Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Jewish Nobel laureates/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was not promoted by Dabomb87 21:55, 27 April 2010.

List of Jewish Nobel laureates

 * Nominator(s): Mbz1 (talk), Avenue

I am nominating this for featured list because it is a comprehensive list of Jewish Nobel laureates. It has an engaging lead that introduces the subject and defines the scope and inclusion criteria that provides interesting little known facts of some of the laureates. Mbz1 (talk) 01:37, 27 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Restarted, old version.
 * Note I have restarted this nomination, as the FLC was growing long with comments, and the status of and consensus on various issues was unclear. Can all reviewers please restate their opinions and list whatever concerns they have left? Dabomb87 (talk) 03:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Comment I'm not sure about this. It seems like a contrived conjunction of two disparate concepts and I'm not sure of the true significance of it. The list is interesting but, like other contributors to this FLC, I'm unsure as to the significance of this "criterion". I'm not being flippant but a "List of Jewish FIFA World Cup Final scorers" would be an analogy which would be laughed out of court (if you get my drift). What makes this (uncertain inclusion criteria) list useful? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:51, 15 April 2010 (UTC) Director's note: this comment has been inserted from previous version since it was made just a few hours before the restart. Dabomb87 (talk)

Neutral Personally I don't see the point of lists like this which combine unrelated things. However I acknowledge that some people might be interested in this particular list. bamse (talk) 08:43, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment above issue has been addressed at the AFD. The fact that ~ 20% of nobel laureates are Jews seems strongly linked to the discussion of racial intelligence, The Bell Curve and so forth. By analogy, if 20% of the FIFA World Cup Final top 100 scorers were from La Masia, that would probably merit some discussion. Sandman888 (talk) 04:02, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment not really. The issue was discussed at the AFD and it was pretty clear that many people have different definitions of what constitutes being "Jewish".  Even the nominator, in that AFD, said "For all Jews being Jew is a state of mind".  Also, I'm very uncomfortable with the heavy dependency on a single source declaring all these laureates to be Jewish.  As stated in the AFD, it would be far superior to find independent sources in which the laureates self-identify as Jews. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Reply: I think you've expressed three concerns in your two comments, namely that: (a) the list doesn't seem useful, or its topic is not significant; (b) the inclusion criteria are uncertain or subject to dispute; and (c) the list relies excessively on a single source. Sandman888 addressed (a), and you responded by reiterating (b) and introducing (c). I'm not convinced that relitigating (a) here would be productive; the AfD covered the ground fairly thoroughly, and was closed as "keep". I have more sympathy with you on both (b) and (c), but requiring public self-identification would probably not be uncontroversial either. Beside a strong matrilineal tradition, there have been fairly compelling reasons not to publicly self-identify as being Jewish at various times and places during the last century, and external sources have not restricted themselves to laureates who have publicly self-identified as Jewish. I think Mbz1 addressed (c) in the previous comments, saying that another source had also been used. However this has not been made explicit in the list, so some improvement would be worthwhile there. --Avenue (talk) 10:17, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * This is now done. (See my comment below.) --Avenue (talk) 13:05, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 *  Support  I think this list is completely fine as the Nobel Prize is the one of most prestigious award in the world. And categorizing the awardees based on race can be quite useful. Besides, we have a similar list List of Jewish Medal of Honor recipients already promoted, so I don't see why this one shouldn't be an FL.— Chris! c / t 21:27, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I just looked at this list again and I have to withdraw my support regrettably. There are several issues. Several refs are located below the tables, which should be in the ref section instead. Publishers in many references are not consistent. The lead is a bit disorganized.— Chris! c / t 20:15, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Neutral There are still nearly three dozen laureates who lack a source regarding their Jewishness (a WP:BLP violation in the case of living laureates), and I still haven't received a satisfactory explanation of why The Shengold Jewish Encyclopedia, an illustrated book intended for children, edited by Mordecai Schreiber and published by Schreiber Publishing, is a WP:RS. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 22:34, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Once again "The Shengold Jewish Encyclopedia" is used only as secondary source. Jewishness of all and each and every individual, who are included in the list confirmed by at lest one reliable source, but "The Shengold Jewish Encyclopedia". --Mbz1 (talk) 23:13, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The Shengold Jewish Encyclopedia (reference 23) is cited nearly 130 times—in nearly every instance, it's the only source that attests to a laureate's Jewish heritage. So (a) what makes The Shengold Jewish Encyclopedia a WP:RS and (b) where are the sources for the other three dozen laureates' Jewish heritage? — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:42, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * As was said many times before the main source for making the list was this site. It is referenced in the beginning of the list, where the number of Laureates is discussed. This site provides at least one reliable source for each Laureate to confirm his/her Jewishness. There was simply no use to add the same reference to every name on the list. That's why the Shengold Jewish Encyclopedia is just a secondary source. --Mbz1 (talk) 03:59, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose According to Mbz1's comment, the reference for the Jewish ethnicity of the laureates is hidden in the lede (footnote 3), and footnote 23, the children's encyclopedia that is cited 130 times, is merely a "backup" source. In my opinion this doesn't satisfy the citation requirement of a featured list. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 04:13, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually nothing is hidden. I simply said that I see no reason to mention the same reference for every entry. Let's for example take this featured list. There's no reference for every name is added. The same is the situation with most other featured lists.--Mbz1 (talk) 04:50, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * If that were a list of "Buddhist winners of the Golden Melody Awards", it should have references that verify that each member of the list is a Buddhist, and this list should have references that verify that each laureate is Jewish. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 04:58, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It does have a reference for every entry. The references is added to the beginning of the list versus to the every entry. If you believe it should be added to every entry, I will. It is just a matter of formatting the list, and there's no reason for "opposing" because of that. Besides I see nothing wrong with children encyclopedia either. Of course it is a reliable source on its own, or at least as reliable as other published encyclopedias.--Mbz1 (talk) 05:07, 17 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I have gone ahead and added the relevant citation to each entry. The list now has very detailed citations compared to similar featured lists like the List of Jewish Medal of Honor recipients, List of Asian American Medal of Honor recipients, and List of African-American Medal of Honor recipients. In particular, every entry now has an inline citation for the award's rationale and for the recipient being Jewish. --Avenue (talk) 13:05, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I have also added the references to the headrs of most sections.--Mbz1 (talk) 13:36, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Neutral Thank you, Avenue. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 23:25, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Comment Use a proper template for sources. Include publisher, accessdate and so on for all sources (accessdate only for online sources). Sandman888 (talk) 15:38, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments - the headings are now all broken, column widths differ from section to section, refs ideally in numerical order please, no spaced hyphens (make them en-dashes per WP:DASH), lead has far too many small paragraphs, and the quotes break it up further, to its detriment. No lead image? Don't mix date formats in the references... The Rambling Man (talk) 15:45, 17 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose Sandman888 (talk) 15:55, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I've went ahead and fixed the headings, thought it was a browser thing. If it's not, I can't understand why you didn't change it back when you saw them mixed up.
 * The lead, I think, should reflect why the list is important, i.e. discuss Jews and their over representation amongst laureates and who else has done so, not just say this Jew had a rought time, and btw. the nobel prize is this and that. This is my main opposition. I think the lead should be completely re-written.
 * If you make a distinction between Economics and the rest, note that the Peace prize is also qualitatively different as it is awarded by the Norwegian parliament, not the Swedish academy. This shd be noted if you continue the focus on what a nobel prize is.


