Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Satisfaction with Life Index

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, thus defaulting to keep. Some good points on both sides, and I suspect we will wind up here again if referencing and presentation do not improve.--Kubigula (talk) 04:41, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Satisfaction with Life Index

Satisfaction with Life Index (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Totally subjective topic. Data is based on unverifiable survey created by non-verified expert; Results are highly controversial. Pseudoscience in a nutshell. Not suitable for an encyclopedia Sbw01f (talk) 21:50, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

• Keep Incorrect description. University research material. Cited by for example the BBC: [1][2]Ultramarine (talk) 21:58, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep Pseudoscience or not notability is asserted. Also, anything that ranks Denmark as #1 deserves my keep vote! EconomicsGuy (talk) 22:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. It's been covered by many major media outlets. Kingturtle (talk) 22:34, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

The fact that it's been covered by a few major media outlets does not in of itself validate the content. The data is still unverifiable, created by an amateur, and highly subjective. For these reasons alone I don't think it's suitable for an encyclopedia. Show me the methodology, or some sort of proof that the list wasn't made up on the spot, and I'll concede.

Sbw01f (talk) 22:49, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

As the links above and in the article shows, it is research done at university by at a by a scholar.Ultramarine (talk) 22:56, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't care where the research was done. I care how it was done.

Sbw01f (talk) 22:58, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

"The data on SWB was extracted from a meta-analysis by Marks, Abdallah, Simms & Thompson (2006)." So you can find all the gory details you want in "Marks, N., Abdallah, S., Simms, A, Thompson, S. (2006). The Happy Planet Index. London: New Economics Foundation."[3]Ultramarine (talk) 23:00, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry but random names don't prove a thing. How about the methodology, like I've already mentioned a number of times. What were the questions asked? Did they ask everyone the exact same questions word for word? How many people from each country did they ask? Did they ask billionaires living in mansions, or poor people living in slums? Or both? Did they only ask men? Women? Only seniors? Children? An even amount of each? Did the demographics of who they questioned stay exactly the same from country to country or did they only question people living in slums in one country, and people living in mansions in another country? Did they question an even amount of immigrants and natives?

Do you understand what I'm saying? Surveys like this are 100% meaningless without the methodology behind them, because you can literally get whatever results you desire based on the questions you ask, and who you ask.

Sbw01f (talk) 23:12, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Read the source via a library or buy it. There is no requirement that there should be on online source.Ultramarine (talk) 23:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

So you concede. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbw01f (talk • contribs) 23:18, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

No. The methodology etc are in "Marks, N., Abdallah, S., Simms, A, Thompson, S. (2006). The Happy Planet Index. London: New Economics Foundation." If you want the details, then you can find it there. But there is no requirement that there should be a free online source. Most scholarly articles and books are not free and online.Ultramarine (talk) 23:22, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually the methodology for their survey is not found in the Happy Planet Index. They simply used that study and extracted data from it.

Sbw01f (talk) 23:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

You can find the answers to the questions you asked above in "Marks, N., Abdallah, S., Simms, A, Thompson, S. (2006). The Happy Planet Index. London: New Economics Foundation."Ultramarine (talk) 23:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

See appendix 2: [4] Ultramarine (talk) 23:37, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I've gone over it already, all they do tell you is a few of the questions they asked. There is virtually zero information on the demographics of who they questioned.

Sbw01f (talk) 23:41, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

They discuss how they calculate life satisfaction on several pages by looking at and summarizing different surveys. If you want more details on these surveys, then you can read them in turn. References are given.Ultramarine (talk) 23:44, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

You stated "Show me the methodology, or some sort of proof that the list wasn't made up on the spot, and I'll concede." Certainly done, so I hope we can reach an agreement?Ultramarine (talk) 23:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

• Keep, I don't care about the methodology any more than how Rolling Stone comes up with Greatest Guitarist, all that matters is that the topic it is cited in the reliable media. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 00:09, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Ultramarine: I still haven't seen any info regarding the demographics or specifics of the people questioned, meaning in my opinion, the list is still useless. I will admit however that I hadn't realized the entire basis of the SWLI was directly extracted from the more reliable/scientific "happy planet index", thus I'll push the issue no further and let others decide.

