Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Nobel Laureates in Chemistry

List of Nobel laureates in Chemistry

This is a list I've been working on for a couple of days, and I would like to see the lists of laureates for all six Nobel prizes become FLs. The winner of this award was announced this morning, so there may still be some stability concerns, but I don't think it'll be so much that it will be uncontrollable. As always, concerns will be addressed by me. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 21:34, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Support I have no objection, looks good to me. Cannibaloki 22:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Oppose (reluctantly) until the edit-warring over the nationality over one of the 2008 prize-winners is sorted out. Bencherlite^Talk 23:38, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Sigh, you are right, I thought that that was over because one editor readded American. Why can't people accept that he is Japanese-American? -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 23:42, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

It's a classic WP:V case in which Scorpion is in the right. The people who are edit warring with him are also anons and very new contributors, so I wouldn't call the article unstable as it stands. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 02:05, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, it is more than possible that they just made a mistake by solely calling him an American because another section in the Nobel website does confirm that he was born in Japan, which is why I allowed both to be listed. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 02:14, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Support. If the nationality column is going to cause that many problems, then removal is probably for the best. Bencherlite^Talk 07:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Comments from Dabomb87 (talk · contribs)

• Overlinking in the "Countries" column.
  • I'll work on that tomorrow.
• Current refs 112 and 113 are missing info (title, accessdate, publisher).
• Current refs 114 and 115 need access dates.
  • Don't take any of those refs seriously right now. They'll be gone tomorrow.
• "Three women have won the prize, Marie Curie, Irène Joliot-Curie (1935) and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1964)." I think the first comma should be a colon.
  • Done.
• Could the "Citation" column be renamed to something like "Reason"?
  • Done
• Some images have obsolete Public Domain tags. I recommend asking an experienced image reviewer to look over the images to make sure everything is as it should be.
• "As of 2007, the Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to 150 individuals." This figure is wrong according to this source: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/
  • That figure hasn't been updated for 2008 yet (it was only announced this morning). It is updated now.
• "Scientists from the United States have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 59 times, more than any nation"—Should be "any other nation".
  • Done.

Dabomb87 (talk) 02:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 02:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

A few notes

• "Reason" is way to colloquial for this topic. Find a better word please.
  • "Citation", the original header, was not the proper word. Would "Rationale" do? Dabomb87 (talk) 12:15, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
    • I agree, done.
• perhaps gray-out the "not awarded" years
• you probably want to add a note to each unawarded year explaining what happened
  • I'm actually not sure. My guess would be the various wars, but I couldn't find a source on the official website.
• is is possible to thin-out the lines between the winners of the same year, or thicken the other lines?
  • I don't think so.
• double check articles for more portraits. I randomly checked Alder and I saw he has a picture on his page
  • It's a fair use image. I checked the page for every single person and included all of the free images I could find (except the ones where there is more than one person)
• not necessary, but would be nice to have flags by the country entries.
  • I disagree, because it might be considered flagcruft.

Nergaal (talk) 07:28, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the review. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 20:28, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• What makes the following reliable sources?
  • http://www.nndb.com/
• Current refs 112 and 113 are just numbered links. they need formatted titles, publishers and last access dates at the very least.
• Current refs 114 and 115 are lacking last acccess dates.

Otherwise sources look good, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Like I mentioned above, those will be gone soon. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 14:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment Prose is generally good. "There have been eight years in which it has not been awarded." is really, really awkward, though and should be rewritten, but I can't think of an alternative at the moment. Gary King (talk) 21:06, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Err, sorry (and don't blame Scorpion), that was me trying to get away from "It has not been awarded eight times", which was much worse! Bencherlite^Talk 21:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

[1] Gary King (talk) 21:23, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I thought of that, but was trying to avoid multiple uses of "the Prize in Chemistry". Hey-ho, no preference anymore. Bencherlite^Talk 21:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose unless the meaning of the country column becomes crystal clear and the country assignments are attributed to reliable sources. This issue was discussed extensively at Talk:Nobel Prize in Chemistry but I don't think it reached a clear conclusion. Is it place of birth, nationality at time of award, nationality during the discovery, nationality at time of death? What about dual citizenships? To give just one example with which I am familiar, consider Mario Molina. The list says Mexico, while the reference (Nobel Foundation) says USA. The truth is that he was born in Mexico, moved to the US, conducted his research there, acquired the American nationality, losing the Mexican nationality in the process, got the Nobel Prize, and later re-acquired the Mexican nationality because there were constitutional reforms in Mexico that allowed him to have dual citizenship. A major problem with cases like this is that unless the country assignments are rock-solid the article can never be stable; there is always be a bit of nationalistic revert-warring because everyone wants to believe that a Nobel Prize "belongs" to their country even if it is because the laureate's grandfather was a citizen. --Itub (talk) 06:06, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
  • The column has been removed. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 19:39, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Removed? Then the list is not comprehensive. All the other lists have a "country" column, and lots of sources give a nationality or country. Removing it merely because it is (sometimes) disputed is avoiding the problem. See List of Nobel laureates by country for one attempt to address the issue. The "always be a bit of nationalistic revert-warring" argument from Itub also misses the point. Letting nationalistic revert-warring shape the content (or lack of content) of an article is unacceptable. Removing the content merely to meet a "stability" criterion is not the right approach. Don't get me wrong. I want to see lists like this featured as well, and I'm working on Royal Medal (and came here to see what the requirements were for lists like this), but like it or not, "where are they from" is a question people ask about other people. Pick an easily sourced criterion and stick to it, is my opinion, with footnotes explaining complicated cases like Molina. Carcharoth (talk) 13:35, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
      • See Talk:List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_country#How_this_list_works for one approach. Carcharoth (talk) 13:40, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
        • My point was not that the list needed to be removed, and in fact I think that removing it is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. My point is that the list needs to be "bulletproof": the definition of the country column needs to be stated explicitly and followed consistently. Going by the Nobel Foundation seems like the best course of action, but if someone wants to clarify the nuances in specific cases, that can be done in a footnote, citing appropriate sources. Mario Molina was not the only laureate where there was disagreement between our list and the Nobel Foundation: we had Aaron Klug as South Africa/UK, but nobelprize.org has him as United Kingdom, with a note saying "born in Lithuania". We had George Olah as Hungary/United States, but nobelprize.org has him as USA with a note saying "born in Hungary"), which is not quite the same IMHO. I think that particularly the people that were listed with more than one nationality need to be double-checked. These examples come from just checking a few "suspicious" cases, but in order for this to be featured I'd need to be reassured that someone really went through every single line and checked that it has the right country. --Itub (talk) 16:02, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

