are a non-solution to a non-problem. XOR'easter (talk) 17:50, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Just because you haven't seen a case of this doesn't mean a case does not exist. It's precautionary to use presumed notability, as well as being consistent with all other notability guidelines. It does not impact how the guideline is to be used, and should strengthen those articles that at the present time only show the sourcing that one of the criteria is met, instead of creating problems by asserting that notability is unquestionably met by meeting one of the criteria. --Masem (t) 18:23, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I would like to reiterate that independence of sources isn't some abstract value, it has a specific meaning within the relevant guideline WP:IS. We use independent sources because that way, we can "build non-promotional articles that fairly portray the subject, without undue attention to the subject's own views" and "protect the project from people using Wikipedia for self-promotion, personal financial benefit, and other abuses." When talking about those criteria for which the relevant institution is considered a sufficiently reliable source, those are sufficiently independent, in the sense that matters here. A prestigious university will never be so dependent on one of their employees as to falsely claim that said employee holds a named chair. A notable scientific society will never be so dependent on one of their members, or non-members, as to falsely state that person is a fellow, or member. A prestigious prize-giving institution will never be so dependent on a potential awardee so as to falsely claim they won one of their awards. That is what we are argueing about here, regarding criteria C2, C3, C5, C6 and C8. That is what Netoholic was objecting to when he nominated an article for AfD that explicitly passed WP:PROF, and decisions by those criteria would become absurdly hard if Netoholic's proposal were to come into effect. In short, let us please not go into WP:LAWYERING mode, in the sense of focussing on the letter of WP:IS while losing sight of its spirit and underlying principles. In the sense that they avoid all the pitfalls that WP:IS was created to avoid, the sources we are talking about are sufficiently independent of the subject. Markus Pössel (talk) 18:44, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Markus Pössel - literally my only proposal right now is to add a link to WP:IS under the WP:PROF#Criteria section via the re-wording I took from other notability guidelines. Interpretation of WP:IS is for future discussion. -- Netoholic @ 18:51, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

A prestigious university will never be so dependent on one of their employees as to falsely claim that said employee holds a named chair. Exactly this. XOR'easter (talk) 22:10, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Netoholic: I find your description of your proposed wording to be false (as others here have noted as well). You are not just setting a link. Your wording demands multiple sources, independent of each other, for one or more specific notability criteria. I see nothing in the present guidelines that would demand this specific, artificially high standard. (Multiple independent sources for the article in general, yes. For a single, simple-to-decide notability criterion, no. For something like whether person X holds a named chair, that would be absurd – no reporting on that fact would be independent of what the university has said about the matter!) Also, as I have asked before: in what scenario that is not completely outlandish would this changed wording help us to make Wikipedia's NPOV coverage of notable subjects using verifiable information better? I can think of plenty of cases where it will make coverage worse by excluding notable subjects, but that if that were your goal, it would run counter to what Wikipedia is meant to be. Markus Pössel (talk) 13:41, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

For a notability guideline, multiple sources that are independent of the subject are a requirement. This guideline is no exception, and so it should be stated clearly in that section. This is a fairly easy standard because using this guideline, an academic can avoid the "significant coverage" requirement of GNG and instead only let's say 3+ independent sources which address any of the listed criteria - and that 3+ minimum would only matter really when an article hits AfD... an article could still be created without those sources, as long as its tagged and there is a reasonable likelihood that sources exist out there. I'm beginning to sense that it is academics themselves that want to water down our academic notability guidelines... and that's a conflict of interest, don't you think? -- Netoholic @ 14:10, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

So indeed, you have to admit, Netoholic, that this is no minor change you are proposing. Your proposed changes would lead to modify the notability criteria for academics. I understand that for GNG, the fact that independent, secondary sources exist about the subject, support the notability in itself (whatever those sources state): that such sources exist is an indication that the subject is of interest. But my understanding is that academics notability is not currently based on this: there is a list of specific criteria that are different from GNG (otherwise... we wouldn't need NPROF). For those, it makes sense that only reliable sources be necessary (some independence being a mark, amongst others, of reliability). So, I feel there are two choices: either we scrape NPROF totally and just use GNG, or we keep the current wording. Egaudrain (talk) 14:36, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

@Egaudrain: For GNG, you need "significant coverage" in independent, reliable, published, secondary sources. This means the coverage has to be very broad, pervasive, and across many, many sources. Subject-specific notability guidelines allow less overall coverage, as long as that coverage is about specific criteria... but the requirement for those sources to be independent, reliable, published, and secondary is still the same. I think perhaps people referring to WP:PROF#Criteria ((WP:NACADEMIC shortcut specifically)) often miss this point because the words aren't linked in the section. Compare with WP:BASIC, WP:GNG, WP:SPORTBASIC - all reiterate that independent sources are necessary. -- Netoholic @ 14:50, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

I thought it was just WP:PROF that you had ridiculous views on. I see now that I was wrong — your ridiculous views extend to GNG. It is absolutely not the case that you need "many, many sources". All you need is "multiple sources", which could be as few as two if they are of sufficiently high quality. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:30, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, this view of what is required is a bit skewed. If you want to pass the GNG, then you need multiple, independent secondary sources that cover the topic in depth, but to meet something like NPROF's criteria, you only need a single reliable source that affirms the criteria is met. (This even removes the question if a university source is dependent or independent for something like a chair announcement). But again, that's why I've stressed that we need presumed notability, because we do expect that such articles with a single expanded source be built over over time to eventually meet the GNG. It's not an allowance to indefinitely have a single-source article. --Masem (t) 16:50, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

The exact number and depth of sources that meet "significant coverage" is of course up to individuals in an AfD discussion. I tend to think the bare minimum should be 3 in any article before I add a cleanup tag asking for more. I think only looking for 1 single source for one of these criteria puts us at risk of getting something wrong, especially for BLP's where we should be far more selective. -- Netoholic @ 19:16, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

A topic is not required to meet an SNG and the GNG at the same time. That is, the GNG statement should not be read as a requirement to meet the criteria given by any SNG. If a primary but reliable source is sufficient to support evidence that a criteria was met, then that's fine. Absolutely, more sources should be added, but not the requirements of the GNG to sustain a standalone article on a topic. --Masem (t) 21:52, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• I don't know if it's been pointed out in the text above, but the "independent" wording at WP:V#What counts as a reliable source was only added a month ago after a conversation between two users on the talk page. Leviv ich 17:45, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Not even after a conversation between two users, but after a single user suggested the change and got no feedback either positive or negative. XOR'easter (talk) 17:55, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
    • That's a significant change. I always remembers WP:V was based around third-party sources, with independence more important to notability. --Masem (t) 18:05, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
      • @Masem: It is. Levivich is confusing "reliable" with "independent" (ie third-party) which is a long-time policy under WP:V#Notability. That's the topic of concern I'm bringing up here. A university profile for a professor is probably very reliable but its not independent to establish notability because notability is a measure of how much the outside world thinks about the topic. A university profile for a professor should be treated no different, for the purposes of establishing notability, from a manager's profile on a corporation's website. -- Netoholic @ 19:13, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

        The diff I linked to, which, to be clear, is this one, # 891,747,580, changed the word "third party" to "independent" in the WP:V#What counts as a reliable source, WP:V#Self-published sources and WP:V#Notability sections. Leviv ich 19:23, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

        • @Levivich: that's I think only because the old target of that link Wikipedia:Third-party sources was merged into WP:IS. the terms are mostly equivalent, but people tend to be shifting toward using "independent". Overall its not a big change. -- Netoholic @ 19:30, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

        (ec) If one was trying to use the GNG to determine if we could presume a topic notable, a university profile of one of its professors is not sufficiently independent for the GNG, but sufficiently reliable to be used as a source otherwise. If trying to use NPROF, however, then it is sufficiently reliable to back up the statement needed for the criteria, allowing us to presume the topic is notable to allow the standalone article to be created and remain until it can be proven that it cannot be expanded any further (past the GNG level), which requires the type of detailed searching outlined at WP:BEFORE. --Masem (t) 19:25, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

        • @Masem: "If trying to use NPROF, however, then it is sufficiently reliable" is wrong. That viewpoint violates the intent behind the core policy WP:V#Notability. I think that is exactly the "drift" in interpretation that is causing problems here. "Reliable" isn't the point. Indepedent sources are what must be used to establish notability - no matter what criteria. -- Netoholic @ 19:32, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

          • Nope, that is not correct. Ultimately, we want all articles to show they surprass the minimum GNG requirements, thus requiring multiple indepedent secondary sources. But we know that this is not easy for some topics, and because it is an open wiki, we want encourge editors to work on helping to improve articles. As such, subject-specific notability guidelines exist to give criteria that, if met, likely indicate that the article can be improved to the GNG level with additional research for sourcing, so we presume it notable. All that is required here is some source that is reliable that assures the criteria has been met. Independence at this level is NOT required, unless the critica specifically mentions this. --Masem (t) 20:48, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

            • Yes, yes yes. You are repeating this point. But a guideline should represent the ideal article that we want... because we can place cleanup tags on articles that don't quite, yet, live up to the ideal. Making the guideline accommodate low-quality work means we get lower-quality results over time. -- Netoholic @ 21:02, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

