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proposed edit "Board Memberships" relocation

Shouldn't "Board Memberships" be a subsection in the "Professional Background" area? --Elderbree TM (talk) 03:56, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

What do other BLPs with WP:GA status do? --Ronz (talk) 15:35, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I think that's exactly the right question. I took a look at some of his contemporaries (people with whom he serves on the same boards) and didn't see a lot of consistency.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:22, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest merging it into the Professional Background section. Clayburn (talk) 21:52, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

External links

I have reverted this edit by Ronz, and I am going to term it nothing short of 'vandalism'. These are perfectly valid links, well within policy, informative to readers, but they might, of course, as they are publications of the subject of this article, show him in a positive light. Ronz's ongoing POV pushing against the subject of this article, and constant personal attacks on me and other NPOV editors is beginning to try my patience.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:45, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm happy to explain why I feel this edit is an appropriate edit and edit summary. --Ronz (talk) 18:55, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Aargh - I didn't expect this to be controversial. Let's have some Aloha spirit. My explanation is that there are certain links we generally include for certain groups of articles. Someone's official site, of course. Things they've written themselves (column collections, blogs, etc.). WorldCat ID for books written by and about them. Topic collections at major media sources (NYT, WSJ, Guardian, etc.). Appearances on C-SPAN, Charlie Rose and TED talks (being collections, not individual appearances). In the case of US federal politicians, we have a special template for them Template:CongLinks. In the case of charities, we include their pages in major "charity watch" sites. In the case of businesspeople, their profiles at Forbes, Bloomberg, etc. are considered worth including. The point is to give connections to important sources, especially those which are continually being updated AND which provide a fuller picture of the subject than we could provide in a single Misplaced Pages article. That's a good thing. Connections are important - hence the name 'web'. (Note: 'Further reading' has become, through practice, for non-online sources.) What's unique about Naveen Jain is that his own website includes just about everything. So do the official pages of various academics, but we still list their major links - see Joseph Stiglitz#External links. To be honest, I was intending to add Jain's TED talk page, but apparently it was 'TED Talk India' and therefore not available on the main TED website. He has it in his official site, so that's covered. I also didn't realize he has 3 blogs, not 1. This is the first I've seen of Google profiles (I apparently live a sheltered life!) but it seemed a better alternative than listing all of someone's 'social media' links separately. The point in general is...if all we provide in EL is the person's personal site, that isn't very balanced, is it? I was trying to broaden this, and imo Bloomberg Businessweek (and Forbes et al, if I could find in-depth profiles for him) are useful links to add. Flatterworld (talk) 19:30, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I've now noticed BBB was deleted, so I've re-added it. Look. The point of not duplicating inline citations in External links is about duplication of content. If the relevant points of a citation are summarized in the body of the article, there's no need to repeat it in EL. If there's quite a bit more information in the link, as in this case, it's also included in EL. For example, we might cite a single vote using the WashPo's voting record for a Congressman - but we STILL include it in EL as there are likely other votes which readers are interested in, and they shouldn't have to look through every reference to find the site. We're here to help our readers, not provide them with some sort of "Where's Waldo?" game. Flatterworld (talk) 19:42, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

We've had problems with external links in this article, so I prefer we stick to WP:EL closely, or at least provide rationale for what we're doing and why.

We've one link, his official site, that meets WP:ELYES. I believe it links to all his other sites. I didn't notice a link to his Huffington Post blog. Can someone double-check that it's not in there somewhere?

I don't believe any of the remaining links meet WP:ELMAYBE criteria.

I believe the Google profile is redundant.

I think the link to his Huffington Post blog should be removed because it doesn't provide any further information on Jain. Hence "redundant" in my edit summary where I removed both this and the Google profile.

I think the Bloomberg Businessweek profile should be removed because it is already included as a reference. If there's something of importance in this profile that's not in this article already, it should be added with the profile as the source. --Ronz (talk) 19:48, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

What someone writes always provides further information about that person - how could it not? I think you're confused about the purpose of EL.

Obviously this discussion would be more useful if you actually looked at the Bloomberg profile, followed the tabs, etc., to see what's included. I used the WashPo link as an example for a reason. I don't post boilerplate rationales on Talk pages, and don't expect to read such 'justifications' from others. Flatterworld (talk) 22:40, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Ronz about the Bloomberg profile. If something has already been used as a reference, it does not need to be an external link too. Cardamon (talk) 23:35, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Assuming you checked out the link before you posted your opinion, please explain why the rest of it (other than what the inline citation referred to) is irrelevant. Also, just what you disagree with in my explanation about it. Note: the Talk page is for the purpose of having a discussion, not a war of drive-by posts. If you can't be bothered to take the time to do any analysis, I have no idea why you can be bothered to take the time to post. Flatterworld (talk) 00:43, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I neither said nor implied that the parts of the profile at Bloomberg Businessweek that the inline citation did not refer to are irrelevant. Also, using a site as a reference for a fact is not a claim that there are no other facts contained in that site.

