The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by User:Matthewedwards 21:23, 28 October 2008 [1].

---

List of Nobel Laureates in Chemistry[edit]

This is a list I've been working on for a couple of days, and I would like to see the lists of laureates for all six Nobel prizes become FLs. The winner of this award was announced this morning, so there may still be some stability concerns, but I don't think it'll be so much that it will be uncontrollable. As always, concerns will be addressed by me. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 21:34, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support I have no objection, looks good to me. Cannibaloki 22:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I left from this FLC, because a support with less than 30 minutes without any objection is irrelevant, sorry. Cannibaloki 23:09, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose (reluctantly) until the edit-warring over the nationality over one of the 2008 prize-winners is sorted out. Bencherlite^Talk 23:38, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh, you are right, I thought that that was over because one editor readded American. Why can't people accept that he is Japanese-American? -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 23:42, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a classic WP:V case in which Scorpion is in the right. The people who are edit warring with him are also anons and very new contributors, so I wouldn't call the article unstable as it stands. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 02:05, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it is more than possible that they just made a mistake by solely calling him an American because another section in the Nobel website does confirm that he was born in Japan, which is why I allowed both to be listed. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 02:14, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support. If the nationality column is going to cause that many problems, then removal is probably for the best. Bencherlite^Talk 07:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support, all issues resolved. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:32, 20 October 2008 (UTC) [reply]

A few notes

• "Reason" is way to colloquial for this topic. Find a better word please.
  • "Citation", the original header, was not the proper word. Would "Rationale" do? Dabomb87 (talk) 12:15, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree, done.
• perhaps gray-out the "not awarded" years
• you probably want to add a note to each unawarded year explaining what happened
  • I'm actually not sure. My guess would be the various wars, but I couldn't find a source on the official website.
• is is possible to thin-out the lines between the winners of the same year, or thicken the other lines?
  • I don't think so.
• double check articles for more portraits. I randomly checked Alder and I saw he has a picture on his page
  • It's a fair use image. I checked the page for every single person and included all of the free images I could find (except the ones where there is more than one person)
• not necessary, but would be nice to have flags by the country entries.
  • I disagree, because it might be considered flagcruft.

Nergaal (talk) 07:28, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 20:28, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

• What makes the following reliable sources?
  • http://www.nndb.com/
• Current refs 112 and 113 are just numbered links. they need formatted titles, publishers and last access dates at the very least.
• Current refs 114 and 115 are lacking last acccess dates.

Otherwise sources look good, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Like I mentioned above, those will be gone soon. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 14:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Prose is generally good. "There have been eight years in which it has not been awarded." is really, really awkward, though and should be rewritten, but I can't think of an alternative at the moment. Gary King (talk) 21:06, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Err, sorry (and don't blame Scorpion), that was me trying to get away from "It has not been awarded eight times", which was much worse! Bencherlite^Talk 21:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[2] Gary King (talk) 21:23, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I thought of that, but was trying to avoid multiple uses of "the Prize in Chemistry". Hey-ho, no preference anymore. Bencherlite^Talk 21:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose unless the meaning of the country column becomes crystal clear and the country assignments are attributed to reliable sources. This issue was discussed extensively at Talk:Nobel Prize in Chemistry but I don't think it reached a clear conclusion. Is it place of birth, nationality at time of award, nationality during the discovery, nationality at time of death? What about dual citizenships? To give just one example with which I am familiar, consider Mario Molina. The list says Mexico, while the reference (Nobel Foundation) says USA. The truth is that he was born in Mexico, moved to the US, conducted his research there, acquired the American nationality, losing the Mexican nationality in the process, got the Nobel Prize, and later re-acquired the Mexican nationality because there were constitutional reforms in Mexico that allowed him to have dual citizenship. A major problem with cases like this is that unless the country assignments are rock-solid the article can never be stable; there is always be a bit of nationalistic revert-warring because everyone wants to believe that a Nobel Prize "belongs" to their country even if it is because the laureate's grandfather was a citizen. --Itub (talk) 06:06, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The column has been removed. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 19:39, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Removed? Then the list is not comprehensive. All the other lists have a "country" column, and lots of sources give a nationality or country. Removing it merely because it is (sometimes) disputed is avoiding the problem. See List of Nobel laureates by country for one attempt to address the issue. The "always be a bit of nationalistic revert-warring" argument from Itub also misses the point. Letting nationalistic revert-warring shape the content (or lack of content) of an article is unacceptable. Removing the content merely to meet a "stability" criterion is not the right approach. Don't get me wrong. I want to see lists like this featured as well, and I'm working on Royal Medal (and came here to see what the requirements were for lists like this), but like it or not, "where are they from" is a question people ask about other people. Pick an easily sourced criterion and stick to it, is my opinion, with footnotes explaining complicated cases like Molina. Carcharoth (talk) 13:35, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • See Talk:List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_country#How_this_list_works for one approach. Carcharoth (talk) 13:40, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • My point was not that the list needed to be removed, and in fact I think that removing it is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. My point is that the list needs to be "bulletproof": the definition of the country column needs to be stated explicitly and followed consistently. Going by the Nobel Foundation seems like the best course of action, but if someone wants to clarify the nuances in specific cases, that can be done in a footnote, citing appropriate sources. Mario Molina was not the only laureate where there was disagreement between our list and the Nobel Foundation: we had Aaron Klug as South Africa/UK, but nobelprize.org has him as United Kingdom, with a note saying "born in Lithuania". We had George Olah as Hungary/United States, but nobelprize.org has him as USA with a note saying "born in Hungary"), which is not quite the same IMHO. I think that particularly the people that were listed with more than one nationality need to be double-checked. These examples come from just checking a few "suspicious" cases, but in order for this to be featured I'd need to be reassured that someone really went through every single line and checked that it has the right country. --Itub (talk) 16:02, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)

