Talk:The Polymath

Paid editing declaration

This draft has been put into AFC because it was created while I was paid by Waqas Ahmed for a project to improve Wikipedia articles related to cognitive flexibility and polymathy. MartinPoulter (talk) 15:04, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 06:14, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that The Polymath is the first book-length treatment in English of the topic of polymathy? Source: "I was never unconscious of the immense responsibility that came with it being the first-ever book in the English language on the subject" Ahmed (2018), page xiv (ref 5 in current version)
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Lynching of Deborah Yakubu

Moved to mainspace by MartinPoulter (talk). Self-nominated at 15:09, 22 June 2022 (UTC).

• Date, size, refs, neutrality, copyvio spotcheck QPQ, all GTG. But the hook is problematic, as the claim about this being "the first" is from the author. We should attribute it in the hook, but frankly, I think we should have a different hook. This is effectively quoting the author praising his own work (point out its significance), and is not neutral. Ping me if an alt hook is presented and I'll review this again. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:00, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

• ALT1: ... The Polymath's prologue is by Martin Kemp, a leading expert on Leonardo da Vinci? "His investigation of polymathy, its currently diminished practice and possible future revival, comes with a prologue by art historian Martin Kemp, a leading expert on da Vinci," Andrew Robinson The Lancet (ref 11 in current version of article)

@Piotrus: Thanks for your patience. I'll supplied ALT1 above. MartinPoulter (talk) 10:06, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Approving ALT1. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:01, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Edit request

The third sentence of the Background section, "He is also Artistic Director of the Khalili Collections." is no longer true. He is the former Artistic Director of the Khalili Collections and the current Executive Director of the Khalili Foundation. (see the Team section of the ref; see also his ArtUK profile) Please could somebody change the sentence.

Update 2023-06-05: this is taking a very long time and this is a simple factual change, I've gone ahead and made it myself. Please discuss on this talk page if there are any objections. MartinPoulter (talk) 10:34, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Waqas Ahmed has been described by multiple publications as a "renaissance man". See 1) the title of the New Arab article that is reference number 7 in the current version of the article. 2) 'In many ways, Waqas Ahmed and Martin Kemp [...] share the sort of omnivorous intellectual appetite that qualifies them, like their subject, as “Renaissance men.”' in ArtNet. 3) "Ahmed is something of a renaissance man himself" Men's Health. To the first sentence of the Background section "The author Waqas Ahmed..." could we add " who has been described as a Renaissance man"?

References

MartinPoulter (talk) 12:19, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• DONE - Ref. 3 could not be found, but the others were sufficient to make the edit. Ddjanna (talk) 10:12, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

This whole article should be scrapped.

Can we maybe talk about the fact that the majority of this article was written by Martin Poulter who is employed by the Khalili Foundation, of which Waqas Ahmed is the executive director? This is one of the most obvious examples of self-promotion I've come across on Wikipedia. 2A00:801:2FC:F4C3:2DE0:855E:1263:2076 (talk) 23:22, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Hi IP, we don't tend to delete articles that conform to our notability policies, but if you have concerns about promotionalism in an article and want to have it cleaned up by experienced wikipedia editors, you can add a cleanup template to it. I've done that to this one for you. -- asilvering (talk) 00:08, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Hi, it's because of the COI (that I declared, as you can see on this page) that I put the article through Articles For Creation review and put an update request, so the major edits have been reviewed by uninvolved Wikipedians. The idea that the article should be scrapped is just ludicrous; this is a verifiably existing book, published by a major publisher, that has been reviewed in multiple third-party publications, which are summarised in the article. Of course people can raise concerns about the tone of the article and whether it can be improved for neutrality; that's the whole reason I've encouraged review of my edits. However, you actually need to identify ways in which the article is not neutral, not just speculate that they might exist because of the way the article was created. @Asilvering Do you think it would be fair to give some time for this critic (or others) to raise specific neutrality complaints, and if none are forthcoming, to remove the tag from the article? MartinPoulter (talk) 14:36, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I think so, but since you have the COI I don't think you should be the one to do it. Give the IP some time to respond and uninvolved editors some time to happen across the page, but if nothing happens after a while, shoot me a ping and I'll get an uninvolved new page patroller to come have a look. -- asilvering (talk) 15:13, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@Asilvering I agree that it's not for me to remove the tag from the article, but I do think it's clear it should be removed. A long time has passed and there has been no concrete explanation of why anyone thinks the article is not neutral. Thanks in advance for any help, MartinPoulter (talk) 14:44, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

From what I've seen, it relies too much on primary sources, and the summary appears to argue in favor of Ahmed's perspective, using wording such as Ahmed urges a breaking. It also blurs the distinction between wikivoice and the book's claims, sometimes directly stating Ahmed's arguments as fact (Another advantage of a polymathic mindset is...). I encourage you to look into Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch for ways to fix it. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned as well about the reception section being nothing but a list of (positive) quotes. It could do with a bit more summary style in encyclopedic tone there (I've always liked Panini!'s approach to reception sections to break up the style a bit, though that's a personal preference). I'm also not sure if the prologue, cover image, or mention of the short profiles are necessary details – from what I can see it mentions only that they're in the book and not that they've been deemed significant in secondary sources. Perfect4th (talk) 17:48, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @Chaotic Enby and @Perfect4th for actionable input. The reviews of the book are broadly positive and are all the reviews I've been able to find; if you're aware of any reviews which are not mentioned here, please share them. I take the point that stylistically the reception section could paraphrase more, rather than quote. I've been reluctant to put words in the reviewers' mouths for hopefully obvious reasons.

