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faq page Frequently asked questions Q: Why doesn't the article cover more of Chomsky's view on X political event? A: This article doesn't cover all of Chomsky's many political views, only the ones that have had significant secondary source discourse to factor into what a general reader would need to know about his general biography. The Political positions of Noam Chomsky article goes into more depth for those with specific interests.

	Noam 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.
	Noam 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.
	This article appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page as Today's featured article on December 13, 2004.
Article milestones Date Process Result September 9, 2004 Featured article candidate Promoted January 15, 2006 Featured article review Demoted October 27, 2007 Featured article candidate Not promoted August 27, 2019 Good article nominee Listed April 17, 2023 Peer review Reviewed Facts from this article were featured on Misplaced Pages'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

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The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future: https://medium.com/@christopherrichardwadedettling/noam-chomsky-select-bibliography-secondary-sources-8c55f4402dfb This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report. The week in which this happened: June 16 to 22, 2024 Section sizes Section size for Noam Chomsky (31 sections) Section name Byte count Section total (Top) 11,597 11,597 Life 9 31,760 Childhood: 1928–1945 4,309 4,309 University: 1945–1955 5,313 5,313 Early career: 1955–1966 4,555 4,555 Anti-war activism and dissent: 1967–1975 6,617 6,617 Edward S. Herman and the Faurisson affair: 1976–1980 3,824 3,824 Critique of propaganda and international affairs 4,514 4,514 Retirement 2,619 2,619 Linguistic theory 2,749 13,079 Universal grammar 3,827 3,827 Generative grammar 6,503 6,503 Political views 3,938 29,529 United States foreign policy 5,432 5,432 Capitalism and socialism 4,109 4,109 Israeli–Palestinian conflict 7,333 7,333 Mass media and propaganda 3,025 3,025 Reactions of critics and counter-criticism: 1980s–present 5,692 5,692 Philosophy 3,484 3,484 Personal life 4,816 4,816 Reception and influence 1,322 17,686 In academia 3,605 3,605 In politics 6,747 6,747 Academic achievements, awards, and honors 6,012 6,012 Selected bibliography 1,861 1,861 See also 336 336 Notes 2,153 2,153 References 33 33 Sources 63,652 63,652 Further reading 17,457 17,457 External links 6,228 6,228 Total 203,671 203,671

Road to FA, pt. II

This section is pinned and will not be automatically archived.

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)

Influenced (academia) list

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)

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

Controversy Section?

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)

"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 ‥ 论 02:38, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

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)

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 ‥ 论 02:43, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

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)

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 ‥ 论 03:04, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

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)

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 ‥ 论 03:33, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

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