Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation

List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation

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List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation II (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Textbook example of a trivial cross-categorisation of two entirely unrelated characteristics (which university one went/worked/... at vs. won Nobel prize). Also, and I must give credit to OCNative on this one, This page begins with a list of tables with no refs. Then it goes into a whole bunch of subsections about the universities and then almost every university listed there's a note that the university's official count is lower than the article's count. Each university's table has a notes section where there is an explanation of why a particular university's affiliate is excluded from the list. This list seems to be heavy on WP:SYNTH if not outright Wikipedia:No original research. Strangely, the article also links Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. So fails both WP:NOT and WP:OR... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:11, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 12:29, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• RandomCanadian You should probably include List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation II in this too. Vladimir.copic (talk) 13:10, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• Delete This is a strange one for many reasons. Mainly, the current article does not do what it claims to do. This is a list of Universities by Nobel Prize Winning Affiliates not a list of Nobel laureates. As it stands the article’s content is some of the most extensive WP:OR and WP:SYNTH I have seen. This is demonstrated by the completely original listing criteria at the start of the article, wide variety of lists and abundance of caveats. WP:BEFORE gives very little results and not enough to convince me it meets WP:LISTN. I might be convinced of a move to List of Universities by Affiliated Nobel Laureates as there are slightly more sources discussing this (although this is mainly just universities selling themselves) BUT this would need MAJOR clean up, simplification and sourcing. Probably better to WP:TNT. Vladimir.copic (talk) 13:34, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 14:52, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 14:52, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• Keep Yes it is strange, but some people want to know it. I am not against any name change. I would also not be against removing the summary section(s) at the top. Many of them are linked from the university articles. Some years ago I put in the {{Anchor}}s for them, as they were previously linked by number. If the article is deleted, the sections could be moved into the individual university articles, but I think I like them here better. (Most university articles are already big enough.) The top ones have their own individual articles, but most of them don't. Gah4 (talk) 18:13, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

