Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nonlinear quality of life index


 * 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. Spartaz Humbug! 03:43, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Nonlinear quality of life index

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Judging by the text of the article, and its history, it is clear that the entire article is original research. This is not a case where the article can be modified, or the original research removed, because the entire idea of the page is original research. Originalbigj (talk) 03:36, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I was going to question that conclusion, based upon the citation of the paper by A. Zinovyev and Alexander N. Gorban in the references section of the article. But, as you point out, this article was created and edited by  and  three days after that paper was first submitted (and revised the same day that version 2 of the paper was submitted).  And whilst it may be supplemental to the International Journal of Neural Systems article, there's nothing so far indicating that it's been published in any journal itself, and subjected to the same scrutiny and peer review.  From a quick search there's nothing indicating that this concept, in an (unreviewed) paper from August of this year, has been acknowledged by anyone else.  And the other sources cited here don't document it at all, and aren't even cited in the article as doing so. Uncle G (talk) 04:44, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Could I kindly ask not to delete the article? The main content (presented in Fig.) with the technology of analysis is published in a Reliable source: A.N. Gorban, A. Zinovyev, Principal manifolds and graphs in practice: from molecular biology to dynamical systems, International Journal of Neural Systems 20 (3) (2010), 219-232. arXiv:1001.1122 [cs.NE]. The table (supplementary material) is published in arXiv. Therefore, it is not correct that "the entire article is original research". The International Journal of Neural Systems has impact factor 2.98. The main idea of analysis was published there, hence, it is completely wrong that "the entire idea of the page is original research". The table of countries was not published in the journal but is published in arXiv as supplementary material. So, the main idea is published in a good level journal (Reliable source) and supplementary material (tables) is published in arXiv. In addition, I can mention the MIT Technology Review publication that is definitely not a self-publication but, at the same time, not a completely academic source. In addition, I would like to attract your attention to the recommendation of the Wikipedia rules: "the identity of the author may be a strong factor in determining reliability" (Identifying reliable sources). The authors of the journal papers and the arXiv e-print are: Dr. Gorban, professor of applied mathematics at the University of Leicester, UK, and Dr. Zinovyev, Leader of Computational Systems Biology of Cancer team, Institut Curie, Paris. They are authors of many academic papers and books.--Agor153 (talk) 17:04, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete This is based entirely upon very recent work by Gorban and Zinovyev. Looking at  Scopus, Gorban is a notable  specialist in statistical analysis of this sort who has worked on applications to various problems in the physical and biological sciences, but this is  his first paper on a social sciences application. Zinovyev is a moderately notable specialist in biological information science, but this too is his first paper in the social sciences. For all I know their essay in this field may prove to be  seminal, but both the published paper & the arXiv supplement are  too new to have been cited. The Wikipedia article presents their theory as if it were widely accepted,  but the  subject is not yet ready for a Wikipedia article. It's not technically OR, but there is inadequate support for it at this point. We do not publish articles on   individual papers or theories by noted scientists, except for those papers and theories that  are notable as shown by third party references.  This simply does not meet the basic notability guideline, or any reasonable extension of it.   (I hope they will not misunderstand, but an article at this point would seem to be promotion of  their theory, & we do not do that.) What would however be appropriate is an article on each of them, which might mention the paper as their newest work, but it would be disproportionate weight to do more than mention it even there, for it is not at present what their reputations are based on. I would strongly advise them not to write those articles themselves.  DGG ( talk ) 17:21, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Dear DGG, you argumentation is clear: you do not like to see this article published in Wikipedia now because the theory is new. Nevertheless, it remains unlclear which Wikipedia rule is violated by the article. Could I ask you to explain this issue?Agor153 (talk) 17:53, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You are quite right, my argument is exactly that since it is a new idea, and other people have not yet recognized it as notable, then it does not belong here. Wikipedia is for things that are already recognized as notable. The policy which is violated is the core policy statement WP:FIVE, " Wikipedia  is an online encyclopedia ...and not... an advertising platform." You are trying to promote your new theory. I am not competent to judge it, but I can certainly judge the fact that nobody else has thought it important enough to discuss in a reliable source.     DGG ( talk ) 03:21, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * BTW, this is definitely not the "first paper on a social sciences application". The first was, at least, 15 years ago:  A.N. Gorban, C. Waxman, Neural Networks for Political Forecast. Proceedings of the 1995 World Congress On Neural Networks, Vol. 1, 1995. (Zinovyev also has published works on social sciences applications.)Agor153 (talk) 18:26, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You're quibbling--neither of you have ever published on this particular application. It's a new application for the analytical method.   DGG ( talk ) 03:21, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Dear Uncle G (I prefere to use one name for you instead of your several labels). Fine, you wrote that A. Gorban has published his first paper on a social sciences application in 2010. It is wrong and now you state that this is "a new application for the analytical method". So, notable and qualified persons use the notable analytic  method for analysis of notable data, the concept is published in a notable journal, and the datatable is published in arXiv. The article in Wikipedia about thi concept is written in encyclopedic style without any advertisment (please correct if you find any violation of the encyclopedic style). You think that the concept is too new. I think that no rules of Wikipedia are violated.--Agor153 (talk) 15:53, 23 December 2010 (UTC) PS. You state that I am A. Gorban. Could you please respect my intention to be Agor153 without any physical identity. I did not publish my name and think that this type of communication will be more polite.


