Talk:Emma Anderson (professor)

Notability tag

I did a little work on this article while it was still in draft. It was my impression that Anderson did not quite meet the requirements of ACADEMIC or AUTHOR, so I've added the notability tag as an advertisement for more attention to try to resolve the problem. If you think one of the notability criteria has been met, please specify which criterion and which reference(s) support it. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:27, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

• Hi jmcgnh, I felt that Anderson met notability guidelines for authors, as both of her books have received a lot of coverage, so much so that both could honestly have their own articles since they would pass NBOOK. She'd pass NAUTHOR on criteria three (The person has created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work or collective body of work), as she has at least two works that would merit their own article. There's more coverage out there for both books as well, so it's not limited to what's in the article. Admittedly there's not a huge amount of stuff that specifically focuses on Anderson, but she would pass NAUTHOR because of the notability of her two books. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:39, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Pardon me, but that seems to be an argument that notability can be inherited. It's the lack of coverage of Anderson in independent sources that leads me to question her notability. If the books are notable, they should get their own articles. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:04, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

• As far as the notability guidelines for creatives go, an author (or artist, actor, director, etc) can be seen as notable if their works have received coverage in independent and reliable sources, especially if that coverage would justify the individual works having their own article. Multiple articles have been kept at AfD because of this, such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carol Smallwood and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ruth Currie McDaniel. Someone tried to bring Smallwood back to AfD, only for the AfD to be kept per WP:SNOW within a day of it being opened because of the reviews for her work counting as coverage for her. This isn't the same as a situation where someone is a member of a band or works for a notable business, as that would be a case where notability would not be inherited since the coverage wouldn't focus specifically on that individual or the works they've put out on their own.

I've asked another editor, DGG to come in and give his input. If he says it should be moved back, I will respect that. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:19, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

to excerpt here for convenience from my response of my talk p,, in general, when dealing with NCREATIVE,

Reviews of their work are the principle thing that count for notability of an author. Ideally, substantial critical reviews from independent reliable sources. Authors do derive notability from their works, just as athletes from their performances, politicians from the office they win. What would possibly make an author notable except publishing notable works? Generally not their personal lives, and what else is there? Even prizes are normally for a particular work, though a few are for a whole career.

The question however is how many works, and what kind of reviews., I consider, and thousands of AfDs have uniformly confirmed, that the consensus here is that two or more notable works is enough .The usual problem comes from an author writing only non-notable works, and here I would be very reluctant to consider notability without very good sources about the author that are more than PR. The other likely dilemma is for an author who whas written a single notable work. A good case can be made for the article being about the book, or about the author--I do not think it matters much, butI usually prefer the author because the author article has more of an opportunity for expansion as almost everyone who succeeds in writing one notable work writes others, but I have always opposed having 2 articles in such cases, unless the author is truly famous; there have been only a few genuine cases. However, in practice it does depends upon the reviews. Borderline significant reviews I do not consider sufficient, by which I mean the brief reviews in Publishers Weekly and the similar

When dealing with NPROF,

the situation is a little difference,, because it NPROF depends upon the significance of the works in the field. The measure of significance of an academic book is essentially the quality of the publisher, because for books, they and the referees they use serve as the gateways. It's very different from the sciences, where any reasonably decent paper can get published. The burden for a scholar in the humanities is getting the books accepted. Any book by a major press has influence. For any book by a major academic press, there are always multiple reviews in the appropriate specialized journals. I generally try to find a few and cite them, because it shows the notability to those who do not understand the significance of the publishers. The usual difficulty here is with academic books by the second rate or very specialized publishers. As major publishers, consensus in the academic world and in WP is that al lthe University presses count, and the major scientific societies such as APA, as do a few commercial publishers like Wiley and Elsevier, and in earlier years the academic divisions of the major general publishers. It does matter which--the highest tier depends a little on the field, but it always includes OUP and CUP, Harvard, Yale Princeton, Chicago, and California ( and probably others, but I'm just giving a quick checklist) Normally the level is two books by major academic presses. In some fields, such as theology or classics, there are specialized publishers of the same quality.

As for Anderson. With respect to NPROF, She has 2 books by Harvard University Press, and she therefore meets the notability standard NPROF. There is nothing further that needs to be shown, though of course the reviews should be added, and library holdings. In this case , the library holding for her 1st books are very good for the subject 2nd book are extremely high for it. Furthermore, there are additional book reviews, including a very good one from TLS, which will satisfy anyone who thinks the others too specialized. I added publisher, because that's the critical factor which should not have been omitted.I added ISBN, because we always do that as a basicidentifier. I added a French translation of one of the books--translations add significantly to its importance. I remove a teaching award from her own university--in house awards almost never count for anyone for anything. I omitted her published reviews of other books--these don't affect notability--they are essentially apprentice work, and have aplace only on a formal CV, which lists everything possible, and WP does not publish CVs. In fields where books are important, we usually don;'t include journal articles and book chapters.They don't really add much to notability in these fields, except in special cases. . I've done all of this fro mWorldCat, which is the basic search tool in the humanities. If I looked further, Icould probably find more.

For NCREATIVE, it's the novels that have to be considered. I have not been able to identify them so far. They need to be added. . DGG ( talk ) 02:12, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm satisfied with this interpretation, but it seems to be a special gloss on the plain meaning of the notability criteria. Having well articulated explanations of how the theory applies to actual cases is extremely helpful. Thanks, DGG. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 05:10, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

The WP:PROF criterion is not a gloss on the GNG, it is , and says in so many words that it is, a special explicit alternative to the GNG. It was adopted about the time I came here 12 years ago, and, though I did not originate it, i helped refine it and interpret it. The reason for its success is that essentially everyone involved in writing or discussing these articles has some connection with the academic world, and we have simply used the standards we know. I would like to think that NATHLETE and NCREATIVE and NPOLITICIAN and NMUSIC and many other criteria would be interpreted the same way, as having their own rules corresponding to what people in that field all agree is important--we do have such special rules, but there has been continuous argument about whether they just indicate the GNG is likely to be met. Personally, I think that interpretation in terms of presumed notability by the GNG is absurd, and they too should be explicit alternatives based upon accomplishments. The true policy is NOT INDISCRIMINATE and WP:V, and all notability guidelines are only an attempt at defining that. The GNG I think does is very poorly. I normally argue both in terms of the GNG and of actual improtance, but of course if I make a decision as an admin, I use the consensus interpretation however much I dislike it. DGG ( talk ) 06:27, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

I'll protest that the discussion of qualifying by having books published by prestigious university presses does not appear in NPROF – hence there are "unwritten rules". I've also not encountered any substantial use of library holdings as a criterion. It's good to know about these things and I know how hard it is to get community standards written down in a form that everyone can find, understand and agree on. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 06:55, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

It's the standard used by all major universities for tenure. Universities like Harvard and Princeton and Berkeley area better judge of academic notability than we are. And it is in practice the standard has been accepted in hundreds of afd discussions on people in the humanities. .I've used library holding frequently in argument . It's not quite as widely accepted, but it often has been. Academic libraries buy books on either explicit faculty request or what they know about likely faculty requests, as I've always taught my students, and this measures the impact on what faculty in the field thin is important. There's a good academic paper showing its use as a proxy for citation measurement in the humanities, where citations are relatively meaningless. I'm going to have to re-find it and add the link somewhere. DGG ( talk ) 17:53, 11 December 2018 (UTC)