Talk:Harrison White

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[edit] Wikipedia style

As a note to recent editors, Wikipedia is meant to be an encyclopedia - thus, no "original research" is to be written into an article, and an article should only present facts that have been footnoted and can be found in independent third-party sources. This is especially true if one is asserting that the subject of an article is "influential" or "important" - our articles have to prove that we're not making this up and that there are proper third-party sources backing up what is being said. Basically, don't ask us to trust you - provide sources. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 20:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear Hypnotoad, Some of the edits aren't so recent: you've been at Futurama for too long;-) For another, your "peacocking" put-down tone is offensive, although I agree that some of the language -- although not the claims -- should be toned down. Please note that White has won the very rare Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Sociological Association. Lots more notable than Konklin (having never read Konklin, I can't comment more. Moreover, the definitive history of Social Network Analysis by Linton Freeman (2004) -- a widely accepted book -- supports almost all of the statements. Perhaps you should have asked rather than deleted. Be mellow. Live long and prosper. Bellagio99 (talk) 23:32, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

If he's been recognized for achievements, that is worth putting in the article, but really only if independent sources are used to back it up and proper footnoting is done. This is a general pet peeve: new articles generally don't get footnoted, so that now there's no way for a non-expert reading the article to judge whether it's remotely true or just someone's personal opinion - or worse, an outright lie or fraud. There really are articles at Wikipedia on non-existent people.

Also, "peacocking" is not a put-down, it's a term used at Wikipedia to describe language that flatters the subject, usually without saying anything factual or providing any references. It applied in this case. There's a steep learning curve to it, but if editors check out the Wikipedia Manual of Style, and then familiarize themselves with our core policies (Wikipedia:Neutral Point of View, Wikipedia:Verifiability, and Wikipedia:No Original Research), they'll find many ways to provide the information while maintaining a high quality.

So e.g., if it's factual and footnotable (verified with a footnote) that he did win the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Sociological Association, that certainly can be reported in the article. However, if one were to want to call him "influential", the best that could be done is providing a reference to an independent third party using language like "In his survey of the history of the field, Fred Q noted White's admitted influence on Joe X and Fred V."

Though that also comes with a caveat: if we really do call him "influential", the problem remains that WP:NPOV suggests other views should also be presented (e.g. that someone else has said he's not "influential"). Moreover, it suggests that the overall tone should be emotionally neutral. Peacocking makes articles feel non-encyclopedic and encourages new editors to start injecting peacocking into every article they find about someone they like.

Anyway, that's my explanation, if you wanted it. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 15:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)