Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nobel scientist's deletion from Wikipedia points to wider bias

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 147 posts

Re: Nobel scientist's deletion from Wikipedia points to wider bias

#41

Post by BeetleB »

Ensorceled wrote: post #11
fsckboy wrote: post #4

misleading title, the scientist Donna Strickland had had her page deleted before she won the Nobel prize and therefore did not have a page at the time she won the prize.

No, that's the point, a woman doing such great work that she won the Nobel Prize had her profile deleted as "not notable".

People are assuming quite a bit.

If an article about a professor is written and has virtually no references, then it's not the admin's job to do research to see if she is notable or not. It should be tagged as "needs references" and if they are not provided, eventually deleted.

In her particular case, the article didn't even exist - only a draft did - which was not approved because it had no references. The rejection notice specifically suggests resubmitting with references.

The story/study about bias is interesting, but they picked a poor example to showcase.

Re: Nobel scientist's deletion from Wikipedia points to wider bias

#42

Post by rob_c »

leephillips wrote: post #38

Misogyny is just one of Wikipedia’s numerous faults. But why pay attention? To me this has about the same import as someone somberly pointing out that an informative graffito was erased from the bathroom wall of their favorite restaurant.

I feel sorry for your bathroom wall being covered in factual information covering a variety of topics. Then again you never have to buy a newspaper...

I like comparing Wikipedia to graffiti as it's heading in this direction at times but I'd think of it more like a notice board outside a town hall covered in signs for the next witch burning rather than a bathroom stall.

Re: Nobel scientist's deletion from Wikipedia points to wider bias

#43

Post by cool_dude85 »

jhgb wrote: post #29
Ensorceled wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point of the article. This woman WAS prominent AND doing notable work AND was still deleted. The Nobel Prize, for the most part, recognizes notable work by prominent scientists.

Prominent to optics experts before the award [EDIT: or perhaps not? See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28236537 ], clearly, not to Wikipedia editors. It's easy to tell who's prominent in distant past (it's the people in history textbooks), but if your guide to recent prominence is things like lists of awards or frequent mentions in the media, you may be getting some corner cases from time to time.

Well, when you're wrong, and especially when you're exceptionally wrong as in this "corner case", it makes a lot of sense to try to understand what kind of process failure and institutional biases may have played a part in the bad decision. That's what the article's about.

Re: Nobel scientist's deletion from Wikipedia points to wider bias

#44

Post by moonchrome »

Ensorceled wrote: post #11
fsckboy wrote: post #4

misleading title, the scientist Donna Strickland had had her page deleted before she won the Nobel prize and therefore did not have a page at the time she won the prize.

No, that's the point, a woman doing such great work that she won the Nobel Prize had her profile deleted as "not notable".

I don't know the specifics of what makes someone notable in Wikipedia standards - but Wikipedia is obviously not the Nobel committee - sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Re: Nobel scientist's deletion from Wikipedia points to wider bias

#45

Post by MichaelGroves »

Ensorceled wrote: post #19
youeseh wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy enough to fix: "Nobel scientist's deletion from Wikipedia before rise to prominence points to wider bias" I wish news outlets would stick to reporting the news.

You are missing the point of the article. This woman WAS prominent AND doing notable work AND was still deleted. The Nobel Prize, for the most part, recognizes notable work by prominent scientists.

Right, the Nobel Prize didn't make her notable, it recognized her existing notability. What made her notable was the work she did before she got the prize. Wikipedian editors incorrectly failed to recognize her notability, because their byzantine bureaucracy is riddled with blind-spots.

Re: Nobel scientist's deletion from Wikipedia points to wider bias

#46

Post by rob_c »

tptacek wrote: post #24

What happened here was atypical for Wikipedia "deletionism" debates. Normally, when you read a story like this, someone created an article and someone else petitioned to have it deleted (with an "AfD") and there's a whole debate log you can read, and you could try to assess people's biases from the comments they left in the AfD. Here, though, no article was ever created (prior to 2018, when Strickland was awarded her…

Not sure I actually agree.

