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Unfortunately, I don't feel this article establishes notability to satisfy the notability criteria for academics listed at WP:CREATIVE. The article doesn't mention any major contributions to the field, and from what I can tell the only major coverage the individual has gotten was for what happened on Ratemyprofessors.com, and I don't even know how reliable or noteworthy that site is (the site itself admits that its ratings aren't statistically valid). If there is notability here, it seems to me that he's more notable for his positions in the church than for his status as an academic, and if so then the article should be changed to reflect that; if not, I have doubts about whether the article should even be kept. — Politizer talk/ contribs 21:29, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
I vote Notable. I never took a class from him, but I knew him instantly by name and have watched him many times on various TV shows. Paris Hilton was less known when she got her first TV show--she was simply famous for being rich and nasty, and no one questioned her "notability" at the time. He's basically the BYU equivalent of Tom Lehrer. The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, (broadly construed of course--meaning in this case that he is quoted all over by LDS historians and scholars). Again, TV show solely designed to talk about his ideas means he is respected by those in that world. The big one is just that we have to document all his awards and whatever, since we know he has them. We also need to take all this in light of bias, since a "substantial number of academic institutions" are not going to give awards and fellowships to a modern Mormon church history professor from BYU. {The person holds or has held a named/personal chair appointment or "Distinguished Professor" appointment at a major institution of higher education and research.}--THERE! In and of itself, this keeps his article alive. {The person has held a major highest-level elected or appointed academic post at an academic institution or major academic society.}--yes. {The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity.}--my earlier point about TV. Okay, I'll stop there.-- Mrcolj ( talk) 18:16, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
The claim that his tests are called "celebrations" is on the main page right now, yet the source it was cited to {ratemyprofessor.com) did not say anything, it was simply a top ten list, no text, no additional information. Either the wrong ref was used by mistake or this is a case of OR slipping by DYK. I will post a note about it at DYK. This hook should probably be dropped from the front page asap. I added some {{ cn}} where it was needed.-- IvoShandor ( talk) 10:15, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
Accuracy:
The current article says, "Public comments by Bott, quoted in a Washington Post article, referred to a piece of long-repudiated Mormon folklore"
But Bott's comments reflect official statements made by top leaders over a 100-year period. See, for example:
http://en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_racial_issues/Blacks_and_the_priesthood https://www.dialoguejournal.com/2012/mormonisms-negro-doctrine-an-historical-overview/
Calling them "folklore" conveys the impression they were never official views, but this is misleading.
192.167.171.87 ( talk) 17:20, 2 March 2012 (UTC)Peter Adams 2 March 2012
The term "folklore" is likely used because Mormon leaders themselves have referred to these ideas as folklore that should not be propagated. For example, Elder Dallin H. Oaks said the following in a PBS interview regarding the racial theories of Brigham Young and others: "One clear-cut position is that the folklore must never be perpetuated. … I have to concede to my earlier colleagues. … They, I'm sure, in their own way, were doing the best they knew to give shape to [the priesthood-ban policy], to give context for it, to give even history to it. All I can say is however well intended the explanations were, I think almost all of them were inadequate and/or wrong. … But some explanations were given and had been given for a lot of years. … At the very least, there should be no effort to perpetuate those efforts to explain why that 'doctrine' existed…" 75.80.146.22 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:16, 3 March 2012 (UTC).
