Hi, Emily!

Just to be clear here, is the article about the scientist or about the research topic of the scientist? If it is about the scientist, then the issue is one we encounter with many academic biographies, the lack of reliable sources about the *person*. Their journal articles don’t really contribute to that (beyond establishing that they published in a certain topic area).

In general, the language of the sources should not matter, but a new contributor making a strong claim about something dependent on sources that they alone have access to (for whatever reason) will inevitably raise some suspicion.

While there might be a principle of “assume good faith”, if you have seen enough bad behaviour, certain patterns of behaviours emerge that tingle the “spider senses” of experienced editors. My “tingle” is that bios written by new contributors are often likely to involve conflict-of-interest.

Kerry

From: Jack, Emily [mailto:jack@email.unc.edu]
Sent: Thursday, 9 December 2021 7:44 AM
To: Wikimedia & Libraries <libraries@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [libraries] Question: using Russian sources on English Wikipedia

Hi all,

This isn’t strictly a libraries question, but I’m sending to this group because I appreciate the brain trust here. If there’s somewhere more appropriate to post this question, please let me know.

A chemistry librarian I know sent this question:

“I am trying to help a professor who has written a biography of a fellow chemist whose original work was in Russian, starting in the 50’s. My profs article has been rejected as not being supported by reliable sources. The journals are reliable sources but they just aren’t in English, apparently a major sticking point. Some may not be available electronically either. Obviously we are looking at the articles and do have access to most in translation and most electronic. Reality remains, as we all know, that some are just not going to be translated nor available easily online. Is this the norm for Wikipedia? One journal they considered non-reliable was Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR. Not exactly an unknown, unreliable source. We can deal with this one but has left me wondering about the rules, who decides what is reliable, etc. Would appreciate any insight and guidance I can get.”

Anyone have insights? I would be grateful!

Emily

she/her