Talk:Steven Goldberg

"Quote farm" tag

Fair comment. However, note Wiki policy on controversial material related to biography of living persons. Unsourced or poorly sourced material is to be removed immediately. I will actively watch that on this page. I have changed quote formats, and added encyclopedic text, as suggested by the tag. I will now remove the tag, leaving this note on the talk page.

It should also be noted here that Goldberg is a controversial man, as such it is going to be hard expand this article beyond explicitly sourced material. I'll try to pad out the quotes more, but I think it's always going to be safest to stick closely to the biography of living persons policy.

Alastair Haines 09:08, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Sourcing ≠ quoting. I'm restoring the tag. I would further note that the article currently contain no material on the 'controversy' (or criticism of Goldberg's ideas). This would appear to be a major WP:NPOV problem. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 09:39, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I would further point out that making the lead almost mostly a eulogising set of quotations from Hakim aggrevates these NPOV problems considerably. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 09:45, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

LOL, a string of quotes were rewritten to be more prosaic. Now you restore the tag!? Forgive me for finding it hard to take this seriously. Alastair Haines (talk) 15:18, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Are you claiming that the majority of the lead isn't pro-Goldberg quotes from a single individual (whose article you just happened to write)? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 15:39, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality?

The line: "This will have been no surprize to Goldberg, but it provides stunning evidence for the likelihood of his theories."

By whose estimation, with what research, and how can that be argued in a Wiki biography? Origanal resarch, wild assumptions? any? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.144.13.213 (talk) 14:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC).

Thanks for your input <anonymous>. You need to read the sentence that precedes this one. That makes it clear "what research". It is not "argued" as you assert. It is a sourced (and now cited) fact. Goldberg hypothesized biological explanation of male dominance behaviour (sourced and cited). Brain Sex popularizes many biological articles that do precisely this (sourced and cited). Published research, by definition, is not "original research". Peer reviewed research is not "wild assumptions". What is this doing in a Wiki biography? It is doing what encyclopedias do – provide sourced, cited, peer-reviewed information, without prejudice (neutral).

Please register as a Wiki editor and share accountability to administration for your own neutrality. I will take your comment as made in good faith, however, and modify the word "stunning", which, although descriptive of the response of many to the facts, is indeed unnecessary. Instead I will put, "it provides even more of exactly the kind of evidence of biological influence on male dominance behaviour that Goldberg's hypothesis predicted." That merely describes the sourced and cited facts already presented. Alastair Haines 04:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Hypothesized is not proven, no matter how much sourced and cited. It must be proven to be true in order for it to be fact, otherwise it is simply conjecture. 207.6.51.225 (talk) 15:19, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced quotation and vandalism

I've again removed a lengthy quotation which was recently reintroduced to this article. As I stated in my original edit, the quotation is unreferenced. In which periodical did said review appear? I take great exception to the edit line, which refers to my contribution as vandalism - a very serious charge. Assuming good faith, I encourage the user in question to review Wikipedia's definition and policy concerning vandalism. Victoriagirl 16:13, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

On both occasions you have removed the reference along with the review. Goldberg's review is a glowing piece designed for the back cover blurb. Anyway, I have found an on-line citation, where it is cited by the editor-in-chief, who was saving time or supporting her own review by repeating it. The book itself IS the reference. Please check the reference before removing a cited source again. That's Wiki policy, and a matter of assuming good faith. Cheers. Alastair Haines 17:38, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

In my own defense, the manner in which the reference was provided in no way conformed to Wikipedia's policy concerning citations. I assumed, in good faith, that the first line of the section referred to the title under review (which, indeed, it did). That said, I'm not at all convinced that a blurb "designed" for the back cover of a book published by a vanity press is noteworthy. Assuming the subject has a background as a reviewer, I would encourage that other examples be provided. Failing this, I suggest that that the 'Goldberg as Reviewer' section be deleted. Victoriagirl 18:05, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry I called it vandalism Victoria. What the books say is deeply angering to people and when I quote them, people remove text anyway. It irritates me. You are not like that, you have been totally responsible, where I lacked self-restraint. I'm sincere in my apology. I will change the sub-heading to Goldberg reviews (deliberately ambiguous). If you wish, change it to A Goldberg review, Goldberg reviews Chynoweth or simply revert my change to the sub-head as it stands.

