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.
This is a horror. It is a) WP:OR that b) relies almost fully on a WP:PRIMARY source written by the article's creator and is therefore c) self-promo and d) is a jumble of several ideas, with no clear focus. I couldn't even classify it. WP:DEL-REASONs 6, 7, 8, and 14. Creator writes elsewhere that "It might take years before the value of these fields (machine ethics and evaluative diversity) can be assessed" and is using Wikipedia for WP:SOAPBOXingJytdog (talk) 23:12, 24 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Please see the discussion on my Talk page, here if you have the patience. I had deleted all the WP:OR and had created a redirect of what was left, and the author objected. Hence this AfD. Jytdog (talk) 23:14, 24 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, I am the objecting author mentioned above. Evaluative diversity is a start-class article, and I wanted to improve it (and I appreciated feedback), but Jytdog thought the topic isn't even WP:N(which yields WP:DEL-REASONs 6, 7, 8). I guess AFD is the right place to determine that. If #14 does not refer to WP:SOAPBOXing (which can be resolved with balanced content, rather than deletion), please clarify.
You can use the links above to research "Evaluative diversity" and investigate its WP:N. Jytdog said (striking per below langchri) the following citations (which I would like to add to the article) help to clarify the term, so I am copying them here:
The term "evaluative diversity" is attributed to P. F. Strawson (1961) as referring to the range of "certainly incompatible, and possibly practically conflicting ideal images or pictures of a human life, or of human life".
Nelson, Paul. Narrative and Morality: A Theological Inquiry. Penn State Press, 2010. pg 40-41
Tierney, Nathan L. Imagination and ethical ideals: Prospects for a unified philosophical and psychological understanding. SUNY Press, 1994. pg 18-19
As an example, Brandt observed that the Hopi people have no moral qualms about tying birds to strings and playing rough with them (which kills them), and could not explain his disagreement with them about this in terms of disagreement about nonmoral facts.
Doris, John M., and Alexandra Plakias. "How to argue about disagreement: Evaluative diversity and moral realism." (2008). p314
As another example, evaluatively diverse individuals may agree on the measures of a product's qualities (e.g. its novelty or ease of use), but disagree about whether the product is good (because they disagree about the relative importance of different qualities).
Karapanos, Evangelos, Jean-Bernard Martens, and Marc Hassenzahl. "Accounting for diversity in subjective judgments." In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 639-648. ACM, 2009. pg 640
As a third example, evaluative diversity creates a challenge for the possibility of a social contract to ground political philosophy.
Gaus, Gerald 2010, “Evaluative Diversity and the Problem of Indeterminacy”, in The Order of Public Reason: A Theory of Freedom and Morality in a Diverse and Bounded World, Cambridge University Press, ISBN978-1107668058, page 42
As a fourth example, decision-making machines my also be evaluatively diverse, since they make evaluations (but perhaps not "morally diverse").
Santos-Lang, Christopher 2015, "Moral Ecology Approaches to Machine Ethics." In van Rysewyk, Simon Peter, and Matthijs Pontier (eds.) Machine Medical Ethics, Springer International Publishing, pp. 112.
The original article noted that various other terms, including "moral diversity," have been used to refer to evaluative diversity. The following study uses the term "moral diversity" instead of "evaluative diversity", but seems to mean the same thing, and found that segregation on this basis is comparable or greater than segregation on the basis of demographics (e.g., race and socioeconomic class) (I am giving you the primary source, but secondary sources can be found):
Haidt, Jonathan; Rosenberg, Evan; Hom, Holly (2003). "Differentiating Diversities: Moral Diversity Is Not Like Other Kinds". Journal of Applied Social Psychology 33 (1): 1–36. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2003.tb02071.x.
Wikipedia may seem to lack WP:NPOV if it has articles for demographic forms of diversity (e.g., race and gender), but has no article that can be cited in the Discrimination article for the kind of diversity Haidt compared to them. Thus far, no one has suggested a different title for that article.
