Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Socionomics (2nd nomination)

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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 was delete as a separate subject; optionally merge some content to Robert Prechter. Redirecting there in the meantime.

Discussion. — This is a very unwieldy discussion, so for the sake of efficiency I am simply discounting anything written by Rgfolsom (talk · contribs), who is being paid to promote and defend Robert Prechter's concept of "socionomics" and has a conflict of interest. As volunteer editors, we are simply not playing in the same league as he.

For the reasons laid out at WP:ATA, I am also discounting the pure votes of Chrislk02, Rocksanddirt, Jossi and Piotrus (keep) as well as Sdedeo, Ghirlandajo and Orangemike (delete).

The remainder of the discussion circulates around whether "socionomics" is a sufficiently notable topic of discourse, as measured through the extent of its coverage by suitable reliable sources. Given the ream of citations that have been provided, it is appropriate to gauge consensus on the basis of those editors who indicate in their comments that they have actually attempted to check up the sources, and discounting those who simply say "it has many sources" (JulesH, Alansohn, Robertknyc) or "it's a fraud / it's COI" (Realkyhick, Gavin Collins, Smerdis of Tlön, Guy, Haemo)

Based on the editors who say that they have looked more closely at the sources, we have a preponderance of opinion to delete (trialsanderrors, THF, EdJohnston, Cool Hand Luke, John Carter, Ministry) versus keep (N2e, BenB4, Sposer). Other policy-substiantiated opinions for deletion include those of TheOtherBob and Calton. This is a determinative consensus to delete.

Finally, several editors advocate a strongly reduced merge to Robert Prechter, which does not appear to contradict the present consensus outlined above, i.e., the topic is insufficiently notable for its own article. Accordingly, I am closing this debate as a "delete", but I am redirecting the article to Robert Prechter to allow for a merger to take place, if consensus should develop among editors for such a move. Sandstein 07:15, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

1 Socionomics

[edit] Socionomics

AfDs for this article:

Articles for deletion/Socionomics

Articles for deletion/Socionomics (2nd nomination)

Recreation of an article that was deleted after the first AfD. The text is sufficiently different to require a second AfD, but the fundamental problems are unchanged: CoI-authored article on a financial neologism with insufficient currency in the financial market literature, essentially trying to piggyback on the emergent behavioral finance literature (e.g. Robert Shiller) to create the impression that this is a notable new concept in finance. The evidence (keeping in mind that contemporary finance produces massive amounts of academic and professional literature} is still extremely sparse and most sources are either unrelated or lead back to Robert Prechter and his Socionomics Institute. In short, a big smokescreen for a fringe concept with the flimsiest of scientific backing. ~ trialsanderrors 00:45, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Strong delete. Attempt to evade AfD process. Suggest author be blocked for this violation, as bad faith is obvious. (Sorry I added this at the top, but I was just too tired to wade through all the crap to get to the bottom.) Realkyhick 18:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
- Comment: I respectfully ask that this editor’s remark and vote be discounted. He does not contribute to the discussion, offers no relevant comment about the article, and plainly violates Wikietiquette.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by rgfolsom (talk • contribs) 30 July 2007 18:56.

Keep. This new version of the socionomics article addresses in full the relevant issues raised in the first AfD. Phrases like “trying to piggyback” and “create the impression” deprecate the topic, and ignore the chronology of ideas that are fully sourced in the article.

Editors who read the article and the facts below can judge for themselves whether the evidence is “sparse.” They can also decide if dozens of sources (not related to Prechter) can in fact amount to “a big smokescreen.”

The administrator who closed the AfD said it was "principally about whether 'Socionomics' is -- currently -- a sufficiently notable scientific concept (or term) to be included in Wikipedia." When challenged regarding "scientific concept," he said: "At issue was not mainly WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR, but whether the subject was notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia, or whether it was a nonnotable neologism used almost exclusively (and promoted by) your employer."[1]

Thus the two relevant criterion are notability and neologism:

Notability says, "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject."
Neologism says, "If you have research to support the inclusion of a term in the corpus of knowledge that is Wikipedia, the best approach is to arrange to have your results published in a peer-reviewed journal or reputable news outlet and then document your work in an appropriately non-partisan manner."

(The closing admin did not mention an argument made repeatedly in the AfD, namely that socionomics fails to meet undue weight. This criterion does not apply to article topics as such. NPOV undue weight addresses differences of opinion within an article -- as in, the lesser weight of minority opinions vs. the greater weight of majority opinions regarding the same topic. The example used in the undue weight discussion makes this obvious, namely that the earth article only very briefly refers to the flat earth theory. To underscore the point, NPOV undue weight also says: "Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them — Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia.")

The evidence below shows “significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject,” including “results published in a peer-reviewed journal” and in “reputable news outlets.”

Books with a non-trivial mention of socionomics

Behavioral Trading, p. 26.[2]
Technical Analysis Plain and Simple, pp. 127-128.[3]
Evidence-Based Technical Analysis, p. 151.[4]
The New Laws of the Stock Market Jungle p. 269.[5]
The Irwin Guide to Using the Wall Street Journal, p. 354.[6]
Applying Elliott Wave Theory Profitably, p. 179.[7]
Hot Trading Secrets: How to Get In and Out of the Market with Huge Gains, p. 7, 35, 53.[8]
Secrets of the Underground Trader, p. 273.[9]
The Book of Investing Wisdom: Classic Writings by Great Stock-Pickers and Legends of Wall Street, pp. 263-272, Peter Krass Editor (Prechter essay, "Elvis, Frankenstein and Andy Warhol").[10]
How Do We Create a Philosophical Cosmos for Acting Socially and Being Happy? [11]
The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior and the New Science of Socionomics,[12] Robert Prechter.
Pioneering Studies In Socionomics, [13] Robert Prechter.

Peer-reviewed journal papers dedicated to socionomics

Robert R. Prechter Jr. (2001), "Unconscious Herding Behavior as the Psychological Basis of Financial Market Trends and Patterns," Journal of Psychology and Financial Markets, Vol. 2, No. 3: pages 120-125. (document here)
John Nofsinger (2005), "Social Mood and Financial Economics," Journal of Behavioral Finance, Vol. 6, no. 3, pages 144-160. (The author's use of "social mood" is synonymous with socionomics document here.)
Kenneth R. Olson (2006), "A Literature Review of Social Mood," Journal of Behavioral Finance, Vol. 7, No. 4 (abstract here), pages 193-203.
Robert R. Prechter Jr. and Wayne D. Parker (2007), "The Financial/Economic Dichotomy in Social Behavioral Dynamics: The Socionomic Perspective," Journal of Behavioral Finance, vol. 8 no. 2 (abstract here), pp. 84-108.

University lectures and Conference papers/presentations

by Robert Prechter

The Kenos Circle: Oil Puzzle Conference
March 16-17, 2006, Vienna, Austria
“Peak Oil Or Peak Prices?”
The Socionomics Institute
SUNY College at Plattsburgh
November 3, 2005 - Plattsburgh, New York
"The Socionomic Model of Financial and Social Causality"
Canadian Society of Technical Analysts
Montreal Annual Conference
October 15, 2005 - Montreal, Canada
"The Socionomic Model of Financial and Social Causality"
Market Technicians Association
MTA Education Seminar 2005
May 19-22, 2005 - New York City, NY
Two-part introduction to socionomics
The Socionomics Institute
April 8, 2005 - Cambridge, MA
"The Socionomic Model of Financial and Social Causality"
Georgia Tech University
April 6, 2005 - Atlanta, GA
Prechter addressed the university's Quantitative Computational Finance students.
First International Workshop on Intelligent Finance - A Convergence of Mathematical Finance with Technical and Fundamental Analysis (IWIF)
University of Ballarat
December 13, 2004 - Melbourne, Australia
International Federation of Technical Analysts
5th Annual Technical Analysis Expo
March 19-20, 2004 - Paris, France
"Fundamentals of Socionomics."
London School of Economics and Political Science
March 18, 2004 - London, England
"Socionomics - Social Mood as the Engine of Social Activity."
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Laboratory for Financial Engineering, Sloan School of Management
September 12, 2003 - Cambridge, MA
"Fundamentals of Finance and Socionomics."
Neuro-economics Conference
September 18-21, 2003 - Martha's Vineyard, MA
Emory University, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
February 2003 - Atlanta, GA

