Talk:Adrian David Cheok

Controversy section

This is already duplicating (and slightly contradicting) some of the Academic content. Per WP:CRITS it would be better to diffuse the Controversy section into the rest of the article. It looks like a simple enough split into "Academic", "Political" and (new section) "Awards". --Lord Belbury (talk) 15:34, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. The ACE / Bannon issue is already listed in the Academics section, and complaints about his Queen's Honour could easily be listed in the Academics section as well (or in a separate "Awards and honors" section). WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 15:47, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

IP Covid edits

An IP wants to add a possibly-not-yet-published Covid paper of Cheok's to the lead, at the same time removing the mention of Cheok's work with sex robots from that section.

But per MOS:LEAD, "The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents. It is not a news-style lead or "lede" paragraph." A minor or unpublished paper might be breaking news to Cheok fans, but it has no place in an overall summary of Cheok's career right now. --Lord Belbury (talk) 14:37, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I removed the pre-print from the article body, as all it was a link to the pre-print itself. We should not be mentioning random pre-prints which have received no coverage in reliable secondary sources. If someone can find such coverage, they can bring them here and we can discuss whether to include it. Note that this is a discretionary sanctions area so due care must be taken. Nil Einne (talk) 14:15, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

There's no shortage of coverage: [1]. Scholarly attention as well: [2]. A "pre-print" is a published paper -- i.e., published on-line first, in advance of print publication. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:28, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

That's Li-Meng Yan's pre-print from last year, nothing to do with Cheok. --Lord Belbury (talk) 14:51, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Oh, Cheok is claiming to have authored a new paper with Li-Meng Yan this month, with an almost identical title except for the extra words "Biological Robot". That's going to need to wait for a secondary source, then. --Lord Belbury (talk) 14:54, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

@Nomoskedasticity: don't confuse a peer-reviewed article published online early but in full final form, with a pre-print which may not have gone through peer-review or at least hasn't gone through final corrections. A pre-print is generally not particularly meaningful academic terms. This is especially the case in the COVID-19 space where there are a lot of shitty pre-prints which their own authors admit have no chance of surviving peer-review. Most academics will not want their their major works to be pre-prints and frankly if they are you have to seriously wonder if their are notable under WP:PROF. Perhaps only under WP:GNG. To be fair, as per the article Adrian David Cheok seems to have had a reasonably successful career thus far in actual peer-reviewed publications albeit in their field but that just means even more we should not be mentioning pre-prints which have not been covered in reliable secondary sources. And if these sources exist, anyone is find to present them, as specific sources (i.e. not search results). As Lord Belbury said, these need to be sources which actually discuss the the specific pre-print. Not sources which only discuss other pre-prints, especially not when those pre-prints did not involve the subject of this article. Frankly it's rare we should discuss peer-reviewed papers which haven't been discussed elsewhere either although the poor coverage of such matters means it's sometimes arguably necessary. Anyway I'll bring this up in FTN. Nil Einne (talk) 18:23, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the the lecture, Nil Einne. Are you an academic? I am. I've looked again at that source. Take a look yourself and tell me what you see: [3]. I've perhaps been loose in my use of the term pre-print -- but this is "early view", or "on-line first", of an allegedly peer-reviewed article. So I wasn't "confused" in my assertion about the publication stage; I'm thinking that perhaps you were, though.

As I said in my self-revert, I don't care enough to pursue it. Having looked at the website for the publisher, I'm thinking this is the sort of journal that could have ended up on Beall's list (hence "allegedly" above). All the more reason to kill it. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:48, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

@Nomoskedasticity: I'm not an academic but did look at it at the time and noticed it specifically says "Kindly note, the Research papers may be removed, added, or altered according to their final status." What the fuck was the final status for that paper at the time, in particular, had it actually completed peer reviewed and been approved by the editorial board for publication? Who the fuck knows.

For all we knew even if it had undergone peer review, the reviewers had (in academic terms) said it was an extremely flawed paper, and so in any competent journal it should have either been rejected outright or at least required extensive revision and re-review before it could be accepted. A more likely scenario given the journal may be it was put in by "enthusiastic" editor/s while they waited peer-review. I did not, and do not care to work out for an extremely shitty paper that may or may no be published in an extremely shitty journal.

In the absence of a clear statement that the specific paper or all papers in that early view, had completed peer review and been approved for publication, when all we had was a statement that the "final status" of each paper in that early view was unspecified, I stand by my statement it should have been treated as unreviewed pre-print. I raised this issue at FTN and although I didn't mention any dispute over characterisation of the paper IIRC no one disagreed with me.

If you wish to argue to the contrary for a paper you agree was published in an extremely shitty journal, you're welcome to bring this up at RSN where there are academics who can help you determine what the "final status" for that paper was. Note that just because more competent journals use early view to mean something else (a final version published early online just waiting publication) doesn't mean we should assume that this journal means the same thing, especially when they give us reason to think perhaps they don't.