However, Shimomura's case (Chemistry laureate 2008) really created a bit of trouble, since even the website of the Nobel committee reports his Japanese citizenship while affiliating his award with the US and merely mentioning Japan as his place of birth. So far, I assumed (without making the guideline depend on this assumption) that the award was always affiliated with the citizenship of the laureate. Currently, I am in correspondence with people in charge of the official website to learn more about their rationale.

Bottom line: I think, it is possible to handle the country issue by refraining any kind of original research and simply relying on the decision published by the Nobel committee. The fact that it is highly disputed shows that this information (among others) is of high interest to our readers and I think it would add value to this list here as well.

Unfortunately, I am the only editor really taking care of this list. But before you accuse me of ownership, please join me and put it on your watch list. Tomeasy _{T C} 16:06, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If I remember correctly, during one of the discussions in one of the Nobel Prize talk pages (I don't remember which), someone pointed out that, according to the printed books published by the Nobel Foundation about the Prizes, the country they listed was the country of residence at the time of the award. Can anyone verify that? --Itub (talk) 16:24, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is pretty much in line with the first answer I received from the communication officer responsible for the website. However, it is not yet a final answer, as I think I will react and show some counter examples. Anyway, here is their first email to me:

“

Dear Thomas (and cc to Ulrika Royen, Senior Editor at the Nobel Foundation, and Fredrik All, the RSAS) thanks for your prompt reaction on the citizenship of Prof. Shimomura. He is a Japanese citizen, as mentioned in the press release from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, who awards the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (as well as The Nobel Prize in Physics and The Prize in Economic Sciences, which will be announced tomorrow Monday 13 October at 1 pm Swedish time). However, at the website of the Nobel Foundation (http://nobelprize.org) I believe there is a routine to first mention the country where the Laureate is affiliated to at present (please correct me here if I am wrong, Ulrika), and hence, shows USA as the country connected to Shimomura. I hope this clarifies things for you! Otherwise please contact us again. Erik Erik Huss Kommunikatör med pressansvar / Communications Officer, media contacts Kungl. Vetenskapsakademien (KVA) / Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences [address and other details redacted]

”