by John Casti, Ph.D

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
A seminar sponsored by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation titled: “Globalization as Evolutionary Process: Modeling, Simulating, and Forecasting Global Change”
April 6-8, 2006, Laxenburg, Austria
“The Decline and Fall of Globalization”
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich
Teleconferenced lecture broadcasted from SHARE/Consulate of Switzerland, in Cambridge
April 20, 2006, Boston, USA
"Why the Future Happens: Socionomics and the Science of Surprise."
University of Warwick, Socio-Dynamics Seminar
May 9-11, 2005 - London, England
Economics Department, University of Otago Departmental Seminar
July 21, 2004 - Hamilton, New Zealand
University of Nevada, Economics Department, Departmental seminar
July 21, 2004 - Hamilton, New Zealand
9th Annual Meeting on Artificial Life and Robotics
July 21, 2004 - Hamilton, New Zealand
Conference on Philosophy and Complexity
July 21, 2004 - Hamilton, New Zealand
London School of Economics and Politics, Complexity Research Programme meeting.
July 21, 2004 - Hamilton, New Zealand
Brazilian National Super Computer Center
August 21, 2003 - Petropolis, Brazil
Massey University seminar in Applied Math Department
July 23-25, 2003 - Albany, New Zealand (Auckland)
Australian Center for Industrial Research and Operational Management
July 11, 2003 - Melbourne, Australia

by Michael K. Green, Ph.D., SUNY College at Oneonta

The Economic History Research Area of the European Association of Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE)
and the Economic Policy Laboratory (EMOP-Athens University of Economics and Business) Joint Colloquium, May 12-13, 2006, Athens, Greece
Athens University of Economics and Business
"The variety of economic institutions under the many forms of capitalism"
Philosophy, Interpretation, and Culture Conference
April 22-23, 2005 - Binghamption University, NY
"Social Ontologies and the Basis of the Social Sciences"
Association for Institutional Thought (AFIT) 2005
April 13-16, 2005 - Albuquerque, New Mexico
"Institutions and Social Ontologies"
Northeast Popular Culture Association Conference
October 30, 2004 - Newbury College, Brookline, MA
"Finding Nemo and the Social Expression of Optimism"
Second International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities
July 20-23, 2004 - Monash University Centre, Prato, Tuscany, Italy
Conference Theme: New Directions in the Humanities
"Humanistic Economics: Placing Economics on Ancient Foundations"
2004 Annual Conference of the International Association for Critical Realism (IACR)
August 17-19, 2004 - Cambridge University, England
Conference Theme: Theorizing Social Ontology
"Mechanistic, Teleological, and Formological Ontologies"
Association for Heterodox Economics Annual Conference 2004
July 16-18, 2004 - University of Leeds, UK
Conference Theme: New Directions in Economics
"Formological Economics and the Coming Collapse of the American Economy"
Association for Institutional Thought Annual Conference 2003
April 11-14, 2004 - Salt Lake City, Utah
Conference Theme: Institutional Economics
"Formological Economics and the Collapse of the American Economy: Veblen and Emulative Desire"
The International Confederation of Associations for Pluralism in Economics
June 5-7, 2003 - University of Missouri at Kansas City, Kansas
Conference Theme: New Directions in Economics
"Orthodoxic Inversion, Multi-State Stability, and Economic Pluralism"

by Wayne Parker, Ph.D., Emory University (inactive status)

International Conference on Cognitive Economics
August 5-8, 2005 - New Bulgarian University
"Herding: An Interdisciplinary Integrative Review from a Socionomic Perspective"
Association for Heterodox Economics
July 14-16, 2006, London, England
"The Socionomic Theory of Finance and the Institution of Social Mood"
Joint Annual Congress of the International Association for Research in Economic Psychology (IAREP) and the Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE)
July 5-8, 2006 - Paris, France
"Methodological Individualism vs. Methodological Holism: Neoclassicism, Institutionalism and Socionomic Theory"

Further academic recognition of socionomics

Citation of Prechter's socionomics research paper[14]
Citation of Prechter's socionomics research paper[15]
Citation of Casti's socionomics research paper[16]
American National Election Studies, a collaboration of Stanford and the University of Michigan, selected the Socionomics Foundation's proposed questions regarding social mood for inclusion in a study funded by the National Science Foundation. The social mood proposal was one of thirty proposals chosen from 1,100 submissions; other selectees are from universities such as Columbia, Princeton, Harvard Law School, Brown, NYU, UC Berkley, and MIT. The Socionomics Foundation was the one non-university selected.[17]

Reliable and extensive secondary source coverage of socionomics

"I Know What You'll Do Next Summer," New Scientist, 31 August 2002, p. 32.
"Storm Warning! How Social Mood Drives Markets," Futures magazine (cover), Nov. 2004.
"Social Mood and the Markets," Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities, June 2003, p. 50.
"Trader's Hall of Fame Award - Robert Prechter," Stocks Futures and Options Magazine, July 2003, p. 42.
"Is Prechter's bearishness permanent?", Peter Brimelow, Dow Jones MarketWatch, 30 June 2003.[18]
"Not waving but drowning in financial theories," John Authers, Financial Times, 6 October 2006[19]
"How History Happens," John Casti, Complexity, vol. 8 issue 6, 1 Dec. 2003, pp. 12-16.
"The social mood as a source of friction that can boost stocks and corporate profits has been extremely well analyzed by Robert Prechter in a very insightful report entitled `The Socionomic Insight versus the Assumption of Event Causality' in The Elliott Wave Theorist of June 1, 2002…. While I am less dogmatic than Prechter is about the social mood as the cause of political, social, and economic events, and while I believe that the cause and the effect are frequently difficult to discern and, in any event, tend to reinforce themselves, I certainly do agree with him that when the social mood is optimistic and full of confidence, as it was in the late 1990s, reality is lost touch with, and careful analysis and caution are thrown to the wind, which leads to expanding P/Es and excessive valuations, and that when the mood deteriorates, a phase of sobering up and skepticism follows the preceding euphoria, which leads over time to significantly lower valuations." Contrarian Investor Column, Marc Faber, Knight Ridder Tribune Business News, 6 August 2002.

Search engine A Google search for "socionomics" brings some 52,000 results -- and those exclude results from elliottwave.com, socionomics.net, and socionomics.org. Around 2,300 of the Google search results are non-English language, thus socionomics has some international notability.

Socionomics in practice

Vox Day's column.[20]
Minyanville applies socionomics.

Motor Age on socionomics essay on car colors.[25]
Slashdot review.[26]
Hackwriters review. [27]
Film review of socionomics documentary related to horror genre.[28]]
Blog entry about socionomics.[29]
Market analysis using socionomics.[30]

--Rgfolsom 05:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] convenience break for non-Folsom remarks

