Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Promise of Philosophy and the Landmark Forum


 * 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  d elete. - Mailer Diablo 02:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The Promise of Philosophy and the Landmark Forum

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This article concerns a single philosophy paper, which is apparently also the guide for some sort of Education course. The article is minimally sourced; really, I'm just unsure how to go about evaluating notability for a single academic paper. Delete as unencyclopedic, pending other opinions. Xoloz 04:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete as no evidence of notability. Landmark Education, btw, is more or less what used to be est. Lots of people like the courses, but they're expensive and come with allegedly high-pressure sales tactics (call it the personal gym approach). In other words, I'm comfortable classifying this as spam. It is certainly not an ordinary academic philosophy paper. --Dhartung | Talk 05:56, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * delete no evidence of notability. An academic paper with 100 citations in a citation index is known as a "citation classic".  I'd accept a large number of citations in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index as adequate evidence for notability of a paper, but I rather doubt this one gets there. Pete.Hurd 06:55, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * McCarl SR has five publications listed in Web of Knowledge, only one of which has ever been cited (four times), This article is not listed in WoK (which includes the Arts and Humanities Citation Index), which raises questions about the status of this on-line journal, to my mind. Pete.Hurd 17:06, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * CommentI don't think the Arts and Humanities Citation Index part of WoS is supposed to be used that way. it's a citation index for journal articles only, and if articles in a journal have been cited in books the citations will not be included--and this will probably be the case with almost all humanities papers. The citation counts are therefore much lower. The idea is to use it as a supplement to fill in the gaps. Similarly, the list of journals covered is very sparse as compared to the depth of coverage in the sciences. I would certainly say that any biochem journal not in WoS is barely worth mentioning, but it isn't true of philosophy. (not that it is relevant in this case where the article is as unnotable as you can get--& so is the journal)


 * strong keep I just created this page. Give me a break.  I marked it as a stub.  It is better sourced than many pages .  Please hold on.  This paper is referenced in multiple articles and a template and thus is more notable than many other pages that get created on Wikipedia.  This is not a case of a junk page.  This is a legitimate page and I just need a week or two to flesh it out and add the proper citations.  Alex Jackl 07:01, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete The Landmark Forum is a self perpetuating 'self help' cult which has everything to do with making money and nothing whatsoever to do with any philosophy beyond cashing in on the fact that 'there's one born every minute'. This article will just be a naked sales pitch disguised with a thin veneer of psuedo-academic validity and has no place on an encyclopedia.  Nick mallory 07:18, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know what the source of that vitriol but please try to be a little objective here. A lot of people with an axe to grind have written a lot of vitriolic stuff that is frankly utterly untrue and the bias of the Dhartung and Nick mallory is par tof what this article is about to bring some clarity about what is actually happening there.   Please do not repeat uncited hearsay on a page like this - it violates WP:AGF and WP:Civility.  Wikipedia is supposed to be place where multiple viewpoints can co-exist so longas they follow the policies in place to allow for that.  This is not an attack article, it is an article about a real, well-cited paper and I KNOW it is NOT cited enough yet.  Just give me time - it's existence is measured in hours.  This page does not deserve to be deleted.Alex Jackl 07:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Nice try, AJack, but an inanimate object such as a purported philosophy paper is not actually covered by any libel law that I know of, and WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL apply to interactions between editors. I'm sure you had good intentions, but the reputation of Landmark, to say the least, precedes it. --Dhartung | Talk 08:03, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The basis of my 'vitriol' is my recent experience of actually attending a landmark forum evening in Sydney at the behest of a friend. I had no idea whatsoever what it was before I went and had no preconceptions.  This evening consisted of a series of gushing, if entirely content free, testimonials from hand picked volunteers interspersed with endless hard sell of intensive 'courses' for large sums of money.  Whatever your problems in life, be they personal, financial or professional, Landmark forum promised to solve them for you.  The main job of those who've paid for courses in the past is to recruit new people for new courses in the future.  Despite declining any further participation I was subjected to several phone calls after the event from its volunteers wanting 'clarification' of why I wasn't interested.  