  "but some people want to know it" is essentially WP:ITSINTERESTING. There are lots of things that people want to know which don't go in an encyclopedia, either because it's too much detail for a summary (the case here), or because it is not known (hence why you have people doing research, you know...), or for other reasons. For this to be worth keeping, there would need to be sources which discuss the link between which university one went to and Nobel prizes. As one can see, there is no such link (because exceptional discoveries have no bias for which university one went to?), no source to pretend there is such a link (except universities wanting to promote themselves and take at least partial credit, of course), and nothing to substantiate the accuracy of the content on the list. Not only is there no valid reason to keep this, but then also moving this to individual university articles would be moving the problem elsewhere: I assume that Nobel winners are already included in the usual "Notable alumni" section, without all of the OR or the rest, and there's nothing else that needs to be done. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:10, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• I think a page on "List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation" could be created that is encyclopedic, but this one is so fatally flawed that it ought to be deleted. The entire page is basically premised on WP:SYNTH. The page literally disputes the refs to the universities. Considering how much universities are willing to brag about winning Nobels, this page is quite heavy on someone's synthesis of the data claiming a far broader number of Nobel winners for each university than even the universities themselves claim. OCNative (talk) 21:31, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• From WP:SYNTH: Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. As far as I know, no conclusions are reached or implied. Some data that would otherwise be somewhere else in Wikipedia is collected together. As above, I would remove the Summary. I suppose one could do it alphabetically instead of by number, which removes the possible implication that higher rankings are for better schools. Gah4 (talk) 22:04, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
• OK, I just noticed that it is a sortable table. It seems that one fix might be to exchange the rank and university columns, and default sort by university name. That removes an implication that a higher rank means a school is better. Gah4 (talk) 22:17, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• Delete yet another piece of “X by random unrelated category Y” listcruft with a side of school puffery and a dollop of “it’s WP:INTERESTING to someone somewhere”. Dronebogus (talk) 20:05, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
• Delete Per the nom. Just a Trivial cross-categorisation of the unrelated characteristics 'which university one went/worked/... at vs. won Nobel prize', that fails WP:LISTN and WP:OR. I've never seen a bigger case of WP:SYNTH in all my years editing. The article is just one massive synthesis, with seemingly endless WP:OR notes explaining more information and caveats. The article in its early tables also likely violates MOS:FLAG. Newshunter12 (talk) 20:43, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
• Delete Well, for the reasons I was quoted on in the nom (this is the first time I've ever been quoted in someone else's nom, so I ought to vote for my reasons). I think a "List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation" could certainly be created that is encyclopedic, but this particular one is so fatally flawed that it would be better to blow it up and start over. This article is an extreme case of WP:SYNTH. If someone were to restart the page, it ought to match with a legitimate source (i.e. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/facts/lists/affiliations.php). (For reference, my note quoted in the nom was originally at Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation in hopes of someone being able to fix the page.) OCNative (talk) 21:31, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• Also on my watchlist is: List_of_longest-running_scripted_American_primetime_television_series. Seems to me that would have a similar problem as this, along with some other List of ... television series articles. Gah4 (talk) 22:21, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• Delete If this kind of thing is one's passion project, that's fine, but Wikipedia isn't the place to host such things when they go against policies like WP:NOR. This belongs on whatever the Nobel Prize's version of a fandom wiki is, not here. XOR'easter (talk) 22:31, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
• Keep Absolutely horrible reasons proposed for deletion. 1) First, arguing that the tables are un-referenced is simply not understanding this page. The summary tables reflect the entries in the page. Each person's affiliation is confirmed by at least one reliable source. Note that even Wikipedia policy MOS:LEAD states citations can be avoided in the lead because the references are provided in the body. 2) Secondly, this list is definitely not a trivial cross-categorizations. This list has important value to many people, especially those in academic. Numerous universities keep a record of a similar list, with counting criteria ranging from generous to conservative. The official Nobel website also keeps a list [1], but with the affiliations being "working at XXX when awarded". In particular, Cambridge university [2], MIT[3], UChicago [4] and others over the years have adopted their official countings in line with this list. Even Forbes has cited this article [5]. 3) Absolutely no original research or synthesis in this article, which has been stated clearly around the summary tables for multiple times. I believe most people who think there is original research in this article either does not read the article carefully, or does not know how academia/universities operate. What are your evidences of "syntheses" or "original research"? 4) Absolute no respect paid to the work of many other editors and mine over the year, and the consensuses reached in the Talk Page, to improve this article. This is absolute disrespect. Minimumbias (talk) 03:03, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
  • Attacking other editors for “disrespecting” you adds nothing to your case and only makes you look bad. Dronebogus (talk) 03:12, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
    • I am not attacking other editors. I am just angry. Similar topic has been discussed over the years in the Talk Page [6] by many editors in a much more respectful way. Never once did people directly coming here to nominate for deletion. Clearly, people including myself who have worked on this page in a unbiased way would feel the same way. This is trying to delete our work without even trying to understanding our work. Minimumbias (talk) 03:17, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
      • Please don’t claim ownership of an article. Wikipedia and its content is a public project that doesn’t belong to anyone, no matter how much hard work you and others have put into it. This is not a referendum on you or the quality of your work, it’s simply about policy and forming a consensus about whether this page is in violation of the policies about what Wikipedia is WP:NOT. Dronebogus (talk) 03:21, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
        • The project doesn't belong to anyone does not mean our work can be simply deleted without trying to understand the content of our work and that our work does not violate Wikipedia policies. These are two different things. We have been discussing the content in Nobel's Talk Page for years, and many consensuses have been reached, but none of the people here supporting "deletion" ever participated. For example, I never remember you participating in the past discussions. Respecting others work can be done the same time as following Wikipedia policies, right? Minimumbias (talk) 03:27, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
        • Just because you participated in a page doesn’t give you special rights over it in any way, “ownership” or not. In any case this is WP: INDISCRIMINATE on the grounds that it’s just a collection of arbitrary statistics, and what WP is WP:NOT trumps other policies like WP:V. Dronebogus (talk) 03:32, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
          • Did I ever say I own this page? I have stated above that the consensuses have been reached over the years in the Talk Page, and you (and others above) never participated. Now people who don't take a detailed look at the content of this page or never participated in the improvement of this page suddenly made a move to delete this page, because thinking it's some "arbitrary statistics"? I have stated above that there is no original research or synthesis in this article. What is your evidence that there are original researches? All entries are supported by at least one reliable source, where does the issue of "Verifiability" come from? Did you ever take a close look at this page and our work before making a judgement? And as I stated above, this page has important value and is referenced to and cited by other important sources. Minimumbias (talk) 03:37, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
            • Well that's these sources' problem for referencing Wikipedia, not ours. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:49, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
              • Indeed. Also, the Forbes item mentioned above is a "contributor" post, and so not a reliable source per WP:FORBESCON. XOR'easter (talk) 18:19, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
                • It's certainly your problem, not the sources' problem. Many important sources citing this list is a direct proof of the value of this list, refuting your argument that this is just some arbitrary cross-categorization. What you people are trying to do right now, quite simply, is that you are judging this list based on your own value, motivation and understanding, instead of respecting what other editors (especially experts like us who work in academia) are saying over the years and the consensus we have reached. This is violating WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. In particular, without looking at the article in detail and engaging in Talk Page, you directly threw out several accusations in the beginning of this "deletion page", trying to mislead other editors to view the list in a way that is not true. And please don't use that "WP:FORBESCON" as an way to convince people that the Forbes article is not reliable, because the writer of that Forbes article is a respected scholar and educator [7]. The very fact that some editors think articles written by experts like us who actually work in academia are unreliable for this list is such a logical contradiction. First you say there should be no original research and should be objective in Wikipedia, then you refute experts' opinions and label them as "unreliable". This is violating WP:NPOV and WP:NOR outright. --Minimumbias (talk) 03:00, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
                  • On the contrary, that's how WP:FORBESCON and the rest of WP:RSP are applied all the time. NPOV means fairly summarizing the reliable sources that are available, and NOR means not adding to what the reliable sources say. In order to implement those policies, we have to identify which sources are reliable. Here, the subject-matter expertise is questionable, to say the least: we've got a university administrator rather than, say, a historian of science or a journalist on the Nobel beat. Why is a clinical psychologist who specializes in abnormal psychology and law-and-psychology a relevant subject-matter expert here? Nobel disease is only a metaphor, after all. It's tautologically true that everyone here is judging this list based on our own value[s], motivation and understanding. Pages that have existed for a long time do get nominated for deletion upon occasion; the encyclopedia is a big place, and things can happen in corners of it without getting noticed by a wider circle of editors. There's no malice involved, just different perspectives. XOR'easter (talk) 04:16, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
• Keep Easily passes WP:LISTN – see Leading Institutions Where Nobel Prize Winners Were Educated, for example. This took me all of 10 seconds to find but then I had a good education too. These characteristics are not "entirely unrelated" as the nomination asserts. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:23, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

