Talk:Jonathan Haidt

Latest comment: 2 months ago by WhatamIdoing in topic Selected Publications

Intelligence Citations Bibliography for Articles Related to Human Intelligence edit

You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in those issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 16:48, 12 July 2010 (UTC)Reply

June 2012 articles edit

Two newspapers have published substantial articles about Prof Haidt recently.

The first is a big deal. He was the subject of the Wall Street Journal's Weekend Interview for 30 June.

  • Jenkins, Holman W., Jr. (June 30, 2012). "Jonathan Haidt: He Knows Why We Fight". The Wall Street Journal. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
(The WSJ's subtitle is insightful: "Conservative or liberal, our moral instincts are shaped by evolution to strengthen 'us' against 'them'.")

Secondly, The Washington Times carried a profile of Haidt by Emily Esfahani Smith.

We could probably improve the article by citing one or both of these, but I'm too busy to do it myself for a few weeks. Cheers, CWC 06:39, 2 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

While we're at it, the whole subject of groupishness was the focus of a big review in Science recently. The articles were a little bent, but worthy of note. Lfstevens (talk) 07:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

Science just had a review of Haidt's book, The Righteous Mind:
Left and Right, Right and Wrong
John T. Jost
Science 3 August 2012: 525-526. [DOI:10.1126/science.1222565]
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6094/525.summary
The reviewer criticized Haidt for his lack of scientific rigor, and disagreed with Haidt's main arguments. Why should liberals embrace conservatives' moral intuitions about obeying authority, being loyal to the ingroup, and enforcing purity standards? Haidt swings back and forth between an allegedly value-neutral sense of moral, and a prescriptive sense that he uses to jab liberals. Why do some individuals think it's morally right to judge or mistreat gays or interracial couples, because they feel disgusted by them? The liberal principle that prizes the universal over the parochial -- the justice principle of impartiality -- is a tremendous cultural achievement, which Haidt dismisses. By Haidt's definition, the plunder and murder of another tribe would be a moral adaptation. --Nbauman (talk) 02:18, 8 August 2012 (UTC)Reply
Perfectly reasonable to cite criticisms of Haidt's work but hopefully in a neutral tone. Haidt's work is an attempt to reveal the underpinnings of our various moral understandings, rather than to celebrate them. Where does Haidt dismiss justice or impartiality as an appropriate moral pillar? He's not knocking them down, he's adding some! On a political level, he's explaining to his own what they're missing about their opponents - not that they're superior, but that their frame has additional elements. Lfstevens (talk) 15:21, 8 August 2012 (UTC)Reply
Nbauman, there's no point in arguing about how wrong Haidt is. We're just editors. We don't decide whether Haidt is wrong or not. We just report what the reliable sources say. Leadwind (talk) 05:06, 22 October 2012 (UTC)Reply
I was not arguing my own position. I was paraphrasing the Science magazine reviewer's position. --Nbauman (talk) 12:09, 22 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

Hedges quote edit

The Hedges quote seems a bit libelous, since he asserts things about the subject's opinions that are not supported by and are contradicted by the words of the subject. — BozoTheScary (talk) 07:35, 16 August 2012 (UTC)Reply

I don't see anything libelous there. It's not libelous to accuse someone of supporting an illegal war. Nor is it libelous to claim that someone is in your opinion illogical, inconsistent, or not following his own principles. Opinions aren't libelous.
The problem with that editing is that you've inserted Haidt's rebuttal to Hedges' criticism, but you've removed Hedges' original criticism that Haidt is replying to. The reader doesn't know the original argument that's being rebutted. You're just giving one side -- the rebuttal.
You wind up with Hedges saying that Haidt "transformed from a liberal to a conservative" without giving Hedges' supporting evidence.
I think Hedges makes a fair criticism. The Iraq war was a case in which reason should have overcome intuition.
I think this is deletion of properly sourced material, and it should be replaced.
Please explain what you think is libelous. --Nbauman (talk) 19:01, 20 August 2012 (UTC)Reply
Is Hedges even a reliable source? See WP:RS. Leadwind (talk) 05:03, 22 October 2012 (UTC)Reply
If Hedges isn't reliable, neither is Sam Harris, who's quoted in this article decrying ideas, beliefs, etc that he sees as leading to injustice, evil, etc. Harris is the same individual who claims it may be ethical to murder people merely for believing "dangerous" ideas. Such claims are, by their nature, tyrannical and can lead to the same injustices he decries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.92.51.123 (talk) 00:49, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

reliable sources edit

A fair bit of material in one section was apparently about the opinions of a blogger on a web site. According to [[WP::RS}}, we should cite only reliable sources. Also, if anyone choose to restore content that has been removed, the burden of proof is on them that the material being restored accurately represents the content of reliable sources. Leadwind (talk) 05:02, 22 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

According to WP:RS: "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (opinion pieces) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact."
This removed material was statement of opinion by book reviewers, and therefore WP:RS.
Are you claiming that the New York Times isn't a reliable source?
Are you claiming that a book review in the NYT is not a WP:RS for an opinion that disagrees with the subject of a WP:BLP? --Nbauman (talk) 12:22, 22 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

One of the criticism sites http://www.askwhy.co.uk/truth/c60moralpsychjhaidt.php is getting a 509 - bandwidth exceeded. Is that a reliable source? Bodysurfinyon (talk) 07:34, 21 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

Major errors edit

I don't have time to edit the article just now (it needs a lot of work), but I will note one major error made by lots of people: Prof Haidt has not been awarded the Templeton Prize (UK£1,000,000 +), only a Templeton Prize, this one for "Positive Psychology", in 2001. See this Reliable Source: the Templeton Foundation awarded four prizes to psychology researchers, Prof H getting first prize of $100,000 and the other winners getting $50,000, $30,000 and $20,000.

(Part of the problem is that the John Templeton Foundation's website is a @(&!#$)% mess.)

Another major, major error here at Wikipedia is to report controversial claims about living people based only on self-published third-party sources. That makes the quotes from Magee and Myers totally, blatantly, obviously unacceptable, even if they had the much smaller 2001 prize in mind. Seriously. Everyone involved in inserting or retaining those quotes deserves a hard slap with a big WP:trout. Reinserting stuff like that will get you blocked. Don't.

Note that AFAICT Magee and Myers both assumed Prof H had been awarded the big Templeton Prize, making mention of their attacks on Prof H even more unacceptable in this article.

The remaining criticisms badly need context and coverage of any responses Prof H made to them. I hope to have a go at them, or even the whole article, in the next week or so. Cheers, CWC

Undo rationale 13 March 2013‎ - proportionality, conservatives. edit

I am undoing this edit - mostly because "proportionality" is not one of the moral foundations - but also, the note about conservatives not caring for groups for which they do not belong really needs a citation.

