I once had a heated discussion with a classical violinist about who the most known Dane was outside of Denmark. She insisted that it had to be Carl Nielsen, a composer, whom she was sure everyone would know. All her friends knew Carl Nielsen, and many of them could play his most known symphonies from memory.
I'd only vaguely heard of him, and contended that maybe Hans Christian Andersen would be more known, since Disney had adopted his fairy tales and made them into stories that every child around the world would know. Or maybe Niels Bohr, since his contributions to atomic science were so great.
She would have none of it, and insisted that everyone she talked to, both in Denmark and abroad would instantly recognise Carl Nielsen, but only some would recognise Bohr, and a few didn't really know Hans Christian Andersen, and certainly didn't know all his stories by heart like they knew Carl Nielsens symphonies.
She lived in a bubble: Her friends and the people she worked with were all musicians, composers, or were otherwise deeply into classical music, so she made the obvious mistake of thinking that Carl Nielsen would be widely known, since everyone she met seemed to know him and his music well.
If you asked people on HN who the most famous Dane is David Heinemmeir Hansson might be mentioned. Or maybe Bjarne Stroustrup who invented C++, or Rasmus Lerdorrf who invented PHP, or maybe Anders Hejlsberg who invented turbo pascal, Delphi and C#, or Lars Bak who developled the Chrome V8 javascript engine and was developer lead on Googles Dart language.
You need to look beyond your own bubble to see who is notable in the general public. Ask a random stranger on the street how many pornstars he can name, and then how many scientists he can name and you'll see that the author lives in a bubble.
Within Wikipedia, notability is an inclusion criterion based on the encyclopedic suitability of an article topic. The topic of an article should be notable, or "worthy of notice"; that is, "significant, interesting, or unusual enough to deserve attention or to be recorded". Notable in the sense of being "famous", or "popular", although not irrelevant, is secondary.
Wikipedia actually doesn't really care about you being "worthy" of notice or interesting. What it actually cares about is that if there are reliable sources that could back up your claim, which is what Notability is mostly about. It's there for a more pragmatic reason, of writing a encyclopedia where contents could be verified by an external source.
unless you take the obvious extension to how humans process worth, significance, interest, and unusualness in order to derive "famous."
in which case it is clear that the topic asks why porn stars are more famous than scientists.
and that it is also clear that the topic asks why porn stars are considered more significant than scientists given the numerous noble achievements given to mankind by scientists.
let's take a step back for a second and see if we can re-read "noble achievements given to mankind" without snickering.
In short, whatsoever gets attention on wikipedia deserves attention by dint of it having gotten attention. that's the whole point, innit?
So we're really just complaining when we try to draw more attention to scientists. Just as we're complaining if we're irritated that pokemon trivia gets more lengthy treatment on Wikipedia than important historical battles/chemical reactions/poems.
Are you suggesting that wikipedia should choose articles for inclusion based on what is recognizable to laypersons?
I think this is rather ridiculous. We don't decide what goes into scholarly journals based on a public poll, I don't see why we should do that for an encyclopedia.
EDIT: If one accepts the premise that even wikipedia requires curation and cannot simply include all submitted articles, then it follows that one of the tasks of the editors is making value-judgments about what knowledge is interesting and important to wikipedia's readers. I assume the guidelines about notability, conflict-of-interest and whatnot are attempting to set forth policies that assist in making these value-judgments.
You appear to be arguing that the only basis for making this value-judgement is recognizability to a layperson. I'm having a hard time understanding why this is a suitable metric.
I doubt that having lots of information about porn stars will benefit wikipedia's readers. It might entertain them, but I don't think it has any scholarly benefits. At the same time, I don't see how removing information about scientists benefits wikipedia's readers. I can see that in some extreme cases having lots of articles about little-known scientists might clutter wikipedia. However, I don't see how holding articles about published scientists to a higher standard than articles about pornstars benefits either wikipedia or its readers.
> If you asked people on HN who the most famous Dane is David Heinemmeir Hansson might be mentioned. Or maybe Bjarne Stroustrup who invented C++, or Rasmus Lerdorrf who invented PHP, or maybe Anders Hejlsberg who invented turbo pascal, Delphi and C#, or Lars Bak who developled the Chrome V8 javascript engine and was developer lead on Googles Dart language
One of those might be the most famous Dane known to people on HN in the sense that if they made an ordered list of all the famous people they know of and then went down the list checking nationalities, one of those would be the first Dane.
However, if you actually asked them to name the most famous Dane they can think of, I think there's a good chance none of those would be named. Until your post, I had no idea any of them were Danes. Most of those names are common in several countries, and I'd have guessed most of them were from Germany, Sweden, or Norway.