Neutral, at the moment. The notion cannot be ignored, as it is rather known, like various other cults (seems that all those creeds push us back to the dark ages), thanks to Prechter's spin. But the article would have its place here only if presented as an esoteric theory, akin to mysticism and numerology, as it refers to some unproven universal vibration, with some rules of thumbs (representativeness heuristics) added to make it look practical. It is not encyclopedic in its present form which tries to make it perceived as something linked to economic laws and social psychology findings. --Pgreenfinch 07:38, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Delete per nom. Whilst there is no denying the existence of articles and books promoting the subject, I don't think anyone can claim that socionomics actually exists per se. The content of this article could easily be classified as a topic within sociology, psychology or economics, but it delibterately distances itself from mainstream social science, leading me to believe this is original research dressed up as pseudo-science. The only reason why the authors would want to distance themselves from the mainstream is to promote their books or lecture tours by making them appear to be the 'new wave' in social science. As trialsanderrors suggests, this is original research dressed up with the flimsiest of scientific backing, and as such as no place in Wikipedia.--Gavin Collins 08:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
- COmment - Whether it can be proven to exist or not is not up to us to decide. There are many topics on physics that cannot be proven however have an article. Once we take it upon ourself to prove the content of a reliable source, the whole concept of WP:CITE and WP:RS fall ino WP:OR. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 12:39, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
  - Comment: Per -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider), WP:OR refers to “unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories.” I respectfully point out that whatever else may be said, the sources in the article and on this page make it obvious that the socionomics article cannot be accurately described as original research.--Rgfolsom 14:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
    - Comment It is up to us to decide about whether socionomics actually exists. What sets this article apart from a speculative topic in physics it that it claims the existence of an entirely new science altoghether, like claiming the existence physionomics. In a scientific test, this article would be shown to be 24-carat neologism. --Gavin Collins 16:45, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
      - Comment: I’m sorry, but wp:neo says nothing about whether a topic “exists” – what it does say is, "If you have research to support the inclusion of a term in the corpus of knowledge that is Wikipedia, the best approach is to arrange to have your results published in a peer-reviewed journal or reputable news outlet and then document your work in an appropriately non-partisan manner." Our task here is to either acknowledge that the article meets that standard, or explain why we believe it doesn’t.--Rgfolsom 21:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Strong keep per Rgfolsom. He has linked a huge number of third party, independent, reliable sources on this subject. I fail to see how this article, with 28 references to apparently reliable sources, could possibly be considered "original research". Articles have been published on this subject by leading popular science press magazines. Yes, it's a fringe theory. But it's a well-known fringe theory, so not covering it would be a tremendous failure. JulesH 10:54, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Speedy delete for abuse per WP:CSD#G4; in the alternative delete or merge with Robert Prechter. WP:NEO ("An editor's personal observations and research (e.g. finding blogs and books that use the term) are insufficient to support use of (or articles on) neologisms because this is analysis and synthesis of primary source material"), WP:SCI ("publication by itself is not a sufficient (and sometimes not necessary) standard for encyclopedic notability."), and, most critically WP:WEIGHT: "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it is true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not." Severe WP:COI problems, too. As the first AFD nomination documented assiduously, the "third party, independent, reliable sources" are largely imaginary or neither third-party nor independent, and, in any event, too rare to qualify as notable. WP:CRYSTAL, too. Per WP:WEIGHT, there already exists an ancillary article, Robert Prechter: every single one of the supposed reliable sources mentioned that I've checked so far was really about or by Prechter (or not about socionomics at all). And I'd like to see some administrative investigation: why was the same editor with a severe COI who disruptively and decisively lost an AFD after being found to have faked evidence allowed to recreate the same article without going through the administrative processes for reversing a decision or notifying the people who voted for its deletion? THF 12:01, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
- Comment: Remarks by THF were made after this AfD was brought to his attention on his talk page by Smallbones. Smallbones is banned from this discussion and any pages or articles related to Prechter, per this this Arbitration case. In other words, Smallbones has solicited and gotten the vote by proxy that he is forbidden to cast himself. Every one of the accusations made here by THF came to the attention of the Arbitration Committee (COI abuse, “faked evidence,” etc., etc.), and the Committee rejected all of it. THF’s rant about me here is in keeping with similar rants about me on several other pages, as a check of his history makes clear.--Rgfolsom 14:22, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
  - Comment. Readers can see for themselves which of the two of us is ranting and violating WP:NPA; Rgfolsom has repeatedly reverted my edits that corrected his POV-pushing, has lost every time a third opinion was sought, and has already been blocked once for edit-warring as a result. Rgfolsom's comment misrepresents an arbitration decision, and the comment's concern for precedent is contradicted by the fact that he recreated and is defending an article that was already deleted, despite existing consensus. WP:CCC, but it is certainly not a one-way ratchet. THF 15:41, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
    - Reply: Per the Guide to deletion:
      
      If you think that an article was wrongly deleted, you can recreate the article. If you do decide to recreate it, pay careful attention to the reasons that were proffered for deletion. Overcome the objections, and show that your new, improved work meets Wikipedia article policies….If you manage to improve on the earlier version of the article and overcome its (perceived) shortcomings, the new article cannot be speedily deleted, and any attempt to remove it again must be settled before the community, on AFD.

Remarks about WP:NPA from THF should be seen light of his recent incivility, name-calling, and unfounded suggestions of bad faith.--Rgfolsom 16:19, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Strong Keep - what appears to be a well written well cited article. Sure a bunch of citations may come from a COI, however there are plenty of others that also corrobrate the content. I see no reason why this should be delete. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 12:38, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Strong Keep' A well-written and thoroughly documented article that uses ample independent reliable and verifiable sources to establish notability under the Wikipedia:Notability guideline. Administrative measures should be taken to address those who have used malicious and patently uncivil language to try to impose a viewpoint that simply boils down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Alansohn 14:03, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
merge into Robert Prechter, which appears to be the person touting the term, or move to "Socionomics Institute" provided that foundation has notability independent of Prechter's. This appears to be some specialized theory concerning a concept called "social mood" -- which we do not seem to cover at all. Maybe some parts of this article can be refactored and moved to social mood to better explain what this is even about. I daresay the wisdom that "changes in social mood produce changes in the character of social action" is as old as the hills, but I see no reason to discuss the concept under a cheesy neologism apparently touted for vanity reasons.

Find sources: Socionomics — news, books, scholar

dab (𒁳) 14:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Delete as a clear neologism. It harms the reputation of any encyclopedic project when it used, manipulated and gamed to advance the theory or research of any individual, no matter how many papers havve been presented. WP:RS is not the issue here: whether it is an accepted term that merits encyclopedic tyreatment per WP:N is the issue. And reviewing the citations provided above, this doesn't pass. Eusebeus 14:37, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Delete. Per Eusebeus, this is a neologism: a neologism with a commercial agenda, I might add. Passages such as this:
The socionomic model of social causality posits four principles regarding self-organized, complex human systems:

1. In contexts of uncertainty, people share an unconscious impulse to herd which is manifested in social mood trends;

2. These social mood trends reflect self-similar fractal patterns and thus are predictable within a range of probabilities;

3. Endogenous processes (not exogenous causes) create these patterns of collective behavior; and

4. Social mood trends both cause and govern the character of social actions in financial markets, economic production, fashions, politics, climates for peace and war, and other domains.