(cur | prev) 18:30, 13 March 2013‎ Steve Shiffrin (talk | contribs)‎ . . (13,560 bytes) (+87)‎ . . (Changes to reflect Haight's view that liberals value liberty/oppression more than proportionality, and conservatives do not equally value care for others) (undo)

Haidt found that the more politically liberal or left-wing people are, the more they tend to value care and liberty/oppression, and the less they tend to value proportionality, loyalty, respect for authority and purity. Conservatives or right-wing people, tend to value all the moral foundations somewhat equally with the exception of care for others outside the groups to which they belong.

Thank you Neptune's Trident for recent edits to Jon's page edit

Nice catches @Neptune's Trident: Like how you stuck a fork in it (diff). It's done (for now). - Thanks; LeoRomero (talk) 21:21, 2 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

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Justification needed for scare quotes re: "Neuroscientist" Sam Harris edit

This is clearly an instance of snark intended to denigrate a critic, rather than a defensible description of their qualifications, since Sam Harris has indeed received a doctorate in Cognitive Neuroscience from UCLA, producing original research relevant to the question of "how moral reasoning works."

This is meaningful, since he has expert knowledge in a field directly relevant to the questions which provoke Jonathan Haidt's analyses; they happen to differ in their conclusions about the impact of religious belief on the conduct of moral actors in society.

Both have their points.

thanks, bonze - bonze blayk (talk) 23:49, 11 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

I agree with you bonze blayk. I made a couple of edits with the goal of a neutral point of view (diff).   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 04:19, 12 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Neutrality / Written Like Advert Tag edit

Edit 7/16/19... we seem to have come to an agreement and are working together to improve the article. So dispute resolved for now. Chrisvacc (talk) 04:23, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

I don't know if I qualify as a "connected contributor" but working in the Social Sciences, I do know Jonathan, as well as a number of other social scientists in the field. I don't feel as though I'm connected enough to qualify as a COI, but figured I'd list it for reasons of full disclosure. Can anyone other than Ronz provide justification for the "Written Like Advert" tag. The tag keeps getting removed, but he puts it back. I agree with the other editors agree that the article looks pretty standard, but don't feel like getting into an edit war. I do agree that the 4th paragraph in the introduction is a mess, especially after the American Academy of Arts and Sciences was added, but the rest of the article looks pretty standard. Initially the article was a complete mess, as it appears some of it was copy and pasted from the subjects website, but aside from that paragraph the article looks like pretty much every other page on Wikipedia.

And even the fourth paragraph It's common for scientists to have their accolades listed in the introduction.

For instance, the article on Steven Pinker (a researcher comparable to Haidt's) is listed in Wikipedia:Good articles list as an exemplary article, and there doesn't appear to be much difference:

From Pinker's article:

Pinker has been named as one of the world's most influential intellectuals by various magazines. He has won awards from the American Psychological Association, the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Institution, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society and the American Humanist Association. He delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 2013. He has served on the editorial boards of a variety of journals, and on the advisory boards of several institutions. He has frequently participated in public debates on science and society.

From Haidt's:

Haidt has attracted both support and criticism for his critique of the current state of universities and his interpretation of progressive values.[4] He has been named one of the "top global thinkers" by Foreign Policy magazine,[5] and one of the "top world thinkers" by Prospect magazine.[6] He is among the most cited researchers in political psychology[7] and moral psychology,[8] and has given four TED talks.[9] In 2019, Haidt was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[10]

From the article pertaining to Soloman Asch (Also listed in WP:Good Articles)

He is most well known for his conformity experiments, in which he demonstrated the influence of group pressure on opinions. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Asch as the 41st most cited psychologist of the 20th century.[5]

You can view the rest of the list here, under Psychology and psychologists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Good_articles/Social_sciences_and_society#Culture,_sociology,_and_psychology

I do think it needs some work, but I think the tag is excessive. What are your guys' opinions on the matter?

