Talk:Nassim Nicholas Taleb/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Reads like CV

I've inserted tags into two subsections that read much like a CV. This doesn't necessarily mean that there's any conflict of interest, or that using into from a CV or footnoting a CV is wrong. However, Wikipedia policy says: "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources" (emphasis added). If some info is only in the subject's CV, then that means we shouldn't use much of it, because otherwise would be undue weight.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:34, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

I have inserted the reference #35 [3] that refers the jobs cited. Do you think the style of the section is bad? is it too long? thanks a lot Jazi Zilber (talk) 18:13, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

I think this is a fine "find", User:YechezkelZilber, for the subset of career bullets that this article covers. Well done. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 19:36, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

User:Leprof_7272, do you think these recent edits have improved the article? It's really important that we not rely too much on a self-published CV, but we can rely on it a little bit.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:19, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I think there are some references that can be found here and there for academic section from finance literature; will add them later this week. Limit-theorem (talk) 23:02, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I am waiting to see the final outcome of the finance edits, before any further comment. I do think that the general issue of what is allowable from self-published sources should have been adjudicated to a close at the Noticeboard.

It is good to see, though, that the issues I raised have garnered respect from LT, with your arrival, User:Anythingyouwant. It is good to have the article back in general editorial circulation, again, regardless of whether I in the end agree or disagree with particular edits.

However, User:Anythingyouwant—besides thanking you for the significant time you have given, and this I do—I think, still, that the historic of self-promotional flavour in this article (reads like a CV, etc.), and the protectiveness exhibited by some editors, suggest: [ 1 ] that you should continue to keep and eye on the page, and [ 2 ] that an aim of removing all material that cannot be sourced other than by Talib's personal web page remains a good one. A further reason, other than those already discussed and based in WP policies, is that once earnest attention from critical editor's is lifted, anything self-published remaining will serve as examples of acceptable practice, and will only spur more. As well, it creates two classes of confidence in the material, which is problematic (since material only sourced to self-published material should have text modified to make clear our certainty in its veracity is lower than facts from independent historical/biographical sources).

Otherwise, I would note that the problem I have had is not with the Limit-theorem that has engaged and interacted here, but with a quite different one who refused to accept apologies for my initial frustration, and, via personal insinuation, continued to try to marginalize and diminish my voice, here, but especially at the Noticeboards. It was for that reason I withdrew. I am glad another, finer editor exists under that moniker, in addition to the one I engaged early. I have allowed that others have good and bad days, get off to good and bad starts with other editors. My hope is that he may eventually do the same. Cheers. Leprof 7272 (talk) 19:32, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Recent deletion of article section

This part of the article was deleted.

Map of the topics covered by Taleb with their intellectual histories and inter-relatedness [2]

The only rational given was "utter chaos. completely unreadable" . Why are people deleting things wholesale from the article rather than rewriting them to improve the article? LoveMonkey 19:35, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Because there is no way to fix that utterly incomprehensible diagram that does not explain anything and only serves to confuse the reader. And please fix your signature. Uncheck "Treat the above as wiki markup. If unchecked, the contents of the box above will be treated as your nickname and link automatically to your user page.
If checked, signing with ~~~ or ~~~~ will insert the above markup in place of your username, including any wikicode or formatting. Custom signatures should link to your user page, your user talk page, or your contributions.
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It may not be clear to you but clear to others. A map is there to show you territory not give you a discourse. Limit-theorem (talk) 19:42, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

What does it depict then? Why is it here? These are just randomly drawn ellipses with keywords inscribed inside. — Keφr 19:50, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Are you editor Kephir familiar with Taleb's works? As this graphic depiction is used to express Taleb's ideas. Like on this external site here. [4] LoveMonkey 19:59, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I have read his books. I recognise where these concepts come from. And this diagram does nothing to explain them in any way. Again, please fix your signature like I told you. — Keφr 20:08, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Why are other people using the graphic to illustrate his ideas? If this chart does nothing to explain them in any way. The chart was created by Taleb so what he is presenting is as you put it "utterly incomprehensible diagram that does not explain anything and only serves to confuse the reader". So Taleb's style of presenting his ideas is utterly incomprehensible diagram that does not explain anything and only serves to confuse the reader? Just to clarify. LoveMonkey 20:20, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

This should not be reinserted in the article without RS independent citations as to the origins and influences of Taleb's work. We can't just use his own assertions and if there are noteworthy connections it should be possible to find references which document and discuss them. SPECIFICO talk 20:25, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

There appears to be a flaw in the reasoning. Influences are usually self-reported as it is not an observed variable to fact-check. For published authors, that is. Limit-theorem (talk) 13:53, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Unless that image itself becomes very notable, comparable to Vitruvian Man, it probably should not be in the article. John Nagle (talk) 17:47, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

@Limit-theorem... No, it's simply not true that influencers and influencees are only self-reported. Quite the opposite, the work of notable figures in the arts and sciences is fertile ground for discussion, criticism, analysis and sometimes controversy. We're not talking about Taleb's subjective experience, we are talking about the threads of thought as expressed in his written or spoken work. SPECIFICO talk 18:43, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

