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List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation

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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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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

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)[reply]
- "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)[reply]
- 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)[reply]
  - 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)[reply]
  - 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
- 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
- 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)[reply]
  - 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)[reply]
    - 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)[reply]
      - 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)[reply]
      - 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)[reply]
        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)[reply]
        Well that's these sources' problem for referencing Wikipedia, not ours. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:49, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        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)[reply]
        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)[reply]
        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)[reply]
        1) Your arrogance is beyond my understanding. That person is a university president, who knows how universities operates. In addition, he is a scholar in clinical psychology and "chair of the department of psychology, dean of the graduate school, and provost." [8]. Why would you randomly disrespect people? 2) Secondly, your opinions on academic affiliations and how universities operate has made me believe that you are probably not an expert in academia. So why not let people listen more to us and to reliable sources? 3) Thirdly, your opinions on why this page must be deleted have been refuted by me and editors below. --Minimumbias (talk) 04:50, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        I don't see how it's disrespectful to point out that someone is not a historian specializing in the Nobel Prize. I also don't see how, even if we granted that WP:SPS let us use that blog post as a source, it contributes to a case for keeping the list. Wikipedia isn't a reliable source for itself, even if cycled through an intermediate stage. Plenty of articles here get pointed to from the outside and deleted anyway; opinions elsewhere on the Internet don't always line up with wiki-notability, which is frustrating sometimes. XOR'easter (talk) 09:26, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        It is not about pointing out whether a person is a historian. It is about not recognizing the facts while pretending you did. You said "Here, the subject-matter expertise is questionable... we've got a university administrator... Why is a clinical psychologist who specializes in abnormal psychology and law-and-psychology a relevant subject-matter expert here? " Since we are talking about academic affiliations and the value of this Nobel list, what you said simply misled people to think that a university president and a respected scholar does not understand these basic points of academia and does not have the qualification to provide reliable comments. This is already disrespectful. Moreover, the Forbes article is not a random blog. Many notable scientists and scholars publish commentaries in media like New York Times and Forbes, as "senior contributors". They are even more qualified on certain topics than the regular employee editors of these media agencies. Now you want to label the articles written by regular employee editors as "reliable" but these scholars as "unreliable"? I don't think so. Hence, my point is clear, this Nobel list has undeniable important value, and should not be deleted from Wikipedia. Minimumbias (talk) 18:45, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]
- 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)[reply]
  - 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)[reply]
    - This doesn't address that this particular list doesn't even match with more recent ones (such as [9]; or the one on the Nobel site [10], 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)[reply]
      - 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)[reply]
        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)[reply]
        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)[reply]
        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)[reply]
        RC again asserts, without a scrap of evidence, that the education of the laureates is unrelated to their prize-winning. This is utter nonsense as there are plenty of sources about this. For example, see Academic background of Nobel prize laureates reveals the importance of multidisciplinary education..., Effects of homophily and academic reputation in the nomination and selection of Nobel laureates or The implications of educational and methodological background for the career success of Nobel laureates. My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:02, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Unless those sources use the same definition of "affiliation" as this list, I don't see how they help with either the WP:LISTN argument or the WP:SYNTH concerns. (They talk more about nationality than anything else, and even when they get down to the level of specific institutions, they use different criteria than this page does. For example, Chan and Torgler (2014) assigns Walter Kohn to the University of Toronto, while this list gives him to Harvard.) Establishing notability of a group requires references about that grouping, not a somewhat-related one. Sources like that could be useful for writing prose in the articles on the Nobel Prizes themselves, but I'd really have to stretch to say that they help the case here. XOR'easter (talk) 09:39, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        We're here to discuss the nomination which claims that these are "two entirely unrelated characteristics". The point of the sources is to demonstrate that this claim is false. As the claim is false, its conclusion fails and so we're done. What we're not here to do is to make the page in question perfect – see WP:NOTCLEANUP and policy WP:IMPERFECT. My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:57, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        We're here to discuss a nomination which says a good deal more than that. The sources don't demonstrate that "affiliation", in the sense used in this article, is a characteristic whose relation to the Nobel has been studied. XOR'easter (talk) 10:27, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        The page in question has existed for over 15 years with over 1500 editors while its talk page has had extensive discussions with over 180 editors. As they have thrashed out such details and arrived at the current structure, we need more than a handful of drive-by deletionists to overturn that considered consensus. My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:54, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
- 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)[reply]
  - Absolutely untrue. Academic affiliation with a university is almost a universally defined term in academia: students, faculty, short-term staff. A simple source [11] 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)[reply]
    - 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)[reply]
      - 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)[reply]
        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)[reply]
        Absolute misinterpretation. 0) Let me repeat it one more time, we are using universally accepted definition of "academic affiliation", instead of Cambridge's definition. That Cambridge source was provided to you to give you one illustration. 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 many careful discussions 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. 4) Most importantly, all of what you said do not support "deletion". This is a wrong place of discussion for some of your questions and accusations. Minimumbias (talk) 04:34, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        @Minimumbias: I know these exchanges can get heated sometimes (I fall into this category too often) but I strongly suggest you remove your personal attacks above. Admins often take into account these kinds of things when closing. Robust disagreement is good for the project but we shouldn't forget the importance of respect and civility. Vladimir.copic (talk) 05:50, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Thanks for the reminder. Even though I'm not sure which content you are referring to, I've removed my observation in the first sentence, if that's what you meant. Moreover, as I stated above, please do not forget that in this deletion page, the accusations and disrespect are mainly towards me and the other editors who worked on this Nobel page for years, not started by us. --Minimumbias (talk) 06:03, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Vladimir.copic: Minimumbias has not been involved in any personal attacks. Please don't make false accusations. The comments of XOR'easter were extremely disrespectful and insulting towards editors who contributed to "List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation" for years. Such behavior is totally inappropriate. Ber31 (talk) 06:11, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Maybe I am overly sensitive but I believe comments like these [12] [13] are below the civility standards of the project and speak directly about another editor rather than the topic at hand. I am just passing on some friendly advice in good faith. Vladimir.copic (talk) 06:56, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Come on, Vladimir.copic. Please don't drag this issue any further. Ber31 (talk) 07:37, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        I didn't want to. I was very polite but you accused me of making false accusations. Vladimir.copic (talk) 22:49, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        
        Accusing me of arrogance and of being a liar is pretty impolite. It's also a diversion from the issue at hand. The real problem, in my view, is encapsulated in arguments like this: Auditing students and exchange students are not included for similar reason. They are not officially enrolled. This is fact, not made up by us. Even accepting that fact as established, the list is still making a decision on top of it. Why draw the dividing line at "officially enrolled"? Why does getting a publication out of a summer project override the lack of official enrollment? None of that is Wikipedia's judgment call to make. The underlying facts aren't in dispute; using them to arrive at a decision is. Prior discussions at the Talk page don't override that basic concern. It's like arguing about whether the Saturday morning Star Trek cartoon is canon: you can put as much energy as you want into whether the line should be drawn here or there, but Wikipedia isn't the place to be drawing the line at all. XOR'easter (talk) 08:35, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        We have a clear guideline which states that "Wikipedia supports categorizing People by educational institution...". We have millions of biographies and most of them do this with alumni categories without any inline citations. Naturally there will be corner cases but these are dealt with on a case-by-case basis. This is not what is meant by OR. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:39, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Andrew - this guideline is for categories and not lists. Vladimir.copic (talk) 22:49, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        
        Biographical categories of that sort provide raw facts. That's typically unproblematic, apart from edge cases. This is doing something different, making judgment calls based on the facts in a way that would be suited to an independent project (which could, moreover, better provide attribution for the creative effort required). XOR'easter (talk) 09:46, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        
