Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Moynihan’s law


 * 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. Tim Vickers (talk) 04:30, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Moynihan’s law

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According to WP:NEO: "A new term doesn't belong in Wikipedia unless there are reliable sources specifically about the term — not just sources which mention it briefly or use it in passing." This article fails that guideline. There are no citations at all (therefore failing WP:V), and the two external links are editorials that use the neologism "Moynihan's Law," without attempting academic discussion of it. I did a Google search, and didn't come up with anything substantive that could save this article. *** Crotalus *** 00:26, 31 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep not a lot of ghits, but many of them are relevant and on nontrivial sites, , , . A surprising number of them do reference Wikipedia but the chicken-and-egg issue now seems irrelevant. JJL (talk) 02:33, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I looked over the four links you gave, and I disagree with your assessment.
 * The first link is a scholarly article that contains the phrase "Moynihan's law," but it is not the same "law" referenced in the article nominated here. Please double-check the context and you will see it is talking about something completely different.
 * The second link is an Indian magazine of unknown importance that mentions Moynihan's law, but references only... the Wikipedia article! You can't establish verifiability in this roundabout fashion. To cite this article would basically be citing ourselves since there is nothing else there.
 * The third link is an op-ed from the New Statesman which uses the term, but is not in any way about the term. This citation would fail WP:NEO. It's also of marginal importance at best, and I think that citing an op-ed in this fashion would violate WP:WEIGHT.
 * The fourth link is a partisan blog post which consists of all of two paragraphs. This clearly fails our guidelines for reliable sourcing and undue weight; furthermore, once again, it merely uses the term and is not about the term.
 * I just don't see anything worth keeping here, nor any way to make this article into more than a WP:DICDEF of a neologism and/or a list of people who used the term. *** Crotalus *** 03:15, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete JJL, you said "A surprising number of them do reference Wikipedia but the chicken-and-egg issue now seems irrelevant." Why do you consider the issue irrelevant?  A source which cites Wikipedia to support its assertion is unreliable, and unreliable sources cannot be used to prove that Moynihan’s law is established (please see WP:NEO), and I agree with Crotalus's assessments regarding the other sources that have been cited.  I have not found multiple, reliable, independent and secondary sources to suggest that Moynihan’s law is not a neologism, and thus I believe the article should be deleted.  JEdgarFreeman (talk) 03:27, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment I was convinced the term is used (and I did note that the Georgetown link used it in a different way). I wasn't talking about whether there were verifiable reliable sources to establish what exactly the law was, though that seemed clear to me scanning the pages found--I felt it was used sufficiently to justify having a WP article on the term. The rest is up to the editors of the page. JJL (talk) 20:19, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment The law may exist, but unless multiple reliable, independent, and secondary sources are found which offer non-trivial coverage of this term, it fits the definition of a neologism.  A website that cites only Wikipedia, a blog, an article which does not discuss the term, and a website that does not talk about the specific law in the article, do not prove the term is more than a neologism.  JEdgarFreeman (talk) 21:54, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.   --  Fabrictramp  |  talk to me  23:28, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Total lack of sources.Brammarb (talk) 19:08, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete as above WikiScrubber (talk) 21:09, 5 September 2008 (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.