Franky I also find these discussions very silly. When there is reason to doubt whether a paper has received final approval, why be in such a rush? If some editor is certain it will be published in current form then fine. Just wait in a month or two there will no longer be any doubt or dispute. I assume by now this has either happened or it turns out it was indeed not ready. (I was brought back here by something I saw at ANI.) When I raised this at FTN, I did mention that I expected the paper probably would be published and so there are likely to be people trying to add it to articles in the future so it's not likely we can't prepare for that possibility with also acknowledging it's not there yet.

Nil Einne (talk) 20:20, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

• Per the post I made on the talk of the latest editor to add this (Tianle.louis; who might well be the same as the previous IPs, I have no clue about that); and from my ANI thread (which I assume is what Nil Einne is referring to); the journal is A) from a publisher on Beall's list ; B) claims a farcical "double blind peer review" ["double blind" has nothing to do with peer review] and C) does not even appear to have conducted basic copy-editing; much less actual peer review. So it's entirely unusable and probably the whole domain needs to be blacklisted, but that's for another time and place. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:01, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

The paper itself is very sketchy on closer inspection: it seems to be a copy of Li-Meng Yan's September 2020 pre-print with a few trivial alterations. Four words have been added to the title ("Unusual Features of the SARS-CoV-2 Genome Suggesting Sophisticated Laboratory Modification as a Biological Robot Rather than Natural Evolution and Delineation of Its Probable Synthetic Route"), Cheok's name has replaced Shu Kang and Shanchang Hu in the list of authors, and the rest of the paper looks superficially identical, page by page. A diff of the abstract and closing comments certainly shows those sections to be word-for-word copies of Li-Meng Yan's September 2020 paper, with literally only the Covid death toll figure changed. --Lord Belbury (talk) 09:10, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

That was well spotted. The first author of these papers is Li-Meng Yan. I have a theory as to what is happening here, but the whole thing is complicated enough that we shouldn't touch it without some pretty serious secondary sources. Given that the papers are discussed in the primary author's article, I'm inclined to just leave the thing there. - Bilby (talk) 13:10, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

“Conservative”

The suggestion that Cheok has been criticised for “conservative” politics is odd, from an Australian point of view, and Cheok is listed here as an Australian with Australian political affiliations. He is not affiliated with any political party that would be considered conservative - we have a conservative government. He is instead associated with Fraser Anning, who calls himself conservative but is described in Wikipedia as “ far-right, nativist, and anti-Muslim”. Anning was expelled from Australia’s most fringe far-right party for connections to open nazis and terrorists (see his page). 美流書 (talk) 11:54, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Institute for Populist Economic Nationalism

Are there any stronger sources for the claim that Cheok founded this institute with Fraser Anning and Steve Bannon in 2020? The organisation only gets a handful of mentions online, all of them seeming to trace back to a WP:SELFPUB press release. It doesn't look as if either Anning or Bannon have ever actually mentioned the Institute anywhere. --Lord Belbury (talk) 13:41, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Crikey mention it at [4]. The include Cheok as one of the three people that formed the institute. The website for the institute also lists him as a director [5]. - Bilby (talk) 13:50, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Is Crikey's "Tips and Murmurs" column considered a strong enough source for biographical statements? It's taking the same amused tone as the other sources I can find, which all either link to the press release or to Gizmodo mocking the "barely-noticed media release" ten days after its publication, and the Crikey article was published a day after the Gizmodo one. If the claim that Steve Bannon teamed up with Adrian Cheok in 2020 ultimately rests on the existence of a website and a press release, that wouldn't clear WP:SELFPUB. --Lord Belbury (talk) 14:10, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm ok either way - I'm not worried if we cover it or not. Crikey is generally good, and it was also mentioned by The Australian (the article is behind a paywall, but the key quote is "After being declared bankrupt by the courts in March (on the anniversary of his infamous egging), the far-right Anning moved to America. 'We are very proud to announce the Institute for Populist Economic Nationalism with it's founding directors Senator Fraser Anning, Steve Bannon and Professor Adrian David Cheok,' the press release says.") I'm not sure that helps, but that's all I can find of note. I think it happened, and given Cheok's connections to both Anning and Bannon I'm not seeing any red flags, but I'm open as to whether or not it is worth covering. - Bilby (talk) 14:22, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Anning maybe, but the only other Bannon connection stated in the article is that Cheok invited him to keynote a sex robot conference in 2018, a conference which Cheok then cancelled. There's no suggestion in the cited source for that that Bannon accepted or was even aware of the invite.

If the claim that Bannon and Cheok set up the Institute for Populist Economic Nationalism together wouldn't fly in the Steve Bannon article (which I'm sure it wouldn't, on the sources we've got), it shouldn't be stated here either. If you're okay either way, I'll cut it. --Lord Belbury (talk) 14:36, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm surprised that there is an issue with the Bannon/Cheok connection, and I can see no actual question as to whether or not this happened, but as I said, I'm not overly worried if we cover this. - Bilby (talk) 14:50, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm just going by what's in the article. There's no suggestion that they've ever met or worked together otherwise, so it's an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim to make about a major US political figure, and one that doesn't seem to stand up, if Bannon's never mentioned it and the strongest source we can find is a newspaper rumour column. --Lord Belbury (talk) 15:16, 4 May 2022 (UTC)