Chrisvacc (talk) 16:23, 11 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

I always find that such focus on tags a waste of time at best.
The article is in poor shape, heavily influenced by SPA editors. Much of the sourcing appears poor and promotional, but a needed cleanup of the references would make the extent of the sourcing problems clearer. --Ronz (talk) 16:31, 11 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
It's not the correct tag to use.
WP:PROMO
When to use
Add this to articles that need help from other editors because in whole or part they are advertisements masquerading as articles. For example, they may tell users to buy the company's product, provide price lists, give links to online sellers, or use unencyclopedic or meaningless buzzwords.
The advert tag is for Wikipedia articles that in whole or part have been made into public relations documents or brochures, with content that portrays an issue, a product, an organization, or a person in a positive or negative light.
The issue this tag addresses is the policy WP:PROMO, which forbids content that reflects:
Advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind: commercial, political, scientific, religious, national, sports-related, or otherwise. An article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view.
Self-promotion.
Advertising, marketing or public relations. Information about people, organizations, issues, and products must be written in an objective and unbiased style, free of puffery.
If an article appears to be any of the above, this tag is appropriate.''
The article does none of those things. It advertises nothing, uses no buzzwords, links to no products, links to no price lists, or any other qualities of an advertisement. I'm nominating the article for a general cleanup, and a POV tag until the issues are resolved, but for now there's no evidence it's anything like an advertisement. We have to use the correct tags for issues. I'm adding the POV tag. It's more an issue of general cleanup, but I'll add that for the sake of compromise, and then the community can decide. Furthermore, there's no evidence of someone copy and pasting from the subject's website implies a COI. That's common when an article is first starting out, just to have something to start with. I'm adding other tags, and please do not revert my edits as I would prefer not escalating the dispute and letting the community handle it. If there's an issue, other editors can chime in on this page, but this isn't a monarchy where when a bunch of other editors remove a tag, one single editor just gets to decide that it's appropriate. Chrisvacc (talk) 15:47, 13 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
I've added a number of better tags. Please don't remove the COI tag again, as it directs editors to the general types of problems this article has overall. --Ronz (talk) 17:02, 14 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
So now you're WP:TAGBOMBING on top of the previous WP:EDITWARING? You've undone multiple editors edits multiple times with no attempts to reach or listen to consensus. Okay, definitely time for an escalation.
Tag bombing is a form of disruptive editing. Editors who engage in tag bombing after being asked to stop may be blocked from editing Wikipedia.
An edit war occurs when editors who disagree about the content of a page repeatedly override each other's contributions. Editors engaged in a dispute should reach consensus or pursue dispute resolution rather than edit warring. Users who engage in edit wars risk being blocked or even banned.
Definitely time for escalation. Perhaps you have too many privileges here. Chrisvacc (talk) 18:48, 14 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Please WP:FOC.
As I already stated, I always find that such focus on tags a waste of time at best. --Ronz (talk) 03:56, 15 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
"WP:FOC" coming from a guy who just spammed 40,000 irrelevant tags on a relatively decent article. Yea, "focus on tags a waste of time at best." I agree completely. So stop shoveling them on by the metric shitton. Not only is it bad practice, it's against the rules. FOC... FOC is the point, The content is fine. Or at least nowhere near as problematic as you make it out to be. If the Pinker Article is a 10/10, the Haidt article is about an 8/10... 7/10 at the absolute worst. Tagbombing the article like it's a Hot Dog Stand in Hiroshima makes it look like there are more issues then there actually are and makes Wikipedia look like a crap for no reason.
Tags are not meant for editors. They are mainly for readers. So they know what is trustworthy or not. The TALK page is for editors. For administrative bullshit that readers need not concern themselves with. That way everything stays neat and tidy and readers don't have to scroll over a bunch of editorial nonsense to get to their article.
Furthermore, the tags used don’t even make any sense. "This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject.” Is this serious? The citations are New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Google Scholar, Journal of Positive Psychology, American Psychological Association, academic journals, and Psychology Today. Please explain how those are biased or 'closely connected' sources. The only ones that are even remotely connected are the ones referencing biographical information (ie hometown,) which is pretty standard.
So first it was ‘written like Advert,’ (another tag that made was totally inappropriate) now it’s ‘closely connected’ citations (you know… infamous propaganda machines like The Wall Street Journal and the American Psychological Association [that’s sarcasm in case that’s not clear,]) and a COI tag even though there’s no clear evidence of a COI. You can’t just add tags because you have a ‘hunch’ about the motives of an SPA.
The other tags… needs more citations? Generally that tag is reserved for articles with many instances of [citation needed]. Which statements are disputed that they need citations? If that’s an issue, people can point out which claims are in question. But at quick glance, I don't see anything. Another unnecessary tag that could have been discussed on the Talk page. I mean do you wanna just copy and paste the entire contents of the Talk Page to the top of the article instead? That stuff is hidden intentionally so readers do't have to read all this crap for editors.
And this is why we let the community decide. Again, Wikipedia is not a dictatorship. I attempted to reach out to the community for consensus, but you seemingly don’t give two shits about our consensus. The proper thing to do would be to add a ‘general cleanup’ tag, then makes a section on the Talk page that states your opinion on any potential issues so people can discuss. Not Tag Bombing a relatively decent article with 6 tags.
Chrisvacc (talk) 15:15, 15 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
I highly suggest reversing those edits, as I’ve put in a dispute… and since you seem like a good quality editor who’s at least trying to edit in good faith, I’d rather not see you get in trouble or potentially have privileges in jeopardy for the WP:TAGBOMBING and WP:EDITWARING.
Chrisvacc (talk) 15:18, 15 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Again, WP:FOC. --Ronz (talk) 15:44, 15 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

Edit for those reading from the 'dispute' pages (whenever you get to this): On July 2019‎ Ronz made a string of edits deleting text and reversing people's edits from various parts of the article. The justification was that he didn't approve of the citations. The claims that were deleted were completely uncontroversial claims and rather than using the [citation needed] tag, he deleted entire paragraphs of text, none of which were controversial. For example the text His third book, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (2018), was written with Greg Lukianoff was deleted even though there's no reason to think that statement is controversial or untrue. But since he didnt approve of the citation, the sentence was deleted. The following was my original comment:

Again, focus on not vandalizing articles. If you disagree with a section, you use the [citation needed] tag, not just blanking out entire paragraphs. What do you do for a living? Because anyone who works in Academia knows that Haidt was the main researcher who did the research in those areas. It's common knowledge. https://___tu.be/q15eTySnWxc?t=3172 Deleting blocks of text is for when the text is unlikely to be true. NOT for when you feel it needs better citations. Anyone who works in Academia or Psychology knows about Haidt's research. It's like if someone posted "Albert Einstein developed the theory or relativity" and since you've never been into physics you blanked it out because you considered it a bad citation. No... you keep the text, and add a [citation needed] tag, rather than blanking out other people's work on uncontroversial statements.
I'm not arguing that it doesn't need proper citations, but blanking out entire sections is essentially vandalism, even if you feel your reasons are justified. Use [citation needed] for questioning citations.
WP:CITENEED
A "citation needed" tag is a request for another editor to verify a statement: a form of communication between members of a collaborative editing community.
WP:BURDEN
consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step.
Deleting blocks of text is for when that statement is unlikely to be true. Not because it needs additional verification.
WP:CITENEED
If the content is nonsense or is unlikely to be true, be bold and delete it!


Chrisvacc (talk) 23:58, 15 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Deleting blocks of text of for when a statement is unlikely to be true
You deleted the line:
His third book, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (2018), was written with Greg Lukianoff.
You could have spend four seconds on amazon seeing that that statement was true and adding a 'citation needed' tag rather than nitpicking about ledes.
I'm not going to WP:FOC... You're not making this article better. You're systematically destroying the content
Time for another escalation. I'm honestly concerned that you're doing this to other articles as well.
Chrisvacc (talk) 01:07, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

Please review WP:BLP. --Ronz (talk) 02:53, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

  3O Response: We have four tags, so I'll address them separately

1) A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. (May 2019) There has been ample opportunity for the person who put this in to provide their reasoing on this talk page, and none has been forthcoming. The editor with the alleged connection has disclosed that they have met the man, but I'm seeing no evidence that they have a close connection. Unless someone can explain why they think the editor in question has a close relationship with Haidt, the tag should be removed. It can't remain forever solely on the basis of an unfounded allegation.

2) This article needs more complete citations for verification. (July 2019). I'm not seeing this at all. the article is throroughly referenced. The references aren't very good but they are copious. I can't find any unreferenced claims in the current version. So in my opinion this tag should to be removed. We may not think the references are very good, and that will be discussed under the appropriate tag below, but I can't see how we can possibly claim that it lacks sufficient references.

3) This article has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality. (July 2019) This one I am actually going to remove myself . Per policy, the tag should be removed when "It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given". "The general types of problems this article has overall" is not a satisfactory explanation of what the issue is.

