Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Foot-in-the-door technique

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 of the debate was KEEP Marskell 15:28, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Foot-in-the-door technique

Original research, non-verifiable RoySmith 03:52, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Based on changes made, I (the nominator) change my vote to Keep. --RoySmith 16:56, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep and expand - the sales technique it's talking about is certainly real. It's not the best article it could be, but this is an amateur encyclopaedia after all. If someone wants to take a crack at cleaning them up, sources for usage of the term can easily be found with a Google for 'foot in the door "sales technique" ' or similar. I'll do it myself if no-one's done it by the time I get some free time (probably tomorrow evening). --Last Malthusian 14:10, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

• Yeah, keep. This is a valid sales technique. The article itself isn't in great shape, but that's what the cleanup tag is for. -- Captain Disdain 22:04, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
• I've expanded the article. Comments welcome. --Last Malthusian 13:24, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

  I agree that the article is much improved, but I still have my concerns. My initial reaction was, but this still sounds like Original Research to me, and I'd like to see some references, when I notice the link at the bottom of the page and followed it. I'm not sure how to react to the linked article, however. The first part of it is a very reasonable explanation of the technique, but near the end, it turns into a demonstration of the technique; the article is not really about a sales technique, it's a religious sermon, but the fact that it is indeed a sermon is hidden until the very end, by which time the reader is hooked on reading the article. I'd be much more inclined to vote to keep the wikipedia article if you could find some other external references to cite and ditch the sermon. --RoySmith 13:53, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

How about this one: [1]? It's pretty detailed, and directly addresses the issue in a way that the first reference didn't. Frankly, since it's been verified that the term exists, I agree that more and better references would be 'nice', but don't think they're essential to keep the article on WP. --Last Malthusian 15:57, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm ashamed to say I only just read the article all the way through and saw the bit about Billy Graham. Guess that shows 2 things: a) FITD doesn't always work and b) I should read articles all the way through before referencing them. Good thing it wasn't about the miracle of Goatse :-) --Last "Foot-in-the-mouth" Malthusian 16:01, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

While I'm at it, I do think the original reference is rather cute and should stay in; the fact that it's a demonstration of the technique makes it quite an interesting external link, even if it shouldn't be the sole reference. --Last Malthusian 16:10, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

You should add this new reference, and I still think the sermon citation should be removed, but in any case I agree that with the rewrite it should be kept. It might also make sense to move it to Foot in the door, or at least make that a redirect to here. --RoySmith 16:56, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Done. And I've kept the sermon, but changed the text of the link to 'An example of foot in the door technique'. I know it's a bit dodgy, especially as the irony of an article about foot-in-the-doormanship being a 'foot-in-the-door' to talking about Jesus is apparently unintentional (look at the other articles on the website). But Wikipedia isn't a scholarly work, and I think we can have the odd idiosyncratic external link. --Last Malthusian 18:59, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

• Keep notable technique; I've seen listed in an advertising manual published 1948. Sadly, my chances of recovering the reference are close to zero. :( Xoloz 17:16, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep - Keep, but for God's sake get rid of the 'sermon' link per RoySmith. --Cactus.man ✍ 09:57, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep - as the creator of this article, I will say that my amateurish summary came from paraphrasing of my psychology text. I'm not really sure how exactly I could cite that, can we provide documentation without an external link? Also i came across to the article because it was linked from one of the psych articles, and I thought it was a shame that there was actually nothing there! So I decided to put in a stub just to get the ball rolling, which I guess it did. So can we reference a textbook? Lensovet 00:30, 16 October 2005 (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.