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Nobel Prize in Chemistry Is Awarded to 3 Evolutionary Scientists

nytimes.com

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Re: Nobel Prize in Chemistry Is Awarded to 3 Evolutionary Scientists

#32
post #30
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should every published scientist have a wikipedia page? It's not obvious that they should, not every scientist is notable to the general public. To me it rather shows what a bad judgement the Wikipedia moderators have on notability.

I really don’t think that is fair. Wikipedia mods aren’t expected to be experts on research chemistry or theoretical physics. As had already been noted before you commented, in many cases, including the ones cited above, the researchers in question were credited in the pages on the research. I think that’s reasonable for a resource intended for a general rather than specialist audience.

> Wikipedia mods aren’t expected to be experts on research chemistry or theoretical physics.

I agree. That is why they should not make a judgement to delete a Wikipedia page because of irrelevance before people who are knowledgeable on the respective topic have been consulted/given their opinion.

Re: Nobel Prize in Chemistry Is Awarded to 3 Evolutionary Scientists

#33
post #8
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is not in line with the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's definitely inciting, but so is spewing anti-scientific and ignorant one-liners

It breaks the site guidelines to reply to egregious comments and continue to feed the resulting low-quality threads. Please don't do that.

Instead, flag the egregious comment and move on. For more about comment flagging see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.

Re: Nobel Prize in Chemistry Is Awarded to 3 Evolutionary Scientists

#34
post #15

This has not been a good Nobel year for Wikipedia. First, yesterday, we find that Physics winner Donna Strickland did not have a page. She had one four years ago briefly, but it had been quickly deleted on notability grounds. And now today we get a Chemistry winner, George P. Smith, who also did not have a page--not even an old deleted page. His first page was created this morning after the Prize was announced. This…

I don't see what the problem is. Should every published scientist have a wikipedia page? It's not obvious that they should, not every scientist is notable to the general public. The fact that they received a Nobel doesn't mean they were notable before they received the Nobel.

No, you've got that all backwards. The Nobel recognizes the well-established notability of seminal work. It is not somehow an announcement of freshly discovered notability.

Re: Nobel Prize in Chemistry Is Awarded to 3 Evolutionary Scientists

#35
post #32
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don’t think that is fair. Wikipedia mods aren’t expected to be experts on research chemistry or theoretical physics. As had already been noted before you commented, in many cases, including the ones cited above, the researchers in question were credited in the pages on the research. I think that’s reasonable for a resource intended for a general rather than specialist audience.

> Wikipedia mods aren’t expected to be experts on research chemistry or theoretical physics. I agree. That is why they should not make a judgement to delete a Wikipedia page because of irrelevance before people who are knowledgeable on the respective topic have been consulted/given their opinion.

Wikipedia is fundamentally maintained by a pseudononymous swarm of editors who communicate asynchronously. This necessitates that all editors be more or less fungible. The average editor is not equipped to judge the statement "This work is scientifically important". The average editor is much better equipped to judge the statement pair "The Nobel committee holds this work to be scientifically important", "The Nobel committee constitutes a reliable third-party source".

Re: Nobel Prize in Chemistry Is Awarded to 3 Evolutionary Scientists

#36

They're never going to give it to John Goodenough. :(

Reuters publishes an annual list of its picks for the Nobel prize. Goodenough was listed way back in 2015. I just hope his solid state battery turns out to be viable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarivate_Citation_Laureates , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13916255

I also hope that his design will be good enough.

Re: Nobel Prize in Chemistry Is Awarded to 3 Evolutionary Scientists

#37
post #15

This has not been a good Nobel year for Wikipedia. First, yesterday, we find that Physics winner Donna Strickland did not have a page. She had one four years ago briefly, but it had been quickly deleted on notability grounds. And now today we get a Chemistry winner, George P. Smith, who also did not have a page--not even an old deleted page. His first page was created this morning after the Prize was announced. This…

I don't see what the problem is. Should every published scientist have a wikipedia page? It's not obvious that they should, not every scientist is notable to the general public. The fact that they received a Nobel doesn't mean they were notable before they received the Nobel.

In fact there are nearly always a series of prizes one typically sees before the Nobel, e.g. the Wolf Prize, Boltzmann medal, etc. It would be odd that someone comes out of left field and takes the Nobel.

Re: Nobel Prize in Chemistry Is Awarded to 3 Evolutionary Scientists

#38
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what the problem is. Should every published scientist have a wikipedia page? It's not obvious that they should, not every scientist is notable to the general public. The fact that they received a Nobel doesn't mean they were notable before they received the Nobel.

> "The fact that they received a Nobel doesn't mean they were notable before they received the Nobel." It does, pretty much by definition of a Nobel prize.

The novel prise isn’t given to people already considered notable by the general public. Of the 200 and some physicists who are Nobel laureates most dedicated physics students would struggle to name more than a dozen, let alone arbitrary members of public.

They become notable to the public when they receive the award because if it’s public recognition, but they are awarded it based on their research contributions being notable.

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