 * Thank you for your comment, and for fixing the mess I have done. I did not notice that. Would you care to re-write the lead and share it with us at the article talk page maybe? Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 16:09, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I will not. Sandman888 (talk) 16:23, 17 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Support The subject is very notable, and the source of Mbz1 does seem reliable enough and cites more sources. Broccoli (talk) 17:32, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose due to several outstanding issues, and because it appears that some editors are voting support out of some form of principle rather than by actually reviewing the list. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:44, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Support This subject is of immense interest to many as similar lists can be found at Jewish Virtual Library,Israel Science and Technology Homepage,Jewish Biography site- About.com also has a list: . If you Google it there are many many hits. Now I realize that sometimes some people use such a list to gloat over the fact that other ethnicities maybe don't have so many prizewinners, or use it against Jews to claim that the Jews control the Nobel Prize along with the rest of the world's institutions (I've seen both) but neither of those things is not what this is about. WP is not about what is done with the information we present, it is about the information.  The intriguing point, as Mbz1 has pointed out and  as the About.com link points out  "Of the 750 Nobel Prizes awarded worldwide between 1901 and 2007, at least 162 were awarded to Jews. While Jews are approximately 0.25% of the world's population, Jews make up approximately 22% of all Nobel Prize laureates worldwide. " —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stellarkid (talk • contribs) 04:29, 18 April  2010 (UTC)
 * Um, Stellarkid, you do realize that we're discussing whether the list "exemplifies our very best work", not whether the subject is notable? — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 04:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Support Everyone in the list is Jewish, there is no original researche regarding Jewishness here. This kind of lists is many time the hardest to verified according to WP criterions, however this list do it well. The subject itself is very very interesting for many people and it's a very frequently watched list. So, it deserve to be featured. And as for WP:WIAFL- I came over the article, the list do seem to meet it fully. Conditional Support: The article is good and important but need further work to become completly tidy-as the The Rambling Man mentioned--Gilisa (talk) 06:45, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it doesn't meet our standards. There are problems with many of the reference formats, there are references just floating in mid-air, the column widths vary from section to section making it look very untidy, refs are out of order.  These are all very basic issues.  People who are already supporting this list in its current state should refamiliarise themselves with our criteria and current standards.  The Rambling Man (talk) 09:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose pending resolution of the technical points re refs etc. Please nudge me when these are resolved and I will take another look. --Dweller (talk) 19:33, 18 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment What's the status on the various concerns listed by reviewers above? This list has not been edited in a week. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:39, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I stand by my oppose. Concerns have not been adressed. Sandman888 (talk) 08:42, 26 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.