Talk:Melanie Wood

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This article was previously considered for deletion. The consensus was keep. An archived record of the discussion can be found here.


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How come people keep removing her from Category:American mathematicians? —Keenan Pepper 15:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

They shouldn't. I suppose the situation might be a mite confusing as her notability is mostly for other reasons, but she definitely fits in the category as she is an actual researcher. Winners of the Morgan prize do work that is already at a professional level; in Wood's case, she's already published one paper on some of her undergraduate work and though recent, it's already been cited several times by well-known mathematicians. This is all presupposing that the removal is due to the idea that the category is for professional research mathematicians only, something that is debatable.
The page needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher quality though. --C S (Talk) 16:56, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, she is an actual researcher, and her work shows promise. But while one paper with three citations over two years (MathSciNet) is a good start, it doesn't automatically entitle the author to a category that has only about 200 entries, mostly legends. Perhaps Young Mathematicians is a better fit. Or we could wait a few years :) 68.162.47.112 14:36, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Entitle? I think you are confused as to the purpose of categories on Wikipedia. A category is not designed to be an "award" or "honor"; it is simply a way to categorize articles. Such categorizing is for rather prosaic reasons, such as for people working on cleanup and various editorial guidelines. The number of entries is irrelevant. --C S (Talk) 00:34, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
As further examples of how categories work, note that she is also listed in other categories such as "Women mathematicians", "Living people", and "Indianapolitans". Obviously, there are many people in these categories more famous than her, but that's not a justifiable reason to not include her, as she is also obviously a member of these groups. --C S (Talk) 00:49, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Well said, Chan-Ho. —Keenan Pepper 02:40, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I see. I didn't know that diligent Wikipedians were working on cleaning up all articles on living people, but that's not the topic here. Considering that the other two Morgan prize winners who have articles on them are also listed as American Mathematicians, it is perhaps best to be consistent. 68.162.47.112 03:04, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Importance

I don't think one paper is enough to make a mathematician notable, unless that paper was remarkable itself. Have any other published papers cited the one written by Melanie Wood? Google scholar gives 3 citations, one of which one is a preprint. I've nominated this article to be checked for its importance tagged this article as not establishing the notability of its subject. Maybe there's something I'm missing. Joeldl 15:52, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

As clearly mentioned in the lead, she has set numerous firsts as a woman in mathematics. This has led to media coverage which is more extensive for something like this than you might expect, as partly indicated by some of the external links. If you Google her you will see some more, although there is some MAA stuff I can't seem to find online. --C S (Talk) 19:13, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Who would you say is an academic who has been the subject of an AfD debate and was kept, and is less notable or equally notable to Melanie Wood? Joeldl 21:19, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
You can try to AFD this article (I'm getting a strong feeling you have an urge to do so), but I'm certain it will be an overwhelming keep. There are much less notable people kept daily on Wikipedia, if that's what you wanted to know. The bar for inclusion is not very high. See WP:Notability for example. It's clear that Melanie Wood meets it, so I think it's highly doubtful an AFD would result in a delete. --C S (Talk) 22:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
By the way, you are trying to compare someone who is notable for being an academic to one who is notable for having been in the press (mostly for her math competitive resuls). A simple way to put it is that the set of people on Wikipedia ordered by "notability" is a poset. For example, who is more notable: a guy famous for eating a lot of hotdogs or the inventor of an artificial heart? --C S (Talk) 22:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree that people who have been widely mentioned in the press for minor achievements are acceptable. "Takeru Kobayashi" "hot dog" gets 38,000 hits on google, not to mention that there might be hits in Japanese I'm not getting. I've seen reports on TV about this guy, and in the mainstream press. "Melanie Wood" "math" gets 540 hits, and the publications mentioned seem marginal, especially the Duke University thing. They are not widely read. I think that the point is that for academics, the bar is set much lower for public name recognition. If a person doesn't qualify as an academic or for another special reason, you can include them for "being famous", but it seems doubtful to me whether that's the case here. Joeldl 12:17, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