        @Vladimir.copic:, the editor in question voted "keep". WP:NPA therefore doesn't apply. Reyk _YO! 17:59, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        I agree with Andrew. Academia and higher education system has very clear and universally accepted definitions of basic categorizations. Again, we are not inventing the rules. We are simply explaining them to the public in an unbiased way. The so-called "decision making" in this list is not deciding whether certain group of people are academic affiliations, but explaining the established facts to the public. As for your question "Why does getting a publication out of a summer project override the lack of official enrollment?" This is simply untrue (and I believe you concern about the "REU"). We never left out this category by decision. If you read the article carefully, we already explained that "summer visitors are generally excluded from the list unless summer work yielded significant end products such as research publication". This is perfectly in line with what I said above about summer school (facts, not our decisions), and it provides yet another example of not reading the article carefully before making some wild accusation here. Minimumbias (talk) 18:57, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Andrew Davidson: Thank you for the thoughtful comments. Your comments are logical! Ber31 (talk) 02:48, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per NLIST. The Nobel Prize organization itself has a list of "Nobel Laureates and research affiliations" (universities, research institutions or companies). Also universities proudly list their laureates: Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, etc. etc. So no SYNTH. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:46, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Directly carrying over the contents of those lists would probably not be WP:SYNTH. The concern raised in the nomination and the various "delete" !votes is that this list does something else, indeed something that required more work, but which by the same token is not kosher for this particular website with its particular policies. XOR'easter (talk) 08:03, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Every single one of those sources you cited actually conflicts with the article. Those sources you cited all show a different number of Nobel laureates than the List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation does, and in fact the list explicitly disputes the information from those sources you cited. OCNative (talk) 19:55, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - This is yet another example of not reading the article carefully and making wild accusations here. The universities practice different counting strategy based on subjective criteria for including Nobel laureates. But we, in Wikipedia, does not do that because we do not conduct original research. That is why we plainly state the alma mater and the working places of the Nobel laureates, without counting them using a particular set of criteria. Finally, as I have stated above, Cambridge, MIT, UChicago and others have, over the years, alligned their counting strategies like ours. In particular, Cambridge has exactly the same number as ours [14]. Please do not make false claims any further. Minimumbias (talk) 20:11, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - Other institutions made their subjective choices, and now they've adopted yours. That's really the long and short of it. XOR'easter (talk) 14:53, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - We cannot control the behavior of other institutions. We only follow the guidelines like neutrality here in Wikipedia. We choose to stay neutral. As I explained below, making a choice does not always mean subjectivity. Wikipedia chooses to stay neutral, and this is also a choice. But it is good to see that some other institutions have recognized the value of our list. Minimumbias (talk) 22:14, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is one of the best lists on Wikipedia. All the entries on the list are supported by at least one reliable source, so there is no violation of WP:OR. This list is quite sophisticated and it will take time for a new editor to fully comprehend it. The criteria for what counts and what doesn't was the result of years of discussions, and careful analysis of many editors. See Talk:List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation and its archives. User:Minimumbias, User:Elriana, User:Johnbod, User:Duncan.Hull, User:Uhooep, User:StanLeeP, myself and others participated in various discussions on those talk pages. There were many arguments, disaggrements between editors, confrontations, etc. The key decisions on Wikipedia are primarily made by consensus. It is the duty of every editor to respect Wikipedia:Consensus. In the end, the criteria for the list emerged out of many careful discussions between different editors over the years. If any editor has a problem with the criteria, please start a discussion on Talk:List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation. Healthy discussions and exchange of ideas results in better quality articles. This list links Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view because the criteria for the list are made in such a way that they don't violate those policies! Let me explain in detail and give some examples. This list considers Nobel laureates as equal individuals and does not consider their various prize shares. For instance, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020 was awarded one-half to Roger Penrose "for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity", and the other half jointly to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez "for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy."[15] Thus, Penrose got 1/2, Genzel got 1/4, and Ghez got 1/4 of the Nobel prize. However, this list considers Penrose, Genzel, and Ghez as equal individuals and does not consider their various prize shares. This rule shuts the door for any type of bias or subjective interpretations. Let me give another example. Should "short term academic staff" be counted 10% or 20% of a "long term academic staff"? No. This list considers long-term academic staff and short-term academic staff as equal. Because of Wikipedia policies on no original research and neutrality, it is not possible on Wikipedia to assign various weights to different types of affiliations. The criteria for the list are robust. Because of the sophistication of the list, it requires careful reading and analysis to fully grasp the essence of the list. Ber31 (talk) 07:40, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- AfD is also a forum for arriving at consensus. For good or for ill, it can open up a topic to people who hadn't participated before. Giving equal weight to co-laureates who received unequal shares is just as subjective a choice as weighting them by the share they received. It's a different choice, potentially more justifiable, but it's still a choice. (In statistics, assuming a flat prior is still assuming a prior.) Honestly, I'd agree that the list is a sophisticated effort. That's why it doesn't belong here. It's a research project in its own right. It's more like the Mathematics Genealogy trees than something Wikipedia should be hosting. People should be getting coauthor credit for it. XOR'easter (talk) 08:09, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- To say it another way: the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decided to give out unequal shares. (Another example that springs to mind is from 2005, when the Physics prize was also split into a half and two quarters [16].) How is it unbiased for us to omit basic information from the original source? Our being egalitarian when the original was not is itself a kind of bias. XOR'easter (talk) 10:27, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - XOR'easter: We have not omitted basic information from the original source. Take the examples of Andrea Ghez and Phillip A. Sharp. Andrea Ghez received 1/4 of the Nobel Prize in physics in 2020. Phillip A. Sharp received 1/2 of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1993. Both are listed as MIT affiliated Nobel laureates. Imagine what will happen if the MIT count were to consider various Nobel prize shares, and it were to treat Ghez and Sharp differently because of the fact that Ghez received 1/4 of the Nobel Prize in Physics, and Sharp received 1/2 of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine? Such modification of the rule will open up all kinds of subjective interpretations and may lead to nonsensical results, which will inevitability lead to the violation of Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. For instance, if various prize shares were to be considered, a university may end up having affiliations with 41.4 Nobel prizes! That would be catastrophic, and violation of Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. How can such scenarios be avoided? Is Andrea Ghez a Nobel laureate? Yes, she is. Is Phillip Sharp a Nobel laureate? Yes, he is. That information is the most important to this list. We are not denying that Ghez received 1/4 of the Nobel Prize and Sharp received 1/2 of the Nobel Prize. By considering Ghez and Sharp as equal individuals and not considering (not denying!) their various prize shares, we are making sure that there is no room for any type of bias or subjective interpretations or nonsensical results. In that way, we can make sure that there is no violation of Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. This is the best that we can do on Wikipedia. To fully grasp List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation, an editor has to get involved in serious analysis. The rules of the page are set-up in such a way that there is no violation of Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Ber31 (talk) 12:39, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - I totally agree with Ber31, who has been engaging in detailed discussion with me over the years. If there is anything I would like to add, it'd be to emphasize that the "sophistication" in this list is not about our original research or subjective decision making, but about how NOT to violate the rules of Wikipedia while presenting a truthful picture of the academia to the public. I have stated this point above. But it seems that some editors who wish to delete this page are confused about it. In other words, we are "researching on" how NOT to add subjective views and how to best follow the Wiki guidelines, instead of researching on subjective inclusion/classification criteria for the laureates. For example, this is a list of Nobel laureates, not about prize shares, as explained by Ber31. So we are just doing that. We are not adopting a particular interpretation or inventing new rules to classify these Nobel laureates. We are simply stating the basic, universally accepted facts: their alma mater and the places they work. That's it. Minimumbias (talk) 19:04, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - This statement is indicative of the fact that it is WP:SYNTH: "To fully grasp List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation, an editor has to get involved in serious analysis." OCNative (talk) 19:55, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - It is not. I've emphasized already above, just in case editors like you who would get confused. I believe what Ber 31 means is: To fully grasp that the content of the list (e.g., no subjective criteria) and that our work does not violate Wikipedia policies, an editor has to get involved in serious analysis instead of just looking at some tables in the article and making unjustified accusations here. Minimumbias (talk) 20:04, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        I completely agree with Minimumbias. Some editors are making totally false and unjustified accusations here. Ber31 (talk) 02:44, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        
