Talk:Peter L. Hurd/Archive

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have started this page as I believe this academic is notable and passes WP:PROF. I will fill in remaining details such as date of birth etc. When I find the relevant information. R:128.40.76.3 16:52, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

Please see Talk:Digit ratio for discussion. Pan Dan 12:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050309132535.htm

My recent excision removed this source. I don't necessarily think it should be put back. It was "adapted from a news release issued by University Of Alberta." Pan Dan 12:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comments and discussion

First, thanks to DGG for restoring the small bit of content I had previously added.[1] I should note that DGG's edit summary is only half-right: I did add that content, but I didn't accidentally delete it. That was DGG.[2]

Now on to substance. The users whose usernames begin with R and A have created here a beautiful webpage for Prof. Hurd. It lists his most cited publications, with citation counts. It lists his research interests. It's even got a section for fellowships and awards. But there's a problem: this is Wikipedia, not a University of Alberta website, and Peter L. Hurd is supposed to be an encyclopedia article not Prof. Hurd's webpage. The reason it reads like Prof. Hurd's webpage is, of course, that it is largely sourced to Prof. Hurd's webpage. Some of the material that is not sourced to his webpage includes original research listing citation counts (Google is not a reliable source) and apparent original research listing under "Fellowships and Awards" Prof. Hurd's membership at the Centre for Neuroscience (even Prof. Hurd's external webpage doesn't describe the membership that way).

I removed the offending content, citing WP:NOT, WP:NPOV and WP:OR. My removal was reverted citing only a lack of discussion. So let's discuss it. Are there reasons why the content does not offend our policies? Pan Dan 19:19, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Pan Dan is right about the citation counts. Without a reliable citation they should be removed. Where did they come from? --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 00:43, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

They come from Web of Science, as usual. I think it says so. I'll check. That's the most reliable secondary source. there is no way of specifying a specific search like there is in Google. DGG 03:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Neither Web of Science nor Google is a source. Each is a search engine, or a database of sources.

This original research on Prof. Hurd's publications would be a superb addition to his webpage, but not to a Wikipedia article. Pan Dan 13:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The science citation index is not a source? you're joking, right? So if I were to add John Maynard Smith's h-index to his biography, you think that would be an instantly deletable WP:OR violation of WP:BLP unless I found it reported in a newspaper article or some such? What about the non-contentious rule of WP:V, to say nothing of "If the rules prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore them. Pete.Hurd 14:39, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The science citation index is not a source?

It's a source, but so am I. Neither is published.

You're joking, right?

I try occasionally, but I'm not that funny.

So if I were to add John Maynard Smith's h-index to his biography, you think that would be an instantly deletable WP:OR

It's a canonical example of OR unless previously published.

violation of WP:BLP

No, but it could be construed as (non-self-)promotional (the mirror image of a BLP violation).

What about the non-contentious rule of WP:V

DGG's original research is not even self-published, so that escape hatch doesn't apply.

to say nothing of "If the rules prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore them.

Invoking IAR here is both out-of-place (as my concerns are not wikilawyering, but based on both the spirit and letter of core Wikipedia policies) and question-begging (why do you think Wikipedia is improved by adding original research that could be construed as promotional to a Wikipedia page?). Note, I'm not disparaging DGG's research; it's just that a Wikipedia page is not the place to put it. Pan Dan 15:21, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

What are you talking, about the science citation index is not published?! I donno, DGG correct me if I'm wrong, did they stop printing it on paper and putting it in libraries? It certainly was the most frequently used reference text of my academic life in the late 1980s, it was big and printed on paper and held a place of some prominence in science libraries, but you're telling me that if it only exists on-line that it has ceased to qualify as a reliable source?! What you are suggesting is so far removed from common sense that I can't better description for it than "wikilawyering" Pete.Hurd 15:52, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I certainly wouldn't want to claim that a source that is OK on paper is not OK when it goes online. To compare, do you think Google is an OK source (e.g. is "Search term X gets Y Google hits" original research)? Pan Dan 18:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

