Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Love bombing

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was keep. &mdash;Korath (Talk) 15:39, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Love bombing

 * Merge and redirect. This term was invented and used exclusively by the contercult movement as part of the hypothesis of mind control. Undeserving as a main article. Merge onto mind control &asymp; jossi &asymp; 14:45, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
 * Untrue. The term "love bombing" originated with the Unification Church, the Moonies. It's their term.
 * Keep separate, it gets 8,930 hits http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=%22love+bombing%22+-wikipedia Kappa 15:11, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Exactly....Check these entries: all from anti-cult websites. It is undeserving of its own article. The google test is not the only metric. Adding a mention to the mind control article will do. &asymp; jossi &asymp; 15:18, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
 * Most of the entries are from anti-cult websites, because most people who discuss love bombing are against it. But the term was invented by the Unification Church, who is hardly an anti-cult group, they are a cult.


 * Keep, who cares who uses the term, its widely used, w a unique definition, and therefore woirthy of an article. Check out Flirty fishing. (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 16:47, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep It's fine as it is, especially if used, say, in comparison to unconditional love, or in the context of how legitimate institutions should not behave. &c. &mdash; RJH 16:55, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. A technique with broad application in cults, mind control, marketing, and other dubious disciplines. HyperZonktalk 17:07, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep and maybe cleanup, it just needs a little attention which it might even get just by being on VfD for a week. Good topic, good start to an article. Andrewa 17:41, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep; well-known term and technique; deserves a decent article. Antandrus 17:51, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Cleanup. If all these reputable contributors think it's valid, I'll trust them, but the current article is rather confusing, implying that there is something sinister about a practice that, as described, sounds like it consists entirely of people being nice. -Aranel (" Sarah ") 19:26, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Now thats a good point. As hard as the author(s) tried (and I can tell they tried pretty hard), the article isn't NPOV on the subject. It presents it as a cult's method of indoctrination. I doubt anyone disagrees that it has been used that way, but there are plenty of other reasons for, and interpretations of, being intimate. Myself, I tend to judge others by their fruits, and if they are nice to be around, thats a pretty good sign of their character, certainly a better sign than their religious denomination. (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 20:31, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, in the Asch conformity experiments, the test subjects were influenced to give an incorrect answer to an easy question by the presence of confederates posing as fellow test subjects. Some of the test subjects said that they had gone along with the group's answers because they thought their own vision must be flawed; others because they did not want to face the disapproval of the group.  Imagine how much pressure on your perception could be exerted by a group that was consciously and deliberately controlling its expressions of approval towards you based on your conformity. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:39, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * All groups do that ;) (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 21:07, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * mmmmmm, no, I'd have to disagree. Do all groups tend to do that?  Yes.  But consciously and deliberately?  That's another thing. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:05, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. While there are disagreements about the efficacy of "love bombing", it's been a prominent concept in the literature for over 20 years.  To say it should not even be discussed as a concept because one side has been claiming for the 20 years that it's been in wide use that it doesn't exist just doesn't hold up. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:39, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Common enough term for a controversial practice. Jayjg (talk)  21:29, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Well-known term. Reasonable start for an article. I thought it was the Children of God, not the Moonies, who used the term themselves and catapulted it into the popular consciousness. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:56, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC) Well, our Children of God article doesn't mention it. Apparently they did use "flirty fishing" which isn't quite the same thing (!). Might be called "love-bombing: thermonuclear option." Googling associates the phrase with "cults" generally, including but not limited to the Moonies. It's been applied to Opus Dei, too. None of which answers the question "who originated the phrase, and when." Dpbsmith (talk) 01:05, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I've refined the opening definition to make it clear that the term love bombing is meant to refer to an insincere (or at least deliberately exaggerated) show of affection, and that it commonly applies to a group of people acting in concert. I can't tell whether Dr. Margaret Singer actually originated the term, but she appears to at any rate have been an early user and popularize of the term, so I added something about that. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:56, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep. Legit topic, especially on cult-related ones. --Andylkl 10:43, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. -- Uncle Ed (talk)
 * Merge. -- Uncle Ed (talk) I get two votes, because I'm a Moonie (just kidding ;-). Seriously, though, I have no problem with either the existence or title of the article. Unlike the term Moonie (at which we often take offense, God only knows why) - the term love bombing never seems to raise hackles among us. I just used it myself at talk:love bombing today, to describe an incident in which I participated. Let's all meet in talk and figure out how to clean up the text, now that we've all agreed not to delete it. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 17:25, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * Ed, maybe you should get all your Moonie friends to come and demonstrate an intense interest and affection for Wikipedia until the vote is over? (Also just kidding of course). DJ Clayworth 17:34, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Come to think of it... what is all this Wikilove stuff? Do Wikipedians engage in Wikilove wikibombing? Dpbsmith (talk)
 * I thought of that, but how do you fake sincere interest over a text-only interface? (Actually, my efforts to interest Unificationists in Wikipedia have all fallen flat; a few people look up stuff, but writing takes real guts, you know.) -- Uncle Ed (talk) 20:05, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * As a critic of Scientology (whose page is actually a reference on the article in question), I have found remarkable difficulty in persuading Scientologist editors to come on board and bring their point of view to the party. I think we have one and he edits only very occasionally. Possibly they don't trust me ... - David Gerard 01:40, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * (Are we off-topic yet?) 1) I would have thought it would be easier to fake sincere interest via text than in person. In fact, Joseph Weizenbaum's Eliza did a reasonable job of faking sincere interest. 2) I'm always surprised at peoples' lack of interest in Wikipedia. Several times I've emailed press or PR contacts with questions, and have usually gotten answers. Each time I've given them the URL of the article in question and pointed out (with some misgiving!) that they can edit it themselves. I've been surprised that so far not one of them has tried to edit an article. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:30, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep, of course. Firstly there should absolutely be an article with this name, and secondly there is no more need to merge this into Mind Control than there is to merge every single battle into the World War II article. DJ Clayworth 17:34, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - real sociological term - David Gerard 01:40, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - I've seen it in sociological literature long before WP hit the scene. jdb &#x274b; (talk) 05:02, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, it is even used untranslated in other languages. --Pgreenfinch 16:44, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.