The intention of the sub-head is not to make the claim that Goldberg is a notable reviewer, constantly sought for comment on a range of matters. However, if you read his books, you will see he interacts very closely with many writers across a range of issues in his field. Fads and Fallacies in the Social Sciences would give you a good feel for the breadth of what he says, and how controversial all of it is -- careful, cited, interactive, logical, but unpopular. Indeed he has been sought for comment on both issues and on specific authors.

I like Goldberg, because he's a socialist. A man with social convictions, mediated by reason and civility. I admire him because he's got more courage to say directly what he thinks than the right-wing who like the ideas, but struggle to articulate them on the basis of logic rather than rhetoric.

He's a better man than me, he'd never have put the word vandalism into a revert. Sorry once more, Victoria. Alastair Haines 18:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I did some research on the publisher, Phillips International own Eagle Publishing, who own the Conservative Book Service. It's obvious if you visit all their web-sites too. The head office address in Washington, DC is a bit of a give-away too. Cheers. Alastair Haines 18:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I considered the book review section to be POV, especially as many of the quotes were from the cover of the book, and so I removed it. 204.52.215.107 17:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm easy

Hi Victoria,

I'm relaxed about you removing Patriarchy (anthropology) and Patriarchy in feminism if you feel they are redundant. However, Patriarchy is the parent article. Patriarchy (disambiguation) would certainly be redundant, but the others are not technically redundant, as the disambiguation shows.

If there were links to Paris in Summer, Paris in Fall, Paris in Winter and to Paris. It wouldn't seem to be natural to remove the Paris link and leave the others. See also articles will often cover similar territory or have similar names. As I see it, they allow readers to refine their search to an even more specific area, or point them to broader context. Both are useful to me as a reader anyway.

As I said, I'm relaxed about your editorial judgement to "tidy up" the See also section. I'm happy to support a change, just not one that removes the main article, and the only article I know that has a whole section on Goldberg. ;) Alastair Haines 22:10, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I'm at all stubborn on this... at least I hope I don't appear so. Really, I removed the patriarchy hyperlink under 'See also' only because the hyperlink had appeared in the body of the article. As both Patriarchy (anthropology) and Patriarchy in feminism hadn't appeared at all in the article, I left them alone. Anyway, that was my thinking. I note that WP:MOSLINKS is pretty relaxed on this issue... and so am I. A matter of personal preference, I suppose. Victoriagirl 22:28, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I am so dumb, and you are so right. I will remove the redundant Patriarchy link as you so correctly and unobtrusively had already done. Thanks for your patience and not roasting me for my stupidity. Cheers Victoria. Alastair Haines 23:06, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Wheels within wheels: recent reversion and reinstatement

An editor removed the cite info for a Goldberg biography along with a link to an online copy.

Removing the cite for a published bio in a Wiki bio entry seems rather like shooting yourself in the foot.

There's more to the issue, but I'll let the other editor explain that. :) Alastair Haines (talk) 11:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Excessive bibliography

Sixty percent of this article is bibliography. That's quite excessive for an encyclopedia article. I suggest that we keep the Books and Biographies sections and remove the rest. Kaldari (talk) 20:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

The appropriate remedy is to add text to the article based on the bibliography. Goldberg's work on Bob Dylan is in the Library of Congress select bibliography for the artist. Likewise many of the other articles form part of academic dialogue that needs citation at this article in the long run. Once listed in the References section, there would arguably be no need to retain the list of publications in duplicate, though it's pretty standard practice to retain them in a Bibliography (and this is sometimes done at Wiki). Finally, the list is shorter than that in many featured articles (Bob Dylan has more than 250 lines of reference notes). Alastair Haines (talk) 00:43, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Including a gratuitous bibliography of every article and interview a person has ever done is much different than listing works as actual references. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Show me a single good or featured article that includes such an extensive bibliography that is separate from the references. Kaldari (talk) 01:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Indiscriminate information, according to the policy you cite includes:

• Frequently Asked Questions.
• Plot summaries.
• Lyrics databases.
• Statistics.
• News reports.

What is indiscriminate about the works of a writer being cited in the article about that writer? The concept also seems to argue for comprehensive listing over arbitrarily selective listing if you ask me, but it's all beside the point I think because your first suggestion is stronger.

If this article was being proposed for GA or FA I would agree with you. But it is a start class article, and one with the advantage of having reliable sources actually cited, on which future work can be based. How does removing sources help people improve the article? Are you claiming those sources are irrelevant to an article on Goldberg? Or that they have already been adequately discussed? I really do see your point, the article is indeed lopsided, we don't have enough text interacting with the literature available on Goldberg. But we can't force people to contribute, we can only encourage them—what better than offering them reliable sources from which to do so?