"Search term X gets Y Google hits" isn't original research, but that's not to say that it belongs in article space. Original research is putting forth novel arguments (that do not have notable existence outside of WP) into wikipedia articles. Original research is writing an article saying "foo is bar" when the view that foo is bar isn't made in the real world by people whose expertise is foo or bar. Editors conducting research to support or reject the veracity or notability of an article is not what WP:NOR is about. Saying that the SCI is off limits to editors writing articles is like saying that WP can only reflect secondary sources, that's just not reasonable. For instance, if I add a line to the biography of Robert Trivers saying that he published a paper called "The evolution of reciprocal altruism" in the Quarterly Review of Biology, then it's just not WP:OR if I go and look up the paper in the Q. Rev. Biol. to get that information, which would be what you were arguing,that looking things up in the World of Science to get their citation counts as WP:OR. Pete.Hurd 19:08, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Pan, I'm afraid that you're going to have to accept being outnumbered here. There is no way that using the citation index counts as OR, since its not O (original to the wikipedia author). The other objection you seem to be pushing is that it doesn't count as a reliable source. This will be hard to defend, since it is used in thousands of tenure/promotion decisions at universities around the country. I'd dare say that more real decisions are made on the basis of this index than on the basis of any particular academic journal. Finally, it seems that you think the article is biased because it puts Pete in a positive light. This is of course strange, is Pol Pot biased because it puts him in a negative light? You're claiming that we should not include relevant material because it makes Pete look like a good guy. I find it hard to figure out why you want less information in the article. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 19:21, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

On the index citations being original research, I admit I probably have been thinking about it the wrong way. There is still a promotional aspect to it that bothers me; why is a Wikipedia page an appropriate place to list citation counts?

On the article being POV, you appear to misunderstand what NPOV means. It does not mean giving equal weight to positive and negative views of a subject. It means giving fair representation to all independent views of the subject. I gather that the vast majority of independent treatments of Pol Pot are negative; hence Pol Pot should be largely negative if it gives fair representation to outside sources. There appear to be zero independent treatments of Prof. Hurd; hence it doesn't even make sense to talk of "fair representation" in this case; there are no independent sources to give fair representation to. That's what I mean when I say a NPOV article is impossible here.

If an article like this is deemed to pass NPOV, then I could construct a similar article on any university professor, notable or not, sourced only to his university webpage and a database of journal articles. The only bar to including such an article would be WP:PROF, which is only a guideline. Pan Dan 20:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

That's what I mean when I say a NPOV article is impossible here... If an article like this is deemed to pass NPOV, do you realize that I could construct a similar article on any university professor, notable or not, sourced only to his university webpage and to Web of Science? So what are you suggesting we do here? It sounds to me like you want the article deleted. I invite you to nominate it for deletion, or to discuss changes in WP:PROF that would result in its deletion. But, until then, we need to make the best article we can. Given that this article will not be deleted, you have not given us any reason no to use the citation index. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 20:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I have given a reason not to use it, it's promotional.

If we actually enforce WP:NPOV and are left with a stub here, I see 3 options, not all involving deletion, see Talk:Digit ratio.[3] Pan Dan 20:56, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Pan, I am now finding it almost impossible to assume good faith on your part. This seems clearly to be a campaign against WP:PROF. If so, take that up elsewhere. Even if its not, you are outnumbered 3:1 here, and so I'm afraid the citations are going to stay. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 22:03, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

On WP:POINT, please understand that someone (in this case me) advancing an idea about applying our policies that conflicts with others' ideas, is not "disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point." In fact it's not disrupting Wikipedia period.

On WP:PROF, you appear not to have read the diff that I provided for you, because you groundlessly suggest that I'm on a "campaign against WP:PROF." If you read that diff, you will see that a revision of WP:PROF is implied by only one out of the three options that I laid out there, and I didn't endorse any of them.

Finally, could I get your opinion on the part of the article (most of it) that is sourced to the university webpage? (As far as I can tell, you haven't expressed an opinion on that yet. Sorry if you have and I missed it.) Pan Dan 12:25, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I read it. Your three "options" which you use to argue your neutrality with respect to WP:PROF are not really options. Two of them have the flavor of reductio ad absurdum, which provide an argument in favor of what I take your real aim of modifying PROF. My apologies if I have misunderstood, but I take reducing this article (or any article) to nothing as being unacceptable. Either way here's how the argument is going: You say WP:NPOV requires something which entails that this article is either deleted or reduced to nothing. We say two things (1) there is no precedence for your interpretation of NPOV and (2) if an interpretation of NPOV requires reducing any article to nothing, it is inherently a bad interpretation of NPOV. The impasse is that you find it acceptable to reduce this article to nothing and we don't. I'm afraid there is nothing more to do. If you feel like we are being biased, perhaps you could solicit opinions at Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view.

I think sourcing the University webpage is fine. We trust academics to tell the truth, even when doing so helps their own careers (for instance, every single publication they produce). Since wikipedia trusts academic's publications, I see no reason why we shouldn't trust an academics webpage. Add to that the fact that lying on a CV carries relatively serious consequences for a Professor, I take it to be appropriate. Of course, if there is disagreement, that should be noted. In addition, if a claim seems particularly likely to be false then perhaps we should be suspicious. But I think the presumption should be in favor of the faculty's page. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 18:25, 26 June 2007 (UTC)