Talk:Randy L. Bott

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A fact from Randy L. Bott appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 25 December 2008 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Randy L. Bott, the highest-rated professor on Ratemyprofessors.com for 2008, calls his tests "celebrations"?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/December.

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Notability

Unfortunately, I don't feel this article establishes notability to satisfy the notability criteria for academics listed at WP:CREATIVE. The article doesn't mention any major contributions to the field, and from what I can tell the only major coverage the individual has gotten was for what happened on Ratemyprofessors.com, and I don't even know how reliable or noteworthy that site is (the site itself admits that its ratings aren't statistically valid). If there is notability here, it seems to me that he's more notable for his positions in the church than for his status as an academic, and if so then the article should be changed to reflect that; if not, I have doubts about whether the article should even be kept. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 21:29, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I feel he is notable since (1) he was the highest-rated professor for 2008 on Ratemyprofessors.com (which is no small feat), (2) he taught more than 10 percent of the BYU student body in 2008 (which shows his impact), and (3) he is prolific in the LDS Church literature. Regarding the statistical validity of Ratemyprofessors.com, it is what it is. No online survey method has complete accuracy, but with such a huge sample size, it is statistically probably that the results are accurate. The site you referenced even says, "we often receive emails stating that the ratings are uncannily accurate, especially for schools with over 1000 ratings. And, check out this article about a school administrator who checked the correlation of our ratings with the U. of Waterloo student reviews." This phenomenon is corroborated by the Deseret News article referenced on this article that states that "Randy's always in the top 1 to 2 percent with his evaluations... Randy's among the excellent of the excellent." I really don't see any concern regarding notability here. --Eustress (talk) 22:05, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know much about the history of Ratemyprofessors.com and stuff, but I can't imagine it would ever be taken as a serious source here.... I mean, different schools have different types of people as students, and plus there are just differences between undergrads and grad students and how much time different types of people spend online, and there are certainly populations that are more likely to use Ratemyprofessor.com and care about it, and populations that are less likely to. I, for example, have never used the site or even looked at it...does that mean that my professors aren't as good as Bott, since I (and other people like me) aren't taking the time to go online and rate them? I dunno...I just really doubt that Ratemyprofessors can establish academic notability like this. It's a cute news story, but not academic at all. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 22:10, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll let some other people (hopefully) weigh in, but I still contend that the rating "is what it is" and is notable for what it tells us. No voting systems are perfectly representative of the population (e.g., political elections), as proven by the fact that you've never used the site, but that doesn't mean what they tell us isn't meaningful. This rating, in conjuction with his impact on the BYU and LDS communities, should be sufficient for notability. I think he "is regarded as an important figure" (WP:Creative). --Eustress (talk) 22:18, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any biographical material in his books that could be added? How have they sold? Do we have any reviews of his books? I find it hard to believe that a guy who's written so many books doesn't have any more to say about him than what we have here. Wrad (talk) 22:24, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I added in some reviewer commentary per your suggestion. I'll keep looking for more info, but I was hoping to get this to DYK to help get more eyes on it and to help it expand. --Eustress (talk) 22:43, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the minor notability aspects combine to meet WP:N. Having the highest rating at Ratemyprofessor on it's own doesn't do it, nor does teaching 10% of the student body do it (the security guard meets more than 10%). But these factors, together with his authorship, combine to squeak by WP:BIO. --brew crewer (yada, yada) 18:04, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since mos of the people commenting have seemed to agree that there is some notability here, I won't be taking this to AfD or anything...but I do still believe that the person seems more notable as a writer and LSD church member than as a professor, and maybe the lead should be changed to reflect that. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 18:06, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I have tried to modify the lead and article body accordingly, but I hope that DYK and other efforts will serve to expand the article. --Eustress (talk) 20:12, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I vote Notable. I never took a class from him, but I knew him instantly by name and have watched him many times on various TV shows. Paris Hilton was less known when she got her first TV show--she was simply famous for being rich and nasty, and no one questioned her "notability" at the time. He's basically the BYU equivalent of Tom Lehrer. The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, (broadly construed of course--meaning in this case that he is quoted all over by LDS historians and scholars). Again, TV show solely designed to talk about his ideas means he is respected by those in that world. The big one is just that we have to document all his awards and whatever, since we know he has them. We also need to take all this in light of bias, since a "substantial number of academic institutions" are not going to give awards and fellowships to a modern Mormon church history professor from BYU. {The person holds or has held a named/personal chair appointment or "Distinguished Professor" appointment at a major institution of higher education and research.}--THERE! In and of itself, this keeps his article alive. {The person has held a major highest-level elected or appointed academic post at an academic institution or major academic society.}--yes. {The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity.}--my earlier point about TV. Okay, I'll stop there.--Mrcolj (talk) 18:16, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0748575110000278 - Ratemyprofessor is not as invalid as you might think.67.194.199.136 (talk) 01:26, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sourcing

