Talk:Katie Bouman

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Date	Process	Result
April 12, 2019	Articles for deletion	Kept

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on May 10, 2019, and August 10, 2019.

The text of the entries was:

May 10, 2019: Did you know ... that imaging scientist Katie Bouman first learned of the Event Horizon Telescope in 2007, while still in high school, and joined the project six years later?
August 10, 2019: Did you know ... that imaging scientist Katie Bouman first learned of the Event Horizon Telescope in 2007, while still in high school, and joined the project six years later?

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This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:

Francisca Labarca (2019-04-13). "Wikipedia consideró eliminar biografía de Katie Bouman por no ser parte "relevante" del proyecto de la imagen del agujero negro". La Tercera. Archived from the original on 2019-04-14. Retrieved 2019-04-14.
Marina Koren (April 15, 2019). "How Katie Bouman Got Sucked Into the Black Hole of the Internet". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on April 15, 2019. Retrieved April 15, 2019. Bouman's Wikipedia page was once flagged for deletion because its standards found she was "not notable" enough. Now it carries a paragraph detailing her viral story and the harassment that followed, like a cautionary tale for other women in the sciences. It is both a reminder and a warning. Hard work deserves recognition, but what happens when there's too much?
Kasey Edwards (April 15, 2019). "It's easier to photograph a black hole than let a woman shine". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on April 15, 2019. Retrieved April 15, 2019. In a stunt reminiscent of Hidden Figures, the black female mathematicians critical to the success of the US space race who were written out of history, somebody reportedly flagged Katie Bouman's Wikipedia page for deletion and others have been setting up fake social media accounts in her name.
Stephen Harrison (April 16, 2019). "How Katie Bouman Shook Wikipedia". Slate. Archived from the original on April 16, 2019. Retrieved April 16, 2019.
Maryam Zaringhalam, Jess Wade (April 12, 2019). "It matters who we champion in science". Washington Post. Retrieved April 29, 2019. Within 48 hours, Bouman was celebrated across international media, her new Wikipedia entry has been translated into about 20 languages, and there have even been exuberant calls for her to win a Nobel Prize. In Bouman's expression, we were reminded of the pure joy that comes with discovery. It is no surprise that the photo went nearly as viral as the image she helped produce. The world had a new hero.
Jocelyn Evans (February 11, 2020). "Physicist writes 900 Wikipedia entries to boost diversity in science". itv.com. Retrieved February 17, 2020. Asked about some of the highlights from her 900 Wikipedia entries so far, Dr Wade reeled off in an instant a list of female scientists and scientists of colour. One entry - from the start of her project - is Gladys West, an African American mathematician known for her work on mathematical modelling of the shape of the Earth. Another was Katie Bouman, the woman behind the first black hole image. Dr Wade described Clarice Phelps, the first African-American woman to be involved with the discovery of a chemical element, as a "rockstar".
Meghan McDonough (March 31, 2021). "Women Are Writing Themselves Back Into History on Wikipedia". lx.com. Retrieved March 31, 2021. If you were on the internet in April 2019, you may recognize computer scientist Katie Bouman, who went viral after her team captured the world's first image of a black hole and her thrilled reaction was captured on camera. That breakthrough prompted a Wikipedia volunteer to draft her biography for the digital encyclopedia. But the same day, it was nearly pulled by someone else who thought she wasn't notable enough to be included. This incident points to a bigger problem: women feature in less than one in five biographies on Wikipedia.
Laurel Oldach (March 8, 2022). "What's with Wikipedia and women?". American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Retrieved March 9, 2022. Skirmishes over academic notability happen regularly, though they don't usually involve outsiders. Wikipedians argued over astrophysicist Katie Bouman, who became famous when she was photographed reacting to the first-ever image of a black hole.

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Jrfarah1999 (talk · contribs)

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Birthdate in infobox[edit]

I cannot seem to remove the "circa" from the Wikidata entry. Yoninah (talk) 12:51, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Circa is correct because news coverage has not given Bouman's date of birth, only her age. --31.48.186.149 (talk) 12:40, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WP:WEIGHT and "Katie Bouman is Jewish"[edit]

The Jerusalem Post says that Bouman "is Jewish," whatever that means--they give no supporting details. I see no source where Bouman herself says she is Jewish or that being Jewish is important to her. I think we should wait for more sources, and preferably less partisan sources, before adding "Katie Bouman is Jewish" to the article. HouseOfChange (talk) 01:14, 3 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Good thing we have a reliable (non-partisan non-whatever) The Sciene Times to prove you wrong once again, sciencetimes.com

`` stated Dr. Katie Bouman, who is Jewish, and was part of the team that created an algorithm ``

https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/20334/20190417/black-hole-scientist-excited-about-the-future.htm

Your actions never suggested any antisemitic concerns whatsoever, HouseOfChange.

