Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neurophone (2nd nomination)

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 merge to Patrick Flanagan. (A.k.a. I redirect it, someone who cares merges the material from the history.) - brenneman 01:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neurophone (2nd nomination)

No valid sources, subject is not notable, article has not been improved since the last AfD, the primary editor appears to have left Wikipedia. This device falls into the same category as perpetual motion devices, except less likely to work, and without the same knowledge of scientific principles as those employ. Also, there have been famous attempts at creating perpetual motion devices. Tenebrous 01:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

• Whether a device is likely to work has no bearing on the "delete-ability" of its article (cold fusion, anyone?). The key questions are: does the article cite sources; is it verifiable? (NPOV can be introduced via cleanup once citations and verifiability are given.) I see a link to the relevant patent which means someone did patent such a device. "LIFE Magazine, Sept 14, 1962" is also cited as a source so the existance of this device (working or not) can be verified from reliable independent sources. I can't see the relevance of the 1991 research paper section to the rest of the article, but it too is backed up by a reference to Science magazine. Hence keep because the article has at least two sources cited. Flyingtoaster1337 01:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Magazine articles aren't generally reliable sources. The Science article has nothing to do with the device, it's only a stab at proving that the principles behind it are sound. That someone has patented something is in itself meaningless. People have patented lossless compression algorithms that compress all data to a given size, but it doesn't mean those exist either. Tenebrous 01:59, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Further, the device also fails under notability. The creator of the device is notorious as a crank, but more notoriously crank-y for other things, and he does not have an article on Wikipedia either. Tenebrous 02:34, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

"Magazine articles aren't generally reliable sources..." - says who?

"The Science article has nothing to do with the device..." - I acknowledged that in my previous comment, when I said, "I can't see the relevance of the 1991 research paper section to the rest of the article". In other words, the section based on that report doesn't fit in with the description preceding it.

"Further, the device also fails under notability..." - repeating the same unsubstantiated claim multiple times will not get you anywhere. Besides the prior mention in LIFE magazine which you seem so eager to dismiss, there's this 1996 article in The Anchorage Press, written by its editor-in-chief. It describes the device as not having been tested by conventional science. We have here at least two non-biased, mainstream sources which mention the neurophone in detail. There are lots of patents for weird things that aren't operable or implementable, sure, but I'm also sure that not many of these failures get as much mention as a magazine write-up and a dedicated newspaper article. Those that do would be notable, no?

All in all your reply serves to confuse your reason for nomination even further. If the device is really non-notable, why do you add that "its creator is notorious as a crank"? If someone is notorious, it implies they are notable, not that they aren't (see the Wiktionary definition if you're unsure). By the way, it's not true that the device's inventor has no article. Flyingtoaster1337 06:12, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I am disappointed to see that Mr. Flanagan has an article on wikipedia, but clearly I was mistaken there. I still do not accept either of those sources as being good enough to base an article on; The Anchorage Press is unheard-of even in Alaska and does not carry a reputation for good journalism. I see that WP:RS has been lengthened since last I read it, but I still see no reason why minor articles in either of these publications should be treated as works upholding the scholarly standards of what purports to be an encyclopedia. Is it really so confusing to you that the person responsible for creating this can be more well known than the device itself? And I would not consider him notable in a wider sense, either; perhaps a tiny fraction of the United States population has heard of him, and very few others in the world. Further, I see that this device is mentioned in Mr. Flanagan's biography, and given there a few sensibly short lines. Given that the information in this article is duplicated elsewhere, save what is wholly speculative, why do you feel that this article must be retained? Especially when the only other article that references it is---guess what?---Patrick Flanagan. Tenebrous 13:31, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

"I am disappointed to see that Mr. Flanagan has an article..." WP:IDONTLIKEIT doesn't decide what gets deleted or kept around this site. Just as "I like it" is not a valid reason for keeping an article, "I don't like it" is not a valid reason for deleting one.

"I still don't see why minor articles in either of these publications..." - can you tell us where the division of minor/non-minor articles comes from? Last I read WP:N the distinction was not there. All that's required is that the source be independent of the originator(s) of the device/idea.

"perhaps a tiny fraction of the United States population has heard of him, and very few others in the world..." - I guess you came up with that conclusion after a survey of the U.S. populace?

"why do you feel that this article must be retained?" - I don't. I'm not very kind to fringe science articles, but I'm not very kind to fluffy deletion rationales - ones that require tortured interpretations of WP:RS, or WP:IDONTLIKEIT - either. Flyingtoaster1337 11:38, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep I think a good Wikipedia article on a pseudoscientific concept is important. If Wikipedia doesn't have an article then the only sources are all the web sites touting it as a device that others are trying to repress. It seems to have enough references, and saying that LIFE magazine is not reliable is disingenuous. Perpetual motion has an article. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 02:48, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, or , just possibly, merge into the article for the inventor--That article is so full of unsourced statements and wild claims that this material will actually move it a small distance in the general direction of verifiability. What evidence is there for the notability of the invention--not the boy who invented it, but the invention itself?. Most patents are for devices never actually realized, and do not show notability by themselves. There is zero evidence that any products were actually produced--the Life photograph shows him holding what might be a model, but does not say what it is. If something never existed, the claim can be notable either as an idea or a hoax or a presumed fraud, but the object cannot be N as there is no object. WP is not a crystal ball.

The Science paper though cited is totally irrelevant, as it was not about the device, and even the article here makes no such claim. The website phisciences is a personal website. The website neurophone.com is a non-independent website. Worldtrans is the very model of an unreliable site, including dreams as well as ideas, to quote themselves. The Life reporter should have been ashamed of himself, but that does count as a source that is often reliable; however, what was notable to him was the youth of the inventor, not the object. Ditto for the older of the newspaper stories. Calling this nonsense RS would show technicality trumping common sense. To meet the technicalities, I assert that local newspaper stories on scientific topics except by well-regarded science correspondents are inherently unreliable. If it is kept, the article certainly needs NPOV. Unfortunately, from the edit history, this was recognized earlier, but every effort to remove the personal sites etc or to call them what they were failed. NN self-delusion. if major news sources wrote about it , then it would be a N self-delusion.

cold fusion, a much more notable example of nonsense, had very much wider publicity and was notable on that account.

perpetual motion has been talked about in numerous sources for centuries. It is much more widely known, and thus N. DGG 03:37, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

• Merge to Patrick Flanagan - maybe the redirect will avoid yet another discussion on this topic. -- Bpmullins | Talk 17:24, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
• Merge to Patrick Flanagan - Cannot see much notability independent of its inventor. Edeans 20:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect to Patrick Flanagan this is a short article and the in the inventor article is short, put them together. Jeepday 23:23, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
• Mergeto the article on the inventor. As for it being impossible, or nonsense, or pseudoscience, I disagree. There is no evidence that it produces sound in the subject, but the Science article says that external ultrasonic audio signals can pruduce such souond sensations in the profoundly deaf, and early telephone research showed that electrical currents at audible frequencies could be heard, by mechanisms that are not clearly understood. High frequency electrical signals could produce mechanical vibrations at the same frequencies, which could be then heard by the same mechanisms as in the science article. Edison 00:56, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
• Yep, merge to Patrick Flanagan. Would be better incorporated there as length of article unlikely to grow independent of the inventor. Mdcollins1984 23:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Merge per above, in order to end this argument over its notability. Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 02:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
• Merge per above. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
• Definitely Merge to Patrick Flanagan. People are unlikely to come looking for the device, but the inventor seems to be notable as a crank. He hasn't died yet, so he just might be immortal . . . -- Butseriouslyfolks 07:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

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.