What policy are you quoting from? The WP:SELFPUB says, "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves." This diagram is an overview of what Taleb teaches in his classes at New York Polytech or at least that's what it appears to be so. Why are yours standards ones that appear to overwrite what the policy says? The diagram adds a graphical depiction of Taleb's ideas to the content. As for other editors stating they don't like well there's a policy for that too. Wikipedia:I just don't like it as the content is an overview of the subject of the article made by the subject themselves. LoveMonkey 19:13, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Please review the entire section to which you've linked. There are stipulations which are not met here. If the diagram were described as Taleb's self-description, with appropriate comments from third parties about the links depicted in the diagram, I think it would be closer to the spirit of the policy. At any rate, the burden for Verifiability is on the editor who wishes to include such content. SPECIFICO talk 19:33, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

How about putting policy aside for a moment, and asking ourselves whether this image adds anything to the article? Because I am yet to understand what it is supposed to represent. —Keφr 20:36, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

I think that's true and a good point, the illustration not making a clear declamatory statement, which is what encyclopedia content should do. Every reader/viewer is likely to come away from such an illustration with a personal interpretation as would be the case with an ink-blot. As a matter of fact, I think that is entailed by the policy and is part of the purpose of the policy. SPECIFICO talk 21:06, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

References

References

Bibliography

The "bibliography" is huge, and it's not really a bibliography at all. Instead it's a list of writings by this author, and so the subheading needs to be changed. Moreover, I would just list books here, because relevant articles can be identified as necessary in the footnotes, and moreover we can say in the first sentence of this section something like this: "A comprehensive list of this author's journal articles is available at the author's website.<ref>[http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/CV.htm Taleb CV].</ref>."Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:38, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree; custom is to select the major papers. Journal articles are different from books. and those need to be selected. Limit-theorem (talk) 06:15, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

If a paper is really major, then it ought to be mentioned in the text of the article and footnoted. There's no need for a separate redundant section on major papers, IMHO.Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:13, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I edited this section accordingly, moving a bunch of material to a footnote. The main article text generally ought to be the essential stuff that we ask readers to look at. If we put too much detail in the main text, then readers are more likely to get frustrated and not read anything.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:56, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't approve with your relocation of Taleb's papers. Just take a look at Stephen Hawking's, Daniel Kahneman's or Joseph Stiglitz's wikipedia-page. Obviously, it is at least common practice for a scientist's wikipedia-page to have some form of a 'selected bibliography' including journal articles. Jamool66 (talk) 07:41, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

This issue comes up occasionally with BLPs of academics, and also journalists who write lots of articles too. An example is the journalist Larisa Alexandrovna, where the talk page has this interesting comment:

“ [A]s a Wikipedia editor I think that the list of "notable" articles has grown beyond the basic limits of notability. In fact, this is beginning to resemble a CV. Until an article achieves recognizable noteworthiness, like making a big scoop or winning an award, maybe it shouldn't be added. I presume that the writer has a website with a full list of her articles, so a link to that site should suffice for listing all of the non-award-winning pieces. ”

I did take a look at the Hawking BLP which lists only seven articles, and he's had hundreds of articles published. The vast majority of BLPs about academics do not list any journal articles at all; if they're particularly notable then they're discussed and described in the text of the Wikipedia article. See, for example Leon_M._Lederman#Publications. Even so, please note that I did not delete the list of Taleb's articles, and instead merely moved it to a footnote. One excellent place to look for guidance is to pertinent featured articles such as Harold Innis (a Canadian professor of political economy). Something else to keep in mind: per WP:Article size, stuff in footnotes does not count when determining if an article has too much "readable prose".Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:36, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

normaal practice with most academics in fields where the notability is primarily from published peer-reviewed articles is to add the 4 or 5 most cited, except for the very most famous people. (eg Hawking is famous, Taleb, tho notable, is not in the same league)-- every time I've tried to add more, I've been shot down. But where the notability is primarily books, the practice is not to add any papers. In Taleb's case, that means that we just list the books. DGG ( talk ) 23:36, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I have commenced a tidy-up of the Bibliography section using cite templates. Capitalization and punctuation follow standard cataloguing rules in AACR2 and RDA, as much as Wikipedia templates allow it. Feel free to continue. It may be worth conisdering creating a separate bibliography page as per guidelines at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Bibliographies#Author_bibliographiesSunwin1960 (talk) 06:42, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

On second thought, I have decided to move the bibliography to a separate page at Nassim Nicholas Taleb bibliography Sunwin1960 (talk) 06:59, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

bibliography

all of the bibliography was moved to a new page. This makes sense.

but the main works should be posted on this page.

Not a complete pub list. Just the black swan fooled by randomness etc. Jazi Zilber (talk) 09:39, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

I trimmed the book list a bit, to the major books. John Nagle (talk) 21:31, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

"Taleb claims to be a proponent of tolerance, ethical culture and cooperation".

"Taleb claims to be a proponent of tolerance, ethical culture and cooperation".

