Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 March 26

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 26

Confusion of Priorities

I see that a school of 400 in the middle of Saskatchewan has its own page, however the page of an influential and respected professor has been twice removed. I would like to understand the process behind that specific case, as well as other related cases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Acidic Biscuit (talk • contribs) 01:01, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Who? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:03, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

As I think BB means to imply, it‘s hard to say much without linking or naming the articles to which you refer. But I guess you’re after the notability guideline found at WP:N. Beyond the general principles there are specific criteria for various categories of topic; see in particular WP:ORG and WP:PROF.—Odysseus1479 04:20, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

True, and what I'm really getting at (not stated well) is that we need to know who he's talking about and whether there was a deletion request page so that we could review the specifics. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:26, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I was just about to add that articles are often deleted for e.g. copyright violation or complete lack of sourcing, without prejudice to the creation of policy-compliant replacements.—Odysseus1479 04:30, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

BB and questioner, it's not for the Ref Desk to review deletion decisions, if that's what's happened here. There's a WP:AfD process for that. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:08, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I strongly agree with User:JackofOz that it is not the job of the Reference Desk to question or review deletion or other content decisions. However, the reader may find it useful to be aware that he is not the only person who has concerns about this problemfeature. Unfortunately, Wikipedia's "schools" policy was, and to some extent remains, a vexed subject. About 9 years ago the policy was one of the principal battlegrounds between two different factions within Wikipedia, each of which had a different interpretation of the concept of "notability". Unfortunately, this debate occurred at a time when there was a large influx of new editors to Wikipedia, many of whom were less experienced and highly enthusiastic, and many of whom were readily persuaded that their own high school was notable (because, hey, they went there themselves and so it was obviously notable, and it got the necessary media coverage in the local newspaper). Further, there was a small but determined group of editors who felt for a variety of reasons, some expressly political, that schools were educational institutions on a par with major universities, and who were determined to add as many schools as possible to Wikipedia. Finally, participation in "deletion debates" about schools was highly co-ordinated by the people who wished to retain such articles - mailing lists were maintained, both within Wikipedia and in private communications between editors outside the Wikipedia environment. As sometimes happens in such cases, the debates became polarised, and compromise became difficult. Unfortunately, the better organisation of the side who wished to ascribe notability to all schools prevailed, and thus we now have the rather unfortunate precedent that all high schools are more-or-less automatically notable. There is no easy solution to this problem. I myself was involved last year in a proposal to move most schools into a new "educational supplement" to Wikipedia, but, like other attempts to address this problem, the proposal came to nothing.

As for the many, many articles on schools themselves, they have become a wasteland. Inspection of their edit histories shows that these articles are now largely out-of-date, with an unfortunately high number of edits consisting of vandalism and assorted personalia. As you'll see from my personal edit history, from time to time I've expended a lot of effort in attempting to clean up these articles, but it's a thankless task, and the Schools Wikiproject is utterly overwhelmed by the volume of work required to keep them at an acceptable standard. (The proponents of retaining all these articles have mostly vanished, of course.) My personal approach is, as far as possible, simply not to think about the problem. Wikipedia isn't perfect, so the best approach is to just accept things the way they are and move on. RomanSpa (talk) 10:48, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

The other day I came across this. Note the speedy tag clearly says "Note that educational institutions are not eligible under this criterion." and of course I declined the speedy, which was a bit of a surprise to the tagger. I pointed out Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#A7. No indication of importance (individuals, animals, organizations, web content, events), Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools/Criteria for Speedy Deletion A7and Wikipedia:Schools#Notability. And now it's at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Learnium International School. At least nobody has accused the nominator of anything. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 11:58, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Just to expand on RomanSpa's response: if the professor you mention is still alive, their article would fall under the purview of WP:BLP. Deletion discussions on articles about living people often err on the side of deletion due to concerns that the person is/will be libeled and/or given incorrect information. A shitty article about a school is just a shitty article, but a shitty article about a person is an ethical and legal minefield. So, when it comes to living people, it's often the case that no article is better than a poor one. So, it's possible the article was wiped out just due to the poor nature of it - something that would be less likely to happen if it was a different kind of subject. Matt Deres (talk) 15:51, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

In the case of living American politicians, they don't need anything notable written about them. I tried to delete Harry Lehman, but it was simply impossible. InedibleHulk (talk) 10:45, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually there's a case right now at WP:ANI that is arguing for the speedy deletion of a candidate, see the subentry under Jesus "Chuy" Garcia. μηδείς (talk) 19:29, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, candidates are fair game. They're technically politicians, but getting elected is like passing the training level, I gather. Way harder to bullshit a bullshitter, or a full House of them. Harry Lehman didn't apparently exert any influence, but at least he was in a position to.