4)This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject, potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral. (July 2019) This one has to stay in my opinion. We have a lot of sources that are basically WP:ABOUTSELF or WP:PRIMARY. Book reviews, staff pages, interviews with the subject etc. These aren't disqualified sources, but they are indeed sources closely associated with the subject. This article desperately needs more third party biography material. Mark Marathon (talk) 09:06, 16 July 2019 (UTC) .Reply

Hey Mark, thanks for your input.
1) I believe the editor he's with a close connection referring to is not myself. I believe it was in reference to another editor who was using an SPA who was making edits a bit back. As far as I can tell it's Ethical user nyc
2) I think it just needs better references as opposed to more.
3) That was my tag. It didn't refer to it's current version, but a past version. Agree that it should be removed now.
4) Also agree, sources too closely associated with the subject should stay until the problems are resolved. I didn't see it at first, but now that I look through I do think this is the appropriate.
Chrisvacc (talk) 13:26, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
COI - [1]: COI? two SPA accounts contributed half of the article, one copying from Haidt's website Look at the article stats, and the articles about his books. Inexperienced, SPA editors dominate the editing. Sockpuppetry at the book articles. This looks like something more than fan-editing, not that fan-editing isn't a huge problem.
Refs - that's "more complete". You've both misread the tag. The referencing information is incomplete, making it difficult to review the quality of the references. I've demonstrated the needed work in the lede. The rest of the article needs the same. However, we've now major sections of the article without any sources at all, so a ref-improve tag.
I'm still digging into the article and sourcing, but the notability isn't very clear and my impression still is that the article is being used as a soapbox. --Ronz (talk) 15:49, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply






Citation cleanup July 2019 edit

Copy and Pasted from User_talk:Chrisvacc - discussion moves to Talk page

I ran across this article soon after it was created, as you can see in the edit history. I've not kept up with it, nor been involved with addressing the questionable editing around it.
Given our interactions so far, being "tongue in cheek" doesn't help, not that I think it an accurate description.
COI problems are touchy. I don't have enough evidence at this point to write up a COIN report. If you'll look a the editing history and page statistics, the potential coi-editors appear obvious to me: @Corianna:, @Ethical user nyc:. (Corianna hasn't edited in years. I'm awaiting a response from Ethical user nyc.) There are related accounts, and lots of SPA editing. Problems with the articles about Haidt's books appear worse, but I've only glanced at them, noticing the sockpuppetry which appears to be in check. --Ronz (talk) 16:30, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Well I'll open a new discussion on the Talk page and see what we can do about the citations.
Chrisvacc (talk) 16:53, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
For now:
The multiple issues tag was a good idea and I’m mad I didn’t even think of that.
So my thoughts Re: WP:BLP, I think we can work to find some good third party citations. But I also think most of the WP:BLP rules were made to avoid Libel and sensationalism. So to me, “The spirit of the rule trumps the letter of the rule” and WP:IAR. The spirit of those rules was to avoid sensationalist content. But I agree that if a statement is contentious, it should be deleted. Regarding some of the content in the article (ie Areas of Research and The Coddling of the American Mind,) we should just find better citations as The Coddling is a very popular book, and I believe is listed as a NYT Notable book.
May I ask, what were the issues you had with with the citations I provided? As far as I can tell they’re legitimate papers from psychology journals. But then again, I’m more used to writing papers than I am with Wikipedia’s citation policy. But those citations would have been appropriate. But regardless, we’ll find good citations for those as it will improve the article. The statement about to The Coddling has to be in there because there are three books, and taking it out makes it seem like the article hasn’t been updated in a few years, but I'm not sure how you would cite a book's existence other than just citing the book itself.
Thanks for the response
Re BLP - high quality sources are required. The rule here is that we're striving to create a serious encyclopedia. Use of Wikipedia for soapboxing and promotion undermine Wikipedia's main goal.
The new review for Coddling had criticisms and context that belong in the article for the book, which is a poor article almost certainly created by an undeclared paid editor. --Ronz (talk) 17:14, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
I haven't looked at the Coddling page yet. I'm talking about the deletion of the line His third book, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (2018), was written with Greg Lukianoff from the Intro. The claim is essentially that the book exists. I feel like the best way to cite it is simply the ISBN.
Chrisvacc (talk) 17:19, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. We're getting into discussion that belongs on the article talk page, so briefly:
That puts us into notability, lede, and weight issues.
He wrote a third book. Is it important enough that it deserves mention in the lede? As the articles about him and the book are now, I'm saying that it doesn't deserve mention (and is rather promotional for the book). --Ronz (talk) 18:16, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
I Absolutely think so. It was a New York Times bestseller and listed as Bloombergs #1 Book of the year:
https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/combined-print-and-e-book-nonfiction/2018/09/23
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-best-books/
The Best Books of 2018
Our annual list of what some of the most powerful people in finance were reading this year is heavy on the drawbacks of technology.
Technology has already infiltrated every human interaction, but 2018 may be remembered as the year we truly started to grapple with the consequences. So perhaps it's no surprise that when Bloomberg asked dozens of business leaders to name the best book they read this year, The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, received the most votes.
I'll copy and paste this discussion to the talk page
Chrisvacc (talk) 18:33, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
So Ronz - explain to me what you thought were wrong with those citations. Those were published papers from peer-reviewed academic journals. What was the issue exactly so I can track down better citations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrisvacc (talkcontribs) 22:19, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
I'm focusing on fixing the article as it is, to get the worst problems fixed. Forgive me if I don't recognize what you're referring to. Did I indicate problems with the citations? They're not about Haidt, but the book, so they should be used to expand the article about the book first. Then we should have a short summary in the article body of this article, focusing on those aspects important to Haidt and his notability. Afterwards, we should consider if it deserves mention in the lede. --Ronz (talk) 22:39, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

I mean these:

Moral disgust edit

Together with Paul Rozin and Clark McCauley, Haidt developed the Disgust Scale,[1] which has been widely used to measure individual differences in sensitivity to disgust. Haidt, Rozin, and McCauley have written on the psychology of disgust as an emotion that began as a guardian of the mouth (against pathogens), but then expanded during biological and cultural evolution to become a guardian of the body more generally, and of the social and moral order.[2]

References

  1. ^ "Individual Differences In Sensitivity To Disgust: A Scale Sampling Seven Domains Of Disgust Elicitors" (PDF). Personality and Individual Differences (Vol. 16, No 5): 7111–713. 1994. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(94)90212-7. Retrieved 15 July 2019. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
  2. ^ "Body, Psyche, and Culture: The Relationship Between Disgust and Morality". Psychology & Developing Societies. 9 (1): 107–131. 1997. doi:10.1177/097133369700900105.
For citation #1 the reference said:
We describe the development of a reliable measure of individual differences in disgust sensitivity. The 32-item Disgust Scale includes 2 true-false and 2 disgust-rating items for each of 7 domains of disgust elicitors (food, animals, body products, sex, body envelope violations, death. and hygiene) and for a domain of magical thinking (via similarity and contagion) that cuts across the 7 domains of elicitors.
Which shows them developing the Disgust Scale


Citation 2 said:
It was noted that disgust elicitors have expanded from food to the social order and have been found in many cultures. Expla nations for this expansion are provided in terms of embodied schemata, which refer to imaginative structures or patterns of experience that are based on bodily knowledge or sensation. A mechanism is suggested whereby disgust elicitors are viewed as a prototypically defined category involving many of the embodied schemata of disgust. It is argued that each culture draws upon these schemata and its social and moral life is based on them.
Which shows how the emotion of disgust was expanded from bodily disgust (pathogen-related) to moral and social disgust.

