Talk:Lynika Strozier

As a courtesy to other contributors, could we discuss complicated or controversial issues on the talk page, not in our edit summaries...

I reverted this edit, which challenged whether Strovier really had a learning disability. Contributor's personal opinion that her accomplishments established she did not have a learning disability is editorializing. We aren't supposed to contradict RS, based on our personal opinions. Geo Swan (talk) 19:47, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Not sure how editorialising is an undesirable activity of an editor. There is an anecdotal and extremely vague suggestion that "she was diagnosed with learning disabilities at age 8", but without any knowledge of the nature of the diagnosis or nature of the diagnosis, it is not an assertion that I believe can be made with confidence, and without a high degree of likelihood that it will be misunderstood. Her subsequent academic career, especially in the absence of any suggestion that she needed any special provision in her later education, seems incompatible with what is generally understood by a learning difficulty. All that is described in the article, and in the Chicago Tribune article from which much of it is drawn, is learning preferences.

Do we have any claim that this 'diagnosis' was made by anyone qualified to do so, or that there was any treatment other than assistance? There are many difficulties that might be encountered in education being fruitful at the pace that might be intended, and clearly there were difficult environmental factors in this woman's early life, but not all difficulties are disabilities, and not everything that makes one less able is a disability as that is likely to be understood by the reader.

In short, if we are going to assert that she had a learning disability, we should be able to state what disability was diagnosed. If we cannot, then the simple fact that a journalist used the word in an undefined manner should not obligate us. Kevin McE (talk) 22:52, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

"Supposed" is on the list of "Words to watch" and the sources out there do not seem vague or simply suggestive of a disability: Chicago Tribune - "Strozier was 8 when she was diagnosed with a learning disability. She struggled with math, but reading was even more of a challenge." New York Times - "Lynika had a severe learning disability that made math and reading — to herself and aloud — difficult." I appreciate the extra caution, but I personally think following the reliable sources on this one is best. - Whisperjanes (talk) 06:07, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

So what learning disability did she have? What level was it diagnosed at? We don't know, so we shouldn't claim that we know it as confident fact. Finding things difficult is not evidence of a disability. This is just leaving the door wide open to misunderstanding, which suits newspapers, but is the exact opposite of what an encyclopaedia should do. Kevin McE (talk) 13:33, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

• I just checked your edit count. You started editing in 2006, and have made 40,000 edits. Nevertheless, I am concerned you may have fundamentals gaps in your understanding of the wikipedia's policies. In your comment above, you are concerned over whether our readers "misunderstood" whether Ms Strovier really had a learning disability. You used the word "misunderstood" in your first comment as well.

  Sometimes I participate in off-wiki discussions of topics I worked on here, And, in those discussions I have had people I disagree with substantiate their arguments by quoting back to me passages from the wikipedia articles on those topics that I wrote myself. What did it mean to me when someone I disagreed with quoted material I wrote for the wikipedia? Was I disappointed because this showed they had misunderstood me? No, because the material I wrote was supposed to neutrally summarize what RS wrote. Readers are supposed to reach their own conclusions, after reading our neutrally written articles. Your concern that readers "misunderstood" our articles, and reached the "wrong" conclusions, is completely inconsistent with aiming for our articles to be written from a neutral point of view. Geo Swan (talk) 15:00, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

• Kevin McE, here on the wikipedia the term "editorializing" is used to indicate a lapse from the neutral point of view. Wikipedia articles are supposed to neutrally summarize what RS say - without regard to the personal opinions of wikipedia contributors like you and I.

During my career here I have made tens of thousands of edits where I personally disagreed with the conclusions stated in all the available RS. In that situation contributors have just two policy compliant choices. (1) do our best to neutrally summarize the RS we disagree with; or (2) walk away and let other contributors work on that article.

I have no problem with you having personal doubts as to whether Ms Strovier really had a learning disability - so long as you keep your personal doubts to yourself and do not try to insert it into article space. If an RS explicitly challenged whether Ms Strovier had a learning disability, you could introduce this, bearing WP:UNDUE in mind. But your own personal doubts have no place in a wikipedia article. Geo Swan (talk) 14:01, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I understand that, but the implication of it is that we should give the weight of encyclopaedic fact to a statement of journalistic convenience. Frankly, I would like to see any puff piece, such as those cited here, regardless of how reliable the publication might be as a reporter of news facts, excluded from the principle of assumption in favour of reliability.

