CK author occupations : how liberally interpreted?

Reading a 1951 review of A bio-bibliography of Edward Jenner 1749-1823 by William Le Fanu, I came across:

"He has indeed always had his detractors, even the late Bernard Shaw was a staunch anti-vaccinationist."

George Bernard Shaw had only recently died. I thought that that was interesting, and is probably going to colour how I think of him from now on, and might be worth noting on LT.

CK Author's Occupations is a bit of a free-for-all as it is, so unless Tim would like to make a declaration confirming that the examples given, "plumber or waiter or engineer", means honest wage-labour occupations only, plus ancilliary occupations such as "homemaker or housewife or slave" (I think I'll stop digging now, but they are all represented in CK Occupations), what does the hive-mind think? Should CK Occupations include important moral and philosophical life-positions?

A quick search reveals activist, atheist, humanist, robber, socialist, spiritualist and thief are already represented.

Should CK Occupations include important moral and philosophical life-positions?

No.

>2 anglemark:

I agree.

>1 Cynfelyn:

What is a "hive-mind"?

A quick search reveals activist, atheist, humanist, robber, socialist, spiritualist and thief are already represented.

I think there are circumstances where those are appropriate and circumstances where they are not.

Eric Hebborn is appropriately described as an "art forger". That wasn't a "philosophy" or a hobby. It was his business.

But putting "atheist" as an occupation is odd. Is "Catholic" listed as Pope Francis' occupation?

>3 lilithcat: "hive-mind" is, in this case, the collective wisdom of LTers. Seems to be a general newspeak for the wisdom of a group— for example, Ask.Metafilter describes itself as "querying the hive-mind".

Priest and philosopher make sense to me as occupations. Those authors prosthelytize and philosophize, respectively. An activist acts toward a cause. A teacher teaches. But is the atheist's occupation not believing in deities, or did that person devote themselves to work of some type? What is the socialist doing... socializing?

>3 lilithcat: >6 aspirit: I think you could make a good case for Richard Dawkins being a 'professional' atheist. If earning one's living is the main criterion he could be said to qualify but I reckon that 'occupation' is not synonymous with business, trade or profession, more how one's time is spent. A. Wainwright was an accountant and an author but 'fell walker' is rightly top of the list for him.

>7 abbottthomas: whoever maintains his Wikipedia entry describes Richard Dawkins as "an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and author". Those describers look to me more reasonable for the Occupation field.

ETA: What's currently in his author page looks good, including "atheist activist".

>8 aspirit: You're right, of course, 'atheist activist' is an occupation, 'atheist' is a state of mind.

>7 abbottthomas: I agree that earning a living is not an absolute requirement for an occupation. So often, artists and writers insist on carrying on that work while performing other work to pay the bills. I like that example of 'fell walker' as an unpaid but important occupation.

I have thought about including 'parent', but I haven't yet. Acknowledging unpaid life work is an ongoing discussion in so many ways.

Sometimes I am stumped and include the important life position because it infuses a person's life. For one example, I listed 'womanist' for Katie G. Cannon because it's a very particular position that influenced her theology work but also her entire life. 'Womanist theologian' would be accurate but, I thought, too limited. Any suggestions for another way to show that?

Occupations that should NOT be listed:
Writer
Author

>11 gilroy: Why not? It's not presupposed. Some are illustrators, translators, musicians, actors and what have you, who have not authored/written books

>11 gilroy:, >12 SandraArdnas:

I just read an article in The New Yorker about Toni Morrison. When she left Random House, Robert Gottlieb(1) told her, "O.K. You can write 'writer' on your tax returns."

If it's good enough for the IRS . . .

Well, let me correct this:

If their primary job is as a writer, than we shouldn't list writer or author, as that becomes redundant.
If their primary job is an actor, it would become okay to list writer or author, but not actor/actress. Again, redundant.

>14 gilroy:

While this is true in theory, that makes looking for authors born in 1989 impossible for example - so unless the system can automatically add the main occupation, not adding it defeats the purpose of having the data set at all...

>15 AnnieMod: How do you figure?

>14 gilroy: that seems backwards to me. Someone who's published an essay or story catalogued in LT doesn't necessarily occupy their time with writing or getting their written work published. By recording their occupation as "writer" or "author", we're stating more than what the general label of "author" does in the LT system.

Redundancy is not inherently bad.

>14 gilroy: I'm not following that argument. How is it redundant to list writer when not all author pages belong to writers? Why would the primary occupation be omitted as redundant? Do you assume everyone knows every actor, writer or illustrator in existence, hence no need to list their primary occupation. I genuinely don't understand.

To illustrate with some examples instead of abstractions: if someone writes in a limited field, members in my experience usually specify novelist, SF writer, etc, but sometimes their scope is best expressed by a more general 'writer'.

As for the original question, I'd say anything that features prominently in the activities of the person qualifies as occupation, meaning activist can be an occupation for someone, but philosophical, religious or any other affiliation isn't. Catholic or atheist is in itself not an occupation, but one can be a Catholic priest or an atheist activist. Occupation should indicate what the person actually engaged in.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/23740
https://www.librarything.com/topic/93276

In these two threads, the whole "author" role was discussed. And two staff said don't add it. (I knew there was a reason I didn't put it in.)

>19 gilroy: Don't both of those threads pre-date the Other Authors feature, though? Now that illustrators, cover designers and others get author pages when they are added to a work as an Other Author, specifying which of them actually are writers seems reasonable to me.

>20 rosalita: I have not seen the Admin ruling after that series of threads, so I've been sticking with what those threads say.

That's certainly your choice, but I think adjusting to the realities of new features that have been introduced since those admin rulings were made is much more sensible. I hope at the very least you choose not to delete information added by others until someone official does weigh in again.

