Talk:Donna Strickland

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 2 January 2020 and 10 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Chemistry Pink Lady.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:14, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Offer of help
Hi, I work for the Optical Society and noticed that there is some editing work happening to round out this profile. I noticed it was missing images and some content. I'm currently assisting with updating the bio on our website as Dr. Strickland has been actively involved with the society including as our 2013 President and we've seen a lot of interest for obvious reasons today. I don't want to make any edits myself due to COI but I wanted to extend the offer of assistance in acquiring media or information/references if desired. - Tinynull (talk) 22:53, 2 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the offer. You may wish to upload a profile photograph to WikiMedia Commons. No COI issues would arise doing that but you would need to agree to licence the image under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 license. — Blue-Haired Lawyer t 23:21, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I just want to second what Blue-Haired Lawyer said. It would be great to get an image for this article and I don't think there are usually COI concerns regarding the upload of images. Orser67 (talk) 00:29, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I've uploaded the following for use: File:Donna_Strickland,_OSA_Holiday_Party_2012.jpg and File:Donna_Strickland_speaking_at_OSA%27s_Leadership_meeting_in_2013.jpg. We've released both of these images as CC BY SA 4.0 on our website to validate they are now free to use. Copyright for both of these images was fully held by The Optical Society, they were taken by a contract photographer and I did verify our contract assigns ownership of the work to us. - Tinynull (talk) 16:05, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I've fixed the links in the immediately preceding msg. -- Roger Hui (talk) 16:15, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Now neatly packed in c:Category:Donna Strickland.  G M G  talk  16:16, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, we've also received a request on youtube to make our interview with Dr. Strickland CC BY, which has spurred some discussion internally. I haven't personally seen video used on wikipedia, especially for people, so I wasn't sure how valid this request might be. Internally there is some concern about the videos being made available for potential commercial use and that likely doesn't work with the wording of our video release and using it for further the mission of the society (disseminating science) or educational and historical purposes. Just curious if anyone has any insight into this, I have done some reading but its not apparent if videos of interviews with people are desired or if its possible to provide videos with a more limited CC license such as non-commercial use. - Tinynull (talk) 16:44, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Hey Tinynull. Quality freely licensed videos are certainly educationally useful for Wikipedia and it's sister projects. Of course you're under no obligation to apply a license that include commercial reuse, but unfortunately, licenses that do not are not compatible with the type of license Wikipedia is published under, and we would not be able to use it here. Having said that, those who reuse this type of content, even commercially, are still required by the license to provide attribution, and failure to do so would invalidate the use, and potentially leave them vulnerable to legal action by your organization.  G M G  talk  17:26, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi! Sorry for the slightly glacial pace of this, we're final able to offer one of the videos we have of Dr. Strickland with CC BY, I've updated the license on youtube: | Donna Strickland on how she got into optics. Starting during the society centennial we began doing video interviews with members, of all types, on their work, their history, their opinions and views and thoughts. This is a very short portion of a longer interview, I'm working to see if we can make any other parts of it available. - Tinynull (talk) 15:47, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
 * G M G talk  15:52, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
 * ✅ And now added to the article. That's great. Thank you again Tinynull for helping to coordinate the Society with our efforts here on Wikipedia!  G M G  talk  16:01, 11 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Does anybody have experience with adding captions to these types of video formats?  G M G  talk  17:28, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I got it! I actually have a fair amount of experience with timed text and the SRT format so I was able to export it in the right format from our caption vendor and post. Tested to verify it is working properly. - Tinynull (talk) 17:42, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Awesome! Next question: Who speaks languages other than English? So we can make this useful for as many people as possible.  G M G  talk  17:48, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Like this, you mean? This is my first time doing this, and I don't know where to go to view the video and see if this even worked. Mathglot (talk) 21:42, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * YES! Great job Mathglot! It seems to work just fine with the video. Thank you very much.  G M G  talk  22:07, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Also shamelessly ping User:Alex Shih and User:Jcb as folks I know who happen to speak all the languages.  G M G  talk  22:10, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * That's cool; I will see if I can add Mandarin and Japanese subtitles if I can. Alex Shih (talk) 09:29, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Donna Strickland's children
User:Carries mum added personal details about Strickland's children, which were incorrectly sourced, i.e. this one doesn't mention her being her daughter. Her edit summary was…"I met Donna at an NSERC event at York University on Thursday 5 October and while we were chatting about her Nobel Prize win, she told me that she wanted details about her adult children added to her Wikipedia page. This is especially relevant given that she is a woman in STEM and her daughter is following in her Physics footsteps. I have done as she requested." I am not adverse to her children being mentioned but please can we have better sources? Theroadislong (talk) 12:25, 6 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-canadian-scientist-donna-strickland-shares-nobel-physics-prize/ Grimes2 (talk) 12:32, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Hello, Theroadislong, I apologize -- I'm not very good at this wikipedia chat thing. I hope I'm doing this right. Thanks for explaining -- I will ask Bryan Gaensler and Donna Strickland if and how they want to handle this. cheers, User:Carries mum —Preceding undated comment added 12:39, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You are doing better than me at the chat thing, sorry I didn't see your post above!. We don't usually involve the subject of an article unless there is contentious material. Theroadislong (talk) 13:20, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It doesn't appear that this is currently being reported by any sources other than TG&M.  G M G  talk  13:38, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Dear Theroadislong, I have found an independent source for Hannah Dykaar -- it is a Globe and Mail article (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-canadian-scientist-donna-strickland-shares-nobel-physics-prize/). Aparently, Hannah's FB post/page is also open.

