Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Criticism and response in parapsychology

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep for now. The article has some issues, but now is not the time to kill it. There are various sources available on the subject, the interested users might want to work upon it to move it towards WP:NPOV. A page move to a more appropriate title wouldn't hurt either. Make sure you are following consensus, either way. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{C} 13:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism and response in parapsychology

Criticism and response in parapsychology (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

See the comments on the talk page of the article, that opened with this comment by the nominator:

This reads more like a blog or discussion page than a proper encyclopedic entry. The use of the "one crit. one rebuttal" format is potentially misleading, and the tendency on this page to make blanket generalizations about what one or the other side believes is dangerously close to the kind of straw-man arguments commonly used by TV pundits. I would recommend deletion, because the topic of the page is presented in a non-Wikipedian way (Wikipedia is not a blog, or a site to respond to criticism). Noclevername 01:48, 4 February 2007 (UTC).

The discussion that followed was quite long - too long to repeat here, and I'm not about to misrepresent anyone by paraphrasing it. I am assisting the nominator of this article with the posting of this AfD, as it is the editor's first time doing so, so no opinion from me on the nomination. itself Agent 86 01:31, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I am also moving the nomination from the February 8 log to the February 9 log, given that it spent the first day of the discussion mal-formed. Agent 86 01:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per WP:NOT#SOAP. The article, consisting as it does as a debate between two parties, reads like an apology for parapsychology. — BillC ^talk 01:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per nom and BillC. Certain types of criticism articles have a place on Wikipedia, including responses, but this is not that sort of article. It's very much a piece of apologetics. — coelacan talk — 02:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete or Rewrite per WP:NOT#SOAP. The point/counterpoint "rebuttal of criticism" format is inappropriate and reads like a personal editorial page. --- LuckyLouie 02:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep No reasons under the rules indicate deletion; how it reads is not a reason. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 02:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep I'm almost embarrassed by this vote since I have some underlying issues with paranormal subjects being addressed seriously on Wikipedia, but my own POV aside this is a well cited article which I presume was split off from a main article on parapsychology for space. As such, it's logically laid out and strongly footnoted. It could use a strong re-write, it could benefit from a more objective tone in the introduction, it could certainly do a better job of introducing and discussing each subsection -- but all of that can be addressed by editors, no reason for AfD in my opinion. -Markeer 02:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. An article's temporary content is not a reason to delete it; the article has good potential even though it is a bit soapy. All ya gotta do is take out the soap! Lots of people (like myself) who don't know a lot about parapsychology are going to wonder what is so controversial about a lot of it, and what specific arguments have been made for or against it. This article is where they will find this information. V-Man737 02:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete The way it has been framed is original research. The title is POV. Most of these references can or should be used in an article about ESP. For and against arguments for ESP extended into a debate about parapsychology is synthetic argument.-MsHyde 03:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. As I said on the talk page, the topic is a good one for an article but the chosen format needs to be changed as does the focus. i believe the editor who created the article is perfectly capable of reformatting it and changing the focus to the topics I outlined in my discussion on the talk page here: Talk:Criticism and response in parapsychology - Lisapollison 03:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Markeer. Perfectly acceptable topic. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 04:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep because it is a valid topic for an article. The parapsychology article should discuss the field of parapsychology itself with a summary of the criticism, but the criticism itself has a great deal of WP:Notability and source material of its own. It has its own history, its own key players, and so on. I strongly recommend a re-write, however, and a title change to Criticism of parapsychology. The re-write should change it from a criticism and response format, and soon, for several reasons. One, it really does seem like it's leading the reader towards one intepretation. Two, it suffers from stylistic problems where it looks like a forum, blog, or a collection of notes, and doesn't read like a fluid article. All of these things aren't a reason for deletion however. They're reasons for a re-write. That seems to be the general consensus thus far, even among the delete votes. The calls for delete (from what I read) are all based on style and content, not topic. The article itself shouldn't be deleted. --~Nealparr~ ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 05:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Markeer. Being badly written is not a reason to delete. The article, IMO, needs a title change and a complete rewrite for the reasons others have suggested here but that should be discussed by the editors on the article's talk page not at AfD.--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 05:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep While the style in which the article is written is not suitable for a Wikipage, and there are more than a few weasel words, the topic is notable, the pro-parapsychology text is accompanied by citations and is mostly evidently not WP:OR, and there is a good coverage of the issues at hand which is not POV pushing. Keep it, but re-word it. perfectblue 07:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Note: Readers should note that parapsychology is an official branch of science, so the normal rules and guidelines about taking a skeptical approaches and reporting as a pseudoscience should not be applied.

