The following comment was deleted by deciding Admin Rankersbo at his User Talk page, see [1] for continuing quest for dialog. Le Prof Leprof 7272 ( talk) 19:28, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Let's leave aside that I began this effort to bring this biographical article up to snuff, by looking at ten or so articles in WP on meteorologists, and made sure that this submission was as good as, or better, than those established articles. And let's leave aside that I am a mid-career professional scientist that has been reading scientific biography for two decades, so I am fully aware of what sources are available in various disciplines, to support claims of scientific activities. Please, advise, for a person who is a meteorologist and worked in consortium/government service, where the only biographical content will be from the agency with whom he did the consortium/government service, what do you consider reliable sources? Of 16 references, the article subject appears as author of just 3. Are we looking at the same article draft? The NCAR citations are not his, but independent of him. The records of his participation in National Acadamy of Science panels are not his, but independent. The Depauw is independent. [The AMS Fellows list is also independent.] The FSU is a public database of meteorologists and when and who they trained with. Is the idea that, at 85, he has taken over the FSU database? Then, of the 3 references to his work, one is his seminal study of the discovery of the phenomena which bears his name (which, is a matter of course, to cite, in an article where a particular study brings notoriety), the second is a major review indicating he continued work on the matter for years (how is its appearance in the literature not independent affirmation of an historical fact)? And the third is a public interest, that he published a 300 page book on genealogy, in his retirement. All the rest are records of consortium/government archives of projects that he worked on. If we cannot use such historical records that he worked there, and on the projects, what can be reliable sources for this pre-24-hour-news-cycle story, of a non-self-aggrandizing scientific historical figure? Please, tell me! I am married to an historian. I know with certainty that requisite historical documents vary from period to period, from subject to subject, from discipline to discipline. I claim these as valid, and substantial. I claim that they are solid, independent records, nearly all not authored by the title subject. Please have another careful look. Please go to all the web pages I carefully linked. And if maintaining the rejection, please tell me, what documents do you propose count as valid historical sources for a consortium/government scientist who did seminal work, but flew below the popular media gaze, so that the records of his work are from the agencies he worked with? I look for your reply. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 19:16, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Looking this over...I'm honestly unsure. Most of the references are not of the sort I'd look to to establish notability: they're either about him, or by organisations he worked for. I'm unfamiliar with H-index and the like for WP:PROF, though. It should be noted that if the records of his work are only from the agenceies he worked with, those aren't considered third-party sources. - The Bushranger One ping only 20:55, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Issue is not notability, Bush, see below. I did not go out of my way to further establish notability—though a quick Google of "Madden-Julian oscillation" will show that his discovery is still under discussion, active study, and use, broadly still—because this was not the issue raised by the Admins rejecting earlier drafts. Rather, it regarded the number and quality (and, inferring), the independence of the citations.
- So, citations went from 3 in the earlier draft to the current 16, and all carefully fleshed out to make clear they were relevant and substantial. I understand the statement that in general, places of work are not the best sources for biographical information. But these are federally organized/funded agencies are not businesses, and their disclosure rules differ, and so their records are viewed otherwise by historians. For something most comparable to NCAR, think Argonne National Labs, or Sandia National Labs. These are also managed under contract from the federal government, by consortia of universities. It's absolutely clear that the histories of events at these places are created, in part, using the records of these places—not for convenience, but because because federal disclosure laws make their disclosures more reliable, and distinct from businesses (which are, literally, in the business of protecting their reputations through their disclosures).
- Bottom line, if you look at historical writings about these sorts of operations, they have to use these sorts of records. The work of government scientists can be noteworthy for the science, though they are not at institutions that hype their work or offer press releases (especially in that era). I am on solid ground here. These are good reliable sources for a notable government meteorologist. When NCAR says Julian worked on projects X and Y over a period of years he did. When NCAR says he left NCAR c. 1987, it is the best we have. When NAS Press publications have him attending meetings as a faculty member in Maths at Dalhousie Univ., it is the best we will have. These are solid, reliable, historical sources (esp. given the discoveries and breaking news were all in an era pre-Google and generally pre-WWWl). And there was not and is not a "Business Day" reporting on the professional movement of government meteorologists, even when they are famous. mdr. Will other sources surface? Perhaps. Should the article be rejected, now, in hope of finding a further stray news report to verify where he was, when? (Esp. when it will not be more reliable information that the NCAR record, in any case?) No. This is good enough, and better than many meteorologic stubs and articles, Course we can wait until Julian dies, and then we will have obits from AMS and the papers. But that would be a shame. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 22:30, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
1. It is accepted that the subject is notable. However, the article has properly been declined for a lack of reliable sources and not notability.
- Thank you, on the matter of PR Julian's being notable, we agree. On the matter of lack of reliable sources: the existing 16 sources are all new or reworked relative to the earlier draft submissions, and all have had addressed comments made by prior rejecting editors. That these sources are unfamiliar to you, or unusual, does not make them unreliable. See further comments above and below. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 21:03, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
2. The article had already been saved from deletion by a member of the AfC team.
- This is immaterial in my view, but here for the record are the details of that "saved from deletion" event that you refer to (as far as I understand it). I was making improvements to the article draft, and at the very instant I was preparing to submit, someone deleted the draft/article. A contacted an Admin and asked that the deletion be reversed so that I could post my improvements. This is the backstory, the relevance of which to the state and quality of the article, now (i.e, your point in calling attention to the reinstatement of the article) are unclear. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 21:03, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
3. A paper written by the subject of an article does not count as a source. This is not the reviewer getting the review criterea [sic.] wrong.