Can we get this added towards the top paragraph?

Sources and references: http://nassimtaleb.org/tag/ethics/ https://www.facebook.com/13012333374/posts/10150658100773375

This page has countless references towards ethics in his written texts and work: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb

Regards and happy Wiki-ing!

110.169.128.108 (talk) 06:58, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

His next book

My edits regarding this were reverted with the comment "Future books are too soon, per WP:CRYSTAL". But I made no predictions, I only stated what he was currently working on. On the other hand, referring to Antifragile as "the final book" is a prediction that there will be no more.

Note that WP:CRYSTAL largely concerns itself with what future events shouldn't have their own articles. It makes no prohibition on mentioning their existence in other articles. – Smyth\^talk 19:29, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

The future book was cited only to the author's own website. In general, pre-announcements of future products are considered advertising on Wikipedia, and this article is already flagged for advertising content. If there's extensive coverage in reliable sources, such as for the Tesla Model 3, that's different. Patience. Either the book gets published someday, or it doesn't. John Nagle (talk) 19:47, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Fine, but unless you object I'm still removing "final" since it looks highly likely to be wrong. – Smyth\^talk 21:19, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Very reasonable to remove "final" and replace with "latest" Limit-theorem (talk) 22:41, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Agree with removing "final". Also, is "Dynamic Hedging: Managing Vanilla and Exotic Options" part of his "Incerto" series? John Nagle (talk) 05:47, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Request to Change Taleb's Picture

Hello :D

I humbly and respectfully request to change the image here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Taleb_mug.JPG

in the description box to another picture.

Can we get a more professional looking picture and a more formal one?

I suggest a cropped version of this image: http://cdni.condenast.co.uk/642x390/k_n/NNicholasTaleb_GQ_07Dec12_rex_b_642x390.jpg

Or replace the mug with this one: https://www.facebook.com/nntaleb/photos/a.456978203374.236838.13012333374/10152352134153375/?type=3&theater

110.169.128.108 (talk) 00:34, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Work against GMO

Seems that Dr Taleb is vehemently anti-GM (against the actual evidence) and is often quoted on social media where he disallows comments from anyone who has the temerity to disagree. I'm blocked an I don't think I ever spoke to the guy. I think this is worthy of inclusion as he is using his "Professorships" to leverage his opinion in areas where he lacks any qualifications.Smidoid (talk) 22:36, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

• Hardly, without reliable sources to support that - Alison ^❤ 05:40, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Here he mentions in passing "the dangerous GMO advocate Übernudger Cass Sunstein". And according to Richard Bailey, Taleb backed out of a debate with him on the issue and called him an idiot Costatitanica (talk) 18:24, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Family

any kids, wives etc.  ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clf99 (talk • contribs) 00:00, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Removal of Maintenance template under Praise/Criticism

I've added and updated citations in the section so they link to reputable sources, etc and address the concerns outlined in the template. I plan on removing the template in two weeks unless there are objections.

VergilDen (talk) 18:02, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Oceanflynn Sandbox

Take a look here User:Oceanflynn/sandbox/Taleb webliography by Oceanflynn. We could incorporate aspects of that into the main article. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 17:54, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

In general, Wikipedia is what others say about you, not what you say about yourself. More by the subject is not helpful. John Nagle (talk) 18:54, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Quote

I think the long quotation at the end of the "Praise and criticism" section does not belong there and should be removed. The section refers to outsiders' "Praise and criticism", and generally such long quotes are rather undesirable in terms of NPOV. Any objections to removing it? --SEM (talk) 13:32, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

It looks like use SEM is a special purpose account aiming at removing Taleb's busting of Pinker's book which has just been exploding in sales after the recommendation by Bill Gates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.134.241.147 (talk) 13:57, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

After somewhere in the range of 11-12k edits across several wiki projects including commons, I am not sure whether to find this accusation amusing or insulting. I do appreciate the irony of it coming from an unsigned IP whose single purpose seems to be to undo my edits in this respect, though.--SEM (talk) 14:30, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Dormant for all these years and then suddenly you have a fixation with Taleb? VergilDen (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:46, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I am generally not that active on en-wiki, which to my knowledge is not illegal. Neither is following wikilinks from one article to the other, which got me here. If it is of any comfort to you, I don't have any fixation with Taleb, I just found the depiction in this article's "praise and criticism" a bit uncritical. To quote User:Nagle a bit above: In general, Wikipedia is what others say about you, not what you say about yourself.. So can we maybe leave the meta discussion and revert to the actual discussion, which is whether such a long quote by the subject of the article about itself should be in a Wikipedia article? --SEM (talk) 14:53, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

The content in the article's "praise and criticism" section was revised multiple times by multiple editors, neither of whom were Pinker or Taleb. The content had remained until you and anonymous accounts (all in a short period of time) started "removing" entire sections of criticism. Dormancy isn't illegal but sockpuppetry is. VergilDen (talk) 15:06, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

