Talk:International High IQ Society
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This article was nominated for deletion on 21 January 2007. The result of the discussion was no consensus. |
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[edit] Controversy section irrelevant
The "Controversy" section talks about IQ testing in general and has nothing to do with this group. It should be deleted. DisgruntledWaterlooStudent 04:32, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree the controversy section does not belong here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.38.132.137 (talk) 04:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Advertisement?
ok, this webpage sounds like it's been written by some Internation High IQ society adherent:
"The International High IQ Society takes what's best about the golden age of the intellectual salons tolerance, moral engagement, and faith in the free play of ideas and applies them to a contemporary setting. The Society is an egalitarian community full of opportunities for its members to share the life of the mind, unencumbered by the restrictions of physicality."
What is this doing? Advertising for this society? I've visited their website, and what is written in the "IHIQ Society" article is basically the same as what the homepage of the society itself adverstises... this doesn't sound very encyclopedic to me, considering the the Internation High Iq society is considered by many to be a scam with questionable motives. I'm adding another piece to this article to reflect another description on this subject:
SirCollin 6th march '06
The first section is POV advertising for the society. The second section is a POV citation-free hatchet job of the society. Hence the NPOV tags. 84.66.194.205 23:30, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
POV? give me a break, if you know anything about IQ, go to the IQ page and read about how "general knowledge" does not fit in with "general intelligence." It has no correlation whatsoever. It's rather self explanatory therefore that the site contradicts itself- see for yourself.
The first section should be rewritten, the second section looks accurate. 67.150.82.24 01:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC) The addition of the 'test modification' section has no place on Wikipedia. It is pure, negligently researched opinion, and not only is it poorly written grammatically and with improper syntax, it is unfounded and should be deleted. The user is inserting ill-informed speculation about the test and is not presenting facts, which is the cornerstone of Wikipedia's pioneering effort. The fact remains that almost all professional IQ tests, including the industry giant WAIS-III has a factual knowledge subsection (it's one of their 14 subtests) and general knowledge or information subtests are ubiquitous on professional IQ tests, yet devoid on online IQ tests because the public simply doesn't like them or assumes that factual knowledge is not a measure of IQ (it's a measure of crystallized intelligence, which is a key portion of ones overall intelligence quotient). Either way, the material posted has no place on Wikipedia, as it's raw opinion, it should be removed.
As for the first section, it does appear to be an "advertising" format, although what's written is the IHIQS's mission statement and seems to have been hastily posted without informing Wikipedia users that the content is considered as such. I am rewording the section in hopes of clarifying and adding transparency to the paragraph.
The second section had very few grammatical errors- if there were any significant ones, i'd like you to point them out to me, and i'd like add that deleting a wiki page because of bad grammar violates the purpose of wikipedia- bad grammar can be fixed by other users, and therefore grammar is irrelevent to the ideas of the article. I looked back on the history and you are the one and only person who has made the edit. Furthermore, i'd like you to explain why you, unilaterally, chose to delete the section section even though it was 1) not POV. In fact the argument you have presented on this discussion page is more opinionated than the facts stated in the second section that has been deleted. 2) the facts were valid, and they logically fit in with the page on IQ and IQ testing (as well as the wiki page on Cognitive Ability) you will find that in those pages, it is stated (by edits from wiki-users,) that factual knowledge has no bearing on cognitive ability, and that these are indeed two seperate things.
"Intelligence is the mental capacity to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn. Although many generally regard the concept of intelligence as having a much broader scope, in some schools of psychology, the study of intelligence generally regards this trait as distinct from creativity, personality, character, or wisdom."
Nowhere in there does it mention general knowledge.
"yet devoid on online IQ tests because the public simply doesn't like them or assumes that factual knowledge is not a measure of IQ "
this is pretty opinionated as well- is this your opinion, or is it GENERAL knowledge now?
And to bring in a tangent, do you seriously think general knowledge is consistent with cognition?? explain your logic- if general knowledge measures your "Crystallized intelligence," on the basis that people who gain more general knowledge are usually more intelligent, wouold it not be more valid to directly test these basic abilities that LED them to gain more general knowledge? - hence, Culture fair IQ test which are now considered to have more G correlation than any other kind of IQ test. - Sir Collin
Sir Collin, you're keen to remind us about the spirit of Wikipedia so I'll do the same. Discussing whether or not factual knowledge should be an integral part of intelligence tests is an active and exhaustive debate, but it has no place in this article. The International High IQ Society is a social organization only, and the International High IQ Society entry on Wikipedia should detail what the Society is about (like the Wikipedia entry on Mensa, for example) and not be a tug-of-war over what subtests belong in intelligence tests and which don't. Please keep this in mind when altering the article in question.
As a footnote to hopefully clarify things, the world's most widely used IQ test, the WAIS-III, has a factual knowledge subtest on it (it's one of their 14 subtests). The WAIS-III is the gold standard of adult IQ tests and is administered worldwide to more adults than the next ten IQ tests combined. PsychCorp (creators of the WAIS) finds it essential to include a factual knowledge section (along with many other leading IQ tests), because without it a test will only measure fluid intelligence, whereas including information categories such as factual knowledge allows the tester to measure and incorporate crystallized intelligence. Most will agree that if you want to truly measure someone's IQ, you'll need to capture both fluid and crystallized intelligence. This is an entirely moot point though, because this discussion should be taking place on separate Wikipedia entries such at "IQ," "Intelligence Tests," and the like. They are woefully out of place in this article, and I'm sure if you look at this objectively you'll see my point. There is no sense using the IHIQS Wikipedia article as a battleground to debate whether or not factual knowledge has a place on their entrance exams. Please stick to the proper articles and keep Wikipedia moving in the right direction. If this is just a personal grudge you have against IHIQS's admissions tests, it still has no place here, and I'm sure you can accept that, no? The other high IQ societies found in Wikipedia all use custom entrance exams (including Mensa), and all of them are controversial due simply to the highly controversial nature of testing IQ, but this is simply not the venue to engage in vigorous debate and constant edits/rewrites, negative or positive.
The entry above was written by Nathan Haselbauer. He is TonyClifton5. Amirbaraka 17:04, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Amirbaraka- how did you find out though? Anyways i'm not surprised- Many people surf wikipedia- perfect place for a IHIQS adherent to post advertisements for their beloved society. But Nathan Haselbauer himself- well i'm just belittled in the presence of greatness. For the record when I first took that joke of an IQ test through the link given on wiki i got 150... hmm... my mensa (culture fair) examination last april only had me at about 128, yeah, two points short of qualification, and 22 point gap from Nate's test. Just something to think about- Mensa is also considered the foremost HIQ society on the face of the planet.
if you would like to start a battleground, visit www.politicalcrossfire.com and we can start one.
I had a similar problem to yours. Except.... mine is even more condemning of the IHIQS. I am a member of Mensa and have a professionally measured IQ of 137, but I have taken the IHIQS's test about five times and each time recieved approx. 115. Obviously there is something wrong with their methods. 71.252.86.187 23:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] IQ test validity
Can we trust an IQ test that was created, developed, and maintained by only one person? How can we know that the tests aren't handing out higher IQ scores like other tests on the web? There is an obvious financial advantage for the website developer when reporting artifically high scores. Amirbaraka 21:06, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- The founder is a stockbroker. The ihiqs iq tests are games to play when you're wasting time at work, not professional assessment instruments.
-
- I added two sentences to highlight this important distinction: "According to the founder, the society does not accept professional intelligence tests such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale for acceptance into the society. Potential members must take one of two IHIQS tests, neither of which has been released to the psychological community for independent review." Amirbaraka 18:04, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
If these are indeed facts, then they should be noted on the page.
-- I'm a regular wikipedia user, rarely post anything... but I'd like to know about the validity of this org. I'll be honest, they gave me a qualifying score, and I'd give them the money if I didn't worry about it being a bogus score and a money-making scam. I have to imagine the majority of visits on this topic are for the same reason. :)
- There is only one site that evaluates iq tests and they do not list the ihiqs test. www.iqte.st
I just took the test, and I say there are several things wrong with it. - It never asked for my age, while there were a few things that would depend on someone's math or history background (i.e. whether you've been through high school yet), such as "Which of the following fractions is closest to (some decimal)?" [link title]- It asks for trivia that, in my opinion, has nothing whatsoever to do with intelligence. For example, "Where was Mozart born?" and "Where were the 1986 (or some year) Olympics held?" - One set of problems was a "Memorize this figure to the extent possible" type of thing. Firstly, if someone wanted to get into the society, they could take a screenshot and quickly open the picture to get the answer. (They'd have 15 seconds to do that, so it's possible.) Secondly, I think that's also somewhat unrelated to intelligence.Johnthescavenger 04:32, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
This IQ test has to be a scam. I too qualified to join like many others after giving the test an honest effort. I then decided to take the test without trying at all. Three times I chose wherever my mouse happened to click without looking at the questions. After I did this I decided to pick all A's, then again with all D's. To my surprise I recieved an "average" result with an intellegence quotient between 90 and 100 EVERY TIME (5 times total). If a mentally retarded person took this test, they could have had the same or better results than I did randomly. To me this does not qualify a person as "average" intellegence simply by knowing how to use the internet and click a mouse. In addition to that they try to lure you to give them money after you take the test to see your results and give you an "intellegence profile" and if you're as brilliant as I am, you can join their society of intellectual stars and pay them more money. To add to the comment about the cheating on the memory part, it would be even easier to cheat on sections like math, factual knowledge,etc with a calculator handy and wikipedia off to the side. This seems kind of similar to any old idiot fishing ploy. In fact, if you join their society I think you have qualified yourself for complementary intellegence profile (provided by me) that places you in the below average category.
-- The International IQ Society IS a complete scam. First of all, you can take these tests as many times as you want, and in some ways it seems that you are almost ENCOURAGED to do so. Secondly, none of these tests have been evaluated by any mental health professional. Thirdly, the tests only cover a very small portion of what you would find on an actual Stanford Binet or Weschler test. Fourthly, the verbal and mathematical sections are actually, luidciously, not reltated to mathematic ability but rather tests of your knowledge of latinate vocabulary (or even worse, historical name associations) and mathematical trivia. Fifthly, since the majority of these tests are related to general knowledge, you can easily search for any of this stuff online, which is, I should point out, not expressly prohibited before you take the test. Sixthly, the puzzles not related to trivia are poorly constructed (particularly the short-term memory section, which is utterly nonsensical).
What's hysterical is that the guy who created this scam frequently talks about how people should accept the scientific validity of IQ tests, despite the fact that the mock test he created is about as scientifically valid as a divining rod. trawicks.
I'm already having qualms about having passed this iq society's test...Honestly, I did not have any marvelous feat to brag when I was a child, so how could I possibly have a score in the 130s range (my score's even near 140, omg) ... I do not know how...after knowing my score, I became enthusiastic to try and take the Mensa exam. I did a little research first: I googled my score and was brought to someone's blog (I forgot his name), he posted an image of that page that shows your score, he scored about 146 or 145...and he disclosed in his blog that he took the Mensa International exam afterwards, he scored a 136, and that made me already wonder..why such big discrepancy? (he also pointed this out in his blog) and why so low a membership qualification score (some sites say 124 is the threshold for giftedness but Mensa has it at 130)...I already e-mailed IHIQS about this and I even asked that Nathan Hasselbauer personally answer my e-mail. I'll try to write his answer in here....
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.60.241.254 (talk) 14:41, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
This is me again. I wrote the above post. Well, IHIQS hasn't replied yet. But I found this very helpful document that will elucidate on many things about this society. You can find it here. It's a study made by a certain Ryan Witte about the correlation of high intelligence and emotional intelligence (this I guess is groundbreaking) and the sample in the study are members of the IHIQS. You can find the details about the IHIQS in page 39/70. According to the study, in 2004 (or at the time of the study), the society had 1765 members, the test was created by a certain International Intelligence Testing Committee (the author refers this detail to the IHIQS website however and that throws a certain doubt again, anyway), sample statistics showed that the highest sampled IHIQS IQ score is 161 (which of course doesn't imply that the highest member score is 161) and lowest, 126 (same here, obviously 124 would be the lowest.) I googled this Mr. Ryan Witte, and I found out that this study was his MS Thesis in Human Resources Development and he may be affiliated with St. John Fisher's College, Department of Psychology and Human Resources Development, for details click on this link. There, so, I'll still post IHIQS' reply, if they do reply.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.90.128.210 (talk) 05:03, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
IHIQS hasn't replied. But I found this forum thread, and a certain member of IHIQS (by the pseudonym of deja vu, see the forum thread here ) discusses about the society's test validity..
[edit] Validity of group size
If there are 15,000 members, why can't they get more than 30 people to show up for one of their gatherings? The math isn't adding up. Does anyone have objective data on the number of members that have paid fees? Is it possible that 15,000 people have merely QUALIFIED for the society?
- Well, I added the word "allegedly" in order to make it clear that this is an unverified claim of the society.--Greece666 19:56, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Last rv
the reasons i rv the last edition can be found here--Greece666 22:54, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
The last rv seemed to be a much-improved version of the existing article, and I saw a piece that showed both sides and it was very different from what appears on the Mensa page and many of the other high IQ society pages. Please take a look at the Mensa page or the others, and let me know what is not factual. I added a controversy section to the article along with adding the expanded content and think you should dissect what you disagree with and talk about it in here before deleting what seemed like a thorough expansion of a Wiki stub. The version you reverted back to has claims like "this Society has 15,000 members in 86 countries" and "at $80 a member they should have earned 1.2 million by now." These are unsubstaniated claims that have no place on the article because we do not know if they are true and are not adding to the encyclopedia. I found nowhere on the IHIQS website that they have this many members so it is speculation at best.
Please use the discussion area to improve this article, as this is the crux of what makes Wiki great. I've found the article on Mensa to appear to be more than a soapbox, but regurgitated Mensa propaganda. Whomever made these changes has given both sides, and with my additions on the controversy section, I think that we have something worth keeping.
good Rv. well i'm glad at least that despite my errors in keeping the new sections wikified, i've opened some discussion space to the "controversy" section. SirCollin
[edit] remove controversy section?
The controversy section isn't specific to the article: it addresses controversy surrounding IQ testing and high IQ socities in general. These two topics are convered elsewhere and are of no particular relevance to IHIQS. Additionally it lacks citations and is POV.
Na, refer to it but link it to the main one, because the High IQ Society especially is the target of many of such controversies (relative to say, mensa) I agree the the details on this controversy section is pretty generalized.
I agree the controversy section seems a bit out of place here, is there anyone else that can either help edit the section or remove it all-together? I am hesitant to delete it without hearing from others on the issue as well. 72.226.201.95 (talk) 18:29, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Delete threat
There is an anti-Hi-IQ/Gifted Jihad in process at the moment. Already the Mega Society has been deleted and Ronald K. Hoeflin and The Ultranet are up for deletion. Who will be next? Marilyn vos Savant, Mensa? Don't take this lying down: the Mega Society deletion has been appealed, please go here and support its reinstatement with an overturn vote.