  Inevitably, the source you present has numbers which differ dramatically from those in the article, further demonstrating its blatant status as, at the absolute best, WP:OR... And my nomination nowhere mentions LISTN, because WP:NOT and WP:OR of course overrides that. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:49, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

  I cited a book which was published in 2003 and so, of course, its numbers are different. That's because Wikipedia is kept up-to-date and this is not a bug; it's a feature. WP:LISTN states that "The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been" and so the notability of the topic is proven. Keeping the stats up-to-date is a matter of simple arithmetic and so that's not OR per WP:CALC. My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:22, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

  This doesn't address that this particular list doesn't even match with more recent ones (such as [8]; or the one on the Nobel site [9], or those claimed by the universities themselves), and still does not address the NOT issues (including WP:NOTMIRROR, especially if we can't write anything but a plain list). Your vote indeed stands... on very shaky grounds. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:05, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

  The more lists RC points to, the more the notability is confirmed. If there are differences which require reconciliation or explanation then that's a matter of ordinary editing not deletion per our policy WP:IMPERFECT. My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:05, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

  This isn't a question of notability but of WP:NOT and of the entirely original methodology employed by the list as it stands. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:12, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

  WP:NOT is not a wild-card which may be used to delete anything that RC takes a dislike to. WP:NOT is a bundle of specific issues but none of them have been specified. The appeal to that policy is therefore just a WP:VAGUEWAVE and so should be dismissed. My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:34, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

