Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ABC Preon Model

This discussion was subject to a deletion review on 2018 October 19.
For an explanation of the process, see Wikipedia:Deletion review.

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. In a way it seems a shame since a lot of work was clearly put into the article, but as stated below Wikipedia is not the medium for work with this low level of coverage. Incidentally, as a one-time research physicist I don't think we need to worry about theories going unknown simply because no-one can find them on Wikipedia. Olaf Davis (talk) 20:45, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

ABC Preon Model

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Lack of notability The subject of this article does not "exist" in the physics litterature. It has only been published by one person 17 years ago in a single paper. That paper appears in a journal which may or may not have used peer review at the time. The journal is also clearly outside the mainstream journals for publishing groundbreaking new theoretical works in physics (as this article claims to be). The paper has not been cited anywhere. It has not been the subject of any courses or textbooks. No additional published works has since appeared. Bj norge (talk) 18:04, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 06:00, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Insufficient sources. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:05, 21 May 2014 (UTC).[reply]
Delete. A single primary source with zero citations, appears to be all that has ever been written about the subject in the physics literature. Obviously, fails general notability criteria.T R 13:04, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I believe this article fully meets the general notability guideline, since the basis for this article is a publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, Physics Essays. I am quite certain that Physics Essays used peer review for its entire existence, and I can clearly vouch for the fact that peer review was indeed obtained for the publication that is the basis for the article. The Physics Essays publication clearly addresses the topic of the article directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the vast majority of the article's content, although the article does include discussion of additional experimental data that has been obtained after the time of publication. The journal Physics Essays appears on many library shelves within Physics Departments and it is easy to verify that the article exists by going to such a library. I am the page author, and please note that I went through the process of having a separate editor look at this before posting it. Please see the article's talk page for more discussion. I would welcome any comments on how to improve the article, but I do not wish to have it deleted entirely. Delbert7 (talk) 16:40, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Let us stipulate that a single 17 year old original article presenting this theory exists, but that this is all that has happened with this subject. Respectfully, this is as non-notable as any published research subject can be.Bj norge (talk) 17:35, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The peer review process involves a substantial amount of activity that is not present in non-peer-reviewed published research avenues, of which there are many (published lab notes, conference procedings, letters to the editor, and so on). So I believe the above comment is in error. I also don't see the relevance of how old a fact is, as long as it is a fact. But in the end, it is my belief that the real reason this article has been nominated for deletion has to do with its content, not its notability. If my belief is incorrect, please feel free to correct me, as I think this is relevant to the deletion discussion. Delbert7 (talk) 18:42, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your belief is incorrect. Moreover, please actually read the notability guidelines at WP:GNG. It quite clearly states that there must be multiple secondary sources. At this point we have one primary source, which clearly is not enough to establish notability. Also please not that wikipedia is a not a soapbox to promote your own ideas from.T R 13:30, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To Delbert's comments above: I nominated it because of clear lack of notability. Do I believe that lack of notability of a scientific paper sometimes may be due to the contents of that paper? Yes absolutely. Do I believe that a great scientific paper sometimes can go unnoticed for many years? Yes absolutely. Do I believe that Wikipedia should somehow try to compensate for this. No, absolutely not. Bj norge (talk) 13:36, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to both above commenters for correcting my mistaken belief concerning content. However, I wish to respectfully reply on the primary notability matter by noting that I had indeed read the policy before posting any responses here. The policy says Sources "should" be secondary sources, not "must". Digging further by following the link found within the policy, we find: "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia; but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." So I believe the article still falls within the notability criterion as so described. Delbert7 (talk) 15:31, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Although primary sources can sometimes be used as references they cannot be used to establish notability. Notability requires significant coverage in independent sources. Primary sources cannot be independent. Please stop being dense.T R 20:55, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that this is my first Wikipedia article and I am not trying to be "dense". Wikipedia has an enormous amount of articles on wide and varied subjects, and I suspect the vast majority are not backed by a peer-reviewed scientific publication as the primary source. Perhaps for scientific articles primary source means a scientific publication and secondary means citations or further references in such, but in the general case it must be something else. I read the GNG with the larger scope in mind, and hence read things the way I did. Delbert7 (talk) 10:37, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The original source has collected zero citations in its many years of existence, according to Google scholar. That means that it has had no impact on science and (because it lacks adequate secondary sourcing) does not pass WP:GNG. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:19, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If lack of citations is the sole criterion, the problem becomes circular for getting new ideas into discussion. Ideas outside of the mainstream generally get ignored. If the lack of citations is used to remove works from other venues where the new ideas might be seen, it will then preclude future citations since no one will see it, so it will never qualify. The GNG has citations as one criteria, but the article meets many of the other GNG criteria for notability, as I understand it. Delbert7 (talk) 11:43, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is an encyklopedia. Wikipedia (by definition) only contains ideas that have already been noted, used, developed etc. elsewhere. It neither values nor devalues new ideas, but it does not provide a venue to present or promote them. Ideas that are new in a temporal sense, or in a sense that they have not been as of yet been noted by a larger audience, must first become notable by other means than by promoting it in Wikipedia. Verifiable notability must necessarily mean that someone else has written about the subject, referenced it, written a book about, made a new story, made a film or television program. The sole existence of a subject cannot by itself make it notable. If it did we would not need a notability criteria, and Wikipedia would be transformed into an extra copy of reality. The notability criteria does not try to evaluate a subject in itself, but only tries to capture the degree to which ideas and other things already have been noted / appreciated /written about etc. Great ideas (as well as bad ones) may unfortunately sometimes be completely ignored by the "world" but Wikipedia is not here to correct that.Bj norge (talk) 13:23, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Meets WP:GNG. Also, Wikipedia policy says it doesn't have to be accurate, it has to be sourced, and it is. I Googled it, and it gets 33,000 hits. Somebody will come looking for it. SW3 5DL (talk) 02:41, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That is 33,000 pages containing ABC, Prion and Model. Most of those have nothing to do with this. Restricting to "ABC Preon Model" online produces about 8,000 hits. Most of those are wikipedia mirrors. The rest is mostly, our dear friend Larson promoting his work on the internet and metahits from various abstract indexing surfaces. So, no it does not meet the GNG.T R 13:37, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the Google hits on "ABC Preon Model" were solicited by others. Professor Umberto Bartocci had once asked me to write a contribution to his online journal Episteme. (www.cartesio-episteme.net/fis/larson2.htm). In that contribution you will see a citation to the primary source for the ABC Preon Model, although I was the one who cited it. There is an online posting (http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=76937) by ohwilleke who cites the primary source, and he found that on his own. On the WorldWide NPA site (http://www.worldnpa.org/php/DatabaseMenu.php?tab=2&subtab=2&turn_page=4&turn_page=5) you can find a reference to a talk I gave on this subject to an NPA conference, and while I certainly presented the talk, the NPA is a separate organization. None of the aforementioned sources were peer-reviewed, so I am not sure how they count toward secondary sourcing in this case. But I felt these facts should be added to the discussion. Note that the GNG, when following this link states that "Secondary sources are not necessarily independent or third-party sources". Delbert7 (talk) 10:37, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I approved this submission, but looking back, it was a mistake to approve this, as this does not meet notability guidelines by a mile. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 23:25, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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.