Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Thomson-Reuters most cited scientists

Thanks

Thanks for doing this. I hope you can publicize it more widely. This seems like it ought to have a mention at least and maybe even a small section in the Community portal? EllenCT (talk) 12:26, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I do think that it should be some matter of priority, given the article that inspired it. bd2412 T 12:30, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

@BD2412: I asked User:Nettrom about automating it. Could you please make a new section on this page, with women's names only, starting with names beginning with 'Z' and going backwards, so that a random link selected from here will be more likely to be female? EllenCT (talk) 19:49, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Sure. Give me a day or two to get to it though. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:02, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I found it hard to pick through the list for scientists who were obviously female, so I cheated a bit, and searched for some common (Western) female names. The list that I assembled is likely to be missing many Asian woman scientists. bd2412 T 02:49, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Great, that's why I asked about going from Z. Cheers! EllenCT (talk) 03:31, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Other languages

I noticed that some of these have corresponding articles on other Wikipedias, particularly those not working in the Anglophone world. (Perhaps in some other countries Wikipedians are better at keeping track of academics, or non-Anglophones that get cited are somewhat more significant on average.) I noted those I found in the comments. Perhaps a translation of these could be the start of an article for them? You could try contacting the appropriate requested translations. Rigadoun (talk) 18:48, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

List

Good afternoon. I created an article for Susan Amara and intend to create articles for more members of the "Missing woman scientists" list, but I am struggling to find any reliable sources for Jenny Andrews. I am presuming that inclusion of a person in Thompson-Reuters' Highly Cited Researchers lists provides sufficient evidence that the subject is notable, but what should we do if there is no other information about the subject? For example, I can find several mentions that Jenny Andrews is a clinical scientist at City Hospital NHS Trust in Birmingham, England, but nothing further than that. All sources for that fact are found in documents that credit her as a contributor. Should I cite her inclusion in the Highly Cited Researchers list as a source for describing her as a highly cited researcher? I am currently working on a draft for an article on Jenny Andrews, but it is currently a single sentence with a single source. Kind regards, Matt Heard (talk) 01:29, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

• I don't know that inclusion on the list makes the subject inherently notable. Obviously it indicates that they are published (probably well-published) and well-cited. I can't find anything else on this subject (under this name or her more formal name, "Jennifer M. Andrews"), which makes me wonder about this case. bd2412 T 02:13, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
  • To editor BD2412: Thank you for your reply. It is clear that Jenny Andrews has not received significant coverage by independent, reliable sources. The notability guidelines for academics suggests that Jenny Andrews would be notable if independent, reliable sources demonstrate that she has made a significant impact on her discipline. It is not clear that she has made such an impact. The only reliable source which could demonstrate this is that she has been included in this Thompson-Reuters list of "highly cited scientists". The notability guidelines for academics suggests that showing that she is "highly cited" would be sufficient to demonstrate that she has made a significant impact, but I am unsure. What do you think about this point? In the future, I might look at her published research and search for independent reviews which demonstrate that her research is impacting on her discipline. I do not have much experience with academic research, so I may not find anything useful. Kind regards, Matt Heard (talk) 04:08, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
    • One problem with the "highly cited" list is that it includes those who contributed only as coauthors. An article that had four authors, of whom only one is a truly notable scientist, may nevertheless be widely cited. An author may be widely cited because they wrote 50 articles, and every single one was cited a number of times, or because they wrote a single article, and it somehow got to be the standard citation in the field. I do note, however, that Jenny Andrews appears to be the sole author of at least one well-cited article. bd2412 T 15:27, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
      • To editor BD2412: Thank you for your research about Jenny Andrews. I don't feel qualified to evaluate her publications for significance, so I am going to look at developing articles about other female scientists and researchers who have clearer notability and verifiability. Thank you again for your hard work. Kind regards, Matt Heard (talk) 19:40, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
        • I agree, that is the best course of action for now. bd2412 T 19:48, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

• I was interested in this list, so I looked into the two female astronomers, Idit Zehari and Christi Tremonti. They both have long publication lists, though most are as co-authors. Zehari and Tremonti are mentioned as team members in a couple press releases, resulting in what I'd call minimal media mention, but only so far as "...'this is a really interesting observation,' said this scientist..." Nothing that I could develop even a stub with to meet WP:GNG. It's discouraging. AstroCog (talk) 03:24, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
  • The fact of the matter is that some women (and doubtless many men) on these lists are just not notable. That's fine, if these are not then we find those that are. bd2412 T 04:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Stats?

