Talk:List of sociologists

Who is a sociologist...

I just want to put up what I also wrote on the RfD page:

• Auguste Comte first used the term "sociology" in 1833.
• He died 1857.

I would therefore propose to remove all those from the list who:

• Died before the 1850s

For all those that came later, we likely need a reference they were sociologists. Also note that the 1800s was a time of wars in Europe, so please don't classify the rmaining ones by nationality (esp. for countriews that did'nt exist then... Eptalon (talk) 23:30, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Just because the term did not exist yet, does not mean that sources cannot refer to people earlier than that as sociologists. If a reliable source backs up a person being a sociologist, they should not be removed from here. --IWI (talk) 00:40, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

@Eptalon and Gotanda: It is important to get this right, but it is undeniably true that some people on this list should not be here, however many should. The enwiki article states: It is intended to cover those who have made substantive contributions to social theory and research, including any sociological subfield. Scientists in other fields and philosophers are not included, unless at least some of their work is defined as being specifically sociological in nature. It is worth keeping this in mind as the article is improved; we can only include people who have verifiably carried out work that was sociological in nature (they could possibly be from before the term "sociology" was coined). Hopefully later this week, I can help out with the sourcing. --IWI (talk) 23:03, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Sociology is a specific field and the term has a discrete meaning. This is Simple English Wiki where we use simplified language but also try to keep things simple. Sociology is not synonymous with social sciences. It is not philosophy. Adding in people who might be tangentially related just confuses what is and is not sociology. I have commented specifically for individual entries I have removed as psychologists, philosophers, anthropologists, archaeologists, etc. Those are all disciplines which are not sociology. And, there were a whole bunch of Marxists or socialists. Socialists are most definitely not the same thing as sociologists. --Gotanda (talk) 07:44, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

I have started making the list useful by doing several things in line with the RfD and discussions: removing nationalities (not always relevant, often incorrect, and sometimes hard to pin down re birth, career, subject of study, etc.); removing unreferenced; and, adding brief summaries or context, major works, etc. with refs. That kind of information is more important to sociology. Finally, we can probably just remove the repetitive "sociologist" from each line. It is in the title. --Gotanda (talk) 02:38, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

• Country. I am fine with anyone putting Country back in the list.--Might there be one or more cases where there might be consensus, to not use "Country" for that particular sociologist? Maybe there is one case, maybe there are two, ... . 2001:2020:347:F987:2840:308D:8F8:E5C1 (talk) 21:51, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

  Please see the discussion above. Also, Habermas was born and educated in West Germany. National identifications for these academics can become difficult or misleading as many of them have careers internationally. Accident of birth is not the most important fact for these people and there can be too much weight on that. It is only necessary if it is relevant to their work. In Habermas' case, perhaps the mostt relevant identification is Frankfurt. Also, as this is Simple English Wikipedia, it is generally better to use English references when available for ease of reading by the intended audience. --Gotanda (talk) 00:36, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Remove Pim Fortuyn

As written, *Pim Fortuyn (1948–2002), sociologist author and politician

Citation appears to be a wikilike page. Not reliable. As far as I can tell he was a minor lecturer who would not have passed notability as academic. He was primarily notable as a politician. IP editor wanted this discussed on the talk page. I think this should be removed because he was not notable as a sociologist. --Gotanda (talk) 03:40, 1 April 2023 (UTC) Gotanda (talk) 03:40, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

SNL.no - that is a wiki-notable website. English-wiki has a relevant article, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Norwegian_Encyclopedia.--We should not be removing right-wing sociologists from this list, just because user:Gotanda says so.--We should not be removing left-wing sociologists from this list, if (not-yet existing) user:CruzaderRandomLLØKJØJJKJAL were to tell us so. 2001:2020:347:F987:2840:308D:8F8:E5C1 (talk) 21:45, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

OK, SNL is better than I had thought, but the point is that regardless of the sourcing, Fortuyn would never come close to passing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(academics) as a sociologist. This goes to whether this list is usefully encyclopedic or not. If just studying sociology and teaching briefly, unsourced on EnWP, but maybe a decade, is sufficient, then this list will have thousands of entries. Fortuyn was a notable politician, not a notable sociologist. --Gotanda (talk) 23:16, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

• The view that goes against user:Gotanda's view - is clear. 2001:2020:347:F987:6932:772:F417:F8ED (talk) 06:29, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

  What is clear? Can you explain? --Gotanda (talk) 12:03, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

  "We should not be removing right-wing sociologists from this list, just because user:Gotanda says so.--We should not be removing left-wing sociologists from this list," just because someone tells us to.--That clear view, is the one that goes against user:Gotanda's view. 2001:2020:32F:EF7E:706C:30B:13A6:F65C (talk) 20:08, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

  I remember Pim Fortyn as a candidate for a right-wing party, who got killed by a left-wing activist... Eptalon (talk) 20:13, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

  Well, seeing I said neither of those things, you are arguing agaainst imaginary views. Eptalon's recollection seems to help confirm, Fortuyn was notable as a politician. --Gotanda (talk) 00:37, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  If I believe EnWPFortyn actually had a degree in Sociology, and was a lecturer at university, in that domain.. Yes, people likely don't remember him for that... Eptalon (talk) 00:02, 10 April 2023 (UTC)