Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (2nd nomination)


 * 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.  SilkTork  *YES! 17:20, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Baader-Meinhof phenomenon
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

This page is composed almost entirely of OR backed up with pseudoscientific psych-speak. If it has been documented in any notable source (which excludes damninteresting.com, thank you), I have been unable to find it. An earlier AfD seemed to fail mostly on the basis that the original nominator was unregistered and initially bungled the application. At the very least, complete the merge into synchronicity, which seems to be synonymous but actually has legitimate documentation. Angio (talk) 19:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC) http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=12A047FC9855DBC0&p_docnum=1 http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=129F4C77823867B8&p_docnum=2 with the text from each (and claim that these small quotes are permissible under fair use): ... Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon
 * Delete - Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of un-notable, unsourced neologisms. Dlabtot (talk) 22:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Sorry that the article isn't properly sourced; this is NOT synchronicity, which are meaningfull collisions; Baader-Meinhof are noticed because of the lack of meaning. htom (talk) 00:05, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - According to whom? The problem is the complete lack of appropriate source material. Angio (talk) 00:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Problem The problem is that the St. Paul Pioneer Press hides its copyrighted columns behind a pay-wall, so it's difficult to cite their use of the term. I'll put up the two links that are currently free:

Plus: Our community of strangers

Harley Dust: "The other night, a contestant on 'Wheel of Fortune' won a trip to Turks & Caicos. Since I had not heard of this location before, I made a mental note to look it up.

"Yesterday in the Pioneer Press, I read an article about the Haitian boat that crashed near the Turks & Caicos islands. I mentioned this to my wife, a faithful reader of BB, and she told I'd just had a B-M! She told her sister, and she announced to everyone that I just had a B-M.

"Not being a reader of BB (sorry), I had no idea what they were talking about.

"Today I started reading BB in order to understand this new language." ... from the first, and here's the second: ... Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

Tuesday e-mail from Queen of the Hop: "I'm a staff member of the Minnesota Historical Society. Recently a longtime friend of the Society, Floyd Risvold, passed away, and some memorials were designated to MHS. Our curator of rare books, Patrick Coleman, used some of the memorials to acquire a copy of a book entitled 'History of Wiskonsan' (Buffalo, 1846), which we believe Mr. Risvold would have loved to see in our collections. The book includes an inscription alluding to the fact that the book was in the collection of Abraham Lincoln and was presented to his coachman, William P. Brown, but actually turned out to be a part of a somewhat successful scheme known as the 'Coachman Forgeries.' First time I'd ever heard of this scheme is when I read our blog on 8/3 about the acquisition. Log on to our Web site for more info: [tiny URL pointed at:] http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/pdf/604_lincolnforgery.pdf

"Now comes the phenomenal part: Last night on an episode of 'History Detectives' (Channel 2) was the story of a woman in Oregon who ended up with a bound book of sheet music from an estate sale -- sheet music signed in a few places 'A. Lincoln' and 'Abraham Lincoln.' She was hoping that she was in possession of a priceless piece of American history. But, you guessed it -- after the detectives went around the country talking with Lincoln biographers and historians, as well as a handwriting forensic specialist, they determined her copy was part of the Coachman Forgeries, crimes perpetrated by Eugene Field and Harry Dayton Sickles. [Bulletin Board says: See [same tiny URL reference]]

"Please tell me this is a B-M. In fact, less than nine hours passed between the two experiences. [Bulletin Board says: That's about as pure as a B-M can come!]

"P.S. William P. Brown was Lincoln's coachman, and in the '30s he did sign these books (and many more) and his signature was notarized, but neither he nor the notary knew that the information pertaining to Abraham Lincoln, including the signatures, were added after theirs."

Throw the cow over the fence some hay!

Mamallama of Como Park: "The August 3 PP contained a story provided by the Associated Press, which began: 'Black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. made his first public appearance Sunday since sharing a beer with the police officer who arrested him and President Barack Obama.'

"So now we know the identity of the person who was with Mr. Gates when he broke into his own home. But what was the president arrested for? And why was this not reported earlier? ...

"What's that you say? What about cows, fences and hay?

"Never mind!" ...

Actually, this article has been deleted before; http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Baader-Meinhof_phenomenon_%28deleted_24_Jul_2008_at_20:31%29

Here's a local blogger using the term: http://jennydagle.blogspot.com/2007/02/baader-meinhof-phenomenon.html

And here's a reference to a book using the term: http://www.harmlessfraud.com/?p=1210 htom (talk) 19:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete even though I love damninteresting; they are usually better with citing sources and further reading, though. - 2/0 (cont.) 16:06, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Never heard it called this, and now that I have heard it called this, I will probably never again hear it called this. We've all experienced the phenomenon of reading a word like "vitreous" and then seeing it again on the very next item we were reading.  The article is about a coined phrase that is not notable, and too bizarre to ever become so.  Unless you logically associate a terror group with an everyday experience.  Mandsford (talk) 20:58, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete or merge with synchronicity. Not at all notable by itself; no easily accessible good sources are available. Bearian (talk) 21:56, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Not only is it OR, it uses an inaccurate assessment of the Serial position effect (Recency effect is redirected); Recency deals with stimulii that are the most recent in the tested string as opposed to primacy, the first in the string. Article: "its primary cause as being the recency effect, in which the human brain has a bias that lends increased prominence to new or recently acquired information." Recency effect itself has been shown to vary greatly depending on the pace of the presentation, indicating that it has more to do with presentation for which long-term and working memory abilities are efficient. I do not know of any studies that indicate that the effect exists outside of lists of information given in a short amount of time. The article speaks of recency as being about recent vs long-term memory, not most recent in a list of recent things. Synchronicity is completely irrelevant and should not be used to include this info. The article then wanders off to explore the truism that having a memory of something makes you capable of noticing it more. I am sure we are all aware that science is extremely good at proving truisms, but until it proves this one (hopefully I am wrong and it has and this article can be merged there), this article is superfluous to WP. And all to promote a web forum where people who spotted two citations! of something can amaze their friends. Anarchangel (talk) 01:24, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a mis-leading truncation of the article; several other explanations are offered. The claim advanced, however, is that it is explicitly and only the first and second encounters with the item, so lists don't come into it at all. And it's not a web forum, but a newspaper column published on actual paper (and pretty much not on the web, hence the difficulty in citing it.) htom (talk) 05:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete Neologisms can, of course, be notable, but I don't see strong evidence of verifiability (blogs are usually discounted, although we'd probably accept a lexicographer's blog). Very interesting - if slightly weird and probably offensive to those who suffered at their hands - but without better referencing... delete. --Dweller (talk) 16:05, 12 August 2009 (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.