        You've chosen one particular interpretation and deemed it "objective" while designating alternatives "nonsensical". That's a fine project for your own website, or even a journal article (in sociology of science, bibliometry, etc.), but it's not actually compliant with Wikipedia policy. "Bias" on Wikipedia isn't about treating all individual people equally, it's about fairly reproducing the facts in the available sources. Perhaps saying that graduating from a place counts equally with short-term employment there, or that short-term employment should be regarded the same as long-term, but that's a judgment about the objective facts, not an objective fact itself. It's a judgment that, for example, an informal relationship that lasted for a long time counts for less than a more "official" but shorter one. The datum that so-and-so received a Guggenheim fellowship is a fact, and what the Guggenheim entails is documentable, but adding together fact 1 and fact 2 to get the conclusion that the fellowship isn't "employment-level duty" and so should not count here, that's a layer on top of the facts. The rules of this list are set up to mandate Original Research. XOR'easter (talk) 14:53, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        XOR'easter: You are still not getting it, are you? Let me explain to you what happens if various Nobel prize shares were to be considered. Let us say that "AB University" (imaginary university) has affiliations with 5 people who received 1/1 of the Nobel prize, 4 people who received 1/3 of the Nobel prize, and 2 people who received 1/2 of the Nobel prize. If various prize shares were taken into account, "AB University" will have 5*1+4*(1/3)+2*(1/2)=7.33 Nobel prizes! Yes, 7.33 Nobel prizes. That would be nonsensical. Got it? Since this is a list of Nobel laureates, not about prize shares, every individual Nobel laureate is treated equally. That rule ensures that Wikipedia policies on "no original research" and "neutrality" are not violated. An affiliation is an affiliation. For instance, Andrea Ghez and Einstein are both Caltech affiliated Nobel laureates. Ghez has a PhD from Caltech and Einstein was a short term visitor at Caltech during the 1930s. There is a source for Ghez[17] and also for Einstein[18]. Wikipedia:No original research is used to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist. As long as a reliable source conforming affiliation is presented, there is no violation of WP:OR. The list has at least one reliable source conforming affiliation for every entry on the list, so there is no problem with WP:OR and Wikipedia:Verifiability. Ber31 (talk) 16:55, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        I think you mean Caltech and not CalTech. Gah4 (talk) 19:23, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Gah4: You are right! It should have been Caltech. Thanks! :) Ber31 (talk) 02:14, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep A very well referenced and important list. Uhooep (talk) 09:02, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- See: WP:ITSIMPORTANT Dronebogus (talk) 18:05, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. For the reasons by User:Ber31. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:03, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This talk I think really sums up the WP:OR criteria for inclusion in this list. A source claims some kind institutional of affiliation with a Nobel laureate but an editor rejects the edit request for inclusion of this institution due to their own criteria - denying the source. Vladimir.copic (talk) 22:49, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- No, it does not. The Harvard's news source does not mention the word "affiliation" once. If you are familiar with how academia works, you'd know that fellowship is usually an award, not an affiliation. Fellowship programs usually invite a certain group of people of their interest to stay at some universities for a period of time, for communications, public talks or public lectures etc. The programs do not automatically establish any academic affiliation, unless the fellows teach or research at the universities they stay. Universities generally have an internal system that classify their employees, and only a few visiting scholars every year who carry employment-level duties are counted because they get paid with salary. This is what we have been trying to explain above in the page. It surprises me that people would try to argue something that they may not be familiar with. Minimumbias (talk) 23:24, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Let me make this easy for some editors to understand: imagine today that some citizens of country A go visit country B, and they stay in country B for some time either for travelling, business or for visiting some friends etc, but without employment, then it is common sense that these people are not affiliated with country B. They are just tourists or visitors. This type of visiting behavior at university level include most award-based visitors, exchange students, most summer visitors, and so on. However, if the citizens in country A get employed in country B, then they become affiliated with country B in some way and have to pay taxes. This is what we mean by employ-level duties of visitors at another university. Editors like Ber31 and I have been discussing in Talk Page for years on how to make this clear to the public, without violating the Wiki policies. Hence, stating "common sense" of academia is not making rules or creating subjective criteria, especially when we provided so many references in the article to prove our points. Minimumbias (talk) 00:07, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - How are editors expected to verify an individual's duties, remuneration and contractual conditions? It is quite obvious that the meaning and expectations of fellowships vary greatly. Even within institutions this varies greatly and things like by-line affiliation are often at the discretion of authors per the content of a publication. This gets into pretty murky waters - especially when it comes to BLPs. At my institution (anecdotal so feel free to throw out) some fellows have institutional email addresses, offices, teaching duties while others never step on campus. In the particular case of Maria Ressa's fellowship, the fellow is expected to write a research paper so surely this fits your criteria. Side-note: This page also contradicts WP policy by saying a CV is a reliable source! Vladimir.copic (talk) 00:39, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - The case of Maria Ressa's fellowship can be discussed on Talk:List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation. The page List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation doesn't claim that a CV is a reliable source. In case of the CVs of professors from major research universities, they tend to be reliable. Ber31 (talk) 01:51, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - The page List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation doesn't claim that a CV is a reliable source. Yes, it does; the WP:LEAD says reliable sources such as their curriculum vitae. TompaDompa (talk) 02:03, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Why are you looking at only one line and ignoring the rest? List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation doesn't claim that all CVs are reliable. In case of the CVs of professors from major research universities, they are reliable. The CVs of Nobel laureates that are published by major research universities are reliable sources. Ber31 (talk) 02:31, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Vladimir.copic: no, you have misunderstood and mistakenly enlarged the "visiting fellowship" program we have been discussing, which was originally derived from your concern over Maria Ressa's possible affiliation with Harvard. I've responded in the Nobel's Talk Page for your specific concerns. Here, I'll make some further explanations. The fellowship programs we were discussing is something like [19] and the short-term fellow [20]. These, as I said above, are awards/honors visiting positions without academic affiliations - they are like tourists in another countries. You mistakenly enlarged the visiting fellowship we were talking about to include Fellow of all types. Of course, for example, grad students and postdocs sometimes receive research stipends under certain "fellowship", but this has nothing to do with the visiting fellowship I described above. On the other hand, as for your other concern that how are we going to verify which fellowship is which, I tell you that editors like Ber31 and I have been working diligently in the past few years and have clarified which fellowships are academic affiliations and which are not, based on solid & reliable sources from the university's websites and fellowship organizations. I explained them in the notes for each related university. So, now you are basically asking me a question that we have answered/completed. Please read the article more carefully and try to respect our work before making further judgement. You are always welcome to join the Nobel's Talk Page to discuss the concerns. But these argument do not support the "deletion" in this page at all.--Minimumbias (talk) 21:36, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It's not exactly a secret that universities have an interest in claiming Nobel laureates as "theirs"; it's as a matter of prestige to them. The problem, of course, is that Nobel Prizes are not awarded to universities (or countries, for that matter – see List of Nobel laureates by country) but to individuals; this is not like the Olympics where the athletes formally represent their countries. Assigning universities to Nobel Prizes/laureates (or vice versa, whichever way you want to look at it) is therefore necessarily done post hoc, as that's simply not how the Nobel Prizes work. This introduces subjectivity into the matter, because there is more than one way it could be done; there is no canonical list of which universities get to take credit for which Nobel Prizes (because they don't get to take credit – the Nobel Prizes are not awarded to them but to individuals). The way it's done on this list is one conceivable way of doing it, but it's not the way. This is amply demonstrated by the universities themselves coming up with different figures than we do.
This list is not a neutral and unbiased way of presenting this information; we have in effect decided that this is the way this unofficial "contest" between universities should be "scored". That is an active choice that has been made, and it's not the only possible one that could have been made. While it may be objectively correct that these are the figures one would come up with using these criteria, the criteria themselves are not objectively the correct ones. The fact that the affiliations are sourced individually and then summed up to arrive at the figures for each university is rather a red flag in this regard; if the criteria we are using were universally – or even just generally – accepted to be the correct ones that should be used, there would almost certainly be no need to do that since we could just cite other sources' lists and figures.
I mentioned before that the universities themselves come up with different figures, but for a concrete example of another "objective" way of assigning universities to each Nobel Prize, we could do it the same way the official Nobel Prize website does it: use the universities, research institutions or companies Nobel Prize laureates were affiliated with at the time of the Nobel Prize announcement. That way, the figure for Caltech would for instance be 20 laureates rather than 78, and Einstein would not be among them.
I don't know that this is salvageable, frankly. It's plain to see that a lot of effort went into constructing this list, but it doesn't seem to be compliant with our WP:Core content policies and it's not self-evident to me that it can be made compliant with them. I'd be happy to be proved wrong, of course, but I'm leaning heavily towards this needing to be deleted. TompaDompa (talk) 02:03, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- TompaDompa: We are not trying to prove that one university is better than some another university. We are only stating facts. You are using your own subjective criteria. You are only making a personal judgement. Every editor has to respect Wikipedia:Consensus. Nobel Laureates and research affiliations page at NobelPrize.org only shows the universities, research institutions or companies Nobel prize winners were affiliated with at the time of the Nobel Prize announcement, and it only shows prize winners in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Economics; it doesn't show the prize winners in Literature or Peace. List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation is much more comprehensive. Ber31 (talk) 02:31, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - You say that We are only stating facts., and Minimumbias said something similar previously, but you don't seem to appreciate what I was trying to get at in my second paragraph above: there is an active choice going into deciding which facts to present and how (which is a point XOR'easter has also made previously in the discussion). That's not only stating facts.
    I'll demonstrate with an example: If I were to say "I joined Wikipedia before you and Minimumbias and have made more edits than the two of you combined", I'm sure you would agree that while that would be stating facts, it wouldn't be only stating facts. The selection of facts we choose to present reflects a belief that those are the relevant facts (and for the record, tenure on Wikipedia and number of edits are not relevant here).
    I know that the list the official Nobel Prize website has is very different from this one, but that's actually my point: they have chosen to maintain and present a list like that, not a list like this. The differences you note reflect their assessment that (1) university affiliation is not relevant for the Literature and Peace Prizes and (2) only the affiliation at the time of the Nobel Prize announcement is relevant, not affiliations earlier or later in the laureate's career.
