Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Source Credibility


 * 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.  MBisanz  talk 00:26, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Source Credibility

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Essay / original research. &mdash; RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 02:13, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

*Delete: As original research. -- Oliver  Twisted (Talk) (Stuff) 02:54, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete It looks like an essay someone did for school. --Pstanton (talk) 02:16, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Withdraw Vote: My attempt at participation degenerated into the verbal equivalent of a bar fight, and I apologize to everyone for causing this distraction. I have no objections to the article as it currently exists. Thanks for your indulgence. -- Oliver  Twisted (Talk) (Stuff) 01:32, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Drmies (talk) 04:25, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Change to keep. Uncle G, you are entirely incorrect in your guess of my reasons. I thought of this as original research since it read like a summary of the kind I read dozens of each semester. Besides, it lacked inline citations. That it was unwikified, I don't care less. You're right, this did turn out to be an encyclopedic topic after all, and if I didn't think so, it's because of the rhetorical characteristics of the article in its initial appearance, not because it lacked wikilinks or something like that. You are right in that I was guided by presentation, but wrong in which elements of presentation. 1 for 2, and you saved a notable article, even if with a rod. Drmies (talk) 02:21, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * My "guess" (which was in fact based upon long experience), as given below is that it was because it used Harvard referencing instead of the &lt;ref&gt; style of citations. Your explanation of your reasoning, as given above, is that, in part, "it lacked inline citations".   Since that's pretty much the same thing (if one ignores the argument that the parenthetical parts of Harvard citations are technically "inline" too), my "guess" doesn't appear to be entirely incorrect. &#9786;  It's something to think about: why Harvard referencing makes people think "essay".  FA reviewers and Manual of Style wonks probably gnash their teeth at this, but in my long experience of rescuing articles there's a definite and noticable bias, in practice, against that style of referencing in Wikipedia, that sometimes begins with people not even recognizing such things as source citations in the first place.  Uncle G (talk) 03:43, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Hey UncleG, experience or not, it's still a guess--of course, you could call it inductive reasoning! ;) I do not agree that parenthetic references are only "technically" in-line, incidentally, but I will tell you that I promise that next time I'll look more carefully--while continuing to be an MLA-nazi, begging your indulgence. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 14:54, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a shame that none of you read the article, because it makes the very point that I'm about to make. The only reasons that you think that this is an essay, or original research, is that it used Harvard referencing (a perfectly valid referencing style for a Wikipedia article), repeated its title in the article body, and didn't use the correct markup. The fact that it was unwikified entirely slewed your opinions, and those opinions have no basis in policy whatsoever. You should have read the article properly, ignoring (or &mdash; better yet! &mdash; fixing) the cleanup issues.  Had you done so, you'd have found a source cited for every single point in the article, and that these sources were things like Dr. Chanthika Pornpitakpan, a professor at the University of Macau, writing in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.  This isn't a Wikipedia editor writing up previously unpublished ideas directly in Wikpiedia, which is what actually would be covered by the original research policy here.  This is a Wikipedia editor writing content entirely based upon reliable sources and citing those sources in full.  We could hardly ask for better (except that it be properly wikified). The irony here is so thick as to be almost tangible.  This is a perfectly valid subject, as documented in many places such as pages 286 et seq. of ISBN 9780765613158 (q.v.), and an article whose only faults are being in need of cleanup and expansion, which actually explains that people favour presentation over substance.  There is no reason supported by deletion policy for deleting this.  Keep. Uncle G (talk) 14:06, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This is a discussion board. No one has committed a cardinal sin by having a debate on the notability of an article as it was initially presented. Please refrain from explaining our reasons to us, as in "The only reasons that you think that this is an essay, or original research, is that it used Harvard referencing..." Also, I did actually read the article. My interpretation of what was presented was clearly different from yours. It isn't really fair to target people in such an aggressive manner for trying to apply standards to the thousands of new articles that flood wikipedia. A vote with an explanation might suffice next time. -- Oliver  Twisted (Talk) (Stuff) 14:24, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This isn't about notability. That's a complete red herring.  Your rationale as given is 3 words.  It's clear what policy it references.  That application of policy was wrong, as reading the article properly, and checking out the sources that it already cited, would have revealed.  Clearly, you didn't look at the sources to see whether the article was presenting unpublished ideas not discussed in sources, even though checking articles against what sources say is one of the primary purposes of citing sources in Wikipedia.  Moreover, it was wrong in a way that the article actually discusses as its subject.  Clearly, you didn't pick up on that. Furthermore, your discussion of "sin" is a straw man of your own construction.  No-one except you yourself has said that you have sinned.  