My views are based only on my own experience of the Landmark Forum, a view I'm perfectly entitled to hold and to remark on here. My contribution wasn't 'uncivil', merely to the point and my opinions aren't 'hearsay' if I'm the one giving them.  I studied philosophy at the London School of Economics and I doubt anything from the Landmark Forum would get on any syllabus.   It was about as 'Socratic' as a cold call from a double glazing salesman.  To quote from the paper up for deletion "the Landmark Forum - a forty-hour course sponsored by the employee owned Landmark Educational Corporation - provides a model of philosophy as the practical art of uncovering and expanding self-knowledge and thereby generating unforeseen ways of being in everyday life."  That's not an objective analysis, that's an advert claiming academic validity without any academic rigour, therefore it should be deleted.  Nick mallory 08:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep It seems somewhat hysterical for any article to be listed for deletion a mere 12 hours after its creation. Surely it makes sense to at  least give it a couple of weeks to see how it develops.  I should have thought that any paper co-authored by two professors of philosophy and accepted for publication in a reputable academic journal has at least a primie facie case for being a worthwhile subject for an article.  Are there any accepted guidelines on this? I can't help noticing that two of the three of the voters for deletion (though not the proposer) reveal strong hostility towards Landmark (and seem to have arrived at their conclusions without bothering to read the paper) - could it be that they are more motivated by their animosity to the subject matter than by the notability or otherwise of the topic? DaveApter 08:25, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, as your edit history on the Landmark Education discussion page shows Dave, few people are more interested in the Landmark Forum than you, or more committed to writing about its wonders on Wikipedia, so I'll bow to your long standing involvement in the matter.  I'm sure your involvement in the organisation means you know a lot more about it than me but if I'm motivated by my animosity to it, and should therefore be ignored, does that mean your long standing and tireless advocacy of it also renders your contributions suspect? Nick mallory 08:53, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Wow! Seems like a lot of assumptions and insinuations to derive from the fact of my having made fewer than 5% of the edits on the LE Talk page over the past four months. I'll respond to the unnecessary personal attacks elsewhere. DaveApter 11:58, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I can't imagine the fact that an article is co-authored by a couple of professors, and published in a reputable journal is sufficient grounds for an independent WP article. Plus, the journal's status as a reputable journal is in question, it does not appear to be indexed by any of the standard citation indices. Pete.Hurd 18:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * That an article is published in a reputable journal qualifies it as a reliable source. It does not, however, confer automatic notability. Worthwhile subjects for articles must qualify as notable, meaning they should have been commented on by reliable and independent sources, such that we might possibly write a balanced article (rather than one that sings the praises of the subject). --Dhartung | Talk 19:11, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete no evidence of notability Bulldog123 11:23, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete in its present state as non-NPOV apparent advertising, but the deletion process here seems decidedly iffy (tagged nn within three minutes and nominated for deletion within 3 hours); - yes, Landmark may well be a dubious cult but we don't delete Xenu, The Theories of David Icke or The Turner Diaries. If (big if) this can be expanded/cleaned up to an explanation of why this particular paper's important, change to keep. —  irides centi   (talk to me!)  13:11, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * No one is suggesting we delete the Landmark Education article itself. I think that would be the course of action analagous to deleting the examples you provide.  I can imagine someone wanting to merge this article with Landmark Education, but to support what thesis? Pete.Hurd 16:58, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete no evidence of notability, no sources at all besides the paper itself. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  13:23, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete - Spam advertising. Per last "delete" comment above, I agree, no evidence of notability, no referenced citations to this work other than the paper itself...  Smee 14:08, 7 May 2007 (UTC).
 * Note: - To closing Admin, if this article gets deleted, its redirect, Promise of Philosophy and the Landmark Forum, will also have to be deleted as well... Smee 17:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC).
 * Delete. Citations or not, no evidence of notability.  Someguy1221 17:17, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong delete for a whole bunch of reasons: spam, NPOV, lack of notability plus a BIG conflict of interest (the author works for the Landmark Forum). andy 20:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Interesting that you mention WP:COI, andy, for that issue was previously brought up by User:Nposs, for more on that see archive. Smee 21:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC).
