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Former featured articleNoam Chomsky is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
Good articleNoam Chomsky has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on December 13, 2004.
On this day... Article milestones
DateProcessResult
September 9, 2004Featured article candidatePromoted
January 15, 2006Featured article reviewDemoted
October 27, 2007Featured article candidateNot promoted
August 27, 2019Good article nomineeListed
April 17, 2023Peer reviewReviewed
On this day... Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on December 7, 2019, December 7, 2023, and December 7, 2024.
Current status: Former featured article, current good article

Road to FA, pt. II

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Some remaining tasks to take this article to featured status, with some imported from the recent peer review:

  • Review all citations for text–source integrity
  • Replace primary sources with best-in-class sources
  • Replace chomsky.info sources
  • Bundle citations with {{sfnm}} where feasible
  • Rewrite the parts that rely on "Brain from Top to Bottom"
  • Rewrite the beginning of § Universal grammar and add a paragraph break
  • Define "rationalism" as parallel to definition of "empiricism"
  • Get a better source for Saudi Arabia political views; try McGilvray
  • Get a better source for views on partition of Palestine
  • Reduce hagiography in § In politics: remove quotes, pare second paragraph, expand on Srebrenica massacre remarks, consider page number for Rabbani 2012, consider paring re: Horowitz, Kay, ADL, Dershowitz
  • Address history of controversial statements on genocide in the political beliefs section doi:10.5038/1911-9933.14.1.1738
  • Turn the achievements laundry list into readable prose
  • Confirm with sourced prose or remove the flatlist items from the infobox
  • Add commas after "in year X" clauses
  • Consider whether to expand on his views on the Russian invasion of Ukraine
  • Incorporate noteworthy anti-Chomsky critique into the Political views section so the final section can focus on Influence/Legacy
  • Cross-reference "Noam Chomsky". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  • Invite reviewers to the FA nom

czar 04:21, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Influenced (academia) list

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The first and last names on this list are mismatched. 2601:646:8F00:7860:1DC4:7986:9B13:D579 (talk) 22:55, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean? Remsense ‥  23:02, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Controversy Section?

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Among some other problems throughout his life, Noam was close with former financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Noam has claimed to have met with him several times after his original conviction and often gave extremely lame or bizarre responses to people on this topic such as "none of your business" or "he served his time" despite the severity of his crimes and the heinous nature. Cruetresin (talk) 02:32, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Controversy" sections are often the result of poor writing, noxious and poorly representative; the current article does the much preferable thing of interspersing those details throughout the article where they actually belong, in proportion to how they are represented in sources about Chomsky per WP:NPOV. Remsense ‥  02:38, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Understood. Where do you think the relationship with Epstein should go? I think it's pretty significant and has a wealth of reporting. Cruetresin (talk) 02:40, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We don't put emphasis on the Epstein connection because reliable sources don't. If the goal amounts to activism, then the intent is misplaced. I'm fairly sure this discussion has been had before, but if you want to pitch your case you can collate some sources here—I'm sure many are of relatively low quality (not dismissing the situation itself here, don't misunderstand) but generally these cases are decided based on what the best available sources have to say. Remsense ‥  02:43, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I guess it would depend on what a reliable source is but regardless Chomsky himself has endorsed that he has met with him.
Here are two to get the ball rolling
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jeffrey-epstein-noam-chomsky-leon-botstein-bard-ce5beb9d?mod=hp_lead_pos1
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jeffrey-epstein-calendar-cia-director-goldman-sachs-noam-chomsky-c9f6a3ff?mod=article_inline Cruetresin (talk) 02:51, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:Reliable sources for bountiful guidance.
The other part of the equation here is one of proveable interest versus innuendo: it's simply not that interesting on an encyclopedia what friends someone has unless they, y'know, do something (more substantial than move money, I have to specify, even a lot of money)—even if the WSJ wrote about it, there's just not much for us to synthesize of encyclopedic interest from that. I get it's frustrating for people who smell smoke, as it were—it's irrelevant here, but I happen not to think much of the Epstein connection with Chomsky in particular—but we need sources saying there's a big fire if we don't want to go afoul of our policies about biographies of living people. We can't just write suggestively about smoke, even if it's well-sourced. Remsense ‥  03:04, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well first of all the mere relationship with the most infamous sex offender of all time years after his conviction and being listed on Epstein's calendar should be enough to warrant a mention. Secondly, he had been given money, financial advice, free trips (not to Little St. James) but flown around to various places to meet with Epstein, and many other things that should warrant at the very little a mention of it all while not denying it and keeping everything extremely vague on exactly what happened. Kinda insane to just call having a relationship with the most heinous person in the world in both criminality and lifestyle "just smoke". Cruetresin (talk) 03:24, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I really do understand why you say all this, but I'll try to reiterate the position: we do not want to slander anyone or insinuate they did things they did not do. Generally, an encyclopedia article would not mention that X public figure moved $200,000 for Y public figure if there is not something more interesting involved there. We have nothing more material to say in that vein here, so if we include the $200,000 thing, we are in effect publishing innuendo implying Chomsky did awful things without actually saying that he did. Remsense ‥  03:33, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]