If articles such as this get stricken off and she hadn't won a novel prize someone would just cite "deleted as before" when someone attempts to start a new article again.

Re: Nobel scientist's deletion from Wikipedia points to wider bias

#47

Post by crazygringo »

tptacek wrote: post #24

What happened here was atypical for Wikipedia "deletionism" debates. Normally, when you read a story like this, someone created an article and someone else petitioned to have it deleted (with an "AfD") and there's a whole debate log you can read, and you could try to assess people's biases from the comments they left in the AfD. Here, though, no article was ever created (prior to 2018, when Strickland was awarded her…

> There are hundreds of thousands of academics whose position in the encyclopedia could also be established with links to their research groups!

Yup, that's really the crux of it. Wikipedia isn't meant for every tenured professor to have a page, the same way an actor with only one IMDB credit doesn't get a page either. And sadly that stub article doesn't seem to clearly explain why this particular professor does.

In hindsight "Nobel prize laureate" is obviously notable... but it's the job of someone creating a page to make the notability rationale clear.

Re: Nobel scientist's deletion from Wikipedia points to wider bias

#48

Post by not2b »

jhgb wrote: post #29
Ensorceled wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point of the article. This woman WAS prominent AND doing notable work AND was still deleted. The Nobel Prize, for the most part, recognizes notable work by prominent scientists.

Prominent to optics experts before the award [EDIT: or perhaps not? See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28236537 ], clearly, not to Wikipedia editors. It's easy to tell who's prominent in distant past (it's the people in history textbooks), but if your guide to recent prominence is things like lists of awards or frequent mentions in the media, you may be getting some corner cases from time to time.

Wikipedia editors need to fix that. The notability criteria are skewed, tending to think that every minor person in the pop culture is notable, but regularly dumping scientists and local elected officials (the latter is a problem when they run for higher office and people can't find information about them).

They could relax the standard for deletion and it wouldn't hurt anything. If some editors think someone is prominent and others don't, leave the article in place, even if the "not prominent" side has a majority. If the article doesn't meet standards, tag it as a stub or with the "multiple issues" tag.

Re: Nobel scientist's deletion from Wikipedia points to wider bias

#49

Post by cool_dude85 »

jhgb wrote: post #40
cool_dude85 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before rise to prominence? Presumably she did not publish the work that won her the Nobel and win it on the same day. Surely publishing Nobel-level work in your field means you have already "risen to prominence."

How do you tell before such an award is granted whether someone's work is Nobel-worthy or not? There's plenty of already-published works right now that will earn dozens of Nobels to some people in the next decade -- care to tell us which works we should be looking for?

Luckily for me I'm not an admin on wikipedia, so I don't have to decide whose work is notable enough to justify a page. That's their problem.

And it's fine for them to get heat when they make bad decisions, or when people notice that those decisions are systematically biased. I don't have to solve the problem to say it's bad.

Re: Nobel scientist's deletion from Wikipedia points to wider bias

#50

Post by jhgb »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #43
jhgb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prominent to optics experts before the award [EDIT: or perhaps not? See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28236537 ], clearly, not to Wikipedia editors. It's easy to tell who's prominent in distant past (it's the people in history textbooks), but if your guide to recent prominence is things like lists of awards or frequent mentions in the media, you may be getting some corner cases from time to time.

Well, when you're wrong, and especially when you're exceptionally wrong as in this "corner case", it makes a lot of sense to try to understand what kind of process failure and institutional biases may have played a part in the bad decision. That's what the article's about.

One of the problems with binary classifiers is that you can't simultaneously make low errors in both directions. That's not "an institutional failure", that's practically a law of nature. You have to live with the fact that sometimes you're wrong. What errors to make is the core of the feud between deletionists and inclusionists.
Post reply on HN