Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/NLP Modeling

Bad faith nomination

 * Comment (See /Evidence). This seems to me to be a bad faith nomination, motivated in large part by the nominator's personal grudges. Evidence is presented on the sub-page to show both the background of this AFD, the nominator's collaboration with a community-banned POV warrior who POV warred on this article, and also a wide range of citations in independent reliable sources to speak to notability. In fact the topic of this article is widely referenced in health, education, and a wide range of other reputable fields and sources, including several from reputable journals. Please assess this for whatever it is worth. If I am mistaken then I will of course retract any improper and unsupported statements. FT2 (Talk 16:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Really? I honestly find that hard to believe.  The NLP articles have been discussed before as exemplars of pseudoscience inflated beyond what is properly supportable from independent sources.  Several of the NLP articles are essentially uncritical because the concepts are such patent nonsense.  I'd say this article really is not a good example of how to cover a fringe or pseudoscience topic well, thoguh I'm open to persuasion based on the article itself rather than inferred motives. It's unlike you to act in that way, actually. Guy (Help!) 17:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I have not, as of this date, thoroughly studied the matter. But it seems to me that articles such as Rapport (NLP) are likely to lack sufficient independent sources and importance to justify maintaining them both as forks of Rapport and of Neurolinguistic programming.  For example, Neurolinguistic programming gets 93 Medline hits, which seems remarkably low for a sub-discipline of psychology, and adding rapport as a term narrows it down to six hits.  Is there really a strong justification (in terms of independent sources) to have forks such as Rapport (NLP), Anchoring (NLP) and Modeling (NLP), rather than include them all in a single NLP article? Thatcher 17:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Probably not. The current format of that area was mostly done back in 2005-06, when HeadleyDown was warring (overtly and subtlely) in this topic area. The whole area needs thorough reworking, to decide what's encyclopedic and what's not, and to review carefully the issues. Some of the minor subtopics such as Rapport (NLP) probably are good candidates for deletion, in hindsight (overlapping topics, specialist, can be adequately covered in a paragraph or two in either of the articles named if needed). By contrast others like Neurosemantics don't seem to be within this topic area at all. That said, the entire presentation by Headley and via his proxies and socks' historic claims, is suspect. If we ever have a framework for "a few trusted editors to get an edit warred topic back on form", this topic would be a prime candidate every bit as much as the nationalism edit wars. But we don't delete just because of POV, if it can be fixed. To the point, it should not be "fixed" by anyone with an ulterior agenda, if at all possible. FT2 (Talk 17:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * You and Peter Damian appear to agree on the overall goal (although I am sure you disagree on the method and possibly the outcome). There is a need to prune, de-fork and clean up the NLP articles.  At yesterday's AfD there was substantial support for this basic view, although the situation ultimately proved too complex for a single blanket nomination.  The remaining question then is how, when, and whom will do it.  Although not formally endorsed as such, AfD often is the catalyst for improving articles that have languished in unacceptable states for a long time.  I would propose that you and PD work together, but I know the background too well.  At least please consider deleting your /Evidence page, since you seem to be in agreement about the fundamental issue. Thatcher 17:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed. The issue isn't in doubt, that's obvious to anyone. Bad article/topic area, hopelessly skewed by POV warring until nobody even knows what a "good article" on it would look like. A thorough look into sources suggests the vandalism was just that, vandalism, and we don't need more POV pushing on it. But what to do to fix it, as you say... we don't have a way to address that kind of issue. We almost need a decision "nobody who edited this before, should go near it except on the talk page", and hope that fresh independent users turn up or something. And not just more POV socks. But a deletion request by someone with an axe to grind and more regard for the original POV warrior than for neutrality, won't solve it either. FT2 (Talk 18:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

comment
A brief reply to these extraordinary accusations.

1. I deeply resent the claim that I am motivated by a grudge. I am motivated by a deep concern about this project. I have been contributing extensively to this encyclopedia since 2003 on logic, set theory, medieval logic and philosophy and other related subjects. I have a linguistics-related qualification (PhD), from one of the top universities in the UK. My first publication was more than twenty years ago in a well-respected journal (on Tarksi's metalanguage/object language distinction). I can provide references for all my work to any independent administrator who asks. So when I see such obvious twaddle as this stuff appearing in an encyclopedia that is increasingly trusted by people across the internet, I have a deep concern.

