Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Galambosianism

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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 No consensus. JRM ยท Talk 14:13, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Galambosianism

A non-notable term. Adherents of the ideal of the (extremely) free market certainly have their say on the web, yet Google shows a tiny number of references to this strand of libertarian thought, which (if I understand and correctly and am to believe) can never legally be explained. -- Hoary 08:40, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)

  • Keep for a moment. This is almost certainly not a term in common use, but Andrew Joseph Galambos (or Joseph Andrew Galambos, he seems to use both) appears to be real, and likewise the term (never mind that Andrew Joseph Galambos was an ad listed on VfD, and is now inappropriately listed as a "reference" on Scientific enterprise). It's possible Tuccille just singled it out for ridicule or dissemination, but there is information here that should be put somewhere. I don't know where, though. JRM 09:48, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
    • Clarification: he's dead, according to harrybrowne.org/articles/Galambos.htm. And according to that article, he "never wrote a book or appeared on national radio or TV". -- Hoary 10:11, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
      • Since today is notability day for me, I'm going to pretend I don't have a personal policy of not voting on it for a moment. Your source also says he was "influential". Your source is also not quite right: someone cared enough to have his notes published in book form (ISBN 0880780029, and yes, it's genuine). The author of the quoted web article clearly has a personal slant ("his renown will be limited mostly to those who came in personal contact with him") but the article seems quite honest. One does not have to write a book, let alone appear on national radio or TV, to be notable. If he's notable enough to be mentioned in a book, get a lengthy obituary article, have his notes published and get his extreme but interesting idea written up quite adequately by someone else some thirty years later, that's good enough for me. This is a definite merge with an article on Galambos himself. Since we don't have that, Keep. This guy may not have rocked the boat that much, but he's notable enough for Wikipedia. JRM 11:11, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
        • Sorry I didn't think of looking for a book of his material; since the article I looked at (and cited above) seemed scrupulously written (a bit hagiographic but with warts and all), I wrongly believed what it said about this. Right, so our man's utterings are published in a book. It's not in Copac, it's not in the Library of Congress, it's not in the NYPL, and it's not in Harvard or Chicago university libraries. (I gave up looking after that.) This suggests that it's not much known. Oh, I see at bookfinder.com that there was also Thrust for Freedom: An Introduction to Volitional Science (ISBN 0880780061 ; I couldn't be bothered to look that one up too). His ideas certainly are extreme (if you can say that to you they're interesting, then I suppose I can say that to me they're 30% repellent and 70% risible); and he seems to have been a lot less a scholar than a sort of invertly-charismatic "motivational speaker". I've no objection to his career choice, but the virtual absence of this "ism" from the web suggests to me that it isn't noteworthy. Or if it really is judged to be noteworthy, I'd suggest that it merits a paragraphy either in some article where libertarianism meets the utterly potty or maybe even one on Galambos himself, though I suggest that cranky theorists had better have something special before getting their own articles here. -- Hoary 13:50, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
    • I believe that Galambosianism is notable because (a) it is a notable failure (much in the way that English as she is spoke was), (b) it (or rather the spectacle of its absurdity) made enough of an impact to be mentioned in discussion as a bad example, and as such, an entry describing what this Galambosianism thing was can be useful, and (c) it is Wikipedia's strength that it has room for obscure ideas which would be editorially culled from more limited mainstream reference works. I agree that there should be a biographical entry for Galambos himself, and would be willing to countenance Galambosianism being folded into that; though, in the interim, Keep. Acb 14:07, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • I have to say, Acb, that you're rather persuasive. I'm all in favor of discussions of failures as long as they're notable. English as she is spoke was sufficiently notable to be published by Dover (etc.); Archimedes Plutonium probably isn't notable but is hilarious; is this chap notable? I've already granted that he's funny, but of course factions in the libertarian bloc may object to that and present him as an unappreciated hero. First the sollogites (sorry, "fans of Sollog), next the Galambosianites? -- Hoary 14:27, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
        • He was notable enough to get into a sparring match with Ayn Rand, not to mention to be eulogised by other libertarians decades later. Meanwhile, while Galambosianism as an idea didn't catch on, intellectual-property maximalism as an idea has never had it better (look at the DMCA, WIPO treaties, copyright-term extensions, business-model patents, and such). Perhaps Galambosianism is an increasingly relevant metaphor for our times? As such, a Wikipedia search for it should not draw a blank. Acb 19:19, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete or Merge whilst I certainly have some innate respect for the iconoclasts of the world, morely the fact that someone has an idea does not make that idea inherently notable. Although perhaps "original research" would be a hard one to apply to something allegedly five decades old, it's plain to see that this concept never got anywhere at all. 19 google hits for something that's been around since the 60s? Come on. There is a near infinity of ideas since civilisation began... they don't all deserve encyclopedia articles. Starblind 15:21, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • Disseminate the information - preferably keep, otherwise merge/redirect to his name. Samaritan 01:05, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. An obscure topic but well written and authoritatively sourced. Rossami (talk) 01:17, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. It's obscure and short-lived as a doctrine, but it's NPOV and nicely written. --Deathphoenix 02:19, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, not notable, fails Google Test. Megan1967 04:16, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • The problem with the "Google Test" is that it is inherently biased in favour of things occurring within the past decade, a criterion which in itself does not translate into relevance or significance. And yes, one can argue that the point is that older events not shown by Google have failed the test of time (at least as far as the web goes); however, the precise point is that more recent events which are no more inherently significant pass the Google Test. If we're going to delete Galambosianism on the strength of the Google Test, we should also, in the interest of consistency, delete Time Cube, Toynbee tiles and Alex Chiu, not to mention half of the entries on Wikipedia:Unusual articles and most of the articles about ephemeral internet subcultures which just happened to have cropped up in the past few years. Don't you agree? Acb 21:08, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • No I don't, not with all of it. Yes, I certainly agree with much of what you say. Putting aside the question of what (if anything) "relevance" is to, I heartily agree with the first sentence. I agree with your "precise point" as well. (More could be added, e.g. that what's on the web has a heavily anglophone and particularly north American bias.) But it seems to me that the Google test is one valid test of significance. If a subject (or, as detractors might put it, a non-subject) fails the Google test, then the proponent is free to put forward other arguments, for example that The Encyclopedia of Libertarian Ideas (4 vols, Podunk State University Press, 1997) [I've just made that one up] has a two-page article about it. Incidentally, the Google test is a pretty good one for recent academic significance, as very many academic journals are available online from Kluwer, Elsevier, etc etc etc, and their abstracts at least are open to Googling. But was Galambosianism a matter of ideas, or was it more a matter of "motivational speaking" with the now all-too-familiar line of "greed is good"? Browne's essay suggests the latter to me; and if my hunch is right then maybe Galambos deserves no less attention than do the other dodgy characters in the dreary "management" and "psychology" sections of an average bookstore. (I notice that every US purveyor of evangelical Christianity seems to get an article -- as indeed does anybody who's ever done anything with a ball in front of a paying audience.) -- Hoary 03:57, 2005 Jan 13 (UTC)
  • How many Google hits does something need to get to pass the test? 'Galambosianism' gets about 20, not counting this page. It's obscure, but it does actually exist and has been referenced in books and papers. Anyway, I think the salient point of Galambosianism as a notable subject is not simply that it's another "greed is good" construction (which, IMHO, would not be notable), but that it is specifically an absolutist theory of intellectual property, and, as a notable failure, illuminates some of the contradictions between ideas and property. Acb 12:23, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Notable. --Centauri 23:36, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Interesting and well-written. Clym 23:29, 16 Jan 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.