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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New relationship energy

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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 delete per consensus of established editors. Also, several of the keep arguments are from the same user. --Coredesat 00:39, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Overturned to no consensus instead given the sources. --Coredesat 00:58, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New relationship energy

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New relationship energy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Article is about a Neologism, as evidenced by a Google Scholar search on the topic, which yields only four results using the actual term that was apparently coined on usenet. Only two of the four results are in peer-reviewed journals, neither of which give a definition. -- Craigtalbert 23:14, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment No one is claiming that the term is a hoax or anything like that, but WP:NEO specifically addresses situations where a term has recently been coined, generally does not appear in any dictionary, but may be used widely or within certain communities. Although the term may be widely used in the polyamory community, there aren't reliable sources documenting it's notability (newsgroups, mailing lists, forums, and the like, are generally not acceptable sources). You could make an argument for merging the NRE article with the polyamory article. -- Craigtalbert 05:57, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Sure, newsgroups and mailing lists are not acceptable sources, but aren't FAQ documents considered acceptable sources? Plus as described in the article, it is documented in the book "The Ethical Slut" which is one of the most popular reference books for polyamory.Musqrat 17:33, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Two more published books that use the term are "Pagan Polyamory" by Raven Kaldera pg 49, and "Polyamory: Roadmaps for the Clueless and Hopeful" by Anthony Ravenscroft pg 196ff (where it forms a subchapter). Any standard of "notability" is necessarily subjective of course, but this article is above the Wikipedia median in terms of published sources to establish meaning and notability, without OR. 23:29, 28 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.106.26.161 (talk)
Switch toKeep per google scholar listings. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 14:25, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. In addition to the published magazine article on the subject and three book references and the four Google Scholar references below in the article or mentioned above, I've found this term used in 4 dissertations or theses:
  • Wolfe, L.P. (2003) "Jealousy and transformation in polyamorous relationships", doctoral dissertation, Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, San Francisco
  • Sheff, E. (2004) "Gender, family, and sexuality", doctoral dissertation, University of Colorado, Boulder
  • Keener, M.C. (2004) "A Phenomenology of polyamerous persons", master's thesis, University of Utah, Salt Lake City
  • Cook, E. (2005) "Commitment in Polyamorous Relationships", master's thesis, Regis University, Denver

I suspect some research (going beyond just Googling!) can find several more academic references. The article is clearly not OR, though like a few other articles it might be improved with some more citations over time. The term is (from the published sources) about 20 years old, from before the internet became popular, though its usage only became widespread 15 years ago, so it's not as recent a neologism as Polyamory or many other terms retained on Wikipedia. The above references to popularity in FAQs, web sites, and discussion groups is not relevant as reliable sources for defining the term, but they are relevant to whether the term is "notable" within the culture. Zeph99 23:13, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment Google Scholar (not Google's web search) is a pretty good indication of the amount of scholarly research on a given subject -- not perfect, but pretty good. It includes most repositories of academic journals as well as results from their book search. Using similar search engines, say Live Search Academic (returns no results). Now if you're a good researcher, and you can find plenty of reliable sources on the subject then it should be easy to write the article using them. I was planning on doing it, but was at a loss for scholarly research on the topic. You can go down the List of academic journal search engines and if you fare any better, then Mazal Tov! Have at it! Through my university, I have access to Adding a Co-Wife. The article doesn't include a scholarly treatment of the term, in fact the entire article is completely anecdotal. Here's the context it's used in, in that article:
To me, Don and Angela's relationship was filled with hot, passionate, incredibly intense "new relationship energy." My older, more settled relationship with Don was filled with daily squabbles, deeper power struggles, and underhanded (but really funny) jokes.