The one IP edit this morning was me, I wasn't logged in, see the discussion here. And I think you are confusing edits here, I did not remove criticism here, here I just removed the quotation at the end of the "praise and criticism" section. Now can we move to the matter at hand, which is whether the quotation should be included or not? --SEM (talk) 15:12, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm referring to the suppression of NNT's criticism on The Better Angels of our Nature Page >> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature&diff=780798511&oldid=780731152 (note the entire critique is removed) VergilDen (talk) 16:26, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

By the way, I agree with Emir and Limit-theorem's edits to address the issue. VergilDen (talk) 16:29, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Me too. Thank you, User:Limit-theorem --SEM (talk) 16:33, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Twitter Exchanges

Let's use this area to work through the appropriate language of Talebs use of Twitter and find consensus amongst editors — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vergilden (talk • contribs) 12:26, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Taleb has a very "aggressive" attitude on twitter and keeps calling himself "BS buster". The discussion requires a comprehensive treatment of social media activities. Limit-theorem (talk) 12:33, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

I think to broaden to his social media activities is a good idea. I think there might be difficulties finding supporting references as aside from the actual exchanges, which I think there are many, I don't think Taleb has formally (in his books) noted that using social media as a way to "BS bust". Perhaps in some of his medium postings or recent interviews we may find this. Nonetheless, we need to avoid making this new social media sub-section a place to document current events b/c Wikipedia is not a newspaper but an encyclopedia. I'll draft some language for this new section later this week and will post for all interested to edit. VergilDen (talk) 13:36, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I think this needs covered and therefore I have reinstated the content. Taleb is a tweeter of Trumpesque fragility and it has attracted a great deal of attention over the years, to the detriment of any intellectual credibility he may once have possessed. His recent attacks on an academic who is far more qualified than him only underline that his behaviour is politically, rather than intellectually, motivated. Famous_dog (c) 07:16, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

"Taleb is a tweeter of Trumpesque fragility ".... This is encyclopedia not a place for character tainting because of a twitter fight with a UK person. Propose wording here.Limit-theorem (talk) 10:11, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Correct. This IS an encyclopedia. However, You seem to be confused as my edits to the ARTICLE contain no editorializing, "character-tainting" or POV. My edits to this TALK page are maybe not so neutral. If you have a problem with the tone of the material I have added to the article, then sure let's discuss it here. Famous_dog (c) 10:59, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

I suggest to add this "Taleb has been known for his "incendiary personality" and to not suffer fools gladly [5]. This puts the whole personality thing in context because it seems that only UK people think that "bullshit" is offensive.PopulationGeneticsLevant (talk) 11:46, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

We need to debate here until consensus is reached. We cannot have an edit war which this has become. If this continues, i'll have to call in an admin. VergilDen (talk) 11:51, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

(outdent) Thanks for your suggestion @PopulationGeneticsLevant: (and for pointing out the issue with Kloor's comments on Taleb, of which I was unaware), but this story has now been covered globally - just search Google News - and it's quite clear that most of the world's media thinks that calling your opponent "bullshitters" is offensive, especially in an academic discussion. I know many "incendiary personalities" in academia who do not "suffer fools gladly" but they don't take to Twitter and start swearing at them. Taleb seems to be pushing an anti-PC political agenda that has nothing to do with his academic field of expertise. Famous_dog (c) 11:57, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

I would not foolishly bring PC wars into this: Taleb was overtly complaining about Mary Bierd's racism towards Mediterraneans. PopulationGeneticsLevant (talk) 12:19, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Jesus, since @Verigilden: thinks s/he's the Sheriff round these parts, lets discuss the text as s/he keeps removing it (while accussing me of edit-warring):

In Taleb's tweets and facebook posts he frequently characterises opponents as "bullshitters". In August 2017 he weighed into a debate on ethnic diversity, accusing the BBC of applying racial quotas retrospectively and mistaking Southern Mediterraneans for subsaharan Africans in a children's cartoon about Roman Britain. His behaviour on Twitter was characterised in the media as abusive, for calling classicist Mary Beard a "bullshitter", claiming that "scholarship is dead in the UK”.

Right. What's actually wrong with that? I want WP policy, not opinions. Famous_dog (c) 12:26, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

That text and the sourcing of it are rather weak and not very encyclopedic. If NNT's social media activity is noteworthy, there should be additional RS discussion of it we can use to craft a balanced and informative body of text for the article. SPECIFICO talk 12:29, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Any text should mention that he accused Mary Bierd of covert racism.PopulationGeneticsLevant (talk) 12:34, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

OK, PopulationGeneticsLevant, why don't you do that? SPECIFICO: Which portion of the text is "weak"? Which sources are "weak"? I have selected two RSs from many, many media outlets that are discussing the current story and one RS discussing his previous trolling - there are many others. I have several times attempted to expand this section and provide more sources, but somebody keeps blanking it and accusing me of edit-warring. Famous_dog (c) 12:38, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

I agree with SPECIFICO. The only information here that can make it to an encyclopedia is that Taleb has a hot temper on twitter. The Mary Beard issue is a footnote, as no need to list all his twitter brawls. The entire thing deserves at most a sentence, not a section. Limit-theorem (talk) 12:49, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

