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Why are pornstars more notable than scientists on Wikipedia?

chemconnector.com

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Re: Why are pornstars more notable than scientists on Wikipedia?

#31

Post by gcp »

mixmax wrote: post #15

I once had a heated discussion with a classical violinist about who the most known Dane was outside of Denmark. She insisted that it had to be Carl Nielsen, a composer, whom she was sure everyone would know. All her friends knew Carl Nielsen, and many of them could play his most known symphonies from memory. I'd only vaguely heard of him, and contended that maybe Hans Christian Andersen would be more known, since Dis…

Ask a random stranger on the street how many pornstars he can name, and then how many scientists he can name and you'll see that the author lives in a bubble.

s/random stranger/random male stranger/

Re: Why are pornstars more notable than scientists on Wikipedia?

#32

Post by patrickyeon »

kristopolous wrote: post #24
VladRussian wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>3.Has made unique contributions to a specific pornographic genre, such as beginning a trend in pornography; i bet it is much harder than produce a new scientific theory ( or may be it is just my Math MS talking :)

I've often wondered who the Hitchcocks and Coppolas were of the Adult Film Genre. I've considered the idea that there are masterpiece films, dismissed for being erotic, that have gone unseen and unappreciated by the masses. Alas, I have yet to find a nice thorough list, akin to the AFI top 100 for the lewd. * If you know where this is, maybe you can also direct me to some reputable cult list; you know, that would hav…

I don't know of a list, but I knew a girl in university who took a class titled "Sexuality in Film". She described it as basically the history of porn.

Re: Why are pornstars more notable than scientists on Wikipedia?

#33

Post by tzs »

mixmax wrote: post #15

I once had a heated discussion with a classical violinist about who the most known Dane was outside of Denmark. She insisted that it had to be Carl Nielsen, a composer, whom she was sure everyone would know. All her friends knew Carl Nielsen, and many of them could play his most known symphonies from memory. I'd only vaguely heard of him, and contended that maybe Hans Christian Andersen would be more known, since Dis…

> If you asked people on HN who the most famous Dane is David Heinemmeir Hansson might be mentioned. Or maybe Bjarne Stroustrup who invented C++, or Rasmus Lerdorrf who invented PHP, or maybe Anders Hejlsberg who invented turbo pascal, Delphi and C#, or Lars Bak who developled the Chrome V8 javascript engine and was developer lead on Googles Dart language

One of those might be the most famous Dane known to people on HN in the sense that if they made an ordered list of all the famous people they know of and then went down the list checking nationalities, one of those would be the first Dane.

However, if you actually asked them to name the most famous Dane they can think of, I think there's a good chance none of those would be named. Until your post, I had no idea any of them were Danes. Most of those names are common in several countries, and I'd have guessed most of them were from Germany, Sweden, or Norway.

Re: Why are pornstars more notable than scientists on Wikipedia?

#34

Post by TillE »

peterjs wrote: post #28
mixmax wrote: post #15

I once had a heated discussion with a classical violinist about who the most known Dane was outside of Denmark. She insisted that it had to be Carl Nielsen, a composer, whom she was sure everyone would know. All her friends knew Carl Nielsen, and many of them could play his most known symphonies from memory. I'd only vaguely heard of him, and contended that maybe Hans Christian Andersen would be more known, since Dis…

That's an easy one. The best known Dane is obviously Peter Schmeichel :) The bubble of football/soccer fans is a quite populous place.

No way, it's gotta be Nicklas Bendtner. At least according to Nicklas Bendtner.

Re: Why are pornstars more notable than scientists on Wikipedia?

#35

Post by jonmc12 »

Wikipedia is not to blame any more than MTV is to blame for Jersey Shore - they are both simply catering content that reflects how their audience wants to expend attention.

Looking at the numbers for perez hilton, farmville, facebook, television, porn, etc - paints a picture that the average mass consumer does not consider scientific knowledge to be notable.. or the inventors of this knowledge.

I blame Edward Bernays. Watch the BBC documentary 'The Century of Self' which provides a historical context for why the amygdala of the typical consumer suckles all the attention, while the neo-cortex sits waiting like the runt of the litter with only a vague notion of scientific knowledge present in daily life.

Re: Why are pornstars more notable than scientists on Wikipedia?

#36

Post by eropple »

andrewfelix wrote: post #23
dotBen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for a start, I didn't downvote you - just replied. I think if you take your aspect of the argument to it's logical conclusion no one that has any reason to be editing a wikipedia page on a given subject can be wholly objective on that same subject. Anything I know enough to comment on, I probably have a biased view on. For example I have no biased view on the Greek/Turkish ownership dispute of Cyprus, but that's…

The author doesn't just know about the subject matter, he's friends with the subject.

And I lived in Maine for 22 years and really like the place. Can I not objectively write about it?

Re: Why are pornstars more notable than scientists on Wikipedia?

#37

Post by brudgers »

Sometimes, as is the case regarding 646 Pokemon, Wikipedia articles are suitable based upon completeness rather than notability.

Historically, pornstars were somewhat rare and an readily accessible catalog compiled to pseudo-academic standards is an undertaking which is well facilitated by Wikipedia, while listing every chemist is a much more problematic task.

Re: Why are pornstars more notable than scientists on Wikipedia?

#38

Post by andrewfelix »

eropple wrote: post #36
andrewfelix wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author doesn't just know about the subject matter, he's friends with the subject.

And I lived in Maine for 22 years and really like the place. Can I not objectively write about it?

Without a doubt you could give some great insights and a lot of useful information. But to answer your question; No, you alone could not write an objective encyclopedia article on the subject.

Re: Why are pornstars more notable than scientists on Wikipedia?

#39

Post by bane »

oz wrote: post #30

Because pornstars are more notable among the masses than scientists. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, but it is true. Ask most people to name a scientist, the only one they can name is Einstein. Ask most men to name pornstars, they can rattle of Jenna Jameson, Asia Careera, Ron Jeremy etc. For women, it will be the authors of romance novels.

In other words, "popular". And thus the inevitable problem with using notability as a guideline.

Once that becomes the principle inclusion/exclusion criteria (as it tends to be in most of the discussion in AfD), exclude lots of junk, but you also only include things that are so common that everybody already knows about them anyway -- thus making an encyclopedia as the "place you go to look up stuff you don't know" moot.

This creates an irrational fear of including non-notable "false positives" (when bits are effectively free), and excluding perfectly good information that falls beneath some particular editor's personal interest radar.

Re: Why are pornstars more notable than scientists on Wikipedia?

#40

Post by generalk »

gcp wrote: post #31
mixmax wrote: post #15

I once had a heated discussion with a classical violinist about who the most known Dane was outside of Denmark. She insisted that it had to be Carl Nielsen, a composer, whom she was sure everyone would know. All her friends knew Carl Nielsen, and many of them could play his most known symphonies from memory. I'd only vaguely heard of him, and contended that maybe Hans Christian Andersen would be more known, since Dis…

Ask a random stranger on the street how many pornstars he can name, and then how many scientists he can name and you'll see that the author lives in a bubble. s/random stranger/random male stranger/

You think only guys watch porn?
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