Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glowworm swarm optimization

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 no consensus. This has been under discussion for a full month, and shows no sign of converging to a consensus. The keepers are arguing that there are sufficient sources. The deleters counter that, yes, there may be citations in the literature, but they're not worth much because it's a small set of papers/authors circularly citing each other. In any case, neither side seems to have convinced the other, and I can't see how relisting this again will make any progress. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:06, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Glowworm swarm optimization

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Yet another "nature-inspired" metaheuristic. This is a field of computer science where citation circles seem to be the norm rather than the exception, so the few references in the article do not convince me. Without a well-respected overview article or book mentioning this, this doesn't pass WP:GNG. —Ruud 20:41, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose for each of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Intelligent Water Drops algorithm, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glowworm swarm optimization, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cuttlefish Optimization Algorithm. For each of these there are multiple publications in academic journals over a period of years. That seems to establish WP:GNG. If these are to be deleted I would want a counterargument to the default assumption that the articles cited are not reliable. Peer reviewed academic research which addresses a topic by name is usually considered to meet WP:RS and establish WP:GNG. Why demand a higher standard in this case? Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:51, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Bluerasberry: See Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Firefly_algorithm, Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/State transition algorithm and Talk:Artificial bee colony algorithm#Deletion proposal for some additional background (especially concerning the reliability of those articles). —Ruud 20:20, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ruud Koot It seems like the argument for deletion is a subjective judgment that the academic journals cited are not reliable sources in their claimed field of expertise. AfD is usually a process for determining notability, not for checking the reliability of sources which seem to be reputable. Among these 6 deletion discussions there is a challenge to at least 10 academic journals and 20-30 different articles published over years. It is beyond the scope of a typical AfD review to challenge what are usually the most trusted sources. Can you think of a way to briefly say why so many sources should not meet RS criteria? I see that another academic says this is bad science, but I am unable to easily process this debate. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:02, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's very hard, if not impossible, to distinguish highly cited "good" science (that is highly cited because it's good) from highly cited "bad" science (that is highly cited because it's part of citation circle, but otherwise mostly ignored) by some objective criterion. This distinction, and whether we want to include that science in Wikipeida, must thus depend on tacit knowledge and a subjective judgement. For me that would be:

that this whole class of algorithms has been called out as being "bad" science in other papers (which I believe to have been published in more reputable venues) and by other academics, and has been barred from at least one reputable journal [1][2][3][4][5][6];
the observation that these algorithms are "obviously" equivalent to other older and already well-established algorithms (and thus don't add to the sum of human knowledge);
the fact the most of these articles wouldn't have existed if they wouldn't have been created by single-purpose account that are, more probable than not, the authors of these papers (and that the articles on this topic that currently exist on Wikipedia are only a fraction of the articles that could potentially exist, if we would use just citation count as a criterion);
the pragmatic consideration that we're not serving our core goal of educating our readers if we distract them from the good science with an overwhelming number of articles that present bad science as good science.

—Ruud 21:41, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Bluerasberry:, you write, "AfD is usually a process for determining notability, not for checking the reliability of sources which seem to be reputable," but you may be overlooking the fact that determining the sources' reliability is a prerequisite to determining a topic's notability. Recall that notability is generally determined by "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", so it is absolutely proper in a deletion discussion to mount a challenge to notability based on the reliability (or coverage, or independence) of the sources. Furthermore, per our guideline WP:SCHOLARSHIP, claims that a particular source is peer-reviewed should be critically examined, particularly in light of the recent explosion in predatory journals. —Psychonaut (talk) 06:32, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 10:50, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I agree that it is vexatious to see poorly researched optimization algorithms dressed in fun new metaphors and terminology somehow gain traction in the academic world. David Eppstein's description as junk science is a good one. But we are here, not to right great wrongs, but to determine notability. A quick search found a pretty solid review in PLoS One A Comprehensive Review of Swarm Optimization Algorithms that goes in some depth into GSO. There are a couple of GSO specific reviews in Glowworm Swarm Optimization (GSO) Algorithm for Optimization Problems: A State-of-the-Art Review and A Survey of Applications of Glowworm Swarm Optimization Algorithm in less well known journals. Multiple secondary reviews by authors independent of the GSO's creators show notability of the topic. The article isn't in great shape with only primary sources, but is capable of improvement. Or we could merge into Swarm intelligence#Glowworm swarm optimization to place it in context. But either way, I don't see a good case for deletion. --Mark viking (talk) 11:58, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think the list of algorithms in Swarm intelligence is just unnecessary dragging the quality and usefulness of that article down. Encyclopedic articles should give a balanced overview, making clear what the most influential work in a particular field is. Instead, I will likely merge most of those metaheuristics that are deemed to be "notable" into a chronologically ordered List of metaphor-inspired metaheuristics, while also adding a beefy introduction stating the problems with that class of algorithms in general for context. —Ruud 14:32, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 04:30, 24 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 09:46, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 19:13, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organisms-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 19:13, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Unencyclopedic preaching to the converted. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:18, 31 July 2016 (UTC).[reply]
Redirect to Swarm intelligence. There may be some content here to merge elsewhere in a sentence or two about the biological underpinning of the method and what it's intended to do, but I'm not seeing a degree of coverage in secondary sources to warrant that mention in the article yet much less it's own standalone article. Kingofaces43 (talk) 04:55, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It is easy to find more coverage in respectable sources such as Natural Computing Algorithms. Andrew D. (talk) 11:06, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MBisanz ^talk 17:55, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment There is also an entry for this algorithm at List of metaphor-inspired metaheuristics § Glowworm swarm. This would be a good candidate for a merge or redirect. —Ruud 14:09, 12 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to the target suggested by Ruud. The notability of this topic is beyond doubt: in addition to the source provided by Andrew, there is this and [7], both of which give the topic significant coverage. However, in my view the coverage is not large enough that a merge is unreasonable: indeed an article examining all of the metaheuristics inspired by nature seems to me to be slightly more useful than separate stubs or start-class articles on each. Vanamonde (talk) 17:59, 15 August 2016 (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.