              • From the inclusionist-vs-deletionist wars around 2009, we'd rather have low-quality stubs that at least show a hint of notability rather than be aggressive about deletion if notability is not clearly shown. --Masem (t) 21:48, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• AFAICT Articles should rely on credible, third-party sources who have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. was added by SarahSV on 5 Feb 2006. The words "third party" were linked to WP:Independent sources by Hiding on 31 Aug 2006, and this link was removed by Sarah on 23 Oct 2006. Sarah changed "third party" to "third party (independent)" on 9 Apr 2010. WhatamIdoing removed "(independent)" and linked "third party" to wikt:third-party on 7 Oct 2010. The wiktionary link was changed to a link to Wikipedia:Party_and_person#What_is_a_third-party_source.3F by Bob K31416 on 7 Oct 2010. The link was changed to Wikipedia:Third-party sources by Sarah on 14 Nov 2010. It apparently stayed that way until WhatamIdoing changed "third party" to "independent" and changed the link to WP:Identifying and using independent sources a month ago on 9 Apr 2019. So, it seems except for a month or so here or there, the language was "third party' and not "independent". Leviv ich 20:27, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Levivich, for "third party", use "secondary source" or "independent source" instead. The point for biographies is that we need sources not connected to, and in particular not controlled or strongly influenced by, the subject. NPROF lists exceptions to that. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:43, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
    • No, these are three very different terms. First-party vs third-party is how directly involved the source was. This is where one could argue that the university reporting that one of its departments named a academic to a chair is a third-party, as the upper execs of the school likely weren't involved. Independent vs dependent is whether the source has any type of business or personal connection to the person at hand, and this is where a university would be dependent as the employer of the academic. Primary/secondary/tertiary describes what the treatment of the work is. A university press release that simply states that an academic was named as a chair is primary; a press release that explains why they were named to the chair is secondary. These terms cannot be used interchangeably. --Masem (t) 20:55, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
      • She's right - "third-party" can be a somewhat imprecise term (confusing secondary/tertiary and independent), and so its good to remove it. -- Netoholic @ 20:58, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
    • @SlimVirgin: "NPROF lists exceptions to that" - why exactly? That runs counter to every other subject-specific notability guideline, WP:Notability itself, and the core policy WP:V#Notability. All of them, up and down, require independent sources to stake a claim of notability. PROF is treated as if its an exception by a lot of people, it seems, and that's absolutely wrong to do so. -- Netoholic @ 20:58, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
      • (ec) Masem, I think you're making distinctions that either aren't correct, or that are correct but make no practical difference. A university announcement of an appointment is a primary source (I don't understand your second point about a press release). But we're allowed to base an article on that, per PROF. Not only use it, but actually ground notability on it. That's the whole point of these exceptions, namely that there may be people who have contributed significantly to their field and held senior positions, but no secondary source has written about them. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:02, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
        • If the press release explains why the academic got the chair, rather than just naming him to the chair, that's secondary as its transformative of the academic's career. If it is just saying the person was named to the chair, then that's primary as there's no tranformation of information.
        • On the second point, we want this criteria so that articles can be started on academics without independent secondary sources, on the basis that at some point in the future secondary sources can be found to meet the broader concept of notability. If absolutely no secondary sources can be located ever, then AFD is an appropriate route, that's why this is a presumption of notability. It's been said above those that nearly all these criteria nearly 100% assure secondary sources will eventually come about, so that's following the process every other subject-specific notability guideline uses, and well-accepted. --Masem (t) 21:46, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Break 2

• • • • Netoholic, as I wrote above, there are academics who have made significant contributions but there are no secondary sources to confirm it, e.g. someone who held a named chair for years, and whose publications or teaching were influential, but they kept their heads down and did nothing to raise their profiles. I think these exceptions are valid, so long as we don't weaken them or interpret them too broadly, especially for BLPs. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:08, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
        • @SlimVirgin: If they haven't been noted in independent sources, then they -are- -not -presumed- -notable-. I ask again why only academics are singled out for special, lenient treatment which defies WP:V#Notability? Why is no other sector of society granted this special exception on Wikipedia? Saying "I think these are valid" is not a supportable rationale, just your opinion. It seems like this drive for reduced scrutiny is being driven by the academic community on Wikipedia, and that should be profoundly disturbing as it is making us into WP:What Wikipedia is not. -- Netoholic @ 02:10, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
          • @Netoholic: They're singled out because editors wanted to single them out back in 2006. I agree that it's odd, but I'm often grateful for it. I think it becomes a problem when the exemptions are interpreted loosely for living people, because then it's easy for it to become PR, especially when we're expected to keep the bios up to date. SarahSV ^(talk) 03:33, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
            • @SlimVirgin: Its not just odd, its unprecedented. It also happens to be wrong. Look at this version, the very last version in 2006. I count the word "independent" in the #Criteria section SEVEN times. Looking forward, I see that the "independent"s were dropped in Aug 2008 by David Eppstein based on a draft written by and proposed by Nsk92, discussed, and briefly voted on. The removal of the "independent" clauses was not noticed or discussed at the time. -- Netoholic @ 05:02, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

The version of 12:56, 19 July 2008 said: "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. Every topic on Wikipedia must be one for which sources exist; see Wikipedia:Verifiability."

The next edit, the one by David (15:08, 20 August 2008), says the same. SarahSV ^(talk) 05:18, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

SarahSV: What a very odd and self-contradictory inclusion on 27 Sep 2007 by Mangojuice. I think this was a reaction to the words "independent" being progressively removed from the section, such as [4] this rework. I cannot pinpoint any intentional discussion where the importance of "independent" sources was deliberately removed. It seems to have progressively done with no particular consensus behind it as a consequence of various rewrites. I am more and more thinking we need to go a full RFC to bring the sourcing requirements for the PROF criteria back in line with general notability expectations of all other subjects. -- Netoholic @ 05:37, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Those words were removed at 03:27, 5 January 2016 by Mscuthbert, who changed:

  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. Every topic on Wikipedia must be one for which sources comply with Wikipedia:Verifiability.

to

  An article's assertion that the subject passes this guideline is not sufficient. Every topic on Wikipedia must have sources that comply with Wikipedia:Verifiability.

That was a significant change. SarahSV ^(talk) 05:30, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

@Netoholic: SarahSV ^(talk) 05:31, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

There was an RfC in October 2017 to remove the contradiction between PROF and the other notability guidelines, and it failed. See Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)/Archive 9#Modification of the last paragraph in the lead. SarahSV ^(talk) 05:50, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

The contradiction that needs to be removed is the one between the WP:NOT policy and this guideline. NOT says that "All article topics must be verifiable with independent, third-party sources", without exception. Most of this guideline is dedicated to saying that complying with this part of core policy is optional at most.

Now that I think about it, I believe that you were the driving force behind WP:PGCONFLICT saying that when there's a conflict between a policy and a guideline, then the policy takes precedence. I wonder whether you feel the same about this conflict between a clear policy statement and a guideline that clearly rejects it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:12, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

primary vs secondary vs tertiary

Masem, re: "If the press release explains why the academic got the chair, rather than just naming him to the chair, that's secondary as its transformative of the academic's career". No, a press release from the university is a primary source. That doesn't mean it's not an RS. It also doesn't mean we can't use it to establish that one of the exceptions apply.

Look at Dan Stone (historian), for example. I created this because I'd quoted him in The Holocaust, and I wanted readers to be able to click and see who he is. He's an important Holocaust historian who has created an influential body of work. Of course I could find more sources on his work, but I don't know whether other sources exist about him. For the sake of this discussion, let's pretend they don't. Are you really saying this type of article should not exist? SarahSV ^(talk) 22:10, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: He's an author of multiple academic books. For that kind of scholar, WP:AUTHOR usually applies more easily than WP:PROF, because it's usually easy to find multiple published reviews of the books. And in the case of Stone, I just found and added 39 of them. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:54, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

David, thanks, and thank you for adding all those sources. That was a lot of work for you. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:53, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

• WP uses the idea of transformation of information to decide between whether a source is primary or secondary (unfortunately a lot of pages still work on the "one step removed" but that's better to discuss independence and/or third-party). A university presser that says that the academic got the chair or award for his breakthrough research, etc. then that's secondary as its transforming factual information about the academic into a novel conclusion. It still would be a question of whether it was independent and whether it was third-party, but it definitely would be secondary.
• And the Dan Stone article is exactly the type where the SNG is met and so we presume its notability, but expect that it can be improved with more secondary sources, without any constraint of deadline. If in the hypothetical, zero material is further written about him, then yes, that is the type of article that could be nominated for deletion for failing the GNG. As it stands, the article reads and is sourced like a Who's Who entry and would be inappropriate. But I stress that that we cannot judge that until a full search on him, and even just doing a quickie, the following sources [5] [6] are secondary and independent enough to qualify; I'm certain there's more. This is example what David E. emphasized above - meeting the criteria certainly means secondary sources can be found, but it is better to have the article created on minimal sourcing that shows that possibility than wait for the sourcing to be accumulated before making it. --Masem (t) 22:24, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

  These issues aren't helped by editors inventing novel definitions of source categories. As for the BLP I highlighted, I said let's imagine there are no other sources, so searching misses that point. This is a thought experiment. You are arguing that, if that's all there is, it should go to AfD, but I'm pretty sure it would be kept (please don't test that). In my view, that bio is precisely the kind of situation PROF exists to cover. The point I'm trying to make is that there are valid situations where PROF will allow us to create a bio without support from secondary sources. SarahSV ^(talk) 22:34, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

  I'm following what WP:PSTS goes by, at least with secondary sources and how that's used for notability. And in the hypothetical, if this is all that can be written about Stone (including in-article text), that gives us no information about how the person was noted by the real world, except for this statement "Stone specializes in 20th-century European history, genocide, and fascism." (which can be sourced to a better ref, but neither here nor there). If you took that out, and just listed him for his job titles, and his authors, that's simply no sign of notability, that's just documenting who's who. But with it there's a good idea why he's considered important (and again, quick sourcing checks would appear to allow more to go into his expertise in the area). That's why the GNG looks for secondary sources to give context to the person's larger role in the world just beyond being a professor. --Masem (t) 22:42, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

  Well, we're neither inventing novel definitions of source categories, although it is true that we're not using the defintions that some editors' (and academic fields) prefer. (For example, we acknowledge the existence of tertiary sources, and legal scholars do not.) However, Masem's example may be an overstatement. A university announcement of why they hired someone is probably still a primary source (as it is their own justification for their own actions), and – more to the point – it should be treated like a primary source by Wikipedia, even if one could legitimately, under certain definitions, call that a secondary source.

