A fact from The Polymath appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 July 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that the prologue to The Polymath was written by Martin Kemp, a leading expert on Leonardo da Vinci? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Did you know archive/2022/July. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/The Polymath.

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This draft has been put into AFC because it was created while I was paid by Waqas Ahmed for a project to improve Wikipedia articles related to cognitive flexibility and polymathy. MartinPoulter (talk) 15:04, 6 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered.

The third sentence of the Background section, "He is also Artistic Director of the Khalili Collections." is no longer true. He is the former Artistic Director of the Khalili Collections and the current Executive Director of the Khalili Foundation.^[1] (see the Team section of the ref; see also his ArtUK profile) Please could somebody change the sentence.

Update 2023-06-05: this is taking a very long time and this is a simple factual change, I've gone ahead and made it myself. Please discuss on this talk page if there are any objections. MartinPoulter (talk) 10:34, 5 June 2023 (UTC)Reply

Waqas Ahmed has been described by multiple publications as a "renaissance man". See 1) the title of the New Arab article that is reference number 7 in the current version of the article. 2) 'In many ways, Waqas Ahmed and Martin Kemp [...] share the sort of omnivorous intellectual appetite that qualifies them, like their subject, as “Renaissance men.”' in ArtNet.^[2] 3) "Ahmed is something of a renaissance man himself" Men's Health.^[3] To the first sentence of the Background section "The author Waqas Ahmed..." could we add " who has been described as a Renaissance man"?

MartinPoulter (talk) 12:19, 22 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

• DONE - Ref. 3 could not be found, but the others were sufficient to make the edit. Ddjanna (talk) 10:12, 16 June 2023 (UTC)Reply

Can we maybe talk about the fact that the majority of this article was written by Martin Poulter who is employed by the Khalili Foundation, of which Waqas Ahmed is the executive director? This is one of the most obvious examples of self-promotion I've come across on Wikipedia. 2A00:801:2FC:F4C3:2DE0:855E:1263:2076 (talk) 23:22, 26 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hi IP, we don't tend to delete articles that conform to our notability policies, but if you have concerns about promotionalism in an article and want to have it cleaned up by experienced wikipedia editors, you can add a cleanup template to it. I've done that to this one for you. -- asilvering (talk) 00:08, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hi, it's because of the COI (that I declared, as you can see on this page) that I put the article through Articles For Creation review and put an update request, so the major edits have been reviewed by uninvolved Wikipedians. The idea that the article should be scrapped is just ludicrous; this is a verifiably existing book, published by a major publisher, that has been reviewed in multiple third-party publications, which are summarised in the article. Of course people can raise concerns about the tone of the article and whether it can be improved for neutrality; that's the whole reason I've encouraged review of my edits. However, you actually need to identify ways in which the article is not neutral, not just speculate that they might exist because of the way the article was created. @Asilvering Do you think it would be fair to give some time for this critic (or others) to raise specific neutrality complaints, and if none are forthcoming, to remove the tag from the article? MartinPoulter (talk) 14:36, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I think so, but since you have the COI I don't think you should be the one to do it. Give the IP some time to respond and uninvolved editors some time to happen across the page, but if nothing happens after a while, shoot me a ping and I'll get an uninvolved new page patroller to come have a look. -- asilvering (talk) 15:13, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Asilvering I agree that it's not for me to remove the tag from the article, but I do think it's clear it should be removed. A long time has passed and there has been no concrete explanation of why anyone thinks the article is not neutral. Thanks in advance for any help, MartinPoulter (talk) 14:44, 9 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