You can doubt it, and so can I, for that matter. It's been a learning experience seeing what the community at large considers worth keeping over the last couple years. There's definitely been shifts in focus. I don't even agree to a large extent on WP:Notability, but it seems to have a lot of support. --C S (Talk) 23:45, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Length

This article is disproportionately long, especially compared to articles on legends like Bombieri and Bourgain. I agree that the subject is notable, but an entire section on childhood, another on college years and a third on trivia borders on the ludicrous. Six sentences suffice. 72.79.88.51 05:19, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

It is a shame that those articles are not longer and more detailed; however, there are plenty of articles on "trivial" matters (and even people) that are longer. Removing content, such as some personal details and her work with MathCounts, because you are disturbed that some other more important article (in your eyes) is not as long is not acceptable rationale. Yet I would agree this article needs trimming and editing, as I have said before. Removing everything that is not sourced in one of the links would not only be appropriate but do a great deal to trim the article and make this less like a "hagiography". --C S (Talk) 05:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Even worse, I'm surprised this article is longer than the ones on Brian Conrad, Hendrik Lenstra, and even Israel Gelfand. In your claim on "trivial" matters or people, those are of an entirely different ball game. How could one compare a mathematician with, say, a cup stacker? However, the above user's (72.79.88.51) comparison is quite rightful: we're comparing mathematicians here, and no one would doubt that many who've done much more prominent work have a much less detailed article. Something is definitely wrong here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.169.41.37 (talk) 03:38, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
A cup stacker was not what I was thinking of. Consider that every minor Pokemon character has an article. Or that people that get several small mentions in national newspapers frequently get their own articles. It is very easy to compare this kind of example to a mathematician article. If you look around Wikipedia, you will see many such examples. You will see many cases of important topics that have far fewer words than those on less important topics. The wordage per article is just a function of volunteers who have decided to spend their time accordingly. Let me ask you a question. Instead of writing your comment or writing about anime series, why not spend that time improving the article on Brian Conrad? You can't really say there's something wrong here when you are in fact part of the "problem".
I only respond on this talk page as a help toward people new to Wikipedia, but I have to admit this is getting rather tiring and pointless. The state of affairs you describe is basically a function of people, for example, creating those Pokemon articles. From my viewpoint, all the complaints on this talk page are rather hypocritical. I've hardly edited this article, and I've spent a considerable amount of time adding substantive mathematics and creating and lengthening articles on famous mathematicians. I doubt anybody complaining has contributed anywhere near this kind of substance. There are people that add a lot of miscellaneous stuff to Wikipedia. You don't like that. Fine. But a lot of other people (like me) add a lot of stuff you would probably consider substantial. That's how Wikipedia works, and the things I did, like removing the importance tag, were to uphold the normal standards and practices. Rather than complain, contribute. If you don't like Wikipedia, don't use it. And finally, please realize that you are taking up the time of people like me before you complain further. Basically, in the time I took to respond to you, I could have written some more mathematics or improved a mathematican bio (as I am wont to do), but I don't really have the time or energy for it now --C S 01:03, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Interestingly, you've chosen to blame me for spending time on your incoherently long article when a much shorter (and not to mention more polite) reply would have sufficed - who's being hypocritical here? And on what grounds do you claim that Pokemon is less noteworthy than a mathematician? Just because you don't like it (not that I do, but what you're suggesting smacks of intellectual arrogance)? As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure this individual passes the test for notability, but even if she does, does it justify having personal fans adding numerous bits on her childhood and whatnot?
Imagine the mess which would result if every mathematics graduate student has a personal bio-info page on wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.120.68.73 (talk) 12:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
For your information, I've created two pages on mathematical subject (not mathematician, but actual topics) and contributed to countless more. So there, yes I've done my share, and I'm not part of the "problem". Continue blaming others for your behaviour if you please, but I'm not sure it'll get you anywhere.