Category talk:Academics

message: Hi all -- there is a new CFD discussing this issue at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_November_28#Academics_categories CFD 11/28.  I'm posting notice here; if that discussion closes without consensus perhaps we can arrive at a good solution here & go back to CFD when we have consensus. The relevant facts:
* Academics are employed at universities/colleges; they have both teaching and scholarship/research duties
* Some people who teach at universities do not also have scholarship/research duties; adjuncts and lecturers, for instance; these may or may not be considered academics by everyone. 
* Some people who have scholarship/research duties at universities do not also have teaching responsibilities; fellows, for instance; these may or may not be considered academics by everyone.
* Other folks work at academic institutions who have neither teaching nor scholarship duties; e.g., academic administrators, provosts, chancellors, etc.; these may or may not be considered academics by everyone.  
* Some fields are particularly prone to have scholars who are in practice and not in academia, or who go back and forth; Legal scholarship (I recently nominated to rename :Category:Legal academics into :Category:Legal scholars) and journalism for instance (I tried to get :Category:Journalism academics renamed to :Category:Journalism scholars, seeing that it had similar issues as legal scholars, but that nomination didn't make consensus.) 
* We have two subject breakdowns, largely non-overlapping -- :Category:Scholars by subject and :Category:Academics by subject
* :Category:Scientists are yet another category: Academic scientists usually have teaching duties.
* Since some scholars go in and out of academia, if we have two separate trees for academics & scholars, those scholars logically would have both.
Some things that are more my opinions than facts:
* It is my belief that most academics are known for their scholarship, not their teaching; this is true for academic scientists and most other fields of academia.
* Teachers and educators have a category tree (:Category:Educators) of which :Category:Academics is a subcat. 
* It is my belief that maintaining two category trees for each subject to accommodate :Category:Scholars in that subject and :Category:Academics separately is confusing to WP readers looking for the "scholarly experts" in that field who won't know to go to both categories.
* I think that we can clean this up considerably if we maintain :Category:Scholars and :Category:Scientists for people who known for their scholarship/research in the field; :Category:Teachers for people who are known for their teaching in particular fields (there are plenty of academics who win teaching awards and they should have teacher categories);  and :Category:Academics should exist but largely contain (a) academic administrator categories; (b) university faculty categories; and (c) links to scholars & teachers. 
Thoughts? --Lquilter (talk) 01:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Six years later and we still have no solution. I just happened to see this after posting this. XOttawahitech (talk) 15:04, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  academics, scholars, and teachers 

message: Johnbod proposed a solution for :Category:Journalism academics that I believe could work well here as well: :Category:Scholars and academics.  Including both terms in the overall category name has the following benefits: 
# it is in accord with :Category:Lists of scholars and academics (already existing);
# it still permits subcategorization of academic-specific categories such as :Category:Academics by university (the various university faculty cats), :Category:University and college presidents, and so on;
# it is more accurate for the categories such as :Category:Members of learned societies which often include a mix of academic and non-academic members; 
# it will permit simple categorization of the many scholars/academics subjects in which there are a substantial number of practitioners who do scholarship or academics who practice, such as law, journalism, medicine, etc.
# by capturing both scholars & academics, it recognizes that wikipedia editors frequently use these closely-related terms synonymously;
# by capturing both scholars & academics, it recognizes that wikipedia editors sometimes think it important to explicitly distinguish someone as "academic" or a (impliedly non-academic) "scholar";  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lquilter (talk • contribs) 03:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: proposal

message: i think there are only two main categories for all five of them: scientists and educators.in :Category:Scientists, all academics, scholars and scientists can be listed. for those whoever contributed to their fields. therefore, we need those new subcategories:
* :Category:International relations scientists
* :Category:Engineering scientists
* :Category:Engineering scientists by subject
* etc.
in "scientists by subject" category. These subcategories use "academics" or "scholars" as a last word in stead of "scientists".
other academics and scholars who have been full time academics in universities should be listed in the educators category. but not in the teachers category. teacher means and educators who practices in K12 schools. therefore academics are not teachers. in education sciences, people who practice education in universities in an "academic" understanding are called Higher Education Professional. Therefore I suggest :Category:Higher education professionals as a subcategory in educators category and create another subcategory :Category:Higher education professionals by subject, :Category:Higher education professionals by nationality etc. within :Category:Higher education professionals
As aresult, in a neat and beautiful way of classification wich is meaningful and consistent with the education science literature will be achieved. therefore:
* :Category:Higher education professionals
* :Category:Higher education professionals by subject
are needed.
regards.
--Polysynaptic (talk) 14:37, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: academics, scholars, teachers, educators, scientists