This is from the Globe and Mail article: "Certainly, Dr. Strickland does not have to go far to serve as a role model to young female researchers. She and her husband, Doug Dykaar, also a physicist, have two children, including a daughter, Hannah, who is a graduate student in astrophysics at the University of Toronto.

Ms. Dykaar said that at first she thought her mother’s phone had been hacked when she got a text from her telling her about the Nobel prize." Carries mum (talk) 13:56, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you but I already added this reference earlier. Facebook is NEVER a reliable source for anything though. Theroadislong (talk) 13:57, 6 October 2018 (UTC)


 * We do not normally name non-notable relatives per WP:BLPNAME. I'm not seeing a sufficient reason to make an exception here. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:54, 6 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Also keep in mind that, other than correcting demonstrable errors, the subject's desires and opinions about article content are largely irrelevant. She does not WP:OWN the article. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:06, 6 October 2018 (UTC)


 * One more thing, the fact that you know Strickland and are discussing the article with her puts you in a conflict of interest which you are required to declare, and you should not be editing the article directly. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:14, 6 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Hello, my apologies for not responding earlier, but I've been off the grid for much of the last year. However, I did want to respond to your comment in which you directly state that I contravened Wikipedia's conflict of interest guidelines. I most certainly did not and please let me clarify why.
 * Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the academic community. Senior scientists such as myself, are constantly rubbing shoulders with eminent scientists at professional events, including many Nobel Laureates. Therefore, it is entirely feasible for me to have had a conversation with a recent Nobel Laureate, such as Prof. Strickland. In fact, we were both present at a large, public NSERC event. NSERC is the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada), where one of my colleagues in Physics and Astronomy introduced me to Professor Strickland, with the comment that "Prof Carries mum teaches Wikipedia editing and science communication in her courses." I was as surprised as anyone when Prof. Strickland immediately sat me down and raised the issue that I have flagged here. In fact, she asked me how one communicates with the Wikipedian community. Therefore, I would respectfully suggest that your comment is based on an incorrect assumption, and that you may wish to revisit it. Thank you for your attention. Sincerely Carries mum (talk) 18:45, 1 November 2019 (UTC)


 * I previously removed the names of Strickland's children and I don't think they should be restored. We can respect the subject's wishes to an extent, but in this case we have no way of verifying that these are her wishes (or more importantly, her children's). Moreover, there is a WP:BLPPRIVACY issue. Strickland's children are not public figures, so unless and until their names are widely reported in the press, we should assume they don't wish them to be published and respect their right to privacy. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:00, 6 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I normally remove the names of living children from an article about a notable person unless there are good sources and:
 * 1/the person is famous
 * 2/the person is a public figure where information about the family is normal and expected, such a politician or a really major prize-winner
 * 3/the person is in a field where personal information including family is routinely published, like some entertainers
 * 4/the information is relevant to the significance, such as following the same profession, or inheriting a company.
 * 5/the family member is themselves notable.
 * numbers 2 and 5 4 apply here, and possibly 1 also.  There is an excellent source from a major newspaper.    DGG ( talk ) 21:08, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I think you may have meant that 2 and 4 applied? It was me that added the content but I'm really not bothered if others decide to remove, it's not important or essential content. Theroadislong (talk) 21:12, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
 * right. thanks for the correction. I agree it is not essential, but I suspect it may become important if it is discussed further as an expression of her views..  DGG ( talk ) 02:00, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Maybe I'm being too sensitive about privacy, but I would prefer to see at least one more good source print her children's names before including them. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:29, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
 * here's a second good source... Theroadislong (talk) 18:12, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Erm... is it? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 06:40, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Here's another Theroadislong (talk) 08:44, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

