Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ELKO theory


 * 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__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. Owen&times; &#9742;  22:45, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

ELKO theory

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Article based upon one source which has been cited 4 times, plus a second more cited source that has nothing to do with the topic. The page was previously deleted, and as part of NPR I tagged a newly created version for questionable notability, no significant scientific coverage and in need of better sourcing to avoid a future AfD. Editor User:TakuyaMurata immediately removed the maintenance tag of notability claiming that a Google search indicates that it is notable; I find no evidence of this. Hence time for an AfD as not notable for a more complete discussion. Ldm1954 (talk) 15:49, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep: Perhaps the previous AfD Articles for deletion/Mass dimension one fermions is helpful here. There does seem to exist some sufficient amount of publications to justify the notability (please Google with “elko field” too). According to the previous AfD, there is some coi issue, which I cannot tell just from looking at the article alone. But at least the notability is considered, it looked ok to me. Needless to say, the more citations and references there are the better (and more such are probably needed). —- Taku (talk) 16:01, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Just saying "Google it" is absolutely useless for determining notability. What reliable, independent, secondary sources exist now that didn't exist in 2020? XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:54, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Maybe not new. But in order to determine if the topic is notable or not, we just look at the amount/quality of publications: Google is a standard way to see that. I suppose you can create the appearance of research activities by citing each other (not saying this one is). That’s not a good practice but Wikipedia isn’t a place to judge whether certain research activities are genuine or not. —- Taku (talk) 18:07, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * No, Google is not "a standard way to see" how much relevant, peer-reviewed material there is on a topic. General-purpose Google has never been good for that &mdash; and grows worse by the day &mdash; and even Google Scholar is only useful if employed carefully. What peer-reviewed publications, not written by the original inventors of this idea, discuss it in depth? Name three. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:25, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I don’t think it matters much whether some papers are independent of the creator of the theory. In some field, the originators have a very strong influence; that doesn’t mean the theory is not notable in the eyes of Wikipedia. As a research activity, that’s too promotional and problematic? Perhaps, but again in Wikipedia we don’t judge the quality of the research. I know especially for biographical articles, we need secondary sources but research articles are somehow different (again because of the way some research topics are pursued). The existence of the textbook I mentioned below especially seems a very strong indication for the notability, since the publisher thinks the topic is worth publishing. —- Taku (talk) 18:35, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, it very much matters, by policy. A textbook by one of the authors of the original publication is not an independent source. It's very much the opposite of an independent source. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:39, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Like I said above, some research topic just doesn’t develop independent of the originator. That should not be a ground for non-notability. Of course, the textbook isn’t an independent source but, unlike bio articles, it doesn’t mean it is not a reliable source; that part of policy isn’t about like textbooks that can be cited. If interpreted literally, it’s like you can’t cite Grothendieck since he is involved in the creation of scheme theory. It doesn’t work that way when we cover scientific topics; throughout Wikipedia, we do cite plenty of textbooks that are not independent of the subject. —- Taku (talk) 18:47, 5 July 2024 (UTC) (To add, it seems there is a conflict of reliability: in academia, a primary source is usually considered more reliable than the secondary one. Because of this, even in Wikipedia, for scientific articles, we often prefer to cite textbooks by the authors close to the subject than the secondary ones. —- Taku (talk) 19:04, 5 July 2024 (UTC))
 * We can cite textbooks and monographs and review articles by people involved with an article topic. But we don't base notability decisions on them. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:05, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * For scientific topics, I think a primary textbook can be counted towards the notablity. We have the notability criterion in part because we need reliable sources to write an article. For scientific articles, primary sources can be reliable (arguably more reliable in some instances). So, the existence of such sources could and should be a ground for the notability. Here, it is important to note that the textbook in question is published from a reputable publisher not a self-publishing book. —- Taku (talk) 09:52, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * No, primary sources aren't enough. Otherwise anyone who managed to get a paper published in a journal could claim that their work deserves a Wikipedia article. And that just isn't the case. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:39, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Of course, a primary paper isn’t sufficient. A textbook seems different though: not anyone can publish a textbook (except self-publishing ones). A textbook from a reputable publisher thus should count something. (I guess, in a sense, you can say a textbook isn’t completely primary; it comes with a sort of authorization from a publisher.) Taku (talk) 20:38, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * By the exact same logic, a published paper wouldn't be "primary", because it "comes with a sort of authorization from a publisher". Moreover, the book you linked is a monograph, not a textbook: it's a single-author work in which the author describes their own research. Cambridge UP has printed dozens of those. Some of them are on notable topics, others perhaps not. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:53, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The difference is that monographs (yes, I should have said textbook or monograph as the book is a monograph) are more selective and fewer than journal papers. A reputable series like the Cambridge one does not publish books on topics that are fringe or of marginal research interest. In that way, being part of the series gives the topic a sort of authority; in fact, we often use some selective list or awards to determine a given topic is notable or not (and the Cambridge series is independent of the subject). I agree some topic covered in the series is something quite personal, something inseparable from the author. But as said above, I don’t think that is a problem. A one-man’s work can be perfectly notable. Taku (talk) 12:35, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * By the way, there is apparently a book about the topic according to the previous AfD (I think this one, which isn’t a self-published one). That seems significant. Maybe the previous article was promotional in tone (which I don’t know since I can’t see the deleted article), but this article doesn’t sound promotional in tone. —- Taku (talk) 18:20, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * XOR'easter, for clarity I don't see your vote on the AfD. Ldm1954 (talk) 13:32, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Haven't had time to come to a final judgment yet. The current state of the article would incline me to !vote "delete", but I wanted to sift the literature myself first. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:39, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 16:13, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:49, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete: Insufficient sources to support notability. Fails WP:GNG. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:41, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete This appears to be a topic that has not been influential beyond its originators in a significant way. No prejudice against recreation if someone finds sources that demonstrate otherwise. Some of the language, like historically overlooked for uncertain reasons, reads like personal reflection; this appears to be the outgrowth of a deletion debate on a topic that an editor found technically interesting and perhaps should have been written for the arXiv instead of Wikipedia. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 01:24, 11 July 2024 (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.