    Now I want to be clear: The problem is not that there has been an active choice – that's unavoidable. The problem is that we are not supposed to be the ones making that active choice, WP:Reliable sources are. We are supposed to follow the sources, and that means using their criteria, not ours. Of course, that assumes that there actually are some generally-accepted criteria we can use. TompaDompa (talk) 09:52, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - Most often the prize is awarded for work done somewhere else. That someone attended a school or did research at one are facts, and likely listed in many sources. In any article, someone has to decide which facts to include and which ones not. That doesn't seem to be a problem in all those articles. Not so long ago, I found that aluminium oxide does not give dielectric strength. It seems that someone decided that fact wasn't needed. Other than it is probably hard to find a source, we could indicate the favorite restaurant, or even all the restaurants that someone ate at. But I suppose that isn't so interesting, so they leave out that one. I suspect that one can argue against the summary tables at the top based on adding up the number of laureates with connections to each school. Does it imply that schools with more are better? Some might say so, but I am not so convinced. Larger schools are more likely to have someone, so you should divide by the number of (whichever) at that school. But okay, argue against the summary tables. Gah4 (talk) 11:02, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- It's not unusual for there to be disagreement about rankings and ratings. For example, boxing is complicated because there are multiple weight classes and awarding bodies. So, what we do is show all of the respectable possibilities – see Boxing pound for pound rankings and List of current world boxing champions. If there are significantly different ways to score and calculate the Nobel lists then we can likewise show those too. Such expansion and improvement would not be done by deleting the 6,684 previous versions of the list. Our policy, WP:PRESERVE, is to keep the previous history and build on it. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:17, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- TompaDompa: You have failed to understand what List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation is all about. I understand that the Nobel Prizes are not awarded to universities, but to individuals. The list is about the alma mater of Nobel laureates and the universities they work. The official academic affiliations fall into three categories: 1) Alumni (graduates and attendees), 2) Long-term academic staff, and 3) Short-term academic staff. Further explanations are provided in the page. The criteria for the list are robust. TompaDompa, you have never contributed to List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation and never participated in any discussion on the talk page of the list. I am assuming that you want to contribute meaningfully to the list, but for that you have to make some effort to learn about the list. Nobel Laureates and research affiliations page is a list on Nobel laureates and their affiliated institutions published by NobelPrize.org. NobelPrize.org created that list using their own criteria. Harvard University also has a list of Nobel laureates affiliated with Harvard.[21] They have their own criteria. They have only included long term faculty in their list. The US DOE also has a list of Nobel laureates affiliated with DOE.[22] They have their own criteria. Thus, different institutions has a different way of counting Nobel laureates. Here on Wikipedia, there is List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation. The criteria for the list emerged out of many careful discussions between different editors over the years. Every editor must have a good understanding of Wikipedia:Consensus. Decisions are primarily made by consensus, and this method is considered as the best way to settle disputes on Wikipedia. Building consensus is a difficult and long process. When editors do not reach agreement by editing, there is a discussion on the talk page. Different points of views are presented, and there has to be some short of compromise. See the talk page of List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation and archives. Different types of discussions on various aspects of the list has been discussed on those talk pages for many years. If new editors want to make good contributions to List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation, they must be familiar with those discussions. Only after that, they will understand how difficult it has been to achieve various compromises. If you or anyone else think that there is a problem with the list, please start a discussion on the talk page. The rules of the list are set-up in such a way that there is no violation of Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Please study my arguments above. There is no problem with Wikipedia:Verifiability because for every entry, there is at least one reliable source. Thus, your claim that the list "doesn't seem to be compliant with our Wikipedia:Core content policies" is totally wrong. List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation is fully compliant with Wikipedia:Core content policies. The active choices are made by the reliable sources. For instance, Einstein isn't included in the Caltech's Nobel count in the Nobel Laureates and research affiliations page of NobelPrize.org because he wasn't affiliated with Caltech at the time of the Nobel Prize announcement. He is included in the Nobel count of List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation because he was a visiting professor at Caltech during the 1930s. Here are the reliable sources to support the claim that Einstein was a visiting professor at Caltech during the 1930s:[23][24]. The list is all about what the reliable sources say. There is no room for subjective criteria. Without the support of at least a reliable source, a laureate will not be included in the count. Ber31 (talk) 15:38, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - I understand. This list looks at the intersection of Nobel laureates and universities. There are other lists that also look at that intersection. This list does it in a specific way: it considers affiliations prior to the Nobel Prize, concurrently to it, and after it. This list considers three different categories of affiliations: alumni, long-term academic staff, and long-term academic staff (the criteria for which are outlined in the WP:LEAD).
    Other lists look at the intersection in their own ways. The list maintained by the official Nobel Prize website, for instance, only considers affiliation at the time the Nobel Prize was announced, not affiliations before or after. Different universities adopt different criteria—from generous to conservative—for claiming Nobel affiliates (to quote the WP:LEAD of the article directly).
    This list uses criteria decided upon by Wikipedia editors through discussion on the talk page. It's not the same as those other lists that use their own sets of criteria. It's different. Novel. Original, even. And that's the problem.
    Do we have a common understanding of what I wrote above from This list looks at the intersection [...] to [...] criteria decided upon by Wikipedia editors through discussion on the talk page., or do you think I got it wrong somehow?
    You are correct in assuming that I want to contribute meaningfully with regards to this list, but that doesn't necessarily mean adding to it. If I understand our respective positions correctly, you see the way the criteria were chosen through discussion and compromises as a good thing, reflecting thorough consensus-building. I, on the other hand, see it as compounding WP:Original research. Whether the criteria are robust is beside the point. Whether we think the criteria make sense is beside the point. What matters is what criteria WP:Reliable sources use. WP:No original research does not only apply to the application of the criteria, but also to the selection of the criteria. If there is a set of criteria that is generally used by WP:Reliable sources, that's the set of criteria we should use whether we agree that it's the best one or not. If there is no such set of criteria, we mustn't make one up for ourselves. TompaDompa (talk) 22:39, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- I just want to add one more point, besides all the excellent points explained by Gah4, Andrew Davidson, and Ber31 above. Regarding making choices, let me point it out outright that to stay neutral and objective is also a choice of Wikipedia. Making a choice is not always an indication of subjectivity. For example, I can choose to believe 1+1 =2, does not make me subjective? The notion of "subjectivity" is relative, and this argument cannot be used to argue that list Nobel list should be deleted. Our choice in this Nobel's page, quite simply, is to follow the neutrality principle like Wikipedia, and to list out verifiable facts: the alma mater and the working places of Nobel laureates. We do not add anything else into it. Different universities practice different rules of counting, based on subjective criteria. But we do not do that. This is our choice, to stay neutral. What is the matter with that? Most importantly, many evidences have been listed by several editors to prove that this list has important value, so it must be kept. Minimumbias (talk) 22:04, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - WP:No original research does not only apply to the application of the criteria, but also to the selection of the criteria. Do the criteria used on this article reflect the consensus among WP:Reliable sources about which set of criteria to use? TompaDompa (talk) 22:39, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - By repeatedly saying "criteria", you first have to understand that our only "criteria" is the universally accepted definitions of "academic affiliations". I have explained it above so many times above to various editors. This is our choice to stay neutral, and has been a long-established consensus among editors who contributed to this article. Let me emphasize, academic affiliation is NOT invented by us: we are simply explaining it to the public, with reliable sources. However, cutting off certain affiliations, assigning different weights to different academic affiliations, or any other types of subjective criteria, is a practice of counting adopted by certain universities themselves, not us. In a word, if there are 5 people affiliated, what we are doing is saying there are 5 people affiliated, but some universities would say there only 4, 3, 2, 1. Minimumbias (talk) 23:02, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - Right, so the answer is "no" then. Because the universities do not apply the universally accepted definitions of "academic affiliations" in this context. That's the problem. We're taking a different approach. TompaDompa (talk) 23:09, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        I don't know what you meant by "answer". I was not answering your question. I was explaining to you that academic affiliation is not a selection, or a selection of criteria. It is a fact, or common sense in academic. And here in Wikipedia, we choose to just state the academic affiliations of Nobel laureates (e.g., a professor at a university counts +1), instead of adding in any further subjective criteria. And your logic is that we are still making a "selection of criteria", which we are not, because academic affiliation is not a selection of criteria. We choose to stay neutral, just like Wikipedia chooses to stay neutral. This choice does not mean subjectivity or "selection of criteria". That's what I tried to explain. Minimumbias (talk) 00:29, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        
        Perhaps it's helpful to add a few points, after seeing your replies to Ber31 above. The discussions on Talk Page over the years were not our original research on subjective criteria or creating a selection of criteria. I've explained it above to other editors several times, and I assumed you did not read it carefully. Anyway. The discussions on the Talk Page was on how NOT to violate the rules of Wikipedia while presenting a truthful picture of the academia. For example, I've explained above about the notion of "fellowship". Some fellowships at certain universities may be academic affiliations (employment), but others are not (pure visitors for public talks or meetings). Our discussion on Talk Page was thus to determine which type of fellowship a Nobel laureate was having, thus seeing whether there is academic affiliation. We are NOT including or excluding a person based on our "selected criteria". Minimumbias (talk) 00:45, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        (edit conflict) The answer to the question Do the criteria used on this article reflect the consensus among WP:Reliable sources about which set of criteria to use? is no. Listing Nobel laureates by academic affiliation is actively choosing a set of criteria to use. We could, for instance, have only included alumni and called the list "List of Nobel laureates by alma mater" instead. That would also have been actively choosing a set of criteria. It would have been a different set of criteria, but it would have been neither more nor less "neutral" or "subjective". So the question is: Is there a consensus among WP:Reliable sources to list Nobel laureates by university affiliation defined this particular way, as opposed to listing them by a modification of this definition of "university affiliation" or by some other parameter such as alma mater? And from what you're telling me, the answer is no – there is not a consensus among WP:Reliable sources that this is how to list Nobel laureates. You're applying the concept of "university affiliation" (defined this particular way) in a context where reliable sources apparently do not. That's the problem. TompaDompa (talk) 00:51, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        I disagree. 1) Choosing a topic to write is different from selecting some criteria. You seemed to have mixed the idea of "selecting some criteria to count Nobel laureates" with "plainly stating the academic affiliations of the Nobel laureates". The former is a subjective research, while the latter is a plain list - just like listing the top 10 deadliest natural disasters [25], or listing the five fastest 100m records [26]. 2) And, there is nothing "subjective" about our list, because academic affiliation is an universal term. We are just doing what our topic is stating: simply listing the Nobel laureates' university affiliations without adding in any further criteria. 3) Finding a consensus in sources to count Nobel laureates in a particular way (with some agreed selected criteria) is not reality, at least for now, because different universities may do it differently. That does not conflict with our topic, because we are not listing Nobel laureates under some agreed selected criteria. We are just stating facts. I don't see any problem. Minimumbias (talk) 01:09, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        No. "Choosing a topic to write" means defining a scope. That entails selecting criteria, even if you don't consciously think of it that way. The scope of this list is the intersection or cross-categorization of Nobel laureates and the concept of university affiliation (defined this particular way).