Social intuitionism edit

Haidt's principal line of research has been on the nature and mechanisms of moral judgment. In the 1990s, he developed the social intuitionist model, which posits that moral judgment is mostly based on automatic processes—moral intuitions—rather than on conscious reasoning[1]. People engage in reasoning largely to find evidence to support their initial intuitions. Haidt's main paper on the social intuitionist model, "The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail", has been cited 7,858 times.[2]

References

  1. ^ Liao, Matthew (2011). Liao S.M. (2011) Bias and Reasoning: Haidt’s Theory of Moral Judgment. Palgrave Macmillan, London. pp. pp 108-127. ISBN 978-0-230-30588-5. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  2. ^ "The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment". Psychological Review. 4 (108): 814–834. 2001. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.108.4.814. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
Citation 3 said:
Recently, however, some social psychologists have proposed that at least some of our moral judgments are the product of System 1 [emotional and intuitive]. In fact, some have even argued that moral judgments arise predominantly as a result of the intuitive process, and the purpose of reasoning appears not to generate moral judgments, but to provide a post hoc and biased basis for justification. In particular, in a series of work, Jonathan Haidt and his collaborators have defended the “Social Intuitionist Model” (SIM) of moral judgment (Haidt, 2001, 2007; Haidt and Bjorklund, 2007a, b). According to the SIM, moral judgments are initially the product of non-conscious automatic intuitive processing. Conscious reasoning then takes place and is typically occupied by the task of justifying whatever intuitions happen to be presented to the consciousness in a biased, non-truth-seeking way.
Citation 4 is a little trickier
With Citation 4 the claim is that The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail", has been cited 7,858. Whenever you Google an article it shows how many times that paper has been cited, which lists 7,858. The only place that I know of that lists the amount of citations that a paper has is Google Scholar, up top saying About 7,960 results (0.02 sec)
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?client=safari&rls=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&lr&cites=3529263710426969516
So I'm up for suggestions for the proper way to cite that claim.
Chrisvacc (talk) 23:22, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Independent sources are required to avoid SOAP and POV problems.
That leaves the Liao ref.
Do you realize that you were the one that removed it here? --Ronz (talk) 23:44, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Yea but those are peer reviewed academic journals. I feel like that has to be an exception. Do you have a link to a precedent or policy page about articles written in Peer Reviewed journals, because I feel like real journals are a little different. Peer Review Those papers are subject to so much scrutiny and review that I think a different set of rules needs to be used. Other highly respected academics have to scrutinize almost everything in those papers. The scrutiny applied to academic papers is significatly more advanced than even Wikipedia.
WP:SELFPUBLISH
Anyone can create a personal web page or publish their own book, and also claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published media, or user-generated sources, such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), content farms, Internet forum postings, and social media postings, are largely not acceptable as sources. Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.[8] Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent reliable sources.[10] Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer.
Anyone can create a blog or webpage, but not anyone can publish in a Journal
I don't think this applies to Academic Journals, which is why it isn't mentioned under Self-Published sources.
Re, The Coddling ref, I forgot what I did, but you did that before I did:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jonathan_Haidt&type=revision&diff=906424213&oldid=906248900
but put it back if you'd like.
Chrisvacc (talk) 03:27, 17 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
I didn't remove the refs, so the diff seems misleading at best.
Do you see any similar content in Steven Pinker, similarly referenced? --Ronz (talk) 03:38, 17 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
I edited my last post and added something, but I'll take a look at Pinker's article. Chrisvacc (talk) 03:44, 17 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Looking quickly at the Pinker article under the Research and Theory section almost 50% of the refs are similar to that.
Chrisvacc (talk) 03:57, 17 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
I'm gonna have to be scarce for a little bit as I'm checking out Musk's Neuralink announcement https://www.videosite.com/watch?v=r-vbh3t7WVI&
Chrisvacc (talk) 03:57, 17 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Please don't change your comments after someone has responded per WP:TALK.
almost 50% of the refs are similar to that Then it might be a good guideline to keep a similar ratio. My rule of thumb is to only use primary sources to expand upon important information identified in independent sources. --Ronz (talk) 16:11, 17 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Please don't change your comments after someone has responded
I didn't mean to. I was adding something and after I hit 'submit' I saw you had replied. Chrisvacc (talk) 20:32, 17 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
and will do re: primary sources. I'm gonna add those for now and I'll see what independent sources we can find. Chrisvacc (talk) 21:08, 17 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
I think the body desperately needs some information regarding the books. All it has is that crappy section about the Elephant/Rider metaphor. Also want to do a Criticism section. I wanna get this up to WP:GA standards Chrisvacc (talk) 18:14, 18 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Generally speaking, criticism sections aren't considered a good way to arrange critical opinions (see WP:CSECTION for explanations as to why.) There's a lot of problems with them - first, they imply editorial judgment on the part of editors ("this commentary on this book seems critical to me, so I'll put it in the criticism section instead of the book's section.") It also prejudices readers in a way that isn't necessarily based on the sources - eg. if we have a source saying "they're wrong about X", putting it in the criticism section is inherently dismissing it as a critical / hostile view rather than an object commentator (or, at least, as objective as anyone can reasonably be), whereas potentially self-serving or supportive statements, outside the section, get portrayed as neutral and objective. Second, critical coverage is best placed in the appropriate place in the article - supposing you have eg. a section on the subject's views which reads "They said X. Scholars A, B, and C said that this was nonsense and they had it wrong, and that Y was true instead." Separating those out into a separate section inappropriately makes it look like their original claim of X is uncontested. Third, criticism sections can become a dumping ground for criticism and opinion-pieces and the like that isn't really high-profile or relevant - the existence of such a section encourages people to "fill it out", which isn't always the right approach. --Aquillion (talk) 01:10, 19 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Yea, I decided after posting to this that maybe just filling out the "Reception" section is a little better. Thanks for your help on this article by the way. Feel free to weigh in on any of the other discussions we're having as a third set of eyes is definitely helpful for cleaning up this article. Chrisvacc (talk) 01:23, 19 July 2019 (UTC)Reply


@Ronz:@Tsavage: The following claim needs a better citation:

Since 2012, Haidt has referred to himself as a political centrist.[1][better source needed]

I found a tweet where he states his political beliefs: https://twitter.com/jonhaidt/status/955920434792419328?lang=en

From the tweet: "I have never been right of center. I have never voted for a republican, nor given a dollar to a conservative candidate or cause. I am a centrist, a JS Mill liberal, who is now politically homeless."