@BD2412: is there any way to easily calculate how many redlinks have turned blue while they were listed on this page over time? If not, please don't trouble yourself. It's just an idle curiosity. But it looks like it may be substantial, doesn't it? EllenCT (talk) 00:18, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Frankly, I think it has hardly been any. When I first made the lists, they included links for already-existing articles, which I immediately removed. Most remaining blue links are links for which an article exists at this title, but for a different person (and, in one case, an elephant). bd2412 T 02:13, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

[1]! All seven of the bluelinks under women were created in the past month, and they are all on the correct humans. Are the men doing worse? I did something special to help the women, and I'll try to fix it if the men are suffering. EllenCT (talk) 21:20, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion, seven articles in a month is not exactly progress at a blazing speed. I set up the list but have not made articles for it myself (though I have been working on articles on female judges). Cheers! bd2412 T 21:56, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I guess I see your point. I wonder how many new names cycle in per month on the source list. Anyway, I think the cup is at least half full. ;-) EllenCT (talk) 22:28, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

As far as I know, I am the only editor cycling names in, and I have only been doing it at a rate to approximately match the names going out. The rate can be seen in the edit history. bd2412 T 22:39, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I mean, if the Thomson-Reuters list is updated annually, how many names are new there each year on average? Whether that rate is a useful goal is debatable. One thing I've noticed about some of the scientists on this list, is that they don't seem to have much of a life outside of their work from what can be learned by googling the ones with unique names. EllenCT (talk) 22:52, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

How about move rows for completed articles to another wikitable/section, to keep track of them, rather than deleting them? I just set up starter wikitables for this purpose. I would go back through the edit history to fill it out for articles completed so far, if keeping track this way is wanted. --doncram 21:53, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Different reference lists

Apparently, the men's original list is based on the 2001 data, while the women's one uses the 2014 data. Should we update the men's original names to the new data, too? Or at least include some notification on the difference? --Axolotl Nr.733 (talk) 22:48, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

• The difference arises solely from the time when the lists were generated. There is nothing special about the 2001 data that requires us to continue using it. bd2412 T 23:44, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Sure, but how do we proceed? Include entries from the 2014 data to the current list, therefore mixing the data? Axolotl Nr.733 (talk) 12:08, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Proposed procedure for removing unsourceable names

Regrettably, many of these eminently deserving scientists, such as Jenny Andrews discussed above, appear not to have received enough coverage in reliable sources to pass the general notability guideline. They may pass the specific criteria for notability as an academic, but without third-party in-depth coverage it's difficult or impossible to write a biography without synthesizing facts from disjoint primary sources. The density of such under-studied scientists is increasing as the biographable ones have their redlinks blue-ified and removed.

I propose that a table be kept on this talk page, or a column added to the project-page table, tallying editors' admissions of failure to find sufficient coverage in reliable sources for each scientist. Once three editors admit such failure, the scientist in question should be removed to wait for due recognition from future journalists. This will clear away a layer of unbiographable researchers and make room for a fresh round. FourViolas (talk) 02:15, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree that it would be helpful, though I wouldn't say that everyone on the list is "eminently deserving" of an article. These aren't celebrities, so it's ok for me if someone doesn't publish any biographical info about him-/herself. The case of Jane Glazebrook also shows that an article based on primary sources plus the short note "highly cited" is all a scientist's biography needs to survive an AfD process. Axolotl Nr.733 (talk) 21:15, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, I didn't want to ruffle any scientific feathers. @BD2412: @EllenCT: @Matt Heard: @Astrocog: any opinions? I'm specifically proposing the addition of a column labeled

"Votes for removal". FourViolas (talk) 15:45, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think we need anything that complicated. Perhaps what we need is a section at the bottom for names for which sufficient sources can not be found. No vote would be needed to move something there; it would merely indicate that someone has looked and came up short. bd2412 T 16:06, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Either way is fine with me; even both would be an improvement over the status quo. I'd hate to see duplicated wasted time if untenable subjects get worked on my well-meaning editors that don't know someone else already tried. EllenCT (talk) 17:40, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

All right, good to know I was being overcautious. I'll go ahead and create the notability purgatory per BD2412's suggestion. FourViolas (talk) 13:42, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I think that voting might be unnecessary. We could just move failed attempts into a list at the bottom like BD2412 suggested. Then, the subjects who have not been attempted will be seen first, and anybody can then make further attempts to any subjects from the list at the bottom. The procedure would run like this: (1) an editor attempts to find sources for a subject in the main list of highly cited scientists, (2) the editor fails to find enough reliable sources to create an article, (3) the editor moves the subject from the main list to the "already attempted" list and adds a small note about what they found so that others can pick up where they left off. If an editor wants more space to detail what they found, they could link to a page on their userspace or to a thread on this talk page. Any comments on this? Kind regards, Matt Heard (talk) 23:35, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I think that works fine. Ideally, we should be focusing our efforts on the the most notable subjects first, and not chasing too hard after the borderline cases until the clear cases are resolved. bd2412 T 23:43, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Great, thanks for everyone's input! I've enacted some version of the proposal, feel free to adjust it. FourViolas (talk) 00:33, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

