Category talk:Scholars and academics by subject/Archive 1

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archived from Category talk:Scholars by subject

WikiProject Education

Merge "Academics by subject" and "Scholars by subject"

  • Suggest merging Category:Academics by subject and Category:Scholars by subject into Category:Scholars by subject. Although these two terms are sometimes used synonymously, many "scholars" are not full-time permanent academics. There seems little point in maintaining two significantly overlapping category trees. I also posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Academics#Scholars versus academics to get further discussion. --lquilter 17:31, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
    • But since all academics are scholars, surely the simple solution is to have every "foo academics" category a subcat of the "foo scholars" category? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:38, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Yes, that makes sense from a purely category purist perspective (I said something similar in a longer posting below.) The problem that I foresee (and see in current categories) is that most editors don't observe this fairly technical distinction, so the structure will require a great deal of policing. That may still be the preferred solution, of course. --Lquilter (talk) 14:52, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
        • I guess I am inclined to be category purist, so that's fair comment! But there are many other situations where the parent/child category needs constant policing, and the example I'm most familiar with is my own pet subject of British Members of Parliament. There are many cases where there is an MP category as a child of a "politician" category (e.g. Category:Conservative MPs (UK) is a child of Category:Conservative Party politicians (UK)), and duplication is avoided only policing. But it does work! :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:17, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
      • I'm not opposed to it. I just worry about doing it. We who are interested in academics are rather overwhelmed, at present, by those who are interested more in fictional biographies of entertainers from fictional TV series X. <g> --Lquilter (talk) 17:01, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Academics where I posted a fuller statement of potential concerns and issues:
Hi. We have two biographical article trees for Category:Academics and Category:Scholars. These terms are often used synonymously. Technically, academics should refer to people who are full-time faculty at academic institutions, generally with both teaching and research duties. Scholars on the other hand is broader than academics insofar as scholarship/research goes, but doesn't necessarily entail teaching. However, in practice there doesn't seem to be any clear rationale for picking one or the other; any given field usually just one (not both) as well as a "teachers of" category (usually if there are also primary and secondary instruction); and the two trees are circularly placed.
I am putting this out there for discussion, and tentatively proposing that probably most subject categories could have an "x scholars" and an "x teachers" category rather than (("x scholars" or "x academics") and ("x teachers")). It doesn't seem necessary to have two trees ("x scholars" and "x academics") since most editors don't really observe the (rather academic) distinction. (Indeed, the various "x academics" categories are sometimes in "teachers of x" and sometimes not.) Still, the category trees are pretty well-established (although not, I think, with a lot of planning), so it would be good to get a lot of discussion about these categories.
The other way of handling this consistently would be to really thoroughly clean up the two trees, creating lots of container categories, such that "Category:Academics by subject" are all enclosed within Category:Scholars by subject and Category:Educators by discipline. This would be "purer" I think and may be the preferred long-term approach.
I also posted a Merge notice on top-level categories to get some discussion. See Category talk:Scholars by subject. --lquilter 18:04, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Fine distinctions not observed comment - We have Category:Teachers, Category:Scholars, and Category:Academics. Ideally (IMO) and if we were being precise, Category:Academics would be defined as full-time faculty at universities with both teaching and scholarship requirements. People who adjunct would get Category:Teachers; if they do scholarship privately they would also get Category:Scholars. ... In practice, I am concerned that editors will simply not maintain a distinction between scholars and academics. While some of the academics trees are quite good, btw, with no non-academic scholars, most of them clearly just use "academic" as synonymous with "scholar". This could just be a weeding problem but I think it's a very serious weeding problem that would require constant maintenance and supervision because, frankly, most editors don't know or use the fairly precise differences. --Lquilter (talk) 12:54, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Adjuncts comment - Responding to Cgingold on adjuncts: Adjuncts are usually practicing professionals in their own field, who teach at a university. They are not considered academics in the more precise sense of the word. They can and do offer scholarship -- in my own field, law, practicing attorneys are often scholars: Bill Patry, for instance, I'm certain has adjuncted; he has written a treatise (the height of scholarship by some measures); but I believe he has been in private practice the whole of his professional life. Thus, he is a scholar; a teacher; and an attorney -- but not an academic. --Lquilter (talk) 12:58, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Scientists comment - In a separate conversation, DGG and I also talked about the problem of scientists. They have their own trees, but in fact, most scientists today are academics. As JohnBod points out, most scientists in the past would be better considered scholars. Just putting this issue out there too. --Lquilter (talk) 13:03, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Pre-academia scholars comment - Plus fields with many scholars before the expansion of universities are difficult - Darwin cannot be called an academic. Johnbod ... So Category:Academics is like "scholars by performance"? <g> --Lquilter (talk) 13:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal

See proposal at Category talk:Academics to combine the trees as Category:Scholars and academics; this tree would then be Category:Scholars and academics by subject. --Lquilter (talk) 23:57, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

... Discussion continuing at Category talk:Journalism academics --Lquilter (talk) 01:38, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Done (again?) per Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 May 13 – Fayenatic London 08:50, 21 May 2014 (UTC)


Archived from Category talk:Journalism academics

Propose rename to Journalism scholars

Current proposal: Rename to Category:Journalism scholars and academics or Category:Scholars and academics of journalism; consider applying to Category:Scholars and Category:Academics trees more broadly. --Lquilter (talk) 16:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Background for discussion: I proposed renaming this category to Category:Journalism scholars, since many journalism scholars are professional journalists rather than academics. The 2007/11/16 CFD closed with no consensus.

The basic points that I see are:

  • The academics versus scholars question is larger than just Category:Journalism academics; see Category talk:Academics.
  • However even if two separate academic/scholar trees are maintained for most subjects some subjects are more problematic than others and I would argue that journalism is one of those, because "Journalism scholars" frequently practice as professional journalists for part or all of their careers. So maintaining a separate "scholars" category and a separate "academics" category will be unnecessarily confusing. Handled correctly, it will mean that journalists who had significant careers both as full-time academics (faculty at a university) will get Category:Journalism academics; journalists who primarily practice as journalists and not as academics but who nevertheless do journalism scholarship will get Category:Journalism scholars; and a good number of these will be both. In practice the distinction between scholars and academics has not been well-observed or policed here at wikipedia; the terms are often used synonymously. In journalism this is particularly problematic since there is significant fluidity between the academic & the professional track.

Other points or thoughts? --Lquilter (talk) 17:46, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Discussion
  • I certainly agree with the first point, but ideally would prefer not to separate the categories. Can we just not call it Category:Journalism academics and scholars (or s's & a's of j, as I would prefer), or adopt scholars as the wider term? That is my preferred solution for the whole tree I think. Johnbod (talk) 18:06, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I also agree with the first point, which is something I tried to clean up at CFD Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_November_28#Academics_categories, which has yet to close. Fundamentally, as described in our article academia, "An academic is a person who works as a researcher (and usually teacher) at a university or similar institution in post-secondary (or tertiary) education." From our article scholar, "A scholar is a person who learns and is often refered to as a pupil or student." I find that too broad for any normative classification for nearly every person learns or was a pupil or student. Any way, someone who fiddles about in his basement, in most government research labs, think tanks, industry, etc. is not an academic, regardless of what great works he publishes and discoveries he makes. He may be a scholar (in a more narrow American usage). A practitioner in the subject in which he is otherwise an academic blurs the line. Many law professors take on legal representation of clients (Derschowitz notably comes to mind), that does not take them out of an academic category in my thinking. Bringing this back to Journalism, which - unlike law - needs no license to practice: there are numerous academics that undertake journalistic tasks in order to further their research into different areas. For example, an economist may do surveys (as do journalists), or a historian may dig through newly released public documents to further research - some of which gets reported as news (notably Nixon's tapes or other famous people's papers that trickle out over time). What we should really be classifying here are people who are academics in the field of journalism itself - whether they practice the trade or not. That said, either of Johnbod's names, I too prefer his parenthetical, would accommodate this. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 19:06, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
  • "S&A of J" would work for me. (1) I'm agnostic about the "X of Y" versus "Yist X" formulation, so whatever draws more support is fine with me. So far, it looks like 2:0 "Scholars and academics of journalism" versus "Journalism scholars and academics". (2) Combining "scholars" and "academics" is great -- I completely agree that the distinction is close to useless for our purposes here on Wikipedia, since by far the vast majority of academics are notable because of their scholarship, not their teaching or their other academic duties (e.g., sitting on promotion & tenure committees). Scholars is broader and I would personally have loved to adopt it as the generic, but I think there will be a tendency of some people to pay heed to that distinction. Combining the categories addresses the need to explicitly include both scholars and academics. Those few academics who are also notable for their teaching can simply have a "Category:Teachers" (with the relevant subject subcategory) applied. I like this solution for Journalism, and am guardedly enthusiastic about it for the rest of the Category:Scholars and Category:Academics trees as well. (I'm off to propose it there; see Category talk:Academics for the broader conversation.) --Lquilter (talk) 23:39, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Johnbod's solution seems very practical--here and generally. the same situation, incidentally, occurs with lawyers. We have the current category: legal scholars. DGG (talk) 01:03, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, a longer reply I was writing got lost in the ether somewhere, but just a quick note to say that for journalists I'm happy with either of Johnbod's suggestions ("Scholars and academics of journalism" or "Journalism scholars and academics"); I can see good arguments for both, though I very marginally prefer "Journalism S&As" because of the easier sorting.
As to the broader distinction, I am very much persuaded by Lquilter's observation that the vast majority of academics are notable because of their scholarship, not their teaching or their other academic duties. I really struggle to think of any exceptions to that rule, but until we can figure put how to handle such exceptions I think we should hold off any mass merger of scholars and academics categories. In what sort of situations is a notable academic not also an notable scholar? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
BTW -- i'm definitely not doing any mass merging or even proposing it until there's a good lot of discussion & consensus. it would be a major PITA to undo something if we screw it up by too-hasty & thoughtless action. that's why i've been trying to start conversations & raise small particular categories such as this one to get a sense of what the issues are. (typically lawyerly approach.) --Lquilter (talk) 16:52, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
If the academic has won recognition for heading the university, for instance -- for instance, if Larry Summers had not had a highly notable publication record, he would have acquired notability for his comments as president of harvard. Alternatively someone might be highly notable as a teacher not as a scholar -- I can't come up with any examples but for instance Richard Feynman is highly notable as a teacher (as well as a scholar/scientist). Feynman brings up the other general issue of scientists -- in some sense they're a subset of scholars; in another sense they're parallel. The scholarly method article (redirected from scholars) says that "in the broadest sense, scholarship [includes] the scientific method" -- I think that's right; it's a "broadest sense" meaning of scholarship that includes science, but a narrower sense is also common in which "scholarship" refers more to research via texts ("the text") and science is the equivalent with research via the material world. In practice I think the way to handle it is to put "scientists" both under "academics and scholars" and parallel to "academics and scholars" (in occupations). --16:44, 12 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lquilter (talk • contribs)