But perhaps what you're driving at is suggesting Goldberg doesn't really deserve a biography at Wiki. You might be right, but the discussion would need to follow a different set of criteria. Alastair Haines (talk) 03:30, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

"What is indiscriminate about the works of a writer being cited in the article about that writer?" It indiscriminately lists 86 articles (i.e. without discriminating between major and minor works). It improves the article by making it less absurdly lopsided. I am "claiming those sources are" of very marginal relevance, and are given WP:UNDUE weight in the article. I have also heard all these unavailing arguments before (on my usertalk, before I deleted them). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 09:32, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Removal of all articles in redlinked publications would probably be a good start. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 09:35, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

You're just lazy. Instead of complaining, do something useful!

Write stubs on the redlink publications.

Borrow a Goldberg book or article and describe it.

Wiki accumulates information.

What proportion of its articles are FA or GA? Merely a fraction of 1%!

What proportion of editors actually contribute reliable sources or paraphrases? Sadly too few.

If you're not interested in Goldberg (and it seems you're not), write about other things.

Play with the team, not against it. Alastair Haines (talk) 15:10, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for that comment that was both in violation of WP:NPA, and largely a non sequitor. With those skills at slimming the opposition while avoiding the question, you should go into politics. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 15:41, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

No biographical information in the 'biography' section

This section contains no biographical information about Goldberg (where he was born, grew up, went to university, is he married, does he have children, etc, etc) -- just a bunch of random non-biographical comments (physical description, passion for cultural anthropology, etc). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 09:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Interesting opinion on what constitutes biography. Know anyone else who holds it? Alastair Haines (talk) 15:01, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

wikt:biography. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 15:36, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

"This article provides some biographical background regarding Steven Goldberg, links to some of his work, and other references to criticisms both positive and negative."

The article provides neither "biographical background" nor "criticisms". Further, I would note that self-referential statements about "This article" aren't particularly encyclopaedic. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 09:50, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Wrong on all three points. Alastair Haines (talk) 14:59, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

An unsubstantiated assertion, and thus worthless. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 15:37, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I am setting this up to deal with a difference of opinion at a daughter article When Wish Replaces Thought, as to whether it should be merged here or not. I have not investigated it enough to determine my own view one way or the other just yet. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:58, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was merge into Steven Goldberg. Sole dissenting editor has been topic-banned from articles relating to Patriarchy. -- Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 03:52, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

---

Support

1. Support: merging the articles would seem appropriate at this stage. If and when "enough citations and reviews" from reliable third party sources can be found, a separate article can always be recreated from these sources. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 06:46, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

   Addendum: given that the article in question contains only (i) vague and unattributed praise of the book from the book's own blurb & (ii) unsourced praise of Goldberg, it is questionable if there is any policy-compliant material to be merged. This 'merger' may therefore devolve into a simple redirect. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 07:07, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

2. Support. I see no evidence that When Wish Replaces Thought passes Wikipedia:Notability (books). I couldn't find any reviews, only a few citations in other works (none of which were substantial) and some blurbs on bookstore sites. Kaldari (talk) 16:06, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

   that you can't find something doesn't mean it doesn't exist, unless you can find something, there is still no case for merger, please keep looking, while you have time Alastair Haines (talk) 06:31, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

3. Support - I don't see enough to justify an article at this point in time. Guettarda (talk) 16:44, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

   if you would like your post to count, you will need to have a reason and some evidence, please find those while you have time Alastair Haines (talk) 06:31, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

   I'm not sure what you mean. The article lacks any independent sources or any evidence of notability. There's no evidence that there's enough material in existence about the book to justify an article at this point in time. The onus is on you, as the creator of the article and proponent of its being kept as a separate article, to provide some evidence. Guettarda (talk) 18:55, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. oppose: Google scholar suggests that there are enough citations and reviews of When Wish Replaces Thought in reliable sources to produce an article. Additionally, a question of order: this is effectively an AfD proposal. Were an AfD proposal to be upheld, a redirect would make sense. Should we refer this question to AfD? Alastair Haines (talk) 06:05, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
   • Comment: Alastair Haines' claim that "this is effectively an AfD proposal" is false. This is a merger proposal. Per clear policy it does not require an AfD. In fact such a proposal routinely evokes a technical 'speedy close' at AfD (for not stating a cause of action that requires Administrator intervention). If there are "enough citations and reviews" from reliable third parties, then he is welcome to recreate the article demonstrating this (per WP:V "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it" -- which the pre-redirect version failed). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 06:43, 1 June 2009 (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.