Perplexity: Pray, what does "official branch of science" mean? Is there an approved directory of sciences and branches of science? --Goochelaar 10:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Well.... the AAAS] has one such directory, and it has included Ps for the last 40 years. Wikipedia. Is that good enough? perfectblue 15:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I was unable to find this directory. Would you be so kind as to point it out to me? The nearest I found is the directory of sections in which the AAAS is divided, and none of them looks like parapsychology. Thanks, Goochelaar 15:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The AAAS is an umbrella organization, its recognition of Ps is done through a group called the "Parapsychological Association". See the list of affiliates for details. [1] perfectblue 16:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep Looks like a perfectly reasonable early version of the article, it does need reformatting and cleaning up, so I would make more sense to add it to the articles for clean up list rather than AfD. I also agree with the note about parapsychology above. - Solar 09:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete The theme, the title, the format (with the "last word" almost always on a single side) all very POV. --Goochelaar 10:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It's question and answer format. Of course the last word will be on a single side. As for "The Theme", parapsychology is a valid and recognized branch of science. perfectblue 13:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

As for the "branch of science" phrase, please check my "Perplexity" above. As for the logic of an argument of the form "It's X: of course Y happens", with the same way of reasoning you could write untrue statements justifying them "They are false. Of course they are not true." --Goochelaar 14:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I think Goochelaar meant that the last word is always on the same side. If s/he didn't, let me make that point. — BillC ^talk 00:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Delete - the question and answer format is a thinly-disguised vehicle for the promotion of a point of view and is therefore completely at odds with a core Wikipedia policy. If kept, it would create a disastrous precedent, encouraging the creation of POV-packed 'Criticism and response' articles on every controversial subject on Wikipedia. I sincerely doubt it will be rewritten in a timely manner, and it is not a good idea to preserve grossly POV pieces in the hope that they will be fixed in the future.--Nydas^(Talk) 14:08, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Note: Wikipedia guidelines state that recognized sciences should be follow the perspective of the scientific mainstream. At present the consensus is that parapsychology is a valid field of research, but its outcomes are disputed. As this is exactly what the page is saying, the page cannot be a fork. perfectblue 15:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

We do not have, and should not have, 'Criticism and response' sections for other sciences or anything else. The main parapsychology article is not particularly long once you get past the unnecessary lists, quotes and external links. There's no justification for spin-off articles, especially POV pushing ones like this.--Nydas^(Talk) 17:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

So, you are saying "rename it to "Criticism of.....", in order to fit in with all of the other entries like Criticism of Christianity, Criticism of Judaism, Criticism of atheism, Criticism of the War on Terrorism and of course Criticism of Wikipedia, yes? perfectblue 19:44, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Such an article is unnecessary, since parapsychology isn't a long article, once the unnecessary quotes, lists and links are removed. 'Criticism of' articles aren't very good anyway and should only be created when there is a clear need.--Nydas^(Talk) 08:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