  Also, this is a friendly reminder that Wikipedia:Secondary does not mean independent. The explanation of how third-party (primarily a legal concept) differs from independence (primarily a journalistic concept) can be found in WP:INDY as well, but the main point is that for the purposes of Wikipedia's guidance pages, third-party can be used interchangeably with independent, but secondary and primary are technically unrelated to independence. This means that you can't just say "secondary" when you mean WP:3PARTY or WP:INDY (=same page). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:16, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

WAID, this confusion is something you helped to create. There's no reason not to use source definitions the way academics do. The discussion here is about whether we always need secondary sources to create an article, and the answer is we don't, so long as one of the PROF exemptions exist (and perhaps other exemptions in other SNGs). Masem wants to argue that these are just temporary rules: that eventually all bios must comply with GNG, i.e. must have secondary sources.

Masem, can you quote the part of WP:PSTS that you're following? SarahSV ^(talk) 23:38, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

"A secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event. It contains an author's analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources.". --Masem (t) 23:43, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Okay, "one step removed" is important. In this context, a university that appoints a professor is not one step removed when it comes to releasing a statement about the appointment. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:51, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

"To the event", not to the persons involved. THis is, for example, the case with news reports which are nearly always primary sources. They are reporting the facts, including interviews collected; they are not dependent to the event, but they also not one step removed from the event (That would be the talking-head analysis after the fact). That's why we also use independent and third-party to actually describe the relationship of sourcing. --Masem (t) 23:55, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

News reports are usually secondary sources. An interview with the subject is a primary source. News sources are indeed usually one step removed. A secondary source need not include analysis; it might include a synthesis of material. You are mixing up a lot of different concepts.

Back to this guideline: what are you hoping to achieve here? Are you trying to change some part of it? SarahSV ^(talk) 00:01, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

See, this is what WAID was getting at. We know in scholarly circles, primary and secondary have different meanings, but we throughout WP are using the meaning based on whether transformation or analysis is used to come to the published content. This is partially because of notability ,which is showing that a topic has been noted in external sources - or basically "why" this topic is important to the world so that WP has an article on it. And that requires a secondary source that has the capability to analyze and say why this is so.

My only point on this guideline before was to make sure that we are talking "presumed notability" - if an article meeting one the criteria cannot be expanded with more secondary sources after a thorough search, then deletion can be considered. That makes the wording consistent with the GNG and all other SNGs. With this part about primary and secondary and indepedent and so on, this page should reflect the way the terms are used across the WP (per PSTS) so its clear what is expected at the end of the day. The nine criteria are fine from what's been said, just how they are practically used once they are first satisfied. --Masem (t) 00:52, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I really don't think it is always transformation or analysis that makes something secondary. That may happen for survey papers in academia, but it rarely happens for newspaper stories and we take them as secondary all the time. To me, the more critical component is that they are reporting on the subject from a level of remove: not the discovery itself, but a report on the discovery. Not a society's promotion of its own awards, but somebody else reporting on the same award. In that sense, whether a source is primary or secondary is something that cannot be ascribed to a source until we know what information we are using it to source. A society report on its own award could well be a good secondary source on the education and discoveries of an academic, even though it is primary for the award itself. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:18, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

See WP:PRIMARYNEWS. The "newsfeed" type stories we consider primary because they simply report or summarize facts without any further transformation. Longer-run stories that show a great deal of investigative reporting, as well as opinion pieces, are secondary. (This is by far not the first time the difference of how primary and secondary are treated in different displines has come up and likely won't be the last). And we're not also ignoring the independence/third-party nature of the sourcing too, but that's a different factor. --Masem (t) 01:27, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

(ec) Masem, re: "We know in scholarly circles, primary and secondary have different meanings ...". If you mean they have different meanings from the way the terms are used on WP, then no, they don't. Why do you believe they do? In addition, what you say about a secondary source necessarily containing analysis is wrong, and the policy doesn't say that: "A secondary source ... [is] generally at least one step removed from an event. It contains an author's analysis ... or synthesis of the facts ..."

As for this guideline, you wrote: "if an article meeting one [of] the criteria cannot be expanded with more secondary sources after a thorough search, then deletion can be considered." I don't think that's correct either. Does the guideline state or imply this anywhere? We go back to Dan Stone (historian) (round in circles). SarahSV ^(talk) 01:22, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

First, see WP:USEPRIMARY, under the section "how to classify a source", as there are at least 3 different ways given. And I'm simplify here - the word used more commonly to cover anything like analysis, synthesis, etc. is "transformative". Secondary has to be transformation of primary sourcing but does not need to be "analysis". Straight up opinion is fine too.

Second, This guideline doesn't say it, but go to any other notability guideline, including the GNG, and you'll see "presumed notable" or similar language linked to "rebuttable presumption". I've explained why we want this before (to encourage creation of articles with potential to grow but the means to delete those if the presumption is proven wrong") This guideline does not state that, and thus I'm seeking just to add that word "presumption" to be the same. To apply that to Dan Stone, the first ref listed is sufficient to show that one of the criteria on this page is met, but clearly this doesn't yet met the GNG. That means that no one should AFD it without fully exploring all possible sourcing that might exist and prove this cannot be expanded (which I've said, is false - it can be). So under presumed notability, this article is fine to stay using the NPROF criteria to justify it. --Masem (t) 01:27, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

(ec) Masem, be careful about quoting essays, because a few are misleading, or where they're accurate, the way they're written is sometimes confusing. I take your point about the other notability guidelines, but we're talking about this one. This one does not say that eventually secondary sources must be found. This one offers exemptions to the usual notability standard. (It then contradicts itself in the nutshell. And the nutshell is wrong. Topics don't have to be "significant, interesting, or unusual". They only have to be covered by secondary sources or compliant with one of the PROF criteria.) Where do you want to add the word "presumption"? SarahSV ^(talk) 01:42, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

It's in the same change Typhofish suggested a few sections up. Just where this document says "An academic is notable" to "An academic is presumed notable..."

But we do want to make sure we're using the words "primary" and "secondary" that are consistent with the rest of WP. People participating in AFD and reading NPROF are going to assume that "secondary" refers to the same way it is used in all other notability guides. Otherwise, the same step that cause this long thread to get started will happen again. --Masem (t) 01:49, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

There's no difference in meaning between "notable" and "presumed notable" in this context. As for the definitions, they're in the policy: WP:PSTS. The definitions in the notability guidelines should be consistent with the policy. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:05, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

My understanding is:

1. First-party source: [7]
2. Third-party non-independent source: [8]
3. Third-party independent source: [9]
4. Each of the above sources is primary for some information and secondary for other information, so it's not accurate to say any of them are either "primary" or "secondary"; they're all both
5. Any of the sources could (hypothetically) be used to establish NPROF is met, but only #3 can be used to establish GNG Leviv ich 01:37, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I would agree, but there's also clearly more sources out there for Phelps triggered by the deletion of her article, which given secondary information about her (most as being the 1st AA woman as part of a team to refine the material). That all adds to her notability, surprisingly. This has happend a few times. I know there was another BLP case, but I can't remember that, but separately, when Old Man Murray a video game website was up for deletion for notability, suddenly there were 3-4 new articles of sources establishing the secondary notability for the site. If that happens with an academic, GREAT. Its not the prettiest way to get there, but it absolutely is a net boon for WP. --Masem (t) 01:44, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

(I'm only using that article because it's fresh in my mind.) Sources #2 and #3 on my list above I'd say are primary for the award, but secondary for the details of her bio. Here is a mostly-secondary, third-party, non-independent source. Here is a mostly-secondary, third-party, independent source. I agree all those are different things. Leviv ich 03:28, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

The shorthand definitions I'm familiar with is that a primary source is a person recording their senses (what they see, hear, etc.) and a secondary source is a person recording their thoughts (analysis, recollections, about themselves or others). Leviv ich 03:32, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Sarah, I could agree with your belief that "There's no reason not to use source definitions the way academics do", if all the academics would actually agree upon the definitions, which they don't. I know we've been over this before, but the academics still haven't unified around a single definition. I just gave you an example of that: Academics in the legal field say that tertiary sources don't exist. Academics in history say that they do. And when you take definitions cross-field, then you end up with academic journalists declaring that lab notebooks are primary sources but published papers are not, and scientists declaring that their lab notebooks and their published original research articles are both primary sources. (And the historian will tell them both that they're wrong: published original paper is primary for some purposes and possibly secondary for others, and the older it gets, the more you should treat even the secondary-style contents as being primary.) If you can ever get all the academic fields to agree on a single definition, then I'll go with whatever they settle on (and update the policies to do what we want, based on those definitions), but I still put the likelihood of that happening right down there with all of them settling on a single citation style.

The confusion that I want to deal with in the context of this discussion is quite simple: Certain kinds of 'transformative' work make the source secondary, no matter who wrote it. If Linus Pauling wrote a scientific review article about Robert Oppenheimer's work, that's both secondary and independent. If Pauling wrote the same kind of paper about his own work, that's still a secondary source, but it's not independent. Those are not interchangeable words, and there is not a single academic field that says they're the same thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:23, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

They do agree on the definitions. They might disagree about whether a particular paper falls within which category. That's a different issue. I think you misunderstand what a primary and secondary source is, and that you should cite academic sources for your definitions.

Back to this guideline, how do the discussions about source types affect WP:PROF? There's a long discussion, but I can't see what changes are being proposed. SarahSV ^(talk) 03:21, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

They clearly do not, otherwise this would not be an issue and we wouldn't have several pages about the differences. And the sourcing is in the footnotes of WP:PSTS.

The impact on this guideline is not immediate, but only if the question of sourcing of the criteria 2-9 comes into play. Those would all likely be started in the article using primary sources (as I am defining them), though secondary sources may be possible. That would create problems at AFD or any other discussion about the distinct differences between primary and secondary. To stress, as long as we are talking presumed notability, it is fine that primary sources are used to show the criteria are met, but effort should be made to find secondary sources to meet notability broadly. --Masem (t) 04:28, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedians disagreeing is not the same as academics disagreeing. Regarding the footnotes, there shouldn't be anything that contradicts the main text. Regarding 2–9, either primary or secondary sources would be acceptable.