From what I've seen, it relies too much on primary sources, and the summary appears to argue in favor of Ahmed's perspective, using wording such as Ahmed urges a breaking. It also blurs the distinction between wikivoice and the book's claims, sometimes directly stating Ahmed's arguments as fact (Another advantage of a polymathic mindset is...). I encourage you to look into Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch for ways to fix it. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm a bit concerned as well about the reception section being nothing but a list of (positive) quotes. It could do with a bit more summary style in encyclopedic tone there (I've always liked Panini!'s approach to reception sections to break up the style a bit, though that's a personal preference). I'm also not sure if the prologue, cover image, or mention of the short profiles are necessary details – from what I can see it mentions only that they're in the book and not that they've been deemed significant in secondary sources. Perfect4th (talk) 17:48, 9 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks @Chaotic Enby and @Perfect4th for actionable input. The reviews of the book are broadly positive and are all the reviews I've been able to find; if you're aware of any reviews which are not mentioned here, please share them. I take the point that stylistically the reception section could paraphrase more, rather than quote. I've been reluctant to put words in the reviewers' mouths for hopefully obvious reasons.

The reviews don't necessarily give systematic overviews of the book's content but usually address the particular theme that the reviewer is interested in or respond to the book's core argument. So the fact that a large proportion of the book's content is short biographies of polymaths could be missed out if we only go by what's been said in secondary sources. An objective, verifiable description of the book's content therefore requires getting some structural info directly from the book. From my experience, this is common for the Summary section of articles about books. What's your guidance on the right amount of use of the book itself? MartinPoulter (talk) 20:00, 30 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

For info, how experienced are the two of you with developing articles about books? Are you aware of Wikipedia:WikiProject Books/Non-fiction article? MartinPoulter (talk) 20:44, 30 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Further question to @Perfect4th: why is the authorship of the prologue excessive detail when it was explicitly mentioned in the review in The Lancet? How many mentions, in what kind of sources, would justify naming in this article the author of the prologue? MartinPoulter (talk) 20:06, 30 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

MartinPoulter, I'm not too familiar with the specific format or subject matter here; the details I mentioned were some that I could name as contributing to the tone sounding promotional overall. I would also agree with Chaotic Enby here that it would be better to lean a bit farther away from the primary sources in descriptions of the book's content. If most secondary sources aren't saying much about the short biographies of polymaths, Wikipedia probably shouldn't spend extra time discussing them either as that would be giving that aspect undue weight as WP:PRIMARY says. Happy editing, Perfect4th (talk) 03:26, 31 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've removed the mention of the cover image because that was sourced to the book itself. We've established that the book's foreword is mentioned in a third-party secondary source: in fact that was independently verified in the DYK review that you see at the top of this page. With the potted biographies, these are a substantial part of the content of the book and while that mention shouldn't be excessive, it misrepresents what the book is about if they don't get a mention. This is a book of biographies of polymaths and argument that polymathy is good in various ways. Presently, the mention of biographies is small by proportion: two sentences and an image gallery at the end of the summary. If the named examples and/or image gallery were cut out, would that be proportional? MartinPoulter (talk) 18:25, 20 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

As further background, I'll reproduce this quote from the Globsyn Management Journal which is included in the article, but which I will remove: "Waqas Ahmed has tracked the topmost people in the world including celebrity scientists, historians, philosophers and futurists and has woven together a narrative of history and vision for times ahead so that the existing system of super specialization can be reversed.". "Tracked" is an odd choice of verb, but this is a secondary source stating, perhaps in confusing language, that the book uses profiles of historical and living polymaths. Later in the same review we have "the book offers brilliant reading of world's greatest polymaths both of the past and also living." The review mentions Leonardo Da Vinci, Florence Nightingale, Ranindranath Tagore and Maya Angelou as examples of historical polymaths, not explicitly saying that these people are mentioned in the book, but they are. MartinPoulter (talk) 19:00, 20 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've reworded the summary so that every sentence now attributes the argument to the book rather than state it in wikivoice. I've looked through Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch on your recommendation and I don't think any of the problematic language identified there is used in the article. Does anything else need to be done now to address your specific criticism about the Summary section that "It also blurs the distinction between wikivoice and the book's claims, sometimes directly stating Ahmed's arguments as fact"? MartinPoulter (talk) 18:12, 20 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