To editor FourViolas: Looks great. That's exactly what I had in mind. :) Kind regards, Matt Heard (talk) 00:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Is there a way for us to help collect references and citations that establish notability or some of these women scientists? It has been fairly easy for me to find notability references for Karen Oberhauser and I will be able to do the same for some of her PhD graduate students who have also acquired notability in the popular press, newspaper articles and even television interviews. They just happen to be doing research on a popular topic right now-Monarch butterflies. So these women get a lot of press. As I'm researching these women, is there a way for me to supply the references I find on other women scientists?

  Bfpage |leave a message  00:21, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I would say just leave links in the "Notes" column, as in MN Star Trib. profile. Thanks for your work! FourViolas (talk) 01:48, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

@Bfpage: While I'm totally fine with the focus you chose, I cannot help but wonder why you accent that "women scientists" thing so much, when it should be obvious that your proposal might apply to all entries of this list? Axolotl Nr.733 (talk) 16:48, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

@Axolotl Nr.733: Happy Valentine's Day Axolotl Nr.733! It is obvious that my proposal does apply to all entries of the list, that is why I didn't bother mentioning it. I responded to a request on the Community Portal page the other day which requested editing assistance in the women scientist articles and since I am familiar with a few lepidopterists who are women, I thought I would jump right in. Apologies if the "women scientists" thing seems accented. I sort of don't even know what you really mean by that. I write a lot more about scientists who are men and reference other scientists in lepidoptera articles whose gender I don't even know since a lot of research is done by scientists with Asian and Indian names whose gender I don't bother determining. I hope this clarifies things...

  Bfpage |leave a message  19:52, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, you too. Well, it would have actually been easier to refer to "scientists" instead to "women scientists" in the first place, so that's the point where I would have expected you not to "bother". But, yeah, do as you like. --Axolotl Nr.733 (talk) 18:24, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

specifically looking for "women scientists" shows a point of view. We should just stick with the notability rules. If a scientist is notable, whether man or woman, then they should have an article. no more no less. Yes sexism exists but it is not our job to fight that great wrong and if we use the non biased notability rules, there should be no censorship of women on wikipedia by any sexist men, they won't be able to argue against a notable woman scientist having an article cuz anyone can just point to the reliable source (if they exiist). Popish Plot (talk) 18:45, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

That's a valid point, Popish Plot. The WP:NPOV policy is very important, and we certainly shouldn't argue for keeping articles that don't meet WP:Notability.

However, we can't always trust that the most natural choice is the neutral one. I suggest you look at WP:Systemic bias and its "See also" links. The idea is that we should acknowledge the inescapable statistical fact that Wikipedia is "automatically" biased in certain ways, because of who is able and willing to edit here, and we should take active steps to work against that bias. Paying "extra" attention to female scientists or third-world issues is likely to move WP closer to giving these topics a fair shot. FourViolas (talk) 23:57, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

I see what you mean. It's not so much trying to add a point of view it's trying to fix a problem which is proven by the fact that only 15% of wiki editors are women aka underrepresented. I wonder if this might be a slippery slope and others might try to use that essay as justification to add other things to articles based on fixing systemic bias. In other words we might regret making it an official policy. Popish Plot (talk) 13:59, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Category

Btw, there is a category:ISI highly cited researchers, so every article from this list can be added there. Axolotl Nr.733 (talk) 11:48, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

What is the number that is considered highly cited? You mean highly cited by other journal articles or books?

  Bfpage |leave a message  00:15, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

There seems to be a misunderstanding: I was referring to Wikipedia articles. The category can (and should) be added to every Wikipedia biography of a person on the Thomson-Reuters list. Axolotl Nr.733 (talk) 15:16, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Karen Oberhauser

I have come up with a quick draft of this notable woman scientist. She has multiple newspaper articles in a multitude of journal articles. She is well known in Lepidoptera circles.