Although I have no sources regarding the evaluative diversity of Wikipedia editors, the default view would seem to be that evaluative diversity among Wikipedia editors is a potential source of internal conflict, so I hope we could find many editors interested in researching this topic and improving this article (I have tried to represent every perspective I can find, but would feel more comfortable if other editors were involved). I do believe that this article is challenging to write and improve because it is interdisciplinary and because sources use inconsistent terms to refer to the same thing (or subsets and supersets of the same thing), and there seems to be a paucity of editors adding content, but I don't think deletion is the solution. Langchri (talk) 21:51, 25 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I did not say that those sources help clarify the term. So frustrating. What I said was that your long explanation - your WP:SYN - helped me understand what you mean by the term. Unbelievable. Jytdog (talk) 13:53, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
it still says "Jytdog said the following citations (which I would like to add to the article) help to clarify" which is NOT TRUE. The only thing that was helpful was YOUR EXPLANATION. That is the problem with this WP article. It is all in your head, and not out there in the world. I understand you want it to be out there but Wikipedia is not the place to publish original research.Jytdog (talk) 02:25, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This is not an encyclopedia article; it is an extended essay, WP:Original research. Setting aside the arguments above about explanation and sourcing, there is a much more basic question that needs to be answered for inclusion here: Is this a notable subject, an established concept? I went to Google Scholar to evaluate (no pun intended) this question and my conclusion is: no, it isn't. I found only a single paper that uses this term. Until this becomes an established scholarly concept, we cannot have an article here. Wikipedia is not a thought leader; it is an encyclopedia, a compiler of what is already known. To User:Langchri, I hope you have kept a copy of this because it shows an enormous amount of work. I would suggest putting it on a blog or webpage, or possibly submitting it for publication somewhere. But Wikipedia is not the place for it. --MelanieN (talk) 23:53, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If you found only one article on Scholar, then you may have a typo in your search query. I get the following results for the six links at the top of this section (which I take to be standard search queries): Web: 3,870 results, News: 2 results, Newspapers: no results, Books: 584 results, Scholar: 129 results, JSTOR: no results. Langchri (talk) 02:07, 3 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. It is readily apparent that this concept is original research by Mr. Santos-Lang, a.k.a. the article's author User:Langchri, which has not found coverage in academic or indeed other sources and is now being promoted via Wikipedia. Sandstein 22:25, 3 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
WP:GNG says, "'Significant coverage' addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material." Based on the above, there are at least three independent reliable sources with the phrase "evaluative diversity" or "moral diversity" even in the title (or the title of a section). What additional coverage would be required? Langchri (talk) 06:13, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: I closed this debate as delete on 6th February. The above-mentioned deletion review noted that there had never been an AFD warning tag on the article, so with my agreement the discussion was relisted. As far as I am concerned the above arguments stand; it would be appropriate to allow a further seven days of listing in line with usual process. Stifle (talk) 14:52, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If anyone is able to extract a merge target from the paucity of literature about this subject, reducing the extensive COI original research to one or two sentences, I would lean that direction. Unless someone can determine an appropriate merge target, delete (based on the arguments presented elsewhere about the poor quality of the sources that do mention the topic, which does not seem to have gained credence beyond what Wikipedia's original research article gave it). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:59, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There is an additional matter that: a) the equivalence of the terms moral diversity and evaluative diversity needs to be established by independent (not Christopher Santos-Lang) sources, and b) moral diversity gets numerous hits on google scholar, while evaluative diversity does not, suggesting that the article may be at evaluative diversity because that is the term preferred by Langchri. Yet Christopher Santos-Lang argues they are not the same, while Langchri's most recent version of the article says they are. [1]SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:49, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete, irredeemably violates WP:NOR. This is not a question of "needing additional coverage", it is that Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought. Stifle (talk) 14:58, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I have dramatically reduced the article and cited additional sources to address concerns that WP:OR is too pervasive to work through. If there are additional concerns about OR in this version, it should be easier to specify the particular issues to fix, and perhaps we can Userfy the article and address them there. If people think this topic should appear under a different title (e.g., "Moral diversity") that is another option (currently, "Moral diversity" redirects to this article). Langchri (talk) 18:59, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