I've made a few changes to the new "controversy" section that hopefully improve it a little. I'm not fond of having articles where the controversy section is as long as the biography, and I think there may be a problem with WP:Recentism. I'd recommend renaming the section to Washington Post article or something like that, but I'll leave that to someone else. ~ Adjwilley ( talk) 21:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Bruce R. McConkie's August 1978 talk as explained in this article [1] clearly rejected any pre-June 1978 statements on the issue of blacks and the priesthood as no longer being normative. Thus Bott was clearly under notice that repeating and perpetuating pre-June 1978 statements was out of line with the teachings of the church. It is very likely Bott attended that meeting that Elder McConkie spoke at live. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 02:13, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Randy L. Bott article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | A fact from Randy L. Bott appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 25 December 2008 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
| ![]() |
This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page. |
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Unfortunately, I don't feel this article establishes notability to satisfy the notability criteria for academics listed at WP:CREATIVE. The article doesn't mention any major contributions to the field, and from what I can tell the only major coverage the individual has gotten was for what happened on Ratemyprofessors.com, and I don't even know how reliable or noteworthy that site is (the site itself admits that its ratings aren't statistically valid). If there is notability here, it seems to me that he's more notable for his positions in the church than for his status as an academic, and if so then the article should be changed to reflect that; if not, I have doubts about whether the article should even be kept. — Politizer talk/ contribs 21:29, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
I vote Notable. I never took a class from him, but I knew him instantly by name and have watched him many times on various TV shows. Paris Hilton was less known when she got her first TV show--she was simply famous for being rich and nasty, and no one questioned her "notability" at the time. He's basically the BYU equivalent of Tom Lehrer. The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, (broadly construed of course--meaning in this case that he is quoted all over by LDS historians and scholars). Again, TV show solely designed to talk about his ideas means he is respected by those in that world. The big one is just that we have to document all his awards and whatever, since we know he has them. We also need to take all this in light of bias, since a "substantial number of academic institutions" are not going to give awards and fellowships to a modern Mormon church history professor from BYU. {The person holds or has held a named/personal chair appointment or "Distinguished Professor" appointment at a major institution of higher education and research.}--THERE! In and of itself, this keeps his article alive. {The person has held a major highest-level elected or appointed academic post at an academic institution or major academic society.}--yes. {The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity.}--my earlier point about TV. Okay, I'll stop there.-- Mrcolj ( talk) 18:16, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
The claim that his tests are called "celebrations" is on the main page right now, yet the source it was cited to {ratemyprofessor.com) did not say anything, it was simply a top ten list, no text, no additional information. Either the wrong ref was used by mistake or this is a case of OR slipping by DYK. I will post a note about it at DYK. This hook should probably be dropped from the front page asap. I added some {{ cn}} where it was needed.-- IvoShandor ( talk) 10:15, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
Accuracy:
The current article says, "Public comments by Bott, quoted in a Washington Post article, referred to a piece of long-repudiated Mormon folklore"
But Bott's comments reflect official statements made by top leaders over a 100-year period. See, for example:
http://en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_racial_issues/Blacks_and_the_priesthood https://www.dialoguejournal.com/2012/mormonisms-negro-doctrine-an-historical-overview/
Calling them "folklore" conveys the impression they were never official views, but this is misleading.
192.167.171.87 ( talk) 17:20, 2 March 2012 (UTC)Peter Adams 2 March 2012
The term "folklore" is likely used because Mormon leaders themselves have referred to these ideas as folklore that should not be propagated. For example, Elder Dallin H. Oaks said the following in a PBS interview regarding the racial theories of Brigham Young and others: "One clear-cut position is that the folklore must never be perpetuated. … I have to concede to my earlier colleagues. … They, I'm sure, in their own way, were doing the best they knew to give shape to [the priesthood-ban policy], to give context for it, to give even history to it. All I can say is however well intended the explanations were, I think almost all of them were inadequate and/or wrong. … But some explanations were given and had been given for a lot of years. … At the very least, there should be no effort to perpetuate those efforts to explain why that 'doctrine' existed…" 75.80.146.22 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:16, 3 March 2012 (UTC).
I've made a few changes to the new "controversy" section that hopefully improve it a little. I'm not fond of having articles where the controversy section is as long as the biography, and I think there may be a problem with WP:Recentism. I'd recommend renaming the section to Washington Post article or something like that, but I'll leave that to someone else. ~ Adjwilley ( talk) 21:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Bruce R. McConkie's August 1978 talk as explained in this article [1] clearly rejected any pre-June 1978 statements on the issue of blacks and the priesthood as no longer being normative. Thus Bott was clearly under notice that repeating and perpetuating pre-June 1978 statements was out of line with the teachings of the church. It is very likely Bott attended that meeting that Elder McConkie spoke at live. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 02:13, 22 August 2013 (UTC)