Talk:Jessica Pierce

This article was created as a part of the 2016 Women in Philosophy Drive and/or the Kevin Gorman Memorial Edit-a-thon, projects organised under the auspices of WikiProject Women in Red to continue the good work of Kevin Gorman, who died in July 2016.

A fact from Jessica Pierce appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 20 September 2016 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that philosopher Jessica Pierce argues that some animals may have a sense of morality?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2016/September. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Jessica Pierce.

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Removal of references

I note that this edit removed, along with unreferenced content and content only sourced to Pierce's own writings, some independent reviews of her work. Phil Bridger (talk) 07:56, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What reviews were removed? Sagsbasel (talk) 06:01, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just look at the edit and you will see that reviews by Sax, Hediger, Seale, Lyons, etc. were removed. Phil Bridger (talk) 07:04, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You mean the reviews used to establish publication information in the article? The book itself is sufficient to provide publishing information, a secondary source isn't required for such information. Sagsbasel (talk) 07:41, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed Deletion

Subject is not significant and does not warrant an article per notability requirements. There are no secondary sources that reference her, no news articles, nothing. This page uses the subject's own blog and personal website as a source but has no other sources. The page also appears to have been authored by her friends as there was a couple of references to how the subject feels about her university affiliations, but provided no sources. Sagsbasel (talk) 05:58, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The article has no other sources because you removed them. Why this obsession with Pierce? Phil Bridger (talk) 07:13, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The book reviews were used to establish publishing information. Book reviews are not needed to establish the publisher, the books themselves do that. These reviews provided no further information about Pierce, so do not establish notability. You're more than welcome to use them to justify the book receiving an article if you like.

There is no obsession with Pierce? I'm trying to delete unwarranted biographies per Wikipedia policies. Why are you obsessed with Pierce? Are you perhaps friends with her? This article was virtually ignored until I attempted to delete it. It's strange how many editors have come to defend this article but have not been able to provide any justification to keep the article. Sagsbasel (talk) 07:54, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just stop edit-warring and start a discussion at WP:AFD if you think this should be deleted. Regarding obsession, look at your contributions and mine and see who has the obsession. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:05, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am already discussing it there. Are you okay, bruh? Sagsbasel (talk) 09:57, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Edits by Sagsbasel

I am not sure why Sagsbasel wanted this article deleted. On JSTOR there are academic book reviews for Jessica Pierce [1] (The Quarterly Review of Biology), [2], [3] (Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment), [4], [5] (Journal of Animal Ethics), [6] (Environmental Health Perspectives), [7] (Environmental Values) That is 7 reviews in peer-reviewed journals. Psychologist Guy (talk) 18:32, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Because the "Subject is not significant and does not warrant an article per notability requirements. There are no secondary sources that reference her, no news articles, nothing. This page uses the subject's own blog and personal website as a source but has no other sources. The page also appears to have been authored by her friends as there was a couple of references to how the subject feels about her university affiliations, but provided no sources." It's right on this page, just look up. Sagsbasel (talk) 07:00, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The reviews Psychologist Guy lists (as well as many of the sources you removed from the article) are the secondary sources that reference her. The claim about affiliation was sourced to a lengthy piece in Times Higher Education -- or was, until you removed the reference. (@Psychologist Guy: If any of those reviews aren't cited in the article, I encourage you to add them!) Josh Milburn (talk) 08:59, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

They weren't being used in the article. If there's no information pulled from a website or article then it's not a source for anything. Here's a helpful link: http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Help:Referencing_for_beginners. Sagsbasel (talk) 09:16, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

They were being used to help establish Pierce's notability. So, for example, if someone was to nominate the article for speedy deletion while they were present, an administrator might decline the nomination. But if, completely hypotethically, someone were to remove all those sources and then nominate the article for deletion, another administrator might agree that the page should be deleted. Josh Milburn (talk) 09:42, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

They did not establish notability. They were haphazardly strung onto a random sentence about dogs having morals. Sagsbasel (talk) 09:47, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We establish notability by providing third-party sources. These were third-party sources about the subject. Josh Milburn (talk) 09:51, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Then learn to uses sources in relevant places so people can figure out what you're doing with them. Sagsbasel (talk) 09:56, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please tell me where the 'relevant places' for these sources are? Judging from your edits, there are no relevant places, as you just deleted them. Josh Milburn (talk) 09:59, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Having separate career and philosophy sections

I would prefer to see separate career and philosophy sections. I feel two main reasons a reader could arrive on this page are:

Someone says animals have a sense of morality? Tell me more about this person,
Animals have a sense of morality? Tell me more about this idea.

