Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Applied Information Economics


 * 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. — Ocat ecir T 01:16, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Applied Information Economics

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Declined this as a spam speedy, but I do not see any real sources that assert notability. Author has a conflict of interest, and has added links to this article to multiple economics articles, but COI is not a reason for deletion Steve (Stephen)talk 01:40, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment - Regarding the claim that it is blatant advertisment:


 * Apparently the only reason this is seen as a "blantant advertisement" is the citation of my book. I'm fine with the removal of that. However, you will find that Applied Information Economics is taught in more than one university and used in several government agencies if you google the phrase. The term is not trademarked and the process is public domain. If you think it makes it "less blatant" then feel free to remove reference to Douglas W. Hubbard. But why not apply the same rules to the Balanced Scorecard article? Or the Analytic Hierarchy Process article?


 * Also, note that AIE is an alternative to Balanced Scorecard. Both are public domain methods although they were largely initiated by a single book or set of authors. Neither term is a trademark nor has either method been patented. In both cases, multiple firms exist that provide services in that area. One difference I see is that there are apparently no courses actually named "balanced scorecard" in the ciriculum of major universities. I agree that the AIE article should be just as neutral as the balanced scorecard article. If the AIE article must be deleted, then the Balanced Scorecard articles (and many others, no doubt) would have to be deleted if the same rules applied
 * Regarding the neologism accusaion, usually, a 10-12 year old term used in other publications by those other than the person who coined it, used as the title of a class in a university, and in the public domain (not trademarked) would not be a neologism. Or someone may need to define how long a term must be used before it is no long a "neo"-logism.Hubbardaie 01:47, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Again, regarding the claim this is blatant advertising, a close read of the blatant advertising rule in speedy delete rules does not seem to include this. This rule includes the sentence "Note that simply having a company, product, group, service, or person as its subject does not qualify an article for this criterion; an article that is blatant advertising should have inappropriate content as well."  Perhaps "blatant" and "inappropriate" are the key subjective terms, here.  But, again, if balanced scorecard passes this criterion, I'm not sure how this article wouldn't.Hubbardaie 03:59, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Neutral Article needs a second point of view. Badly.  I can see major problems in the theory straight away.  But it's been around a while and sort of stumbles up to the notability requirements finish line based on the handful of articles here and there that mention it when you do a search.  We're not here to judge anything but verifiability and notability.   Note to Hubbardaie:  Putting this article on Wikipedia means that you have given them the right to add content you may not like.  That's about to happen. - Richfife 02:00, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Regarding Richfife comments: I recognize the exposure to criticism and, of course, invite all comments. I'm curious what "major problems" you see in the theory.  But the additional reference I added includes a lengthy US government research report on AIE.  It should give you much more to respond to.  I would have included all of that detail about how to execute the method but then I would have only risked having even more effort deleted.Hubbardaie 02:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * OK. I'm just a little paranoid after a recent temper tantrum by another editor that added info about himself to Wikipedia.  Stand by.   p.s. Please sign your remarks with 4 uh, thingies like so ~ .  It is automatically replaced with a name and date, which makes these discussions much easier to follow. - Richfife 02:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * thank you about the signature protocol, I'm still getting the hang of this.Hubbardaie 02:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep if verifiable references are shown citing the subject matter, otherwise delete. I don't think WP:SPAM is an issue here. --Javit 02:04, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I just added more verifiable references. The Wharton class of that name and the research report done by the Federal CIO council.Hubbardaie 02:08, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - That's much better Hubbardaie. The more references the better. I think the article is salvageable if the issues raised are addressed --Javit 02:13, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete Changed to Weak Keep, see below. this is a representative of the articles where a theme or catch-phrase or title in an individual book is used as a subject for an article' almost always, there is no such subject, or the author invented it himself, or it is the use of common words as if they had some special; significance. This is primarily the second, for the author admits inventing the method and the phrase. I consider this spam, i consider it advertising for the author's method and by implication the book. Whether the theory makes sense is irrelevant--it becomes a subject only when other people use it as a specific theory. The same rules apply to invented business methods as invented anything.
 * The references are meaningless. One is a general textbook of statistical methods as background, one is a course in the economics of information which happens to use the same words, without any indication whatsoever that it deals with the ideas presented in the article, and the other is the author's book. Obviously, if references can be presented using the term as a term to describe a subject as described here, then there might be an article. But the article describes "a specific decision analysis method developed by Douglas W. Hubbard.", and the course is about using "tools in the economics of uncertainty and information in order to conduct rigorous model-based research in the applied social sciences on topics involving the use of information." -  the author's work isn't even on the reading list. The Wharton course was obviously  added by searching for a course whose name happened to match. Academic spam is spam.   DGG 02:20, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No the references are not "meaningless". The "general textbook" you refer to applies only to the point about calibration - an entirely separate topic that was researched for decades by others (and on which I plan to write a topic to fill that void in wikipedia). Another reference just added shows the results of an Information week survey about AIE and other methods. Searches on AIE in that same periodical and CIO magazine make it clear they are all talking about the same method (I've written articles in both).  The Wharton reading list was made before my book was released, so it would not be on the reading list.  The book is listed on Amazon but not available until July 20.  One of these professors specifically asked me for detailed information which, until the book comes out, was only available in unpublished form. Other links have been added which you may have missed in your last reading including a lengthy study by the Federal CIO Council on the topic.Hubbardaie 03:01, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Okay let's be careful here. Hubberdaie I recommend you carefully review this official policy WP:NOR. Articles must be referenced by secondary, verifiable sources. Please bear that in mind when editing in case you weren't aware of it --Javit 03:22, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your point and thank you for the policy. I'm new to wikipedia but, on careful reading it doesn't appear I violate this rule.  The links and articles I present - especially the federal study - contain all this and much more.  Nothing here is original.  Of course, the "How to Measure Anything" book is the most complete reference, but that appears to raise the COI concerns.  Previous commentors here have indicated that COI alone is not sufficient basis for deletion so I guess thats a productive tradeoff between COI and NOR. But I'm certainly open to comments that would make this more compliant.  Thanks for the rigourous intro to wikipedia!Hubbardaie 03:33, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I had to fix a typo in the 1998 InformationWeek reader survey about IT metrics methods (which included AIE)Hubbardaie 04:14, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

