Talk:David M. Nisson

Proposed Deletion

Hello Ovinus, I am Truth 2239, who is new in the Wikipedia community. I am interested in pages about members of underrepresented groups in STEM professions, especially those with disabilities who have overcome obstacles to attend college and pursue careers from which their groups were historically excluded. Thank you for calling attention to the deficits in the stub I wrote about David M. Nisson, Ph.D. Please help me to create an excellent article.

I put up a stub about Dr. Nisson because I didn't have time to finish a full article with more references. I am removing the proposed for deletion tag, and am taking time away from my job today so as to add more paragraphs with details about Dr. Nisson that contains more references. Not to sound lacking in encyclopedic language in this "behind-the-scenes" conversation, but his story is, in fact, quite significant in the autism advocacy community. Ergo, I feel it merits inclusion in the Wikipedia community. Again, thank you for your help; please continue to help me. Truth2239 (talk) 19:49, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for responding, and welcome to the community; I apologize that this happened with one of your early contributions! Dr. Nisson's story is certainly moving and I'm sure he has well-deserved significance in the autism community. Unfortunately, for better or worse, Wikipedia excludes biographies which have not received substantial coverage in multiple reliable sources. The Forbes source is not considered reliable as it does not have much editorial oversight--see WP:FORBES. In any case, I have removed the PROD tag from the article (essentially a formality) as that is your stated intent. Likely, another person will come around and offer a second opinion. Keep in mind that, if sources do not exist, no amount of editing can qualify the subject for a standalone article. If you're not too discouraged, I would recommend you edit articles like autism rights movement, but cautiously and without reference to Nisson. Ovinus (talk) 20:47, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Please note that, if you want the article to remain on Wikipedia, it will need to be referenced, soon, to multiple publications that are not by Nisson or his associates and that have in-depth coverage about Nisson, in order to meet Wikipedia's notability standards. There are different standards for professional academics but Nisson appears far from meeting those. All of the references in the current article are inadequate; they are either by Nisson or his associates, or (the Forbes article) in a venue that has been determined not to meet Wikipedia's standards for reliable publications. My advice would be to remove these bad sources and only include higher-quality sources, both because our standards for sourcing for biographies of living people demand high-quality sources and because the presence of bad sources is likely to cause other editors who review the article to believe that there are not enough better-quality sources to continue to have an article on this subject. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:37, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Chiming in to add that right now this article does not really contain anything I can describe as a "claim of notability" - what is he known for? This looks like it could be his biography on something like a website about an autism advocacy group or maybe as a speaker background if he were presenting at a conference. The article states that he 1) has a PhD, 2) required specific disability support to do so, and 3) now works in web development. These things do help describe him and would be useful to someone encountering him in some particular context like a speaker series, but they aren't really "worthy of note" encyclopedically. If his story is indeed "quite significant in the autism advocacy community", that's probably his notability claim, and it doesn't really appear in this article at all! However, you may find this difficult to demonstrate with reliable, independent sources. -- asilvering (talk) 22:01, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Chiming in to say that I share these concerns, and to add the minor point that it is Wikipedia house style not to say "Dr" and "PhD" except in fairly rare circumstances. XOR'easter (talk) 18:41, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to all for advice. Article will not survive; I posted my brief expansion so my teachers here can read before you delete it. Tougher to expand than I expected due to lack of enough significant coverage in reliable sources. Can see why high-resource-requiring disabled scientists remain underrepresented. Will harvest lower hanging fruit until I have mastered more skills. Truth2239 (talk) 04:47, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Indeed; Wikipedia's bias is often attributable not only to self-selection by the interests of editors but also to insufficient coverage of important people. Unfortunately, the latter is a very difficult systemic problem to change. I didn't realize that you're a student; is this part of a Wiki Education Foundation assignment?

If you don't have any objections, I will probably redirect the article in five days to savant syndrome; hopefully that's enough time for your instructor(s) to take a look. Also note that your work will be preserved in the edit history of this page, even if it becomes a redirect (unless it's deleted for other reasons). Thanks, Ovinus (talk) 18:58, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi Ovinus, Oops! I'm sorry to have misled you into thinking I was referring to literal "teachers" who are at a school reading this. No, not a student. A retired teacher, in fact. By "teachers", I was trying to refer to you and the other critics here who have offered me advice that is proving so helpful as I learn the standards, language, and culture of Wikipedia's community. In a way, as much as I regret my unintentional blunder, I'm glad you misunderstood me because I had not previously learned of the Wiki Education Foundation. Thanks for that info!