        There are two ways of looking at the construction of this list. The starting point is in either case a set of individuals: Nobel laureates. To this set of individuals, we either apply a parameter (university affiliation, defined in this particular way) or a set of criteria (the set of criteria used to define "university affiliation"). They are equivalent, it's just a question of how you prefer looking at it.
        Let's start with the parameter perspective. What you call plainly stating the academic affiliations of the Nobel laureates is listing a (well-defined) set of individuals by a parameter you have chosen (university affiliation). And here's the thing: if nobody else has done that before (because they have used some slight variation of the parameter you're using, in this case), you're producing novel content. It would be the same thing if you were listing them by handedness or which day of the week they were born (List of Nobel laureates born on a Wednesday and so on). Do WP:Reliable sources list Nobel laureates by university affiliation (defined this particular way)? For the examples of lists by parameters you gave, the corresponding question (i.e. "Do WP:Reliable sources list 100-meter dashes by shortest time?") can be answered in the affirmative. Do you see the difference? Don't get hung up on subjectivity or the lack thereof—focus on novelty.
        Now let's take the criteria perspective. Assuming for the sake of argument that these are indeed the correct set of criteria for defining university affiliation, you're extrapolating from this being the appropriate set of criteria to use in one context (university affiliation) to it also being the appropriate set of criteria to use in another context (assigning Nobel laureates to universities or vice versa, however you want to look at it). That extrapolation is done in spite of WP:Reliable sources not using this set of criteria in the latter context, as you yourself have noted.
        Finding a consensus in sources to count Nobel laureates in a particular way (with some agreed selected criteria) is not reality, at least for now, because different universities may do it differently. That's precisely my point. There is no consensus among WP:Reliable sources about how to list Nobel laureates by university. The very scope of this list lacks consensus external to Wikipedia that it is in fact a meaningful scope. TompaDompa (talk) 02:21, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Absolutely wrong. Unfortunately, I didn't even have to look through everything you just wrote, but only had to pick the first two paragraphs or so, because your later conclusions are based on the first two paragraphs (I eventually chose to read over what you wrote, out of respect, by the way). 1) Your first sentence already contains a fatal flaw: "Choosing a topic to write means defining a scope. That entails selecting criteria, even if you don't consciously think of it that way." If you kept assuming something that we did not do, and kept misinterpreting our explanations in your own language, then there is no way we can continue this conversion. The bottom line is, you have to prove that we actually selected certain "criteria" by simply stating "academic affiliations", which I have repeatedly said to contain no criteria, but universally defined concepts. In your language, the so-called parameter space we are using is the neutral, universally defined space containing "academic affiliations". You kept calling it some set of criteria, as if there is an even larger space of that contains this parameter space as a subspace, and we are able to switch other subspaces if we want (and therefore, meaning that we select certain preferred subspace). But this is absolutely wrong. When we chose to be neutral and follow the Wiki guidelines, we already put ourselves in the most neutral way possible, or in your language, the largest parameter space possible. Period. 2) And, if you thinking that we can write a list of Nobel prize winners according to some birthdays or something else, rather than academic affiliations, then you are playing this game of "straw man". Because you implicitly switch to a different topic by calling it a different set of criteria. This is like switching from a parameter space of biology to a space of physics. We are not playing a game called "inclusion" of Nobel laureates into a list with a set of criteria. We are stating the basic facts of Nobel laureates in a list, instead of selecting certain laureates using a set of criteria. 3) Again, stating that no consensus on how to count Nobel laureates (with some agreed criteria) has nothing to do with us. I've stated it repeatedly. We are not counting Nobel laureates. We are stating the universal facts, in a list. All of the arguments you have used is based on your own understanding that an original set of criteria is an absolute must for creating a list for Nobel laureates, which is untrue. Minimumbias (talk) 03:08, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        The bottom line is, you have to prove that we actually selected certain "criteria" by simply stating "academic affiliations", which I have repeatedly said to contain no criteria, but universally defined concepts. "University affiliation", for the purposes of this list, is defined as belonging to one of three categories: alumni (graduates and attendees), long-term staff, or short-term staff. Those are the criteria for counting as having an academic affiliation to the university. The criteria for belonging to each of those categories are further outlined in the WP:LEAD: Graduates are defined as those who hold Bachelor's, Master's, Doctorate or equivalent degrees from a university, while attendees are those who formally enrolled in degree programs at a university but did not complete the programs; thus, honorary degrees, posthumous degrees, summer attendees, exchange students and auditing students are excluded. The category of "Long-term academic staff" consists of tenure or tenure-track and equivalent academic positions, while that of "Short-term academic staff" consists of lecturers (without tenure), postdoctoral researchers, visiting professors or scholars (visitors), and equivalent academic positions. This is a set of criteria. That you refer to them with a collective term—university/academic affiliation—does not change that. Whether they are universally accepted as the criteria to use for defining that collective term also doesn't really matter—they are still a set of criteria. And the thing is, they are evidently not universally accepted as such, by your own admission: However, cutting off certain affiliations, assigning different weights to different academic affiliations, or any other types of subjective criteria, is a practice of counting adopted by certain universities themselves, not us. In a word, if there are 5 people affiliated, what we are doing is saying there are 5 people affiliated, but some universities would say there only 4, 3, 2, 1. What you're saying is, essentially, that they're doing it wrong while we're doing it right. That's your assessment. But we don't go by your assessment of how it should be done, or by mine, or by any other editor's – we go by how WP:Reliable sources do it.
        At the end of the day, the problem is that this is novel content. You keep saying that we're just stating facts, but if no WP:Reliable sources have stated the facts in this way, you're still producing novel content. Wikipedia is not supposed to create novel content.
        We are not counting Nobel laureates. That's flat-out wrong, and I have no idea how you came to that conclusion. The universities are listed by number of affiliated Nobel laureates. This is, really, more of a list of universities by affiliated Nobel laureates. How on Earth is that not counting? TompaDompa (talk) 12:45, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        TompaDompa: "In a word, if there are 5 people affiliated, what we are doing is saying there are 5 people affiliated, but some universities would say there only 4, 3, 2, 1." That is because different universities have a different ways of counting Nobel laureates. We have never said that "they're doing it wrong". They have a right to use whatever criteria they want. Take the case of Harvard University. They have an official Nobel count:[27] They have only included long-term staff. They haven't counted alumni who haven't worked as long term faculty at Harvard. In Harvard's Nobel Laureates in Physics[28], they haven't counted Adam Riess, a Nobel Laureate and Harvard graduate. However, Harvard has acknowledged elsewhere that Riess was a Harvard graduate. Here is a Harvard source: Adam Riess, Nobel Laureate and ’96 alumnus of the Harvard Astronomy Department, named a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins. Any reliable source that points out that a Nobel laureate has graduated or worked as a short-term staff at Harvard will be acceptable for List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation. The list is all about what the reliable sources say and there is no room for subjective criteria. What is acceptable or not is determined by reliable sources. Feelings or emotions of editors play zero role in the final decision. Reliable sources dictate who is counted and who is not! Ber31 (talk) 17:03, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        
        Editors are not counting Nobel laureates on the basis of their feelings or emotions. On List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation, reliable sources are counting Nobel laureates! Ber31 (talk) 17:15, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        "In a word, if there are 5 people affiliated, what we are doing is saying there are 5 people affiliated, but some universities would say there only 4, 3, 2, 1." That is because different universities have a different ways of counting Nobel laureates. Yes, that's the problem. Why are we not using their methods? Why are we using a different method that is not used by the sources?
