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 redirect to Natural monopoly . Spartaz ^Humbug! 04:01, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Per the consensus at the redirect target and this I have changed the close to a straight delete. Spartaz ^Humbug! 18:56, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Failure monopoly (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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This does not appear to be a legitimate term of art. It is used once in an article, but does not seem to have caught on, and there do not seem to be any sources that discuss the term itself, please see wp:NEO for a discussion about what kinds of terms or phrases should and should not have articles here. My concern is that readers my find this page and conclude that "failure monopoly" is a term of art that economists use and have a common understanding of. ErikHaugen (talk) 00:09, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.
• Delete, weakly, per nomination. I am not sure from reading the article how the concept it seeks to describe, which does make some sense, differs from natural monopoly, where the costs of entry to a business are so high that it makes sense to only do it once. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:47, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete or find an appropriate merge. The term is not one that shows up in use in textbooks, lectures, etc. It appears to be a Mises coined name that never gained appreciable usage. The concept is valid but, as suggested above, may fit under a term that is in regular use. --Stormbay (talk) 19:37, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Where would you merge it? If we can't find support for "Failure monopoly" as a term, it would be great to include these ideas somewhere, but where? Natural monopoly? ErikHaugen (talk) 20:45, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • That is the question and I don't have a quick answer. Hopefully, someone with an expertize in that area will arrive at this discussion. --Stormbay (talk) 22:04, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Natural monopoly would appear to me to be the logical target. A natural monopoly arises when the cost of entry to a market is prohibitive; utilities such as water and electricity are the classic examples, because of all the wires and pipes that must be installed on land where rights may need to be bought. According to the reference given from the Mises Institute, a "failure monopoly" is a "special instance" that comes about where the initial undertaking is so costly that even the firm installing it can never make a reasonable return despite the advantage of being a monopolist. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 00:13, 7 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I would say that the natural monopoly article would provide a spot for a section on this special or extreme circumstance, given the Smerdis of Tlön rationale above. The merge would provide the info to those readers arriving via the failure monopoly heading and its own heading would make it easy to find. --Stormbay (talk) 15:05, 7 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge and Redirect to Natural monopoly seems sensible. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:13, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Except this suggests that the term "failure monopoly" is some kind of legitimate term of art that economists use. Is it? If so, we can keep the article. If not, then this redirect would be misleading and harmful. I have looked and found nothing to suggest that this is a legitimate term. Nobody else seems to be able to find any evidence, either. Additionally, a redirect to natural monopoly would be astonishing (see WP:REDIRECT#PLA) without mention of "failure monopoly" on that page. And we don't want to introduce unsourced material on that page either. So no, no redirect without sources. ErikHaugen (talk) 19:09, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • A redirect does not suggest a legitimate term of art that economists use. Here, we seem to have a neologism. It has been reputably used, directly and non-trivially [1]. It may or may not grow into something (probably not, I think). If someone is looking for "failure monopoly", Natural monopoly is the best we have. "Failure monopoly" is a special case of a natural monopoly, so the redirect is entirely appropriate. Whether the neologism is worth a single mention at the target (I think it is, citing the single source) is a subsequent question. Redirects are cheap, and this one will do no harm. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:58, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'll mention again the link to principle of least astonishment which explains why it is not ok to redirect without explaining the redirect in the target article. So we'll be in the awkward position of needing to discuss failure monopolies at natural monopoly despite there being no reliable secondary sources about the term. I'm not sure why you feel that redirects don't suggest legitimacy? This seems self-evident to me, I guess we'll just have to disagree about that. In any case, though, wp:NEO suggests that neologisms like this should be deleted. ErikHaugen (talk) 07:34, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • http://mises.org/humanaction/chap16sec6.asp seems reliable enough a source. "15. A special case [of a monopoly] is what may be called the failure monopoly" seems direct enough about the term. I'm not sure where you are coming or going talking about secondary sources. The source creates and provides information on the term, and so it is secondary, notwithstanding the fact that the source is here our primary source. I see it not astonishing at all that a reader will be taken to Natural monopoly, and I see no challenge to the legitimacy of the term as described in the (so far) single source. You are right that something should be at the target, and I clarify that I see the appropriate outcome as Merge and Redirect to Natural monopoly. I don't see this as a neologism. The information is not about the term. It is about natural monopolies that cannot yield a return. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:06, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Being used only once, even by a reliable source, is not a sufficient basis for an article about a neologism. A redirect is inappropriate per WP:R#PLA.  Sandstein  07:34, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  Sandstein would be assuming that the material will not be merged to provide a suitable target as per WP:R#PLA. I think a merge is not unreasonable. I have pasted merge to/from templates and started a discussion at Talk:Natural_monopoly#Merge_Failure_monopoly_to_here.3F. I'm hoping that editors interested in Natural_monopoly will comment here. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:24, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Natural_monopoly#Merge_Failure_monopoly_to_here.3F

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.