BTW, one of the original objections to this article was "internal spam". When I first posted the article, a header appeared saying it was an "orphan" and needed links from other articles. I went out and started to make links wherever it looked appropriate only to find out that this is called "internal spam". Which of these guidelines do I follow?Hubbardaie 04:26, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: I put the original orphan tag, since this article had nothing else linking to it. This makes an article hard to find unless somebody is explicitly looking for that exact topic. Of course, these should be appropriate links. I don't think there are guidelines on any of this, and neither being an orphan nor "internal spamming" are deletion criteria. -- MisterHand 13:24, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your point and that is why I then searched out relevant articles to link to. I found about a dozen that were relevant and many of these were very closely related concepts (eg. business case and cost-benefit analysis).  As you said, there aren't any guidelines but apparently that was enough to trip the "internal spam" alarm for some people.  I'm sure real spam is a lot more than a dozen links.  If this somehow crosses the line, then I think we need a lot more clarity on what "internal spam" means.  I was inititially adding back links to Applied Information Economics that were removed by others but I suppose I might as well defer that until its detemined that the AIE article should be kept.Hubbardaie 15:33, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I've been looking at other AFD discussions where a COI issue was brought up. I saw some that appear to be much less neutral than the AIE article and even more of a COI, but apparently passed muster. Having seen some of these other articles, I'm not sure how this article was even remotely suggested for speedy delete. I'm happy to oblige by whatever rules articles should comply with, but I think the rules need to at least be consistently applied.Hubbardaie 15:33, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Precedents do not apply and are not considered in AFD discussions. Sorry. - Richfife 17:00, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Let me rephrase that slightly: You can point out specific arguments that took place in other AFDs in order to save time and retyping, but the arguments should be reconsidered every time. - Richfife