        You say that there is no room for subjective criteria as if the choice of criteria is not itself subjective. What makes including alumni, as we do, any less subjective than only including long-term staff, as Harvard does? The answer is of course that it's not—neither option is any more or less subjective than the other. The problem is that we're using a method that is at odds with the methods used by the sources.
        On List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation, reliable sources are counting Nobel laureates! If reliable sources are counting the laureates, why do our counts differ from those sources'? Because what's actually happening is that editors are using the sources to determine whether laureates should count according to the method used by this list (which is different from the methods used by the sources) and then tallying them to arrive at the number of laureates for each university. That's WP:Original research.
        I'll quote PresN from their closing comment at Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/List of Nobel laureates affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania/archive1 (which was just delisted): the entire subject is questionable. "Associated with" is suspect, as UPenn had nothing to do with the prize itself, and in most cases nothing to do with the research beyond being somewhere that the researcher once went to school. It's an arbitrary slicing of the data to give unearned prestige to a school. Those concerns apply equally well here. TompaDompa (talk) 19:19, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        TompaDompa: right after I typed in my words above, I already foresaw you may type in these arguments. So I did not rush to change my words above to remove any possible ambiguity, just to give us this opportunity to point out your misunderstandings once and for all. 1) First of all, when I said "we are not counting Nobel laureates", note that I said it right after "how to count Nobel laureates (with some agreed criteria) has nothing to do with us". I thought you would understand the sentences completely, but you didn't. I was using your definition of "counting" and refuting it above, because in your definition of "counting/including" Nobel laureates, there is always some agreed criteria made by us. So I was telling you that we were not doing this type of counting in the list, but you misunderstood it as I was denying some universal counting facts like 1+1=2, which is perfectly allowed in Wiki because it is common sense. 2) If you continue with your logic and arguing that "common sense" should also be defined with reliable sources, then saying any random common sense like 2343+1231=3574 or a university has professors may be viewed as original research, unless proved explicitly by external reliable sources. Do you want me to cite my calculator then? Wikipedia is written in language, and it takes certain level of common sense to understand it (e.g., common understanding of English). Moreover, some of the common sense are for specialists, not for laymen. Otherwise, you can go to any page like [29] or [30] and ask them to be deleted, because these pages use some "common sense" known to professionals without having proper citations in laymen language sentence by sentence to teach you how to understand the professional knowledge. And in this way, you are bascially asking Wikipedia to cancel itself. In our list, we are simply explaining the "academic affiliations", the common sense of academia & university, to the public in an unbiased way. But you misunderstood it as some criteria invented by us. In reality, these are just the "birth certificates" and the "working permits" of Nobel laureates in academia (i.e., common senses in academia). 3) Finally, words like "criteria" are meaningful only when there is behavior like selection or classification. You think we have criteria, implicitly assuming we are doing selection or the type of "counting" you understand it, but we are not. Let me tell you what we do. For any given Nobel laureate, we looked for his/her career path since college, and objectively stated his/her academic affiliations within the relevant universities in the list. Where is the counting/inclusion/selection (based on a set of original criteria)? Again, the notion of "academic affiliations" are not invented by us, but are universally accepted definitions, like "birth certificate" and "working permits", and we are simply explaining them to the public in a truthful way. Minimumbias (talk) 19:42, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        TompaDompa, you are arguing as if the official Nobel count of Harvard is the only reliable source that can be used on Wikipedia to count the Nobel laureates affiliated with Harvard. Such thinking is completely wrong. :) The official count of Harvard University (which lists only long-term staff at Harvard) doesn't include all the Nobel laureates affiliated with Harvard. Did Harvard claim that Adam Riess, a Nobel Laureate and Harvard graduate (and someone who is excluded from Harvard's official Nobel count), is not affiliated with Harvard? No. Here is a Harvard University source: Adam Riess, Nobel Laureate and ’96 alumnus of the Harvard Astronomy Department, named a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins. The criteria used by this list is called "academic affiliations", which are universally defined terms: students, faculty, and short-term staff. Reliable sources include CVs of Nobel laureates (published by major universities), biographies of Nobel laureates at NobelPrize.org, and many others. Wikipedia:No original research is used to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist. The list has at least one reliable source conforming affiliation for every entry on the list, so the list doesn't violate WP:OR or Wikipedia:Verifiability. Ber31 (talk) 19:54, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        @Minimumbias: You're acting as if the purpose of this list is simply stating which universities each Nobel laureate is/was affiliated with, with the number of Nobel laureates for each university simply being an unintended but unavoidable side effect thereof. That's clearly untrue. If that were the case, the entries would be Nobel laureates, not universities. That is to say, you would go to Einstein's entry on the list and see the universities he was affiliated with, rather than going to Caltech's entry on the list and see the Nobel laureates that were/are affiliated with it.
        The reason that 1+1=2 and 2343+1231=3574 are allowed is that those are WP:Routine calculations. The criteria for being a routine calculation is that the result of the calculation is correct, and a meaningful reflection of the sources.
        In our list, we are simply explaining the "academic affiliations", the common sense of academia, to the public in an unbiased way. But you misunderstood it as some criteria invented by us. It doesn't matter if it was invented by you or not, what matters is that you're applying it in a new context where it has not been applied by reliable sources, thus producing novel content. The problem is that the content is novel. The reason the content is novel is that you're doing something the sources don't: you're listing Nobel laureates in a way that the sources aren't. You're presupposing that a list like this—which looks at Nobel laureates and their university affiliation by this exact definition—should exist. Where is the evidence that this list should exist? In other words, where are the sources that keep lists like this (not similar to this, like this)? XOR'easter got it precisely right when they said Taking a definition used for one purpose and deciding that it's the right definition to use for another is WP:SYNTH.
        For that matter, you say that this is the universally accepted definitions of "academic affiliations" and common sense of academia, but where are the sources supporting this? I put it to you that this assertion is false, that these are in fact not universally accepted definitions. I'll demonstrate this by way of example: Johns Hopkins claims 29 Nobel laureates affiliated with Johns Hopkins whereas we list 39, and Cornell claims 50 Nobel Laureates Affiliated with Cornell University whereas we list 61. If it were truly universally accepted, those figures would be exact matches.
        @Ber31: you are arguing as if the official Nobel count of Harvard is the only reliable source that can be used on Wikipedia to count the Nobel laureates affiliated with Harvard. No, actually. We could also use, say, the official Nobel Prize website's list. That would also give us a completely different figure than we have now, in fact an even lower figure than Harvard's own list gives. But we have to actually use a source, we can't just make it up ourselves.
        Wikipedia:No original research is used to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist. Correct, but incomplete. It also refers to material which can be derived from combinations of sources where that derivation has not been done by any sources. See WP:SYNTH, which says Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources.. For instance: combining one source which defines "university affiliation" (though I'll note that such a source does not seem to currently be cited on the list), another source that says person X is a Nobel laureate, and a third source such as person X's curriculum vitae which mentions university Y (in some specified capacity) to reach the conclusion "person X is a Nobel laureate affiliated with university Y" which is not stated by any of the sources. If you had instead cited a "list of Nobel laureates affiliated with university Y" that includes person X, it would not have been a problem. Nor would it have been a problem if you had cited a "list of universities that Nobel laureate X is affiliated with" that includes university Y. TompaDompa (talk) 23:03, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        TompaDompa: at this point, I don't believe you are ever able to distinguish "two topics" from "two criteria" anymore. The topic you are interested in is "how universities claim their Nobel laureates", in which case there are Harvard's criteria, Cambridge's criteria, Berkeley's criteria, MIT's criteria, etc. Note that this already refutes your own claim that by choosing a specific topic, one has to define a specific set of criteria, because we can have 100 different criteria under this same topic. On the other hand, the topic of this list is the academic biographical data (i.e., academic affiliations) of Nobel laureates, which has no subjective interpretation whatsoever, because academic affiliations are universally defined. This is like the birthplaces data of Nobel laureates, or age data of Nobel laureates. They are not certain criteria, but universally defined topics. You keep saying that we are writing for the former topic of how universities claim Nobel laureates, even citing the counting data from different universities to support your claim, while many editors above including myself have tried to tell you, in various ways, that we are writing for the latter topic. This means, in our topic, we are able to add the numbers as universal counting facts, which means when we see 1+2+3 people, we say 6. We do not claim laureates for the universities, ok? This is common sense, not subjective counting (it's good that you cite that Wiki policy to support this universal counting behavior). That is why our numbers are not the same as those universities' own counts, because we are generally doing two different things (two different topics, not two different criteria under the same topic). Some universities like Cambridge may be using the universally defined "academic affiliation" as their counting criteria, but others do not, ok? For example, some universities might think to claim a laureate as one of theirs, the laureate must be working in the university while receiving the award. This is their own choice not to use the universally defined "academic affiliation" as counting criteria, which does not mean they are denying the existence of "academic affiliation". How many times do I have to explain this to you? Finally, you say "a list of Nobel laureates by university affiliations" must be presented with a list of Nobel laureates followed by the universities they have been affiliated with, instead of a list of universities. Really? When we say there is a list of students by their years, do you think we actually list each student one by one followed by their years in college, or a list of freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors? Listing things by certain category (in our case, university) is not listing these things one by one followed by a category name, but listing categories one by one followed by the things contained in each of the categories. Why are you arguing this? Minimumbias (talk) 00:35, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        
        TompaDompa: it seems that I forgot to answer one of your questions. Even though the topic of this list is different from that of how universities claim their Nobel laureates. This topic of academic biographical data of Nobel laureates is not novel: it has important value and is of great interest, as already explained by many other editors including myself at several places in this page. For example, Andrew had mentioned a source of the same topic above [31], and it is not hard to find other example sources [32] [33][34]. But these sources are not up-to-date. Minimumbias (talk) 02:14, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        You can't seriously believe that the purpose of this article is to list biographical data about Nobel laureates and not to list the number of Nobel laureates per university. That's transparently false from the very construction of the list—there is no entry for Marie Curie or for Albert Einstein, but there are entries for Oxford and Caltech. The list focuses on the universities, not on the laureates. We even have a scoreboard of sorts for the universities.