Discussion

It would appear that Hrafn is mistaking a discussion about namespaces for a discussion about revisions of those spaces.

Stubs are stubs. They're called stubs and discreetly tagged as such for a reason. They are placeholders encouraging volunteers to contribute precisely the sorts of things Hrafn, myself and probably all would like to see in a fuller article.

I find Hrafn's position hard to follow: at this namespace he believes bibliographical information should give way to biographical information, yet he also argues that the bibliographical information at When Wish Replaces Thought should be merged into the current article. Both points can be argued, of course, but by the same person?

Were Wikipedia a paper encyclopedia, perhaps I'd be more sympathetic to some kind of space efficiency argument. But at Wiki, we are not restricted in space, so we can provide readers with information about When Wish Replaces Thought who may be completely uninterested in the biographical background of its author. Likewise, people interested in Goldberg as a man may be uninterested in details of his books other than that they exist.

Given that Hrafn has also stated that he's not interested in details of one of Goldberg's books in particular, it seems even more difficult to reconcile his position. He wants information distributed in shorter articles on one page, yet argues for concentrating information in a single article on others.

The best complexion I can put on his various positions is that he is correctly observing that there is a lot of information on Goldberg still to be added in the future. What we have at present is not ideally distributed. That's all true. But we need to make decisions about the future, not the present, we need to leave room for future editors to provide what is needed. But stubbing, and slowly growing articles, are the normal processes here.

The other possibility is simply that Hrafn doesn't like Goldberg or what he says, and simply wants to see less of it around on "his" Wiki. He's far from the only person like that. One can sympathise, but Wiki is not here for discussion of our emotional responses to topics, but rather how to present them comprehensively and reliably. The more evil something is, the more important it is documented, much as we may dislike giving it any publicity at all. Of course, the only offensive thing about Goldberg is that he predicted what are now pretty much consensus opinions, although very unpopular with certain ideologies. Alastair Haines (talk) 07:19, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

There is no exception in either WP:Notability or WP:Verifiability for stubs. Stubs must both establish notability and be verifiable to reliable sources. When Wish Replaces Thought meets neither requirement. All of Alastair Haines' misrepresentations of my position, and claims about paper vs electronic encyclopaedias are irrelevant. Of course the "possibility" would not occur to him that what "Hrafn doesn't like" is articles that are in GROSS violation of policy. but then WP:AGF is a policy apparently unknown to Alastair Haines. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 07:38, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The When Wish Replaces Thought article lacks independent, third-party sources. How soon should we expect to see such sources added? Guettarda (talk) 02:43, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Several have already been noted above. You could add them into the article now if you wish. You might like to start with Geoffrey Morris' analysis, summarised by the assesment When Wish Replaces Though is a "delightful work of practical philosophy" (National Review October 19, 1992). Unless someone can provide a reason for merger, it looks unlikely to happen, so your efforts won't be in vain. The only thing lacking appears to be negative comment, but that's not surprising given Goldberg's stature as a leading sociologist of the turn of the millenium. Cheers. Alastair Haines (talk) 06:33, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Umm, Alastair, a clear case has been made for a merger - the article lacks third-party sources. In fact, it also lacks any real information about the subject beyond "it is a book by Steven Goldberg". On those grounds, Hrafn (quite reasonably, IMO) merged the article into this one. You disagree with the merge. That's perfectly reasonable. But you need to make a case for your position. This isn't a deletion debate, wherein "sources exist" is an adequate rationale. As far as I can tell, there isn't enough there for a stand-alone article. If you believe otherwise, please add some sources and expand the article. If you're right, that should be a simple task. Guettarda (talk) 19:07, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for an attempt to present a reasonable and friendly case for your POV.

I'll respond to that good faith in two ways.

Firstly, I'll remind you that third party sources have already been seen to be available. So the namespace is valid, and a stub is appropriate. That's already settled, people refusing to acknowledge it proves nothing.

Secondly, there's a point that clearly eludes the current critics. Articles on reliable sources are a different category to other articles. Just like lists are different to other articles and BLP are different.

A good deal of discussion was had at WikiProject Academic Journals at one point. The outcome (never really in doubt) was that although many journals are not reviewed or documented as journals, they are intrinsically notable because they publish the reliable sources on which Wikipedia depends. There is basic information about journals that can be gathered into article space assisting readers and editors to see that sources published by those journals are reliable. And for them to see any political or religious affilitations that may be relevant.

