Talk:Darren Naish

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Is this person really notable? He has a nice blog, but... 69.136.37.146 (talk) 21:24, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes I think he is. He is a well known author on palaentology —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.168.28.0 (talk) 12:20, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

He's not a well-known author on palaeontology. Stephen Jay Gould is a well known author on palaeontology. Darren Naish isn't. However, by the very, very loose standards Wikipedia demands for academic biographies, he probably slips in, because of his popular writing, as alluded to above. Badgerpatrol (talk) 13:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

So it's only notable if the person is well-known outside their field? We'll have to delete more than 95% of articles on paleontologists then. I bet Joe Entomologist would know only Cope, Marsh, Bakker, Horner, Sereno (aka Dr. Press Release) and fake paleontologist/actor "Dinosaur George" from Jurassic Fight Club ;) Dinoguy2 (talk) 06:03, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. The criteria for academics (as for anyone else) should be a) EXCEPTIONAL success within their field (as recognised by very significant publications, external awards, important professorships, etc.) b) notability outside their field sufficient to invite the interest of the general public. Naish (as an example) doesn't meet the first criterion, but (just) does the second, due to his popular writing (Walking with Dinosaurs, etc.). This is after all an encyclopaedia, not a directory. On an unrelated point, this candidate probably isn't actually particularly well known within the field anyway. Badgerpatrol (talk) 10:10, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. Darren Naish has written several long and very informative articles, spoken at paleo gatherings, etc. Why can't he be here when Wikipedia has articles on "garage bands" that probably aren't known outside their home state? 97.104.210.67 (talk) 16:15, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. The statement "On an unrelated point, this candidate probably isn't actually particularly well known within the field anyway" shows your utter ignorance. True, Gerald Mayr or Gareth Dyke are certainly at least as worthy of a Wikipedia article, but Darren Naish is a name you can't get around if you have any interest in modern dinosaur paleontology. If he would be more PR-minded, he could be a second Sereno for the scope and quality of his work, but luckily he isn't (the world is probably not big enough for another Sereno...) and thus he's just very, very well known in his field. Certainly, Naish is far more notable than the average Pókemon. I'd say let's add a list of important publications.

(Wikipedia has a bit of a problem with science articles, possibly due to its un-Popperian "verifiability not truth" - good science does not work like this. The maxim yields a bias in favour of well-promoted work even if it's scientifically of less-than average quality, and with the "publish or perish" environment many scientists are working in these days, over-promoted junk science is unfortunately a trap WP easily falls into.

For the sheer volume of citable (though second-rate) publications the "Intelligent Design" crowd cranks out, the average ID'er is certainly more "notable" than Naish, and this is not a good thing for an encyclopedia which never had as its aim the spread of falsehoods. "Verifiability not truth" solves the key problem in the humanities and cultural topics, where there is much room for personal opinion, but for "hard" science it is too lax a standard - there may be personal opinion on what is "true", but that what is empirically falsified is falsified, period. That does not elevate Naish's significance, but it lowers the significance of others. And then it's just like Dinoguy2 said: either we delete 'em all, or we keep 'em all.) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 17:05, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't entirely agree: I don't know if Naish meets the basic WP:BIO criterion—if he is "the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject." I think some well-publicized intelligent design proponents are notable under this rule, because of their lack of hard science and the attention this generates. —innotata 16:37, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Much as I would say that he is pretty notable, I wouldn't say that his contributions to the field are quite as significant to Dr Martill's, and I still don't understand why he doesn't have an article.DJK (talk) 11:32, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Tetrapod Zoology...

I know this is a touchy subject; but I think TetZoo's pretty notable as is (granted, the layman probably doesn't know of it, but Wikipedia's to educate as well as inform, after all.), plus it is run by a credible person, and a couple of posts have become legitimate scientific papers (as well as it's covering of a wide array of topics), so _maybe_ we could make an article out of it? Just an idea, of course. Dromaeosaurus is best dinosaur (talk) 17:11, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Unless Darren Naish's own article grows to gigantic proportions, I don't see any compelling reason why we need to have two short articles about essentially the same subject. Naish pretty much is Tetzoo. FunkMonk (talk) 19:45, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

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trimming the fluff

Hypnotosov (talk · contribs) and other editors have added a lot of overly detailed information that appears to be from fan's point of view, predominantly sourced by primary sources (e.g. Naish's own work or affiliated websites). This risks running afoul of WP:NPOV, and WP:PROMOTION. Per WP:PRIMARY: Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them. Dr. Naish has his own websites, blogs, and social media accounts to publicize himself: Wikipedia should not serve that role. Encyclopedia articles should not merely showcase subjects, but contextualize how they've been received by secondary sources. I've trimmed some needlessly detailed info: not every paper published needs highlighting. When the majority of references are primary or affiliated sources, that's an NPOV issue. I would urge Hypnotosov to draw more heavily from independent, reliable, secondary sources, e.g. news articles that address Naish's research and writing, beyond merely asserting they exist. --Animalparty! (talk) 22:40, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

also, subjective phrases like "The con also features Darren's (in)famous quiz, which is fiendishly hard." is a personal opinion, and has no place in Wikipedia. --Animalparty! (talk) 22:49, 27 April 2018 (UTC)