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Q: Why doesn't the article cover more of Chomsky's view on X political event?
A: This article doesn't cover all of Chomsky's many political views, only the ones that have had significant secondary source discourse to factor into what a general reader would need to know about his general biography. The Political positions of Noam Chomsky article goes into more depth for those with specific interests.
Noam Chomsky is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
Current status: Former featured article, current good article
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Define "rationalism" as parallel to definition of "empiricism"
Get a better source for Saudi Arabia political views; try McGilvray
Get a better source for views on partition of Palestine
Reduce hagiography in § In politics: remove quotes, pare second paragraph, expand on Srebrenica massacre remarks, consider page number for Rabbani 2012, consider paring re: Horowitz, Kay, ADL, Dershowitz
Address history of controversial statements on genocide in the political beliefs section doi:10.5038/1911-9933.14.1.1738
Turn the achievements laundry list into readable prose
Confirm with sourced prose or remove the flatlist items from the infobox
Add commas after "in year X" clauses
Consider whether to expand on his views on the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Incorporate noteworthy anti-Chomsky critique into the Political views section so the final section can focus on Influence/Legacy
While having an image of the person during their peak (or, at least, not necessarily the most recent one) is often what is done after their death, I don't think the black-and-white part is an actual criterion (see Elizabeth II, with her official portrait instead). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:56, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's usually one or the other, it could be an old image and colored like Elizabeth II or it could be black and white. I'm leaning towards this one as it's one of a younger Chomsky and it's not bad in terms of quality. TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 19:58, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, normally when someone dies it's replaced with a recent photo with an iconic/posterity photo of them at their peak. There's no requirement for it to be black and white, just iconic - or at least, that's my understanding of it.
I have some concerns about the section - not enough to consider it NPOV, but enough that I think some changes are warranted:
"As a result of his influence, there are dueling camps of Chomskyan and non-Chomskyan linguistics. Their disputes are often acrimonious" - This really needs expansion. I know Daniel Everett is well-known as a critic of Chomsky's linguistic ideas. The "in academia" section in general is I think lacking in stuff on Chomsky's reception and influence in linguistics.
"Critics have argued that despite publishing widely on social and political issues, Chomsky has no formal expertise in these areas" - I don't like that this section is solely sourced to defenders of Chomsky and doesn't quote any of his critics.
In general I think the "in politics" section relies too heavily on primary sources of right-wing Chomsky critics. I think that paints a particular view of his critics.
This really needs expansion. In what way? The article is about Chomsky and not Chomskyan linguistics, which are already covered in their own section.
The "in academia" section in general is I think lacking in stuff on Chomsky's reception and influence in linguistics. In what way? What sources do you recommend on the topic?
publishing widely on social and political issues ... doesn't quote any of his critics. ... relies too heavily on primary sources of right-wing Chomsky critics Do the critics need to be cited directly? This summation is coming from a third party. Ideally we wouldn't cite any primary source directly, whether in praise or criticism. Feel free to share any secondary source missing here.
Decoding Chomsky is referenced ... its critique of Chomsky could at least be mentioned In what way? Since this is a biography of Chomsky and not an overview of all criticism of Chomsky, we should care what sources secondary to Decoding Chomsky discuss as being significant to Chomsky's biography.
Might want to break some of these bullets into separate threads if they require separate discussion. Most of this can be solved by adding the text or suggesting the sources you think are missing. czar20:59, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"In what way? The article is about Chomsky and not Chomskyan linguistics, which are already covered in their own section." - If the article is going to say "there are dueling camps of Chomskyan and non-Chomskyan linguistics", there should probably be a sentence summing up some of the key points of contention between the two camps.
"Do the critics need to be cited directly?" - well, a fair chunk of the right-wing critics are cited directly. "This summation is coming from a third party." - but they're not really third parties, because they're summing up criticisms of Chomsky and then defending them - and we're quoting their defences directly and giving them more space than the criticism. If the defences of Chomsky were cited to third parties who were not themselves defending Chomsky, I'd be happier.
"we should care what sources secondary to Decoding Chomsky discuss as being significant to Chomsky's biography." - This was my point. Decoding Chomsky was a book that got a fair bit of attention, as can be seen by the decent-size article it has, so there are a lot of reviews etc. we can use to talk about it.
"Most of this can be solved by adding the text or suggesting the sources you think are missing." - I always find this criticism a bit lazy, to be honest. It often takes less time to point out an issue than fix it, and most of us have other things to do besides edit Wikipedia.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 22:37, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Among some other problems throughout his life, Noam was close with former financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Noam has claimed to have met with him several times after his original conviction and often gave extremely lame or bizarre responses to people on this topic such as "none of your business" or "he served his time" despite the severity of his crimes and the heinous nature. Cruetresin (talk) 02:32, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Controversy" sections are often the result of poor writing, noxious and poorly representative; the current article does the much preferable thing of interspersing those details throughout the article where they actually belong, in proportion to how they are represented in sources about Chomsky per WP:NPOV. Remsense ‥ 论02:38, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We don't put emphasis on the Epstein connection because reliable sources don't. If the goal amounts to activism, then the intent is misplaced. I'm fairly sure this discussion has been had before, but if you want to pitch your case you can collate some sources here—I'm sure many are of relatively low quality (not dismissing the situation itself here, don't misunderstand) but generally these cases are decided based on what the best available sources have to say. Remsense ‥ 论02:43, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I guess it would depend on what a reliable source is but regardless Chomsky himself has endorsed that he has met with him.
The other part of the equation here is one of proveable interest versus innuendo: it's simply not that interesting on an encyclopedia what friends someone has unless they, y'know, do something (more substantial than move money, I have to specify, even a lot of money)—even if the WSJ wrote about it, there's just not much for us to synthesize of encyclopedic interest from that. I get it's frustrating for people who smell smoke, as it were—it's irrelevant here, but I happen not to think much of the Epstein connection with Chomsky in particular—but we need sources saying there's a big fire if we don't want to go afoul of our policies about biographies of living people. We can't just write suggestively about smoke, even if it's well-sourced. Remsense ‥ 论03:04, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well first of all the mere relationship with the most infamous sex offender of all time years after his conviction and being listed on Epstein's calendar should be enough to warrant a mention. Secondly, he had been given money, financial advice, free trips (not to Little St. James) but flown around to various places to meet with Epstein, and many other things that should warrant at the very little a mention of it all while not denying it and keeping everything extremely vague on exactly what happened. Kinda insane to just call having a relationship with the most heinous person in the world in both criminality and lifestyle "just smoke". Cruetresin (talk) 03:24, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I really do understand why you say all this, but I'll try to reiterate the position: we do not want to slander anyone or insinuate they did things they did not do. Generally, an encyclopedia article would not mention that X public figure moved $200,000 for Y public figure if there is not something more interesting involved there. We have nothing more material to say in that vein here, so if we include the $200,000 thing, we are in effect publishing innuendo implying Chomsky did awful things without actually saying that he did. Remsense ‥ 论03:33, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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