This idea of "presumed notability" is a red herring. If an academic's Cambridge University webpage says she is the Slade Professor of Fine Art, that's a reliable primary source, and according to this guideline, it's enough to establish notability. With a well-known professorship, there will be lots of secondary sources too, but with others there might not be. That's why this guideline exists. Trying to remove or weaken the exemptions, or add words to suggest they're temporary, won't gain consensus. SarahSV ^(talk) 04:51, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

SarahSV: Imagine another industry that makes up its own "special" designation and it automatically makes them notable without having that designation actually appear in independent sources. Do we instantly make pornstar articles solely based on whether they won an adult film award, with no independent reporting? Does every YouTuber that gets a Silver Play Button get an article based on that fact alone? Does every League of Legends play get an article just for making it to the World Championship without anyone reporting on it? -- Netoholic @ 05:14, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

With the exception of this guideline, the SNGs say that you get an article if you get/have/did X, because we (the editors) know (through experience) that if you meet the stated criteria, then there nearly always will be reliable sources written about you/your accomplishments. The criteria might or might not be ideal at any given point in time, but that's our intention: assume that all participants in the Olympics get articles, because honestly, almost every time we've really, truly searched for sources, we've found enough sources to write a neutral article (i.e., an article that isn't written entirely from the POV of vested interests).

This guideline is unique in that regard. The story here is something closer to this: We believe, as a matter of self-evident doctrine, that individual academics are important to the world. Realistically, though, we also believe that nobody writes about them personally (especially while they're living and not behaving scandalously), so we should just go ahead write articles about them (as individual people), based on whatever they and their publicity department says, because what we're really trying to do is tell the world about their intellectual accomplishments. In short, if Bob spends his career publishing papers disagreeing with Alice Expert, then that's important to some editors, and some people prefer to record that in separate biographies about Alice and Bob, rather than (or in addition to) in articles about their subject matter.

In other words, this guideline rejects the requirements that are mentioned, e.g., in WP:NOT, WP:NPOV, and WP:V that all articles be based primarily upon both independent and secondary sources, and that no article be created if these sources don't exist. The actual plan (as discussed on this page off and on for years) is to declare academics to be eligible for articles based upon these criteria, and to write the contents based upon non-independent, first-party, primary sources. I personally think this is a bad idea, but there are some fierce defenders of it.

In terms of practical effects, I have to agree with them that if we (for example) instituted a strict rule that any article about any BLP must contain a citation to one source that is completely unconnected to/independent of the subject (e.g., a profile in news media) that contained, say, 10 separate facts directly about the subject, then we would find ourselves deleting a lot of articles about academics.

This is probably as good a time as ever to remember that the stakes are quite high for some people. I have heard that ambitious academics also hire personal publicists, and that some tenure decisions have reportedly included considering whether the aspirant has an article here as a sign of merit. (A little disillusioning, I know: you kind of hope they'd actually assess the applicant's actual work, right? But it appears that 'told a grad student to write a Wikipedia article about me' is considered evidence of being worth tenure in some places.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:59, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I, for one, have seen a fair number of tenure cases (and recently, an even larger number of distinguished professor cases) and don't recall the existence of a Wikipedia article ever being mentioned in any of them. If I had seen such a mention, I would have laughed it out of the committee, because I know how haphazard Wikipedia's coverage can be, in both directions. But maybe it happens elsewhere? In any case, I think we're better served trying to figure out who we want to have articles on for our own purposes, and devising guidelines that include them and exclude the rest, instead of panicking about fictional hiring of publicity agents to write Wikipedia articles to gain tenure and devising guidelines that foil that dastardly plot but don't actually serve the purpose of making our coverage encyclopedic. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:06, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing: There are other ways of going about this though, right? An article can be created, and we can simply place a {{notability}} cleanup tag at the top to inform the public AND to ask for those missing sources. This change isn't about stopping articles from being created if there is a reasonable likelihood of sources being out there, in time. Its about not dropping the bar and pretending that a badly-sourced article is perfectly fine to be presented to the public as if its an example of or usual well-source work. -- Netoholic @ 06:13, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Oh, sure. You wouldn't have to rush to delete anything. I think when we finally started requiring BLPs to contain at least one source (any source – even your own Twitter feed is enough), we tagged articles for a year. Now they get seven days, and as usual under PROD rules, a full WP:REFUND is available to anyone who requests it.

David, this isn't "fictional". The examples I was given didn't come from your country, so perhaps it's just not something you have encountered. To be clear, one could hire a publicist without paying someone to create a Wikipedia article. Closer to home, at least for some decades, the University of California only appointed "famous" professors to its highest rank, and that sort of thing is probably easier to achieve if you pay an expert to shop you to the "right" media outlets. A Wikipedia article would probably not be enough. (On the other end of the spectrum, I can easily imagine someone dismissing a candidate with a line like "He doesn't even have a Wikipedia article. Why would we want to give him tenure?") WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:21, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Given the poor reputation of Wikipedia in academia, I doubt any respectable university would use the presence of a Wikipedia article as even an informal criterion for tenure. Heck, they even gave a Nobel Prize to someone without an article, and numerous scientists without articles are elected to the NAS and other prestigious national academies. What I see far more often as an AFC patroller is entertainment figures trying to get a publicity boost from Wikipedia. -Zanhe (talk) 06:42, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, but we've seen that academics involve themselves heavily with this notability guideline, and also that some resort to massive social media call outs when their article is both created and put up for deletion. I don't see that level of social media manipulation coming from entertainers. -- Netoholic @ 07:53, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes some academics do care about Wikipedia, and the social media campaigns result partly from the sense of unfairness amplified by media coverage of Donna Strickland being deemed unworthy of an article until she won the Nobel Prize. As a wise Wikipedian once said (sorry forgot which one), an average professional actor or sportsperson is usually deemed notable, but an average professional scientist is usually not. -Zanhe (talk) 09:01, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

See, just phrasing it like "deemed unworthy of an article" is gross manipulation. We aren't making a judgement on the person when we discuss removal of an article, and as Wikipedians we should not spread that misinformation. I personally agree that an "average" actor or sportsperson probably shouldn't have an article. We do not want to document WP:Run-of-the-mill at all. And yes, a lot of academics are run-of-the-mill. Having a university profile, publishing some papers, winning a grant - those are run-of-the-mill activities for an academic. Which is why we should at least require some independent coverage like we do for actors and sportspeople. You aren't making the situation fairer for academics by dropping the core requirement if independent coverage for notability of academics. You're making all categories come to want the same low standard. -- 10:54, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Break 3

I've written about this before, but this aspect seems to be absent from the ongoing discussion here, as well. "Independence" is not some abstract value here. The requirement is there for a reason, and the reasoning is given in WP:INDY. Look at the lede and the additional explanations given in the guideline: "Identifying and using independent sources (also called third-party sources) helps editors build non-promotional articles that fairly portray the subject, without undue attention to the subject's own views. Using independent sources helps protect the project from people using Wikipedia for self-promotion, personal financial benefit, and other abuses. Reliance on independent sources ensures that an article can be written from a balanced, disinterested viewpoint rather than from the subject's own viewpoint or from the viewpoint of people with an axe to grind."

When we are talking about whether or not a certain source is independent, or at least sufficiently independent, when it comes to NPROF, those should be the criteria we should apply. If a prestigious university announces that person X has been given a named chair, does including that fact in person X's Wikipedia article make the article self-promotional regarding person X? No. Does it pay undue attention to person X's own views? No. Does it make the article deviate from NPOV? No. Does it mean we are giving weight to somebody who has an axe to grind? No.

So by the criteria of what WP:INDY is meant to achieve, the university's statement about person X is independent of person X. That is why the current way that NPROF is written is not in conflict with WP:INDY. It is only in conflict with an interpretation of WP:INDY that ignores what the guideline by its own words is meant to achieve, and defines independence much more generally. Markus Pössel (talk) 15:11, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Markus, first, WP:INDY is an essay. More importantly, a university's statement about an employee is obviously not an independent source about that employee. It's authoritative, but it's not independent. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:57, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

SarahSV: "Explanatory supplement", not an essay. It contains information that would otherwise be repeated in multiple other guidelines. But I have been wondering why its not written and treated as a guideline. We have WP:Secondary sources linking to section on policy page and WP:Reliable sources is a guideline, so why not WP:Independent sources as well? The concept of independent sources is critical to notability, NPOV, NOR, NOTPROMO, and others. -- Netoholic @ 22:05, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

SV has contested its designation as a {{supplement}}. Why it's not labeled a guideline is (a) because it was written more than a dozen years ago, before anybody really thought the difference mattered much, and (b) nobody has taken it through the WP:PROPOSAL process (which isn't as old as the page we're talking about), and (c) the person most likely to take it through that process is me, and I think it could benefit from a thorough copyedit (and ideally finding ways to shorten it) first. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing:, I wish you would not give these partial accounts. I contested the very recently added "supplement" label, and Netoholic reverted me, because he thinks it has something to do with this debate, but it doesn't. And people have always known there's a difference between essays, guidelines and policies.