However, I am convinced that whatever is their rationale we are doing well in simply reporting their decision. We do so in terms of the name of the laureate (obviously), but why should we do differently for the country? The are the awarding authority and they have made their decision certainly not unconsciously. Why should we try to invent a fairer ruling then they. Tomeasy _{T C} 16:42, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Might want to redact the e-mail and other details above. In fact I've done that. Your mention of official books stirred memories in me of a series of books I think the Nobel Foundation publishes every year (and have done, I think, since the beginning). The early ones are now collectors items and very expensive! While looking for those, I found this. Does anyone here have that? Ah, found what I was really looking for: [3] It's called Les Prix Nobel: "Since 1901 the Nobel Foundation has annually published a series of yearbooks, Les Prix Nobel, containing reports from the Nobel Prize Award Ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo, as well as the biographies and Nobel Lectures of the Nobel Laureates. Up to 1988, the texts were published in the language in which they were presented. Since then the material in Les Prix Nobel has been mostly in English." We don't have an article on that, and we don't mention them in our article. I found one online : 1907. Only $10. The 1998 one is $165. Ah, here we go, a nearly full collection of the early numbers for only $3000. A snip! :-) Sorry, um, we were talking about nationalities. If someone has access to the printed book, and can add what that says for a particular year, fine. Otherwise, as Tomeasy says, go with the official website. That's what I do with names of prizewinners, though you'd be surprised how often there are typos on websites (the Royal Society's official page for some of its prize winners has horrendous typos, shown up by the official documentation accessed on other pages, which show clearly that one or other spelling is wrong...). Carcharoth (talk) 19:30, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, what do you mean by "Might want to redact the e-mail and other details above"? Do you ask me to do something with my above posts? Tomeasy _{T C} 07:41, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have a look at my edit here. I removed the e-mail address and postal address. The e-mail address in particular, if you leave it visible on an internet page, can be harvested by spam robots looking for e-mail addresses to send spam to. So I thought it best to remove it. It's not important, though, really. What is needed here is to help out with, or review, List of Nobel laureates in Chemistry. Maybe you, as someone who has worked on a similar list, could add some advice or comments down below in a new post, to help get this list to featured standards? Carcharoth (talk) 20:16, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the explanation. I will be more careful on what to display in the future.

From my experience I think it is possible to include country data in an acceptably stable way. IMO this can best be done by strictly relying on the Nobel website. Tomeasy _{T C} 06:16, 15 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Okay, I have readded the countries and I will try and match all of them up with the Nobel website. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 20:53, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Let me know if you need any help. It's a long list. Carcharoth (talk) 20:16, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm done already, I think everything now matches the website. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 23:11, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Looks good. I'll add some comments below. Carcharoth (talk) 23:54, 14 October 2008 (UTC) Further comments added after those my Scorpion0422.[reply]

Comments - a few thoughts, not all actionable, but hopefully all relevant:

• (1) Is it possible to say why there were no awards in those eight non-award years?
  • Well, my best guess is the wars, but I haven't yet found a source for that.
    • OK. Would still like to see it, but won't oppose just for this.
• (2) Is it possible to make the references section a bit less repetitive? I realise the links are all to different pages, but is it not possible to avoid the repetition of "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry" all the way down the references list?
  • • minor concern - won't oppose for this
• (3) Have the ones without pictures been checked for free pictures?
  • Yep, I checked every single page for free images, and the ones there are the ones I found. The only free images I didn't include are ones where there were other non-winners in the image.
    • resolved
• (4) Have all the name links been checked to make sure they go to the right articles? I only ask this because I tidy up a fair amount of backwater award lists, and it is amazing how often redlinks turn blue because someone creates an article on a politician with the same name. Less likely to happen with a Nobel laureate, but it would be embarassing if it did.
  • Yes, while I was looking for images, I also corrected the links. They should all (or at least, 99% of them) go to the correct pages.
    • I did some checking as well: resolved
• (5) As someone said above, all the images need checking for correct licenses and stuff like that.
  • pending
• (6) Would be nice to try and crop some of the pictures (e.g. Dudley R. Herschbach) to get them all as "head-and-shoulders", but that's a minor concern, really. More important to try and get photos for the missing ones (though that will take a long time).
  • • minor concern - won't oppose for this.
• (7) Country: Molina one hasn't been footnoted as mentioned above. I think there really needs to be some sort of footnote to say what source you are using for the countries - I suggest a footnote attached to the "Country" header. See what I did at Frieze of Parnassus.
  • I agree and I have added one.
    • Thanks. resolved
• (8) Is the text of the names (regardless of where they point to and what the middle names are and so on) as stated on the offical website? If not, it should, as you need to report what name they are recorded as receiving the award under.
  • They should all match the Nobel website.
    • resolved
• (9) Finally, the links in the "rationale" column (is 'rationale' the right word?) - there are reasons to not normally link within quotations. This might be an exception, it might not. I don't want to get into a big debate about it, as I actually think linking in quotations is OK in this sort of context, but I wanted to make sure the point was raised. See Wikipedia:MOSLINK#Quotation and Wikipedia talk:Only make links that are relevant to the context/Archive 5 and Wikipedia talk:Quotations should not contain wikilinks if you really want the gory details. The point is that you have to be absolutely 100% sure when you link something that you have got the link right. Also, some of the linking could be improved: 1913: "For his work on the linkage of atoms in molecules" - if you know exactly what this linkage was, then you could link to it. I went to the Alfred Werner article, and there are possibilities such as coordination chemistry. Of course, go too far, and you risk getting it wrong. But if you can find sources to back up a column of "background" notes (e.g. a biography that says explicitly that the Nobel was for his work on coordination chemistry), then you could put all the links there, and not in the quotes. Obviously that would be a lot of work, but it's something someone could do one day. One final example, for 2003, "water channels" has been linked to aquaporin. I'm sure that is correct, but if someone questions that, do you have a source?
  • • major concern - won't be supporting unless this is resolved. See my comments to Scorpion here. I've also added a few links to the article to demonstrate my concerns. See here.
      • I agree that adding a column called "see also", "main article", or "further reading" is a good idea. It would avoid the controversial practice of linking within a quote and would allows us to link clearly to a more appropriate target than the quote itself allows (for example, linking Nernst to the third law of thermodynamics rather than thermochemistry). In most cases a single link per laureate or even per year should be enough. As for adding a "details" column or a "year of discovery", I think it would be too much (a can of worms, Pandora's box, or whatever your favorite metaphor is ;-). --Itub (talk) 12:03, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• (10) When the prize has been shared, can you say in what proportions. If the shares have always been equal, say that at the top. If there are cases of a three-way split going: 50:25:25, then you'd need to say that.
  • I was going to mention that, but I decided not to because this is just a list of winners. Such information belongs in the main Nobel Prize in Chemistry page.
    • Fair enough. resolved

