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Reliable, independent sources need to provide context for raw statisticsedit
Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
@Gopher shocky: So far every sources that has been proposed for the number of papers and citations has been WP:PRIMARY and in the case of the International Society for Intelligence Research interview, is also excessively promotional. Since raw numbers lack context, and these sources do not provide context, do any reliable sources explain what these numbers mean or why they are significant? While a large citation count does appear impressive, we cannot use it to imply something which is not directly supported by a reliable independent source, as that is a form of editorializing.
A specific example of this issue is that these citation counts include random forum posts and unreliable and fringe journals such as Mankind Quarterly or OpenPsych. In fact, one of the first sources I found while browsing Google Scholar was a neo-nazi forum that had reposed a Mankind Quarterly study that happened to cite McGue. (Why is Google Scholar indexing crap like this? Who knows.) In addition to everything else wrong here, that means Google Scholar is double-counting his citations, since it includes both the neo-nazi forum and the original paper from a discredited pseudojournal. To be very clear, McGue is not guilty by association for being cited by garbage sources, but likewise, he shouldn't be given credit for these citations either. Listing the number without context would ignore all that. It is using a big number to make his work look impressive or significant, but that's not our job here. Wikipedia's goal as an encyclopedia is to provide context.
TL:DR: If you know of a reliable source which explains why these numbers are encyclopedically important, please propose it here. Grayfell (talk) 21:19, 31 August 2022 (UTC)Reply