WP:INDY is an essay, and it is helping to cause this confusion. What we need are secondary sources. Is the university a secondary source for its own employees? No, of course not. Is it independent? Well, no, but as you can see there are people trying to argue that it might be. This kind of discussion is the result of confusion you helped to cause. We have people who don't know what the different source types are and are flailing around, and we have people who do know but who naturally highlight whatever term favours their position. So the more source terms you offer, the more positions you end up with. Result: chaos. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:04, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

There are (at least) two things wrong about this interpretation of whether a university can be a secondary source. First, what publication of the university, and for what information? Is the university employee profile a secondary source for its employment of its employees, probably not. Is a university press release about its employee winning an award (not one given by the university) secondary? Probably — it's not a great source, because it's not very independent and one can expect universities to hype up the accomplishments of the employees, but that's a different consideration than whether it's secondary. Is an article in a university's student newspaper (with independent editorial control but published by the university) about the subject secondary? Almost always, but it would be considered like any other local newspaper for purposes of notability. And second, the focus on whether the source is primary or secondary and independent or dependent is itself something that should be secondary. The primary evaluation of a source should be, is it trustworthy for the claims it makes about its subjects and are those claims of a nature that indicate that the subject has been noted (and is therefore notable)? If a university lists an employee on their employee roster as being one of their distinguished professors, there is no rational reason to doubt that claim despite the primary and dependent nature of the source. And if a university does list an employee as being a distinguished professor, they are explicitly noting that person as being significant. Therefore, that subject is notable, because they have been noted. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:20, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: We're confusing two issues: sources for verifiability, and sources for notability. For verifiability, Cambridge confirming its appointment of a professor is the most appropriate source, an authoritative primary source. For notability, that source normally would not count, because it's a primary source, but (it seems) it does count because of the PROF exemptions (although the guideline contradicts itself, so this is far from clear). SarahSV ^(talk) 23:38, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Trustworthiness is not really a factor (a mantra we have is "verifyability, not truth") but we do measure that by focusing editors to use independent and third-party sources that are completely unrelated to the topic in question so that there is no issues of conflict of interest or the like. No matter how many ways you can slice it, a university is connected to some degree to the professors it employees, so using only sources from the university is not sufficient in the long-term for an article to meet WP:V. But university sources are otherwise valid as general sourcing for the article, and sufficient to justify the 9 NPROF criteria, whether they are primary or secondary and irregardless of independent/third-party nature. In otherwords, sufficient to start the stand-alone article on the professor, but may be challenged to deletion if no other sourcing outside the university can be found. --Masem (t) 23:35, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Trustworthiness is a factor that we don't like to name as such, but if you look at the characteristics of a reliable source (Hmm, a source you can rely on? a source you can trust?), such as the summary at WP:NOTGOODSOURCE or the detailed explanation at WP:RS, I think that trustworthy = reliable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:25, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

The issue of notability can be thought of as the article's scaffolding or skeleton. You need reliable secondary sources to support the construction. Once you have those in place (showing that Professor X is notable because discussed by reliable secondary sources), then you can fill it in with primary sources, so long as they're not supporting anything contentious. This is not a difficult distinction to understand. What has happened on this page is that the distinction has broken down, and if you look through the history, you can see that bit by bit the need for secondary sources has been discarded (I think not deliberately), although not entirely: the nutshell still upholds the sourcing policies. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:01, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

I see others have already corrected the mischaracterization of WP:INDY as an essay; I myself might have mischaracterized as a guideline somewhere in this discussion, which it isn't. I think your argument regarding notability is wrong, though, for the following reason. Is the website of a major university declaring "Professor X has made many exceptional contributions to her field" a reliable source? I would agree that no, it isn't; it is not sufficiently independent (conflict of interest – university interested in making its own faculty and thus itself good). Is the website of a major university declaring "Professor X holds the XYZ chair" a reliable source? Yes it is, since for this statement of fact, it is sufficiently independent of professor X. Professor X will have no undue influence on whether or not the university makes a statement like that (they will only make it if it is true, and have no incentive whatsoever in making it if it is not true). There is a sufficient degree of independence of the university from one of its employees to ensure that what we are really after here – no undue influence, no bias due to professor X's personal point of view – is satisfied. And if you go all the way back to the five pillars, which its requirement to reliable, authoritative sources, that is what you have got here. I'm at a loss how a higher bar than that is supposed to benefit Wikipedia (although I can see how it would keep biographies of academics who are notable off Wikipedia). There is no inherent benefit in a source being independent, other than that this avoids bias, undue influence of personal points of view, unfair characterization and thus makes the information more reliable. Please do not divorce "independence" from the very concrete function it should have in Wikipedia. Markus Pössel (talk) 06:30, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Revisiting the purpose of NPROF (split from above)

I think there needs to be a discussion of why there are notability guidelines for academics in the first place. The reason is that we have had issues in the past with self-promotion which is something we all agree we do not want and is not the current problem (the articles under scrutiny here were not written by the subjects even if the subjects rightly take umbrage to the scrutiny being applied to them in Wikipedia meta-processes). User:DGG used to say that he thought that essentially all full professors were notable. I'm inclined to think that institutional affiliation may be a way to go, but am nervous because there have been instances where WP:FRINGEBLPs have been written about people promoting ideas that deserve almost no WP:PROMINENCE in this encyclopedia and then the biography becomes a WP:COATRACK. This is no excuse to perpetuate a WP:BIASed metric even granting that academia itself is obviously and painfully inherently biased (as is sport, but no matter). I would be more comfortable with standards that basically said that biographies should be written when there are in-depth biographies written about people by noteworthy, reliable institutions. Perhaps we do not need WP:NPROF. jps (talk) 10:19, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Two points 1) Editors independent of the subject, like I have been, do not want to waste time to write a biography that is going to be deleted. 2) Times I have written women-academic bios or improved them, it was because this guideline gave me some reassurance that it was not going to be deleted. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:22, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Well, this is a strong case, then, for simplifying/demoting WP:PROF in some way or another. jps (talk) 14:34, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

What? - Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:41, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

The guidelines should empower people to write articles. As it is, we are seeing a systematic deletion of neutral, verifiable articles that are adequately sourced about women scientists due almost entirely to people complaining that they are not "notable" academics. But why should Wikipedia keep guidelines that would drive us toward deleting such articles? These articles are not WP:SOAPy, they are not WP:FRINGE, and they are not WP:OR. I cannot fathom what the rationale would be for deleting them. jps (talk) 15:10, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

As I have already stated, this guideline has empowered people to write articles. Any guideline we write is going to have cut-offs (as you see, there is "line"). Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:27, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

The guideline is, obviously, standing in the way of people who are writing articles as well. So it needs to be revised to include more possibilities. jps (talk) 15:33, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

What series of articles have all articles have been deleted, under this guideline? Let's suppose one writer writes 100 articles, some might be deletable, some not. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:39, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Please re-read this section for the answer to your question. The case is pretty plainly laid out. I think the problem lies when other users seek to delete content where the only rational basis for deletion is a perceived abnegation of this guideline. This means that the guideline is acting as a gatekeeping device rather than a means to help the encyclopedia. jps (talk) 15:42, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

That makes little sense, meeting a guideline is itself helping the pedia. (If someone writes all articles that are deletable, they are not helping the pedia). And no deletion is based on one guideline. Even if that's the only one discussed, it is subnom based on all guidelines, Prof, itself references those other guidelines. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:47, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I think we may be talking cross-purposes here. I believe we agree that having high-quality guidelines helps people write articles. The thing that I and others are saying is that the guideline as it is currently written is framing certain deletion discussions problematically. I don't think that following arbitrary rules help. The argument here is that some of the rules outlined in PROF are arbitrary. jps (talk) 16:29, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Actually, I initially responded to your comments because you wanted to get rid of guidelines, leaving it presumably to the GNG. But although, we would solve many issues, if all our bios were published to more or less our standards and published somewhere else first (like basically everyone who is in all the RS encyclopedias already, and every good book or chapter length bio, and high quality magazine bio, and full length high quality obit). I know there is no going back there, which means we need guidelines and not just guidelines, guidelines that don't mean we only write about pop-stars (of whatever field). Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:21, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

While I think it should be considered whether NPROF is worth keeping as a guideline per WP:TNT, I think it may certainly possible that throwing it away entirely is not the right answer. I do think it needs some substantial structural improvement, and if this cannot be agreed upon we should ask whether it is as useful as we may be inclined to think it is. jps (talk) 17:50, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

The reason we have the guideline is twofold: First, it's rational, and second, having a special guideline here avoid extremely complicated& imdpredictable debates which do not benefit WP. We are using a standard that is used by the profession . In practice almost always academics become notable by their research, and the entire profession has a standard for howthis happens--in thesciences, its by doign significant work ipublished in major journals that is widely cited by others (In the humanities, it's normally by books published by academic presses--it is quite difficult to get academic books published at all,and they are published only after extremely through multiple review by experts) These both are measurable factors. The main question is where to draw the line. In practice it is the case that any full professor in a major research university normally will have met the standard. There was opposition ot making it a formal standard, but I can think of very few cases where such people ddid not get articles unless there was some special reason. Usually those atthe rank of associate professors often get articles, and assitant professors rarely do.) The reason it falls in that place is basically that that's the level of citations in the various fields that we use in discussion. So our judgments do match the real world. In other fields we approximate that (whether or not we pretend to use the GNG). Reaching the level of major international competitions or full professional standing in athletics, or having paintings in major museums, or winnning national level elections, is about the same level. David Eppstein argues above that we should set the level as tenure at a major research university, and I have also argued for it in the past.. I think this more realistically is the level that corresponds to notability in other fields, though such intr-field comparisons tend to relect what one thinks of the intrinsic value of the different fields.

Second, the GNG does not work, in either direction. If interpreted strictly, living active academics do not get references in the ordinary way unless the are world-famous (or for other special reasons , such as criminal convictions or major administrative appointments, or both. ) What 3rd party news and magazine references they receive are likely to be the sort that we now consider PR and mentions. There are two cases where conventional references do apply, but they apply only to those who are dead, or retired. When dead, the major scientific societies normally write long detailed obituaries, which make good conventional references. Particularly in the more rarified fields of the humanities, distinguished academics receivethe honor of becoming the subject of a festschrif (a memorial volume containing a long account of their life, and papers from other people in the field on topics in some way related to the honoree's work.). If interpreted more loosely, every associate professor in a major research institute will be notable: the standard for such appointment is normally two published academic books, and since all academic books are reviewed in the specialist journals,and thereviews are usually substantial, they will meet the very loose requirement for author . In any field, if they have papers that have been even moderately cited, some of the citing papers will contain discussions of their work, many of which will be substantial. Before we had WP:PROF established , I and others would sometimes go to thetrouble of making this argument, and ifwe had wanted to, it would get articles for people who would never get them today. (but using this method disqualifies from article writing any contributor not in a good university, because in most disciplines most of the literature is closed access, and to find the discussions one would have to examine every published paper. I, for example had this access 12 years ago, but I do not have it now.)