If we are going to mention the children by name, shouldn't we clarify whether they carry the name Strickland or Dykaar or some combination? The source for the daughter (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-canadian-scientist-donna-strickland-shares-nobel-physics-prize/) identifies the daughter as Hannah and Ms. Dykaar but the source given for the son (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/20/nobel-laureate-donna-strickland-i-see-myself-as-a-scientist-not-a-woman-in-science) doesn't contain the personal name given here (Adam) or clarify his surname, only listing him as "son". I lean towards just describing them as son and daughter, but we should definitely source whatever we use. --Khajidha (talk) 21:11, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

wikipedia incident
I feel the wikipedia incident related to Strickland & this article should be mentioned in a line or two. ... and link to article about the topic. ee --88.111.90.165 (talk) 04:49, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The WP:SUBJECT of this article is a biography of Donna Strickland, while you may be more interested in Criticisms of Wikipedia, that's offtopic here – unless you find a very good published source that says Wikipedia had some significant effect of her life, it doesn't belong in a WP:BLP. . . dave souza, talk 09:22, 20 November 2018 (UTC)


 * There has been extensive discussion about this (whether to include &ldquo;Wikipedia incident&rdquo; in the article). Please search for it in the archives.  The consensus thus far is to exclude. Roger Hui (talk) 13:30, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

it has been discussed in details here https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-need-talk-wikipedia-jessi-hempel/?trk=eml-email_feed_ecosystem_digest_01-recommended_articles-7-Unknown&midToken=AQEDrRWco2Ykhw&fromEmail=fromEmail&ut=3cXNeIVEEiYUw1 it boils down to increasing Wikipedia capacity to better process request by encouraging users to donate to ultimately being able to rely on the info wikipedia publishes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edekkar (talk • contribs) 13:53, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

"The consensus thus far is to exclude." - sounds like you guys are just trying to hide your shame. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.162.155.29 (talk) 02:36, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * It's covered in criticism of Wikipedia. This is a page about Donna Strickland, I question whether this controversy has much to do with her. I mean what happened has already illustrated a problem. There's no reason to add to by tainting a page which should be about her with irrelevant stuff. (Who cares what she actually did, let's talk about what wikipedia did instead....) Nil Einne (talk) 05:31, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
 * P.S. I'll put it a different way. It seems to me there's a greater argument for whether this belongs on Wikipedia or English Wikipedia than there is for including it here. Nil Einne (talk) 07:17, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaame — Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.23.189.101 (talk) 02:59, 15 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Really there is no single mention of the Guardian article????? (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/03/donna-strickland-nobel-physics-prize-wikipedia-denied). Why not? The guardian is a reliable third party source. Wikipedia needs to address its own gender bias. Kenji1987 (talk) 11:38, 29 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I find it hard to put together an argument that coverage of this is UNDUE. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find that coverage of Strickland in relation to Wikipedia makes up near half or more of the entirety of coverage of her in secondary published sources. Yes, this was discussed at the moment it was happening, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't revisit the issue once things have calmed down and we can gain the benefit of a bit of hindsight to judge the relative importance of the event.  G M G  talk  12:20, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Agreed. While it would detract from her accomplishment to make this article about the wikipedia incident, she is probably better known for Wikipedia's treatment of her and other women than she is for her incredible achievements. Not including it in the article is more bias upon the part of the community. It should be mentioned.Jacona (talk) 13:10, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't know that I would say "better known". I mean, she did win a Nobel prize after all. But I would guess that between winning the Nobel and Wikipedia, these probably constitute the vast majority of coverage in secondary sources.  G M G  talk  13:14, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What you're saying is that, despite the significance of someone winning a Nobel, the media and the Graun in particular get all excited about Wikipedia (without understanding how WP works). That's not about Strickland, it's about the media and is covered in the appropriate article. . . . dave souza, talk 14:01, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That's not really any different than saying that her winning a Nobel prize is about the Nobel prize and not about her. Both these are about the intersection of Strickland with these other topics. When sources "get all excited" about a subject and write about it, we call that WP:DUEWEIGHT.  G M G  talk  14:07, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