 * I understand your point. But I wasn't really making the point that precident was the consideration as if once a decision is made, you are stuck with those rules for all future decisions.  I was simply saying that, if we were consistent, it would be odd to accept some of the articles that have been accepted (like the one you referenced as a temper tantrum) and - applying the same rules - delete this article.Hubbardaie 17:45, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I accept the Information Week article as showing some notability, for it does seem to be about the subject of the article & I consider their surveys on things like this to be RSs., and therefore changed my !vote above to  Weak Keep.   DGG 23:32, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, credible review makes this a notable subject. John Vandenberg 02:35, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Move to section in Information economics and redirect topic to that section I'm the editor who originally put the speedy-delete tag on this article. On Thursday night, Hubbardaie misunderstood the meaning of the Wikipedia orphan tag and did a lot of inappropriate wikilinking very quickly. He'd only just created the article on Wednesday. Thursday night, his actions looked like intentional internal spamming to me. We've got over 12,000 stub-level articles in business and econ, according to the rating system that WikiProjects use. I don't know how many are orphans or near-orphans, but if other inexperienced editors interpret an orphan tag in the way Hubbardaie did, it's a problem. Hubbardaie has a business to run and a book due for release in August. I haven't been able to find any references to add to this Wikipedia article that he hasn't already added. He knows now that he cannot use an unpublished book as a reference for a Wikipedia article. If I came across this article while reviewing stubs, I'd suggest a merge, so I'm suggesting that now. Down the road, when more references are available, this topic might become an independent article. But I don't think it's there yet. --SueHay 02:16, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


 * First, I've read the Information Economics article a few days ago and these are entirely different topics and they could not be merged in a way that would make any sense. A couple of days ago I suggested renaming that article or disambiguation.  The topic of the information economics article seems to lump together some very different topics under one name but emphasizes a set of methods about asymetric information in markets and how information affects market behavior, which is the topic of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics.  However, the authors of this theory don't actually call it "information economics" but, more often "economics of information" or even more specifically "asymetric information markets" or "theory of asymetric information".  Further confusing the use of that term is that there is also a completely different, and much older use of the term "information economics" that is again a third completely different animal (I discuss the differences in the discussion page of the Information Economics article).  The term "applied information economics", on the other hand, predates the wide recognition of asymetric information in markets and the two are related only tangentially in one small component of each (both use the same method to compute the expected value of perfect information).  Unlike the Nobel Prize winning method, AIE is not about explaining the behavior of markets.  It is simply a particular procedure for analyzing a specific uncertaint investment.  Furthermore, since the reader survey I refer to in InformationWeek says that 12% of respondants use AIE for performance metrics in IT and since it is highly unlikely that the IT management readers in 1998 would have any familiarity with the 2001 economics Nobel work and since the topics are so different, it is clear that AIE in that context is not what the current Information Economics article is about.  The other topics that were claimed to be under the title Information economics were all just stubs, so we don't know what is actually meant by them.Hubbardaie 04:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC).


 * Second, if the main obstacle SueHay presents is the publication of the book, then that would be solved by reposting this article when the book is out in 2 months. It would cause massive incoherence and confusion to merge this method with the Nobel prize winning method.  As I said, that article should be renamed, anyway, to reflect the more common term the Nobel prize winners actually use for it.  But the other references should suffice even without the book and, if not, SueHay's comment about finding more citations notwithstanding, I could add more (there are more government studies with about about AIE that I will post if I need to).  Also, the two articles currently have an equal number of citations.  Granted, the AIE citations don't have Nobel prize-winning articles among them, but it is a management consulting method, not an academic theory.  So how many citations would suffice if six is not enough?Hubbardaie 04:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Third, I don't think one could say I "misunderstood" the orphan tag. I did exactly as it clearly suggested.  But it may be that the orphan tag mistates what you intend it to be.  I agree with SueHay that you might consider addressing this.Hubbardaie 04:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm adding some additional comments in the discussion of the "Information Economics" article to better clarify the various topics this term has been used for. It should probably just direct people to other specific articles like a disambiguation would.Hubbardaie 05:20, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep — given improvements made since nominated, Notability is just about there.--Arthana 10:44, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Check out the discussion in the Information economics article. I added a detailed explaination of the different (and very muddled) concepts introduced in the article. This should clear up how the article is talking about several different highly unrelated concepts that should simply be in different articles.Hubbardaie 12:27, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

By the way, how long does the delete tag stay? There hasn't been any new comment for a few days and the emerging concensus seems to be a keep.Hubbardaie 02:42, 15 June 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.