I do believe that citing that is fine as per Wikipedia's [Self Publishing Policy]:

Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as the following criteria are met: 1. The material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim. 2. It does not involve claims about third parties (such as people, organizations, or other entities). 3. It does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject. 4. There is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity. 5. The article is not based primarily on such sources. Chrisvacc (talk) 15:29, 21 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

References

  1. ^ Weiss, Bari (April 1, 2017). "Jonathan Haidt on The Cultural Roots of Campus Rage". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 7, 2017.

Books section edit

I added a section for the books. Maybe Ronz you can to check through them and see if any claims need citations other than the ones I noted.

There are a number of primary sources but, I wanted to make a note about about primary sources… and I can find the policy page for this if needed i'd just have to dig... but okay, so when you’re citing someone’s claims, it’s best practice to reference the place where they made such claims.

For example If the claim was “Timmy claimed the sky is green” the citation could be the article where you see Timmy saying “the sky is green.”

Now if you’re trying to say “the sky is green”.. as an actual fact, not claiming that “timmy says the sky is green”… the claim “the sky is green” needs independent sources varifying that ‘fact.’

In other words, a citation is proof of a claim. The claim “timmy says the sky is green” can be proven by showing the article where he said that. The claim “the sky is green” would have to be backed up by a physics article, if that makes sense.

In other other words, if the claim is that “Haidt and Lukianoff argue that the culture on campus is contributing to mental health issues” the appropriate citation is the an article where you can see they actually argue that, which is usually primary. If the claim is “he culture on campus is contributing to mental health issues” you would have to link to independent sources showing that that’s actually a fact, which is better to use someone other than the subject of the article, if that makes sense

Again, if you need the link to this article talking about this I can find it, but I’d probably have to dig.

But anyway, check out the section I added and let me know what you think. Chrisvacc (talk) 21:50, 18 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

I'm afraid it's exactly what's been wrong with the article all along: grossly undue and promotional. The proper appropach is to briefly summarize the related articles, focusing on how they are important to Haidt.
Look at the Pinker article. There is a rather large (I'd say too large) section on Pinker's book, but then Pinker's book is far more noteworthy than all of Haidt's. Again, work on the related articles first, then summarize. --Ronz (talk) 22:07, 18 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Hmm.. I used other WP:GA psychology articles as templates for them, for instance: George_Armitage_Miller#Books, Irving_Gottesman#Books
I mean you can take them out for now if you'd like, or i can see if I can trim them down, but I don't think it deviates too far from other WP:GA articles with Books sections
Haidt's accomplishments aren't comparable. --Ronz (talk) 01:05, 19 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
I just looked up the citations for George A Miller and he has an h-index of 52, and Irving I. Gottesman is 86... similiar to Haidt's 83 citation index
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=kTxgdwgAAAAJ&hl=en
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22George+A+Miller%22+%22h-index%22
they look similarly comparable, but i'm open to opposing arguments
@Aquillion: - thoughts? Chrisvacc (talk) 01:26, 19 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
If you cant find independent sources demonstrating encyclopedic worth, please drop it. --Ronz (talk) 16:02, 19 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
The issue here is proportional weight (WP:PROPORTION), in other words, not emphasizing an aspect of the subject, such as by length or depth of coverage, so as to give the impression of greater overall importance to the article's subject than one would one would conclude after reading all of the reliable sources on the subject. This works most easily on evidence-based items, like scientific studies: minor studies shouldn't be made to appear of equal weight to major studies, and this can be assessed by looking at, for example, number of citations and impact of journal published in.
Applying proportional weight to book coverage in the author's article is the same principle, but there's no hard metric. It's common sense and a matter of opinion. If a book has its own article, repeating most of that coverage in the author's article is hard to argue for (but that's more about redundancy and readability than weight). More minor differences like one paragraph or three is really individual opinion. If a dispute leads to some sort of request for input from other editors, it comes down to the prevailing group opinion of whomever shows up.
In this case, single paragraph book summaries seem right to me, all three books are clearly significant events in the subject's career and have their own articles. As a reader, I wouldn't want to see very much on each here since there are main article links -- stopping too long on one item affects ease of reading. But that's just my opinion. The current length may be just fine to others, and is not necessarily excessive; I don't feel the books are more important because they have a few more sentences written about them. In the end, it is about each editor's opinion and interpretation of the rules. There is no real precedent in Wikipedia, it's case by case. Common sense and compromise. --Tsavage (talk) 17:06, 19 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Will do Chrisvacc (talk) 18:36, 19 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Changed to a single paragraph summary. The Elephant/Rider metaphor was it's own section, but definitely didn't need to be. Chrisvacc (talk) 18:43, 19 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Re: notability.. I think it's hard to say. I mean to me, his more academic work is what he's notable for, but much of what I do is has to do with Academia. I do believe his books directed at a lay audiences were pretty popular as well though. Righteous Mind was listed as one of the top books of the year by a number of reputable psychological associations. British Psychological Society for one: http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.de/2012/12/the-best-psychology-books-of-2012.html, The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/30/best-psychology-books-of-2012, and was a NYT best seller. Same with The Coddling of the American Mind... NYT Bestseller, Bloomberg Best Book of 2018. Happiness Hypothesis wasn't as popular to my knowledge because it was early work. You guys don't think that constitutes as notable? I mean I agree that his academic work is what he's more known for, but in the public arena, i think the books are Notable. There has to be an objective way of determining notability. Perhaps google search volume or Twitter trends. But regardless, I think the one paragraph summary is okay. I did think the section on the moral differences between the Right and the Left was important, but perhaps that's best reserved for another section. Chrisvacc (talk) 19:11, 19 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Jeez Ronz, you were right. That Heterodox page is a complete shitshow. This edit history is brutal.Chrisvacc (talk) 20:51, 19 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Tsavage what do you think of how I have it? I just put one paragraph for all the books, of do you think it's appropriate to have one paragraph per book. Chrisvacc (talk) 20:56, 19 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Chrisvacc: Seems fine. Things often get changed anyway. In my opinion, write while imagining yourself as the reader. It sounds obvious, but on Wikipedia, that often seems to get overlooked. I came to this article as a reader looking for a basic bio of Haidt, and stayed to edit because of the article tags. As a WP user, ideally, I get all the main details from the lead, and then often jump to specific areas using the table of contents, rather than reading the whole article. If the ToC isn't straightforward, OR if the main content consists of huge blocks of detail where there are Main article links, that's annoying. Not finding (complete) citations is also annoying, because that's how I quickly judge reliability. When editing, I try not to create such annoyances. That covers a lot of core policy without having to think about it: appropriate weight/proportion, verifiability, reliable sourcing, and most of no original research (eg: "His most acclaimed work..." -- Really?... I can check the source). --Tsavage (talk) 03:42, 20 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
@Tsavage: Ronz and I have been in the midst of a discussion about whether The Coddling of the American Mind deserves mention in the lede. I think it deserves note. It was a NYT bestseller, and voted as Bloombergs #1 book of the year. I think The Coddling is actually the most popular of all his books, but I can look up sales figured if needed.
By the way, I think the lede definitely needs work. Haidt is far more notable for his scientific contributions than he is for his books for general audiences, yet the lede seems to jump right into the books as if they're his most notable work. Soapboxing? Chrisvacc (talk) 13:49, 20 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Yes, the lede seems a hodgepodge of info thrown together.
"Coddling" was added here. Not the most blatant soapboxing. At least it was added after publication. --Ronz (talk) 14:50, 20 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Yea, after looking at the Heterodox page, I see what you're saying about the Soapboxing stuff. Seems like it could be def paid editing. But one thing to note is that Haidt is no longer Affiliated with Heterodox. He stepped down I believe a year ago. Chrisvacc (talk) 15:20, 20 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Chrisvacc Haidt is prominent and public in a fairly specialized area. He's written three books in 12 years. I would want to see all three in the intro. Note the difference between notability, which applies to articles, and noteworthiness, which applies to content in articles. The bar is not so high on inclusion of reliably sourced items in an article, it mostly comes down to the opinion of editors, as to what constitutes due weight and proportional coverage. Wikipedia noteworthiness is sometimes argued using notability standards, which can become unhelpful. In my opinion, the first test is, is this something a reader would want to find in a summary; how much coverage it received is not the salient issue. --Tsavage (talk) 16:46, 20 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