strike me as the sort of jargonized, heavily abstract, buzzword-laden prose I have so much fun with here. Stated in plain English, it seems to say that societies have mood swings and that these mood swings affect the behaviour of people in them. This is as insightful as Miss Anne Elk's theory about the Brontosaurus. We have blindingly obvious platitudes given a thick coating of Latinate words to give them the appearance of rigour and conceal their obviousness. - Smerdis of Tlön 15:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
- Comment: Yes, the article has passages with language typical of academic journals, but that reflects the fact that it has indeed been written about it academic journals. Other of the article’s passages reflect the coverage in more general publications. It’s not very sporting to require WP:NEO and WP:N, and then say “everyone knows that” because it successfully meets the face-value definition of those requirements.--Rgfolsom 15:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
  - Comment. Yes, some academics write badly. While there are a variety of reasons in the sociology of language why this is so, and some believe (falsely IMO) that writing bad prose is necessary to convey an impartial and impersonal tone, it is beside the point. It is to be hoped that real information can be gleaned from their texts, that they are genuine advances in human knowledge, not merely trivial, tautological, or truisms couched in bafflegab to lend an appearance of mystery to the commonplace. If you don't disagree with my proposed epitome of this passage, I'll go ahead and make the edit myself. - Smerdis of Tlön 19:04, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Keep - Notable enough fringe theory. --Rocksanddirt 16:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletions. -- --Gavin Collins 17:26, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Comment - Some of the article's content seems to be misleadingly out of place. A majority of the section titled Similar research and analysis is simply a listing of cited research about "herd behavior," but it does not provide sufficient links back to the topic of the article. In and of itself, this is valuable information for herd behavior or social mood, but I fail to see it's importance in this particular article, other than the mention that Pretcher's theory is based off of it. That being said, this removes a chunk of third party sources that are contained within the theory, leaving Pretcher's arguments (as outlined in From the wave principle to socionomics) alone to prove the interaction between the elements of his theory. Thus, it would seem that this article does not pass WP:NEO. Therefore, I would recommend delete. — Scottjar → Talk 17:36, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Delete for inherent COI and for improper recreation but Merge (in condensed form) any relevant data to the main Robert Prechter article. While I'll grant the references seem to indicate that there are enough mentions of the term in reliable sources for it to be noted on Wikipedia, it seems clear that the concept is a direct extension of the academic author and not a widely researched beyond him. Pretcher's article has passed wikipedia's guidelines on notability for a scholar. That's great and I'm sure a paragraph summarizing his theory would enhance that article. But it seems unnecessary for the article author to insist (against previous AfD consensus) that a concept that he profits by MUST have an independent article. Wikipedia does its best to try to reflect the notability of concepts out in the world, it is not a place to try to build that notability. -Markeer 20:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
- Comment: Thanks for the civil tone of your comment, though I must point out that I have already quoted and twice posted the guide to deletion link on this page -- it explains how an editor can indeed recreate an article. COI violations are invariably evidenced by other policy violations, usually NPOV, which no one here has said about the article; I don’t insist that socionomics “must” have an article, only that it be judged by its notability. You seem to suggest that it is notable, and if so I trust that you will please reconsider your opinion.--Rgfolsom 21:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Keep. Quite simply, the citations support an adequate degree of notability for a theory in the social sciences. Socionomics is being discussed in peer-reviewed journals. It has a small following in the academic community and, it would appear, the financial markets community as well. The article is well written, and seems to have recently picked up more edits from a larger circle of wikipedia editors. We must be careful not to use Wikipedia as a tool to promulgate a new orthodoxy on what is and is not a valid theory in the social sciences. Since Kuhnian 'scientific revolutions', or paradigm-shifts, emerge gradually out of scientific work that was not, in general, intending to produce them (Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, pp. 62), I think it is best if an online open encyclopedia like Wikipedia sets a reasonable, but not excessively high, bar for topic inclusion. This is especially important in any of the relatively 'fuzzy' fields of the social sciences. I believe Socionomics meets that reasonable bar as to notability.

Full disclosure: I work in and read a lot in the field of heterodox economics, I was aware of the socionomic hypothesis from several years back. I made a couple of edits to the 'orginal' Socionomics article in the past. N2e 02:30, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of ostensible reliable sources above extremely misleading

Comment. Rgfolsom's lengthy list above is extremely extremely misleading. The first four books listed above that I was able to check through a full-text search do not discuss socionomics, or simply footnote Robert Prechter's book: Behaviorial Trading p. 26 only mentions the Prechter book once and does not discuss socionomics except as the title of the book (despite the false characterization "Books with a non-trivial mention of socionomics"); Technical Analysis: Plain and Simpledoes not mention Socionomics at all according to Safari; New Laws of the Stock Market Jungle does not mention Socionomics at all according to Safari; The Irwin Guide does not mention socionomics at all according to Google books; and I stopped checking after that first four-for-four strikeout. Administrators and other editors should completely discount the above list (and any remarks based on that false list) except to the extent they were able to check matters out themselves. I encourage others to double-check the list also and include their findings. THF 16:52, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Find sources: Socionomics — news, books, scholar

Reply THF’s accusations are false. On the talk page I’ve posted the quotations regarding socionomics in the four books he mentions, including the quotations that he claims are not there at all. If he had asked me by email or talk page, I could readily have explained how to use the Amazon and Google book searches -- it's clear that he prefers to call my good faith into question instead of checking facts first. I’ll continue to check that list and post the quotes on the talk page as I retrieve them.--Rgfolsom 18:44, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Surreply Yes, please look at the talk page, because the quotes there confirm that it is simply not true that the books listed by Rgfolsom have a "non-trivial mention of socionomics" -- and the only one that arguably does treats socionomics as indistinguishable from Prechter. (The others don't mention socionomics at all, or only mention the website or only in referring to he title of one of Prechter's books.) And keep in mind that Rgfolsom was the one who chose these quotes as support for his claims; presumably the books he didn't list are even weaker. THF 21:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Reply Given that socionomics is in the books that you said don’t mention it "at all," condescension is probably not the wisest response.--Rgfolsom 01:24, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Uh, no, sir, I said that according to a particular search engine available on the link you provided, the term isn't in the book at all. Which is 100% true. Meanwhile, as of 1:24 31 July, you've listed quotes from seven books on the talk page, presumably your seven most persuasive examples, and not a single one of them is a "non-trivial mention of socionomics", (and, more relevant for this discussion, none of them refer to socionomics as a discipline separate from Prechter's head) though you falsely represented that all of them were "non-trivial mention of socionomics." THF 01:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Bluster and accusations aside, the face-value meaning of “non-trivial mention” is pretty simple.

Nontrivial is the opposite of “insignificant.”
Mention means “cite” or “reference.” So,
“Non-trivial mention” means a significant reference to or citation of.

The authors of those books consider socionomics significant enough to cite or refer to, per the quotes on the talk page. See how simple?--Rgfolsom 03:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Please be civil. Seriously, this is re-hashing the same debate from a few months ago - do we have to have the same incivility, too? In any event, your argument misses the point. A non-trivial mention is a mention that's not trivial. Your point seems to boil down to "they mentioned it, therefore it's significant enough to mention and therefore a non-trivial mention." Respectfully, that's a non-sequitur - it's only a non-trivial mention if it's a mention that's. . . not trivial. (Otherwise we'd just call them "mentions.") --TheOther Bob 04:04, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't pleased with incivility then or now. I know how this process works. I'm fully aware that all sources can and probably will be checked. I included all the sources on this page in good faith, deliberating trying to make verification as easy as possible. I'd be an idiot to try to mislead other editors – but exercising good faith means giving the benefit of the doubt, which is certainly not the case with THF’s attack: “extremely extremely misleading,” “false list,” etc. A trivial mention is one that appears in a list or chronology or some such – in my view that is different than an author drawing attention to a topic or issue in his text, or in the book’s references. And in none of the books I cited do I believe the author would consider their inclusion of socionomics to be “trivial.”--Rgfolsom 04:39, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm talking to both of you in that. --TheOther Bob 04:45, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Delete Not only a re-creation by an editor of the original deleted article, an end-run around deletion process, but also a flagrant conflict of interest. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Robert Prechter. A redirect to Robert Prechter would be unproblematic, but there do not appear to be any properly independent sources for this theory. Guy (Help!) 17:32, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
- Comment: The Arbitration case you mention did NOT find that I violated COI, as anyone who actually reads ruling will see – the other party was banned, no me. I’ve also already posted the Guide to deletion link above, which plainly spells out how an editor can recreate a deleted article. Even the editor who nominated the article this time has acknowledged as much. As for independent sources, I have provided a great many of them above. Perhaps you (or anyone) can please identify how the books, journal articles, and secondary source coverage not produced by Prechter fails WP:N?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by rgfolsom (talk • contribs) 30 July 2007 18:44.

