Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/High IQ society


 * 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. (non-admin closure) Peter Karlsen (talk) 02:27, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

High IQ society

 * – ( View AfD View log ) •

No reliable sources have been found for the article, even after repeated requests on the article talk page. After further diligent search and discussion on the article talk page, it appears that the few sources any editor has found about the article topic proper are solely self-published websites. Therefore the article is nominated for deletion discussion for lack of reliable sources. The article is primarily a directory of non-notable organizations rather than an encyclopedic discussion of the article's named topic. WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 11:12, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep Bit of a WP:SOFIXIT there, and is that the sound of an axe being ground that I can hear offstage?
 * This article is a minefield. Vast numbers of societies and their largely self-published sources have come and gone, in an attempt to add particular societies to what is effectively a list article. Yet to extend this to the concept of such societies as a broad concept being non-notable is ridiculous. If High IQ societies are indeed all simply not a notable idea, I look forward to the nom's inevitable AfD for Mensa. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:58, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The sourcing problems have been noted by other editors for years, since before I registered my account about a half year ago. I thought that this would be a topic, by my wild guess, that would be easy to source, but I haven't found Wikipedia reliable sources about it myself, even though I keep an  extensive source list on closely related topics where all Wikipedians can see it. After posting to the article talk page on more than one occasion, and after reading the entire editing history of the page, I thought it was time to see once and for all if this article can be sourced as any Wikipedia article ought to be sourced under the  verifiability policy and its implementing  reliable sources guideline. Fixing articles is a wonderful thing. I would love to see this article fixed. If it cannot be fixed, the existing self-published websites will still be visible on Google, so there is no need for a Wikipedia article on the topic. P.S. I have never, ever indicated any interest in deleting the article Mensa, which is considerably better sourced and is about an indisputably notable topic. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:00, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Prune the article down to only what's absolutely referenceable if we must, but if that leaves us with even a single entry in that list, then the article is still justified. As one of those articles will certainly be Mensa, I can't see any scope for deletion of the entire set. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:24, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * There already is such content on Wikipedia: Intelligence_quotient And of course there is a stand-alone article Mensa, as I expect there always will be. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:45, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Three whole sentences of such content. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:35, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment One of the reasons why there are so few references in this article is edits like this, removing them. By the nominator of this AfD, no less. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:37, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Reply Is the thrust of this comment to say that there are available reliable sources that are not currently used to edit article text? That would be something to bring up on the article talk page. Wikipedia has a content guideline about self-published sources, so the concern would continue to be to find statements for article text that can be verified from other sources as well. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 00:56, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The relevant guideline is rightly against using WP:SPS to demonstrate notability. However that's not the same thing as a blanket ban on their use at all. There is no policy or guideline requiring their removal, as you have claimed in your edit summaries on their deletion. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:28, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment Before the nominator saddles up his AGF high horse, don't take my word for it take ArbCom's. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:39, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Checking sources is always a good idea. Yes, I agree, checking sources with careful attention to detail is helpful for editing articles. I welcome talk page discussion on any article talk page with any editor who has reliable sources for improving the article. I  assume good faith in such discussions. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 00:56, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Which bit did you mean? "Weiji's edits may raise some eyebrows"? Indeed. Then I saw your deletion of refs before taking an article to AfD. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:26, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment Since WeijiBaikeBianji is affiliated with Mensa it seems a conflict of interest to continually remove data and entire groups, and even attempt to get an entire page deleted because it lists other High IQ societies, which is a major reason for having the page in the first place. "High IQ society" would be a more thorough resource more in the spirit of Wikipedia without such temperamental and aggressive editing.--97.104.185.233 (talk) 02:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * * Reply You wrote, "Since WeijiBaikeBianji is affiliated with Mensa" to which I would have to add this tag:  I am quite amazed that there are continual efforts here, contrary to Wikipedia policy, to  comment on the editor rather than on the editorial suggestion. I have already written here that if the article is sourced according to  Wikipedia sourcing guidelines I would be the first to support its continued existence as a stand-alone article. And I certainly don't think that the topic shouldn't be mentioned at all, as it is already mentioned in the highly visible article Intelligence quotient. But because I have been an editor of an academic publication before, I have a strongly habituated concern for sourcing all article text on all subjects. Improving the sourcing of articles is a  policy on Wikipedia, so I would expect all of us to have friendly agreement about doing that. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:47, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * * Reply "I speak at National Association for Gifted Children-affiliated state organizations, for Mensa, and for other nonprofit organizations on the topics of mathematics education, organizing support networks for parents, and IQ testing." source:your own page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji Also, the page at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient which you also edit only contains one society, Mensa. As far as commenting strictly on the editorial suggestion, I respect your input, but nevertheless it seems to show bias towards only having a single society on Wikipedia.--97.104.185.233 (talk) 21:04, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * "I speak [...] for Mensa" and you're seeking to delete an article that covers the other societies? Wow.
 * You should withdraw this AfD. Can anyone else say WP:COI? Andy Dingley (talk) 23:26, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * * You do suggest a way I could rewrite my user page to reduce the possibility of misinterpretation. (I have just done that, before submitting this reply.) I have never been a member of Mensa. I have many close personal friends who are members of Mensa, as I imagine most persons commenting on this AfD do. I spoke at a session at the Mensa Annual Gathering the last time it was in my town, when it was a joint gathering with Mensa Canada. I was invited to speak there, as a volunteer, by local friends who are Mensans. If this kind of tenuous relationship with Mensa is assumed to be a basis "to get an entire page deleted because it lists other High IQ societies," then perhaps there are assumptions about Mensa among the members of those other societies that I would never have guessed. Lacking sources, I try not to guess. Only as I find sources will I support edits to article text that properly should be based on sources. Sources about other organizations produced by independent writers with a strong reputation for fact-checking would be an ample basis for mentioning other organizations in the article under discussion here, and perhaps in other articles as well. By the way, have you found any non-self-published sources about the activities of any high IQ society or about the general phenomenon of high IQ societies or about any notable member of any high IQ society since this AfD was posted, or has your research effort been confined to "opposition research" on a fellow Wikipedian? It's flattering that you consider me such an important issue here, but I fully expect the closing administrator, when this AfD is closed, to close it on the basis of Wikipedia policy for building the encyclopedia rather than on the basis of editors' unevidenced opinions of a fellow editor. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 00:16, 28 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. There seem to be fewer on-line reliable sources on this subject than one might expect, but there certainly are some.  For example, a delightful 1985 article by the young Joel Achenbach in the Miami Herald's former Tropic magazine--the Herald is a pay site but the text of the article can also be found at an archival site for the magazine.--Arxiloxos (talk) 06:39, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * * This sounds like a basis for improving the article. Are you willing to take on adding article edits based on sources like that? That would be very helpful for the article. It appears that news sources may be the most available sources for this topic, and that's all right. I was expecting more information in academic books and journal articles than what I have found so far, so I thought I'd bring this up to a wider group of editors than the editors who watch the article's talk page. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:47, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:33, 28 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep (and block WeijiBaikeBianji) So nominator is affiliated with Mensa and persistantly deletes all else high-iq society related Wikipedia-wide? That's an eye-opener with regard to the motives. Not only should this article be kept, but all others deleted by this person should be reinstated and the person himself banned from editing. His mumbo-jumbo legal sweet talk should not fool anyone any longer.StevanMD (talk) 16:31, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep (and block WeijiBaikeBianji) More vexatious/crank editing from WeijiBaikeBianji. A first block of perhaps few days or a week should be issued for this aggressive attempt to scupper this page. Woodsrock (talk) 18:47, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * * Meanwhile, where are the sources? You are entitled to your opinion as a new editor. And any editor who wants to show that their opinion that an article can be well sourced is correct can do that by finding sources and making article edits based on those. But you are not entitled to your own facts. Wikipedia asks editors to express opinions about the edits and not about the editors. It would be wonderful to see some edits to that article that draw on independent  reliable sources that put the topic into a broader context with more detail. We are all  here to build an encyclopedia, not a blog, after all. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 19:00, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Like those you delete? Thanks, but no thanks. As I said, no fooling with sweet talk. StevanMD (talk) 20:07, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep per Andy Dingley. (Disclaimer: I am not connected to any of the societies listed, nor would I be. I did find a short Mensa produced test that was supposed to show you were Mensa level if you did it in 15 minutes. I did it in 4, sat on the loo. I've never wanted to be a table.) Peridon (talk) 23:41, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep (and block WeijiBaikeBianji) WeijiBaikeBianji is a bad faith editor on the subject of intelligence. --Michael C. Price talk 07:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC)