However, Shimomura's case (Chemistry laureate 2008) really created a bit of trouble, since even the website of the Nobel committee reports his Japanese citizenship while affiliating his award with the US and merely mentioning Japan as his place of birth. So far, I assumed (without making the guideline depend on this assumption) that the award was always affiliated with the citizenship of the laureate. Currently, I am in correspondence with people in charge of the official website to learn more about their rationale.

Bottom line: I think, it is possible to handle the country issue by refraining any kind of original research and simply relying on the decision published by the Nobel committee. The fact that it is highly disputed shows that this information (among others) is of high interest to our readers and I think it would add value to this list here as well.

Unfortunately, I am the only editor really taking care of this list. But before you accuse me of ownership, please join me and put it on your watch list. Tomeasy _{T C} 16:06, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, during one of the discussions in one of the Nobel Prize talk pages (I don't remember which), someone pointed out that, according to the printed books published by the Nobel Foundation about the Prizes, the country they listed was the country of residence at the time of the award. Can anyone verify that? --Itub (talk) 16:24, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

This is pretty much in line with the first answer I received from the communication officer responsible for the website. However, it is not yet a final answer, as I think I will react and show some counter examples. Anyway, here is their first email to me:

“ Dear Thomas (and cc to Ulrika Royen, Senior Editor at the Nobel Foundation, and Fredrik All, the RSAS)

thanks for your prompt reaction on the citizenship of Prof. Shimomura. He is a Japanese citizen, as mentioned in the press release from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, who awards the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (as well as The Nobel Prize in Physics and The Prize in Economic Sciences, which will be announced tomorrow Monday 13 October at 1 pm Swedish time). However, at the website of the Nobel Foundation (http://nobelprize.org) I believe there is a routine to first mention the country where the Laureate is affiliated to at present (please correct me here if I am wrong, Ulrika), and hence, shows USA as the country connected to Shimomura.

I hope this clarifies things for you! Otherwise please contact us again. Erik

Erik Huss Kommunikatör med pressansvar / Communications Officer, media contacts Kungl. Vetenskapsakademien (KVA) / Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences [address and other details redacted]

”

However, I am convinced that whatever is their rationale we are doing well in simply reporting their decision. We do so in terms of the name of the laureate (obviously), but why should we do differently for the country? The are the awarding authority and they have made their decision certainly not unconsciously. Why should we try to invent a fairer ruling then they. Tomeasy _{T C} 16:42, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Might want to redact the e-mail and other details above. In fact I've done that. Your mention of official books stirred memories in me of a series of books I think the Nobel Foundation publishes every year (and have done, I think, since the beginning). The early ones are now collectors items and very expensive! While looking for those, I found this. Does anyone here have that? Ah, found what I was really looking for: [2] It's called Les Prix Nobel: "Since 1901 the Nobel Foundation has annually published a series of yearbooks, Les Prix Nobel, containing reports from the Nobel Prize Award Ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo, as well as the biographies and Nobel Lectures of the Nobel Laureates. Up to 1988, the texts were published in the language in which they were presented. Since then the material in Les Prix Nobel has been mostly in English." We don't have an article on that, and we don't mention them in our article. I found one online : 1907. Only $10. The 1998 one is $165. Ah, here we go, a nearly full collection of the early numbers for only $3000. A snip! :-) Sorry, um, we were talking about nationalities. If someone has access to the printed book, and can add what that says for a particular year, fine. Otherwise, as Tomeasy says, go with the official website. That's what I do with names of prizewinners, though you'd be surprised how often there are typos on websites (the Royal Society's official page for some of its prize winners has horrendous typos, shown up by the official documentation accessed on other pages, which show clearly that one or other spelling is wrong...). Carcharoth (talk) 19:30, 13 October 2008 (UTC)