Hope that was of some help! :-) Carcharoth (talk) 23:54, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed it was. Thanks a lot for the review. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 15:25, 15 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've updated my comments. The only outstanding concerns for me are the images (unfortunately the image copyright desk aren't taking the carrot here), the inaccurate quotes (see below) and the issue of linking in the citation/rationale column. Carcharoth (talk) 11:01, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Support.Changed to Neutral. My doubts expressed above regarding the accuracy of the country column have been addressed, so I can support now. That said, I still recommend adding a note somewhere stating where the country data came from so that there is no doubt. That way, if someone changes an entry it can be reverted more confidently. --Itub (talk) 15:40, 15 October 2008 (UTC) Changed to Neutral because there are many still unaddressed concerns that I hadn't thought of before... --Itub (talk) 16:19, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Images: Please get someone to check their license, sourcing, etc. I will support as soon as they have been checked. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:40, 15 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Every image has a free license, I checked all of them myself. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 00:58, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ah, but have you checked that the licenses are correct? Carcharoth (talk) 01:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This will take a while...
    • Image:Vant Hoff.jpg - no author information (common with old pictures like this). Claim of "PD by age (Van 't Hoff passed away in 1911)" - that's not strictly the right claim to make. To make a definite decision, you need author information, date of photograph, date of first publication, and current copyright owner. Unfortunately, for old picture, you often lack all four bits of information. For pictures that were used in the Nobel Foundation's yearbook (Les Prix Nobel), you will know the year of publication. Then its a matter of deciding whether pre-1923 hence PD-US applies, or not. If it was published in Europe, and not the USA, things could be complicated. The important thing, though, is to have definite proximate sources (book they were scanned from or website they were downloaded from), and to judge whether there are problems there. For this one, for example, this page is given as the source, a page from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science. But if you look at the Nobel web page, they are using the same picture! And they say "Photos: Copyright © The Nobel Foundation". Now, that could just be a generic copyright warning intended to cover all the photos, or it could mean that they have a collection of photos taken at the time (maybe they hire a photographer to take photos of the Laureates), and they do own the copyright. But then some other limit on the copyright would kick in. Quite what, I don't know.
    • Image:Hermann Emil Fischer.jpg has no source information here or at the German Wikipedia, but again the picture on the Nobel Foundation's website is the same one, or a copy of the same one (that can make a difference).
    • Image:Arrhenius2.jpg has no source information here or at the German Wikipedia.
      • Again, for both of these, it is not surprising that the original photographer is not recorded, but the proximate source - where the person uploading it in 2004 to the German Wikipedia got it from, is technically needed.
    • I'll stop there. There are hundreds of old pictures like this all over Wikipedia. Uploaded years ago when sourcing was not insisted upon, presumably published before 1923 (hence PD in the USA), but with no precise publication information (location and publication), and being taken so long ago that the records of who took the photos are probably lost. Though if the Nobel Foundation confirm they have full provenance of all the photos in their collection, and claim exclusive copyright, then it is best to beleive them. I personally would ask them that direct, rather than rely on a generic copyright notice on their website.
    • Later on, as you get into the US ones, you get ones like Image:Seaborg Lab Portrait.jpg and Image:Christian B. Anfinsen, NIH portrait, 1969.jpg, which are absolutely fine.
    • Nearing the present day, we find Image:Roger.Kornberg.JPG, which is a snapshot taken by a colleague and uploaded under a free license. Again, no problem.
  • Anyway, that gives some idea of what is needed. Carcharoth (talk) 01:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Update I have gone through and removed all of the images that I thought met the above criteria. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 15:36, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It seems someone reverted you... I would, actually, ask around the image-savvy people (I'm supposed to be one of them, but I would suggest getting some more opinions on this - with images from a range spanning over 100 years, you need people who really can give authoratative opinions. Have you tried Wikipedia:Media copyright questions? You could also try a different approach: instead of pictures for every person that has one (requiring you to check loads of pictures), a selection of photos of laureates, as seen at List of Wranglers of the University of Cambridge, could be one way to go. That would definitely avoid the distortion that comes from not having pictures for everyone in the list. Carcharoth (talk) 19:45, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Left a question myself. See here. Hopefully, if people respond there, a more definitive answer should be forthcoming. Carcharoth (talk) 19:50, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Update on images I found someone at Commons to help with the images. See commons:User talk:Nard the Bard#Image check request. Not sure if he will come here or we go there. I'll try and keep things updated. Carcharoth (talk) 20:05, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Quotes are inacccurate - I've been checking a couple of quotes from the Nobel website for the citations given as the reason for the awards, and some of them are not fully quoted, or are quoted wrong:
  • 1901
    • Nobel website: "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions"
    • Article: "for his discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions"
  • 1902
    • Nobel website: "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his work on sugar and purine syntheses"
    • Article: "for his work on sugar and purine syntheses"
  • 1903
    • Nobel website: "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered to the advancement of chemistry by his electrolytic theory of dissociation"
    • Article: "for his electrolytic theory of dissociation"
  • 1904
    • Nobel website: "in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air, and his determination of their place in the periodic system"
    • Article: "for his discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air, and his determination of their place in the periodic system"
  • 1905
    • Nobel website: "in recognition of his services in the advancement of organic chemistry and the chemical industry, through his work on organic dyes and hydroaromatic compounds"
    • Article: "for his work on organic dyes and hydroaromatic compounds"
  • 1906
    • Nobel website: "in recognition of the great services rendered by him in his investigation and isolation of the element fluorine, and for the adoption in the service of science of the electric furnace called after him"
    • Article: "for his investigation and isolation of the element fluorine, and for the electric furnace named after him"