Again, look in the surveys, references are given in the link above.Ultramarine (talk) 14:05, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Sbw01f (talk) 01:00, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

• Keep. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a scientific journal. We shouldn't care what methodology they used or how accurate it is (or isn't); we should care about whether it is notable and sourced. It is. The fact is, this survey exists and gained significant media attention, and thus can be covered, even if the science behind it is suspect. But at any rate, this is basically just using the data from one study (the Happy Planet Index) and using it to answer a different question. The data-gathering methodology in question thus belongs to another article anyway, and thus has no bearing on this one. --Ig8887 (talk) 06:11, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

• Delete (I apologize for the long explanation, but this is a complicated issue.)

I admit that this is not pseudoscience and that the researcher is almost certainly legitimate. However, I came to that conclusion only through a lot of investigation because the article is so terribly written. My guess is that the methodology is best described as not being perfectly in line with what a textbook would describe as ideal research but about as good as can be expected in the real world. However, there are different problems with the article.

I have two minor problems with the article. First, the bulk of the article is a ranked list, which is likely copyvio. If this article is retained, this can probably be corrected by presenting just pieces of the list, such as the top- and bottom-ten nations as well as mentioning other large nations. Second, the sources do not use the phrase, “Satisfaction with Life Index.” Instead, they use the phrase, “The World Map of Happiness.” Moving the article to World Map of Happiness can solve this.

If those were the only problems, deletion would not be necessary. However, I do not think that this topic is notable. The news coverage cited in the article draw extensively on a single press release.[5] The research itself appears to be published in a minor journal. A Google Scholar search for the phrase, “Satisfaction with Life Index,” found only eight hits, some of which predated the research described in the Wikipedia article.[6] A search for the phrase, “World Map of Happiness,” got only a dozen hits.[7] The article that the map is based on has been cited only two times.[8] I cannot justify keeping this article.--FreeKresge (talk) 19:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Regarding copyvivo, raw data itself cannot be copyrighted. It is merely one component of the Happy Planet Index which has 55 citations in Google scholar. The map is notable since it has been cited by mainstream news sources like the BBC. "Satisfaction with Life Index" gets 6,500 hits in Google [9] and "World Map of Happiness" gets 17,000 [10].Ultramarine (talk) 14:04, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Comment For starters, the list is not raw data. The researcher analyzed raw data from various sources to create a ranked list. A ranked list is copyrighted. It is still a minor issue that can be solved without deleting the entire article. The citations for Happy Planet Index are irrelevant as that article is not up for deletion (as far as I know). There is still a notability issue. “Satisfaction with Life Index” has only 87 unique Google hits[11], and the first 20 or so are mostly blogs, trivial mentions, and references to or material taken from the Wikipedia article. The results for “World Map of Happiness” are better (640 unique hits[12]) but there are still a lot of blogs among the top hits and very little else that does not appear to come from the press release. If the article is kept, “World Map of Happiness” is the better name, but, based on what sources are available, I cannot justify keeping the article. At most, I could support a brief mention of the map in the Happy Planet Index article.--FreeKresge (talk) 05:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

A list of discovered data cannot be copyrighted. Source if claiming otherwise. "What Is Not Protected by Copyright?: ... Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration."[13] A particular presentation of discovered data can, like a particular graph. Or certain produced forms of data, like a particular text or a musical composition. But not discovered data. (Some can be patented. But that is not applicable here). I am not entirely against redirecting the page to Happy Planet Index article.Ultramarine (talk) 19:09, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

• Delete as per FreeKresge. Capitalistroadster (talk) 19:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
• Delete or merge with Happy Planet Index. The main problems appear to be that (a) the title does not align with the source and (b) unclear how the research presented here is distinct from that presented in Happy Planet Index. The research method and validity of the concept are irrelevant to the deletion decision. Famously bad ideas (e.g. N ray) are quite acceptable in WP as long as they are are verifiable and properly referenced. Nesbit (talk) 16:55, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
• Merge with Happy Planet Index, so the table would include both HPI and SWL. There is no reason to have two separate articles, but neither is there any reason to delete the notable and referenced information contained in this article. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 02:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

References

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.