Talk:Nicholas Wade

message: Should this article mention that Nicholas Wade is the grandson of Lawrence Beesley, a survivor of the sinking of the Titanic? --Animalparty! (talk) 18:18, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: That quote is referring to detailing someone’s genealogy. We aren’t talking about distant ancestors here. This is a member of what I would call his immediate family. Thriley (talk) 22:25, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Immediate family is usually parents and their children, at least as I understand it. But let's not get bogged down in definition. If all we can say is "X was the grandfather" and (a bit of COATRACK, since this is not an article about the grandfather) "X was on the Titanic", then this is nothing more than relative trivia, and provides no otherwise pertinent information to the reader (I've already tried to think up of many examples in which way this link could be noteworthy: neither of them seem to fit the situation here). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs)  23:29, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  Here is a 7 minute video of Wade commenting on his grandfather, produced for The Economist, which mean The Economist is highlighting this aspect. And although I can't seem to find the audio, Wade was interviewed in a 2012 radio program on WAMC, a program which also featured Daniel Allen Butler, Bob Ballard, and Hampton Sides, all speaking on various aspects of the Titanic. While unfortunately I can't verify the context, this and The Economist video give at least some additional credence to the idea that Wade's grandfather is a known and noteworthy facet of Wade's public image, albeit a lesser one. And again, he has written of his grandfather several times. It's not entirely irrelevant trivia like his dog's name or favorite ice cream flavor. --Animalparty! (talk) 00:19, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

text: The parents are named in Wade's Contemporary Authors entry, but I am somewhat ambivalent as to whether they need to be named in this article. Style wise, I think that mentioning parents, with mother's maiden name, leads more naturally to a mention of the grandfather. But given the resistance to including a notable grandfather, I figure one step at a time for now. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:03, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

text: . Beats me. I cleared a lot of detritus from my watchlist a while back. I wouldn't dare close this myself lest someone bite my head off because sub-clause F-87 of the Wiki rulebook wasn't followed exactly. --Animalparty! (talk) 06:26, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  RfC about grandfather 

message: *Yes. It's an innocuous fact and improves the article. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:20, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: That quote is referring to detailing someone’s genealogy. We aren’t talking about distant ancestors here. This is a member of what I would call his immediate family. Thriley (talk) 22:25, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Immediate family is usually parents and their children, at least as I understand it. But let's not get bogged down in definition. If all we can say is "X was the grandfather" and (a bit of COATRACK, since this is not an article about the grandfather) "X was on the Titanic", then this is nothing more than relative trivia, and provides no otherwise pertinent information to the reader (I've already tried to think up of many examples in which way this link could be noteworthy: neither of them seem to fit the situation here). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs)  23:29, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  Here is a 7 minute video of Wade commenting on his grandfather, produced for The Economist, which mean The Economist is highlighting this aspect. And although I can't seem to find the audio, Wade was interviewed in a 2012 radio program on WAMC, a program which also featured Daniel Allen Butler, Bob Ballard, and Hampton Sides, all speaking on various aspects of the Titanic. While unfortunately I can't verify the context, this and The Economist video give at least some additional credence to the idea that Wade's grandfather is a known and noteworthy facet of Wade's public image, albeit a lesser one. And again, he has written of his grandfather several times. It's not entirely irrelevant trivia like his dog's name or favorite ice cream flavor. --Animalparty! (talk) 00:19, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Survey 

message: * Comment a diff demonstrating the change is .  It seems odd to mention his grandfather while not mentioning either of his parents. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 18:50, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The parents are named in Wade's Contemporary Authors entry, but I am somewhat ambivalent as to whether they need to be named in this article. Style wise, I think that mentioning parents, with mother's maiden name, leads more naturally to a mention of the grandfather. But given the resistance to including a notable grandfather, I figure one step at a time for now. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:03, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: . Beats me. I cleared a lot of detritus from my watchlist a while back. I wouldn't dare close this myself lest someone bite my head off because sub-clause F-87 of the Wiki rulebook wasn't followed exactly. --Animalparty! (talk) 06:26, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion 

message: @Generalrelative: I fail to see how the current lead is a fair reflection of the subject and their career as a science writer. I added the notably award winning work as a first step in addressing this imbalance. Nicholas Wade is 81 years old. His first lead 'controversy' is from 2014, by which point he was already 72, so the lead basically breezes over his first 50 years as a science writer - not naming a single one of his notable works, not least Before the Dawn (book) (the one I added), which has its own GA page - to focus on a single notable book and a single less-notable article that caused some controversy. As it stands, the lead doesn't just include significant controversies, per MOS:LEAD, but is mostly that. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:20, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I respectfully disagree with your (implicit) reading of WP:NPOV here. This edit added more characters about a minor award for which no WP:SECONDARY sources have been provided than about either of the major controversies for which Wade is primarily known. It's fine to include a mention of this award in the article body, but it's a profound misreading of P&G to claim that we're required to scrape the bottom of the barrel like that to ensure that we say nice things about him. As I'm sure you know, Wikipedia articles are meant to summarize reliable secondary sources in WP:DUE proportion. Which means that if the vast majority of the secondary coverage this person has received is critical or discusses criticism of his work, the article as a whole has to reflect that, as does the lead. Regardless of what he got up to in his early career (which we do summarize in the lead's first paragraph), what Wade is most notable for is pushing unsubstantiated / WP:FRINGE ideas, most egregiously in his book A Troublesome Inheritance. It's a shame for him but it is what it is. Generalrelative (talk) 05:40, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not scraping any barrel. It's a notable award, with its own page, but ok, fair enough, scratch that ... how about a mention at least of the notable work, with its own GA page, that won the award (without mentioning the award)? I stand by my view that it's frankly ridiculous to have three lines in the lead on his first 50 years of activity. It also flies in the face of balance with respect to the balance of contents on the page itself, which is about 40% his early life and career, 40% troublesome inheritance, and 20% the Covid stuff. The lead, after the opening sentence, gives about 25 words to his first 70 years of life, 25 words to troublesome inheritance, and 40 words to Covid - the latter overemphasis being one that frankly smacks of WP:NEWS. Wade may be flawed, but this is indeed not neutral. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:59, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I appreciate your willingness to compromise. My understanding, however, is that NPOV requires us to apportion our coverage in proportion to how much coverage is given in reliable WP:SECONDARY sources. I was just now going over the article Before the Dawn (book), which did indeed receive GA status 10 years ago but has a lot of problems still, including very few such reliable secondary sources. Many of the "reviews" quoted there are either just blurbs or are written by journalists (or worse). Actual biological anthropologists, publishing an actual review in Nature, tore it to shreds. So I'm really not convinced that the book is super significant. Can you show me any secondary coverage of the award which would indicate that it's considered noteworthy by anyone other than the issuing organization? Regarding the COVID stuff, I'm not especially attached to it either, but I do think it's notable enough to remain in the lead, and if we mention it we need to mention that it's a minority view among scientists. My main concern, however, is that we don't bury the main thing for which Wade is actually known, the fact that an unprecedented 143 senior subject-matter experts signed a letter condemning his misrepresentation of their work. That is the one thing that is genuinely unique about this individual. We must not do our readers the disservice of burying that fact beneath a facade of niceties. Generalrelative (talk) 06:40, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

text: Update: I saw that a consensus was achieved a while back to switch to a slightly shorter version of the COVID language (see Talk:Nicholas Wade/Archive 5). Not sure when / why it was reverted but I restored that version. So at least that's marginally shorter now. Generalrelative (talk) 07:03, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism-heavy lead