The later ones seem OK, but 1935 and 1936 are inaccurate quotes as well. Haven't checked all of them, but I think they do all need to be checked to see that we have quoted the citation correctly. Carcharoth (talk) 10:27, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

These quotes are basically truncating the verbosity about the recognition of great services and such and adding one or two words at the beginning to clarify. All that is needed to fix them is to put "for his" in brackets. --Itub (talk) 11:16, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that and some misquotes, but Scorpion is on this, so it should be dealt with soon. Carcharoth (talk) 20:05, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, from what I did up to 1925 here, I see that Scorpion and I differ over what exactly to quote. I think it would be easier to do a full quote for all the entires. Carcharoth (talk) 20:48, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm done matching the quotes to the Nobel website. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 00:56, 24 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't checked the quotes (I'm sure they are OK now), but I have checked the names, the order, the countries, all match the Nobel website. So that's fine. There are still a few links I'd like to see added to the rationale column, and there should be a note for each column explaining that the names are from the website, the countries are from the website, and the rationales are from the website, but the links are to our articles on the scientists and the relevant chemistry articles. Oh, and the website is run by the "Nobel Foundation", not by the "Nobel Prize" (see note A). What difficult to justify is the links to the countries. By all means have the countries there, but these are not good links to have. Almost no readers at all will ever want to click from this sort of article to read a long article about a particular country. At most, links to particular countries from the lead section, but I think linking countries from the table dilutes the links that are really relevant. Carcharoth (talk) 05:09, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by SatyrTN