The claim that his tests are called "celebrations" is on the main page right now, yet the source it was cited to {ratemyprofessor.com) did not say anything, it was simply a top ten list, no text, no additional information. Either the wrong ref was used by mistake or this is a case of OR slipping by DYK. I will post a note about it at DYK. This hook should probably be dropped from the front page asap. I added some {{cn}} where it was needed.--IvoShandor (talk) 10:15, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It has been removed from the main page pending a citation and confirmation. Regards. Woody (talk) 11:01, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Woody. Hopefully the main author will notice, probably not though, it's early, from a certain point of view.--IvoShandor (talk) 11:06, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My fault for not providing the more precise source, which was at Ratemyprofessors.com, just on a different page. I've listed it now. --Eustress (talk) 15:01, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Folklore and accuracy

Accuracy:

The current article says, "Public comments by Bott, quoted in a Washington Post article, referred to a piece of long-repudiated Mormon folklore"

But Bott's comments reflect official statements made by top leaders over a 100-year period. See, for example:

http://en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_racial_issues/Blacks_and_the_priesthood https://www.dialoguejournal.com/2012/mormonisms-negro-doctrine-an-historical-overview/

Calling them "folklore" conveys the impression they were never official views, but this is misleading.

192.167.171.87 (talk) 17:20, 2 March 2012 (UTC)Peter Adams 2 March 2012[reply]

I'm not sure what you mean by "official views." Do you mean "official doctrine" or "views held by officials"? The two are quite different, I think. ~Adjwilley (talk) 21:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The term "folklore" is likely used because Mormon leaders themselves have referred to these ideas as folklore that should not be propagated. For example, Elder Dallin H. Oaks said the following in a PBS interview regarding the racial theories of Brigham Young and others: "One clear-cut position is that the folklore must never be perpetuated. … I have to concede to my earlier colleagues. … They, I'm sure, in their own way, were doing the best they knew to give shape to [the priesthood-ban policy], to give context for it, to give even history to it. All I can say is however well intended the explanations were, I think almost all of them were inadequate and/or wrong. … But some explanations were given and had been given for a lot of years. … At the very least, there should be no effort to perpetuate those efforts to explain why that 'doctrine' existed…" 75.80.146.22 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:16, 3 March 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Washington Post article

I've made a few changes to the new "controversy" section that hopefully improve it a little. I'm not fond of having articles where the controversy section is as long as the biography, and I think there may be a problem with WP:Recentism. I'd recommend renaming the section to Washington Post article or something like that, but I'll leave that to someone else. ~Adjwilley (talk) 21:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think this section is still too apologetic, too biased/weasely. The claim that this belief is "long-repudiated" needs to be backed up by a citation. Even my preferred "now-repudiated" would need such a citation. I also think it is disingenuous to imply that this belief was "circulated as rumor/gossip among (the church's) membership." This hides the facts that: 1) many church leaders believed it, although may not have taught it as doctrine recently; and 2) multiple books circulated widely among Mormons proposed this explanation for the ban. Even calling it "folklore" is a stretch. In the context, this seems to derogate such a belief and to suggest that it was held only by the relatively uninformed, which is manifestly not the case. Finally if we wish to claim that Bott's explanation contradicted official doctrine, then the citations (11, 12, 13) for the claim that "official LDS Church doctrine ... states that the reason for the ban ... is unclear" should really be to some church statement prior to the Washington Post article. I'd like to propose specific language and citations to remedy these flaws, but let's allow a little time for comment first. ~KimMcCall

According to Wikipedia, "Gossip is idle talk or rumour about the personal or private affairs of others." The rationale behind the priesthood ban hardly fits this category of "personal or private affairs." So I'm removing "gossip" from the list of possible ways of describing an unofficial doctrine. Wikipedia also says that an "urban legend" is some kind of a story. An explanation or rationale is not a form of story in the sense intended. I'll also remove that characterization.

I'm not sure it's accurate to say, as the text does, "Bott echoed this position in his Washington Post interview" where "this position" refers to the proposed rationale that "blacks were less valiant in the pre-Earth life." The article mentions this rationale, but it does not attribute it to Bott.— Preceding unsigned comment added by KimMcCall (talk • contribs) 05:38, 25 March 2012‎

I think this is a good point. Writers need to carefully review the WashPo article. Also, this section needs more footnotes and the footnotes need to be placed closer to the text they are referring to. I don't think it's good to have a bunch of footnotes strung out at the end of a paragraph. Frank fourth — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.80.229.38 (talk) 00:26, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bruce R. McConkie's August 1978 talk as explained in this article [1] clearly rejected any pre-June 1978 statements on the issue of blacks and the priesthood as no longer being normative. Thus Bott was clearly under notice that repeating and perpetuating pre-June 1978 statements was out of line with the teachings of the church. It is very likely Bott attended that meeting that Elder McConkie spoke at live.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:13, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]