update

Carlossuarez46 had nominated 4 inconsistent scholars/academics by nationality categories for renaming (Swedish, Welsh, Scottish, something else); after I posted the proposal listed above that CFD was closed as "rename to fooian scholars and academics". I've posted on Category talk:Academics by nationality a proposal to rename that whole category tree. Even if we determine that it is appropriate to keep academics & scholars separate for some reason (I haven't heard anyone argue that since the combined S&A approach was offered), I think the combined S&A approach will work well for the "national S&A" categories, since terminology preference & usage can vary nationally. --Lquilter (talk) 18:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the problem is even wider, commenting this on Category talk:Academics by nationality .-JoergenB (talk) 14:08, 28 December 2007 (UTC)


Archived from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Academics

Scholars versus academics

Hi. We have two biographical article trees for Category:Academics and Category:Scholars. These terms are often used synonymously. Technically, academics should refer to people who are full-time faculty at academic institutions, generally with both teaching and research duties. Scholars on the other hand is broader than academics insofar as scholarship/research goes, but doesn't necessarily entail teaching. However, in practice there doesn't seem to be any clear rationale for picking one or the other; any given field usually just one (not both) as well as a "teachers of" category (usually if there are also primary and secondary instruction); and the two trees are circularly placed.

I am putting this out there for discussion, and tentatively proposing that probably most subject categories could have an "x scholars" and an "x teachers" category rather than (("x scholars" or "x academics") and ("x teachers")). It doesn't seem necessary to have two trees ("x scholars" and "x academics") since most editors don't really observe the (rather academic) distinction. (Indeed, the various "x academics" categories are sometimes in "teachers of x" and sometimes not.) Still, the category trees are pretty well-established (although not, I think, with a lot of planning), so it would be good to get a lot of discussion about these categories.

The other way of handling this consistently would be to really thoroughly clean up the two trees, creating lots of container categories, such that "Category:Academics by subject" are all enclosed within Category:Scholars by subject and Category:Educators by discipline. This would be "purer" I think and may be the preferred long-term approach.

I also posted a Merge notice on top-level categories to get some discussion. See Category talk:Scholars by subject. --lquilter 18:04, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

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