He addressed the concerns raised at AfD. That's just about the best thing you can do. The idea of gutting in the sense that you're talking about it is about those articles where gutting it makes it appear less notable or less well cited. Here removing most of the content just seems like a sensible reaction to the OR criticism. --— Rhododendritestalk \\ 19:39, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
One problem is that, in the past, Langchri has engaged in such extreme original research that a quote should be provided on talk to back up every use of the term he cites from an offline source. Past occurrences showed that his sources never even used the term. And he's citing a blog now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:57, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In view changing the article this radically in the midst of an AfD is not reasonable. It requires a whole new analysis. i will yield if consensus is that making changes this dramatic is reasonable and OK in PAG. Jytdog (talk) 20:35, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Userfy Move to draft - OR was glaring, but if Langchri shows an intention to avoid OR, as demonstrated by the heavy revisions above, userfy seems like an acceptable option to see where it goes. What needs to be reinforced, however, is a clear understanding of Wikipedia's WP:COI policy (in addition to WP:NOR, of course). --— Rhododendritestalk \\ 19:45, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Follow-up (and a response to Jytdog and SandyGeorgia's comments above: It sounds like Langchri needs a trip to COIN/ANI. His zeal in protecting this article and his own clear COI are huge problems. No arguments from me on that matter. But as a general principle I think his rewrite is an entirely reasonable action if it's undertaken specifically to address the concerns/feedback of other editors. If the objection is OR, and OR is removed, the article problem is solved and I think Wikipedia is better for it. That doesn't automatically mean it should be kept, of course, but it merits reconsideration just as it would if the problem were notability and he dug up a dozen good sources mid-way through the AfD. To me this looks like Langchri carried out a WP:TNT on his own. Now, that said, I've modified my !vote to move to draft or delete rather than userfy. The problem with userfy is that this editor's behavior and COI is problematic enough that moving it to his userspace would effectively be a dead end as he really shouldn't be working on it. Moving to draftspace seems like a better option. --— Rhododendritestalk \\ 22:02, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes to all of that. But again, because of past behaviors, a talk page quote from every offline source should be given; until that is done, I'm not sure we have anything. Sources given in the past have not even used the term. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:06, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Follow-up follow-up: It looks there's a pretty strong consensus that there are still serious OR issues. I struck my !vote. It's clear the article and sources merit closer attention, so will leave it struck until I have time to do so (although it looks like a blizzard is coming). --— Rhododendritestalk \\ 02:38, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Mmm. In situations like this I've found it is counterproductive to try and improve the article, as Langchri has done. People only focus on the original and a rewrite makes a subsequent WP:CSD#G4 deletion much more likely (because the comparison can be made against either version). Its tactically much better to let the deletion take place and then start over. Maybe none of this matters too much in the broad sweep of things. Thincat (talk) 10:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Jytdog and I have both put many many many hours into exploring "evaluative diversity" and "moral diversity" and so forth, and we dispute its WP:NOTABILITY. We expect this consensus to settle that question. Please respect our work and answer that question. I have even made it easy for anyone who has a delete reason other than WP:NOTABILITY to resolve that concern through small edits. If the topic is not notable, then no one should start over unless the world changes so as to make the topic notable. If anyone disputes the consensus, please reform the process, rather than try to game it. Langchri (talk) 14:16, 19 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, even after revisions. I've seen this topic pop up at other boards on occasion, but it I haven't ever seen a case that really establishes its WP:NOTABILITY. In addition to the original research, self promotion, and other concerns that came along with it, it seems best to just delete it and let someone else write it up if something does become notable. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:42, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment, tending move to draft I can certainly see the article originally submitted to AFD was highly unsuitable but it looks likely to me that the greatly reduced version now on view is viable. At least it could be allowed in user or draft space. As sometimes occurs here with concepts that are not widely understood it is difficult to be sure whether a phrase used in secondary sources is describing a well-defined concept and, if it is, whether this concept is the same as the topic of an article. My background knowledge is inadequate for me to give an opinion in this case. On a technical matter substantial content from this article has been copied to other articles (by the AFD nominator). Unless some other means can be found, attribution is depending on keeping the history of this article. This has been copied here, thishere, thishere and, probably to an insignificant extent, thishere. Thincat (talk) 20:51, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete it looks like even removing 94% of the article hasn't resolved the OR problems, as reference 10 doesn't seem to mention "evaluative diversity" or "moral diversity" at all. The removed content was even more inappropriate. Perhaps we could extract a paragraph along the lines of SandyGeorgia's suggestion, as the revised article does little more than note that various people have used the phrase. Hut 8.522:21, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete and salt, even after revisions. Langchi's current edits, even under all our gazes, shows that he doesn't understand PAG and isn't much interested in learning them; his COI/advocacy on this topic is driving him to get whatever he can about the topic into WP. Moving this to draft is just an invitation for more trouble. Jytdog (talk) 14:14, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment If it is inappropriate for the Afd nominator (Jytdog) to be removing sources while the Afd is still open, please fix that. I have already raised this concern with Jytdog and reverted two such edits in an effort to protect this Afd from going back to DRV, but he keeps deleting the sources I add. If you are concerned that there is not enough in the article, it may be because I am not being given a chance to construct the article (I will need time). Langchri (talk) 17:28, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If you are concerned that there is not enough in the article, it may be because I am not being given a chance to construct the article (I will need time). Langchri 17:28, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
Langchri, it is curious to me that you are saying you need more time to produce secondary sources that support the content you are adding. For well over a month, on multiple user and article talk pages and at ANI (since at least January 6), multiple editors have attempted to help you understand the issues of COI, original research, notability, and how to correctly use primary and secondary sources. You have had more than a month to produce secondary sources that establish notability, yet what you have done is add content to the article that is a) not supported by the sources, b) misrepresents the sources, or c) uses non-reliable sources. I requested quotes-- you added quotes that don't support the text you've added or are irrelevant to the topic. Engaging in discussion seems to lead only to WP:IDHT.
Jytdog, I suggest you simply tag the article with ((request quote)) or ((failed verification)) or other warranted templates, which will direct others to the description of the problems on article talk. Getting tangled up in trying to correct the article isn't a productive use of time.
SandyGeorgia I think it would be appropriate to confess that this whole dispute started with me making an unwelcome edit to an article you were protecting. You are as biased as I am. However, I do like your suggestion of leaving tags. That's constructive, and allows readers to form their own opinions about whether sources are inappropriate. Tags allow multiple sides of the dispute to be expressed. If a tag produces consensus that a source is inappropriate, then I am happy to remove it. It just feels really strange mid-Afd to trust the editing advice of people who are trying to get the article deleted. You are right that I do have quite a collection of sources by now, but I don't hear people here complaining about lack of sources, so I'm focusing on learning to eliminate OR, and that is easier with a smaller article. Also, I think concerns about COI may be addressed through more co-authorship, but enlisting help takes time (and may be more appropriate after the Afd is closed). Langchri (talk) 21:49, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
We don't add improvement tags to articles to allow readers to form their own opinion about disputed content or to express multiple sides of a dispute, we add them to alert editors to the fact that there is a problem which needs to be fixed. Hut 8.522:47, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would be appropriate to confess that this whole dispute started with me making an unwelcome edit to an article you were protecting. You are as biased as I am. Langchri 21:49, 17 February 2015This is the content you added to neurodiversity; the problems with that content are well discussed on article talk and at the linked ANI. Personalizing a content dispute will not advance your cause. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:28, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