All we know is that an entirely uncritical piece made sympathetic comments about her: any serious attempt to source truth really should not be so easily satisfied. Kevin McE (talk) 17:23, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

• Kevin McE, what is up with this edit, with the edit summary "we don't know what disability"?
• You and I are not professional journalists, or professional newspaper editors. We are totally entitled, to feel personal frustration with RS that do not go into as much detail as we would like. But no personal frustration we might feel justifies inserting what strikes me as a mealy-mouthed equivocation into the article, as you did here.
• How closely did you read the article, how thoroughly did you review its sources? I found instances, in the RS, that I think pretty clearly showed some of the effects of her disability, and some of the clever techniques she used to compensate for them. I summarized those descriptions, in the article.
• Is there some reason you don't accept the description of the effects of her disabilities on her, and the descriptions of those clever coping mechanisms, as sufficient to establish that she had a legitimate learning disability? Well, could you please avoid letting your personal doubts lead you to challenge what RS wrote. Geo Swan (talk) 20:09, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned, there is nothing "up with" that edit: I wouldn't have made it if I thought there were. We are not professional journalists, but whatever journalist did these interviews wasn't very professional in the way they conducted it, so that we don't know what disability she is thought to have had, nor who thought she had one. Frankly, how it strikes you is of no interest to me, but the likely wondering of a reader as to what nature of 'learning disability' can be overcome with no apparent long term impingement on academic career is. You seem to have a rather naive understanding of a reliable source: the RS FAQ asks ""Are there sources that are "always reliable" or sources that are "always unreliable"?" and answers "No. The reliability of a source is entirely dependent on the context of the situation, and the statement it is being used to support. Some sources are generally better than others, but reliability is always contextual." I don't automatically accept primary sources (which is essentially what we are dealing with in an uncritical interview with immediate family), but that isn't my personal doubt: it is an area that we are all warned to be wary of. Kevin McE (talk) 23:02, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

• Kevin McE, you write "We are not professional journalists..." and then challenge the professional standards of some of the journalists the article cites. The correct part of that is that "We are not professional journalists Period".
• Do you have personal doubts as to whether she really had a disability? I've tried being tactful with you. If I were your best friend, and you voiced this doubt to me, I'd say "Tough titty, kitty!", or some variation thereof. This is an instance where your personal doubts should not be inserted into article space. Period. Inserting your personal doubts is a lapse from the NPOV. If you find sources, or even a single reliable source, that explicitly challenges whether she had a disability, well go ahead, and balance the references that say she had a disability with the one that said she didn't - keeping WP:UNDUE in mind. You inserting your personal doubts is a lapse from both NPOV and OR.
• With regard to your quote from the RS FAQ, I challenge whether that passage authorizes you to editorialize.
• Do you think you bring some special expertise on learning disability to your interest in this article? If so, care to spell that out?
• You write "what nature of 'learning disability' can be overcome with no apparent long term impingement on academic career"

  You seem to have missed that her loving grandmother provided lots of support, summer school, so, she overcame her very slow start in primary school through a combination of loving support, very hard work, summer school, and probably missed out on a lot of the fun things her peers got to do when their homework was finished. She finished high school with sufficiently high marks to win a scholarship at the University of Northern Iowa...

  ...But you seem to have missed her first year of University was a failure - not the "no apparent long term impingement". It sounds like her mentor Yvonne Harris, at Truman College, her 2nd post-secondary college, played a very significant role in her eventual success there. Ms Strovier earned two Masters, in 2018. Returning to your claim she had "no apparent long term impingement", she was 33 when she earned those Masters. If she had not screwed up her first year at her first University, she would have earned her BA around 2006, her Masters in 2008, and a PhD around 2012.

• With regard to primary sources, I have seen other people have this serious misconception. WP:PRIMARY is poorly worded, and misleadingly implies interviews by journalists are primary sources. But, if you check the notes, you'll see the examples of interviews there are not press interviews. Academics, historians, sociologists, pscyhologists, and other scientists also conduct interviews.