To me, an external link is less than an inline reference; external links are for things that haven’t been used as a reference yet, or that may be not quite good enough to be used as a reliable reference, but are still interesting and relevant. From this point of view, once an external link has been promoted to reference there is no need for it to remain as an external link; in much the same way that, if a term that is in a See Also list gets used as a Wikilink, it can be removed from the See Also list.

Incidentally, I’m fine with the other external links. Cardamon (talk) 10:24, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Time for ELN, or does someone new have opinions on the matter? --Ronz (talk) 01:04, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

You're saying 5 hours and 15 minutes is your span of attention? Your post on my Talk page implied you would supply a 'detailed response' to my post. I'm waiting. Flatterworld (talk) 01:39, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

ELN discussion here --Ronz (talk) 02:28, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

External links revisited

I think we should discuss each of the external links separately. Muhandes just removed them all, based on a perplexing reading of the brief and inconclusive ELN discussion, and I just put them all back. Part of my reasoning is that Ronz was clearly inappropriately forum shopping by posting there instead of discussing here.

Let's discuss each of the three in turn.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:59, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

I came back to this only because I seem to be the one who started it, so I thought I should further explain my reasoning. Looking at what Cardamon posted above, it appears we don't all have the same concept of External links. If we can't agree on the concept, I can't see agreement forthcoming on the instance. Perhaps this is one of those things which unintentionally seems to vary a bit by subject area in Misplaced Pages. In my experience, EL has morphed from being "general references substituting for in-line citations" to being used as an 'online Further reading' section. It's not 'lower' than inline citations, but 'broader and more extensive coverage'. Hence the 'official' websites (extensive information, but all within the person's control and editing abilities) as well as other extensive or in-depth sources. The point (imo) is NOT for Misplaced Pages to be a dead-end source of information, "if it's not here, it doesn't exist", and to only reference specific facts, but to point our readers (particularly students, who often need some helpful pointing), to additional sources of information. That's a major advantage of an online vs. hardcopy encyclopedia, so what's the point of 'minimizing' this as an end in itself? (Reminds me of Mozart being told he used "too many notes". One uses as many as are necessary.) imo the EL guidelines don't trump Misplaced Pages's mission and goal, which is to provide information to all. The point of the Bloomberg link was to provide a reliable third-party source which provides ongoing, in-depth updates for whatever Jain does in the business world, just as a NYT topic does for news about him. If he gets a new Board appointment, Bloomberg will have it. That's what they do. I haven't worked on enough businesspeople articles to have come with a set of reliable, useful, extensive sources, so perhaps better links (as opposed to no links) are available. For examples in other fields, see Template:CongLinks, Template:JudgeLinks, Template:UK MP links, Template:UK Peer links. Examples for each: Jim Clyburn, Elena Kagan, David Cameron, Delyth Morgan. Are those a lot of links? Sure. We had a Wikipedian who used that as an 'reason' to delete the link to the voting record (only provided by WashPo) of one of the Congressmen. All s/he wanted the readers to know was how that person voted on three issues. Is that the point of Misplaced Pages? Con people into relying on us, then remove almost all links other than some cherry-picked individual articles to cite some cherry-picked factoids? I don't think so, and imo EL provides a deterrent and some checks and balances to that as well as providing what we've found to be some of the best sources. (nb: the EL guidelines mention linking to Dmoz or anything similar. That's no longer a feasible option.) That's not to pick on this article. I don't know the guy, and I'm not particularly interested in knowing any more about him. But perhaps someday I will, and I'd rather be able to go to Misplaced Pages than have to wade through search engine results to try to find "the rest of the story" which isn't (and never will be) in any Misplaced Pages article. "Trust, but verify." Citations only verify what's been included, not what's been excluded. Are we forgetting that? Flatterworld (talk) 16:26, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Naveen Jain Google profile

• Remove - I could go either way on this one. Quite possibly we should instead have a link to an official site, rather than a google profile.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:59, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
• Remove - Does not provide any unique content which is not available from the official website. --Muhandes (talk) 13:51, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
• I don't care. I expect it's helpful for some readers to have this information in a consistent format, rather than to try to find this information on anyone's official site, but it's no big deal. It may eventually turn out like IMDb, referenced everywhere, but it's not at that point yet. LinkedIn was supposed to be something similar. I'd prefer a (not yet in existence) third-party source not controlled by the person. Flatterworld (talk) 16:26, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
• Remove Material is not sufficiently useful to a reader to provide extra information from what should be in article, and such profiles should not be regarded as a "right" for a BLP. Having said that, the ongoing attention to the links in this article is not helpful, and this matter should be wrapped up quickly (either keep or remove would be fine for each of the links, but insisting on remove is not productive). Johnuniq (talk) 02:21, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
• Remove - I don't like Google profiles as external links (personal preference). Everything of significance in a profile like this (if it is verifiable) should be included in the article. Wikipeterproject (talk) 14:20, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Blog at Huffington Post