There's nothing "aggressive" about pointing out where policy has been grossly, and ironically, mis-applied in a way that it does not actually apply at all.  (Hint: There are, sadly, plenty of examples of aggression on Wikipedia.  It generally looks like this or this.  Spot the quite marked difference?  No-one has called you ignorant, useless, or impertinent, or told you to "grow up and shut the fuck up".  And the only person who has called you a sinner is you yourself.) Finally, you ask for votes.  This is not a vote, and the above is an opinion with an explanation.  It's a quite clear explanation of how policy does not apply in the way that you assert it to apply, and what the error is that you've all made.  (It's not the first time that people have looked at an unwikified article and not seen past the markup.)  In yet further irony, you talk of explanations when your 3-word rationale is devoid of any explanation at all.  This only serves to highlight your further error in stating that I'm explaining your reason to you. Quite the contrary, I'm taking your reason exactly as it was written: that the No original research policy purportedly applied.  You either don't understand that policy in the slightest, or you didn't look at the sources cited and didn't look beyond the style of the article to its substance.  I took it that you understood the policy, but didn't read the article and see its actual substance, including the reliable sources that it cited in support of every single part of its content, for the unwikification and the Harvard referencing &mdash; as so many have done before you (Despite Wikipedia style guidelines, I've observed a significant bias against Harvard referencing at AFD over the years.), and that is spectacularly ironic in this particular case, given what this article's subject in fact is.  You could have been simply sheep voting, of course, but I didn't work on that assumption. When someone makes an error, it's quite legitimate to point out that it is an error.  You weren't "targetted for trying to apply standards".  You were told that you were doing things wrongly, and not actually applying our policies.  You were not applying our standards, in any way.  The route to not getting a complete misapplication of policy being pointed out by other people is to not mis-apply it in the first place, not to try to distract the discussion onto the subject of the people who point out such errors when they happen. Uncle G (talk) 15:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Right, so the 500 words you devoted to my "training" came on an AfD discussion, rather than on my talk page. Thanks for that. -- Oliver  Twisted (Talk) (Stuff) 15:40, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * A full and civil explanation is far better than some curt "grow up and shut the fuck up", in my book. Only you keep making this about you, by the way.  As far as I'm concerned, this is about the article, how policy applies and does not apply to it, and errors in its application in this discussion. Uncle G (talk) 17:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per others, essay unsuitable for an encyclopaedia. Uncle G, you're not arguing your case very well - the level of vitriol is unnecessary. Verbal   chat  16:04, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No, it's "essay unsuitable for an encyclopaedia" that isn't a good argument. Because, as already pointed out, this isn't an essay.  It's the start of an article, complete with source citations, on a perfectly valid subject.  Articles have started far worse than this.  This cites sources right from the start, cites reliable sources, and gets the name of the subject right.  You have presented no explanation why this is an essay, and the only vitriol anywhere is someone else calling xyrself names. Uncle G (talk) 17:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. The article, according to the sources provided, seems to be about credibility in public speaking. But that is not what the title suggests nor most of the prose. There does not seem to be sufficient material, beyond jargon and isolated examples, for a renamed article on Credibility in public speaking and it seems unsuitable for an encyclopedia. It is an unnecessary fork of Public speaking. Mathsci (talk) 16:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No, it's about a concept in social psychology that is, quite definitely, called "source credibility". You can see that for yourself by reading (a) the cited source by Pornpitakpan that the article creator provided that calls it source credibility, (b) the cited source by Yoon, Choong, and Min-Sun, also provided by the article creator that calls it source credibility, (c) the source that I cited above that calls it source credibility, or (d) page 344 of The handbook of social psychology (ISBN 9780195213768) that also calls it source credibility.  This is a valid subject, that has been discussed in many sources, and this is its name.  This is not made up by a Wikipedia editor, not an "essay", not a sub-topic (as the lengthy summary of the literature in the handbook should indicate), and not a fork.  It's a recognized subject in a valid discipline, and this article is, simply put, a stub.  It's not finished, and not comprehensive.  Why on Earth are you judging the content here to be the full extent of the subject? Go and read the handbook to see what more there is to write.  Indeed, read page 345, where it summarizes what social psychologists have found out about attractiveness and how it affects processing and cognitive response, and compare it to how Wikipedia editors have demonstrably responded when an unwikified and unattractive stub with (excessive) Harvard referencing is added to Wikipedia.  