Talk:List of child prodigies

Freddy Adu
There is no proof nor evidence to suggest that Freddy Adu was any better aged 8, 10, 12 or 14 than any of today's top players. He benefited from displaying strong talent at an early age in a weak league and garnering massive amounts of public exposure that blurred the line between his celebrity and ability.

I have nothing against the kid and I think he's a good player, but he simply does not deserve to be the sole representative of soccer/football in the child prodigy article. If he had been playing in England, Spain, Italy, Germany, Brazil or Argentina, he simply would not have received the level of attention and praise he has throughout his career.

A much better example would be Pele, who was a star of the 1958 World Cup with Brazil aged just 17. At roughly the same age Adu was not even selected in the USA roster for the 2006 World Cup. A more recent example is Wayne Rooney, who excelled at every age level, scoring 114 goals in 30 games aged 9/10 for Everton U10s and U11s, moving up to U12s aged 10, U15s aged 12, U17s aged 14, U19s aged 15, playing and scoring in the English Premiership aged 16 and playing international football aged 17.

Thoughts? Anyone agree/disagree? 81.168.108.225 (talk) 20:13, 24 April 2009 (GMT)

Can I add someone I know to the child prodigy list?
All entries must meet wiki's verifiablity and notability requirements.

The following alone do not make someone notable as a child prodigy:


 * enrolling in university-level courses (unless perhaps the institution is highly selective such as Harvard, Oxford, one of the Grandes écoles, etc.)
 * winning a competition in which the other competitors are a similar age
 * being the youngest to write the SAT, A-level, etc. exam (someone has to be the youngest)

The following do not meet verifiability standards:


 * blogs, personal websites, message boards, YouTube videos, newsletters
 * puff pieces (in either print or video) wherein a child is described as a prodigy

A potential candidate should be regarded as an intellectual or competitive peer by the adults in his/her field.

obvious lacunae
Gauss, Galois, and Abel are some well attested mathematicians who were prodigies at a young age. Gauss and Galois opened entirely new fields of maths, and Abel solved the general quintic question, which had been outstanding for several hundred years, and wrote papers which suggested much he died to soon to elucidate. A list which does not include these is damaged indeed. 69.118.209.149 (talk) 22:44, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

John von Neumann
I think it is unfair to classify von Neumann merely as a mental calculator. Along with his tremendous memory and facility for languages, he had already taught himself calculus by age 8. And he obtained two PhDs by the time he was 21. Along with his spectacular career later on, he was a genuine child prodigy and not just a mental calculator. I propose we move him to the general mathematical prodigy section.

Child
Child is defined in WP as " a human being between the stages of birth and puberty". The list itself in its lead gives an upper age limit of 10. I am therefore going through this list to remove anyone whose precocity relates to activities when aged 11 and above, and/or is without reliable citation.--Smerus (talk) 10:41, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Subuey has sought to reverse my deletion of Tristan Pang from this list. The reasons given are: " you need to wait for people to respond on the talk page before carrying out these changes. also, I have responded to you at the afd. discuss your opinion there and wait for it to finish."
 * There are two issues here.
 * 1) AfD. I have given my comments clearly at the AfD page and repeating them serves no purpose except clutter.
 * 2) Whether or not the article is deleted, it still has to maintain WP standards while it is available, and maintenance does not have to await conclusion of the AfD (or anything else). 'Prodigy' is clearly defined at the head of this article, using the same definition as the WP article child prodigy. Entries in the list which cannot be reliably sourced as meeting this definition need to be removed. Anyone objecting to this process should either provide evidence that they do meet the definition, or seek to rewrite the article child prodigy with a different definition.
 * Editors' views on the maintenance of the article can be expressed here (as opposed to arguments for or against deleting the article which belong in the AfD discussion of course). So far no editor has chosen to do so, although my note has been here for four days.--Smerus (talk) 08:58, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I object to these changes. You jumped the gun, making them while the only votes in the afd were to "keep", other than your own. (and one other made after) Longstanding consensus, as explained in the article lead, should not be overturned by one or two users. Subuey (talk) 18:57, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
 * There is no "longstanding consensus in the article lead" as claimed by Subuey. There is a sourced definition (as preferred by WP) of 'child prodigy' which is the same definition as used in the WP article child prodigy. That is the definition which should be used in this list. The other two sentences in the lead are not sourced or cited, are vague in their implications, and are not the result or consequence of any consensus on the talk page or anywhere else as far as I can see. Imo they simply express the WP:POV(s) of whichever editor(s) inserted them - not an appropriate WP criterion. Unless they can be validated they carry no weight. Tristan Pang does not meet the criteria in the lead and there are no reputable or reliable sources which would entitle him to be listed here as a 'child prodigy'. If User:Subuey has such sources, the onus is on him/her to produce them, not to blandly reinstate without justification - otherwise he/she lays him/herself open to accusations of actions on the basis of WP:IDONTLIKE. The only criterion for inclusion in this list is the definition in the first sentence of this article. The only way round this wolud be to edit the article child prodigy to provide a differing definition, porperly sourced, and obtain agreement on that. In the meantime I have redeleted Mr. Pang.
 * I refer User:Subuey also to the post made above in this talkpage, made some time ago by an unknown editor, which has never been challenged:


 * All entries must meet wiki's verifiablity and notability requirements.


 * The following alone do not make someone notable as a child prodigy:


 * enrolling in university-level courses (unless perhaps the institution is highly selective such as Harvard, Oxford, one of the Grandes écoles, etc.)
 * winning a competition in which the other competitors are a similar age
 * being the youngest to write the SAT, A-level, etc. exam (someone has to be the youngest)


 * The following do not meet verifiability standards:


 * blogs, personal websites, message boards, YouTube videos, newsletters
 * puff pieces (in either print or video) wherein a child is described as a prodigy


 * A potential candidate should be regarded as an intellectual or competitive peer by the adults in his/her field.


 * --Smerus (talk) 14:18, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I would refer you to the talk page archive, where consensus has been if a reliable source says they are a child prodigy, then they may be included in the list (especially if they have their own Wikipedia page). As for Tristan, this source can be used as I do not see any policy on wikipedia that excludes lists from being used as sources. There are other entries removed with much better sourcing, and I plan on restoring some of them as well. In the meantime, I have returned his entry. [Also, you seem to be making up notability requirements (for example, an exception is they have to have attended a competitive school?)] Subuey (talk) 23:08, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Tristan Pang
User:Subuey has reinstituted Tristan Pang on this list with two 'citations'. The two 'citations' are chatty newspaper articles. In both of these Pang is aged above 12, taking him beyond the definition in the article. Neither is an authoritative secondary source. Neither of them indicates in any way that Pang at the age of 10 or below produced "meaningful output in some domain to the level of an adult expert performer", as the article requires. It may be helpful for User:Subuey to read WP:Verifiability. If evidence cannot be provided, Pang cannot be listed here. Evidence, evidence, evidence. Otherwise the article simply becomes an accumulation of cruft.--Smerus (talk) 08:27, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:Verifiability states "Source material must have been published, the definition of which for our purposes is 'made available to the public in some form'", and the source is not self-published. Subuey (talk) 17:29, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * As you are still avoiding consideration of the age limits of the definition and issues of the quality of citation, I have referred this for a third opinion.--Smerus (talk) 20:22, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Many others also listed, like Tao and Ramanujan, do not satisfy the age limited either. According to your argument, the article clearly states "below 10" and thus should not list anyone with achievements at 10 or above. 2407:7000:9FAD:A400:BC41:CC62:A805:E026 (talk) 00:15, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I absolutely agree, and depending on consensus would delete those as well.--Smerus (talk) 12:00, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I would concur that Pang should stay removed and Ramanujan should be as well. While their contributions are indeed impressive, they fail the initial requirements of the article, as other have said, and by that alone do not belong on the list. I also find serious doubt in Picasso on this list, no citation is provided, and just a quick look at the picture that is used as justification makes it unlikely that many citations will be found. This source claims he was a child prodigy, but the main evidence seems to be from age 13. A talented artist nonetheless.  Aza24 (talk) 22:44, 12 June 2020 (UTC)