My cause? We all have the same cause here. Disclosing our history and bias allows people to make informed judgments, and informed judgments do advance our cause. Langchri (talk) 05:14, 19 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That "section" and indeed most of the article, struggles to attain what we need to show there is WP:DUE weight to be mentioned. A brief mention in one book by an established philosopher, and another in your article, hardly constitutes evidence that "evaluative diversity" is discussed enough as "evidence" in debates about moral realism, to be worthy of being discussed in Wikipedia; and those two brief mentions don't really even constitute "some philossophers". And again I am thrown by your use of the term here - now "evaluative diversity" seems to not be a degree of something (per the definition you have created) but now seems to be something like a description of how the world is. Jytdog (talk) 18:00, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The two sources are used not as examples, but as two independent secondary sources each of which claim that a notable set of philosophers use evaluative diversity as evidence in arguments. Mentions of the terms "evaluative diversity" and "moral diversity" in other encyclopedias likewise seem to emphasize the importance of the concept they name in arguments about realism/relativism (and in moral psychology). For examples [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], and [7]. In short, Wikipedia will not have complete coverage of metaethics nor of cognition nor of discrimination if it does not in some way cover the thing called "evaluative diversity" (although Wikipedia could call it "moral diversity" or something else). Langchri (talk) 04:45, 19 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
...but the other encyclopedias do contain information about evaluative diversity that would be lacking from Wikipedia if we do not find a home for the content of this article. Langchri (talk) 05:14, 19 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
even with all our work and under the AfD you have found almost nothing in independent secondary sources on this topic. There is little to nothing to be said at this time. Jytdog (talk) 14:35, 19 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The article was condensed because I wanted to help people who have concerns with WP:OR to be able to point to specific passages. The finding that moral diversity is heritable and more socially divisive than race is not "little to nothing". It is a really big deal, and has been verified with independent secondary sources. Yes, newspapers do publish articles about political polarization and the heritability of political orientations (which everyone agrees extends to values exercised beyond the voting booth). It seems like you think the criteria specified in WP:GNG to establish notability are too low for this topic, that the mark of notability for this topic ought to be that mainstream philosophers (especially you) are familiar with it. The closest I can get to measuring what meets that criteria is to look at what appears in the textbooks currently used to teach undergraduates. Here's an except from The Moral of the Story: An Introduction to Ethics which is currently used to teach intro to ethics: "We have focused on diversity in this culture for a couple of decades now... But some of us tend to forget that diversity is not just a matter of race, ethnicity, and gender but also a matter of convictions. An environment that welcomes diversity must also include political and moral diversity" (pg 579). Your argument that the topic is not notable seems to hang on the idea that "evaluative diversity" might not include "moral diversity" and "political diversity", but I have repeatedly offered to switch the title to "moral diversity" (which currently redirects to this article anyway) or another term, and that should address that concern. It seems like you are waiting for independent secondary sources to rewrite all of the existing sources in standardized terms (e.g., "diversity" instead of "differences", "evaluative" instead of "values" or "moral or "political"), but that isn't a valid basis for deletion. See Wikipedia:What SYNTH is not#SYNTH is not explanation. Langchri (talk) 17:41, 20 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
again, with these sloppy leaps. you are claiming it is all one thing, moral diversity, political diversity and it doesn't matter what we call it.... But in current thought, those are not the same thing. I get it, that you want to bring them all under an umbrella of "evaluative diversity" - this synthesis that you want to achieve is a lovely ideal but for about the billionth time, wikipedia is not a place to forge novel syntheses or to communicate original researchJytdog (talk) 19:47, 20 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Looks like even after extensive effort, it has not been possible to resolve the WP:SYN/OR issues. Wikipedia just isn't the right venue to present or promote neologisms or new concepts. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:02, 20 February 2015 (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.