  Bfpage |leave a message  00:16, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Selection of names to work on

Hey, I like this Task Force or whatever it is called, this is a good effort. But, proposing names to work on, in alphabetical chunks, as started here with "Missing scientists (from A)", is biased! Maybe not everyone is aware, but it is because names in different cultures/countries are distributed quite differently. I think that among "A"s that English / WASP names are over-represented. And it will take forever to get through the "C"'s. I bet there won't be any Sikhs included, until S (for Singh) is reached. I bet that Vietnamese will be under-represented, until Nguyen is reached. There may be relatively few of those two groups, but you get the idea. If someone has a spreadsheet or database of all of the names, they could easily draw a random sample instead, while keeping track easily of the sampled ones. Would that be better?

And, would it help to create chunks of interest / connection to different WikiProjects? When a drive to fix up unreferenced BLP articles was going a couple years ago, cooperation was sought, and I coordinated with WikiProject Canada, members of which fixed up a number of articles. Is there a nationality field in the data? Or use location of universities? Just an idea. --doncram 20:51, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely, yes. This list is just about high citation numbers. We do need more expertise to actually create articles from it. There are also lists of members of the National Academy of Sciences which could help identify some of the most urgent cases, such as Edward H. Adelson. P.S. There exactly one "Singh" and two "Nguyens" (one of which already has an article) on the list, so while I see your point, I think the greater structural bias already lies within the data itself. --Axolotl Nr.733 (talk) 18:16, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Sister project on Wiktionary

I've started a somewhat parallel project on Wiktionary to create entries for Women honoured in scientific names.

Last time I checked, only 15 out of 677 taxonomic eponyms in Wiktionary are named for women (2.1%). And even of those 15, five are mythological figures. Wiktionary can be more challenging to edit than Wikipedia, especially binomial nomenclature entries, but I encourage anyone up for the challenge or willing to learn to give it a go and create some of these missing entries. —Pengo 00:29, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

This project is also slowly uncovering scientists who are missing on Wikipedia too. For example, Helia Bravo Hollis, a botanist and cactus specialist from Mexico, who has Wikipedia articles in German and Spanish but not English.

"not enough significant coverage"

There does not have to be significant coverage of their biographical details. There has to be enough coverage of what they are notable for, and the citation record alone shows it. If people want to come to an encyclopedia to find out who they are, it's their science they're looking for, not their home town. . I intend to write each of the--if I verify the citation record is sufficient (in senior positions, which can sometimes be a question ifthere were only 1 or 2 papers) . (We do have one verified fact about their life: what organization they were affiliated with at a given time. DGG ( talk ) 05:56, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

RE: Missing woman scientists

I was happy to find this effort in the Wikipedia community as I agree that the site should take efforts to reverse inherent bias in covering all materials, including notable academics. I take the stance that this is not a biased approach, but similar to the notion that it is not that "All Lives Matter," but that Black Lives Matter when addressing systemic prejudice within the racial system (if a house is burning to you pour water on all houses or just the one on fire?). I agree that the Thompson Reuter's citation list has issues, such as not distinguishing the order of authors, so I thought I would suggest another option that passes notability criteria. That is, there are a number of female academics that are listed as Members of the National Academy of Science, but for whom there are no Wikipedia pages. From a cursory search, several of these are highly cited scientists for whom there are numerous primary source references, such as Kristen Hawkes (anthropology) whose work has contributed to the Grandmother hypothesis. I certainly know of male scientists with Wikipedia pages who have contributed far less. Additionally, there are even female NAS member who work in the US and there are no English language pages for, even though there are pages in other languages (such as Linda S. Cordell). It seems to me that a systematic effort should take place to fill in these pages, which could be a component of this page. I think that there's certainly room for these pages to be added and the number is not staggering. Thoughts? PiWi 21:55, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Problem with using "ISI Highly Cited" as sole grounds for notability

I wrote a short article on one of the physicists on the list, John Allison (physicist), only to end up nominating it for deletion myself, some time later. I realized that Allison is included only due to his massive coauthor citations, and has played no central or leadership role in notable research. While clearly a successful academic, he is not a notable one. I believe that it is highly likely that many other people on the list are in this category. Xxanthippe wrote at AFD:

Delete. Agree with nom. GS h-index is less then 10 although the first few cites are stupendous. This case is a prime example of why h-index is a better measure of publication impact than citation count. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:05, 27 April 2016 (UTC).

I suggest that - especially for physicists - we heed Xxanthippe's warning and consider h-index when vetting these scientists for inclusion. --Wormcast (talk) 00:16, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. For normal research careers h-index is well correlated with total citations, but in unusual cases, like this, it is not. The use of h-index is standard practice for academic AfDs (or should be). See WP:Prof. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:18, 28 April 2016 (UTC).