 * * Kindly refactor the comments that violate WP:NPA and WP:AGF. There is actually a Wikipedia administrator who recently described me as a "a good faith editor who is trying to collaborate with other Wikipedians." I welcome anyone who disagrees with how I edit to discuss that in a mature and considerate manner on my user talk page. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 23:51, 31 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep (and block WeijiBaikeBianji) Good editors adapt to the consensus of others, while bad ones such as WeijiBaikeBianji persistently delete anything that doesn't mirror their exact thinking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.104.185.102 (talk) 19:31, 31 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment This is a subject that is difficult to source according to the usual standards. An IQ society which purports to be so exclusive that only one in a billion can qualify is delimited to about five adult members in the entire world. Given the difficulty of acquainting those few candidates with the society itself, such a society could consider itself fortunate to recruit one of the five. One might assume that a society with a single member might not achieve Wikipedia's notability standards, even if the member himself (or herself) were quite famous. Compounding the problems with this page are these issues: (1) very few of these societies are widely known outside the circle of membership; (2) to my knowledge, only two people (Hoeflin and Langdon) really know very much about norming IQ tests with extreme upper-end discrimination, and the reliability thereof, and those gentlemen have not published much on the matter, nor anything at all peer-reviewed, to my knowledge; (3) the only famous group in the litany of otherwise obscure societies is not really a high-IQ group at all. MENSA is more of an above-average IQ society, which means that the true high-IQ groups have no champion to enter in the notability joust. Back to the point. Should the page be deleted? Beats me. From what little I know of what Wikipedia wants to achieve, perhaps deletion is the correct decision, but maybe it would be beneficial to let some other eyes look at the matter rather than leaving the final call up to a single editor, however fair he may be or unfair he may be perceived. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncle Scoopy (talk • contribs) 20:53, 31 October 2010 (UTC)


 * * Thank you for comment The sourcing issues are interesting. I had expected, because of the interest of independent scholars in the subjects of the Terman study in the twentieth century, that today there would be some number of independent scholars who would write dead-tree, peer-reviewed or professionally edited reliable sources about high-IQ persons (including the organizations they join and the experiences they have in those organizations). Reliable information on that subject is of great interest to me. Wikipedia has its policies as an encyclopedia and consciously differs in its mission from Google and some other useful online reference tools. Whatever the closing administrator decides here, I will honor that decision, assume good faith on the part of all other editors who commented here or who subsequently edit the same articles that I edit, and try to continue to find sources to add encyclopedic, verifiable content to as many of the  articles on Wikipedia I have time to edit as a volunteer. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 23:51, 31 October 2010 (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.