• Move to userspace I can see that Martinphi put a lot of work into this article, and reading it I found it to be very interesting; but before I even looked at the talk page or this AFD I knew why it was up for deletion. It does not read like an encyclopedia article, but more like a college essay. It is a well written, well sourced essay, but an essay non-the-less. Don't get me wrong; I like this article. But I don't think it belongs on Wikipedia; certianly not in a criticism/response format. I'm suprised that no one arguing for the deletion of this article has yet pointed out the relevant page from the Manual of Style, the one that says that Pro & con lists are considered harmful. With that in mind, there is a lot of material here which could conceviably be used to craft a break-away article from the main parapsychology article, so I don't want to argue for blanket deletion. Rather I think the solution in this instance is to userfy it to Martinphi's userspace for a rewrite. It needs to be rewritten so it's not in a criticism-response format and so that it's less essay like and more encyclopedia like. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 14:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep but cleanup - Useful discussion and should be kept, but is very essayish, and the conclusion is POV. It needs work, but so do many other articles. Perhaps WikiProject:Paranormal could take it on as a group project? Totnesmartin 16:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete and merge relevant criticism into main article. It's basically a list of "answers" to strawman arguments, a POV fork which violates WP:NPOV#Undue weight and gives the impression that the critcism (which is made up of strawmen to begin with) has been decisively rebutted. Criticism/controversy should be incorporated into the main parapsychology article. Charles Kinbote 18:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - This article has some problems with conflation. There are 3 fields of Parapsychology: ESP, Telekinesis, and "ghosts". There are three things that are being criticized: whether parapsychology is a valid field of study, whether the results are valid, and whether the results prove anything. Following these divisions would help eliminate the "blog feeling" that a lot of deleters have noticed. It might also help this article come a little closer to the truth: some parasycholgists (mostly esp researchers) have used good methods, others clearly lack understanding of the scientific method (I saw some EVP researchers on TV who were hilarious) -- Some "skeptics suffer from scientism and are therefore easy strawmen, but there are some legitimate qualms some scientists have. The article also lacks a historical perspective which is a flaw that the main parapsychology article also has. It needs attention from an expert, but it is not OR nor is it really NPOV. It should prtobably be merged with The skeptical view of parapsychology, Maybe some of the project Paranormal people can agree to help this article.
• Delete this is an POV fork essay that results in a screed favoring one view, in violation of WP:NOT#SOAP.-- danntm ^T _C 02:30, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

This can be resolved by editing the last few paragraphs in order to remove the "conclusion" as per Manual of Style guidelines for page format. Deletion would then be unnecessary. perfectblue 08:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep per Markeer. This article is not a POV or Content Fork, it is instead a “spinout” article that falls under article spinouts, summary style. The main parapsychology article is currently 42KB long and growing - larger than the Wikipedia recommended size of 32KB, the main body of prose is slightly smaller in size, but still in range for spinoffs. Criticism of parapsychology is a notable and relevant subject. I agree that the article needs a rewrite and should be renamed, but it should not be deleted. Dreadlocke ☥ 21:33, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

No-one has, I believe, argued that the topic 'criticism of parapsychology' is neither notable nor relevant. The main arguments against retention have been whether the article, as written, constitutes a valid, neutral article, or that it exists and has been formatted to be a defence of a position. Deletion does not preclude re-creation under the same or a different title; the issue is whether the article is valid now, and if not, it is salvageable in its current form. — BillC ^talk 00:21, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Note: Thanks BillC, I guess my response wasn't clear in that regard. I do believe the article is salvageable and can be fixed in short order. The current contents are interesting, and I do not believe it is sufficiently "bad" enough to warrant deletion while being re-written. Until then, we can add the {{ActiveDiscuss}} tag to it. If we all put in as much effort there as we did here, it would be done already... :) I mentioned notability and relevancy because, first, they are a key focus in AfD discussions; and second, there seemed to me to be some question in a few of the above comments as to whether or not the subject needed its own article or was a sufficient topic to warrant an article - perhaps I was reading a bit too much between the lines. Dreadlocke ☥ 00:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Note: In reviewing the Deletion Policy section "Problem articles where deletion may not be needed, this seems to me to fall under number six: "Article needs improvement" and number eight "Article is biased", rather than What Wikipedia is not. It is not currently a soap box, nor a blog, nor is it a response to criticism, it just needs to be rewritten and improved. Dreadlocke ☥ 01:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.