Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Center for Applied Rationality


 * 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. -- Patar knight - chat/contributions 04:57, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Center for Applied Rationality

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

The organization is barely notable; more importantly, it seems to have been the focus of a lot of promotional editing coming from people affiliated with CFAR or with organizations themselves affiliated with CFAR.

I recently removed a great deal of content that was unsourced, editorialized, misleadingly interpreted, and so on and so forth. But I'm thinking that the whole thing should just be nuked. See, for example, the edits from User:Kbog, who seems to also be an with a persistent history of promotionally editing Effective Altruism-related pages and engaging in vicious edit wars to keep their content in place despite principled objections from many editors.

I believe the promotional editing here to be related to this recent incident where a huge ring of promotional editors-for-pay were banned after adding large amounts of poorly-sourced, superfluous content to pages. The comment


 * The more I look at the editing of Riceissa the more a very clear pattern of advocacy (promotional edits using bad sources or no sources, and edit warring etc to maintain them) appears.

is a succinct description of what seems to be happening more generally and the problem should be dealt with similarly and swiftly.

Fqn9010e0754032 (talk) 04:17, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 04:45, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 04:45, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 04:45, 10 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Leaning delete - there's a bit of coverage, but it's extremely sparse. Is there anywhere good to merge it? Perhaps Machine Intelligence Research Institute, of which it's an offshoot and shares offices with? I was interested to see Riceissa's prospective drafts on various other LessWrong subculture entities. The LW subculture tends enthusiastic rather than "paid promotional" - they sincerely see promotion of LW ideas as being absolutely essential to mitigating existential risk for all humanity. Which probably doesn't make a lot of difference, except they'll be more persistent about it - David Gerard (talk) 10:44, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Would it be better to merge it into MIRI or LessWrong? I'd guess the former is more appropriate, for the reasons you mention. GojiBarry (talk) 18:02, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment Vipul created the article, but as far as I can see there was no paid editing involved in this particular case (though of course it could still be considered promotional or biased). By the way, in cases such as this one, how much coverage is necessary to establish notability? GojiBarry (talk) 18:02, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Minor correction: I did not create the article. My first edit to the page was simply a redirect to a section in another page; later when I saw that what seemed like a complete draft was sitting in the drafts space I moved that over to main space. I didn't create the original draft version (unfortunately I didn't go through the proper process to move it, and somebody deleted the original draft, so I'm not sure who created the original draft). Vipul (talk) 09:59, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep has garnered enough coverageApollo The Logician (talk) 19:45, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment I would support merging MIRI and LessWrong and this article into a single article, if a suitable name could be found. Power~enwiki (talk) 19:50, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I support this idea. What about Rationalist movement (currently a redirect to Rationalism)? Fqn9010e0754032 (talk) 20:28, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * That's a pretty big name with extensive historical connotations to appropriate to one weird fringe movement. LessWrong, I'd suggest. (Template:LessWrong was originally Template:Applied rationality, but with the same problem of attempting to appropriate a larger name for itself. The original creator was another sockpuppeting LessWrong fan, account since blocked. It's since stuck at that name.) - David Gerard (talk) 21:01, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmm, that's true. I agree that merging both MIRI and CFAR into LessWrong seems like the correct solution here. Fqn9010e0754032 (talk) 21:14, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment The criteria for deleting this kind of article is WP:GNG, not whoever has been editing it or whether you think it is promotional (which it isn't) or negative (which it has been in the past). On Fqn9010e0754032's smear attempt - I'd encourage you to look into the actual history of edit disputes to see what was going on rather than uncritically using them as argument fodder -- Jytdog and I were both trying to reduce and rewrite the same article at approximately the same time, not arguing about what kind of content should be included in the final version or not. The insinuation that I have something to do with Vipul is wrong, I never had anything to do with him. Finally, Fqn9010e0754032 is a single purpose account which was created yesterday, and I've noticed that throwaway accounts attacking LessWrong/CFAR/etc have been on the rise over the last month or two on several websites, so we could both play this game if we wanted to.  K . Bog  20:02, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Describing my editing as a "smear attempt" without a single example of a concretely bad change I made to the page demonstrates that you are not arguing in good faith. Given your extensive history of attempting to delay and sidetrack deletion attempts by engaging participants in tangential conversations and drawing in unnecessary bureaucracy, your clearly extensive ties to the Effective Altruism movement and the "rationalist community", your very suspicious defense of Vipul Naik's paid editing ring, and your bad-faith response to this AfD which accuses me of orchestrating a "smear attempt" without a single concrete illustration of how anything I've done constitutes one (which ironically makes your own response itself a "smear attempt"), well, I don't really think there's much more that needs to be said in response. Fqn9010e0754032 (talk) 20:22, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * What? You completely misunderstood me. The smear attempt was made upon my account, not the CFAR article. On that note, you should find a single example where I defended Vipul Naik's paid editing ring or started "tangential conversations" to "sidetrack deletion attempts", because I didn't - please don't lie. And if you open an AFD by making accusations of bad faith, you sure can't complain when other people continue that discussion!  K . Bog  20:30, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * When you appear to be a COI editor, accusing another editor of lying is not the best move to get people onside with your argument - David Gerard (talk) 21:02, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * My 'argument' here, aside from noting the correct criteria for article notability, is simply to call out Fqn9010e0754032 on their behavior and rhetoric. How a user is talking about my "extensive history" on Wikipedia a day after signing up is beyond me. My edit history (which goes back years) covers a wide range of topics and my writing has never been flagged as promotional, so the claims they are making are false and you don't have any reason to accuse me of COI (which I do not have). I ask them not to lie, but whether they are being intentionally or unintentionally wrong is something which I make no claims about.  K . Bog  01:32, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep After taking a moment to review the article and rationale, this looks like a pretty clear case. WSJ, Vice, and NYT have covered it in depth, in addition to other sources, so it comfortably passes WP:GNG. The only other reason you gave for deleting the article was that you're afraid that I'll engage in "vicious edit wars" on the content of the article. But I didn't dispute any of the edits you made, and actually I think they were pretty reasonable. They displayed good familiarity with the principles of Wikipedia content and formatting. The article has a little room for improvement -- e.g. the NYT excerpt is not perfectly representative of the source, and we can restore one of the citations -- but overall I'm not complaining. So I don't see what the problem is.  K . Bog  06:02, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 09:09, 17 June 2017 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete -- WP:ADVOCACY for the org's $3,900 4-day seminars. Yes, there's some coverage but mostly as a fad. This is a mere curiosity at this point, and I don't see WP:CORPDEPTH being met. In the current form, the article is promotional and not a value to the project. The notability is marginal so it's best deleted. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:24, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Winged Blades Godric  03:31, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep – Clearly meets WP:GNG with in-depth interviews ranging from the Wall Street Journal to the Huffington Post without even mentioning the New York Times or Forbes, along with several other reliable news sources over several years (not just recent history). Regarding the fact that the article has been the subject of promotional editing is not a reason for deletion. At best, it would be a reason to “Protect” the page.  Concerning “Edit Was”, again not a reason for deletion.  Edit wars happen all the time and are eventually resolved. ShoesssS Talk 16:22, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. I agree with Shoessss that GNG is met by substantial coverage in multiple reliable sources over a period of years. I don't think the article in its current state is unreasonably or irreparably promotional. --Arxiloxos (talk) 17:52, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep per Shoessss. ChristianKl (talk) 20:18, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is an organization that's had significant coverage, and the current state of the article does not seem overly promotional to me.  --Lockley (talk) 08:04, 1 July 2017 (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.