Some social psychologist somewhere is probably thinking of making this a case study. Uncle G (talk) 17:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't see anything at present in the article or the sources that is not connected with Public speaking. I have no absolutely no problem with the lack of wikification or the harvnb/harvtxt referencing which I mostly use. I agree that some version of the material, suitably rewritten, properly explained and reorganized, would be fine in Public speaking, since the sources exist. From the sounds of it, you yourself could do an excellent job of rescuing this article in some form. Mathsci (talk) 19:28, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The choice of sources in the current article isn't ideal. I just looked at the "Handbook of social psychology" of Gilbert, Fiske and Lindzey which seems to be encyclopedic. It treats this topic in a far more general context than the current article, exactly as you wrote. It could be that the term has been hijacked by advertising agencies, which might have created some confusion. Mathsci (talk) 19:44, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Advertisers most definitely use psychological research. Uncle G (talk) 03:43, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Surely you must be joking, Uncle G. But seriously, instead of informing people one by one of what you estimate they don't know, it would have been more helpful to have modified the article (as others, including me have done). That would be a less combative way to make your point and would help the encyclopedia a little more. Mathsci (talk) 07:49, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * ... oh yes, and in its present form (and future improved state) keep. Mathsci (talk) 08:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Uncle G led by example with a substantial edit after the AFD nomination. My impression is that the problem here is a structural one - a discontinuity as the article moved from the rapid-fire environment of speedy deletion to the more deliberative AFD process.  As the article was moved from author to reviewer to admin to AFD discussion, editors may have assumed that others in the chain had or would make appropriate background checks of the sort described in WP:BEFORE. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I think KPBotany is to be commended for providing the correct context. She added what hopefully will become the lede (I later added the link to one of the original articles). As it stands the contracted article is getting better and better, but it's still a stub. The biography of Carl Hovland on his WP page contains a lot of useful information, particularly about the genesis of the term (work with the US, the project at Yale). The subject is not to my taste, but it's clear how to create a lede, a history section, and so on. Uncle G's forceful guidance has been extremely helpful and persuasive (particularly for me). I suppose that is the purpose of constructive and intelligent debate on AfD pages, just as you state :) Mathsci (talk) 12:27, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Colonel. The article as it stands looks nothing like the article as I viewed it the first time. I saw this article in the queue, clicked on it... and between the time I checked the history tab, and clicked back to the article, it was already tagged with a PROD (11 minutes after publishing). I then read the article, had no immediate concern with the content, and moved on. I thought the references might yield something upon clean up. I saw it again on the AfD list 2 hours later, with an explanation that it was original research. I viewed the article a second time (after a server lag) and the only visible reference was to the American Heritage dictionary. I did not take the time at that point to go back to the history tab to check for earlier versions, and then pursue each reference more fully, since I was not the nominator. I am grateful the article has been rescued. If it was original research, it is not any longer. Best regards to all. -- Oliver  Twisted (Talk) (Stuff) 10:05, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge/redirect - Seems like a valid topic, and some useful material, but it seems to me better covered as a section elsewhere, to give more context and prevent it becoming overly scientific (WP:NOT an academic journal). So merge to communication or possibly persuasion. Rd232 talk 16:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * There's nothing wrong with technical content in Wikipedia. The statement that Wikipedia is not a journal means that it doesn't fulfil the publisher of first instance function of a journal, not that it cannot cover academic topics.  We don't aim to just cover "unscientific" topics.  We aim high.  We aim to cover science as well.  &#9786; Uncle G (talk) 17:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This topic is very well-studied theory in a number of different fields including, but not limited to, social psychology, advertising, and the law, in addition to public speaking. Unless communication is about the law and social psychology also, a merger is inappropriate.  In addition, source credibility is not persuasion, as persuasion is a function of the persuader, while source credibility is a function of the persuadee.  A simple academic search will show that this is an encyclopedic topic of its own right and expansion, not merger, is what is needed.  --KP Botany (talk) 23:18, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge to marketing or social psychology  Delete  Odd combination of a dicdef and summary of a study that purported to demonstrate that people are more inclined to trust a speaker that they feel is trustworthy over one they feel is not. L0b0t (talk) 16:59, 5 April 2009 (UTC) Vote changed due to article improvement. My deletion had nothing to do with Harvard cites but, rather, because the article did not mention the origin of the phrase or any of the prior work. L0b0t (talk) 14:01, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * We call this sort of start to an article, where it contains a definition and some assorted facts, a stub. Per Deletion policy, we don't delete stubs with scope for expansion.  And there is plenty of scope for expansion here.  This is a real, and amply documented, social psychology topic. Uncle G (talk) 17:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment True, to a point, that's why the xfD process runs 5 days. If the article gets expanded and shows significant improvement within the prescribed time-frame then I would certainly reconsider my position. L0b0t (talk) 17:21, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The timeframe for expansion is not 5 days, and you should reconsider your position based upon the sources cited and the clear scope for expansion shown. That expansion doesn't have to happen by the end of the AFD discussion.  That's neither our deletion policy nor our editing policy.  