But the current standard does work . The great majority of people joing these discussions understand the way research is published, and the approximate standard in the various fields is informally understood. There are very few afd debates. Therefore, I or anyone active in these discussions, can give very good advice to beginners about what will be accepted in WP and what will not., as Alanscottwalker noted above. The exception is in in special cases where the work is controversial and some people here have an interest either in seeing it rejected (usually because it supports a theory they find unacceptable) or in seeing it accepted (because it supports something which is a cause they advocate).

The recent argument over a person involved in an element discovery that brought forth this discussion was avoidable, and there have been similar cases, but not as extensive.

Some other standard proposed above are not rational. Membership in a group is an absurdly low standard. All research groups contain some people who are graduate students, and most graduate students never do work that becomes important in any sense--the average number of published papers for a PhD is about 2, one during the doctoral work, and one afterwards. The standard for having a major biography written about them is much stricter than in any other field at all--for living scientists, it corresponds to famous.

As for objections, the current standard is in principle not subject to ethnic or gender bias. We judge people by their work. For women whose work is before the 20th century, we do make adjustment in terms of the difficulties they experience, and we probably should do so to a limited extent in the first half of the 20th century also (and similarly for other groups historicall discriminated against) . But not the 21st, in any field. But in general, people do not become notable because of their potential, but their work. It is not possible to judge who would have been an important scientist , except for .... , any more than it is possible in any other field. It is inevitable that people will be included in the encyclopedia in proportion to their being included in the professions in the real world--the encyclopedia is supposed to reflect the real world, not an imaginary more desired one. There also is a problem with intrinsic bias--the practical unavailability of sources for certain areas. This affects many fields, and there is no systematic way of meeting it except the expansion of availability to such sources. In some fields we can meet this by adopting a national-level standard, as in politics. But the standard of science is international. (We have no good way of handling those fields where it is not international, such as some applied fields like agriculture, but that's a more general problem) . WP:PROF is a good standard, because it is objective. The objections are from those who either do not understand the subject, or who do not want our standard to be objective. DGG ( talk ) 16:46, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Your claim that our standards are objective is not true. Just to take one example, there is a sexist citation gap in academia: [10]. This is in practice subject to bias. If we don't take steps to correct that, we perpetuate that bias. You may be okay with that. I'm not. jps (talk) 16:57, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

We cannot create sources out of nothing in the time periods DGG alluded to where women and other unrepresented groups went unrecognized. WP is based on sourcing, first and foremost. If that sourcing is not there, our hands our tied. We can try to emphasize this as a deficiency to plead external writers to help us by creating the necessary sourcing that we can then use. But the current situation is a systematic bias that we can't do anything about, outside of making sure that on WP editors themselves are not adding to this. --Masem (t) 17:14, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

There are things we can do to correct for systemic bias. That's exactly the point of my comment. For example, we can institute forms of affirmative action for inclusion of women scientist biographies. jps (talk) 17:45, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

There are certainly ways to bias towards women and disadvantaged groups, but all ways I've seen presented are based on weakening adherence to core policies about sourcing. We can't do that. --Masem (t) 17:57, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. I think that the current way that NPROF is written is actually imposing a higher standard than our core policies about sourcing normally imply. For example, there are those who argue that a university or national lab profile/in-depth biography of a scientist is not evidence of notability for our purposes. These arguments, for better or worse, often lean on this guideline heavily. jps (talk) 18:01, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Our articles on academics cannot just be CVs or the like. If the only source one can use is a academic/laboratory profile page, that's not sufficient for not only NPROF, but BLP in general. We're also not a WP:NOT#WHOSWHO to simply list out all academics at an institution for example. --Masem (t) 18:04, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I have yet to see an example of the only source being a profile page. Certain interlocutors have declared that they will never consider such a page as evidence for notability. This is needless haranguing, in my book. jps (talk) 18:40, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I generally agree in that the profile pages cannot support notability as measured by the GNG but can be used to satisfy a criteria of NPROF. That can significantly help reduce bias, but the thing is, at this point, this is how the NPROF guideline should be used, so this should not be a change in practice. --Masem (t) 19:48, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

This is not the case. We allow university profiles to be considered reliable sources. We obviously don't consider them for the purposes of determining notability, because that would mean that everyone in a university faculty should have a wikipedia article. Natureium (talk) 19:03, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

A word about profiles. Profiles are accurate for the specific facts they give. They are not accurate for the description of the importance of the work; they are usually written by university or department PR staff, or the person himself under their guidance, in a quite standard format. They can be trusted for the schools they went to and the jobs they held and the prizes they were awarded--tho even here they are sometimes incomplete. What is much more reliable, even for facts, is the form CV. This is often linked from the profile page, or it can be found by searching the university website. Sometimes, but not often, they're in Google. Sometimes iti s impossible to find. If you can find it, it is absolutely reliable for the chronology of their life, education, positions, prizes,... But the current style is to include everything in these CVs--every public lecture, every class taught, every publication of any sort. They need to be trimmed to the ones that are important, just as in any other bio. SOmetimes the CV or even the univesity profile does show enough information for notability . If it says they hold a particular chair, they hold it, and they are notable. But of course it's not good WP style to leave it atthat--we look at least for their books, and most cited journal articles. We can describe their field of interest indirectly using them--"His books have been on the subjects of ..." "He received a prize for ...." , though prize awards tend to be written in extravagant language. The CV will list all their PhD and postdoc students--If they are notable with WP articles, they can be added. I usually add the title of their thesis.

The problem is for scientists whose periods of activity were from before the 1990s. Unless they are important enough to have an obit, the information can be very difficult to find. A list of all the holders of a named chair will prove the notability of everyone listed, but forthe earlier ones, it may be possible to write only very sketchy stubs--but stubs are permitted, if they show notability . DGG ( talk ) 20:30, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

If you think every university faculty member has an in-depth profile posted about them, you are mistaken. jps (talk) 19:57, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm university faculty, and I certainly don't have one! XOR'easter (talk) 20:18, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

That points to another problem - every university is different - some have departments handle profiles, others have central directories, and there are various thresholds for who to include in them. Its a strong reason for us not to rely on them at all. I don't care if an academic has a profile any more than I care if an executive at a company has one... notability is determined by independent sources. -- Netoholic @ 20:24, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Here is where I get to quote WP:RGW to you. If a university fails to profile their academics with biographies we can use as sources, that is not our fault. It's not a strong reason not to rely on those institutions which do provide us with high-quality sources. jps (talk) 21:51, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Read what I wrote. We obviously don't consider them for the purposes of determining notability, because that would mean that everyone in a university faculty should have a wikipedia article. Natureium (talk) 20:30, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Well, something is failing to parse here. It still reads to me as though you think that every university faculty member will have a profile (or should?). jps (talk) 21:54, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

My current issue with how the above sections have gone is that I see NPROF, as it outside of a couple terms, easily meeting the same expectations for the other SNGs, in that we are simply giving editors the right tools (in the form of verifiable criteria) that can be used to justify the creation of an article on an academic and give it the time it needs to be improved, but with the necessary ability to delete that in case the rebuttable presumption was wrong; whereas others seem to want these as absolutely inclusion allowances so that articles on academics can never be challenged. It is completely understandable that coming by sourcing for academics is thin and there needs to be the allowance to create articles on these criteria, and the criteria given seem a good amount of refined conditions that we are assured to be dealing with top level academics. It is just that we can't take those criteria as unchallengable, which is how every other SNG is presented. Treating the current NPROF as presumed notability isn't going to cause a mass rush of academic AFDs, but it does emphasis that editors should constantly seek to improve these articles. --Masem (t) 17:42, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

{Ping:Natureium} Not using university profile pages to determine notability can be understood in two ways: using the mere fact that a profile page exists as evidence of notability (that appears to be what you mean, and I agree that would be ludicrous), or using the factual statement on an official university profile page that one of the NPROF notability criteria is satisfied as indicating notability (which is what the original discussion, way back, was at least partially about), which I think is a reasonable criterium. Do you object to the second version as well, or just to the first? Markus Pössel (talk) 10:13, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

I tend to concur that perhaps PROF has outlived its usefulness as a distinct sub-guideline. The WP:PROF#Citation metrics section is useless advice - we cannot rely on editors to, using their own judgement not independent sources, look at the record of an academic's citations and make a notability determination. First of all, the suggested tools have their own quirks and are not publicly accessible, so it means that academic-Wikipedians who have access to those tools would drive the conversations. Second, there are also so many factors - broad discipline, specific focus, years active, country, etc. - that make any citation threshold impossible to compare with others to make a determination. The WP:PROF#Specific criteria notes is full of bloat, repetition, and hedging. The only thing left is the list of WP:PROF#Criteria, and those bullet points could be moved wholesale into WP:Notability (people). -- Netoholic @ 18:41, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Why don't we work on making the guideline more clear rather than just throwing it out? Natureium (talk) 19:04, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Academic Wikipedians being the ones who drive the conversation about academic biographies is roughly one eleven-billionth on my list of worries.

Google Scholar is free to use, and even with its known flaws, is often a viable tool for making a first rough estimation about whether an individual is highly influential, decidedly not influential, or in the gray area in between. For the fields where GS is not a helpful indicator, we often turn to book reviews, and the go-to place for those is JSTOR, which is free to search. If one editor finds a heap of book reviews, they can always post the links, even if they can't get through the paywall, and somebody else can follow up. These things are minor hassles, not grounds for overhauling or scrapping the whole guideline. XOR'easter (talk) 20:04, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Flip that around. Book reviews should be the first priority, as they are independent sources to establish notability. -- Netoholic @ 20:13, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

For some fields, they are the first priority; for others, they aren't. No one size fits all. XOR'easter (talk) 20:14, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't agree that the reason this guideline exists (or any notability-related guideline) is because "have had issues in the past with self-promotion".

I believe that the reason the notability guidelines exist is because articles that cannot comply with core policies (WP:NOT, WP:V, and WP:NPOV) are likely to eventually get deleted, and we want editors to have a fair chance at not wasting their time.