The reviews don't necessarily give systematic overviews of the book's content but usually address the particular theme that the reviewer is interested in or respond to the book's core argument. So the fact that a large proportion of the book's content is short biographies of polymaths could be missed out if we only go by what's been said in secondary sources. An objective, verifiable description of the book's content therefore requires getting some structural info directly from the book. From my experience, this is common for the Summary section of articles about books. What's your guidance on the right amount of use of the book itself? MartinPoulter (talk) 20:00, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

For info, how experienced are the two of you with developing articles about books? Are you aware of Wikipedia:WikiProject Books/Non-fiction article? MartinPoulter (talk) 20:44, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Further question to @Perfect4th: why is the authorship of the prologue excessive detail when it was explicitly mentioned in the review in The Lancet? How many mentions, in what kind of sources, would justify naming in this article the author of the prologue? MartinPoulter (talk) 20:06, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

MartinPoulter, I'm not too familiar with the specific format or subject matter here; the details I mentioned were some that I could name as contributing to the tone sounding promotional overall. I would also agree with Chaotic Enby here that it would be better to lean a bit farther away from the primary sources in descriptions of the book's content. If most secondary sources aren't saying much about the short biographies of polymaths, Wikipedia probably shouldn't spend extra time discussing them either as that would be giving that aspect undue weight as WP:PRIMARY says. Happy editing, Perfect4th (talk) 03:26, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

I've removed the mention of the cover image because that was sourced to the book itself. We've established that the book's foreword is mentioned in a third-party secondary source: in fact that was independently verified in the DYK review that you see at the top of this page. With the potted biographies, these are a substantial part of the content of the book and while that mention shouldn't be excessive, it misrepresents what the book is about if they don't get a mention. This is a book of biographies of polymaths and argument that polymathy is good in various ways. Presently, the mention of biographies is small by proportion: two sentences and an image gallery at the end of the summary. If the named examples and/or image gallery were cut out, would that be proportional? MartinPoulter (talk) 18:25, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

As further background, I'll reproduce this quote from the Globsyn Management Journal which is included in the article, but which I will remove: "Waqas Ahmed has tracked the topmost people in the world including celebrity scientists, historians, philosophers and futurists and has woven together a narrative of history and vision for times ahead so that the existing system of super specialization can be reversed.". "Tracked" is an odd choice of verb, but this is a secondary source stating, perhaps in confusing language, that the book uses profiles of historical and living polymaths. Later in the same review we have "the book offers brilliant reading of world's greatest polymaths both of the past and also living." The review mentions Leonardo Da Vinci, Florence Nightingale, Ranindranath Tagore and Maya Angelou as examples of historical polymaths, not explicitly saying that these people are mentioned in the book, but they are. MartinPoulter (talk) 19:00, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

I've reworded the summary so that every sentence now attributes the argument to the book rather than state it in wikivoice. I've looked through Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch on your recommendation and I don't think any of the problematic language identified there is used in the article. Does anything else need to be done now to address your specific criticism about the Summary section that "It also blurs the distinction between wikivoice and the book's claims, sometimes directly stating Ahmed's arguments as fact"? MartinPoulter (talk) 18:12, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

It does look much better now, thanks! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:16, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Trying for neutrality again

Returning to this after a long break, I'm going to try again to get this to agreed neutrality. My take on the discussion so far is that problems with the summary and factual details about the book have been identified and solved. The remaining complaints concern the Reception section, and I've been pointed to User:Panini!/Copyediting Video Game Reception Sections as a guide for structure. This and other guides recommend an initial sentence that summarises the points that multiple reviewers agree on. In the case of this book, what stands out is that the reviewers endorse the conclusions of the book. Beyond the initial sentence, I'm reluctant to use the "some critics" approach that the guide recommends: opinions should be attributed to specific authors who voiced them in the interest of accuracy and neutrality. It also looks like my use of the reviewers' own words is counterproductive and Reception sections are expected to have fewer direct quotes. That can be fixed by deleting a couple of sentences. Another feature of the reviews is that some of them describe the advantages of this book compared to other books, e.g. the quotes from The Lancet and BBC Worklife. Panini's guide uses a lot of this short-quote style so it seems these sentences can be kept and maybe grouped together. I'm going to make these changes now. Please, @Chaotic Enby, Perfect4th, and Asilvering: or anyone else interested, review for neutrality and raise here any remaining concerns here. MartinPoulter (talk) 10:17, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

PS. I see I put some reviews in past tense and some in present tense. This was careless. Since we're not talking about a fictional world with an eternal present, the past statements need to be phrased as such. I'll make this change in my edit. MartinPoulter (talk) 10:22, 2 June 2026 (UTC)