References

Family History

About all bios of writers have a section on family. Some editor keep removing Taleb's. A brief, nonaggrandizing encyclopedic mention is worth putting: "His grandfather, Fouad Nicolas Ghosn, and his great-grandfather, Nicolas Ghosn, were both deputy prime ministers in the 1940s through the 1970s. His paternal grandfather Nassim Taleb was a supreme court judge and his great-great-great-great grandfather, Sheikh Ibrahim Taleb (Nabbout), was a governor of Mount Lebanon in 1866". Source:https://website.aub.edu.lb/doctorates/recipients/2016/Pages/taleb.aspx Antiochusthethird (talk) 18:08, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

"great-great-great-great grandfather" non-aggrandizing? Anyway your source is of the type supplied by the recipient of the degree and is the same as a primary source for our purposes. If you can provide a secondary discussion of his lineage that indicates why it is significant or noteworthy, that would be helpful and we could then proceed to discuss what article content it might support. SPECIFICO talk 18:12, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

The American University in Beirut is a reliable source and reputable academic institution and all pages of prominent people have ancestry. I will leave this here for other editors as it does not take much to be convinced.Antiochusthethird (talk) 18:17, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Also, I find it insulting for an editor to dismiss American University in Beirut as non reliable source. The same ancestry is confirmed in the New Yorker . — Preceding unsigned comment added by Antiochusthethird (talk • contribs) 18:39, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

References

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Why is this "However"?

"However, he describes the nature of his involvement as "totally passive" from 2010 on." — Preceding unsigned comment added by GeneCallahan (talk • contribs) 00:50, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Key papers needs cleanup

We can't rely on OR for Prof. Taleb's greatest hits. We should evaluate citations and links to estimate what are indeed his great works. In this regard, I have removed a recent insertion of a fresh-off the press article with no current verification of its noteworthiness in its field. (Political Science). SPECIFICO talk 20:13, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

This continues the discussion on other talk page. The paper in question is not in Pol Sci but in quant finance. Nevertheless, I will look at "representativeness" and suggest something.Limit-theorem (talk) 20:19, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Just to be clear, are you saying that the subject is not Political Science, or that the publication is not a P.S. journal? I believe that the topic of the article is in Political Science, and as sometimes happens, empire-building imperialist editors may favor extending the application of the favorite tools of their own trades to other fields. SPECIFICO talk 20:42, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

The article is about pricing binary options in continuous time. Had it been pol sci I would have certainly been first to remove it. Best regards. Limit-theorem (talk) 20:47, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Bets on elections, right? I do not have access. Anyway we still have no data on citations or reviews and we can't just add everything Prof. publishes. It says Major Works. It's OR at this point whether this new article is any such thing. I'll drop out now. Are the other articles demonstrated to be noteworthy? Maybe the whole list is OR. This article has attracted lots of undue content by well-meaning students and other follwers of NT. SPECIFICO talk 21:40, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

These certainly are a small selection of his papers and arguably his major works. I base this on his CV which lists a larger sample of selected papers http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/CV.htm VergilDen (talk) 22:20, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

What Wikipedia needs is to document not what Taleb thinks are the important works, but what the world at large thinks is important. So we can't use his own CV for that purpose here. We could, however, go down the list and check Google Scholar or other resources to find out which papers are often cited and discussed. SPECIFICO talk 23:46, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

My comment was in response to your comment about “everything” and the selection on his wiki page isn’t everything (ie the many works listed in his CV are just a sample and the works listed on his page are a selection of that sample). Regarding important works, I’m comfortabke with publication as the test. The papers currently listed are from respected publications in their domain. 173.3.105.52 (talk) 00:30, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

I don’t understand the fuss, Specifico. Reputable publications is what people select in academia, and the list appears to be all reputable. Wikipedia is a scholarly not based on journalism. Limit-theorem (talk)<

If I could just step in here, the section is clearly called "key papers". That expression implies some sort of importance, influence on the field or other notability. We can't just add anything unless there is accompanying evidence for its influence (unless you want to change the section title to "selected papers" which has no connotation of importance). Just my two cents worth. I mean, I only do this for a living... Famousdog (woof)(grrr) 09:11, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

I had the same idea. But the title section has been already changed to "Selection of papers".PopulationGeneticsLevant (talk) 11:51, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

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Non-expert pundit plaudits

I removed comments from NY Times political pundit David Brooks and a personality profile by British novelist Carole Cadwalladr, neither of them expert in finance or economics. They are used to support the claim that Taleb "predicted th] predictions and provide RS references to notable expert commentators. There are a million claims of "predicting" this or that every day on every imaginable subj]ect. Neither of the cited sources provides any evidence to back up their glib references to Taleb's having predicted...