The same kind of thing goes for articles on non-fiction books. Fiction books are a totally different story. They are not reliable sources, they are notable on other grounds, in fact, the same sort of grounds as regular articles. However, non-fiction is in the journal category. There are many classic works in various fields that just absolutely need articles, sadly we have relatively few, from what I've seen. But in principle, there's nothing to stop us, and everything to encourage us, to provide documentation of many non-fiction works.

Think about this for a while. How can it be possible to paraphrase any and every line from a reliable source across the whole of Wiki, but not cite it in an article summarising its own argument, in its own context? In fact, it is already done in many articles. An article on a non-fiction book (or even a journal article) has tons of material to produce an article—summarising and paraphrasing its own text is already enough info.

I'm just pointing this out for the last time, so you don't get any hopes up about your case. The precedent has already been set and the right outcome is already standard across Wiki. We're just waiting for you to discover this for yourselves, or have someone point it out to you eventually. I've done my bit. I'm too busy elsewhere to keep repeating the facts of life here. Cheers. Alastair Haines (talk) 07:37, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

The article includes almost no content about the book. If all the fluff were removed, it would say that it's a book by Goldberg. A substub like that is correctly upmerged to the parent article. This one. If sources exist to write an article, please add them. Write the article. Or if, after two years, you're still too busy to write the article, then maybe it should be merged to the parent article until someone comes along who isn't too busy to write the article.

I can find almost nothing that has been written about the book. True, it's been cited a few times (mostly on anti-gay websites); there are even has a handful of academic, but most of them simply cite Goldberg's study of introductory textbooks, and at least one simply cites the book because the author uses the phrase "when wish replaces thought". There are 23 hits on google scholar, but that includes articles by Goldberg (self-citations aren't worth a whole lot), books by people like D. James Kennedy and an article from "Islam Online". (Google scholar is getting more and more diluted by junk.) Nothing about the book.

That got me wondering - does the book even meet our notability criteria? Wikipedia:Notability (books)#Criteria list five criteria:

1. "The book has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works whose sources are independent of the book itself, with at least some of these works serving a general audience. This includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, other books, television documentaries and reviews. Some of these works should contain sufficient critical commentary to allow the article to grow past a simple plot summary", or

   Note that I could find; note "subject of", not "mentioned in passing by"

2. "The book has won a major literary award", or

   No mention of this, not even on the publisher's website[1]

3. "The book has been considered by reliable sources to have made a significant contribution to a notable motion picture, or other art form, or event or political or religious movement", or

   Nothing that I could find

4. "The book is the subject of instruction at multiple grade schools, high schools, universities or post-graduate programs in any particular country"

   Again, I couldn't find anything to suggest that this is the case

5. "The book's author is so historically significant that any of his or her written works may be considered notable. This does not simply mean that the book's author is him/herself notable by Wikipedia's standards, rather that the book's author is of exceptional significance and the author's life and body of work would be a common study subject in literature classes."

   No evidence to suggest that this is the case

If the book fails the notability criteria, there's no rationale to not merge it. Guettarda (talk) 17:26, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Guettarda. This is perfect. Well done and thank you.

I think you've clearly shown where the merge proposal is confused.

The criteria are for fiction works.

Wikipedia publishes non-fiction, not fiction, (including not plot summaries, unless of acknowledged literary value).

Points: 1. "plot summary" 2. "literary award" 3. "motion picture, or other art form" and 5. "literature classes" clearly attempt to explain when fiction becomes notable at Wikipedia.

Point 4. "subject of instruction" actually has in mind the same idea as point 5. "literature classes".

What it is helpful to remember is that fiction cannot be cited as a reliable source on an encyclopedic topic, other than as a literary example. Fiction is generally not encyclopedic or notable, except in cases of literary merit.

Non-fiction is another ball game altogether. Unless people can provide grounds for not having a stub for a non-fiction work (which we can apply to all other non-fiction stubs) the current proposal hasn't even started to make a case. A random example of an as-critics-here-would-have-it "non-notable, non-fiction" stub is True Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. There are many, many stubs like this. I am unaware of any policy for replacing them with redirects and calling it merger. It is part of Wiki's neutrality that it allows all published PsOV.

There are also certain features of grounds for inclusion in the criteria above that do apply to having an article on When wish replaces thought, but non-fiction in general is inherently notable, it is part of the verification audit trail. Even publication data alone is worth documenting, but, as it turns out Wish includes significant biographical information regarding Goldberg, among other essays that are reliable sources on their subjects.