• Unwikilink "anniversary" in the first paragraph.
  • Done.
• In the very last sentence of the lede, there are two instances of "the Prize in Chemistry". Nowhere else in the lede is it referred to it that way, and it's jarring - it's either "the prize" or "the Nobel Prize in Chemistry".
  • Done
• The list should be sortable. The benefits, IMO, are pretty strong, but there would have to be a fairly major overhaul to do it. For instance, all the names should be entered using ((sortname)). Also, the images will need to have their own column header. See List of Vice Presidents of the United States for an example of how to accomplish this. Also, over-link the "Country" column, since re-sorting may make the "first" not be linked - see the fourth entry here. For the record, neither "Rationale" nor the new "Image" column should be sortable - add class="unsortable" to that header. I'm not sure what to do about duplicating the "Rationale" column for every recipient.
  • I actually prefer keeping it the way it is. I prefer having the image column without its own header, and many years have had multiple winners and some who won for the same thing. Making every single winner have its own individual line would make things a lot more confusing and thus it would be harder to pick out such instances. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 17:36, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I still think the list should be sortable. Given that only 1/3 of the years (38) were "duplicate" years, I think the benefit of being able to sort by name, year, and country outweighs the "duplicates" issue.

Duplicating 1/3 of the years is a lot, one would have to repeat the same summaries, which would lead to a lot of unnecessary repitition. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 01:08, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Sortable or not, there's a consistency discrepancy (<grin>) between 1905 (2 recipients on one line) and 1912 (each recipient gets their own line).
  • 1905 is one guy. Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer just has a very long name. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 17:33, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • The wikilink is only to "Adolf von Baeyer", which confused me - I was sure "Johann Friedrich Wilhelm" was someone else. Withdrawn :)
• Instead of having "Laureates by country" in the "See Also" section, could you add that to the "Nobel Prizes" footer template?
  • Done.
• There must be a discussion somewhere about the capitalization of "Laureate". This list doesn't capitalize any of them, but the corresponding article Nobel Prize in Chemistry seems to capitalize it when following Nobel - as in "Nobel Laureate" - and not capitalize it when it's standing alone - as in "23 laureates".
• Because of the above, I think the list should be renamed "List of Nobel Laureates in Chemistry" - capital "L".
  • Okay, done.
• Oppose due to work necessary. Will revisit. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 15:55, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have responded to all of your concerns. Thanks for the review. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 00:56, 24 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Oppose I still think it should be sortable. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 00:59, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Adding value - one problem, though maybe it is not really a problem, is that we seem to be just parroting the Nobel website and not adding anything of value. The only added value I see in our article is the lead section (which is fine), the links to our articles on the scientists (not all those articles are in great shape, but that's not really actionable here), and the links in the "rationale" column. The latter is really the only thing of value we are adding apart from the links to the scientist articles. The "country" information, while useful, is not something you would really click on. As it is, the Nobel website provides more information (birth year, death year, and university affiliation). One thing we could provide, if someone looks up the date of the ceremony each year, is the age of the laureates at the time they received their award. That is something that the Nobel website does not provide. We could also provide the titles and dates of their Nobel lectures: e.g. "May 19, 1927 - The Ultracentrifuge"; "December 12, 1928 - The Chemistry of the Bile Acids"; "May 23, 1930 - Fermentation of Sugars and Fermentative Enzymes"; "December 12, 1929 - The Function of Phosphate in Alcoholic Fermentation". Note that the date of the presentation ceremony is usually different from the date of the Nobel Lecture. Carcharoth (talk) 20:48, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• IMO, the age of the laureate delves into WP:NOT#INFO territory, and I think it's a bit trivial. University affiliation isn't really applicable because so many universities have differing levels of what constitutes an "affiliated" laureate (take the University of Chicago, which considers any laureate that entered its doors to be an affiliated laureate to the University of California, Santa Barbara, which only considers faculty members that did research for their Nobel Prize while at the university to be affiliated laureate) and several universities can have claims to a single laureate. Birth/death year is visible for someone looking into the respective articles of the laureates, and would probably only be useful if we made the table sortable, but that's an undesirable option because it introduces a ton of redundancies into the table (years need to be repeated, half the rationale column would be repeats). As it stands, I think the table's fine, but I'm open to ideas on the matter. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 08:29, 24 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• The Nobel website people disagree. They give birth year, death year and university at the time of the award, for each Laureate. What reason is there for them to do things one way, and for us to do things a different way? At the moment, we've copied the wording for the names, for the countries, and for the rationale, and added value with links to our articles. Why leave out the rest of what they provide, and why stop short of extending the information provided to add value (i.e. add age at time of award, Nobel Lecture title, and institution at time of the award)? The institution articles are at least more relevant than the country articles. See also here. As for age of the Laureates, it seems that the readers of the Nobel website (and presumably the readers of Wikipedia) disagree: one of the frequently asked questions here is: "Who is the youngest ever to receive a Nobel Prize, and who is the oldest?" Followed by four tables as answers. Admittedly, this goes a bit far in terms of analysis, but this is interesting. My point is that "NOT INFO" shouldn't ride roughshod over the sort of questions that readers ask. At the moment, the Nobel website is still what I would use to read about the Nobel laureates, rather