I don't have access to Therapy with Clients Who Are Bisexual and Polyamorous, but from the snippet Google Scholar returns and the abstract, it doesn't look promising. -- Craigtalbert 00:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Update there is a copy of Therapy with Clients Who Are Bisexual and Polyamorous on the authors website [1], the term is used twice but not defined/described. It's also worth noting that while the master's thesis Jealousy and Transformation in Polyamorous Relationships cites a source for it's description of NRE (Stewart, 2002) the thesis is suspiciously missing a bibliography or list of references. My guess is that "Stewart, 2002" is an internet source. -- Craigtalbert 21:09, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The various sources cited here fall mostly into three categories and one exception. A couple treat the subject in some detail, consistent with the usage described in this article, and may provide the main sources if the article is kept. Several others define the term more briefly, also consistent with this article. Some of these might be worked into citations, if they go on to make observations once it's defined (the counseling ones sound interesting). A third group (including the above) use the term or its acronym in ways quite consistent with this article, but without offering any definition to the reader. (The exception is only a single reference which seems to get "NRE" wrong; written by a non-polyamorist, it recognizes NRE as a common term among polyamorists, but then speculates (incorrectly) about the phrase intended by the acronym, without actually asserting any knowledge of the matter.) Since a major question regarding this article is whether it should still be classified as a Neologism as relevant to the Wikipedia guidelines, the third category (used but not defined in the reference) is of interest, even though not useful for citation to establish meaning. The Neologism guideline, which is to be applied with common sense, gives the purpose or reason for avoidance of typical recent neologisms as: "because they are not well understood, are not clearly definable, and will have different meanings to different people". This term is not very recent, is clearly definable, all sources that assert knowledge of the meaning are consistent, some go into detail, all non-speculative usages are consistent, and several print authors no longer even feel it's unfamiliar or ambiguous enough to require definition for their readers (all according to the references available to us and listed elsewhere here). That should address the concerns behind the Neologism guideline, and also serve as some evidence of notability.Memesrus 01:58, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I am new at participating here, so if this is not the correct format I apologize in advance. The term is an important term in polyamory. I also agree that not everything needs its own article. Perhaps this article could be merged into the polyamory article? lfelia —Preceding comment was added at 17:01, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Exploring that option, terminology has already been spun off from polyamory to its own article. Should the article in question here, as well as compersion perhaps, be merged into the terminology within polyamory article? Or is that article just waiting to be proposed for deletion as well? As others have noted, conceptually new relationship energy and compersion are applicable to all sorts of relationships, but their usage may be widespread mainly within the polyamorous community. Note that within computer technology, Wikipedia has a great number of neologisms (Design pattern, Representational State Transfer, ad nauseum; anyone want to guess how many we could find in 20 minutes?) which are applicable to, used within, and of possible interest to only computer developers; which are often too new and perhaps transient to be in many general dictionaries; and yet which are in their own articles rather than being collected only in "terminology of web services" or "terminology of computer software development" compendium articles. Perhaps polyamory, being a cultural rather than technical phenomenon, should be more restrictive, and should collect common terminology in a single article. Funxion) 00:16, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response Then I suggest that we recommend all the above mentioned articles for deletion as well and see what the response is. The argument isn't that they exist. The argument is that no attempt to delete them would have any hope of succeeding. This is indicative of a certain interesting editorial bias on the part of the Wikipedia community as a whole that deserves some study on its own. But I don't think that furthering that bias by deleting this article because it is a neologism largely (but not completely) specific to a certain subculture is a good idea. If, OTOH, you were to go and put deletion recommendations on the other indicated articles I might take your argument a bit more seriously. Omnifarious 18:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment book search (as referenced by Craigtalbert above) actually brings up 5 additional published book references under the spelled out subject of this article, and an additional 2 when searched for "NRE polyamory" (after eliminating false hits and duplicates). That brings the references in published books cited here to 10. While almost all references are consistent with the description given in the article, one book reference recognizes the popularity of "NRE" in polyamorous culture, but assumes that polyamorists must mean "Non-recoverable engineering" and launches into a spurious editorial on people who weigh their relationships in cost/benefit engineering terms. Alas, that book was apparently written by a non-polyamorist, before this article was entered on Wikipedia (along with the link from disambiguating NRE).
