Talk:Michael Peterson (geographer)

Inclusion of table and books as primary sources to verify the existence of the publication

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works states that ""Where a series grows complex, tables can be used." WP:WHENTABLE uses both Filmographies and Discographies as examples of tabular data. "Consider whether the information will be more clearly conveyed by virtue of having rows and columns. If so, then a table is probably a good choice." When it comes too citing books, if the book is being attributed to an author, then it should be cited as a reference. Third party reviews can certainly help establish notability, but they are not necessary to establish that an author did publish something. If not third party review can be found, determining if an author actually wrote a book is easily verified by citing the book they published. I see no Wikipedia policy saying otherwise. Sepcifically, on Wikipedia:No original research regarding primary sources, it states:

"Primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them."

"A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a musician may cite discographies and track listings published by the record label, and an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source."

In this case, citing a book to verify that the author published it is the same as "a musician may cite discographies and track listings published by the record label".

The table is a matter of personal preference, but a list of bullet points with multiple points associated with each bullet seperated by comma just looks like a Comma separated value file that is in raw text format. By placing them into a table, and citing the information in an unintrusive hyperlink, the material is much easier to actually make use of when compared to a text wall with large font ISBNs. Please discuss the merits of bullet points here, and before deleting this table please fix larger pages for authors like J.K Rowling and Douglas Adams. After reviewing Wikipedia policy, I see no reason not to include a table to organize publications for academics, and plenty of reasons to do so. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:36, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: it's rather disingenuous to start a new discussion here after your tables proposal was unanimously rejected here. Please stop edit warring over this. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 08:20, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

  • Comment: After reading the literature I've yet to find a single thing besides personal preference that supports bullet points or rejects that a book can be a citation to prove its own existence on that discussion.

  J.K. Rowlings page still has the table, as does Douglas Adams. Academic books can be treated the same way as fiction books.

  You did not respond with policy, or anything I said in this comment. Please stop edit warring over this, and give a better answer then "they said so." GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:15, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

  Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/Formatting and illustrating articles/Creating lists and tables says, "You probably don't want to create a table unless your information needs three or more columns." Your list has seven. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:20, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• About tables on this page there has been an extensive discussion and you were the only one arguing in favor for the tables. As for other pages where things are done differently, I invite you to read WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. Continuing to try to impose your specific ideas on how this page should look like, opposing a rather large number of other editors, is disruptive and will eventually get you to WP:ANI. --Randykitty (talk) 17:30, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

  The "other large editors" was 5 by my count. I created the table with guidance from both Wikipedia:Citation templates, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies. The post I made on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Science and academia was not looking for consensus on this specific page, but for a discussion on the relevant broad formatting in the project overall, as the opinions I've seen on the matter are not well grounded in guidelines I've read, and I wanted clarification. I saw no good argument against the use of tables on a case by case basis, just 5 editors with personal opinions on how they think things should look, and a few with what felt like a serious lack of Wikipedia:Civility, even if I try to assume good faith. It is actually really disappointing. As no good argument countered what I had read in the guidance and template page, I didn't see a reason not to include it.

  If you did consider that a discussion on this article, you are the one who changed "the status quo ante bellum during a dispute discussion." Wikipedia is not a Democracy, and the questions I raised involving the relevant templates, guidelines for the topic, and edits/objections to edit were not resolved, just dismissed, repeatedly, which are examples of Wikipedia:Disruptive editing, even if it was a "large number" of editors who were doing the dismissing.

  On Primary sources:

  "A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a musician may cite discographies and track listings published by the record label, and an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source." The Wikipedia:Citation templates literally has a table, with the book title citing itself, as the primary example I was working off of for citing books.

  On tables:

  WikiProject Bibliographies states tables are perfectly appropriate, and uses one as an example. I used that example as part of the basis for making the table in the first place. Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/Formatting and illustrating articles/Creating lists and tables says that if there are more then three columns, a table may be appropriate, and you have created a list with 7 distinct "columns". Other authors have tables, and they are easier to use and add functionality to the list missing with bullet points. From a visualization perspective, walls of text and ISBN numbers look unfinished, and messy. That information can be broken into well organized rows/columns, with superfluous points like ISBN sent to the bottom in a less intrusive reference footnote. Bullet points are easier to edit, and when there are less then three columns, that is an advantage.

  Consensus is supposed to be reached using reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense. From what I can see, the tables fit Wikipedia templates and design guidelines, as does the citations of books to verify their existence, and I have not seen a reason not to include them. The original page had both the table and citations, you are the one who changed it during a discussion. When action is taken during a discussion where points have been raised and not addressed, it makes it hard to want to actually dig into how to do things "right." Why should someone bother reading the relevant pages at all if people will just ignore it and do whatever based on the opinion of five people? GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:34, 19 November 2023 (UTC)