I added a section on scientific contributions in the lede. Haidt is much more notable for his work on moral foundations theory than he is on his books. While I think his books (esp Righteous Mind and Coddling) are notable, they're not as much what he's known for. I think with the work we've done it might be okay to remove this tags:

A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. (May 2019)

Ronz has purged most of the non independent citations. I think it's in pretty good shape now. We're just going to have to watch this page. If it becomes more of a problem maybe we can request it be semi-protected. I don't think it will be though. It looks like most of the SPA edits were coming from Heterodox, and Haidt no longer has affiliation with them. It looks like those edits were made back when he was the president of Heterodox.

Thoughts? Chrisvacc (talk) 15:52, 25 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

Ronz do you have any other suggestions for how to improve the article? Chrisvacc (talk) 16:02, 25 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
It's much improved. Thanks.
There's still reference cleanup to do (refs missing authors, publication date, etc)
There's still borderline soapboxing: repeatedly losing sight that this article is about the person.
The lede seems too long.
Where's the verification for "Haidt's research on morality has led to publications and theoretical advances in four key areas"?
No tenure? What's his position at Stern? --Ronz (talk) 20:40, 25 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Well I took care of these to some extent:
There's still borderline soapboxing: repeatedly losing sight that this article is about the person.
Trimmed redundant references to books
The lede seems too long.
cut a little redundancy out
Where's the verification for "Haidt's research on morality has led to publications and theoretical advances in four key areas"?
this is a tough one, but i feel like the citations throughout that section cover it... not sure how else to cite the alleged impact it had
scratch that.. found one
No tenure? What's his position at Stern?
added.. can't find citation on tenure though
probably not perfect but it's a bit better Chrisvacc (talk) 02:57, 26 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

Revisted article after a few days -- hugely improved. From the reader's view that I originally came to it with, adding the summary of Haidt's scientific contributions to the intro, and adding a citation to "publications and theoretical advances in four key areas" in "Research contributions" make a critical difference, they were the main flags when I first read the article -- what he does and what he's known for are now easy to find and check into. No article tags is also a big plus. :) --Tsavage (talk) 16:53, 26 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

Awesome. Glad we were able to improve it. --Chrisvacc (talk) 05:53, 27 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

Since this page is about Jonathan Haidt, as a person, I think it may also be helpful to add some more information about his upbringing. There is only one sentence on that within this article. His works/books and contributions are important, and I think learning more about his past will help these other sections become better understood. Lmesch (talk) 05:11, 4 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Reception section edit

I feel that the "Reception" section is unduly negative about Haidt, but I'm unsure the best way to proceed so I wanted to get other editors' thoughts. Basically, aside from the award he received, which should probably be in a separate "Recognition" section along with other honors, there are three negative items and one response from Haidt. On the other hand, if we look at the pages for each of his three books, the reviews are positive on balance.

If nobody objects, I'd like to make one paragraph for each book and list who gave positive and negative reviews of them based on the "Reception" sections on their pages. I wouldn't go into any depth on what exactly their praise and criticism was aimed at. Then the existing critiques could join those paragraphs—the first one with The Happiness Hypothesis and the other two with The Righteous Mind. On the other hand, if people feel that reception of the individual books doesn't belong on this page, I think the existing material should be moved to the pages for the respective books and the section should be turned into a "Recognition" section for the award he received. Gazelle55 (talk) 23:29, 15 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

I object. This article is about the person, not his books.
Yes, the Reception section needs a rewrite though. --Ronz (talk) 02:43, 16 October 2019 (UTC)Reply
Ronz, that makes sense. I'll see what I can find that is about him more generally. That said, the three items currently there are book reviews so this would mean starting from scratch or else using book reviews without referencing the books per se. Gazelle55 (talk) 23:21, 16 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