It does look much better now, thanks! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:16, 20 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Returning to this after a long break, I'm going to try again to get this to agreed neutrality. My take on the discussion so far is that problems with the summary and factual details about the book have been identified and solved. The remaining complaints concern the Reception section, and I've been pointed to User:Panini!/Copyediting Video Game Reception Sections as a guide for structure. This and other guides recommend an initial sentence that summarises the points that multiple reviewers agree on. In the case of this book, what stands out is that the reviewers endorse the conclusions of the book. Beyond the initial sentence, I'm reluctant to use the "some critics" approach that the guide recommends: opinions should be attributed to specific authors who voiced them in the interest of accuracy and neutrality. It also looks like my use of the reviewers' own words is counterproductive and Reception sections are expected to have fewer direct quotes. That can be fixed by deleting a couple of sentences. Another feature of the reviews is that some of them describe the advantages of this book compared to other books, e.g. the quotes from The Lancet and BBC Worklife. Panini's guide uses a lot of this short-quote style so it seems these sentences can be kept and maybe grouped together. I'm going to make these changes now. Please, @Chaotic Enby, Perfect4th, and Asilvering: or anyone else interested, review for neutrality and raise here any remaining concerns here. MartinPoulter (talk) 10:17, 2 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

PS. I see I put some reviews in past tense and some in present tense. This was careless. Since we're not talking about a fictional world with an eternal present, the past statements need to be phrased as such. I'll make this change in my edit. MartinPoulter (talk) 10:22, 2 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

This page is just a promo of a book. Wikipedia would swell if all Amazon books will be promoted here. besides, the author's opinion is not in line with neuroscience and is speculative. The author makes a lot of claims (such as "anybody can be polymath" without being expert in neurobiology. The page has problems with neutrality and also problems with visibility of the content. The book is not known to the main researchers on polymathy, and an introduction by a famous author doesn't change it.SemantLeo (talk) 15:39, 2 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hi SemantLeo. You've likely already seen my response to you on the Polymath Talk page, where I argue that your edits about this book are based on some factual inaccuracies or misunderstandings of Wikipedia policy. I have some responses/requests for clarification for your post above.

• How do you distinguish between an article that explains the book and its reception and a promo (for) a book? As you can see on this Talk page, there is prior discussion about whether this article qualifies as neutral. Some changes have been requested by reviewers, and made, but there can be scope for improvement if people spell out further problems. So there's scope to discuss parts of the article and whether their phrasing can be improved, but the existence of the article is not itself outside of Wikipedia's scope.
• "Wikipedia would swell if all Amazon books will be promoted here." Yes, that absolutely must not happen. However, it is irrelevant to this article. The article is not here because the book is available on Amazon. It exists because the book has been covered by multiple independent reliable sources, as per Wikipedia's notability policy.
• It sounds like you have your own criticisms of the book's content and you want the article to reflect those, which would be original research. If your point is that Ahmed is not a professor of neuroscience and that the book is not a summary of mainstream research on polymathy, that's correct but the article does not state those things. If there is a specific part of the article that you think gives the wrong impression about the book or its author, please be specific here and we can work on correcting that. That a book is speculative or provocative does not mean it should not have a Wikipedia article. Look at all the articles about books: are they all mainstream? Are they all correct?
• "problems with visibility of the content": I've no idea what this means and what changes you're asking for. Can you set out the specific problems as you see them?
• "The book is not known to the main researchers on polymathy". I don't understand why you make this statement with such confidence. Part of the reason the article is here is that the book was reviewed by The Lancet, one of the best-known medical journals. Are you presenting yourself as speaking on behalf of main researchers on polymathy?
• Finally, your edit summary was "opinion to vote". Our Talk page discussions are not votes. Better to set out specific, reasoned arguments that refer to existing policies or consensus when they apply.

MartinPoulter (talk) 17:24, 2 August 2026 (UTC)Reply