This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mathematics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of mathematics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MathematicsWikipedia:WikiProject MathematicsTemplate:WikiProject Mathematicsmathematics articles
60 percent of Career section on Epstein is UNDUE[edit]
It's not immediately obvious what to cut out, since without the extensive quote from the email the material in the article would rise from possibly interesting information to tendentious potential slander. But the status quo is no good. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 22:42, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A further problem is WP:OR. The information on Gross has not been discussed in any RS, only an op-ed in the Harvard Crimson. The long quotation from an email about Gross does not appear there. Most importantly there is no indication that Gross did anything wrong here. He had his ideas, passed them up the chain of command to people in a position to decide whether the reputational issues with Epstein were important enough to avoid business with him, and they decided against it. This is the normal procedure and nobody has publicly stated (in RS)that Gross did anything wrong by proposing fundraising from Epstein in a bureaucratic but open environment with plenty of opportunity for the proposal to be refused. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 08:42, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly agree with this perspective. Gross is notable for his career as a mathematician and this has little to nothing to do with that. His name appears once in an op-ed in a college newspaper. I suggest that this part of the article be removed. 73.15.120.161 (talk) 18:52, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Gross is not only notable as a researcher, he is also highly notable as an administrator. I think the information is clearly both reliable and relevant. Gumshoe2 (talk) 19:10, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It seems odd to me that if he is highly notable as an administrator, the only nontrivial content on his page is about a discussion for whether to pursue funding from Epstein while he was Chair (a rotating position) and that it was only covered in the Crimson. Does this not run afoul of UNDUE? As a note, this is a non-rhetorical question. While I've lurked some talk pages in the past, I am not an active editor (as you can probably tell from my anon handle). I was VERY surprised to see how much of this page was devoted to content about Epstein when I stumbled into it and even more surprised when my edit was quickly reverted. Should anyone who's name co-occurs with Epstein in any newspaper have a section about that interaction? I appreciate anything you can do to help educate me on the issue.73.15.120.161 (talk) 19:48, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes, I think it would be highly appropriate for the page to also include that he is/was on Board of Trustees of Institute for Advanced Study, Board of Directors at Scripps Research, Executive Committee of International Mathematical Union, etc. Anyway, Gross' name may not appear in many newspaper accounts, but Epstein's relationship with Harvard and particularly Nowak has been widely discussed and critiqued in media, and it is clearly reliable information that Gross was highly relevant to that in his administrative activities. It is not simply the case that Gross and Epstein's names both appear in the same article. But anyway I do think that Gross' page should contain much more information about his important research activities; unfortunately I do not have the necessary expertise to add it myself. Gumshoe2 (talk) 20:06, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it is clearly stated anywhere that "Gross was highly relevant to that in his administrative activities." I certainly don't see that in any reliable secondary source. My understanding is that WP:BLP provides different standards for biographies of living people. In particular, WP:NPF makes clear that editors should "exercise restraint and include only material relevant to the person's notability." While you and I both know Gross (full disclosure, I am related to Gross. I assume you know him based on the pages you have edited), I think we can agree that he is not a household name. Given that guidance and the fact that the event in question is only covered briefly in one Crimson op-ed, I think it is inappropriate to include discussion of this event in the article.73.15.120.161 (talk) 01:19, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
After a little back-and-forth, in which the material was shortened, User:Cullen328 removed this material altogether because its only source was primary (a Harvard internal report). I agree with this reason for this removal. Additionally, the only other source I could find in a quick search was a student newspaper editorial, also not a good source for a BLP. We can consider adding it back only if reliable secondary sources detailing Gross's role in the affair can be found. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:28, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the summary David Eppstein. I'll add that there was some additional discussion of the issue at [[1]] in case that is helpful context for folks.73.15.120.161 (talk) 02:01, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, to my understanding the source in question is actually a pretty clear-cut example of a secondary source. But it seems I hold a minority view here. Gumshoe2 (talk) 02:56, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