Searching Amazon.com brings up three additional true hits, bringing the total to 13 published books. If it isn't killed, this article is ripe for expansion and better citation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Memesrus (talk • contribs) 16:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment For articles on scientific topics (since NRE is in scientific categories, this applies) "sources for the theory itself are [requited to be in] reputable textbooks or peer-reviewed journals. Scientific theories promulgated outside these media are not properly verifiable as scientific theories and should not be represented as such." This according to the ArbComm ruling. In other words, many of the results for NRE from google book search (results from which are only included in google scholar if they meet scholarly requirements) such as The Complete Idiot's Guide to Tantric Sex are not reliable sources for this topic. -- Craigtalbert 19:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response Excellent point, Craigtalbert; I believe that you have identified the issue. You are explicitly evaluating this article in terms of whether it has been "properly verified as a scientific theory" and thus understandably accepting as relevant only peer reviewed scientific sources. Others apparently understand this article as primarily a description of well documented culture usage, even if scientific (psychological and sociological) use of the term is also beginning to appear. Were the "psychology" category not attached, your quotes above would make no sense. I agree that this article is not a verifiable scientific theory, nor yet even a well established term within science; if having the psychology category attached is misleading, it should be removed, at least until and unless enough solid scientific references accumulate in the future. Perhaps just the non-scientific category Interpersonal_Relationships, already applied, is more appropriate. (Neither Craigtalbert nor anyone else is demanding that, say, Cuddle party or most of the other articles within that non-scientific category must have more than 2 peer reviewed references or face deletion). A reference in a popular book on Tantra is not only irrelevant to verifying a scientific theory, it's downright discrediting and almost scandalous in pristine academia -- which explains the otherwise seemingly gratuitous and selective highlighting of a few juicy sources. However, such a mainstream "idiot's guide" series book actually is relevant to documenting cultural usage and notability therein. This also explains the different treatment here versus hundreds of very recent technological or cultural (but not scientific) neologisms that remain unquestioned on Wikipedia; nobody mistakes a neologism like Representational State Transfer or EURion to be a scientific theory, so such terms understandably face less scrutiny of the sort suggested here. My pondering above was seeking understanding of the blatently different standards being routinely applied to a great many articles, definitely not a suggestion that a few bad other articles justifies keeping this one! I actually didn't want to weigh in one way or the other until that discrepancy was addressed. Your clarification about science vs non-science categories finally makes the issue clear enough for me to "vote" on (below). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Funxion (talk • contribs) 02:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do not delete. The terminology originating from the polyamorous community is very quickly coming to the attention the psychology and sociology communities. They recognize the terms as being 1) valuable for communicating ideas about relationships and 2) being applicable to relationship styles outside of polyamorous circles. I do not understand why this is being considered for deletion, as all 4 rules have been followed, and thanks to these comments, there has been 10 more "acceptable" sources to cite. As with most other articles on Wikipedia, it takes time for others to know that the article exists and to add their own comments and research. If this is left up long enough, I think the very flimsy position of not having enough sources will self-correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joreth (talk • contribs) 16:35, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or merge into main article or back into the poly terminology article. This article has been in existence for a year and a half and no one has found any significant sources for it not being a neologism. There really is no evidence for it being a valid psychological and sociological term.Kate 19:49, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment In the interests of full disclosure, this debate has been publicized hereKate 19:54, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do not delete Remove the psychology category. This will answer most of the quite legitimate concerns here, and invoke more relevant standards. With 20 years of history, one extensive magazine article about it, 4 Google Scholar references, 4 thesis/dissertation references, and 13 book references already noted here, this is not even close to one of the weaklings of the Wikipedia herd, whose elimination would improve the species. Its accuracy, verifiability and notability, as a cultural term, is well enough established. It needs some expansion and better citation, which can be done if it is not deleted. The psychology category could be reconsidered if enough appropriate references ever accumulate in the future. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Funxion (talk • contribs) 02:17, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • weak keep based on argument by Funxion.--Vidkun 12:05, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as a psychology term that seems to be well written and fair-to-moderately sourced. —ScouterSig 14:33, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do not delete - Merge into another article at least. Compare with Compersion, Limerence. — Omegatron 04:12, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The psychology stub tag was removed in a recent revision. Even if it doesn't count as a scientific term, it is very widely used in the polyamorous community and deserves a place in Wikipedia. It is well documented and consistent, so not a neologism. Musqrat 17:19, 3 November 2007 (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.
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