Talk:Richard D. Robinson (engineer)

Which Robinson?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Greetings, all. The article currently lists Richard D. Robinson as an "associate professor of Materials Science and Engineering" at Cornell University and the recipient of the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Online searches to find sources supporting the latter information bring up a Joshua Robinson who has, according to this source, received in 2015 that NSF award. Strangely enough (or perhaps not), Joshua Robinson is "associate professor of Materials Science and Engineering" at Penn State (see here). I cannot find anything more online on this issue. Could there be some confusion between the two persons? And, if so, to what extent? -The Gnome (talk) 05:02, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

If you search on the NSF website, surely the authoritative source on which awards they hand out, you will quickly find that Richard Robinson, of Cornell, sharing the same research area and even the same e-mail address with the subject of this lemma, indeed received a CAREER award from the NSF in 2012, exactly as stated on his university pages: NSF page on award. That said, since Wikipedia talk pages are public, I think that publicly raising doubts about the listing of an award on a specific professor's web page is somewhat problematic. The exhortation to avoid anything that is potentially libelous explicitly extends to the talk page, as well, and we should keep a safe distance from any statements which stray in that direction. Markus Pössel (talk) 12:07, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

I sincerely thank you for the information & the link, Markus Pössel, but at the same time I categorically resent all your characterizations and insinuations. No intent to libel or in any way harm a person's reputation has been stated or even implied in my question above or my input in the recent AfD discussion. So, I'd strongly suggest to keep in mind Wikipedia's policy to assume good faith on the part of other editors here and to avoid personal attacks.

I simply brought forth my online search's rresult. (Your link did not came up or I did not notice it.) The result, which you rushed to dismiss as "slim evidence" in the now closed AfD, is the Penn State website, listing not just someone else with the "common name" of Robinson winning the same prize as our subject but someone who's also an "associate professor of Materials Science and Engineering"! I found this something worth investigating further - and further investigation is all I suggested and supported ("Could there be some confusion", etc). I'd suggest you back away from your unreasonable assessment of my intervention and cease your unfounded accusations. -The Gnome (talk) 14:24, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

It was slim evidence back then and has been explicitly shown to have put you on the wrong track altogether by the NSF link I posted. Frankly, I am puzzled where you see "unfounded accusations" (of what?) or failure to WP:AGF in what I wrote, in particular as I neither cared about, nor made statements about, your intentions in acting the way you did. Fact is that all of us need to be very careful when making statements, whether in good or in bad faith, that can be taken to suggest that something seriously unethical (such as a professor having an award listed on their university page that they haven't won) is going on. Markus Pössel (talk) 19:14, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

You obviously feel that if something is written on a "university page" about the university or on a professor's web page about the professor that is the end of story. It's not. Wikipedia goes by third-party, independent, and reliable sources. That is what WP:V and WP:RS are all about and it's a fact worth remembering. When a source that is evidently reliable such as the Penn State website brings forth the possibility of confusion between two individuals, our duty as editors is to look into it, no more and no less, because our duty is to the quality and accuracy of Wikipedia. And this is what was done. You have twice now brought forth the term "libel." At some point, you need to realize and accept that there is no trace of libel in my suggestions - and step away from your quite serious insinuations. -The Gnome (talk) 21:59, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Re third-party and university sources: I think no such thing. Please do not put words into my mouth (or keyboard). As for libel, I've brought that term up for the same reason the BLP template at the top of the page brings it up. We need to be careful about everything that is even potentially libelous. Any statement which raises the possibility that a university, or a professor, caused an award to be publicly ascribed to a professor that the individual in question has never won (which would be a serious academic issue and, if true, would likely have non-trivial consequences) is at least in a grey area that borders on the potentially libelous. We would only find out whether it *is* libelous in a court of law, but that is what we are trying to avoid here - hence the need to be careful. Contrary to what you have repeatedly (and wrongly) asserted, I am not insinuating anything beyond that general statement of caution, I am not leveling any accusations, and I am not making any assumptions about good faith vs. bad faith. Markus Pössel (talk) 14:16, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.