Thank you also for your plan to redirect the article to the Savant syndrome page, which will be helpful to people needing to learn more about the condition. Do you also plan to remove Nisson's name from the "Notable cases" list?

I ask because what's notable about Nisson's unusual Person-centred planning story is that the savant syndrome page's notable cases list provides what may prove to be an inaccurate impression of imbalance in that the notable cases list implies that the vast majority of savant gifts of most people is either art or music, with only Temple Grandin and David M. Nisson listed as scientists. Anecdotally, as a former special education teacher, I taught high-needs (so-called "Low-functioning autism") students with mathematics skills who were deprived of behavior modification programs that could have allowed them to function well enough to gain access to academic curriculum.

In other words, the fact that there are not more mathematically or scientifically gifted adults with autism possessing advanced degrees may be systemic failure of Inclusion (education), rather than an accurate statement that number of adults with musical and artistic genius truly exceeds the number of those with mathematical or scientific savant giftedness.

The Wikipedia:Notability (people) page logically states, "The article title should define what the article is about... if, however, there is only enough information about one notable event related to the person, then the article should be titled specifically about that event...".

What if I were to rename the page so it could be about Nisson's unique Individualized Education Program and his Person-centered plan rather than his name, and to find someone better at Wikipedia-as-a-second-language than I to write it?

Many thanks for the time, attention, and compassion that you have dedicated to this matter, Ovinus.

Truth2239 (talk) 00:49, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I really cannot imagine it would be any easier to write an article about a specific person's IEP than about the person themselves. The standard in either case is significant coverage in multiple reliable, independent sources - has anyone's IEP received that kind of coverage? -- asilvering (talk) 02:37, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for helpful guidance. You are so right. Your comment, and those of @Ovinus, prompted me to seek an article describing a Wikipedia subject's specific written IEP or adult level program as the source of their later success. The closest I found were the sections on Diagnosis and Early childhood at the Temple Grandin page referring to certain features of her K-12 programs that she describes in more detail in her books. [1] However, the page itself does not share details. Besides, the point is moot because Grandin's story has significant coverage and Nisson's does not. Truth2239 (talk) 03:02, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Concur with Asilvering. Plus, writing about someone's IEP in depth, on a highly public website, runs afoul of reasonable expectations of privacy. Unfortunately I don't think there's much else to be done here, unless/until Nisson receives more coverage. Similarly, your statements on gifted mathematicians/scientists with savant syndrome need sources to be fit for inclusion, although they are interesting. Ovinus (talk) 02:49, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. HIPAA, etc prevents sharing details, with good reason. I learned a lot from this down-the-rabbit-hole process of having read introductory pages for newcomers that led me to the the Wikipedia:Be bold page, followed by another that offered encouragement in boldly starting a stub. Humbling, but the experience serves as a good assessment. Will return to focus on learning basics, and on making little contributions, mostly at pages to help Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red, especially women who are scientists. Truth2239 (talk) 22:52, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I appreciate your flexibility. I'd encourage you to discuss new articles at the talk page of that WikiProject, where experienced editors (David Eppstein has commented here--I think he's a WIR member) can explain which subjects are suitable for an article. For scientists, the most-relevant guideline is WP:NPROF, which is a soup of criteria that even I don't 100% grasp; definitely get others' input if you're unsure. Ovinus (talk) 01:08, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm not seeking to start a new article of my own about biographies, and will tread quite carefully if I start something about an organization. (So far my second-ever stub - California STEM Learning Network - hasn't been deleted). I sure understand how important it is for Wikipedia to take extra precautions when writing about individuals or specific groups. With bios, I'm just going to fix grammatical problems, add citations, and similar activities on articles others have already written until I get better at this. Thanks for the reminder to read discussions about the new articles at the "Women in Red", and for calling my attention to the fact that the helpful @David Eppstein is involved with that WikiProject. Truth2239 (talk) 03:14, 9 August 2022 (UTC)