Selected Publications edit

Given the past problems identified in the discussions above, and the requirements of WP:BLP, it might be helpful to have some general inclusion criteria for everything in the Publications section. For books, the common criteria should be fine: a corresponding Wikipedia article, or an independent source demonstrating its importance. I've not taken much part in discussions on inclusion criteria for research articles, but I'd expect impact factor to be useful. --Hipal (talk) 19:34, 20 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Looking at the previous discussion, it is unclear to me why any books written by the subject of a biography article that meets the requirements of WP:AUTHOR or WP:ACADEMIC should be excluded from a list in a bibliography section on that article. As far as I am aware, I don't believe there is any criteria for inclusion in a bibliography section of a biography article other than that the books and articles that are included are authored or edited by the subject of the article. Considering the definition of a bibliography, it's unclear why there would be any other criteria. While WP:SOAP has been invoked to claim that opinion pieces cannot be included, the policy is actually a proscription against Wikipedia articles themselves being opinion pieces. After all, if the subject of a biography article is a columnist or a commentator for a major newspaper or magazine that meets the requirements of WP:AUTHOR, why wouldn't opinion pieces that they wrote be included in a bibliography section of their article especially if those pieces were widely read and circulated? Likewise, WP:NB is about the notability requirements for a book to have a Wikipedia article, not inclusion criteria in a bibliography section on a biography article about the book's author. While I readily concede that there could be an issue on biography articles in general with a bibliography section getting too long, but a bibliography article would just be created at that point.
As far as the bibliography section of Haidt's article is concerned, I don't see how that could be an issue with Haidt's books since only 4 books he has either written or edited have been published. As for Haidt's 2024 book, WP:NB and WP:CRYSTALBALL do not preclude inclusion of content about not-yet-published books or not-yet-available products and actually recommends including content about not-yet-published books in biography articles about the author rather than creating separate articles about them until there is more encyclopedic knowledge about the book itself available in independent sources (like product announcements generally being included in articles about the product's creator). As opposed to the other two books Haidt has listed on his website as being under contract with a publisher, his 2024 book is scheduled to be available for purchase next month on Amazon and so its inclusion would not violate WP:CRYSTALBALL. As for Haidt's articles, since he's co-written more than 100 academic articles and many opinion columns, a "Selected articles" subsection is defensible provided that there are quantitative parameters available. I think a threshold impact factor or citation count for the academic articles is fine. As for the opinion columns, I think some quantitative metric of how widely read or circulated the article has been as a threshold should be required but I'm not sure what metrics would be appropriate for that. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:10, 21 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the response. We seem to agree on "Selected articles" for the most part. Are you aware of any Wikipedia articles or other guidance on how to choose and follow an appropriate inclusion criteria?
Opinion columns should be treated differently. I'd rather remove all of them, unless there's very strong evidence they're important.
We disagree on how SOAP is interpreted. I believe ArbCom has made it clear that it's not limited to just articles themselves.
As for books: Are you aware of any general consensus that we could follow? I was just suggesting a general inclusion criteria, not something specific for a bibliography. I just want to keep the fans and anti-fans from creating problems here. --Hipal (talk) 17:32, 21 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Opinion columns should be treated differently. I'd rather remove all of them, unless there's very strong evidence they're important. We disagree on how SOAP is interpreted. I believe ArbCom has made it clear that it's not limited to just articles themselves. If the Arbitration Committee has made decisions on that, then the subsection on "Biased or opinionated sources" on the WP:RS policy page and the secondary subsection on "Bias in sources" on the WP:NPOV policy page need be revised to reflect that. The subsection on WP:RS explicitly states that "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. ... Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context." The secondary subsection on WP:NPOV states: "biased sources are not inherently disallowed based on bias alone, although other aspects of the source may make it invalid."
WP:RS prohibits self-published sources in general except as references to themselves and in articles about themselves. An opinion piece is reflective of what it's author thinks, and if self-published sources are permissible for referencing themselves, it is unclear why an opinion piece published by a third party would not be permissible in a Wikipedia article about the opinion piece's author if self-published sources are permissible for that purpose. As for WP:SOAP, that's part of the larger WP:NOT policy, the full title of which is "What Wikipedia is not", so in light of the WP:RS and WP:NPOV policies, it's unclear to me why the Arbitration Committee would come to such a conclusion. If you can point me towards a specific decision of the Committee, then fine, but I'd still reiterate that the policy pages don't reflect those decisions.
We seem to agree on "Selected articles" for the most part. Are you aware of any Wikipedia articles or other guidance on how to choose and follow an appropriate inclusion criteria? ... As for books: Are you aware of any general consensus that we could follow? I was just suggesting a general inclusion criteria, not something specific for a bibliography. I just want to keep the fans and anti-fans from creating problems here. Keeping fans and anti-fans from creating problems is a perfectly defensible concern, but I'm afraid I'm unaware of any such criteria. Like WP:NB, the criteria on WP:AUTHOR and WP:ACADEMIC are for the notability of the author or academic rather than for articles that they've written. Perhaps we should start identifying which academic articles Haidt has written that have the highest impact factors or citation counts and which are the lowest, and then make a judgment as to what the acceptable threshold should be for how many other articles should be included. As for the books, I would reiterate what I said before and that WP:NB is about inclusion of a Wikipedia article about the book. Per his website, the 3 books that he has written or co-written have been published, 1 is soon to be published, and the books that he has edited or co-edited should be included, but I don't think the excerpts of his books that have been published separately should necessarily be mentioned. That's unnecessary. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:41, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'm concerned we may be talking past each other. I asked about general consensus that we can follow. I'm assuming you don't know of any. I don't either. Let's move on then.
Could you make a proposal on what we include with a brief summary as to why? --Hipal (talk) 01:38, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Could you make a proposal on what we include with a brief summary as to why? I'm not sure what else there is for me to say. I propose including all books written or edited minus those that are excerpts of previous books because an author's bibliography should include all books that the person has written or edited while excerpts of previous books are duplicative. Books are more substantial than articles, and academics don't typically write as many books as articles in their professional careers. As such, restrictive criteria based on impact factors or citation counts for academic articles is appropriate.
I'm concerned we may be talking past each other. I asked about general consensus that we can follow. I'm assuming you don't know of any. I don't either. Let's move on then. Why do you feel we are talking past each other? Feel free to throw the things I've said back in my face to make your case. :) I'm not trying to belabor my points and I'm trying to be as courteous, respectful, and as generous and understanding of your point of view as I can, but I'm also trying to be clear that what I've already said is what I sincerely think should be done. In the absence of a general consensus on some talk page discussion, I'd just argue for following the content and manual of style policies as they're written and without applications wider than the policies explicitly require until and unless the policies are updated to reflect specific Arbitration Committee decisions or decisions of whatever content or MoS policy committees have jurisdiction over the policies. As a side-note, I would add that I was always under the impression that the Arbitration Committee's decisions were over conduct policy disputes rather than disputes over content policy decisions. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:22, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia articles are not resumes. I've seen many examples where bibliographies are trimmed, along the lines I've already given. Since neither of us are aware of general consensus on the matter, the I'll take some time to look.

Addressing WP:AUTHOR, WP:ACADEMIC, and WP:NB: The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic may have its own article. Content policies include NOT.

WP:CRYSTALBALL states Individual scheduled or expected future events should be included only if the event is notable and almost certain to take place. --Hipal (talk) 19:42, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

I don't dispute that Wikipedia articles are not resumés, but I'm guessing you disagree with my previous comments? -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 21:16, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Since we are talking about a psychologist, I suggest that you consider The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two, and not try to reduce the list of any category (e.g., books) until the existing list for that type is at least 7±2 long. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:26, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply