Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Very minimum-shift keying

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. MBisanz ^talk 00:03, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Very minimum-shift keying

This topic is really just psuedoscience that has attracted very little attention other than a few comms practitioners who enjoy investigating crackpottery (I include myself in this category!). The terminology finds essentially zero usage outside a couple of obscure papers and Phil Karn's rebuttals on his personal website. Pretty much no-one (including experts in the field) will have heard of it, because it's such low-key nonsense.

In summary, falls foul of WP:Notability, and the majority of the article content is WP:Original research (even though I agree with every word of it...). Oli Filth^{(talk|contribs)} 14:15, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This article was previously PRODded, but tag was removed with the summary "Try an AfD instead". Oli Filth^{(talk|contribs)} 14:18, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as per WP:FRINGE, or merge with Minimum-Shift Keying and redirect Franciscrot (talk) 14:28, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Unfortunately, being a fringe theory doesn't mitigate the requirement for a subject to be notable in its own right. Quoting from WP:FRINGE: "A fringe theory can be considered notable if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious manner, in at least one major publication, or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory.".
- As for Minimum-shift keying, putting this info in that article would be doing that article an injustice, as the "techniques" espoused by the creators of VMSK have nothing to do with MSK! Oli Filth^{(talk|contribs)} 14:37, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete; I did a search again for sources talking about it, but only found the author himself writing about it. I read his description again, and to make sure I understood it, implemented it in Matlab and ran some waveform and spectrum simulations, and verified that his technique is indeed pushing most of the energy into a very narrow band, but unfortunately that's just "carrier" energy, and the signal energy that carries the information, though very small now, still occupies the usual bandwidth. So the theory is very bogus, essentially a variation on small-deviation phase modulation; not completely unworkable, but also not what the author claims it to be, and not a good idea. It there were evidence of notability, it might still rate a mention in wikipedia, but there's none that I can find. Dicklyon (talk) 23:54, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- It is (or ought to be) well known that VMSK puts virtually all of the energy in the carrier; see e.g. this relatively recent letter. Of course the claims of VMSK are bogus (just like recurrent claims by companies concerning a magic compression algorithm achieving perfect data compression), and the article has been in Category:Pseudoscience for good reasons since 25 November 2005. However, investors keep being deceived by companies making VMSK claims; see e.g. SEC litigation against AlphaComm, Inc. The "promises" of VMSK were touted in an episode of the CNBC TV show The Next Wave with Leonard Nimoy, aired on March 11, 2000. The term gets more than a few hits on Google scholar. 88.234.1.171 (talk) 17:13, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Are you saying that based on these hits, the topic is notable, and that we should rewrite it from those sources? Keep? Dicklyon (talk) 17:28, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Not sure if that was an argument for "keep". I think everyone agrees that the theories are bogus. However, if they were bogus and notable, we would expect to find numerous discussions, articles and references on the subject. However, we don't. We have the creator's website, Phil Karn's rebuttals, a small handful of articles in trade publications from years ago, a handful of obscure failed companies that no-one's ever heard of, and a few obscure papers that are largely uncited (the existing cites are just from the other papers in that Google Scholar list!). I didn't know that it was mentioned on TV, though. Oli Filth^{(talk|contribs)} 17:51, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - It is not clear to me where the boundary between notable and non-notable is drawn, but the "real" references are, although not numerous, certainly not non-existent, and to require that the sources themselves are also notable ("a few obscure papers") appears to be raising the bar. 88.234.1.171 (talk) 18:54, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      - I agree that references exist. The point I was making was that anyone can get a paper (or a patent) published, that doesn't in itself make the subject notable. There are thousands of papers published every year; the overwhelming majority on subjects that never see the light of day again; we don't consider those notable unless they've been taken up by the mainstream. I'm not suggesting that citation count is the be-all-and-end-all of notability, merely indicative. Oli Filth^{(talk|contribs)} 19:15, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- the wub "?!" 21:09, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rewrite – I don't object to deleting, but if we keep it, it needs to be based on sources. It is not our job as wikipedia editors to write debunkings of pseudo-science. So I've done a first-cut rewrite, all well sourced. Please take a look and tell us if you agree. I've thrown out most of what was there, even though as was pointed out above by Oli Filth, we agree with what it said. Dicklyon (talk) 19:25, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MBisanz ^talk 03:18, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Utter nonsense. Shannon is rolling over in his grave. --RandomHumanoid^(⇒) 06:35, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As the article clearly states (in the infobox), the VMSK claims are "in direct violation of the mathematical principles of digital communications discovered by Harry Nyquist and Claude Shannon". Should Wikipedia refrain from reporting on bogus claims merely because they are nonsense? Should we delete Ponzi scheme because the claims of such schemes are utter nonsense that makes Ricardo roll over in his grave? 88.235.147.36 (talk) 11:40, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are making a category error. Ponzi schemes are not nonsense. They simply don't work. If someone wrote an article about a new type of Ponzi scheme that they claimed did work, that would be utter nonsense. This article is equivalent to someone writing about creating a working perpetual motion machine. That would be utter nonsense, and yes, it should be deleted. Just as in this case.--RandomHumanoid^(⇒) 20:21, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep — I am not a subject-matter expert in this field, but it looks like it's reliably sourced to sufficiently make the WP:GNG. MuZemike (talk) 20:55, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Most of the sources have absolutely nothing to do with the topic. You may want to examine them more closely.--RandomHumanoid^(⇒) 03:05, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see seven references, numbered 1 through 7, and two external links. All appear on topic and relevant to me. Could you be more specific which of these have, according to you, absolutely nothing to do with the topic? 88.235.147.36 (talk) 11:46, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, I'm not going to explain why these legitimate publications have nothing to do with supporting the claims of the article. This is a classic case of irrelevantly citing a mountain of legitimate scientific publications to lend credibility to a crackpot theory.--RandomHumanoid^(⇒) 20:25, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep – VMSK is nonsense, but the article now represents that in a neutral sourced way. There are enough independent refs to support notability, and some not-independent refs, too. I think they're all "relevant". Dicklyon (talk) 19:17, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Ok, this isn't going to win me many friends, but this article addresses a highly technical topic. Forgive me for saying this, but it's not clear to me that people other than Hams or PhDs in Physics or Electrical Engineering are in a good position to evaluate the relevance of the cited articles. I don't know how non-specialists would even read many of the sources to evaluate their relevance. As for this being a notable, bogus theory, which anyone can comment on, I don't see how it remotely satisfies that bizarre but valid criterion either. --RandomHumanoid^(⇒) 20:34, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment (from original nom) - I agree that the article is now much-improved in structure and content, and I disagree with the premise that the technique being nonsense is grounds for its deletion. I also agree that the refs are all on-topic. However, I still don't believe notability has been established; a couple of throwaway mentions in some trade publications might barely scrape past the letter of WP:N, but not the spirit, in my opinion. I've already commented on the papers. Therefore, I maintain that the article should still be deleted. Oli Filth^{(talk|contribs)} 20:49, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, risking a bit of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument, I must say it's a hell of lot more notable than a lot of articles that I've proposed for deletion and lost on. I wouldn't mind seeing it deleted, but on the other hand, it doesn't hurt, if someone wants to look it up and find out whether it's a respectable idea or not, to have a short article on it. It seems clear enough to me that if someone reads about an idea that's going to revolutionize the world, and finds only a few mentions in lawsuits and trade rags, that they'll get the point that there's not much to it. If they want to dig further, they can ask their techie friends to help interpret the technical refs. That's enough. Dicklyon (talk) 21:47, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - is now a well written, neutral article with third party sources that establish notability. No good reason to delete. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:17, 2 January 2009 (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.