The first Danes that came to my mind were actually the Laudrup brothers. But I guess that proves the point of how biased one is. I am a German who grew up in the 90s. I gotta know football stars from my childhood.
However, I'm unable to think of anyone from Argentina that is more famous than Maradonna even if I try to be as objective as possible, the only competition I can think of is Messi.
Round my parts the most famous Dane is Prince Frederik (sp?), because he picked up a real estate agent while on holidays and turned her into a princess. Still the classic holiday romance story. The trash magazines are full of the royal couple and their children, and they get regular mentions on the nightly news.
You can laugh all you want at Royals and Royal Weddings, but they still have a positive impact on international relations, which I'm pretty sure was their original use case 10 centuries ago.
Ask a random stranger on the street how many pornstars he can name, and then how many scientists he can name and you'll see that the author lives in a bubble.
I've often wondered who the Hitchcocks and Coppolas were of the Adult Film Genre. I've considered the idea that there are masterpiece films, dismissed for being erotic, that have gone unseen and unappreciated by the masses.
Alas, I have yet to find a nice thorough list, akin to the AFI top 100 for the lewd.
* If you know where this is, maybe you can also direct me to some reputable cult list; you know, that would have Todd Haynes and Kenneth Anger etc...
There's actually been much debate towards whether pornography can even be considered art, thus calling into question whether a Hitchcock or Coppolas of the Adult Film Genre can even exist.
I personally am of the belief that porn isn't art, due to its use and audience. When someone views porn, the pornographic material is almost invariably acting as a means to an end, namely satisfying sexual desires of the viewer. Art on the other hand isn't a mean to any end. Art is to be appreciated for what it is.
I don't know of a list, but I knew a girl in university who took a class titled "Sexuality in Film". She described it as basically the history of porn.
Name a scientist from the 1800s. A bit easier, isn't it?
People who can't name scientists from earlier times can't name porn stars from then either.
Science isn't about popularity or notability. It's about satisfying your curiosity about nature, honestly reporting your results, and experiment. At least it is for me, which is why I got a PhD in physics. Porn stars thrive on publicity.
A scientist without notability is like a fish without a bicycle.
Maybe the irony flies over my head, or are you seriously arguing that the absence of 'porn stars' from the 1800s makes scientists more important? 'porn stars' didn't even exist back then because the medium they use was only just invented!
(I don't care about the actual discussion, but your reasoning is so flawed I was compelled to respond)
Go read a satirical work written from before the 20th Century. Take your pick.
Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Gulliver's Travels, Dante's Inferno, anything by Shakespeare.
There are endless references in those works, with varying amounts of veiling, to popular personages of the time. Some politicians and princes, but also what passes for the pop culture of the age, usually some mix of court personalities, criminals, and occasionally a notable artist or learned person ("scientist" wasn't quite applicable for much of this period).
With the exception of arts, letters, and science, most of those names are all but lost.
Porn, or gossip, or other intrigue, has a broad currency (many people find it accessible and/or interesting), but also a very temporal one.
It's not that there weren't porn stars in the 1800s (vaudeville, "Little Egypt" at the Chicago World's Fair), but simply that you'd have no familiarity with their names (unless, say, you were an academic researching 19th century and prior pornography).
What are you talking about? "porn stars" in this context refers to (at least somewhat somewhat) widely known performers in sex movies. There were no mainstream movies back then, 'movie actor' wasn't a profession yet, and there was no way to become famous by doing outrageous sexual activities and exhibiting them to a broad audience. In fact in most of the world one would be thrown in jail for showing in public what is nowadays shown on prime time tv.
So, once again, it's ridiculous to suggest that porn actors are less important than scientists only supported by the argument that nobody remembers porn actors from that time. There weren't any!
(note that I'm not saying that one is more important than the other, I guess it depends on the definition of 'important', I don't know nor care - frankly I find the question quite trite and boring. My point is merely that the argument is ridiculous.)
dredmorbius did a good job answering, but I'll put it in my words too.
My post spoke not about the existence of porn stars then, but our awareness of them today.
Their notability may be great in their lifetimes, but does not stand the test of time. Scientists, on the other hand, may not attain notability in their lifetimes, but their stature stands the test of time. At least in the case of some great ones.
How many American Presidents do you know from the Renaissance period? How many quantum physicists do you know from Medieval Europe? They obviously will never stand the test of time!
Your conclusion is perfectly fine for the reasons that dredmorbius says, but that wasn't what he was disputing. He was disputing that your specific argument was so obviously faulty that it is just absurd.
Wikipedia is not to blame any more than MTV is to blame for Jersey Shore - they are both simply catering content that reflects how their audience wants to expend attention.
Looking at the numbers for perez hilton, farmville, facebook, television, porn, etc - paints a picture that the average mass consumer does not consider scientific knowledge to be notable.. or the inventors of this knowledge.