I have previously given several examples of articles that pass PROF and yet (currently) cite zero independent, secondary sources, but let me give you some more: John Adams (geographer) (all sources were written by the subject), Cara Aitchison (two webpages from two orgs, to prove that she held these positions), Reinhart Ahlrichs (employer's website, to prove he was employed there)... Let me note here that these are not necessarily unreliable sources for the statements that they're supporting, but none of them are both independent and secondary, and some of them do nothing more than show the subject's name in a list. This creates potentially serious NPOV problems. Take Adams: the second source is a letter to the editor that he wrote to The New Scientist, and which they didn't publish. How the heck are we supposed to know if mentioning this letter is WP:DUE or not? Even if we make a guess and decide that it's DUE, then how are we supposed to present that letter? Are we supposed to interpret it as evidence that he's accurately reporting a hole in The New Scientist's article, or that he's siding with climate change deniers, or that he's irritated that the magazine gave so much attention (and so little fact-checking effort) to a person who believes that some natural disasters due to climate change are vengeance from an angry deity? I don't know. Maybe after people have a chance to look at it, someone will figure it out and clean up the article. Or, you know, maybe delete it, on the grounds that we really have no way to figure out what's DUE when the only apparent sources are from the subject and his employer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:54, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, we probably could simplify it a little, but It is even now pretty clear, at least as compared with the interpretation of GNG or "presumed".. GNG depends upon the interpretation of a few key words substantial, "3rd party" "independent", "reliable" For any borderline or even reasonably disputed article, a person who understands how to argue at AfD can argue from these in either direction. There are no firm criteria for whether a source is substantial, or independent. If a person thinks the article should be in WP they argue one way, if not, the other, so we are basically judging independent of any guidelines. Here at least we have criteria: impact as judged by the field is the basic one,and the others are really just shortcuts or special cases. It is impossible to win a major prize without such impact, so it's a shortcut, it's impossible to get a named chair, so it's a shortcut, it's impossible to get into the National Academy of Science or become an APS Fellow without impact , so it's a convenient shortcut. There have been university presidents who are not scholars, so that's a special case. It's true that to discuss an article effectively, it's necessary to have some idea how the field works, but the same is true of every field. I can not distinguish one manga from another, so I let those who do, comment.Or if it's computer games, I recognize only the most famous, so if I comment accordingly I'm not being helpful.

Using GNG in this field would produce chaos. For every single AfD, we would find ourselves arguing whether the mention of one person in someone else's article is substantial, and whether the two people are actually independent. And we'd be doing this for every article in everyone's CV. I think that with enough work, I or another specialist in a field could show this for at least 1/10 of citations of any major journal article, so the standard would be 2 papers, with 10 or more citations each, which would qualify not just me, but all my professional friends. The practical criterion would be if there were enough people with access to sources to do the work, so we'd be throwing out everyone in any specialized field that still depends upon print. (Now, if we were to adopt such a rule, I'd abandon the topic area and so would everyone else sensible, for the amount of work would be excessive.) So our coverage would be based on fads, prejudice, and special interesest. I think the people trying to push their various particular causes might be very satisfied. DGG ( talk ) 20:06, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation as to why this field is one that is deserving of special handling compared to any other biographies. Is it that Wikipedia still has the intellectual inferiority complex present from its early years? Do we feel like we have to cater to and reduces our standards for academics in order to feel they respect our work? I think now the shoe is on the other foot, and academics are starting to come to depend on Wikipedia... and they want special, reduced standards for inclusion that far less-privileged professions do not enjoy. -- Netoholic @ 20:18, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I promise you, academics are not depending on Wikipedia, and insinuating some sort of binary conflict as you are doing here is pretty crass. Plenty of academics have been involved in this website since its inception. jps (talk) 20:28, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

What exactly is the problem with NPROF? Are you trying to say that women that should qualify as notable don't? This is not the case. While it may not be possible to use these guidelines to compare the notability of a woman in plant biology and a man in medieval history, within fields, the criteria apply the same to men and women. The problem is not with the guidelines, but with the subjects that people are choosing to create articles on. There are plenty of women that pass NPROF and do not have an article. Natureium (talk) 20:22, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I submit that the question of "notability" when it comes to this issue is misplaced. We need a system that discourages the removal of content that is inoffensive except that it seems to violate second-level guidelines. You might disagree with me that this is actually going on, but this is essentially what I see happening. jps (talk) 20:28, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Exactly. prominent recent example takes requests by twitter - how is that a reasonable way to proceed? The articles they are making aren't even to fill in "red links" - as most of the subjects never had incoming links in the first place, and still don't have any significant ones - just recently-added links from their university or even just first/last name DAB pages.[11] I am not one to tell people what they should work on - hell I wrote articles about three Bionic TV movies - but I think we're setting inclusion expectations out in the academic sphere that are unreasonable. -- Netoholic @ 20:32, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Are you saying that the standards are unreasonable because of a subject of an article complaining on Twitter? If so, it may be time to table the discussion. WP:BLP complaints from the perspective of inclusion and exclusion have been problematic since Wikipedia started. jps (talk) 20:36, 5 May 2019 (UTC)\

RfC about independent sources for academic notability (withdrawn)

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Withdrawn by opener. Restarted below with clearer question. -- Netoholic @ 19:57, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

---

Should the criteria listed on Wikipedia:Notability (academics) be exempt from the general Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Verifiability requirement to use independent sources? -- Netoholic @ 22:31, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the question by beginning a new line in this subsection with *'''Exempt''' or *'''Not exempt''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons.

• Not exempt - The core policy page at WP:V#Notability says that If no reliable independent sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it and further up under WP:SOURCES it says Articles must be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Certainly, non-independent sources can be used in an article, but for the sole purpose of deciding if something is "notable", we need evidence from the outside world that they have "noted" it. -- Netoholic @ 22:31, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
• It depends: For purely objective statements of fact, such as job title, No (not required). (A very high academic rank can sometimes confer presumed notability.) For anything subjective, such as significance of work, Yes, independent sources should be required. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:36, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Tryptofish, I may be mistaken, but it seems to me like you are mixing things up. The question is about should we have an article/WP:N, you seem to comment on should this info be in an existing article/WP:UNDUE. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:16, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Not that it really matters at this point, but here is what I mean. We might determine that a person is notable, based largely on the fact that she is the Super-Distinguished Engelbert Humperdinck University Professor at her university. We can reliably determine that this is her job title by citing the university website. That website might not be entirely independent of the person, but it could be sufficient to keep the page at an AfD. On the other hand, a claim that "she has revolutionized thinking in her field" is a subjective one, and would require independent sourcing if it were to be used to assert presumed notability. So I'm not commenting on due weight, but on determining notability using this SNG. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:02, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

• RfC is meaningless. Independent sources are already used to assess notability in WP:Prof#C1. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:42, 6 May 2019 (UTC).
  • Its only explicitly stated on that one, implying that the rest are exempt from that and don't need either independent or reliable sources. That's the main confusion and the reason for the RfC. -- Netoholic @ 22:45, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

That is only so in your own mind. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:15, 7 May 2019 (UTC).

• Not a suitable RfC. The question as posed is not a real question, it is an exercise in begging the question. --JBL (talk) 23:58, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
  • P.S. @Netoholic: if you want help drafting a proper RfC, I’d be happy to help. —JBL (talk) 13:23, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
• Badly worded RFC that pre-assumes Netoholic's idiosyncratic take on sourcing requirements. Verifiability is a requirement. It is a different requirement from notability, though, so asking whether a notability guideline should be exempt from it is like asking whether the rule that people should not write autobiographies is exempt from the Manual of Style. Articles are not exempt from WP:V but WP:V does not apply to notability guidelines. It's a type error to ask whether it does. The wording that the sources must be "independent" was added only recently to WP:V and, in the case of some basic information about academics (like their job titles and whether they have received certain awards) is a misconceived effort that treats the letter of the wording of WP:V as more important than its spirit. The reason we want sources to be independent, in most cases, is to make them trustworthy. But in the case of whether someone is a distinguished professor or a fellow of a society or similar claims, publications by the university or society that provides that title are more trustworthy than publications by journalists copying press releases, not less. Note that Netoholic, the initiator of this discussion, appears to believe that all academic sources are non-independent by virtue of being written by academics about academics, and that only non-academic sources can be truly independent. (Netoholic's odd views on sourcing may also be seen in the facts that he used the existence of a Who's Who entry as a rationale for a keep !vote on one academic AfD, and attempted to add a Daily Mail article as a source on another academic BLP up for AfD.) So keep this in mind when you see the word "independent" in the RFC wording. Netoholic has been incessantly haranguing discussions all over Wikipedia on this topic, his views do not reflect any outcomes of any actual Wikipedia deletion discussions. Nor have we seen any case where strict enforcement of Netoholic's views on independence would lead to a better outcome for the encyclopedia. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:03, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

  Apart from the minor change of "third-party" to "independent" - the line has been ever-present in the WP:V policy since 2006. "Independent" has been part of WP:N since 2006. -- Netoholic @ 00:15, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