For the former, I would want to know about their education, affiliations, collaborations (i.e. their career), and for the latter I would want to know about their philosophy. Each book that's mentioned sounds interesting but I would like to see more. What are her conclusions about the ethics of pet ownership? What would happen in a world of dogs without humans?

However, I am afraid I am here as a reader with no wider knowledge of Dr Pierce's work so this is just a wishlist from me, not something I will be able to help with. But recent edits had a question about separating them so I thought I'd start a discussion. --Mgp28 (talk) 09:26, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your thoughts. I agree that it'd be great to have lots more details about her work, and invite others to contribute to expanding the article. I have two worries about separating 'career' and 'philosophy' in this case. First, I don't think we can clearly distinguish Pierce's 'career' from her thought, especially as she is now mostly independent of universities and simply writes for a living. Her thought is her career. Second, separating her 'career' from her philosophy muddles the article's chronology. According to MOS:CHRONOLOGICAL, the default option for biographies to present a person's life chronologically. Josh Milburn (talk) 09:46, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Change the header from "career" to something else like "employment history"? Sagsbasel (talk) 10:07, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That would be preferable, but I still oppose it for the reasons outlined. I also worry that it sounds like a section of a CV rather than an encyclopedia article. Josh Milburn (talk) 10:17, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your replies. I think my example questions may have been poorly chosen as too closely related to individual books. I would picture a philosophy section describing her work more generally with overarching / unifying themes (in the same way that a politician's article describes views expressed through multiple offices or a fiction author's can describe styles across multiple novels). Clearly this broader view of her philosophy could change over time, but I think so long as each section was presented chronologically it would still be consistent with MOS:CHRONOLOGICAL.

All that being said, I agree that adding this material is a larger / more pressing task than deciding how to arrange it once it's added. --Mgp28 (talk) 12:39, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes; writing this birds-eye-view account of Pierce's philosophy would be difficult, as it would presumably require synthesising a lot of different material. I've made some changes to the article while keeping the separate sections, and I'm encountering difficulties in addition to those I've already mentioned. For example, the new structure leaves no room for mention of the casebook and the edited collection. How would you feel if I was to add books back into the chronology (without publishers, as this is something that Sagsbasel has objected to) but we kept a separate 'philosophy' section where we included some details of the book's contents? (That would obviously be ripe for expansion, and could realistically be expanded by someone who had the time to read the reviews, even if they didn't have time to read the whole books.) This strikes me as a compromise position; it allows for a philosophy section without the disruption of the chronology, and, if done with care, could be done without too much repetition. Josh Milburn (talk) 13:57, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The latest version is much clearer and more informative than when I read it before.

I'm very aware that I'm not doing the work here. I might have preferred the idea of separated sections but if the available material fits a single chronology better then I think that's what we should have -- whatever makes the article the best it can be. --Mgp28 (talk) 14:34, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's great, thanks; I'll try this middle way and see what it looks like. Josh Milburn (talk) 14:42, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I've restructured it a little as suggested. I'm happy enough with it. There's lots of room for expansion with further details about what is argued in the books (or in Pierce's other works) in the philosophy section, but the chronology in the career section is solid. And it let me add a couple more references to the in-line mentions of her non-monographs, which should help with any lingering concerns about notability. Hopefully everyone else is happy with this new structure. Josh Milburn (talk) 15:16, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Animal welfare template

Jessica Pierce has criticized animal welfare, for example her paper with Marc Bekoff [8], also her position against pet ownership [9]. I believe this individual should be put on the animal rights template. Welfare is clearly incorrect here. Psychologist Guy (talk) 21:51, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]