Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Strategy (NLP)

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 per Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/NLP_Modeling. Nandesuka (talk) 15:50, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strategy (NLP)

This appears to be an in-universe description of how neuro-linguistic programming uses one word, with no actual support for the term as a separate concept outside of the NLP walled garden. Many people seem to believe that NLP is a pseudoscience, and I believe that by giving credence to the idea that NLP has some special insight into the concept of "strategy" which is distinct from that described at strategy we are giving undue weight to a fringe view, in contravention of policy. Notability is also a key factor here, as the topic itself at a glance doesn't appear notable, and there is no reliable independent sourcing present, so verifiability is also a concern here. rootology (T) 02:19, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think if we have break-out articles on a topic, all it says is that there's too much stuff to keep it in one article. Lots of fields have specialized terminology that differs from the common usage of a term. I'm also not sure this is a very valid deletion reason. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 02:33, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is true, and it could well be kept if consensus supports that... Independent notability, verifiability, and reliable sourcing are also always an overriding concern as well, and it appears (from some looking) to be a concern here. There is none of any of it in the article--no sources at all, in fact.. I left that off the original nomination by mistake and update it. Guy's nomination of the Rapport (NLP) article from the NLP section is so far also being considered under similar reasoning, as well. rootology (T) 02:44, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment (edit conflict) On this one, unlike the rapport one, I think there's probably a valid basis for keeping. "In universe" isn't by itself, necessarily a problem ("factor" is completely in-universe for math and "convention (bridge)" for bridge), the important thing to check is whether it's solely in-universe, and whether it's a topic that's been taken note of, beyond a narrow niche. I'd want to check sources and see what coverage it has. The other grounds for deletion seem to be a bit weak ("many people seem to believe..." and "beliefs about the topic validity" taken as an inclusion criterion). What needs checking is whether it meets notability/verifiability criteria and the like, much more to the point, and whether sufficient authoritative sources exist to write a good quality description covering all significant views, if so. As per Morven's point, this article probably stands or falls based upon sources or their lack. It is indeed completely unsourced, and AFD is being correctly used to see if that's a fatal flaw or fixable. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 05:48, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you can add some independent sources to show the notability, let me know--if you can track down several independent ones also drop me a note on my talk here or Commons (I look at that one more day to day, plus it dings me with email) in case I miss this AFD changing on my watchlist. rootology (T) 06:20, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

- Could you translate the first sentence into standard English please, FT2. Thanks Peter Damian (talk) 05:51, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- On 'many people believe', let's say NLP fits all the classic definitions of pseudoscience. Personalisation, degenerating research program, 'cuckoo' appropriation of other perfectly valid scientific, psychological or philosophical concepts (e.g. the 'as if' notion), lack of testable or falsifiable hypotheses. On the latter, see the unintelligible Principles of NLP. Peter Damian (talk) 05:55, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- While we are at it, why isn't Principles of NLP up for deletion. This contains far more bollox than anything else we have considered so far. It is rambling and incoherent and even contains the sentence 'there are no principles of NLP'. Peter Damian (talk) 05:59, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It was mainly an essay, barely edited since its creation in 2006, duplicating the main article. Now merged back in. Sticky Parkin 14:16, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Delete. Can't make much sense of what is is supposed to be about. It opens with the unintelligible sentence 'In Neuro-linguistic programming, a strategy is a mental sequence used to achieve a goal.'. The rest of the article is a banal description of the mental processes involved in, saying, admiring a dress. Peter Damian (talk) 05:40, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy Delete Fringe theory, unreferenced article that is virtually unreadable on a fringe theory. Dbrodbeck (talk) 11:26, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The questionable claims in the article are totally unsupported by reputable sources. Poltair (talk) 11:57, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete It's not that I'm against having an article on NLP... it's that there are so many. The depth of coverage is taking an article and turning it into a how-to. Wikipedia is not a web hosting service.--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:32, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
delete I know a bit about NLP but this is an attempt to make a normal word mean other than it normally means, and legitimize another meaning, plus it's not often noted. If we want to discuss NLP-ers use of the word 'strategy', we can do so in the NLP article in about a sentence. Sticky Parkin 13:00, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
delete - I find the delete arguments compelling. WAS 4.250 (talk) 15:58, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. It's interesting: within the article lead you could replace the phrase "Neuro-linguistic programming" with "Role-playing games"... Hiding T 16:37, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, unless sufficient sources are added to verify the accuracy of the basic info given in the article and to demonstrate notability of the topic. At the moment it is very difficult to understand what the article is about and, although the article is 2 years old, there are still no sources cited in it. For now what is written in the article essentially qualifies as WP:OR. The topic is sufficiently technical and specialized that some amount of specific knowledge of the subject matter is necessary to fill in the gaps here and add some sources; this is not a case where a random editor unfamiliar with the subject can just do a google search, find a few relevant references and add them. After reading the text a couple of times I still could not make heads or tails out of it. I should say, however, that I am not persuaded by the "undue weight" arguments of the nominator. Yes, this seems to be an article about some sort of a fringe theory but the undue weight issue would only come in if the article was about a larger topic. In articles about fringe theories/movements themselves the udue weight argument does not really play. The key question is if the topic if notable. I suspect that it might be (certainly there is plenty of coverage of NLP, whatever that is, by reliable sources, as a basic GoogleScholar search shows[1]) but given the technical nature of the subject, it is up to the article creator and the keep proponents to provide verifiable evidence of notability. Nsk92 (talk) 18:54, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your Google sadly does not indicate reliable sources at all. The first hit is 'Frogs into Princes' which is the classic NLP self-improvement book (clue: the title itself). The rest are manuals written by NLP promoters. Do be careful of using Google scholar for this kind of thing. The mere fact a book appears there, does not imply it was written by 'a scholar'. Best Peter Damian (talk) 19:34, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In general, I agree with your point but the mere fact that a book/article is written by a promoter of a particular theory does not yet make it fail as a WP:RS. I would look at where the thing is published. If it is a reputable scholarly journal, I would still count this as a reliable source. In some cases I would also count a book published by a highly regarded academic publisher as a reliable source (at least for verifiability purposes) even if the author advocates a fringe or a minority view. In the case of the googlesearch in question I see a few articles in scholarly journals and some law-enforcement sources (e.g. FBI[2]) that appear legit, e.g.[3][4][5][6][7][8] (not all mention NLP in the abstracts but GoogleScholar gives them as hits with partial quotes). So I am fairly sure that NLP itself as a topic is notable. The business with "strategies" is another matter and there I would would to see more direct evidence both in terms of satisfying WP:V and WP:N. Nsk92 (talk) 20:33, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete/Redirect Most of the content in Strategy (NLP) has already been merged with Representational systems. Strategy (NLP) could be deleted or redirected there. ----Action potential ^{t c} 21:41, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Un-sourced stub about a non-notable sub-topic that can easily be included in one of the various larger pages within the NLP-realm of articles. The concept may be worth an explanation within those other pages, but it does not meet the requirements for a separate page. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 00:40, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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.