• Strong keep - This is his own blog and should clearly be included.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:59, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
• Keep He has three blogs, all of which are linked from his official website, under 'Articles' or something like that. Unclear, and of course his own website can change at any time. These are third-party hosted blogs, so I'd list all three. Sometimes people like to 'remove the evidence' from their own sites if they're later proved wrong. (Some people are in Project Syndicate, so only one link is necessary. He isn't one of those people.) Flatterworld (talk) 16:26, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
• Keep This article warrants the link as the blogs are substantive and indicate the subject's position. Johnuniq (talk) 02:21, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
• Remove he has three blogs, all of which are linked from his own website. If he had ten blogs would we list them all? That's what his own website is for - to link to his musings. --Muhandes (talk) 07:24, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
• Keep - If he had ten blogs we might not list them all, I agree - but we should look at each according to its own merits. Jain's website is certainly a good sarting point for finding links to whatever blogs he has. But this one is the Huffington Post, which is a significant publication and makes this particular blog a little different in my opinion. One of the reasons to include a list of external links is to provide reference to additional information/research about the subject that is on topic, and this is useful to that end. Wikipeterproject (talk) 14:18, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Profile at Bloomberg Businessweek

• Weak Keep - contains significant information not easily incorporated into this article, including board relationships, etc.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:59, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
• Strong Keep - see above. Flatterworld (talk) 16:26, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
• Neutral I would tend towards keep as it contains some business info that is too detailed for the article, but it could be argued that the material at the link is not significant. Johnuniq (talk) 02:21, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
• Remove I see no substantial information that couldn't be incorporated into the article, has it been a featured article (WP:ELNO #1). I would suggest using it as a source for a fact, thus providing some link to interested parties. --Muhandes (talk) 07:27, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
• Keep - Agree with Jimbo on this one. I would expect the information in the profile to be updated as his status on boards, etc changes. In some way, this would be like a sportsperson's profile, where statistics change. That's a useful external link, because not all these changes may be significant enough for a change in the article, but may be of interest to readers who want more detailed and specific information (i.e. further research), which is exactly what external links are supposed to provide. Wikipeterproject (talk) 14:26, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Moon Express

I think it is at least important to mention in Jain's entry that Moon Express is competing in the Google Lunar X Prize. Thoughts? Jheditorials (talk) 18:01, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

It's competing with Google in the X Prize has nothing to do with Jain that I'm aware. It's not even in the lede of Moon Express, so I'm confused as to why it deserves any mention here. --Ronz (talk) 18:08, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

It's not competing with Google. It's in a competition that Google is sponsoring to be the first company to the moon. It is in the lead paragraph of the Moon Express entry and has a separate section in the article about the competition. To me, it seems just as important to be included in the brief company section as the contract from NASA. Jheditorials (talk) 19:45, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry that I misread your comment.

This article is about Jain. What does this have to do with Jain? --Ronz (talk) 20:14, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

It provides additional, brief information about a company that Jain co-founded. I think that's a valid reason to include it in the entry. How is including this information different than including the information about the NASA contract? Jheditorials (talk) 13:48, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not seeing much significant coverage of Jain himself in the context of Moon Express - nothing remotely close to that of Infospace, and less than Intelius. A single sentence should suffice about the company, including a link to Moon Express. Otherwise we get into WP:COAT, WP:SOAP, and WP:UNDUE territory, problems that have plagued this article since it's creation. --Ronz (talk) 16:27, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Encylopedic style

Some recent edits have introduced text that is not compatible with an encyclopedic article. No doubt it is true that "Jain has been awarded many honors for his entrepreneurial successes and leadership skills", but that text reads like an extract from a public relations blurb. Encyclopedic articles need to stick to the due facts, not add editorial gloss. There are too many arbitrary quotations ("I knew the power the Web could put in the hands of everyday people...") that appear as if cherry picked by a publicist. The text "energetic demeanor and personality quirks" is a little older, but even more inappropriate.

Can nothing clear be said in the new "application of technology to cure global disease" section? The current text seems naively expressed (as if the subject were about to combat all "regional diseases"). In an encyclopedic article, a person may be a philanthropist, but very rarely are they a "committed philanthropist who gives to local and global charities" (what is "committed" other than market speak, and why attempt to explain what a philanthropist does?). Again, the quote about "Naveen's kids" would be great on some personal website, but is not appropriate here. The subject has done many good things, and it would be better to plainly describe them. Johnuniq (talk) 02:59, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

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