  Your argumentum ad lapidem is not convincing. I have readily explained how this is based on two mostly unrelated variables, how the list is OR at least in its current instance, not only because it is based on poor criteria, and finally how this is unencyclopedic because encyclopedia =/= databse. You can keep pretending your vote stands, but as far as I can see it is standing on water, and we all know that outside of mythological stories, that doesn't happen. Done here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:41, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

• Comment Just revisited this article and noticed it has a WHOPPING 852 REFERENCES (mostly from primary sources such as CVs and the Nobel website)! For context that is more than the WWII article. Cannot think of better evidence of the piecemeal WP:SYNTH of this article.Vladimir.copic (talk) 23:53, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

• Comment As I said above, but maybe lost in the middle of other things: from WP:SYNTH: Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. As far as I know, no conclusions are reached or implied. I find it especially strange that the number of references is used to indicate WP:SYNTH. Larger articles should have more references. The only thing that I could see as possibly WP:SYNTH is the ranking. (Though I suspect many other articles rank things.) I believe, however, that ranking isn't necessary. It could be done in alphabetical order, for example. Gah4 (talk) 02:19, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
  • It's drawing conclusions about what counts as "affiliated" with a given university. The introduction is really quite explicit that the page has its own invented criteria for what counts and what doesn't. Whatever the merits of a project like this, Wikipedia isn't the place for it. XOR'easter (talk) 02:55, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
    • Absolutely untrue. Academic affiliation with a university is almost a universally defined term in academia: students, faculty, short-term staff. A simple source [10] is already provided in the list. So we are simply following the universal definition. Saying that we are "inventing" this term is basically not understanding how universities operate. Over the years, the only point being explained in the introduction was that "award-based" visiting positions are not affiliations and in general should not be included in this list. We are not inventing "affiliation". We are simply explaining it to the public. Minimumbias (talk) 03:05, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
      • Taking a definition used for one purpose and deciding that it's the right definition to use for another is WP:SYNTH. (And I've been studying, researching, and teaching at universities for over twenty years now, so I'm fairly sure I know how they work.) XOR'easter (talk) 03:19, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
        • Did you see what I said above, "universally defined"? It is not for a particular purpose. And if you know how the universities operate, then tell me what other "academic affiliations" are there? Or, any of the "students, faculty, postdocs, visiting professors who teach" is not an academic affiliation? Minimumbias (talk) 03:23, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
          • Excluding "exchange students" and "auditing students" is an arbitrary choice. The entire paragraph beginning Further explanations is a collection of arbitrary choices. (Plenty of research happens over the summer, not least because the undergraduates are out of the way.) Taking the standards that Cambridge uses to make themselves look good and applying them to other institutions is synthesis. Strangely, the text itself makes reference to Wikipedia policies on no original research and objectivity/neutrality, but without understanding what those policies mean. It's just as much OR to say that one type of position counts as much as another as it is to say they count differently. The entire page is an attempt to use MediaWiki for something the software was not designed to do — this calls out for a database if anything ever did. XOR'easter (talk) 04:05, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
            • Absolute misinterpretation. Based what you said, I tend to believe you seem more of a student at some university instead of being there for 20+ years. 1) First, you call several explanations as "arbitrary choices". Let me first tell you that these explanations were consensus reached by me and other editors over the years, with meticulous discussion on how NOT to violate the Wikipedia policies and how to tell the public what is true. You never participated in those discussions, and now you are simply accusing us of making arbitrary choices and of not knowing those policies? How arrogant! 2) Summer school in many universities are open to the public, especially public universities. These programs take many students not for academic purposes, but also for extra financial income. Auditing students and exchange students are not included for similar reason. They are not officially enrolled. This is fact, not made up by us. In particular, exchange students at a university are not official academic affiliations because their official identity are affiliated with their home university. 3) Labelling this page as something like database we attempted to do is simply judging this list from your own point of view. By the same logic, you can go to whatever lists in Wikipedia you don't like and call them "database" that should be deleted. Minimumbias (talk) 04:34, 14 October 2021 (UTC)