 * If you are referring to myself I do not work for the Landmark Education. Alex Jackl 05:32, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * AJackl, it depends what you mean by 'work' doesn't it? Not that I'm accusing you of bad faith, but your user page openly states  'I am, as a volunteer, a Seminar Leader for Landmark Education'.  So you do work for them, don't you?  And at quite a senior level too as a Seminar Leader, you're just not paid for it.  One of the reasons Landmark makes so much money is its tactic of using as much volunteer unpaid labour as possible.  Smee is quite right to point out a possible conflict of interest here and calling his arguments 'weak' and 'smug' below does little to counter them. Nick mallory 08:21, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Smee Give up your weak smug WP:COI accusations. It got you nowhere before it will get you nowhere again.  I don't accuse you- who is a single-subject-editor with a radical POV- of WP:COI I certainly don't apply.  My positions are public and my history as an editor speaks for itself- as does yours.  Please lets be civil here...Alex Jackl 05:32, 8 May 2007 (UTC).
 * AJackl, I am not making any accusations whatsoever. Just like initially, the WP:COI issue was first brought up here by a neutral previously-uninvolved editor.  All I have done here was add the prior instance in which this was brought up by a different neutral previously-uninvolved editor.  Smee 06:23, 8 May 2007 (UTC).


 * Delete Spamalicious. Very few articles in academic hournals will rate their own Wikipedia article.  The X article does, but there is no evidence that the article in question here is notable. ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 23:45, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete I cannot find any discussions of this, but I would set the bar very very high for articles about individual papers in even the best journals. In almost all cases the truly significant discussion will be of the concept, to go on the page for the subject. (There are of course exceptions, as forExperiments_on_Plant_Hybridization). I cannot imagine that a paper written by a scientist could possibly be notable more than the scientist himself, or the scientific concept, and We do not include an article about even the most significant paper for 99% of the scientists whose work overall warrants a WP article.   I'd consider this inclusionism run mad. (Books normally cover a much broader perspective and are much more likely to be individually notable--though still not one for every author in WP--not by a long shot.)
 * and for this particular paper, furthermore: 1/the journal is not peer reviewed or indexed-& I get a "Can't find server" error when I try its link. 2/ Nor would a paper specifically devoted to advertising the forum be likely to appear in any journal that was peer reviewed and recognized by an index.  3/None of the authors are notable by WP standards 4/Not counting title or links, the article manages to mention "Landmark" 5 times in 133 words-- which is spam by any standard--it would be equivalent to an article about each published product review for a loudspeaker manufacturer. (Sorry about the over-kill) DGG 00:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete no evidence of notability. Sm1969 01:18, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * NOTE TO CLOSING ADMIN: If you end up closing this article (which the current trend would indicate ) I request that the article be userfied to a subpage in my userspace. Thank you!  Alex Jackl 05:32, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge Most if not all of this article can and arguably should be dropped into the Landmark Education page with a bit of cleanup. It should be moved with its content and external link to the abstract. It would make more sense to find it there since it's really only about Landmark and its just one paper talking about the ideas of Landmark. Letting people read more Landmark papers off-site to reach their own conclusions helps Wikipedia remain neutral. Most of the discussion here is inappropriate to Wikipedia. Dhartung's statement about Landmark being close to Est is interesting. Unfortunately, I don't think there is an article here on Est. If anybody had an interest, and could make the connection with reliable sources to back it up, it would make an interesting edition to the Landmark discussion. Pete.Hurd makes a reasonable and fairly succinct delete argument. Aspenocean 20:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Erhard Seminars Training is the est article, Werner Erhard and Associates is a closely related topic. Both those articles mention the relationship to Landmark Education in their lead sections. Pete.Hurd 05:18, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Sorry, I was lazy and did not link to Erhard Seminars Training in my comment. If I had, Aspenocean's confusion could have been averted. --Dhartung | Talk 02:07, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment Thanks for the links guys. I had forgotten all about the Scientology connection as well. I remember seeing that Larry King in '93 now. (I guess that tells you how long its been since I've made any study of these folks.) It looks like most of the information in this article is in the Landmark article now and there is an external link to the paper there as well. Maybe the Landmark page could use a section called "Papers by Landmark detailing central philosophy," or something like that. (If there's more than one that's pertinent.) Then any expansion can occur there thus making this separate article unnecessary. Of course all such papers should be prefaced as coming from the subject in question. ("Landmark states as central to their philosophy...") Aspenocean 07:12, 10 May 2007 (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.