        this already refutes your own claim that by choosing a specific topic, one has to define a specific set of criteria, because we can have 100 different criteria under this same topic What are you talking about? If we write an article on the topic of "how universities do in actual fact claim Nobel laureates", the fact that they do it differently from each other is part of that topic. If the topic is "number of Nobel laureates per university by counting method X", then changing the criteria from counting method X to counting method Y is writing about a different albeit similar topic.
        We do not claim laureates for the universities, ok? So you say, but that's untrue. We very explicitly do. We rank them by the number of laureates, for crying out loud! Who are you trying to kid?
        This is like the birthplaces data of Nobel laureates, or age data of Nobel laureates. Even if that were true, you would have to demonstrate that this is something that WP:Reliable sources actually do, that we're not writing about some novel topic. The sources you link to don't actually support this topic. this one writes about how many Nobel laureates "were educated and received their highest academic degrees" at each university and later, about "the universities credited with Nobel Prizes". This one doesn't write about which universities the Nobel laureates are affiliated with at all, though it does discuss some biographical details. This one, after briefly discussing this very Wikipedia list, counts "both the current affiliations and the universities from which recipients received their advanced degrees". And this one writes about Nobel laureates publication records and says about affiliation that “Affiliation” refers to the Nobel laureate’s affiliation while publishing the paper (which is, you know, a different topic than all their affiliations ever). You are blatantly misrepresenting what the topics of these sources actually is.
        academic affiliations are universally defined So you keep saying, but you don't back it up with sources. The definition for "academic affiliation" is entirely unsourced on the article. I'm saying that if it were true that academic affiliation is universally defined with certain critera, lists that say "these are the Nobel laureates affiliated with university X" would also use the same criteria as this list, but they don't (as evidenced by the fact that they come up with different figures).
        You keep saying that we are writing for the former topic of how universities claim Nobel laureates No, I'm saying that we're writing about our own, novel way to do it. Which we are. TompaDompa (talk) 07:43, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Now I don't think you have normal understanding of the English or the logic that other editors and I have been talking about, so this is very likely my last message to you. This does not mean I agree with anything that you said. It is just that I feel such discussion has become a pure waste of my time. 1) I've pointed out that a list of things by category is not listing these things one by one followed by a category name, but listing categories one by one followed by the things contained in each of these categories. You keep saying that we need to have an entry for Marie Curie or someone in this list. This is not even understanding the basic English language, and I have no further comments as I have no interest in teaching someone how to read. 2) Also, you don't seem to understand the meaning of "criteria". A set of criteria is defined for a particular purpose. Such as Harvard's criteria is defined for their own counting purpose. If we take this purpose out of the definition of the criteria, then the "criteria" becomes meaningless. But "academic affiliation" is not defined for any particular purpose. Just like the birthplace of a Nobel laureate is not defined for any particular purpose. You cannot take a non-existent purpose out of their definitions and make them meaningless. I have repeated it several times, and I don't have time to explain it to you any further. If you don't understand English language well or does not understand how to communicate with others in a logical way, then I can't help. 3) As for the sources, I gave you examples to show you that the academic biographical data are of great value and interest, and I did not say the sources I gave you are exactly the same as our list. They are dozens of other sources such as [35][36][37][38] [39] that share our purpose. I don't know what you were referring to that I have to back up with, since I've repeatedly said our list represents universal facts and common sense. You seem to live in a world that when you see 5 people, you don't want to say it unless an external source tells you it's 5 people. You are either abusing the Wikipedia policy or using the policies to override people's common sense, which I've already discussed above. You can, in your logic, go to any professional page like [40] or [41] to ask them to be deleted, because there are common sense only known to some professionals but not to laymen, and do not have proper citations either for the content or for the notation - and it's likely that you are never able to find exact sources supporting the combinations of notations or the derivations of some of the content in those Wiki pages, which are actually common sense, not novel materials. Hence, I believe you at most know some of "university", but do not know "academia", since you do not appear to understand the common sense of academia & university that other editors and I have been talking about. If you wish to verify the common notion of "academic affiliations": students, faculty, short-term staff (postdocs, visiting professors, etc), you may go to any department's website with proper directory presented, such as [42][43][44][45], and verify it yourself. This is like primitive notion and axiom. Minimumbias (talk) 20:47, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        I've pointed out that a list of things by category is not listing these things one by one followed by a category name, but listing categories one by one followed by the things contained in each of these categories. You keep saying that we need to have an entry for Marie Curie or someone in this list. That's not actually what I said, and I don't know where you got that from. What I said was that if the purpose of the list had been to provide information about the laureates, the entries would have been laureates. And conversely, if the purpose of the list is to provide information about the universities, the entries would be universities (which they are). In other words: if you want to provide information about a laureate, you keep all the information about that laureate in one place (whereas the information about each university gets spread out across multiple laureates), but if you want to provide information about a university, you keep all the information about that university in one place (whereas the information about each laureate gets spread out across multiple universities). See what I mean?
        You're missing my point about e.g. Johns Hopkins and Cornell coming up with different figures than we do. The point is not that their figures are different per se. The point is that they explicitly say that these are people affiliated with them, but somehow their list of who is affiliated with them is different from ours. The sources are not using affiliation to mean the exact same thing we are. If their interpretation of affiliation were the same as ours, their lists would match ours. They interpret affiliation slightly differently. They use a different definition of affiliation. That wouldn't be possible if, as you claim, affiliation were universally defined exactly the way you define it.
        I've repeatedly said our list represents universal facts and common sense Which is to say that you've asserted it without any evidence. And I'm dismissing it for (A) lack of evidence and (B) evidence to the contrary.
        You seem to live in a world that when you see 5 people, you don't want to say it unless an external source tells you it's 5 people. I don't know where you got that idea. If you have a list with 5 entries, you can say that it has 5 entries.
        A set of criteria is defined for a particular purpose. [...] I honestly can't tell what point you're trying to make here. "Academic affiliation" is not a fundamental property of the universe. It's a human construct. It's defined by humans. The definition sets out criteria. Those criteria constitute the definition. The definition in the WP:LEAD is more than a paragraph long and it's full of criteria. What counts as an academic affiliation and what does not is a set of criteria—all employment-based visiting positions, which carry teaching or research duties, are included as affiliations in the list is an inclusion criterion for the list, for instance. You say that we're "simply explaining" the concept of academic affiliations as if it were some fundamental property of the universe, but again, it's not. It's a human construct that exists as a collective term for a group of other human constructs.
        I gave you examples to show you that the academic biographical data are of great value and interest, and I did not say the sources I gave you are exactly the same as our list. They are dozens of other sources such as [...] that share our purpose. Now you're just equivocating—"Those things are academic biographical data, and these things are academic biographical data, so if those things are of great value and interest, then these things are of great value and interest." It doesn't work like that, and you know it. You wouldn't accept an equivalent argument about something different.
