Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nonsymmetric gravitational theory

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. IronGargoyle 18:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nonsymmetric gravitational theory

Non notable one person's theory. No independent, third party sources, as never included in review articles, let alone textbooks. --Pjacobi 12:47, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete The theory doesn't seem very notable with only 864 hits on Google. - PoliticalJunkie 15:48, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment This level of notability is sufficient to warrant keeping a porn actress bio on Wikipedia; surely it is enough for a peer-reviewed cosmological theory? ;-)
    Freederick 00:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep 864 hits (I got 855) is actually pretty good for an abstruse cosmological theory. Encouragingly, most of these links are to bona-fide publications in various physics journals. As for the nominator's claim that this is a “one person theory”, the publications I found are by a number of scientists from different institutions. While I'm not convinced as to the merits of the NGT, it certainly appears notable enough, has a number of potential verifiable sources (all these published papers), and appears to attract physicists rather than cranks, which is a good sign. No, it is not a mainstream theory, but then Wikipedia is not paper; there is room here for less popular theories, as long as they are legitimate. The article could use some more citations, but this is grounds for editorial work, not deletion. Again, I'm not saying that NGT is true; I'm not supporting the theory, but I am supporting its inclusion on Wikipedia. Freederick 00:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

For scientific theories, you should better look into the citation counts. Then you will see, that over two thirds of the citations to the founding paper of this theory are again by Moffat. --Pjacobi 09:01, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• weak keep if Freedrick will please add some of the mainstream references. There's nothing wrong with improving an article being discussed at AfD. Once someone's found additional ref, saves others from having to do the work over, and supports the argument for keeping the article if lack of RS were part of the problem, as here. DGG 02:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I added three references as you requested. Only one of them is an overview by the theory's author; the remaining two, by other authors, address possible relationship with string theory, and current (as of Nov. 2006) developments. There are many other, less general papers out there, dealing with various aspects of the theory. I am neither an expert nor an enthusiast in the article's subject, so I do not expect to be making many more edits to it. Nevertheless I think that the request for deletion is unreasonable; this is a valid and recognized scientific theory of current interest; there are independent, third party sources; there seems to be little substance to the nominator's allegation that this is a theory nobody but its author contributes to. Freederick 11:55, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep; as per Pjacobi. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. 14:56, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak keep. Wikipedia does not, AFAIK, have an "impact factor" requirement. The citation pattern for this theory is not too atypical, and as the papers are, in most cases, refereed, they pass the "verifiable source" requirement without a lot of third party citations. It's not a slam-dunk case for being notable, and no one would be clamoring for an article if there weren't one written already. But since the article is there, and not badly written ... Bm gub 15:48, 6 March 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.