- There are 16 references. Are we looking at the same draft? Please see above for a dissection of the citations; in short, having but 3 of 16 references by the article's subject is not forbidden or unusual. In this case, especially, given what those 3 references communicate, that 3 bear the subject's name is reasonable, since (i) one is to the seminal work that makes him notable (akin to citing Einstein's original papers in the historical discussion of his rise in physics), one is to a later secondary (review) source that he co-authored with the co-discoverer of the original phenomena, not to make any scientific point, rather, to make the valid historical point that he continued to work on the phenomena he discovered, and (iii) the third is just human interest, that he authored a 300 pp book in retirement. None of these three alone or together justify a claim of poor overall sourcing, esp. in light of 13 additional independent references. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 21:03, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
4. Please, if you are keen to see this article in wikipedia, help us out and make the improvements that you claim are possible and then resubmit.
- I make no claims that improvements are immediately possible. I claim that the 16 sources found are valid sources for this historical figure, given the nature of his work and employment. I claim they are independent sources over which he does not have control, and so they certainly count as reliable sources here. My simple claim is that while further improvements are possible in future, as more WP editor eyes have opportunity to review this, the draft, as it stands, it is ready for acceptance, or very nearly ready. What I need to hear from someone, is what precisely is wrong with what is before you? What needs to be changed, to make the article acceptable? It cannot be standard WP Admin practice to imply that you will know it when you see it. You must have logical criteria for rejection. I have addressed, thoroughly, the perceived matter of the quality of the sources. What specific criteria about the sources are not being met, and by which sources, in this current draft? Compare this to the last draft (with 3 sources if I recall, and one a broken bare URL link), which was rejected for the same reason you state; to use that same reason for this far superior draft article, without specificity and without explanation, is simply intellectually untenable. Please, state: What is it that needs to be changed, specifically, to make the article acceptable? Cheers. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 21:03, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- No we are not looking at the same draft. The draft I declined only had 3 references. Were you working on two versions of the article? Rankersbo (talk) 21:45, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Thank you for clarifying. See the Draft tab at this same location (i.e, [2]), with info box, sections and TOC, and 16 citations. Maybe this can be easily settled, as a misunderstanding. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 22:33, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Leprof 7272, I don't know if this is a technical glitch or maybe an edit conflict, but it sure looks from the article's history as though your article was reviewed before the new references were added, when it only had three references. You did indeed significantly improve it since then. Since you have read over all of these references, you will be able to tell which are independent, meaning not written even in part by Paul Julian or those working directly with him, not biographies written up by his department, not publications or proceedings of events put out by committees in which he directly participated, etc. This is a much smaller number. Please believe that the editors here would like to see this article in the encyclopedia. After it sat there totally abandoned for six months, let's take a little time to get it right. I am not a scientist, and so have little access to scientific journals, but in a few minutes on the internet I found a number of sources in less scholarly publications that may be of use. If any of these are independent and can be useful, why not add them to the article and submit it again? —Anne Delong (talk) 22:56, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Anne, thank you for the attention. I am waiting to hear back from the rejecting editor, who seems to acknowledge that he was sent the incorrect draft. (I am clueless about such tech. I only deal in content. Perhaps I made a mistake, and apologies if I did. But the draft in question appears on the Draft tab here, and could result in a quick decision.) That said because my "public service" on this article has to come to an end. I will, at leisure, look to your materials, but I am a scientist, have reviewed the 16 citations, have no POV or other issue in this matter, and I think the article is better than many meteorologist articles out there, those having far poorer citations, and I cannot give more time to getting this in. It is good enough for a stub, I think clearly. Anything you could do to mediate, I would appreciate; I hope the misunderstanding can be seen for what this is, and the stub can be put up for meteorologists to continue to expand the article. Cheers, and thanks again for kind attentions. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 23:04, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- All of the news articles (all but the Google books entries) here simply reaffirm what is already established in the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) article, and add nothing to that or this article. (It is established that Madden and Julian discovered the phenomena, and USA today, telegraphindia, and local newspapers are not more reliable sources than what already appear at the MJO and in this article.) This matter needs no further citation; even the link to the MJO would be enough.
- The four Google books you found will be good additions to the talk section of the article, once the article is accepted. The Encyclopedia of World Climatology book simply does the same as the news articles (restates the obvious and accepted connection), but it is so reputable and rich a citation, it can be added down the line, to both articles. The remaining book citations contain 1-4 pages each that contain historical detail that contributing meteorologists will be able to decipher, to either (i) add further references to existing Julian activity statements, or (ii) to create a little new information on other professional activities. Bottom line, these books are good lit finds (esp. the NASA history and the Medium Range Weather volumes), but largely orthogonal to existing material (and all supporting the notability of this scientist, and none in conflict with the NCAR records of his projects, employment, etc.).
- @Anne Delong, I added one of your book citations (the one to the meteorologic encyclopedia), and made the lede better match the body text in content, and I expanded the explanation of the MJO in the body and lede based on the encyclopedia article and the WP page on the MJO phenomena. At 29 inline citations and 19 solid, rightly formatted references, is there a prize for best submitted stub? I'd ask this to be nominated, mdr. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 15:32, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Once again, as I said above, an NCAR record, or an NAS publication, as federal research consortia or sponsors, are reliable records of government scientist involvement in scientific projects. Finding the NAS Press volumes were gold, and the NCAR pages edited by Colleen M. McCorkel are also above POV or any other reliability issue. So despite breaking the vow of "no more", I have reviewed these citations (and many tens more, before these), there is nothing substantial to add from them (no bio of Julian better than the NCAR, etc.), and so status quo remains good enough. All from me on this. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 23:20, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think that there were two versions of this article, and the wrong one ended up in the AfC queue. The two versions have now been merged by an admin so I have withdrawn the review of the version that was not intended for review. Rankersbo (talk) 05:26, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Thank you Rankersbo. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 15:37, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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