        I want you to understand that I'm not saying that this article has to be deleted, necessarily. It's actually possible to construct a valid list with this title: a list of Nobel laureates by their university affiliation at the time they received the Nobel Prize. That list would not be novel, because sources do actually list Nobel laureates that particular way. But it would not be a different version of this list, it would be a fundamentally different list altogether. TompaDompa (talk) 23:21, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Such connection appears in multiple RS. Only that matters. Hence this is valid list. That's why these lists and pages like List of Nobel laureates affiliated with the University of Copenhagen (we have many of them, see Category:Lists of Nobel laureates by institutional affiliation) are legitimate pages. As about connection between the educational institutions and success in sciences in general, yes, there is obviously a connection. Nothing strange. My very best wishes (talk) 02:08, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- My very best wishes: Thanks for the thoughtful comment! Ber31 (talk) 02:36, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It seems that there are 382 links to this page, though some might come from the page itself. Many of those, someone will have to go through and change. As for WP:ITSINTERESTING, it seems that the Nobel prize is followed more by the general public than just about anything else that science does. Some scientists (especially those who don't have one) might believe that the general public is over interested in them. Otherwise, my only contribution to the page is the {{anchor}}s, so not a big investment. Gah4 (talk) 04:09, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That the Nobel prize is notable is not in dispute. However, notability is not inherited; and disregarding that entirely, it is not a reason to keep a page which is based on original criteria (which, more often that not, match few if any of the reliable sources on the topipc) for its content. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:15, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There are several universities that has their own lists of Nobel laureates affiliated with those universities. Such lists are maintained by many institutions, companies and other types of organizations. For instance, Stanford University[46], Caltech[47], UChicago[48] Cambridge University[49], US DOE[50], Sheffield University[51], etc. have their own Nobel lists. Even a college of Cambridge University called "Churchill College" has a similar list:[52]. Several media outlets and research journals have published articles and papers on the alma mater of Nobel laureates and the universities they work. For instance, here is an article published on Nature: Where Nobel winners get their start. Here is an article published by Times Higher Education: Top 10 universities for producing Nobel prizewinners. The claim that this list is a non-encyclopedic cross-categorization is completely false. This list is not based on "original criteria". Ber31 (talk) 03:19, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And you have obviously attacked a strawman, because what I said is not "there are no sources" but "more often that not, [this list] match[es] few if any of the reliable sources on the topic". There being sources does not mean that an article which blatantly does not follow them and is instead creating its own criteria for who is affiliated to which university is acceptable. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:23, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Different organizations and universities have different criteria for counting Nobel prizes. The criteria for List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation emerged out of many careful discussions between different editors over the years. You need to carefully read my response to TompaDompa. RandomCanadian, your arguments are totally flawed. You have failed to provide any detailed arguments. Your argument is basically WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT. Ber31 (talk) 03:30, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Let me add a few points for Ber31, because I've responded to one or two editors above with similar claims. The so-called "criteria" we are using in the list is "academic affiliations" which are universally defined terms: students, faculty, short-term staff. We are explaining it to the public, instead of creating new rules or new terms. The discussion on the Talk page over the years came to this conclusion, because by using the universal terms we are able to avoid violating Wiki guidelines. In other words, we are not using a set of original criteria in the list, since we are not adding in anything. The title is a well-defined topic, and we are just doing that in the content: plainly stating the alma mater and working places of the laureates. That's it. Minimumbias (talk) 03:36, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
WP:V (the requirement for content to be based on reliable sources); WP:NOR (the requirement that material not be based on original interpretation/synthesis of sources; even if it is the WP:LOCALCONSENSUS of editors on a talk page) and WP:NOT (not everything that appears in other sources needs to appear in an encyclopedia, which is a summary, not an exhaustive database) are all valid arguments. Argumenta ad lapides, on the other hand, such as the claims that my argument is "completely false" or that my arguments are "totally flawed", which fail to address any of this, are, well, informal fallacies, and I have no need nor intention to further reply here. Have fun, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:06, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
On the list, the requirements for the content are based on reliable sources. I have given several examples above. You don't seem to read them properly. The materials on the list are not based on original interpretation/synthesis of sources. Please read what Minimumbias wrote just above you. The list is not a database. Ber31 (talk) 04:17, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'll keep this short, but Keep per keepers above! Let's not pretend the universities involved think this is "trivial". Johnbod (talk) 21:49, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Well I’m sure the universities don’t, but I think that’s what WP calls a “primary source”. Dronebogus (talk) 22:12, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The publications by Nobel Foundation are secondary [53]. Publications on major University websites, such as [54], are primary, but they can be used per WP:PRIMARY (primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia..., we assume there is a degree of an editorial control out there). References to personal CV must be avoided, especially for living people; they fall under WP:SELFPUB. In any event, this is not a reason for deletion. My very best wishes (talk) 16:30, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

User:My very best wishes: CVs of Nobel laureates that are published by major universities can be included. CVs that are published by blogs or webpages should be avoided since they would fall under WP:SELFPUB. Ber31 (talk) 16:56, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Category:Lists of Nobel laureates by institutional affiliation has lists for each university, and more referenced information. Biographies of anyone mentions what university they went to. But would it matter if these people went to a different school? Same textbooks and teaching methods, so what difference would it make? Colleges brag about their successful students of course. When the news media mentions who won the nobel prizes for everything, do they mention what school they went to? Dream Focus 19:36, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Certainly not in the way this list does it at least, since this list includes affiliations after receiving the Nobel Prize. TompaDompa (talk) 19:42, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. By my analysis, this list clearly meets WP:LISTN. Any argument that I would use, however, has been used before. It's probably time to start wrapping up this AfD. gidonb (talk) 22:02, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. List of basic facts.--14Jenna7Caesura (talk) 00:08, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Lists of Nobel laureates by University affiliation are absolutely notable, as mentioned above. There is some concern about this list using different criteria than other lists out there and that it uses original research. My response to the first concern is that every list and institution uses different criteria for what counts, so we should use the most expansive definition of affiliation out there. I also will note that, while primary sources are used heavily in the article, this seems to be more out of convenience than anything else. There is surely a reliable secondary source for every Nobel prize ever issued. Since the secondary sources do exist, this article is more in need of a clean up than a deletion. Mysteryman blue 05:55, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for all the well-reasoned keep arguments above. As they've shown, similar lists exist in independent, reliable sources, so the theme of the list is WP:NOTE in its own right, passing both WP:LISTPURP#Information and WP:LISTPURP#Navigation. This also makes it WP:ENCYCLOPEDIC, refuting WP:NOT. It's also not WP:SYNTH or WP:OR as no immediate conclusions are reached (a criteria for those tags). -Tiredmeliorist (talk) 16:00, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Revision as of 05:55, 18 October 2021 edit Mysterymanblue (talk \| contribs) Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers 2,371 edits →‎List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation: Keep Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit Advanced mobile edit ← Previous edit		Revision as of 16:00, 18 October 2021 edit undo Tiredmeliorist (talk \| contribs) Extended confirmed users 572 edits keep Next edit →
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	* '''Keep''' Lists of Nobel laureates by University affiliation are absolutely notable, as mentioned above. There is some concern about this list using different criteria than other lists out there and that it uses original research. My response to the first concern is that every list and institution uses different criteria for what counts, so we should use the most expansive definition of affiliation out there. I also will note that, while primary sources are used heavily in the article, this seems to be more out of convenience than anything else. There is surely a reliable secondary source for every Nobel prize ever issued. Since the secondary sources do exist, this article is more in need of a clean up than a deletion. <b style="line-height:1.2;display:inline-block;transform:skew(-14deg);border-radius:9Q;overflow:hidden;box-shadow:inset 0 0 0 1Q#04b">[[User:Mysterymanblue\|<span style="color:#fff;background:#04b"> Mysteryman</span>]][[User talk:Mysterymanblue\|blue ]]</b> 05:55, 18 October 2021 (UTC)		* '''Keep''' Lists of Nobel laureates by University affiliation are absolutely notable, as mentioned above. There is some concern about this list using different criteria than other lists out there and that it uses original research. My response to the first concern is that every list and institution uses different criteria for what counts, so we should use the most expansive definition of affiliation out there. I also will note that, while primary sources are used heavily in the article, this seems to be more out of convenience than anything else. There is surely a reliable secondary source for every Nobel prize ever issued. Since the secondary sources do exist, this article is more in need of a clean up than a deletion. <b style="line-height:1.2;display:inline-block;transform:skew(-14deg);border-radius:9Q;overflow:hidden;box-shadow:inset 0 0 0 1Q#04b">[[User:Mysterymanblue\|<span style="color:#fff;background:#04b"> Mysteryman</span>]][[User talk:Mysterymanblue\|blue ]]</b> 05:55, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
			*'''Keep''' for all the well-reasoned keep arguments above. As they've shown, similar lists exist in independent, reliable sources, so the theme of the list is [[WP:NOTE]] in its own right, passing both [[WP:LISTPURP#Information]] and [[WP:LISTPURP#Navigation]]. This also makes it [[WP:ENCYCLOPEDIC]], refuting [[WP:NOT]]. It's also not [[WP:SYNTH]] or [[WP:OR]] as no immediate conclusions are reached (a criteria for those tags). -[[User:Tiredmeliorist\|Tiredmeliorist]] ([[User talk:Tiredmeliorist\|talk]]) 16:00, 18 October 2021 (UTC)