Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mayfly optimization algorithm

Mayfly optimization algorithm

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However noteworthy this may be, it doesn't seem to have been much noted. NN.

Yet links to it -- and to "Flying Fox optimization" aka "Flying Fox Optimization Algorithm", another creation of Konstantinos Zervoudakis and Stelios Tsafarakis -- have been added rather vigorously, to "Genetic algorithm", to "List of metaphor-based metaheuristics", to "Table of metaheuristics", to "Heuristic (computer science)", and to "Differential evolution".

The article was created by someone with a declared COI, and the recent vigorous linking to it seems compatible with undeclared CoI. -- Hoary (talk) 03:31, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. Hoary (talk) 03:34, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:57, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The main paper on this topic has 127 citations already, as listed in Google Scholar, high for a 2020 publication. Nevertheless I strongly believe that this whole line of biologically inspired optimization algorithms, despite some initial successes, has devolved to become largely or almost entirely junk, or maybe pyramid-scheme science (if you hype up your topic enough to bring in enough new researchers to cite your papers, you can get high citation counts and succeed in measures of quality and performance based on citation count regardless of the boilerplate nature of the actual research). For a more informed insider opinion reaching similar conclusions, see "Metaphor-based metaheuristics, a call for action: the elephant in the room", doi:10.1007/s11721-021-00202-9. The question for us here, though, is, can Wikipedia guidelines justify removing content because we believe it to be junk, or must we keep popular junk? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:59, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment, David Eppstein we have to cover junk, if it's notable junk. We have to assume that if it's that bad, eventually secondary reviewers will start to say so, and then we say so. But you're quite right that some areas of science have such high hype-value that every paper is instantly cited by everyone else creating similar stuff, and the citation count can be very high, giving a misleading indication of notability. We have to remember that things like citation count are just proxies for notability that we've chosen to use, by convention. The bottom line is that the algorithm becomes notable when it gets solid independent secondary discussion, in reasonable depth. Many of these citations will be at best passing references, or bits thrown into primary literature merely to acknowledge the existence of an algorithm related to a different piece of work that the source's authors are trying to present, so as to convince a journal reviewer of their knowledge of the field. Elemimele (talk) 07:46, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]