Talk:Carlo Semenza (neuroscientist)

Requested move 8 January 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Moved. Carlo Semenza to become DAB page. (non-admin closure)  Vpab15 (talk) 15:38, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Carlo Semenza → Carlo Semenza (neuroscientist) – Carlo Semenza should be a WP:Disambiguation page. it:Carlo Semenza is about the dam builder and engineer (pls create Carlo Semenza (engineer) while you're at it). 2003:C8:4714:600:20F2:9E65:D0A0:9181 (talk) 05:42, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Maybe NO primary - was going to say "IP, write the article", and then realised why the dam engineer gets so many hits in books, not for his fame as an engineer but for having been responsible for the deaths of 2,000 people. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:18, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Looking at GBooks, a WP:TWODABS and move neuroscientist might be better than a hatnote on the neuroscientist - other than that we don't have much content on the dam engineer who became a name because of the tragedy. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:02, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The Italian article seems to have quite a few sources. It would make sense to have Carlo Semenza disambiguate to the engineer and neuroscientist. Ovinus (talk) 16:42, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It is a shame "Captain Hindsight" only thinks it:Carlo Semenza was "responsible for the death of 2,000 people". Carlo Semenza built 15 major dams, AFAIK all of them (yes, that does include Vajont Dam) still standing. The Vajont Dam Disaster was ruled to be a tragedy because it was generally an oversight to test the stability further up the lake; and Semenza himself ordered tests deemed detailed and SOTA when the landslide was feared - only every single professor in Austria, Italy and the whole of the Western World didn't think it possible that half of the lake(!) was at once(!!) in 45 seconds(!!!) filled by the "M"-landslide.
 * Carlo Semenza was an engineer on par with the USA's Mulholland (without the "water wars"). I am quite disappointed that this again is subjected to a long, mostly non-factual discussion in Wikipedia. Of course, engineer Carlo Semenza is worth his own article. If course, the best way to do that is make Carlo Semenza a disambiguation page and link to both the engineer and neuroscientist.
 * An Italian engineer's exploits are, quite naturally, documented first and foremost in the Italian Wikipedia. Considering his dams were part of a major infrastructure project in post-war Italy, it can be said that net, he's "responsible" for tens of thousands of people surviving because they now had access to medical technology, electric lighting and agricultural irrigation.
 * Also, as "an IP" I am not able to start articles, I would really appreciate it if some red links I created could be created with just a Stub-template, so I can enter the description and data. Without great discussion, just do it so I can do my work. --2003:C8:4714:600:3058:923A:9DBA:75CF (talk) 18:55, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * IP: Simply create an account. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 11:47, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I will "simply" not do that. I have my reasons. I had an account, asked for it to be deactivated and blocked, and this decision is final.
 * As even an account has to be confirmed in order to be able to create pages, this also wouldn't change anything.--2003:C8:4714:600:D8AF:2E46:B4F9:486E (talk) 03:05, 10 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The current position is that the neuroscientist is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The nominator has presented no evidence that there is another, or no, primary topic. The engineer page is recently created and pageviews cannot therefore be used to inform popularity. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 11:47, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Happy to oblige. The neuroscientist is considered "Low Importance" in the Medicine, Italian and Psychology projects. Carlo Semenza (engineer) is considered "Mid Importance" in both the Italian and Dam portals. The article of the Engineer even now almost surpasses the Neuroscientist; it is a translation of it:Carlo Semenza, where the importance of Carlo Semenza can be verified by anybody. The research of the neuroscientist also is not described as of primary importance; the dams, hydroelectric stations and other constructions by Carlo Semenza, however, do qualify as "WP:PRIMARYTOPIC" and can be easily seen even from outside of Europe by sattelite images.
 * The proposal, however, is not to make Carlo Semenza the "WP:PRIMARYTOPIC", but to move the neuroscientist and use Carlo Semenza as a WP:Disambiguation. --2003:C8:4714:600:D8AF:2E46:B4F9:486E (talk) 02:59, 10 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Support – both articles were created fairly recently, the neuroscientist only has 50 views / month and is not particularly famous. – Thjarkur (talk) 19:57, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Carlo Semenza's rôle in the Vajont Dam disaster
OK, this is getting ridiculous. Now people who can't bother to write the correct name of Vajont Dam in the edit description ("Vajero dam") are editing in some WP:POV references to the catastrophe.

As the first landslides occured, especially after the Lago di Pontesei, Semenza ordered profound examinations of both the Dam (Prof Ghetti) and the geology of Monte Toc (Prof Müller, Dr Edouardo Semenza (his son)).

The model gave a maximum of the projected tidal wave of 20 m, leading to the Vajont Reservoir water level being lowered by 25 m.

Prof Müller had four boreholes made with Piezo sensors to monitor the water level. Unfortunately, three of them were simply not deep enough, so didn't report any unusual water levels; the fourth's (correct) reports always contradicted the other three's, and were ruled out as sensor errors, a very common problem and the reason to drill four boreholes at all.

Hindsight now shows that
 * 1) the fourth borehole's outputs were the correct ones, while the other three didn't reach the clay strata
 * 2) the landslide, thus, was much bigger than anticipated,
 * 3) the landslide's maximum speed was calculated that, including safety margins, would let the slide slide down in 1' time; in reality, however, the slide slid into the lake in only 45"(!), thus creating
 * 4) a >200 m tsunami instead of a 20 m one.

There are numbers of the correct volume of the landslide somewhere in the Vajont Dam articles. Without much verification (that I cannot do), it stands to reason that had the dam broken like Malpasset Dam four years earlier, all of this could have crushed Longarone. As it is - and it is worse enough - only 1,983 reported fatalities and 1,300 missing from a population of 15-20,000 died. Now, please, imagine this wasn't a 200 m tsunami, but one followed by a 50 e6m³ mudslide.

There were lessons learned from Vajont Dam that weren't common practice before. However, I tend to credit Carlo Semenza's design to have prevented worse; and his precautions perfect SOTA of this time (which, unfortunately, was improved much - after and by the experience of Frana del Diga del Vajont.

So I would very much appreciate it to stop scapegoading the disaster to Semenza, who was already 2 years dead when the disaster occured. Second Story is that the advancement level of science and lacking hindsight made it impossible to predict the extend of the Monte Toc landslide. A blameless Post-Mortem here, as always, leads to a freak accident like that not repeating itself since. It is ludicrous to think Semenza, or Biadene, or SADE or ENEL would have seen the disaster as a risk even remotely acceptable. --2003:C8:4714:600:D8AF:2E46:B4F9:486E (talk) 21:38, 10 January 2021 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.