Indeed, we've had articles sit around as 1-sentence or 2-sentence stubs for months or years.  Her Majesty's Civil Service was 1 sentence for three months.  North Asia was two sentences for almost five years.  There is no deadline, and this is a valid a topic as they.  What you see here are the beginnings from which articles grow.  It's easy to forget that, with the number of grown articles that we now have, but this is how the process starts, and is what our deletion and editing policies envision and accept.  The creating editor even did it properly.  It's a shame when we become so fixated on a decision to delete that we forget, and collectively abrogate, our fundamental policies and the way that we set up the project to work and how it has demonstrably worked for the past 8 years, and try to throw away the work of people who come along and actually do things properly, in the way that we repeatedly tell them to, and actually make the encyclopaedia better with coverage of subjects that it hasn't covered until now.  Uncle G (talk) 18:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree on our individual interpretations of the breadth of this subject. There was the primary study by Hovland in 1953 that coined the phrase (unmentioned in article btw) and a couple-three research papers in the 1960's/1970s.  Beyond what is cited in the article I've seen nothing but short mentions of the Hovland study in some communication theory and marketing textbooks. L0b0t (talk) 18:24, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * According to Psychology and law (ISBN 9781593851224) McGinnies and Ward published further research in 1980, and Lui and Standing published research in 1989. It then goes on to mention Wilson and Sherrell in 1993; Petty, Cacioppi, &amp; Goldman in 1981; and Bohner, Ruder, and Erb (on contrast bias) in 2002.  Attitudes and opinions (ISBN 9780805847697) summarizes yet more research, including Ziegler, Diehl, and Ruther in 2002. The science of false memory (ISBN 9780195154054) summarizes even more recent research: two more studies, from 2003.  Research on this doesn't appear to have stopped in the 1970s, and even what I've just listed is not a "couple-three" papers. And as to breadth: We not only have the latter book that I mention here, relating source credibility to police procedures, but even sources like ISBN 9780805074031 who connect it to Rush Limbaugh.  In between, as already observed, we have this concept's applications in communication theory, advertising, marketing, and so forth. Uncle G (talk) 03:43, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete original research essay, no encyclopedic notability established for the term.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:27, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Those are arguments already shown to be false with sources not only above, but even in the very first revision of the article. The article's creator anticipated you, and did exactly the right thing, citing sources in the very first edit. Uncle G (talk) 18:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:N. I did some preliminary research on this topic and have found it to be notable. For instance, a general Google search pulls back 71,400 results and a Scholar search pulls back 7,080 results. That said, the current article needs some tender love and care. -- Levine2112 discuss 18:45, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. Such a topic is well deserved on Wikipedia, and I think that with a cleanup, it will more clearly demonstrate the notability of the topic. Google Scholar, and the Journal of Applied Psychology both demonstrate satisfactorily to me that there's enough here to build on. ThuranX (talk) 18:52, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep I checked Google Scholar too and it seems clear that the topic is highly notable. The only question is whether is we already cover it better under another heading but that is not a matter for AFD. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:57, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Our article Credibility seems to be much the same topic and so merger is indicated. The phrase source credibility seems to be the technical phrase used to describe the matter in the context of academic study so the best direction for the merger is unclear. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:02, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Source Credibility covers more than just Public Speaking even if the article in its current state does not fully reflect that. This is shown by the results of a google search, where we find references to advertising, management, finance, human resources and jurisprudence. There could be potential for merging into communication or persuasion, but this is not the venue to discuss it. It is certainly a notable topic and I don't see the case for calling it WP:OR Unomi (talk) 19:56, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:N. Postoak (talk) 20:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep No point to this AfD, please close. --KP Botany (talk) 21:48, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep it should stay. cashew (talk) 10:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep  Not an essay,  not OR, not unreferenced: a reasonable article. DGG (talk) 11:40, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Certainly referenced, as it was at the time of the AFD nom. Not original research, not an essay and not a neologism (which even if it were probably has enough sources just in the article to justify inclusion) so a clear keep candidate. The   Seeker 4   Talk  12:56, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep This is a classic example of an article with multiple academic independent reliable sources that treat this subject in a major way, including one peer reviewed article entirely about the subject. Although the article could use fleshing out (even in it's current version), it easily exceeded the notability, verifability, reliable source requirements. It's not original research nor an essay, as noted by many of the above. It also was improved during the AfD with added RS, structure, and content, all adding up to Keep. Also I oppose a merge as this seems to be more about the academic field than the merge targets that were suggested. — Becksguy (talk) 20:51, 7 April 2009 (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.