than Wikipedia. The biographies they provide are often better than ours. The photos are nearly always better (and more relevant to the period when the award was won), and the lists are better as well (more information). Getting a balance between just copying what they say and providing links to articles, as compared with extending the format and layout and providing something different, is a difficult one. Most websites do little more than provide a list of winners. The Nobel website is a lot different in that respect. Carcharoth (talk) 05:09, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Because we aren't the Nobel website. This isn't a competition to outdo the Nobel website in what we can provide, it's to ensure that we provide an encyclopedic representation of the subject. Your comparisons are also well, off. You ideally should be comparing our present list to this, and not to the entire Nobel website. If we want to venture there, we list by university affiliation (although that list does need heavy cleanup), we have individual articles on every single laureate, and whatnot. The "who is the youngest/oldest laureate" (as well as most of the stuff in that FAQ) is trivia. The photo comparison is also pure nonsense. They obviously have better photos because they took official photographs of the laureate and/or took them from an official source. We have to rely on free images. Go figure which one has higher quality. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 08:52, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• You did note the point where I said we should go beyond what the Nobel website provide, right? I know we are not trying to outdo them or anything like that, but if I think the Nobel website is a better resource for people wanting to read about Nobel laureates, I seem to have two options: (1) suggest ways to improve our coverage (but it seems my suggestions are being rejected); or (2) suggest people go and read the Nobel website. Have a look at this and then see how much of that is covered at Nobel Prize. As for "we have individual articles on every single laureate" - have you actually done what I did yesterday and looked at some of our articles on Nobel laureates? Some are shockingly poor in their coverage (Robert Curl, for example). The thing about oldest/youngest laureate is not trivia (this might be your opinion, but that does not mean that it is indeed trivia) - that FAQ also includes a list of women who have won a Nobel Prize - will you say that is trivia as well? One of the reasons we can't automatically generate a list of women who have won Nobel Prizes is because we don't tag our biographical articles to show which are about men and which are about women. If we did, we could cross-reference "Nobel laureates" with "Women" and get such a list automatically. As for the photos, yes, freely-licensed pictures are often of poorer quality and less specific (mostly of them looking old and doddery, not when they did their work). I consider that a big weakness of the free encyclopedia model, and I will continue to point this out whenever I think the "free" mission is impeding the aim of quality encyclopedic coverage. Carcharoth (talk) 23:59, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Going "beyond" implies exceeding or providing a better model. Yes, I've looked at those laureates articles. Most of them are exceedingly poor. I don't see in the slightest how that is relevant to this FLC. The oldest/youngest comment is trivia for the purposes of this list. Inclusion is maybe appropriate for the List of Nobel Laureates (as in a brief comment in the lead), but assuredly not here. And if you haven't noticed, we have a List of female Nobel Laureates. And for the free encyclopedia model, you aren't going to get any fundamental changes to our image use policy, so I don't see what the point of complaining about that here is. I'm not saying your suggestions are bad. Most of them simply aren't related or appropriate for this list specifically. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 04:48, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Don't want to spend too long on this subthread (if you could comment on what I wrote below, that would be really appreciated), but when I look at lists, I do try and assess the quality of the articles linked from the list. That is implicit in the featured list criterion that mentions that redlinks should be minimal (there is a spectrum going all the way from redlinks to featured articles). Presumably if all the Nobel Laureates were stubs giving only name, place and dates of birth and death, and that they won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in such and such a year, then I think that would be a concern. Obviously, many of the Nobel Laureates have excellent articles, and for me personally, there are enough OK-to-good quality articles there to ensure that the list is functioning as a gateway to at least some good content. But I think a brief assessment of the quality of the articles linked should be at least one of the things looked at, even if only one of the minor things. Dropping the age thing for now. List of female Nobel Laureates is good. One reason I wasn't aware of that is that it is not in Template:Nobel Prizes. Would you consider adding it there? Finally, about the image use policy, you said: "you aren't going to get any fundamental changes to our image use policy" - you have completely misunderstood me. I'm not trying to get the policy changed, and neither am I complaining about the policy. What I am pointing out is that there are better, non-free images, and that I think we should point our readers in the direction of those images. If the Nobel website has good-quality pictures of all the Laureates, and we don't, what is wrong with telling the readers that there are better images "over there"? That is what I have done, and that is all I intend to do. Someone else will have to deal with choosing the best quality pictures in how ever many years it will be before those pictures become public domain. But I can assure you that the current "free" pictures that are of low-quality will not be chosen ahead of the better quality ones that fall into the public domain in 70 or 80 years or whatever. The low-quality freely licensed pictures are only a stopgap measure until better public domain ones become available with the passage of time. Carcharoth (talk) 00:28, 28 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Update - I've just spent far too long (several hours) going through every single "rationale" entry (lists of over 150 people are a bit of a problem in terms of the amount of work needed to review and work on them...) and looking for the best links and removing generalised overlinking, and creating redirects where needed. Plus a few other changes that I'll mention below. The end result is this version here. The changes can be seen here:
  • (1) Name format changes here
  • (2) Name order changes here
  • (3) Country name changes here
  • (4) Every single quote checked and changes needed made here
  • (5) Added note to explain function of each column here:

    Notes: A. The form and spelling of the names in the name column is according to nobelprize.org, the official website of the Nobel Foundation. Alternative spellings and name forms, where they exist, are given at the articles linked from this column. Where available, an image of each Nobel Laureate is provided. For the official pictures provided by the Nobel Foundation, see the pages for each Nobel Laureate at nobelprize.org. B. The information in the country column is according to nobelprize.org, the official website of the Nobel Foundation. This information may not necessarily reflect the recipient's birthplace or citizenship. C. The citation for each awards is quoted (not always in full) from nobelprize.org, the official website of the Nobel Foundation. The links in this column are to articles on the areas of chemistry for which the awards were presented. The links are intended as a guide and explanation, but for a full account of the work done by each Nobel Laureate, please see the biography article linked from the name column.

    Hopefully that is OK.
  • (6) Given that the countries we state are what is on the nobelprize.org website, I made this change and clarified the reference to make clear that he is a Japanese citizen (we can't really make an exception for anyone in that column).
  • (7) As I said above, I changed and added many links to the rationale column. I would have preferred to have these as a separate column, but as all the linking in the rationales needed checking (and some were wrong, and now corrected), I thought I'd add the links anyway. This may be the last sticking point (I can't really support now, as I've done too much work on the article, but I'm getting to the stage where I would be happy to support if I hadn't worked on it, if that makes sense). What I suggest is one of the following:
    • (a) Delink everything in the rationale column
    • (b) Have a separate column for relevant links
    • (c) Pipe links within the quotes
  • The current state of the list is (c).
  • (8) Some examples of articles I've linked that weren't linked from this list before: Octahedral molecular geometry, Haber process, Ultracentrifuge, Zymase, Bergius process, Langmuir–Blodgett film, Langmuir equation, Debye relaxation, Debye-Waller factor, AIV fodder, Tropinone, Magnetic refrigeration, Oxytocin, Calvin cycle, Ziegler–Natta catalyst, Molecular orbital theory, Flash photolysis, Radical (chemistry), Organometallic chemistry, Organoborane, Wittig reaction, Woodward–Hoffmann rules, Electron crystallography, Inner sphere electron transfer, Direct methods (crystallography), Host-guest chemistry, Ribozyme, Retrosynthetic analysis, Marcus theory, ATP synthase, GAUSSIAN, Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation, Electrospray ionization, Soft laser desorption, Protein nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
  • (9) There were two redlinks, which I will try and do stubs for soon: Crossed molecular beams and Infrared chemiluminescence.
• That's all, I think. Sorry for taking so long, but each time something comes up, the sheer size of the list makes it difficult to do the checking and linking and reviewing and double-checking for 153 separate people. Incidentally, some of the Nobel Laureate articles are still in a sorry state. See Stanford Moore and William Howard Stein for example. Anyway, I hope Scorpion will be OK with these changes. I'm practically done here, apart from getting a few more opinions on the issue of linking within quotations versus no linking versus a separate column. The 5 or 6 hours I spent on finding the links above will end up somewhere on Wikipedia, even if not in this list, so if the verdict is to delink all the quotes, suggestions as to where I could use those links would be appreciated. Carcharoth (talk) 20:38, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Update: there is a discussion about linking in quotes at WT:MOSLINK. See here. Carcharoth (talk) 00:28, 28 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.