I blame Edward Bernays. Watch the BBC documentary 'The Century of Self' which provides a historical context for why the amygdala of the typical consumer suckles all the attention, while the neo-cortex sits waiting like the runt of the litter with only a vague notion of scientific knowledge present in daily life.
after 20 minutes of staring into special relativity treatment of moving particle field interaction (the math is simple, yet as a math major i didn't have it as a part of my course and i'm interested in the corner case of small scale what is domain of QM) my amygdala took over again and i'm back at HN. I feel like my neo-cortex is complete chicken :)
I find it perplexing that someone with a science background could have said this: "Gary Martin and Sean Ekins are personal friends so YES, I have close connections with the subject. And I believe I can objectively write a good article about them."
He may have good information, and it's great that he's sharing that information. But being friends with the subject immediately rules out the authors objectivity. That information needs to be corroborated.
As apposed to someone saying "I've spent many hours enjoying videos staring adult performers Belladonna and Sasha Grey so YES, I have close connections with the subject. And I believe I can objectively write a good article about them."...
...which by Wikipedia's standards would then be ok.
I'm pro-porn, but from my experience many of these 'fans' are so in awe of their idols they're far more likely to write biased entries than peer-scientists who are able to write about a notable scientist with a professional level of rigor.
Factor in most adult performers have all sorts of controversy surrounding them that fans will happily defend/spin you have even more room for abuse and non-NPOV articles being written about adult 'talent' (for want of a better word, that is the official industry terminology).
But I'm not commenting on that aspect of the argument. I'm simply pointing out that the author can not be wholly objective on the particular point I quoted.
Well for a start, I didn't downvote you - just replied.
I think if you take your aspect of the argument to it's logical conclusion no one that has any reason to be editing a wikipedia page on a given subject can be wholly objective on that same subject.
Anything I know enough to comment on, I probably have a biased view on.
For example I have no biased view on the Greek/Turkish ownership dispute of Cyprus, but that's because I know nothing about it.
Which all just demonstrates yet another flaw in Wikipedia; why he put that resource on such a pedestal all the time, I don't know.
Without a doubt you could give some great insights and a lot of useful information. But to answer your question; No, you alone could not write an objective encyclopedia article on the subject.
Ok, so if a bunch of folks write about a given scientist - 2 being friends of the subject, the rest not - then by this logic the resultant copy they create as a collective should be objective. Great, problem solved.
Where did I suggest they shouldn't be writing about it? All I said was alone a single source with a biased outlook can't offer an objective view.
"Citizendium hadn't fell apart"? Hyperbole in the extreme.
"I'm pro-porn, but from my experience many of these 'fans' are so in awe of their idols..."
Tangential to the discussion, and maybe I live in a bubble, but do this sort of people exist? I mean, what does being a 'fan' in this context constitute? Collecting all movies of a certain actor/actress, or actually reading biographies, trying to meet (maybe 'meat'? I'm the funny guy in the family) them? I'm not even sure how that would work, do porn actors have like 'public appearances'?
Actually yes, many do, as it can be a great boost to their popularity (and thus income). There are public sex industry trade fairs that feature live performances, and some porn publishers release videos featuring the stars "performing" with lucky fans - I imagine the latter is in part an anti-piracy stunt and only available to registered buyers of the product.
Because pornstars are more notable among the masses than scientists.
I'm not saying this is right or wrong, but it is true. Ask most people to name a scientist, the only one they can name is Einstein. Ask most men to name pornstars, they can rattle of Jenna Jameson, Asia Careera, Ron Jeremy etc. For women, it will be the authors of romance novels.
In other words, "popular". And thus the inevitable problem with using notability as a guideline.
Once that becomes the principle inclusion/exclusion criteria (as it tends to be in most of the discussion in AfD), exclude lots of junk, but you also only include things that are so common that everybody already knows about them anyway -- thus making an encyclopedia as the "place you go to look up stuff you don't know" moot.
This creates an irrational fear of including non-notable "false positives" (when bits are effectively free), and excluding perfectly good information that falls beneath some particular editor's personal interest radar.
The 3 you just listed is just about the upper limit of my knowledge on pornstars. As for scientists I think you can get 5 out of most people and probably 10-15 from most high school students.
Most notable pornstars aren't any more notable than most notable scientists. If you go to porn conventions you know the people in the industry. If you go to academic conventions you know the people in the industry. If you do neither you only know by whats trending.
Wikipedia notability is also a social construct created by the kind of people who spend their time optimizing for Wikipedia cred, which co-relates with a bunch of stuff that is different from the population at large or, say, HN.