Delete A Wikipedian's time is valuable, and I'm against re-arguing the same point every six months. The only question I see here is "what changed since the last time we deleted this?" From the above, it appears very little. These are the same citations we hashed through and rejected in January - for very well-argued and detailed reasons, and with strong opinions and input on both sides. This received a lot of time and effort on all sides (and some small amount of bile and venom), and I'm strongly against forcing people to re-do all that. My concern is that stuff like this gets re-created and re-created until eventually the people who oppose it tire of spending valuable time on it - and the people who are using it to self-promote "win" by sheer persistence. To prevent that, I think we must limit ourselves to looking at whether anything changed since the last iteration. I don't see a sufficient change in the notability of the term in the past six months, and therefore would argue in support of re-deletion. --TheOtherBob 19:17, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
- An Idea On the talk page, there's a discussion of new citations - the most significant being one from the "Journal of Behavioral Finance," which I understand influenced the author to re-add this article. Perhaps we could shorten this debate by just asking whether that new citation is sufficient to put this into notability. For me, I'm not sure it would be - particularly since it's still Robert Prechter writing the article, so not a third-party use. But I can see arguments both ways, and it may be a more profitable use of our time than going over the same citations as last time. --TheOtherBob 04:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
  - I don’t know either if one journal paper can carry the day for topic like this, but I appreciate the good faith behind the suggestion. If other editors want to see excerpts from the paper, please say so and I’ll figure out how much I can include under fair use and put it on the talk page. The link to the abstract is in the reference above, information about the Journal of Behavioral Finance’s editors is here. I’ll try and answer any questions editors have.--Rgfolsom 05:02, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletions. ~ trialsanderrors 17:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Delete per THF and the other Bob. Not much has changed. Sdedeo (tips) 23:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Delete. I don't take a position on whether the re-creation of the article was against policy. It is understandable that editors are slow to grant the imprimatur of Wikipedia to what seems to be an entire new scientific field. I'm guessing that not all the editors who voted 'Delete' above would object to inclusion of similar material in the Robert Prechter article. Rgfolsom's table of publications is stretching to include some pretty thin evidence, in my opinion. Take a close look at the claim of NSF support for socionomics and you'll need a microscope to figure out whether NSF endorsed anything at all. I don't see that the burden of WP:NEO has been met, and I don't see the granting of general respect by scientists that would entitle socionomics to have its own article. EdJohnston 04:02, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
- Comment: The NSF didn’t endorse socionomics, in the article I tried to be careful and say that socionomics "gained attention" in "research funded" by the NSF. I do think that WP:NEO and the point you raise about “general respect” is answered at least in part by the recent Journal of Behavioral Finance article, as TheOther (may) have been suggesting. Behavioral finance is where finance, economics and psychology intersect, and the publication of Prechter & Parker’s recent paper did earn socionomics a measure of respect that it did not have previously.--Rgfolsom 05:15, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Delete - I'm sorry, this looks like re-created previously deleted material by an editor who not only has a conflict of interest, but was involved with the previous deletion debate. I am far from convinced this is anything but a fringe theory. --Haemo 05:24, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
- Comment:This is an abbreviated rehash of claims already answered, an argument without argument – the comment and vote should be discounted.--Rgfolsom 13:15, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
- Comment - Certainly fringe, but notable enough fringe to have it's own article. If the article has COI or NPOV problems fix those, they are not enough to require deletion. --Rocksanddirt 21:12, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
(moved from talk page) Merge into Prechter article - Socionomics seems to be pretty much a one-man band. All these cites seem to identify it as Prechter's name for his theory of financial market behavior. A pretty good case seems to be made here for simply merging Socionomics into the Prechter article. This has nothing to do with the validity (or lack thereof) of his ideas. --Orange Mike 23:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Delete per all the arguments above. --Ghirla^-трёп- 06:58, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment: I respectfully point out that this is another argument without an argument, specifically per nominator, etc. – “It is important to keep in mind that every listing of an article for deletion is not a vote, but rather a discussion.” This “Keep per…” amounts only to a vote to be counted, hence it should be discounted.--Rgfolsom 08:03, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] convenience break (synthesis problem discussion)

Merge or failing that, delete per WP:NEO. Some comments don't seem to appreciate that WP:N and WP:OR are separate guiding principles, and that thickly annotated prose may still be original research—especially when the citations are only trivial mentions of a topic linked with new synthesis. I'm also concerned about the problem Bob mentions above: allowing such recreations will encourage users to perpetually recreate articles on every contentious deletion in hopes of a different result. Cool Hand Luke 23:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Agreed. The article itself has extensive quotes from Freud, Mackay, and others who have nothing to do with socionomics; there's a severe WP:NOR (or at least WP:SYN) problem. This is not an independent reason to delete the article (there are plenty of those noted above); it is, however, reason to note that the extensive sourcing in the article if one were to glance at it is largely illusory, and will disappear should editors without a COI give the article the severe scrubbing it needs. I've attempted to add tags, but Rgfolsom is edit-warring, so the tags may not be there at any given time. THF 00:31, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment: I respectfully point out that there is no synthesis in the socionomics article. WP:SYN forbids an editor taking two reliable sources (A and B) and joining them “to advance position C.” But in the socionomics article, each instance of the so-called “synthesis” describes the work of one source alone, complete with quotes. There is no joining of a second source, hence no “synthesis” to advance a third position. As for WP:OR, there are no "arguments" or even "analysis" in the article that is not properly referenced. Observation of facts is not original research, so perhaps Cool Hand Luke can explain where he sees SYN and OR.--Rgfolsom 01:25, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

A = "Prechter calls Socionomics is the study of social mood." B = Freud related herd instinct to separation anxiety. Impermissible statement C = Freud's research is similar to socionomics. B can't be cited unless it is specifically about socionomics. THF 01:37, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Reply:

The article observes that “socionomics posits that social mood trends result from humans’ unconscious impulse to herd in contexts of uncertainty,” because that is what Prechter and Parker published in the Journal of Behavioral Finance.
The articles observes that Freud said, “Opposition to the herd is as good as separation from it, and is therefore anxiously avoided....The herd instinct would appear to be something primary...”
The article observes that those two observations are similar – but a “similarity” is not “C,” a third position. To observe similarity is not even “analysis,” much less an “argument.” How on earth does noting the similarity of two observations amount to joining those positions into the third position mentioned in WP:SYN? If noting a similarity really is a “synthesis” that amounts to a “third position,” in what way does this third position “C” differ from A and B? If C is not different from A or from B, then where is the synthesis? Answer the question(s), please.--Rgfolsom 02:53, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Because it is the editor noting the similarity, not an verifiable reliable source. That's the very definition of original research; the C claim is merely the editor's unsourced analysis. (Indeed, the WP:SYN example is an editor noting the contradiction between sourced claim A and unrelated sourced claim B.) You would surely (and correctly) object if I noted the similarity between socionomics and biorhythms and put that in the page, though I could surely find a biorhythms book that says stuff indistinguishable from Prechter -- indeed, you did object when I noted the similarity between technical analysis and financial astrology, even as that was able to be sourced. One can add Freud to the See also section, but putting it in the main text without sourcing is a synthesis that violates OR. If a verifiable reliable source made the observation, then one could add "Dr. Quackenbush of Huxley college noted the similarity between Freud's theory of herd and socionomics," but that's not for editors to do. THF 03:09, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Reply: I do not believe you have answered my questions: There was Parker and Prechter’s position on herding (A), and there was Freud’s position on herding (B). What, exactly, is the third position (C) on herding that came from the synthesis of A & B? How is C different from A & B?

Any editor who goes to WP:SYN will see an example of a real (and unacceptable) synthesis: Smith takes the position (A) that Jones committed plagiarism. Jones takes the position (B) that he did not commit plagiarism. In an article about the controversy, a Wikipedia editor comes along and in the article and takes the position (C) that Jones is right because of the what the Chicago Manual of Style says about plagiarism. The synthesis is in the editor joining Jones’ position (B) with the Chicago Manual of Style to produce position (C), that Jones didn’t do it.

This has nothing to do with your description of the SYN example, “an editor noting the contradiction between sourced claim A and unrelated sourced claim B.” The real example also has nothing to do with the socionomics article observing that A and B are similar. There is no C.

As for your hypothetical, if you have a reference that satisfies Wikipedia’s definition of reliable source, and the source includes quotations about biorhythms that are plainly similar to quotes from reliable sources about socionomics, then I have zero grounds to claim WP:SYN if you include those quotes (and sources) in the article.

Finally, you produced no reliable sources whatsoever to back the claim that financial astrology is similar to technical analysis, and you cannot produce a diff showing otherwise. What you did was type “financial astrology technical analysis” into Google, and expect other editors to regard the search results as “evidence.” My objection was RS, not SYN, although I can’t overlook what you yourself imply here -- namely that your comparison was SYN and OR of the very sort you so emphatically object to now.

Please answer the questions.--Rgfolsom 05:13, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Actually, the example at WP:SYN says that the second source (from the Chicago Manual of Style) cannot be introduced unless someone has previously concluded that it was relevant to the first source. Notice how proposition "C" is not stated either in the example or in this article's synthesis—it doesn't say Jones is wrong, just that he is speaking contrary to another definition. Besides, we have trivially obvious synthesis in the section headings, which claim a heretofore unpublished similarity between Socionomics and earlier ideas. Cool Hand Luke 05:26, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Reply: Excuse me Luke, I think you’re mistaken. Proposition “C” certainly IS stated in the WP:SYN example, exactly as I explained it: the example’s conclusion says that the editor’s comment is “original research, because it expresses the editor's opinion that, given the Chicago Manual of Style's definition of plagiarism, Jones did not commit it.”