Unless criteria for exclusion of a reliable non fiction source can be found, there's actually no case yet presented for removing a stub that provides basic information and invites inclusion of more in the future. Alastair Haines (talk) 05:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing in the guideline that says these criteria apply solely to fiction - in fact, that existence of a separate notability guideline for fiction seriously undercuts your assertion. And despite the fact that it was written by an academic, it appears to be a popular work - it isn't published by an academic press and (at least according to Google Scholar) has only been cited a handful of times in academic work.

You're correct that this isn't, as far as I know, "any policy for replacing them with redirects and calling it merger"; policy calls for the deletion of non-notable work. But since Goldberg is notable, it makes sense to include mention of his books in his article, even if they aren't otherwise notable enough for an entry of their own.

Claims that there is such a thing as inherent notability have not, to the best of my knowledge, been accepted by the community. Guettarda (talk) 22:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

You know, I can't help but get the impression that you aren't familiar with the concept of notability as it is used on Wikipedia. It would be very helpful if you took a few minutes to read over this policy and get a sense of what it actually says. Thanks. Guettarda (talk) 04:09, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm quite familiar with the policy in general, thank you. The proposed policy you link above is explicit that it is not a policy. It is intended to cover films, music and media not restricted to books. The actual policy regarding fiction books makes no claim to apply to non-fiction. You make that claim, not policy. The practice of WikiProject Academic Journals and of many editors writing up non-fiction books is good evidence that common sense has led to inclusion of a wide range of non-fiction books as part of demonstrating reliability of sources. In other words, the community does in practice support the inherent notability of all reliable sources. Actually, we'd be in trouble if we didn't: we'd be deciding that some reliable sources were more reliable than others, which is not NPOV. Alastair Haines (talk) 04:30, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I really think you should take another look at the notability policy. Sometimes people end up with a mistaken sense of what policy actually says. Your comments above suggest that this may be the problem here. As for reference to the Academic Journal WikiProject - you do realise that's not a good comparison in this case, don't you? This isn't an academic journal, it's a "popular" non-fiction book that happens to be written by an academic.

While the issue of reliability of sources is clearly off topic, we have decided that some sources are more reliable than others. There's a clear hierarchy of "reliability", with peer-reviewed academic journals at the top, and self-published sources closer to the bottom. Guettarda (talk) 14:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to move ahead with the merger. Kaldari (talk) 15:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Merger proposal 2

I would like to propose merging Fads and Fallacies in the Social Sciences into this article. Kaldari (talk) 16:21, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The unanimous result was merge into Steven Goldberg. Kaldari (talk) 23:19, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

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Support

1. Support: The book isn't notable enough for it's own article and the article doesn't contain any information from secondary sources, merely some quotes from the dust jacket. Kaldari (talk) 16:20, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Support - Google yields 9,310 hits for the phrase, but if you drill down you end up with only 76 of them. I only found one review of the book, from Metapsychology Online Reviews [2] (which sums the book up as All Kinds of Stuff that I Wrote that has not yet been Republished in a Book). I found only one use of the book as a reference in any credible publication, a March 2006 reference in Skeptical Inquirer [3]. None of this suggests that it meets our notability requirements. Guettarda (talk) 16:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Support: merge as bare redirect. Contents of the article are non-WP:RS quotes from the book's own blurbs. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 18:31, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

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.

'Goldberg as reviewer'

This section is sourced to an online bookstore listing. The Goldberg "review" appears to be no more than a 'publisher's blurb'. I would also note that an identical copy of this page can be found on another online bookstore here. Not WP:RS & not notewirthy -- so I'm removing, unless/until it can be demonstrated that this so-called review was published independently of the book it is glorifying. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 15:34, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Lead section

I have edited the lead to add a brief summary of Goldberg's theory (which is otherwise unexplained). I have also removed the extensive quotes from the lead. Presenting a detailed defense of Goldberg's theory in the lead section is not appropriate. The lead section is for summarizing information from the article body. I have also removed the "lead rewrite" tag. Kaldari (talk) 18:19, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

When did he retire?

The article says he chaired the department until his retirement but doesn't provide a date for his departure from his academic position. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.134.86 (talk) 22:32, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Goldberg retired in 2008.AnaSoc (talk) 21:32, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Lead section

The lead section here is very messy. ★Trekker (talk) 22:28, 27 April 2023 (UTC)