The new guy seems highly notable in comparison, but they're both here for the same reason. "Graduate of Lorain Admiral King High School" just doesn't cut it, for some reason. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:52, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

It seems that Lehman isn't that unimportant after all. There's a SCOUTUS case, Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, that probably concern that Harry Lehman. I put a link on the article's talk page but I leave it to those who know more about US law to decide whether it's important enough to be in the article. Sjö (talk) 07:30, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

That Harry Lehman was running for Ohio's 56th district, while the other had already landed the 16th. I think that'd be against the rules, but I'm also no expert on Ohio law. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:14, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Maybe just a coincidence of names, then? Sjö (talk) 08:24, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Maybe not. Apparently, the 1970 running date matches up. I'd assumed court moved faster back then. But the districts don't match. I tend to trust the Supreme Court over Wikipedia. Same middle initial. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:27, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

109th Ohio General Assembly has Lehman at the 56th district and someone else at the 16th. So now you have both the SC and Wikipedia to trust. Sjö (talk) 06:45, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Excellent. One small step for Wikipedia, one giant leap for Harry Lehman. The case definitely isn't undue weight, if it's the only thing he did. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:25, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Adele bloch bauer

I read that Adele Bloch Bauer received many famous guests, at her salon, but I think I spotted an error. Johannes Brahms, was mentioned, but he died in 1897, when Adele, was just a teenager 72.89.237.147 (talk) 15:05, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Note: Brahms is mentioned in the Maria Altmann article. We do not have an article on Adele Bloch Bauer. Rmhermen (talk) 15:41, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

How do you decide when a subject needs to be followed by a comma? —Tamfang (talk) 07:52, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Congressional Monitor

I initially asked this on the talk page of Congressional Quarterly, but then realized it is probably better asked here.

I see that Congressional Monitor redirects to Congressional Quarterly, but nothing there mentions anything by that name. There appears to be a website http://congressionalmonitor.com, but it doesn't look like anything I'd ever associate with CQ. This came up because I recently received a survey in the mail from what appears to be the same Congressional Monitor as the web site, with somewhat slipshod multiple-choice questions that appear to presume a very narrow range of political possibility. E.g.:

4. What is the best solution for reducing the national deficit?

(A) Cut discretionary spending

(B) Reduce Farm subsidies [Um, those are somewhere under 2% of the budget - JM]

(C) Reduce Defense Spending [which, by the way, is part of discretionary spending, see item A]

(D) Enact the recommendations of the Bowles-Simpson Plan

Note that D is the only one that involves any increased taxes, and that within a large proposal that is seen as leaning to the conservative side. Is this really from the same people as CQ? If so, there seems to be a deterioration that we must somehow be able to document; if not, then that redirect is a problem. - Jmabel | Talk 16:06, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

The CM page was last edited eight years ago when it was still owned by the same company which owned CQ. Now the economist has purchased the company so I've changed the redirect to the new parent's article. Though for your question, it seems like CQ and CM were owned by the same company but were sister organizations and it would not be surprising if these two targeted different consumers to sell ads to. 70.50.122.38 (talk) 17:49, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

So are you saying that you know confidently that http://congressionalmonitor.com is owned by the Economist, or that you are just conjecturing that? - Jmabel | Talk 23:16, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I did rely upon another editor for the idea that CQ owned an organization named CM. Now that I look closely, the CM you are linking to is an insignificant blog and the most notable use of the term CM is a database created by the Institute for Palestine Studies. 70.50.122.38 (talk) 01:52, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Nice to fix the link to something a bit more appropriate, but that still gives me nothing on my original attempt to work out who precisely is the "Congressional Monitor" that is sending out the biased surveys. Can anyone here help me? - Jmabel | Talk

If you do a search for '"Congressional Monitor" survey', you'll probably find a lot of people asking the same question (and at least one person implicitly criticising their methodology [1]) but I didn't see anyone answering. (It seems you can have them send surveys to you if you want one [2].) The domain was only registered in 2013 but the registrant details are hidden [3]. Their FAQ says they are incorporated in Washington DC. Perhaps you could fine some info on this incorporation by looking at Washington DC records (here perhaps [4]) and the information they've provided, perhaps not. It wouldn't surprise me if any info is fairly uninteresting and they're started by random people looking to profit and/or push their POV. Nil Einne (talk) 15:52, 28 March 2015 (UTC)