I have rebutted the argument that “similarity equals synthesis,” and my rebuttal is unanswered. For you to merely repeat that argument is no more of an answer than is THF’s silence. If the synthesis is “trivially obvious,” it should be “trivially easy” to answer this question: What is the third position (C) on herding that came from the synthesis of Prechter/Parker (A) & Freud (B)?

This AfD is supposed to be a discussion, not a series of gratuitous assertions. Please advance the discussion, Luke.--Rgfolsom 08:04, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

You are turning this into Argument Clinic. I didn't respond because Luke covered the waterfront. As has been noted several times on this page by three different editors, the improper synthesis/OR is the section title claiming that Freud is "similar" to Prechter. That's an unsourced claim, based solely on the synthesis of two sourced claims that do not relate to the topic "similarity between socionomics and Freud." Neither Freud nor the synthesis should be in the article. That's a straightforward application, and your only response is "No, it isn't." This is getting tendentious and disruptive. Please take it to the Talk:NOR page, where you can find many more people to educate you about Wikipedia policy, since you don't want to listen to the three people who have repeatedly explained it to you here. THF 11:57, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Ted and Luke on this - the synthesis they're identifying is the assertion of similarity the article makes. No one is claiming that "similarity" and "synthesis" are the same thing, anymore than an argument that says "your discussion of a trout is a non-sequitur" means that trout are non-sequiturs. (Which they're obviously not - they're red herrings.) And now for a meta-argument ("no it's not!") - "I already rebutted X" isn't an argument - it's a claim. Since a claim doesn't actually present any argument for itself, the only logical response is "your claim is false." I see this all the time - someone will say something like "I already established notability, so how can you continue to argue for deletion?" Well, the answer is that the person did not, in fact, establish notability...that's what the debate's about. -TheOther Bob 16:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Note: Please see the talk page about this, I hope you'll find my comments there helpful.--Rgfolsom 17:47, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment. I don't know enough about the topic or the sources to comment on delete or keep... but I do detect SYN and OR here ... the synthesis enters in through the section header, which claims that these other theories are all similar to socionomics... that header advances a position. And without a reliable sources that make the connections between Socionomics and those other theories it all equates to OR. Blueboar 02:02, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Comment: WP:SYN doesn't appear to be a problem in this article. Rather, it's just misplaced information. The article does not used the cited information to advance an opinion, as WP:SYN would imply, it just implicity states (somewhat) revelant background information. However, it appears that Rgfolsom is using said information to include credible third party information, and henceforth justify the existance of this article, when they do not have any link back to the topic of the article. This would be similar to having an article on, say, psychoanalysis, but only using credible information that speaks on Freud's childhood. Yes, Freud was a huge contributor to psychoanalysis, but you have to explain WHY he was a contributor, not just talk about him in general. This article uses third party information to describe "herd behavior," but fails to relate it more back to the article other than saying it's based off of it. There needs to be more connection than this. — Scottjar → Talk 04:14, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. I suppose misplaced content is a plausible interpretation, but I wonder why all of this spurious material is in the article to begin with if not to advance original ideas. The headings suggest synthesis. In either case, we can agree there's far fewer reliable and independent sources than meet the eye. Considering the previous AfD's concern about the paucity of such independent sources, the new annotated sections about supposedly similar ideas doesn't improve the article. Cool Hand Luke 05:11, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  - Comment. They could be in the article in order to justify that the article should exist because it has credible third party sources, which appears to be the case. — Scottjar → Talk 19:34, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
    - Comment: Yes, Scottjar, the quotes were there to "justify" the article, but only in the sense that it needed to acknowledge the history of thought about social mood. I made my case for why the quotes belong, but they're gone now and the article can stand on its own without them. Please look at it in that light, and at the sources I've included on this page that are independent of Prechter. It really does add up to satisfying WP:N and WP:NEO.--Rgfolsom 05:02, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] convenience break (August remarks)

Comment. the debate about references is important, as most of those references are irrelevant to the topic. But the debate strayed from the topic itself, which I mentioned from the start. How comes this article does not mention the esoteric / mystic aspect on which socionomics is based? This kind of universal vibration (which I consider bunk and close to religious cults, but it is a personal opinion). If the article was complete and showed clearly this aspect, hidden behind the scientific pretences, I would consider it as encyclopedic, as fully informative and allowing wikipedians to make their own opinion on a topic that has its own notability, that cannot be denied. Until this debate on the nature of socionomics, and on how the article presents it, does not take place, I stay neutral. --Pgreenfinch 08:06, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Reply: I wrote the article, so I'll try to reply as best I can. I'm truly unaware of the mystical element in socionomics that you're asking about. I've known Prechter a long time -- apart from the topics in his books and writings (markets, socionomics), the only thing that I know he's hard-core about is libertarian politics. He's not into esoteric, way off-beat stuff.

I don't want to seem like I'm dismissing your question, so maybe you could briefly explain here what you have in mind about mentioning the mystical aspect, or in more detail on the talk page. I agree that the debate about the sources is important: perhaps you've noticed that I'm dancing as fast as I can to answer editors and the points they make, whether good or silly. Obviously some of the references are more relevant that other, but I figured too many was far better than not enough, in part to show that socionomics is being noticed and discussed in many places. Hope this helps,--Rgfolsom 08:45, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

What about "The same ratio governs growth and decay processes found in nature and expanding and contracting phenomena found throughout the universe" in http://www.socionomics.net/archive/social_progress.aspx ? --Pgreenfinch 12:35, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the socionomics article includes a similar quotation from Prechter: "In humans, an unconscious herding impulse impels social mood trends and changes that are specifically patterned according to a natural growth principle [that] is the engine of cultural expression and social action." The “Current Research” section of the article also quotes Prechter and Parker’s paper in the Journal of Behavioral Finance: “…uncertainty about valuations by other homogeneous agents induces unconscious, non-rational herding, which follows endogenously regulated fluctuations in social mood, which in turn determine financial fluctuations.” That’s a mouthful of academic prose, but the idea is precisely the same. So I hope you see that while the article doesn’t dwell on the idea in great detail, it clearly is included. Hope this helps.--Rgfolsom 04:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Delete based on the fact that having reviewed some of this earlier I see few if any sources other than Prather that actually use the word "socionomics", and on that basis I believe the article may well qualify under the neologism provision, unless specific outside instances of the use of the word itself are found. John Carter 14:44, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment: There are several mentions and discussions of socionomics in the citations I provided above – on the talk page I’ve also just added quotes from a recently published book by Michael Green, Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York. Green and John Casti have spoken frequently about socionomics, and they are academics in their own right. Please also check the links under “Further Academic Recognition,” “Reliable and extensive secondary source coverage of socionomics,” and “Socionomics in practice.” Several of those are independent of Prechter.

still Delete - A case may be made for the need for an article on "social mood in economics" with socionomics as one of the terms for it; but that would be Original Research. --Orange Mike 15:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Delete as neologism, moving desired content into behavioral finance, social mood, or prechter articles as necessary. Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 17:04, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Delete. As an employee of the company, Rgfolsom clearly has access to the clippings file which records every mention of socionomics in every venue, no matter how anodyne or banal. Remove from this what Prechter has self-published (New Classics Library is one of his enterprises) and you're not left with much. Above, Rgfolsom cites four peer-reviewed articles mentioning socionomics. Four articles in six years? That is nothing, even by itself. But two of the four articles are by Prechter himself, and in the same journal. One of the four conts only if we allow "social mood" to be equivalent of "socionomics". Finally, there is mention in the "literature review" of Olson. But Olson's review, according to Ebsco, includes 103 references in its 20 pages, so this can hardly be non-trivial. All told, the article is little more than spam or a monument to someone's boss's intellectual vanity. Either way, it needs to be deleted. Ministry of random walks 20:16, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment:I can only wish that I had a couple of research assistants feeding me clips on command. The truth is that many or most of the citations come from the time I spent on Google and other archive searchs, because I wanted to make it possible for editors to check those sources. That duly noted, all I can say in addition is that if you have a problem with me and Prechter, please make your decision based on the independent sources. You mention Olson’s paper; the link to the abstract is there with the cite, and he does talk about socionomics:

Emotions exert a significant influence on financial behavior. The "socionomic hypothesis" posits social mood, the collective mood of individuals, as a primary causal variable in financial and social trends. In order to provide a scientific basis for the study of social mood, this article reviews psychological research on major mood-related elements of personality: affect, motivation, and personality traits.

