Talk:Timnit Gebru/Archive 1

Birth place
In response to the recent edit describing her as an Eritrean scientist, I did some digging into her birth place. The article says Gebru was born and raised in Ethiopia, per this source. However, she is described elsewhere as Ethiopian born, but ethnic Eritrean. On her personal twitter she describes herself as Eritrean born. I'm not sure about the best way to deal with this, happy to leave it the way it is now (with Eritrean scientist, but born and raised in Ethiopia), but not sure if that is confusing. Achaea (talk) 22:02, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Career and Research
I wanted to develop the career and research section of the article by adding more research Gebru has done. I found an article Q + A: Timnit Gebruwhere Jackie Snow of MIT interviews Timnit Gebru about how biases get into machine learning software and how diversity in the technology space can help minimize those biases. Gebru discusses how there are biases in what engineers and researchers think is important.

Zgriffin3309 (talk) 08:16, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Zgriffin3309 (talk) 20:49, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Nationality
Do any reliable sources describe her as either Eritrean-American or Ethiopian-American—or, for that matter, American? We can't say that she is without reliable sources. See WP:RS and WP:BLP. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 19:24, 5 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/03/timnit-gebru-google-fired/) uses Ethiopian American. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tunkki-1970 (talk • contribs) 12:43, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Statements disputed by the parties
The NYT is rather careful to attribute the competing claims, and I think we should to. It seems that Google and Dr. Gebru disagree over whether she was fired or resigned. There also seems to be a lack of clarity over whether anyone asked for or offered specific alterations to the paper before the dispute escalated, which would seem important and is currently missing from the article. And Google said they accepted what they saw as her (non-immediate) resignation, and only accelerated it because of a critical post about the dispute which she made to an internal support-group mailing list; they say they did not immediately terminate her employment over either the refusal to withdraw the paper or her statement about resignation. This probably also needs mentioning. At the moment "accepted her resignation on the same day" also contradicts some of the earlier statements. The lede also seems a bit unbalanced; she was fairly well-known for other things before this dispute happened. HLHJ (talk) 06:06, 25 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I just counted, 24 of the 50 sources for this article are about her departure, so I don't think the lead is UNDUEly large concerning her departure, though more about her background and history could definitely be added to the lead. --- Avatar317 (talk) 22:32, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 August 2019 and 6 December 2019.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:20, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Lede is very long and overly detailed
An edit I did to make the lede more concise for readings was reverted due to critical nature of its importance. As someone new to this subject (and the topic of AI), it was a bit much for an introduction. I understand Avatar317's revision (and thank you for recognizing good faith), I don't feel a revision sufficiently addresses my issues as a reader. Can it be reworked by a more experienced editor? Also -- the revision of that entire portion of work is frustrating, given that I reworked a lot of redundancy in the body of the article. SquareInARoundHole (talk) 20:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) It would be helpful if you did your edits in smaller chunks, that way contentious edits can be reverted while the others can remain. A separate change of the body and the lead could then be kept separate.
 * 2) In my comment two threads above: "I just counted, (Jan 2021) 24 of the 50 sources for this article are about her departure, so I don't think the lead is UNDUEly large concerning her departure, though more about her background and history could definitely be added to the lead." - I still agree that the lead is NOT too large, but could be improved by adding more summary of her background and accomplishments.
 * 3) Just because you as a reader want/think something should be some way is not the way things are done here: Wikpedia has policies about how articles should be structured and what content belongs. (For example, content about AI does NOT belong here unless the source specifically mentions Gebru or her work.)
 * Thank you for your other edits, which did improve the article. --- Avatar317 (talk) 21:02, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
 * One more thing I forgot, this link explains some of that relevant policy: WP:MOSLEAD "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies.[3]" --- Avatar317 (talk) 21:08, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I do see your comments about the lede on another section here now, I apologize for not checking the talk page first to see if this had been discussed already. I'll work on further breaking up my edits in the future, and recognize why those two edits didn't really belong together. Thank you for your detailed response, and for your compliments. I've been learning a lot and the help you and other editors have given me to navigate Wikipedia are very much appreciated. SquareInARoundHole (talk) 21:32, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Had a go at reworking the lede, along with additional talking points, as you mentioned. Thanks again. SquareInARoundHole (talk) 23:29, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

"online harassment campaign" claim is not objective
The statement "The controversy led to an online harassment campaign against Gebru and her supporters" is misleading. After reading the linked source it isn't clear that there is a noteworthy and object campaign against Gebru. Seems like an online feud and not something that is worthy on inclusion. 2601:602:8801:1680:B9AC:7FFA:9468:2739 (talk) 02:07, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I believe I've addressed this. It is noteworthy, and I do not believe it is misleading anymore. SquareInARoundHole (talk) 16:38, 23 January 2022 (UTC)