2. I would have expressed these concerns earlier, but had to do a lot of background research first (such as consult professionals in the area of neurology, in which I am not expert, and to understand the background to the disputes around NLP that have existed since at least 2005.

3. FT2 mentions individuals who have been banned from the project. I have also studied the contributions of two of these: Flavius Vanillus, banned in April 2006, and Headley Down (and his sock accounts) banned some months later. I have annotated nearly all Flavius' contributions and they are good. Why was he banned? Headley Down made extensive use of duplicate accounts ('socks') but nearly all of his contributions were well-intended and he also provided much well-sourced material (FT2 will need to substantiate his claim that Headly falsified sources, and in any case the sources do suggest the whole subject is junk science.

4. The google hits that FT2 mentions are to more promotional books, easily recognised by their garish covers and hysterical sounding blurb. You can't source promotional material with more promotional material. Enough said. Peter Damian (talk) 18:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

5. [edit] Oh yes and there is a BIG FALSEHOOD in what FT2 is suggesting above, namely that Headley Down and other editors irreparably wrecked the NLP article, and it never recovered. In fact it recovered very quickly. At the end of May 2006 the final paragraph of the intro reads like this:


 * Professors Sharpley, Druckman, and the National Research Council have criticised NLP in research reviews which conclude that its claims are unsupported and that it has failed to show its claimed efficacy in controlled studies [11][12][13]. Several reviews have characterized NLP as pseudoscientific and mass-marketed psychobabble[6][14]. NLP is identified by many scientists as charlatanry and fraudulent [15][16][17] as a dubious therapy and a cult [18][19] described by Winkin [20] and is promoted in the same mold as Dianetics and Scientology[11][13][14]. Beyerstein [21], Lilienfeld [13], and Eisner [19] report that there is much concern about government and business organizations being duped into adopting NLP and other non-supported therapies due to lack of scientific awareness.[dubious – discuss]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Neuro-linguistic_programming&oldid=55972493

Whereas at the end of June, after Headley was banned, and FT2 and others set about the work of 'reconstruction', the same paragraph now looks like this.


 * Due in part to its open-ended philosophy, NLP is controversial. It is at times criticized in the scientific community as unproven or pseudoscientific[citation needed], and amongst those who watch for fraud, for exaggerated claims and unethical approaches by a number of practitioners.[citation needed] There is also some dispute among its developers and proponents regarding what NLP is and is not.[citation needed] On the other hand, a wide range of credible bodies worldwide[7] have given strongly worded support for its use, if taught by a skilled and competent trainer and used appropriately. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Neuro-linguistic_programming&oldid=61022980

What happened to all those anti-pseudoscience citations, FT2? Tell us! Peter Damian (talk) 18:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

6. A cursory examination of the citation list that FT2 provides suggests that some of them are mere promotional journals for NLP. Not good enough, and history seems to be repeating itself, eh? Peter Damian (talk) 18:59, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * As said, not inclined to get into re-editing this article if avoidable, but the above points were well discussed back in 2006, and the information related to them is well linked on the wiki and has been given to you. If you would like to discuss these issues, or any other matters, under the auspices of an independent and experienced mediator of your choosing, I'd be fine with it. The topic for this page is the AFD which to my mind, however poor the article may have been allowed to become in that time, has significant coverage in multiple reliable independent sources. A significant number of reliable sources discuss NLP's modeling approach, and that is the main focus of the AFD. This can be checked by anybody. Most other issues on this page are not usually good reasons to delete a well defined topic with wide multi-disciplinary coverage outside its own field. POV and OR issues on such encyclopedic topics are wherever possible, reasons to keep and clean up. Otherwise, my advice to you stands - take with a large grain of salt, HeadleyDown's approach on this and other topics. A very large number of administrators have reviewed his editing, not just one or two, and there is a strong consensus that it was not helpful. FT2 (Talk 19:20, 12 August 2008 (UTC)