The disputed content has now been reinserted and should be removed until a suitable reference from a credible commentator can be found. If in fact Taleb predicted something, expert acknowledgement of that should be readily available. Otherwise, it's just chatter and does not belong in WP. SPECIFICO talk 17:53, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

These are well sourced facts presented as facts, not analyses. And also Taleb is not a financial economist but a quant and risk analyst. Limit-theorem (talk) 18:01, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

That makes it even more UNDUE that a British novelist (who's been criticized for her attempts at non-fiction) and Brooks (a glib socio-political pundit of universal realm but minimal understanding) would have any cogent or noteworthy comment about a relatively arcane subject such as measurement of stochastic or epistemic risk in a portfolio or market of financial assets. Find some good thoughtful comments, not these two. Using them instead of notable experts only conveys the impression that NNT is a marginal or fringe gadfly whose work has not been cited by mainstream critics and practitioners. SPECIFICO talk 15:12, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Both Guardian and NYT are reliable sources and both their quotes add to the article. I'm not seeing WP:UNDUE here at all. In fact, both are germane to the article, so please let's reinstate these - Alison ^❤ 01:22, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

But these are not the Times or the Guardian reporting fact (which they do diligently and with great authority). These are the personal opinions of two non-expert writers whose subject matter rarely comes anywhere near the subjects of finance, risk management, epistemology, statistics, economics, markets, etc. etc. SPECIFICO talk 01:49, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

To repeat, these are facts not opinions. Limit-theorem (talk) 02:59, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

What fact? Could you state the facts, so we know what we're talking about here. Whatever fact you think they claim NNT to have predicted would have to be stated in specific detail in their articles. Time place, who what where, when. And a general statement like "Taleb said the financial markets are based on stupid models, hot air, and fraud and are bound to suffer a comeuppance" is not a "prediction" -- more like "dog bites man." SPECIFICO talk 03:11, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Medium

A self published piece by someone who is not known for being self-published, and about himself, is accepted RS.23:50, 21 March 2018 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Limit-theorem (talk • contribs)

No, that's not what our policies and guidelines say. Please review WP:SELFPUB. About himself would be a self-statement about personal details and the like, but not matters that relate to other subjects or other people or events. Self-published material on scientific, academic, or philosophical subjects need to be used only to the extent that there is also independent secondary confirmation that they are noteworhty. Otherwise Wikipedia would have long articles about every crank, kook, and con-man. In fact, we do have some articles about guys who are barely notable -- e.g. Stefan Molyneux and various conspiracy theorists. But NNT is none of these and we just need to focus on the significant core of his work and not republish whatever he is thinking about from time to time. SPECIFICO talk 00:08, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean. The reference to Medium is about Taleb writing on medium, not excerting or dissussing from Taleb's writings on Medium. And what does Mr Moulineux have to do with this? Why make links to conspiracies? Limit-theorem (talk) 01:23, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I can see that you "don't understand". The medium is a group blog. Anyone can join and have the medium publish their essays. It has no editorial standards, it has no peer review or editorial confirmation as to the noteworthiness or accuracy or even plausibility of its content. That's why Wikipedia has standards for Reliable Sources that are independent secondary confirmation of the significance of their published content. The Medium cites fail this standard. The point of the mention of Molyneux is to show you how a self-published guy's work can get blown out of proportion and taken seriously by a small group of editors who don't understand why we insist on RS sourcing and not self-published, blog, or other citations that lack independent competent editorial review. SPECIFICO talk 01:28, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Nicholas Taleb is not a self-published person. I really do not understand at all. Limit-theorem (talk) 01:30, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Please see WP:USERGENERATED and WP:RS in general. For further detail, @Alison: can explain to you that it is not a person that is self published, it's a particular piece of work that may be self-published. The website Medium is a self-publishing platform that is not WP:RS as a secondary source. See this thread at RSN and others it references: [6]. {{ping|NeilN]} FYI. SPECIFICO talk 02:54, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

This still makes no sense at all. Nobody is citing from self published sources in this case. And you edit on the Charlie Rose does not match the source, so it needs to be removed. Limit-theorem (talk) 05:01, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Something Special Here?

I am getting messages on my talk page from SPECIFICO. This page is no different from other BLP,and I fail to understand why we have to apply new standards. The NYT and Guardian are about as RS as they come for every BLP except Taleb's. Same as statements by author in context, in reference to own works, which are no different here than other pages. Likewise I see SPECIFICO revert papers published in Quantitative Finance, top of the field, as not RS. Is there something I fail to understand? Limit-theorem (talk) 14:38, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I’ve spent the better part of an hour reviewing the edits to the article and editor comments here on the talk page. I have to agree with LT’s sentiment. Although, maybe I’m missing something too. VergilDen (talk) 15:03, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

More detail on LT's talk page concerning PAG issues. SPECIFICO talk 16:18, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Interesting Source

I think it's self-published which means something re: Wikipedia Policy but not sure what. hxxxs://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39 Pretty much the exact opposite of what Jordan Peterson was saying on the exact same topic (the validity and usefulness of IQ tests), so it's interesting from that perspective and a check of Taleb's background makes the (everything) mix better, particularly race and ethnicity. You go looking for something to hate, and you find it. Might be useful for perspective or background purposes in other Articles on adjacent topics, i.e. "useful somewhere else". Where? On a personal note, I'd LOVE to find a flaw in Taleb's Math, because that's the only hook his identity hangs on.