Tim's only statement in those threads was "I think the whole project of adding variants on 'author' to CK is somewhat strange to begin with." That was ten years ago. conceptDawg said 12.5 years ago, "I agree that it is superfluous to enter author there." Neither of those statements come across as official rulings to me.

Anyway, would those two people have the same opinions after a new conversation about occupations? *shrug*

Personally, I'd find it strange to find "author" listed as an occupation, and while I wouldn't go out of my way to remove it, would do so if I were editing CK for that author anyway. Yes, author roles mean that it's no longer true that 100% of "authors" on LT are actually authors, but it's still the assumption. Unless it's someone who is widely known for another role and you want to highlight that in *this* case they actually wrote the words, I don't think it makes a lot of sense.

>24 lorax: fairly certain I should not post here, as I still don't know much about the Common Knowledge section and its inner sanctum. however, seems to me that if someone is author of several works- they are an author. if they are a plumber - and they write an essay- maybe only the author of that work. as to philosophical stands- I fail to see how anti-vaccination is an occupation- unless it is the total summation of life's work. perhaps, a box is needed for significant philosophical leanings. so Dawkins can be labeled as atheist; someone could be labeled pro / anti life etc. These are not occupations, even by IRS standards.

if such a thing were to be done- I think it needs to be brief and factual- not hyperbolic. e.g. atheist; supports pro-life; but not- scum sucking vitriolic atheist etc. even Dawkins began life supporting religion. How many people are a single concept free of gradations on any topic, without having ever varied and evolved in any degree?

sorry this wasn't intended as an address to Lorax. just general response

It also raises the question of how the person filling in the box views the person vs how others and the individual himself views the stances. the beginning thread seems to be from a review in 1951. ( if I'm reading this correctly). anti-vaccination- is completely different in 1951. Even the term was not in common use. Is it fair to decide somebody is against vaccinations - based on your own personal opinions about the topic, and the manner in which a particular essayist might have slanted his phraseology? At what point does it cease to be common knowledge and just become slander / libel / gossip / mudslinging?

To add to what >26 EGBERTINA: said, I'm pretty sure GB Shaw was anti-vax bc at that time vaxes were made using chicken embryos & he was a vegetarian, so, as EGBERTINA said, being antivax had a very different meaning for him then than it wd for us now.

I think this was pretty well settled last year. Most people in this thread seem to agree that "anti-vaccination" is not an occupation but "anti-vaccination activist" could be.

>24 lorax: "author roles mean that it's no longer true that 100% of "authors" on LT are actually authors"

Just because someone writes a book doesn't mean their profession is author. A lot of books are written by e.g. professors who wrote a book or two, but never for substantial profit, and never as their day job.

>29 prosfilaes:

Agreed. I edited a law book once. That doesn't make "editor" my profession.

Reviving this thread while looking at Hella Pick, who died today.

(i) I hesitate to ask whether members think 'Holocaust survivor' is an occupation. With eight hundred CK entries it's probably a fait accompli as far as LT at least is concerned.

(ii) More to the point, is an 11-year old child who came to the UK in 1938 on a Kindertransport, whose mother safely joined her three months later, and whose absentee father had run away to the USA years before, really a 'Holocaust survivor'?

>31 Cynfelyn:

i) it's not an "occupation"

ii) absolutely

>32 lilithcat: agreed on both counts

>33 norabelle414:

I too agree on both counts. But I would ask a question (implied in >31 Cynfelyn:): Is this worth getting into a battle about?

That is, I would grant that a holocaust survivor has more moral authority on issues like genocide than, say, an American with a lot of inherited wealth. But is it worth an editing war? Particularly since it's apparently a battle already lost.

I would add that, in general, I would think that "holocaust survivor" is a bit of biographical detail that is worth having. Yes, it can (and should) be put in the bio field. But you can't search on that as easily.

In other words, I agree with >32 lilithcat: and >33 norabelle414:, but I strongly suspect any cure is worse than the disease.

Well, i agree that Holocaust Survivor is not an occupation. I can say the damage is actually only 599, not over 800.
Clicking on Holocaust Survivor on the CK author page brings up all fields with that in it. So I counted like 190 short biographies that already have it.

If you want, you can always verify that the item is in short biography, and/or move it accordingly. This way you don't lose data, but move it to the right spot.

>35 gilroy: What about Holocaust survivors who make their survival into their life's work? What term would you rather I use?

>36 karenb: Historian. Activist. Educator.
There's a few options that come to mind.

>37 gilroy: Something specific to the Holocaust, please.

ETA: Sorry if that sounded grumpily brusque, but "Holocaust survivor" neatly summarizes the ranges of work involved. "Holocaust activist" . . not so much.

>38 karenb: Holocaust Educator. Holocaust Historian.
Those both work. Though I also suggest asking >31 Cynfelyn: >32 lilithcat: >33 norabelle414: >34 waltzmn: for their take, since they also agree it is not an occupation.

>39 gilroy:

FWIW, I could live with either "Holocaust educator" or "Holocaust historian," depending on the exact nature of the person's work. Or just "Holocaust author."

"Holocaust survivor" is obviously an important biographical indicator, and a "Holocaust educator" who is also a survivor has an authority which a non-survivor does not. So both are useful information. But "survivor" belongs in a different place.

In a way, it's almost an "award and honor."

(No, I'm not proposing that. I don't have a dog in this fight, particularly; I don't use author information in that way, really.)

Adding some kind of author descriptor would make it an occupation, e.g. Holocaust survivor historian, memoirist or something of the sort. Unless their work is concerned with Holocaust, it really only belongs to bio though.