Because man has an evolved urge to reproduce which is far stronger and more prevalent than the urge to do science. 100% of my ancestors have had sex. I doubt more than 0.1% have done any science.
Did you even read the article?
Have a look at this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pornographic_actresses_... and try telling me with a straight face that all those actresses have a greater right to a Wikipedia page than the professors that the author mentions.
It's a question of why notability requirements are stricter on academics than pornstars. A fairly comprehensive list of pornstars will not be super huge, especially compared to academics, and will have fewer cranks trying to push a point of view through those articles. It comes down to a pragmatic point of view, not an actual argument that the least notable porn star on that list is more notable than the most notable scientist excluded from the list.
I personally say let them all in, but that battle has been fought and lost long ago.
I think it's likely that more people have seen works(videos) of those pornstars than works(papers) of those scientists. Also that more people remember names of those pornstars than names of those scientists. So I think pornstars are more famous. Whether that should translate to more Wikipedia notability I have no idea.
I have no knowledge of the actresses' area of expertise, yet I can fully enjoy their work. But without at least a MS (maybe a BS in some cases), I doubt I can fully appreciate the work of the professors.
Personally, I believe the work of the scientists of course deserve more recognition. But if you were going to go down that road, I'd start with trimming the wiki entries of pro-athletes or generic Hollywood celebrities. Their lives and contributions affect me even less than pornstars.
Having just visited that page, it's unfortunate that the wholesome-looking young lady currently in rotation asking for donations appears at the top of it. Sometimes banner ads can really not suit the page content.
I've noticed that social media experts (some of them whose blog posts rise to the front of HN) get their own pages, merely for having won awards or recognition in some social media BS ceremonies. In their case, I think it's the combination of online media savviness and the likelihood that no one will actually read their page that keeps their pages from being deleted.
For how much Wikipedia is assumed to be a tech-geek lair, I'm surprised that being big in computer science/programming/etc doesn't guarantee you a spot. CoffeeScript has its own page but not its creator, for instance.
The problem is that real, paid for encyclopaedias used to use real, paid for experts in the field. Wikipedia repeatedly goes wrong when it insists on applying processes that work with subject matter professionals to well-meaning amateurs.
There's not really any way they've got for resolving the situation where the intersection of motivated people and those whose work qualifies for inclusion is empty.
And yes, Nielsen is definitely notable. But give me Sibelius any day.
Sometimes, as is the case regarding 646 Pokemon, Wikipedia articles are suitable based upon completeness rather than notability.
Historically, pornstars were somewhat rare and an readily accessible catalog compiled to pseudo-academic standards is an undertaking which is well facilitated by Wikipedia, while listing every chemist is a much more problematic task.
The "Pokemon argument" was never considered valid within Wikipedia, and indeed no longer applies -- a few of the best-known Pokemon have their own pages, but most are relegated to lists.
Is a few bytes of text that expensive?? Why shouldn't they include an article about every person, place or thing someone cares enough to write about? It's not like it all has to fit in a volume on my shelf.
The reason is they are more notable! As in, More worthy of attention or notice; remarkable. As a group, we certainly pass more remarks about pornography starlets than theoretical physicists.
Because Wikipedia is the social media of encyclopedias. Sometimes you get really good stuff, but you also lose the serious but boring people and you get a weird social rules system.
One reason is because scholars will look up to the list of biochemists to know significant discoveries in that area; but the people looking lists of pornstars... they are just wasting time.
The little relevance of the subject makes easy for a pornstar to create his/her own webpage on Wikipedia.
I'd only vaguely heard of him, and contended that maybe Hans Christian Andersen would be more known, since Disney had adopted his fairy tales and made them into stories that every child around the world would know. Or maybe Niels Bohr, since his contributions to atomic science were so great.
She would have none of it, and insisted that everyone she talked to, both in Denmark and abroad would instantly recognise Carl Nielsen, but only some would recognise Bohr, and a few didn't really know Hans Christian Andersen, and certainly didn't know all his stories by heart like they knew Carl Nielsens symphonies.
She lived in a bubble: Her friends and the people she worked with were all musicians, composers, or were otherwise deeply into classical music, so she made the obvious mistake of thinking that Carl Nielsen would be widely known, since everyone she met seemed to know him and his music well.
If you asked people on HN who the most famous Dane is David Heinemmeir Hansson might be mentioned. Or maybe Bjarne Stroustrup who invented C++, or Rasmus Lerdorrf who invented PHP, or maybe Anders Hejlsberg who invented turbo pascal, Delphi and C#, or Lars Bak who developled the Chrome V8 javascript engine and was developer lead on Googles Dart language.
You need to look beyond your own bubble to see who is notable in the general public. Ask a random stranger on the street how many pornstars he can name, and then how many scientists he can name and you'll see that the author lives in a bubble.