To repeat, WP:SUBJECT is clear that "If publicity regarding an article is significant enough to be included in Wikipedia, that information would not be included in the article, unless it is relevant to the topic of the article itself." The subject the media were excited about is Criticism of Wikipedia, where this article is already covered. At the top of this thread is a request for those complaining to look at Talk:Donna Strickland/Archive 1 onwards – clear consensus not to include had been reached by Talk:Donna Strickland/Archive 2. So, the discussion is stale, unless and until new sources show direct relevance to Donna herself. . . . dave souza, talk 07:50, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry but obviously if there is world wide coverage about an incident with a person that should be mentioned in her article. SovielHungerhabichgarnicht (talk) 18:11, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * This is just another cover-up. Someday no one will remember Wikipedia's shame.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.23.190.23 (talk) 22:36, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:SUBJECT says "unless it is relevant to the topic of the article itself" -- I'd argue that the fact that the subject possibly experienced gender discrimination by having her Wikipedia page deleted is highly relevant to the topic of the article. I personally came to this article after seeing this tweet and the linked news article, trying to look up "what's she known for, and how come she was considered non-notable on Wikipedia at some point". Given the number of secondary sources on the subject that mention the Wikipedia deletion, I would imagine that I'm not the only one. Therefore I second the call for including the "Wikipedia incident" in order to make this article more informative. Yihkrys (talk) 16:50, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * There's no doubt that many sources about the 'Wikipedia incident'; that's why it's covered in Criticism of Wikipedia. The question is whether sources about Strickland (such as a biography) mention this Wikipedia article as a notable aspect of her career. When we last discussed this there weren't, so we didn't include it. If that's changed then we might have to reconsider – but you'll have to show us those secondary sources. Personally I think adding anything more than a passing mention would be exacerbating Strickland's sexist treatment by Wikipedia (by putting undue emphasis on how others have written/not written about her rather than on her own achievements as a scientist), not redressing it. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 08:05, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

The incident is indeed covered at Criticism of Wikipedia and rather more strongly in my essay at User:Andrewa/Why they do not want you to use Wikipedia.

IMO the incident should be covered in the article on her if and only if it receives more significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. It may even be that there is enough coverage for a separate mainspace article on the incident. But all I see outside of Wikipedia so far is a media beatup, with some lobbyists predictably jumping on the bandwagon to bang their own drums. So it would be undue weight IMO to even mention it at this stage. Wikipedia is important but not that important! Andrewa (talk) 19:17, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

This was just recently published:
 * "Gender is one of the most pervasive and insidious forms of inequality. For example, English-language Wikipedia contains more than 1.5 million biographies about notable writers, inventors, and academics, but less than 19% of these biographies are about women. To try and improve these statistics, activists host “edit-a-thons” to increase the visibility of notable women. While this strategy helps create several biographies previously inexistent, it fails to address a more inconspicuous form of gender exclusion. Drawing on ethnographic observations, interviews, and quantitative analysis of web-scraped metadata, this article demonstrates that biographies about women who meet Wikipedia’s criteria for inclusion are more frequently considered non-notable and nominated for deletion compared to men’s biographies. This disproportionate rate is another dimension of gender inequality previously unexplored by social scientists and provides broader insights into how women’s achievements are (under)valued.", "Ms. Categorized: Gender, notability, and inequality on Wikipedia", https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211023772 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cloud200 (talk • contribs) 11:42, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
 * What is relevant here comes right after the abstract: "On March 7, 2014, a biography for Donna Strickland, the physicist who invented a technology used by all the high-powered lasers in the world, was created on Wikipedia. In less than six minutes, it was flagged for a “speedy deletion” and shortly thereafter erased from the site. This decision is part of the reason Dr. Strickland did not have an active Wikipedia page when she was honored with the Nobel Prize in Physics four years later." But those who oppose mentioning this in her article say it is relevant for criticism of Wikipedia and not for her as a person because it would not appear in articles about her, and this article is about the wider problem and not about her. For this you have a source here where the wikipedia issue is mentioned prominently in her short biography in an article about her and others getting nominated to a Vatican committee. Der Standard (in German). SovielHungerhabichgarnicht (talk) 18:02, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
 * What was the conclusion for this discussion? For what it's worth, I would have supported mentioning the incident in her article - there are enough publications about it. I came to this article myself to see if it was mentioned and now only found it on the talk page. EMsmile (talk) 07:53, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Allow me a short note: In Wikipedia it is quite normal that sometimes a person is announced to be a new Nobel prize winner, but that we (in en.WP) still have no article about the person. In the ten years before Strickland, that happened roughly in 7 procent of the cases. Men and women alike. Ziko (talk) 19:34, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

You're in the news again! Congratulations!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/wikipedia-bias-1.6129073 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.23.190.23 (talk • contribs) 12:01, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * So much wrong with that article *facepalm*. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 13:08, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Tripodi's "research" is mostly rubbish - WP:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-07-25/Recent research, her grasp of basic statistical analysis is not very good, to put it kindly. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:27, 23 August 2021 (UTC)