 * Do not delete This work has received considerable attention in the recent international press, including the MIT Tech Review here and the Guardian newspaper here. There is no compelling reason to delete it, and significant reason to keep it. Moreover, previous work in a field, or the absence thereof, is not reason in itself to question the veracity of that work. Much important progress is made by newcomers to a field from other fields, who are not biased by the existing field's norms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Delph2 (talk • contribs) 22:35, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The Guardian article is not about the topic of this article. It has quotes from the author of the paper that the article is based on, who is also the creator of the article, but the quotes aren't about the topic of the article. The MIT Tech Review link is actually to their blog, which is not the same as the Tech Review proper. Anyway, there's a policy against self-citing WP:SELFCITING.Originalbigj (talk) 04:46, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Dear Originalbigj, Could you please be more precise in citation of rules: "If an editor has published the results of his or her research in a reliable publication, the editor may cite that source while writing in the third person". The article cites the reliable publication and is written "in the third person", hence, it does not violate this rule.--Agor153 (talk) 10:44, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This is all a bit disingenuous. The paper that purportedly supports this subject was not published in the International Journal of Neural Systems.  Show us your peer reviewed publication of this subject, not of some other subject.  Show us where the world outside of you reviewed, checked, and acknowledged this concept.  A web-log publicity blurb announcing a non-reviewed paper is not a review, especially when that publicity blurb is accompanied by a note from the author partway down saying, to people questioning this novel and not acknowledged concept, "see our explanation that we wrote firsthand on Wikipedia".  It's even noted further on below the publicity blurb that the paper isn't peer reviewed, and that the authors were changing data as they went along.  I notice that that happened here, too.  Wikipedia is not a publisher of first instance.  It is an encyclopaedia, for concepts that have already been through the proper review, publication, and acknowledgement processes.  Uncle G (talk) 14:53, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Dear Uncle G, could you please read Sec. 3.1. "Happiness (quality of life) is non-linear" in the paper A.N. Gorban, A. Zinovyev, Principal manifolds and graphs in practice: from molecular biology to dynamical systems, International Journal of Neural Systems 20 (3) (2010), 219-232. This is exactly the essence of the concept  with detailed description of technology and discussion of results. The data table was not published there, indeed, but the concept is clearly and unambigously presented. The datatable may be different (in arXiv e-prints two datables are analyzed and this is not "the change of data" but just the demonstration of the concept on publically available data), but the concept remains the same. You can try another set of data, and the result will be the "nonlinear quality of life index" as well. So, I could return you the qualificaton of "a bit disingenuous" argumentation. Could I ask you to keep a bit more academic style of our discussion please. BTW, the MIT Physics arXiv Blog "produces daily coverage of the best new ideas from an online forum called the Physics arXiv on which scientists post early versions of their latest ideas." It is not a "web-log publicity blurb" (you have repeated this "a bit disingenuous" qualification twice, why?). It has an author/editor team you can contact KentuckyFC@arxivblog.com. Of course, it is not an academic publication, but it is not a self-made advertising (and not advertising at al).--Agor153 (talk) 15:29, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I call it disingenuous because it is disingenuous. The thing says that it is a web log itself.  All of this sputtering that this isn't a "Hey, go look at this!" publicity posting on a web log is disingenuous, because that's exactly what it is.  You claimed it to be a source.  It's a publicity blurb on a web log, accompanied by the authors of the unreviewed paper being publicized pointing to this very Wikipedia article as their primary publication.  Uncle G (talk) 06:04, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Dear Uncle G, I did not cite the blog in the article as "a source" (nobody did). The article cited the paper in the notable journal where the concept was published. I can just repeat: Could you please read Sec. 3.1. "Happiness (quality of life) is non-linear" in the paper A.N. Gorban, A. Zinovyev, Principal manifolds and graphs in practice: from molecular biology to dynamical systems, International Journal of Neural Systems 20 (3) (2010), 219-232. This is exactly the essence of the concept  with detailed description of technology and discussion of results. With best regards, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!--Agor153 (talk) 15:35, 23 December 2010 (UTC) PS. In our long stair of discussion we went too far from the Delph2 message.


 * Keep by arguments Agor153. --Vizu (talk) 19:03, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:22, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete - This may the be the awesomesest thing yet. But until it is noted by other academics, then a Wikipedia article is not appropriate. -- Whpq (talk) 17:37, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Reluctant delete. As well as the self-citing problem, and Whpq's argument, I think there's another problem: There's an infinite range of choices of indicators and weightings, but this NQI only picks one set of indicators & weightings. There may be reasons for doing so, but it's arbitrary, and the article necessarily omits many other combinations that could be seen as valid. Insofaras wikipedia cites scientific research papers, it's interested in outside-world generalisations that can be made beyond the work done by the researchers. We'd love to have a paragraph about carcinogens in mammals; we'd have no interest in a thousand words about how some biologists chose a bunch of rats, put them in a lab in Cambridge, exposed them to chemical X but not chemical Y, chose some indicators to measure, picked one method of statistical analysis over another, and drew a graph. What new insights does the cited paper give about the outside world, other than the trivial point that some indicators are correlated, and that it's possible to put a bunch of different numbers into R or matlab or what-have-you? If science is about falsifiability, is anything meaningfully falsifiable here? bobrayner (talk) 17:07, 28 December 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.