  When a historian interviews a subject who was a witness to an historic event, when a medical researcher interviews a patient who has participated in a trial of an experimental drug, they do their very best to pose their questions in the least leading way possible, and do their best to keep any personal bias they have from influencing the interview subject. That is why this kind of interview, the interview by the academic, is seen as a primary source.

  Interviews by a professional journalist are completely different. When David Frost arranged to interview Richard Nixon, he and a team of researchers spent months preparing and researching. They had a very good idea as to how Nixon would answer their questions, if he answered truthfully. And they were sure to have planned for followup question if and when they detected equivocation or outright falsehoods.

  Some reporters agree to faux interviews, for advertorials. We can consider those primary sources too, if we have real confidence it is an advertorial, a faux interview. But that is definitely not what we have here. So, please drop your assertion any of the interviews the RS used in this article, used in their research, is a primary source. Geo Swan (talk) 22:36, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

• I reverted these two edits, for the same reason as above. A contributor inappropriately inserted their own personal and unsubstantiated doubts. The article attributed a quote to The Chicago Tribune. Replacing "The Chicago Tribune" with "an anonymous source" is inappropriate. There is no reason to doubt that The Chicago Tribune knew exactly who they were quoting there. They may very well have considered clearly specifying that the quote was from Strovier, or her grandmother, or her Grade three teacher, or the Board's psychometrist, and have decided for editorial reasons it was unnecessary. There is no justification to reword this passage, and add tags that undermine its credibility. Geo Swan (talk) 22:46, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Something that strikes me as both puzzling and confusing is how one person here will state what they feel their interpretation of the rules is regarding a particular edit.... And the interpretation of the rules that this person has is the 100% correct interpretation (in their own head) and they seek to enforce their interpretation as though it is the only interpretation that can possibly be correct and therefore must be followed and anyone who doesn't follow it is going against the rules....

Which isn't actually true and would be an incorrect assumption because the interpretation this person has of the rules is so permanently reinforced into their own head that it is actually their 'opinion' of the rules and when this happens they begin to write edits and remove edits in a manner where if they don't feel an article sounds the way they think it should sound or if they don't think readers will understand an article the way they think it should be understood then they will make changes so that the article in question fits what their version of the correct guidelines state an article must be and if anyone tries to argue with them or bring up another interpretation then they are rebuffed and reprimanded for not sticking with the guidelines of wikipedia.....

The guidelines and Wikipedia are very similar to the "law"..... Basically what I'm saying is this would be like 2 lawyers walking into a courtroom without a judge present, both of them giving their interpretation of the law and then one of them trying to overrule the other for not knowing what the correct interpretation is, even though lawyer making this accusation doesn't actually know the correct interpretation either, but they are so convinced that their understanding of it is the only one that can possibly be correct that they seek to enforce it as though it is the law Raleigh80Z90Faema69 (talk) 08:25, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Geo Swan or Kevin McE, since it has been more than a week since this discussion started, it might be best for one of you to open a RfC for this. Although it's a very specific matter, obviously there are two people that feel strongly on different sides, and it's probably better to get wider consensus (since I don't see consensus likely to happen here with the current discussion). - Whisperjanes (talk) 22:43, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

• Kevin left a comment on User talk:Geo Swan. It looks like he says he is leaving this article. I left a reply on User talk:Kevin McE. I have an essay, User:Geo Swan/opinions/every question, every disagreement, is a teachable moment. I don't think a long discussion requires abandonment, merely for being long. I think I remained civil, and I think I continued to make substantive policy-based points. Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 23:04, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Notability

I am not American, so I may be missing context, but at this moment her encyclopedic notability is not clear for a unfamiliar reader. Is it because she became a role model which inspired other young people with a disadvantaged background and/or learning disability? If so, could someone expand on this point in the article and make it more explicit? Morgengave (talk) 10:09, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Deletion for lack of notability was proposed and rejected, not because of professional notability (as you observe) or directly for the reason that you seem to suspect, but because there have been articles about her. Kevin McE (talk) 10:45, 4 August 2020 (UTC)