• Not a suitable RfC per JBL. This is a pointed waste of time. — Bilorv (he/him) _(talk) 01:36, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
• Not a suitable RfC. The desired outcome of this push poll is apparently to institutionalize the error that kept the draft on Donna Strickland out of mainspace, earning our entire project ridicule. XOR'easter (talk) 02:05, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
• Admonish Netoholic for opening a bad-faith RfC Please close this bad-faith RfC. ElKevbo (talk) 02:37, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
• Not a suitably framed RFC Also, sampling the preceding discussion on this talkpage, at least some of the confusion is over the question of what sources to regard as 'independent' rather than over whether independent sources are needed or not. These questions require some real-world knowledge and nuance and it is not useful to treat them as a black-or-white issue. For example, I'd regard this press-release as a perfectly reliable and independent (of the article subject) source sufficient to establish notability of the 125 listed persons. A similar press release by 'Podunk Chamber of Awards' would be neither. Press-releases and university webpages of the subject's institution would fall somewhere in between depending upon the institution, particular form of the source, and the claim being sourced. This is often best judged on a case-by-case basis (use RSN or NPOVN, when needed). This RFC does not in my opinion frame the relevant issues well or neutrally, and is not conducive to settling, or even progressing, the discussion. Recommend that it be closed early. Abecedare (talk) 02:49, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
• For an academic's professional biography, is it sufficient independence to have a couple of independent sources that discuss the researcher's work. This is not a question of "exemption" but "interpretation". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:55, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
• This is a meaningless question. No article is exempt from core policies, but they don't apply to a list of criteria on a guideline page (how could they?). There is nothing in core policies that disallows the appropriate use of non-independent sources. I also agree that this becoming seriously disruptive, Netoholic: you have expounded your viewpoint repeatedly, at length, in multiple discussions, and seen that it has very little support. Tossing out an RfC with the same points again does not come across as a good faith effort to build consensus. – Joe (talk) 06:37, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
• Not a suitable RfC: this cannot be framed as a yes/no question, so not surprising that only the author of the RfC could give that sort of answer... And the wording of the question completely ignores all the discussion on the topic over the past few days. This editor does not seem to be trying to build consensus, but is just repeating the same points over and over again. Egaudrain (talk) 07:13, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
• BAD FAITH RfC: Please see WP:Write for the enemy. Withdraw this dreck. jps (talk) 12:31, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
• Not exempt I don't have any problem with including an independence guideline for these criteria per the general notes. We have several self-fulfilling guidelines here - an additional source should be required for verification. (Keep in mind I also have a huge issue with the line of text in the academic notability guidelines: "Conversely, failure to meet either the general notability guideline or other subject-specific notability guidelines is irrelevant if an academic is notable under this guideline." If you fail the WP:GNG, especially as a WP:BLP, you should not have an article on this site. What this article should instead do is explain how various academic sources satisfy WP:GNG as opposed to claiming a blanket exemption for it.) SportingFlyer T·C 12:55, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

I actually agree with this, with the caveat that the websites of academic journals, learned societies, and granting and awarding bodies are understood as independent and reliable sources with respect to individual academics, and that university websites are sufficient sourcing to grant the presumption of Notability on NPROF 5 and 6. Newimpartial (talk) 15:48, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: Of course this caveat is exactly what the opener of this RfC rejects. A properly posed RfC would test that question explicitly. --JBL (talk) 16:49, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

If this guideline were to accept that independent sources are required, then we can discusswhether any specific type of source is independent enough. Contrary to JBL's misstatement of my concern, that is not the core problem. In reality, it is things like CVs, faculty profiles, and other sources very closely-tied to the academic (and almost always written by them) that is the problem - some accept them as reliable to support PROF criteria, but these sources are clearly not independent. My hope is that this RfC will convince them that only independent sources should be used to support a claim of notability. -- Netoholic @ 18:27, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

In my view, "faculty profiles" published by the subject (or agents thereof) are not to be considered RS, but those published by respectable academic institutions most certainly are, per USESELF, as noted above. Newimpartial (talk) 18:32, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

• Inappropriate question - WP:V does not require independent sources. (WP:V) discusses independent and reliable sources separately. If a reliable source - e.g., a university's press release - says "X is Provost" that's a reliable, but not independent source. Just like when a company announces a new CEO, we don't say "nope, not an independent source, can't use it.) Guettarda (talk) 15:54, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
• Procedural close, malformed RfC question – Per my colleagues above; the question is based on a faulty premise. WP:V doesn't require independent sources, and guidelines like WP:N don't actually require anything, as they're guidelines and not policies. In terms of what's "best practice", NPROF shouldn't require independent sources, because many NPROF criteria (like academic rank) can be verified with non-independent sources. While we're here, the recent insertion of the word "independent" into WP:V should be reverted, IMO, as it's contributing to this confusion. Leviv ich 16:16, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

  FYI, I've reverted the recent changes to WP:V (including adding "independent") and restored the longstanding (2011) version, with an explanation at WT:V#Reverted to status quo. Leviv ich 18:26, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

  FYI 2: Netoholic has reverted my reversion, reinstating the "independent" language to WP:V that was added a month ago. Discussion is at the talk page link above. Leviv ich 18:45, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

• Admonish Netoholic This sort of thing wastes time and causes confusion when not done properly. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:30, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

• Question - What does this RfC actually mean? For criteria 2 through 4 and 7-8, for example, I don't see how it could be asserted that a subject of an article met the criterion without a reliable source independent of the subject, but the scholarly society, publisher or awarding body would be by definition independent of the individual scholar concerned so I don't see how the issue would arise. Would an editor actually assert such a thing without supporting evidence, or with only the scholar's personal website as evidence? I hope not!
  For criteria 5 and 6 I can see how the issue might appear to arise, but per the explanatory supplement WP:USESPS, using the "website for a company to support claims about itself or its employees" is listed as an "acceptable" use of SPS for BLP, so I don't see why such sources would not be acceptable to document criteria 5 and/or 6 of NPROF being met. [[WP:NONBURO|Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy].
  But since the RfC question does not seem to make sense, when construed in this way, I must surely be missing something. Newimpartial (talk) 23:23, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

  This is a really a malformed RFC. WP:V and WP:N are two very different P&G on WP, so it's not fair to ask the question as applying to both. --Masem (t) 23:26, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

  Indeed. Some editors on this page (see discussions above) have suggested that things like faculty profiles themselves are sufficient evidence for meeting notability if they state something that complies with one of the listed Criteria here. WP:USESPS means that such sources can be used (to expand on a topic) but per the WP:N and WP:V, only independent sources count for proving notability of that topic. -- Netoholic @ 23:57, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Aren't there two kinds of faculty profiles though? Ones published by the employer (but not personal websites) would be RS for 5 and 6, AFAICT. For 2-4 and 7-8, though, the source would be the sponsoring society or journal publisher or award sponsor. Isn't that right, or am I missing something?

Also, and not to Wikilawyer, but while simple assertions of the importance of the contributions of academic staff by a university, such as press releases, would not count towards WP:N, I don't see why USESPS institutional sources could not be used to document NPROF 5 and 6 claims, since they are considered RS for this purpose and are within the NBIO carveout from the otherwise strict requirements of USESPS. It is the role itself that establishes the presumption of notability, and the source authoritatively documents the role. Newimpartial (talk) 00:06, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Evidence from other P&Gs

As some think this that this is somehow "malformed", I should point out that language to this effect is present in WP:Notability and almost every subject-specific notability guideline, as well as core policy pages WP:Verifiabilty, and WP:No original research. The intent is clear - for the purposes of demonstrating notability, independent sources are a requirement:

• WP:Verifiability#Notability: "If no reliable independent sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."
• WP:No original research#Using sources: "If no reliable independent sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article about it."
• WP:Notability#Notability requires verifiable evidence: "The common theme in the notability guidelines is that there must be verifiable, objective evidence that the subject has received significant attention from independent sources to support a claim of notability."
• WP:Notability (people): "People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject."
• WP:Notability (astronomical objects): "If an astronomical object meets any of the following criteria, supported through independent reliable sources, it probably qualifies for a stand-alone article."
• WP:Notability (events)#Inclusion criteria: Refers largely to WP:GNG
• WP:Notability (films)#Other evidence of notability: "In almost all cases, a thorough search for independent, third-party reliable sources will be successful for a film meeting one or more of these criteria."
• WP:Notability (geographic features): Refers largely to WP:GNG
• WP:Notability (music): Independent sources are required under WP:BAND, WP:NALBUMS, WP:FUTUREALBUMS, WP:NSONG, and WP:NCONCERT; and lack of independent sources indicate #If the subject is not notable.
• WP:Notability (organizations and companies)#Primary criteria: "A company, corporation, organization, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject." This is further expanded in under #Independent sources: "A primary test of notability is whether unrelated people with no vested interest in the subject have actually considered the company, corporation, product or service notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial, non-routine works that focus upon it."
• WP:Notability (sports)#Basic criteria: "A person is presumed to be notable if they have been the subject of multiple published non-trivial secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject."
• Wikipedia:Notability (web)#Criteria: "Keeping in mind that all articles must conform with the policy on verifiability to reliable sources, and that non-independent and self-published sources alone are not sufficient to establish notability"

The last two subject-specific guidelines (WP:Notability (books)#Criteria, WP:Notability (numbers)) do not emphasize independent sources and may be worth discussing after this RfC concludes. In short, in order to know if something is notable, we rely on independent sources that note that thing. As WP:Notability (academics) is a notability guideline, it s primary purpose is presenting criteria for Wikipedia to retain an article on a topic - other non-independent sources can of course be used, but that is not within the mandate of a notability guideline. An exception to this long-standing, self-evident, standard of practice for determining notability on Wikipedia should not be granted to this, or any, any set of topics. -- Netoholic @ 18:19, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

I am serious that if you want to run an RfC to test the key questions here that isn't going to have 12 of the first 15 votes saying it's not a proper RfC, I would be very happy to work on the wording of it with you -- leave a note on my talk page. But this one is not going anywhere, and opening new discussion sections is not going to help. --JBL (talk) 18:40, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

In theory, this RFC should be a no-brainer because of course PROF should not be an outlier compared to other notability guidelines, right? The responses in the RfC should be all "not exempt, but let's discuss what it means to be independent in these circumstances". I am worried that so many of those "malformed RfC" votes are from self-described academics themselves (based on statements on their user pages). It feels like a conflict of interest. Imagine if a group of sportspeople started to drive discussions on WP:NSPORTS to remove the fundamental requirement for independent sources to support claims of notability - it would be a scandal. -- Netoholic @ 19:01, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

If you want to run an RfC to test the key questions here that isn't going to have 12 of the first 15 votes saying it's not a proper RfC, I would be very happy to work on the wording of it with you -- leave a note on my talk page. If you want to test the argument that academics have an inherent COI regarding this, that would be a completely different question; it is much too silly to interest me, and you should see also this. --JBL (talk) 19:09, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Motion to close

Given the overwhelming feedback that the RfC is not a useful one, I propose that we close it now. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:56, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

• Close per WP:SNOW. Leviv ich 19:01, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
• Close Yes, please. XOR'easter (talk) 19:36, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.