Please take these facts into account and reconsider your decision.--Rgfolsom 04:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep - Notable subject. The article needs a good cleanup, though, to remove the large amount of OR. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:14, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Keep I picked a couple of the academic web links at random and found a clear discussion of the subject with plenty of citations in turn to peer-reviewed journals. Someone is going to need to look it up. Might I suggest that the horde of people arguing to delete instead focus their energies on the cesspool that is Special:Newpages? ←Ben^B4 13:00, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

KeepSocionomincs is not a neologism. I referenced it in my book, which was written five years ago and published four years ago. The actual term was coined before then. Papers written by academics have referenced the paper, meaning to me, that it is noteworthy enough for academics to consider the theory. To suggest that the theory is fringe is questionable at best. The Journal of Behavioral Finance is an exceptional academic peer-reviewed journal. Although the article being published is written by Mr. Prechter, the fact that it meets the criteria of the journal adds considerable weight to the argument for keeping. For disclosure, I am a former technical analyst and wrote a book on Elliott Wave. I do not think whether we believe Socionomics works or is valid is relevant to this discussion (I am not sure myself, but I am no expert in Socionomics, even if I am in Elliott, as I've never made an attempt to apply it that way). The simple fact is that it is a notable theory and is gaining substantial steam. Keep it.Sposer 15:55, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment I was asked to read the Prechter/Parker 2007 paper that formed the basis of the rewrite of this article and comment on its scientific value. My verdict is this: the authors display an ignorance of economic concepts at such a fundamental level that the inclusion in the journal shows that the Journal of Behavioral Finance lacks the editorial oversight we require to consider a source reliable. A key thrust of the paper is the argument that financial markets are fundamentally different from standard economic markets and that economic analysis fails to incorporate the differences. The authors support this with graphs of long-run ownership of computers vs. stock compared to their respective price levels, showing that computer ownership increased over time while prices dropped while stock ownership increased even though prices increased. The computer graph holds a vague resemblance to the standard X-shape of the common supply and demand model in economics, while the stock graph does not. In addition, the authors note that since anyone can buy and sell stocks at any given time, everybody is a buyer and seller, so distinguishing those types does not make sense. As an alternative they offer a model with only a demand curve, which is upward-sloping. All of this is of course nonsense. For one, the computer graph has nothing to do with a supply-and-demand graph, which captures intentions at a moment in time, while the computer graph captures transactions over a long time period. Changes in ownership over time are usually triggered by changes in wealth and changing consumer preferences more so than changing prices. Also, the X shape is not particularly typical for "standard" economic markets. Car ownership has increased over time even though cars have become more expensive. Similarily, gas consumption in the long run has increased with increasing gas prices. For two, the idea that someone can be a seller and buyer is nothing special in standard economics, it's known as a durbale goods market. I can buy a house at time t, own it for n periods and sell it in t+n. As a real estate speculator I can do this with multiple assets at the same time. I will still only be a buyer or a seller for a particular asset X, as I either own it or not own it. For three, the theoretical case of an upward-sloping demand curve is known as a Giffen good and is generally considered a hypothetical form, although under extreme market conditions (e.g. severe famine) it might arise. It certainly does not arise in financial markets. It implies that at the same time I would sell my asset at $40 and buy it at $60, losing $20 without any change in ownership. The JBE is a mainstream journal, but it lacks the history, selectivity and oversight to be considered reliable, and it certainly does not meet the "widely cited" requirement for inclusion. ~ trialsanderrors 20:57, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment. It doesn't surprise me that Prechter's paper is hogwash (as it is not an "independent" reliable source, it shouldn't have any WP:NEO weight anyway), but I wonder if it goes too far to knock out the entire Journal from the WP:RS on the basis of one pseudoscientific article. I can think of lots of journals that have published absolute garbage, from the Harvard Law Review to Lancet to Journal of American History and beyond, yet surely qualify as reliable sources notwithstanding the occasional bad apple. JBF has some surprisingly prestigious editors for a journal that prints so much krep. But perhaps it still flunks the "widely cited" criterion. THF 22:50, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment. I wasn't commenting on the value of the article, just the journal. However, I would point out that there is academic evidence for an upward-sloping demand curve in the case of stocks, as per papers finding a momentum effect (although I don't remember how long-term the momentum effect is estimated to be). As prices rise in a stock, more people are drawn in to buy it. In fact, it is a basic tenet of TA that volume should increase as prices rise. I am not anything like an expert in Behavioral Finance, but since TA is, IMO, the application of behavioral finance to trading data from the markets, I would assume that Behavioral Finance recognizes this phenomena as well. There are specific strategies that buy breakouts. I do not know if this is what Prechter is getting at, but this is absolutely reasonable. Beyond that, there is certainly a relationship to wealth, but much of the wealth that was created (and destroyed), for example, in the mid-1990s to early-2000s, was via the equity market. Commodities were falling, and real estate did not take off until stocks cracked.Sposer 23:07, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Reply: trialsanderrors can take up his problem with the editors who administer the peer review at the Journal of Behavioral Finance. The socionomics article plainly satisfies the face-value language of WP:N and WP:NEO.--Rgfolsom 00:06, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Addition: All of us agree that "flimsy" science cannot advance human understanding. The question is, "Which is the flimsy science?" trialsanderrors's comment represents the conventional economic thinking that has been embattled for three decades because it fails to answer crucial aspects of economic and financial behavior. He also seems to be arguing against the distinguished editors of the JBF, which is fine. But their decision to run the paper on socionomics means that the subject is open to academic debate and therefore is notable at the highest level.--Rgfolsom 18:17, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Re THF, I would not trust any theory that is sourced to a single journal article, even if the article is in a first-tier journal. The difference is that articles in first-tier journals usually trigger a response, especially when they contain garbage. Crappy articles in fourth-tier journals are usually ignored. Hence the "widely cited" requirement, which this article clearly doesn't meet. Re Sposer, what you're talking about is an upward shift of the (downward-sloping) demand curve (aka Veblen effect), not an upward-sloping demand curve (aka Giffen good). ~ trialsanderrors 15:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Reply: To get back to the issue:

WP:V: “The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth.”
WP:N: "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject."
WP:NEO: "If you have research to support the inclusion of a term in the corpus of knowledge that is Wikipedia, the best approach is to arrange to have your results published in a peer-reviewed journal or reputable news outlet and then document your work in an appropriately non-partisan manner."

The socionomics article hits the bull’s eye of all three targets in multiple instances. Now to claim that the references themselves must be “widely cited” (etc., etc.) amounts to moving the targets.--Rgfolsom 18:17, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

comment: the nature of this argument will make it very difficult for the closing admin to decide the question. Can we not agree that the article should either be kept and cleaned up for mainstream opinion (maybe classed as Category:Fringe science), or failing notability be a simple redirect to Robert Prechter? In this case, we could take this off Afd and make it a matter of dispute resolution (redirect vs. separate article). Personally, I would opt for redirect until notability is established, but I see no reason why this should be deleted instead of redirected. dab (𒁳) 12:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I agree with the above. I can see adding much/most of the content of this article to either the Prechter article and/or an individual user's userspace, and then file for dispute resolution regarding the matter of this existing as a separate article. I get the impression, with all respect to both sides, that the crux of this problem is the number and strength of independent references to the concept by this word, and this is not the appropriate place to hold such a discussion. John Carter 15:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any problem with mentioning Socionomics in the Prechter article, as long as it doesn't turn into Vanispam. ~ trialsanderrors 16:26, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Reply: I appreciate the good faith comments from dab and John Carter. I would love to find a less heated and less-high stakes forum to discuss the issues that other editors have with the socionomics article. That is what the talk page is for, and anyone who reads the first AfD will see that my principle objection then was that the nominator made no attempt to follow the steps spelled out in WP:AFD, such as first adding a cleanup tag or sharing reservations about the article on its talk page. That applies this time as well. There was no discussion about the article or my considerable attempts to improve it. It’s a death penalty case from the start, complete with pejoratives from the nominator like “piggyback,” “smokescreen,” “flimsiest,” etc.