Tym Whittier (talk) 05:36, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

His religion

If he's not a theist, as one user has convincingly argued, why is he categorized as an Orthodox Christian? He himself seems to think that there is no difference between actual and cultural Christians (he writes things like Indeed the complication of “belief” is mostly a Western Christianity type of constructed problems, and a modern one at that (…), but in real world, churches are mostly like clubs: if you don't fulfil the requirements, you don't count as a member, no matter what you imagine. Does it have something to do with Eastern Orthodox Churches not having an equivalentof excommunication latae sententiae, or simply no one cared to challenge his self-description? 89.171.39.202 (talk) 19:23, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Claims of investment performance

In a May 2009 article, Nassim Taleb claimed that his hedge fund "made $20 bln for our clients." [7]

In June 2009, Taleb posted a correction in his website, saying that he had been misquoted, that the $20 billion was notional exposure in future value of options, and that the funds only made between "a quarter and a half a billion." On June 30, 2009, Reuters published emails that show that Taleb explicitly stated:

“when they went to the wall we made $20 billion for our clients, half a billion for the Black Swan fund [...] when they went to the wall we made almost half a billion for the Black Swan funds.” [8]

In an interview, legendary investor Jim Rogers stated that "$20 billion referred to a ‘notional’ amount of derivatives that produced between $250 to $500 million in gains, it raises further strategy questions [...] Strategy questions? It raises more questions than that. A ‘$250 to $500 million’ gain on $20 billion is peanuts — 1 or 2%??" [9]

In April 2020, Universa Investments, a fund of which Taleb is Chief Scientific Adviser, claimed a 4,144% net return on capital during March 2020. At the same time, an article published by The Financial Times casts doubts over the performance of Black Swan funds, indicating that they have lost money in the long run.[10] This is corroborated by a studied published by AQR Capital Management, which estimates that Black Swan funds are doomed to lose money.[11]

(Qwerty3141592654 (talk) 19:00, 13 May 2020 (UTC))

This is patently wrong as the source says as Limit observed: " He specifically picks up on the sentence in question, and tells Self that there are “problems with the numbers”. He suggests that where the article quotes him as saying “when they went to the wall we made $20 billion for our clients, half a billion for the Black Swan fund”, that should be changed to “when they went to the wall we made almost half a billion for the Black Swan funds” — deleting the erroneous $20 billion figure altogether." so you post misrepresents the source. As to Universa, there are tons of information confirming these numbers. PopulationGeneticsLevant (talk) 19:13, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

You are editorializing. The articles claim that Taleb lied. You may be right, perhaps Taleb didn't lie. But that is not what the articles say. We need to present the evidence as published. Please edit the section with the counterclaims, but do not delete the section. Qwerty3141592654 (talk) 19:20, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

There is no editorializing. The article does NOT claim Taleb lied, but that the journalist messed up the order of magnitude. PopulationGeneticsLevant (talk) 19:28, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I put the story exactly as is. As to Ms Tavakoli's blog, it is not WP:RS. And Taleb is not Spitznagl so the latter's statements do not concern this page. PopulationGeneticsLevant (talk) 19:34, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Why "Incerto"?

Does anyone know why Taleb's popular book series is called "Incerto"? Does it mean anything? It appears to be play on "concerto" and "uncertainty" (certo - "certain" in Italian, "I fight it out" in Latin), but it would be nice to have a source. cagliost (talk) 08:36, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

It looks like it means "uncertainty" in both Latin and Italian [12]. PopulationGeneticsLevant (talk) 12:31, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm less interested in the word than in why there's such a category at all. When did the name appear (which books had already been published at the time)? Who came up with it (author or publisher)? Is it a catch-all for all books he has ever written that are not deeply technical? — RFST (talk) 20:20, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

@RFST. It seems to appear with the book Skin in the Game. Imo, it was coined by Nassim himself. Nassim discusses it on a episode of Econtalk. From the the trascript: Russ Roberts: 2007. It was about The Black Swan, as I said the last time we talked. I actually liked Fooled by Randomness better: it's--Fooled by Randomness remains one of my all-time favorite books. You wrote that book a long time ago; I think you said almost 20 years ago. And, a set of other books just sort of emerged without planning. The Black Swan came next. And then, I think you had The Bed of Procrustes, 7 aphorisms from your Twitter experience. Then you had Antifragile; and now you've got Skin in the Game. And you call this entire project Incerto. Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Yes, Incerto. Russ Roberts: I wanted to pronounce it correctly. I don't know what Incerto means, by the way. What does incerto mean? Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Uncertainty, in Latin. https://www.econtalk.org/nassim-nicholas-taleb-on-rationality-risk-and-skin-in-the-game/#audio-highlights — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.214.53.247 (talk) 15:30, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Important reference has broken link