Possible articles under threat are:
Marilyn vos Savant, International High IQ Society, Mensa International, Intertel, Colloquy, CIVIQ Society, International Society for Philosophical Enquiry, Triple Nine Society, Prometheus Society, HELLIQ Society, The Ultranet, OLYMPIQ Society, Giga Society
--Michael C. Price talk 00:14, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- The threat is based on the fact that these social clubs are little more than obscure bulletin boards. Some of them have little more than a handful of active members. In what way does that make them notable? The real threat is to Wikipedia: Unknowing users do not need hagiography entries to lionize little-travelled bulletin boards. Wikipedia is not the place for the founder to lionize himself with advertisements for IHIQS as seen on this current entry. Let him engage in mental masturbation in his own nook of the woods. Amirbaraka 15:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Let me begin by addressing the first objection stated regarding the article in question:
"ok, this webpage sounds like it's been written by some Internation High IQ society adherent"
Wikipedia wants reliable and verifiable sources - rightfully so. What sources could be more reliable than members of the organization in question (IHIQS)? It seems to me that such persons are likely to present the most factual information available. Thus, I dismiss the initial objection, and apparent premise for all anti-IHIQS arguments, as a logical fallacy.
The wonderful thing about Wikipedia is that it is a continual work in progress. Since it is always subject to additions and revisions, it need never go out of date, as do hard-bound information sources. Furthermore, since Wikipedia is an online source of information, it should offer as complete a representation of the Internet culture as it possibly can. I am pleased and impressed with Wikipedia articles on Internet-pertinent subjects such as Bots and famous trolls. The high-IQ segment of Internet users is an important subset of Internet culture. Though we are a minority, it makes no sense to exclude us on that basis. After all, wouldn't accounts of United States history be woefully incomplete without the inclusion of African-Americans, Hispanics and other ethnic minorities? Therefore, the argument that a relatively small number of people frequent high-IQ sites is another example of poor logic. Societies such as IHIQS draw together participants from around the world, that they might discuss the pros and cons of above-average intelligence, share creative endeavors, tap their high intelligence in an attempt to find potential solutions to some societal problems, and make friends. These are all things that the Internet is supposed to do. I am in favor of keeping the International High IQ Society article in Wikipedia. Larkin Derning 00:27, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
As a member of various IQ related societies I agree with adding the categories of psychometrics and intelligence for both the purely on-line societies and Mensa (which also recently expanded their on-line presence).
These societies are international by nature, partly due to the phenomena of the Internet and the presence of on-line testing.
Psychometrics of the high range is an area of interest in these societies and correlation with the older tests is always considered when developing norms for these higher range tests.
In reading through Wiki's guidelines in an effort to understand its policies and guidelines for the inclusion of articles or reasons for exclusion of articles, I came across the following: (I don't know if there is a quote feature here so I'll just use dotted lines.)
Although notability is not formal policy (and indeed the whole concept of notability is contentious), ... Articles should be relevant to a reasonable number of people. ... Notability is not necessarily subjective If a subject is not the subject of non-trivial independent coverage, for example feature articles in the mainstream press, how can we verify that it is being covered neutrally? For some editors non-notable is a shorthand for subjects that have not generated enough independent interest to permit of the existence of a verifiable, neutral article, with reliable sources. There is a difference between an obscure but important and verifiable topic and a topic which is of importance only to its creator, and which therefore has received no external scrutiny.
It appears obvious that it is not so much of a question of individual societies notability as to the decision of Wiki's categorization.--NobodyII 17:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] FYI Mega Society Judgement
As you may have heard the Mega Society article was deleted awhile ago, at the end of an acrimonious AfD/DRV process. There is a wide divergence between deletion policy (as defined by various policy guideline documents) and deletion practice, as implemented by admins (who claim to be following the "spirit" of the law). Consequently there are lessons to be learnt from the experience, which will not be obvious from reading the guidelines. Here are some tips for future conduct:
- Single purpose users are frowned upon and were a frequent bone of contention during the AfD and DRV processes. So I urge you all to "establish" yourself as Wikipedians: create, edit and even ... delete articles! There are plenty of articles that need attention.
- It is a very good idea to put something on your user page, (it doesn't matter what) to avoid showing up as redlinked users -- being redlinked will count against you in any debate.
- When voting, include brief reasons which are grounded in policy (votes not backed by reasoning may be discounted; too much reasoning will be ignored).
Given the bias against soliciting (see judgement) I may not be able to contact you again, so I suggest you put the Mega Society in your watchlists.
The closing admin's comments on the Mega Society:
- Within the argumentation of the debate, the most significant point raised by those who supported the article was that a new draft was available. The article is not protected, so this may be posted at any time and (assuming it is not substantially similiar to the older version) it will be judged anew on its merits. This is good news for you.
- The bad news for you is that it is well-established practice within Wikipedia to ignore completely floods of newer, obviously "single-issue POV", contributors at all our deletion fora. I'm among the most "process-wonkish" of Wikipedians, believe me, and even process-wonks accept that these sorts of voters are completely discountable. Wikipedia is not a pure democracy; though consensus matters, the opinion of newcomers unfamiliar with policy is given very little weight. Your vote, that of Tim Shell, and that wjhonson were not discounted. The others supporting your view were. I promise you that it is almost always true that, within Wikipedia, any argument supported by a flood of new users will lose, no matter how many of the new users make their voices known. In the digital age, where sockpuppeting and meatpuppeting are as easy as posting to any message board, this is as it should be for the sake of encyclopedic integrity. It is a firm practice within Wikipedia, and it is what every policy and guideline mean to imply, however vaguely they may be worded. (I do agree that our policies, written by laypeople mostly, could do with a once-over from an attorney such as myself; however, most laypeople hate lawyers, so efforts to tighten wording are typically met with dissent.)
- If your supporters were more familiar with Wikipedia, they would realize that, invariably, the most effective way to establish an article after it has been deleted in a close AfD is to rewrite it: make it "
faster, better, stronger." This is, in fact, what you claim to have done with your draft. Good show. Best wishes, Xoloz 16:22, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
So the outcome was not entirely negative, although I was disappointed by the admin's rather cavalier approach evidenced by the response to my enquiry:
- .... why did you discount the votes of, say, User:GregorB or User:Canon? They are not new users, nor did I solicit them. I presume by Tim Shell you mean Tim Smith? ...... --Michael C. Price talk 16:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
to which I received this rather off-hand reply:
- User:GregorB offered a very brief comment not supported by policy. User:Canon did take the time to offer analysis at DRV, but he had been among the first voters at the AfD to offer a mere "Keep" without explanation; therefore, I assumed he had been solicited by someone. Best wishes, Xoloz 15:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
which didn't fill me with confidence about Wiki-"due process".
Anyway, my grumpiness aside, the Mega Society article, is presently under userfied open-development at User:MichaelCPrice/mega, and will reappear at some point, when (hopefully) some of the ill-feeling evidenced during the debate has cooled. I am very heartened by the article's continued development, and by the development of associated articles. Thanks for everyone's help!
--Michael C. Price talk 14:38, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Poor french translation on their website
Not really relevant to the article itself, but I thought this was an interesting bit of information to share here. My native language is french, so I checked out the french version of their website. It very much looks like it's a babelfish translation or something similar, and is quite funny to read. Regardless, I took their test for fun, and qualified for membership. As there seems to be few benefits to membership, specially for someone living in Belgium as I do, I sent them an e-mail offering free translation in exchange for free membership. I'm curious what their answer will be, if any. I have to say that I am under the (entirely subjective of course, no trolling intended) impression that this is just one of these numerous websites who provide rather easy IQ test and then when you succeed try to sell you a fancy "you are extremely intelligent" certificate. 85.28.99.116 21:57, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Preparing merge with Nathan Haselbauer
I moved all the missing information from Nathan Haselbauer's article to the International High IQ Society's article. There was not much to be moved anyway, except for a link and a single phrase. According to the current article about Nathan Haselbauer, it seems that the main claim to notability of this person is that he founded and directs the International High IQ Society. If there's nothing else important to say about him beyond that, I vote in favor of a merge and redirect. Another Wikipedian 07:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Publications
The section International High IQ Society publications is nothing but spam for the author ... a list of books about puzzles and games by the organization's founder gives Vanispamcruftisement a Bad Name, so I have deleted the section. — 68.239.79.97 (talk · contribs) 01:45, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
