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 Keep Editors can use normal editing tools to merge/fork articles as they see fit. Deleting the article history does not assist in this effort and concensus for notability has been sufficiently established. JERRY ^talk _contribs 03:49, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anomalous operation[edit]

Anomalous operation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Unreferenced definition of a term used by some paranormal believers (how many is unclear) to describe the a number of things that have no provable basis in fact. Also used in other senses, such as computing, where its use is as you'd expect (dicdef! dicdef!), but again not often, and that is not noted in this article anyway. Guy (Help!) 10:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete WP:NEO--58.111.143.164 (talk) 10:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete A term which doesn't exist for a phenomena which doesn't exist. Nick mallory (talk) 11:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, the name does exist. Uncle G (talk) 12:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete research on the term is a little difficult. As Guy states, the terms are generic enough to be used in other disciplines (I've found essays for computer security and electronics). There are no references provided, so my first opinion is WP:OR. Also, the very first sentence of WP:V states The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth.. With no backing references, there is no verifiability. Yngvarr 11:48, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. As the above mentioned, there's a lot of overlap and unrelated hits when googling the term (out of a small number of hits to start with). Very doubtful this can be expanded into something meaningful, so instead of giving it a chance at expansion, delete per WP:NOT#DICT TheBilly (talk) 11:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Research is a little easier if you look for the other name, given in the introduction. That turns up page 150 of ISBN 0275960358, page 178 of ISBN 0964242672, and pages 111–112 of ISBN 0786410086, which tell us that this and anomalous cognition were neutral names used by Edwin C. May at SAIC from the 1990s onward, in papers published in The Journal of Parapsychology, that have since been taken up by other people. Uncle G (talk) 12:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The Journal of Parapsychology" is hardly the Lancet though is it? Nick mallory (talk) 13:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Nonetheless, the aforementioned sources exist, along with others that can be found if, as I said, you look for the other name. So we have sources, and we know who uses the categorization and (as below) who objects to it. So the questions are how to cover the (obviously verifiable) debate amongst the experts in a neutral way and whether deleting this article gets us there. I, for one, can see a way for ordinary editing tools to get us there, since all that is required is to merge this and anomalous cognition into a third article. The title for the merged article is the tricky bit. Currently, I'm leaning towards some sort of breakout article beneath Parapsychology#Scope such as scope of parapsychology. Uncle G (talk) 16:41, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete there is no need for a separate article on this subject. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • What content policies are you basing that assertion upon? Or are you not basing it upon content policies and simply saying that you personally disagree with May's terminology, as Dr Stephen E. Braude of the University of Maryland does (Stephen E. Braude (1998). "Terminological Reform in Parapsychology: A Giant Step Backwards" (PDF). Journal of Scientific Exploration. 12 (1): 141–150.), and so want Wikipedia to support one of the points of view in the debate? Uncle G (talk) 16:41, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm basing it on forking guidelines. We simply don't need a separate article from spoon bending or psychokinesis for example. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll go with Uncle G here, my experience is that he is generally (read: pretty much always) right. A single merged article for, say, terminology of parapsychology would be fine by me, it would also fix the weakness of anomalous cognition, which I think is pretty dire as an article. Combine them, source them, add the fact that the mainstream finds them laughable or simply ignores them, I think this will fix several problems at once so is sound reasoning. Guy (Help!) 20:25, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, at the very least MergeThe ground listed for deletion are not in line with Wikipedia policy and conflict with admin rulings * that Wikipedia can legitimately include entries on paranormal phenomona that exist as a belief even if they do not exist as an observable phenomona. It looks as if the only actual valid concern being raise here is WP:V, and I will fix that. By the time that you are reading this, I may already have done so. - perfectblue (talk) 09:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keepper Uncle G and perfectblue. Though the field and I have different views, I think if subjects exist and are notable and verifiable within their field then we should have an article on them. I'll try to patch this article too.--Lenticel ^(talk) 11:24, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge into as-yet uncreated Parapsychology terminology. I agree with Uncle G and others, but would add that there are a number of parapsychology related terminology articles floating around that can be merged into one article. Many of them repeat the same basic information and it's not really necessary. More notable terms like extra-sensory perception and psychokinesis need expanded articles, but less notable terms such as this can do with one article linked from the main parapsychology page. There's no reason to delete them, but there's no reason to have split-off articles at this time. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 05:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment, or rather Question: Is it alright to create Parapsychology terminology at this time? That wouldn't be considered circumventing an AfD discussion would it? I don't think it would because there's plenty of notable terms to put in it, and it doesn't just concern this term. It might though because it would render rogue articles like this one redundant. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 06:00, 9 January 2008 (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.