The reference currently numbered 21 (Baker-Said, Stephanie (2008-03-27). "Flight of the Black Swan". Bloomberg Markets) points to an article at https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=nw&pname=mm_0508_story1.html, but clicking that link redirects me to what appears to be the home page for Bloomberg Politics on bloomberg.com. I did a quick Google search, and did not find an alternate URL for this article. As I said above, this particular reference seems important, in that is used to support significant claims of fact in eight different places in the Wikipedia article, so it seemed worthwhile to report it. I am sorry if I am doing this in an inappropriate way -- I am a newbie when it comes to contributing to Wikipedia. At least in a non-monetary way. ;) Please feel free to steer me onto a better path. bjkeefe (talk) 05:46, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Self-published sources and original research

Many parts of this article rely, to varying degrees, on self-published sources (e.g. from Taleb's own website) and original research (e.g. exegesis of Taleb's books without reference to a secondary source). Large parts of the Ideas and Theories section, for example, seem to be original research. This is poor practice when dealing with the biography of a living figure, and an author at that. I think this is self-evident, although Limit-theorem seems to disagree. I am open to different views regarding how these shortcomings should be signposted within the article, but I am confident that something needs to be done here. Pubcrawler2000 (talk) 11:28, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

There is something I fail to understand about your claims. Many of what you call "self-published" is in fact in newspaper articles and you removed Bloomberg which is the main source of financial news as non reliable. And by your criterion 'all" wiki articles would be OR. Furthermore, as per wiki:

Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the self-published source requirement (...), so long as:

1. the material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim;
2. it does not involve claims about third parties;
3. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source;
4. there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; and
5. the article is not based primarily on such sources.

This policy also applies to material published by the subject on social networking websites such as Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Reddit, and Facebook.

So really I fail to see any logic to some of your removals. If you have doubt about the authenticity of the claims you can discuss further, but you need to understand that Wiki is an encyclopedia and claims that Bloomberg is self-published are not constructive. Limit-theorem (talk) 13:14, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Let me be concrete. This entire continuous part of Ideas and Theories relies upon citing and directly interpreting Taleb's own books:

Taleb calls this the "ludic fallacy". His argument centers on the idea that predictive models are based on Plato's Theory of Forms, gravitating towards mathematical purity and failing to take some key ideas into account, such as: the impossibility of possessing all relevant information, that small unknown variations in the data can have a huge impact, and flawed theories/models that are based on empirical data and that fail to consider events that have not taken place, but could have taken place. Discussing the ludic fallacy in The Black Swan, he writes, "The dark side of the moon is harder to see; beaming light on it costs energy. In the same way, beaming light on the unseen is costly, in both computational and mental effort."

In the second edition of The Black Swan, he posited that the foundations of quantitative economics are faulty and highly self-referential. He states that statistics is fundamentally incomplete as a field, as it cannot predict the risk of rare events, a problem that is acute in proportion to the rarity of these events. With the mathematician Raphael Douady, he called the problem statistical undecidability (Douady and Taleb, 2010).

Taleb has described his main challenge as mapping his ideas of "robustification" and "antifragility", that is, how to live and act in a world we do not understand and build robustness to black swan events. Taleb introduced the idea of the "fourth quadrant" in the exposure domain. One of its applications is in his definition of the most effective (that is, least fragile) risk management approach: what he calls the "barbell strategy" which is based on avoiding the middle in favor of linear combination of extremes, across all domains from politics to economics to one's personal life. These are deemed by Taleb to be more robust to estimation errors. For instance, he suggests that investing money in 'medium risk' investments is pointless, because risk is difficult, if not impossible to compute. His preferred strategy is to be both hyper-conservative and hyper-aggressive at the same time. For example, an investor might put 80 to 90% of their money in extremely safe instruments, such as treasury bills, with the remainder going into highly risky and diversified speculative bets. An alternative suggestion is to engage in highly speculative bets with a limited downside.

Do you not see any issue with this? Relying so heavily on self-published sources (and some claims are not cited at all) is not what we typically see in the biography of a serious thinker. Pubcrawler2000 (talk) 10:51, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I added 3 academic references to your text above and do not want to load the page with references. I invite you to improve the page by doing more research. Most of these are well cited Taleb has a lot of citations. But note the subtleties of context where a text about an author is technically, not self-reference in a bad way. Limit-theorem (talk) 12:08, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

@Limit-theorem: Can you provide any independent secondary or tertiary sources that validate Taleb's 2016 commencement appearance in Beirut as a significant event or that it introduced any ideas that RS have discussed and contextualized as being significant? This is an egregiously primary-sourced reference that fails NPOV and WEIGHT and should be removed. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 14:51, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

In general, there are a lot of diploma mills declaring they gave someone an honorary doctorate, without the person knowing. In this case no such problem because both Taleb and the university acknowledge (it looks like Taleb posted it himself) and there is a video of the event, and the university is a source as to the diplomas it gave. However I do not find that quote representative of Taleb's work (it is in fact confusing), so I would remove it and post the honorary doctorate in the honors section. Limit-theorem (talk) 16:44, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I will go with the consensus but I think that one must not ignore the relevance of AUB. PopulationGeneticsLevant (talk) 19:37, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

References