Cheers, 79.176.85.212 (talk) 18:06, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The "reliable nonpartisan" Science Times article (2019) takes much material verbatim from the J Post article, including its statement that Bouman "is Jewish." The website sciencetimes.com seems to be a Canadian project promoting science to elementary and secondary school students; it has no connection to the New York Times or UK's The Times. The Jerusalem Post article is enough of a reference for this statement in the article. HouseOfChange (talk) 18:50, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Update, 6 months later: Katie Bouman asked to have this removed from her article, saying she is NOT Jewish and has no idea why the Jerusalem Post said she was. So clearly in this case, JP was not a "reliable source" on whether or not Wikipedia should describe someone as Jewish. HouseOfChange (talk) 01:36, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Request from a new user[edit]

A new user Jrfarah1999 proposed this diff, with the edit summary: "I am a friend of Katie's and am correcting some of the misinformation on the page. The statements about her religion are incorrect and she has requested her religion not be mentioned. I have added that she is an assistant professor of math, computing, elect. engineering and astronomy, not just math and computer science, and worked at CSAIL, not Haystack. Finally, her first exposure to the EHT was not in 2007, so she has requested this statement be removed."

Theroadislong reverted, identifying Jrfarah as a connected editor, and suggested talk page discussion. Because we are dealing with a new user, I thought I would move the process along by starting the Talk Page discussion. HouseOfChange (talk) 23:24, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi HouseOfChange and Theroadislong, thank you for encouraging this discussion. I apologize if I'm editing the talk page incorrectly, as I am a new user. Katie has had to deal with a lot of misinformation following the black hole image release, some of which made it into this page. I am a friend of hers and I work with her on the EHT project (see Joseph Farah)^[1]. Regarding the changes: she did not work at Haystack at any point, but rather at CSAIL. This is often confused because MIT Haystack Observatory is a radio telescope similar to the ones we use in our network, and several of our colleagues work there, but she does not. I've provided her CV and links to press releases as citations. I expanded upon the subjects of which she is a professor at Caltech (electrical engineering and astronomy) as well, per her request, and cited her Caltech page, which has the accurate information. Regarding changes I cannot cite: she is not Jewish; it's unclear why Jerusalem Today wrote she was. She has never practiced Judaism and no one in her family has, as far as she knows. Per her request, I removed the statement. Second, she did not first encounter the EHT in 2007. In addition to that being quite improbable (the network was tiny and our earliest data-capable fringe detections of M87 were in 2009 ^[2]), she simply said the statement was inaccurate and so I removed it, per her request.

Thank you for taking the time to review these changes. Jrfarah1999 (talk) 23:57, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I will take a look at your edit, thanks for proposing changes and including RS citations. Others of course are welcome to do the same. HouseOfChange (talk) 02:42, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much HouseOfChange and Jorm. Is her institutional information (i.e. her graduate work at CSAIL not Haystack, and her assistant professorship) open for discussion? For example, we can confirm her correct affiliation at MIT by examining any of her papers. This one^[3], published in 2016, shows Haystack as affiliation 1 and CSAIL as affiliation 12. Notice that Katie (Shown as Katherine L. Bouman^{12}) is academically affiliated with CSAIL and not Haystack. I think this trumps any press release that lists her informally as a member of the Haystack team. Jrfarah1999 (talk) 03:06, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion on the religion issue is that we should err on the side of caution here and delete the reference anyway. A single source for this isn't very solid, and further: Katie isn't known for her religion at all, but for other things, so it's not really relevant to her article. I'm going to remove that sentence now, but I won't fight if anyone adds it back.--Jorm (talk) 02:49, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oosp looks like HouseOfChange got it before me. I removed the categories. Jorm (talk) 02:50, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Haystack, our article cites two sources. The first mentions both Bouman and Haystack but does not say that she was part of Haystack. The second is a book (not searchable online.) The source cited by Jrfarah1999 is RS that makes clear KB is attached to CSAIL. I will remove the claim that she was part of Haystack and instead note her connection to CSAIL at MIT. HouseOfChange (talk) 03:09, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I changed her Caltech title in the body of the article. The lead needs more of a copy edit than that, especially since she got a new honor in September. HouseOfChange (talk) 03:20, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much (from both me and Katie) for being so receptive to these changes. The article is far more accurate now! Jrfarah1999 (talk) 03:22, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/fe201901. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
^ https://arxiv.org/pdf/0906.3899.pdf. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
^ https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.07361.pdf. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

Mention[edit]

This article has been mentioned here. RodRabelo7 (talk) 23:54, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[1] ttps://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/fe201901. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

[2] ttps://arxiv.org/pdf/0906.3899.pdf. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

[3] ttps://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.07361.pdf. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

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