Almost five days later we’ve come full circle, with the quality of the discussion deteriorating to the point that some editors see fit to claim that a respected, peer-reviewed academic journal publishes “crappy articles” and “pseudoscience.” I don’t see rolling socionomics into Prechter’s bio as an option -- at least one knowledgeable admin has said that is not acceptable. I do not own the article, and I’m all for edits to make it better (per dab), as well as for a discussion of the article’s merits and sources in dispute resolution (per John Carter). What I’m not for is taking it down when it plainly satisfies the language of V, N, and NEO.--Rgfolsom 18:17, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Rgfolsom misrepresents yet another source. The admin who said a merger was not acceptable mistakenly thought that the proposal was to delete the Prechter article, and hasn't even seen the reasoning for a merger of the Socionomics article discussed on this page: "I do not see such a discussion. In any case, this article is a biography, and if the person passes the notability test, a bio should be kept and not merged." The critical language in the WP:N policies Folsom quotes is independent and significant, and that Prechter keeps writing about his unusued neologism is not independent, and, as the detailed discussion on the talk page to this AfD shows, the independent coverage is not significant. Editors can make a mistake from time to time, but Rgfolsom's mistakes in characterizing other sources are so frequent, and invariably in support of his COI, that, at a minimum, assuming the most good faith, his arguments suffer from severe confirmation bias. From improperly recreating the page to sending dozens of editors on a wild-goose-chase figuring out that his cites are faulty, Rgfolsom's COI-related edits have been severely disruptive, and admins should take action if WP:COI is to mean anything. THF 18:44, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Reply: Jossi can more than speak for himself, but the time stamps show that he came to this page and voted “Keep” well after dab, orange mike, coolhand luke and scottjar had already suggested a merger. Editors can check the time stamps for themselves, and check Prechter’s bio and talk page for what Jossi said. As for a confirmation bias, I am not the editor who claimed that books don’t include a word when they do, whose own biases (and incivility) are reflected by words like “pseudoscience” “hogwash” “crap” “quackery” and “astrology,” who calls other editors “snake oil salesmen” and “astrologers,” who levels frivolous accusations of “vandalism” and “faked evidence,” plus -- and least surprising of all -- has the chutzpah to ask administrators on this page to “investigate” another editor for conduct unbecoming.--Rgfolsom 20:02, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Per WP:COOL, I won't waste everyone's time by repeating the refutations of the false accusations levied at me here since they already appear on this page. I apologize for my anger at the dishonesty of others, but I sure hope persistence and kitchen-sink tactics do not overwhelm the sound Wiki policy for deletion. THF 21:38, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep Clearly this subject is out there beyond Prechter. There are plenty of cited articles and 50,000+ google hits. The concept is relatively new but that does not mean that it doesn't exist and should not be found on Wikipedia. It seems to me that most of those arguing for deletion are basing it on the idea that it's a "fringe theory," i.e. that they see it as crackpot, or conversely, something that "states the obvious," or they have an axe to grind with the author. It is a subject that is out there enough that it should be there when people look it up on wikipedia. --Robertknyc 16:02, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment The term is clearly notable, but the article may not tell the full story. A 1986 review of The Moral Order (1983, by Raoul Narroll) states that "The method of looking for a better society is named 'socionomics'." I don't have access to the book, but I wonder if either Narroll or Veenhoven (the reviewer) refer to Prechter's work (doubt it), or if the term had an established meaning already. The term was also mentioned in 1965 in "Towards a Synthetization of the Sciences" by Matthew L. Lamb, apparently to denote a cross of sociology and geology. – Therefore, I'd rather have a better article than a redirect to Prechter as if he owned the term. Rl 13:16, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment: RI is correct, I too saw the word used with different meanings during my searches, and perhaps the article should include a sentence or two to that effect. That said, the quotes and sources in the socionomics article do show that Prechter’s view of the concept was before a national audience in 1985 (Barron’s), and in Prechter’s own publications in the late 1970s.--Rgfolsom 15:30, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
- Comment: More accurately, Rl's cites shows that it flunks WP:NEO, as none of the people pushing their wildly different and inconsistent personalized definitions have achieved any measure of notability for their preferred definition. THF 16:05, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  - Reply: The notability of “socionomics” as used in the article under discussion is manifest: four papers in an academic journal with a blue-chip list of peer-review editors; university lectures at Harvard, MIT, London School of Economics, Emory, Cambridge (et. al.); numerous academic conferences; selected for participation in research funded by the National Science Foundation; extensive coverage in numerous professional and trade-related publications and a respected science periodical; 50,000+ results on Google; and yes, ten books not written by Prechter (let’s ask Sposer if he thinks the mention of socionomics in his book was “trivial”).--Rgfolsom 16:41, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Comment:If I had considered socionomics trivial, out of the mainstream of behavioral finance and not noteworthy, I would not have mentioned it in my book. That I refer to it as something of Robert Prechter's, is because it is his extension of Elliott, but it has clearly gone beyond that now. I would not refer to the development of relativity via anybody but Albert Einstein, even if others added a huge amount to the body of knowledge. Note that my mention in the book does not mean an endorsement of the theory either, but rather that it is something that is worth referring to. I do not know enough about it myself to argue its validity, but that is not the discussion here either. It is notability, and it belongs in Wiki in my opinion. As I've been told before, it is not up to us to decide validity.Sposer 19:02, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Adding to the discussion of trivial vs. mainstream/notable, two editors had earlier disparaged a reliable source by claiming it failed to meet the “widely cited” criterion – which I think refers to the proposed science notability guideline. I mention this because the community has rejected that proposal; a strong critique from the proposal’s talk page helps explain why. Thus the language of WP:N alone governs notability in this case, specifically the general notability guideline that requires significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject (such as the Journal of Behavioral Finance). WP:V is also on point: "the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers."--Rgfolsom 02:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep. Notable, hence encyclopedic. If it needs rewrite, NPOVing or whatever - this is not the reason for deletion.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 18:52, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Delete. I've seen no sign that this actually IS notable, and many many warning signs that it isn't, what with the suspect sourcing and utter lack of demonstrating any actual real-world impact, the conflict of interest of the principle author, the overblown arguments, and the intense level of special pleading. At best it should be blown up completely and rewritten from scratch by someone other than Rgfolsom or Sposer. --Calton | Talk 01:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment: It’s not reasonable to see this comment as more than a transparent case of I don’t like it, and should be discounted as such.--Rgfolsom 02:16, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it's just me, but I think it's disruptive to have someone respond to each and every comment with which they disagree -- particularly with something as, well, rude as "ignore this person's opinion." To my mind such editing appears tendentious. Calton's comment was well-supported, and was in no way "I don't like it."

By my count, Mr. Folsom, you've now commented 45 times in this discussion, including several calls to have other peoples' views "discounted." When Calton says that the arguments are overblown, that's what I think he means - that it sounds like a tendentious editor with a big COI who's willing to devote large amounts of time to this issue. (And you have to wonder if people who otherwise would have joined this discussion, on either side, have stayed away from it because they just didn't want to get involved in that type of exhausting argument.) Calton's !vote will not be discounted, nor will anyone else's. I think we've all heard your position, I think it's clear, and now I'd encourage you to please allow other editors to express theirs. --TheOther Bob 04:23, 6 August 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.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Socionomics (2nd nomination)

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Contents

[edit] Socionomics

[edit] convenience break for non-Folsom remarks

[edit] List of ostensible reliable sources above extremely misleading

[edit] convenience break (synthesis problem discussion)

[edit] convenience break (August remarks)

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