Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Optical properties of selenium

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 Selenium#Physical properties. Due to the technical nature of this material, the merge should be done by a subject matter expert. Please read the full discussion here for guidance on what material should be merged and what should be left out. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:00, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Optical properties of selenium[edit]

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The purpose of this article appears less to give the optical (and thermoanalytical, electrical and dielectric) properties of selenium (of which if actually provides scant information), and more to describe the research methods that a certain researcher has used to ascertain those properties, and largely to hang a bunch of citations to the author's own papers. The topic of the article (various physical properties of selenium) would be better covered within the body of the selenium article itself. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 12:44, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:07, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to selenium. I'm not really seeing much worthwhile for a merge since it's mostly just being used to self-cite, so just redirecting should be fine. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:24, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'll also clarify due to some comments below for a merge that I did look over the article having a chemistry background, and I didn't find anything really relevant to merge. It was all pretty much just WP:COATRACK content not really talking about optical properties (even though the text sounds technical), but instead saying certain experiments have used selenium tangentially. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:13, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Kingofaces43: I wouldn't characterize the experiments as "having used selenium tangentially" -- the research carried out by Jafar et al appears to involve investigating the nature of selenium thin films as used (or potentially used) in various applications (smart phone screens, imaging sensors, etc.) But the article doesn't actually report any of the research findings, instead concentrating on the research methodology. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 17:33, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's essentially what I was referring to in that there's nothing really in the article itself that's feasible for a merge. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:40, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia article that currently exists has little to merge, but the references from there may be useful. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 18:13, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Merge into Selenium by a knowledgeable and impartial editor, as some of the citations in Optical properties of selenium may be worth keeping. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 16:41, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Merge as above. The evident COI in 6 of the citations indicates the likelihood of bias and indeed overtechnicality. The properties of a thing are, well, core to its being and equally core to the main article, which is selenium. We won't need to talk much about the properties, just to name and cite them, and the main article is the place for that. By the way, nom, a merger doesn't require to be brought to AfD. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:25, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

6 out of 16 is evident COI. if the article was writen by any other person, it will still refer to these exact six citations. it is like saying there are too many Hawking citations in the black hole radiation article! --Tarawneh (talk) 19:06, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep, This article is part of the work done by wikimedians of the levant user-group, through its version of the Education program. The article is mainly contributed by Mousa Jafar (a 68 y old Prof.), a leading scientist in his field. We were really lucky that he even gave us the time to write that stub for Wikipedia. The article was intended to be about Physical properties of selenium (which is a huge deal in right now). It was renamed into Optical properties of selenium by WikiDan61 ( a move that I did not event try to argue with at the time). Prof. Mousa released some charts from his work under CC, and he is already preparing for a few other articles. Prof. Mosa is not a Wikipedian, and he is not after a "single page (stub) citation" fame and for sure he is not into the "hang a bunch of citations to the author's own papers" argument, you can simply refer to References to check that. lets all AGF, especially in a retiring Prof. He was welcomed with a BITE simply cause he had no idea how to talk balk on the wiki system, and his work is being undermined by my fellow Wikipedias, whom mostly have no idea what is the article is really about. The stub is bombed by COI, and at the same time by too technical templates! and then finally by this AFD. The stub is a legit work, it is a perfect contribution for a content that address a very important field. --Tarawneh (talk) 19:02, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking the time to explain. It was clearly a good user group experience. However, as far as the article is concerned, we're just of the opinion that an element's properties belong with the element's article. And since we think some of the cited material may be useful over at the main article, we're arguing for a merge not a delete. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:33, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Chiswick Chap. Thanks for your comment. Physical properties of selenium is a very important field in the smartphone industry. I do agree that the physical properties section in the selenium article should be expanded, but merging is not the way to do it. It is like requesting the merge of Car article into the uses section of the Steel artile. Cars might be a good item to be mentioned in the steel article :P . No one will request the merge of Nokia 5 into the Nokia article, simply cause they are two different connected things. Yes, they might look good together for some people, but that is not a solid merge excuse. --Tarawneh (talk) 20:03, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment After a glance at Google Scholar, I am thoroughly unimpressed by the argument made above that Mousa Jafar [is] a leading scientist in [that] field and that the reference-bombing would be the same in an impartially-written article. In the refs, this is from 2014 and has 4 cites (including two self-cites) so far, that is almost two years old and has 3 cites (2 of which self-cites). This has 2 cites including one self-cite, but it is fairly recent. Maybe semiconductor research is a low-cite field, but I fear this is the academic equivalent of a walled garden.

In light of the above, I get a distinct WP:LINKSPAM feeling - but this should not prevent us to improve existing articles. There might be material from the sources that can be brought to the selenium article, but it is going to need a topic expert - I am moderately familiar with semiconductors, yet I could not make heads or tails of this ref. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 13:43, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am really sorry for the way my fellow Wikipedians are handling this, as there is clear misunderstanding of the way research is distributed and evaluated in the industry. To get what I mean please try to find any work done through the industry R&D using google scholar. Using google scholar to as a tool to evaluate such works is equivalent to searching for surgeon in a library; Dah, every thing should be there!

low-cite field, and academic equivalent of a walled garden! Really! You my friends are giving such a judge based being moderately familiar with semiconductors! I am sorry, but I fail to get the point; your are judging this based on your lack of deep understanding of completely un-relevant topic! Based on your backgrounds my friends, can you please at least try to explain the chart in article?

Citation spamming!!! "Citation spamming is a subtle form of spam and should not be confused with legitimate good-faith additions intended to verify article content and help build the encyclopedia". Please try to provide a better references, instead of accusing others of citation spamming. I am not judging your research abilities, if you can find better references, then please do. If you think that selenium article needs to be expanded then please start working on it. No one is stopping you. But for God's sakes, please stop moving this into a WARZONE; not find anything wrong with the article content doesn't mean attacking the contributes to push for ending the article existence. Personally, I feel this this hole thing of requesting a marge of this article, using an AFD, and defending it, is really based on nothing but a BLINDMEN judgement. --Tarawneh (talk) 06:45, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think you understand how it works here, despite your citing of multiple guidelines. Being more familiar with the topic X than another editor does not give you the right to dismiss their concerns about how an article about X is written. If it worked this way, Wikipedia would be flooded with articles claiming all sorts of nonsense written by self-called topic experts (for an extreme example, head to crystal healing and ask yourself if this is what the dream article of a "topic expert" would look like). That the article is overly detailed, not really about what the title says, and spammed with links of dubious value are problems that non-topic experts can evaluate.

For the record, if I tried to read one of the refs (having access to it and some training in reading scientific papers, which may not be the case of many AfD editors), it is because I believed I could extract value out of it for the selenium article. I could not, but I readily admitted someone else maybe could. But I am not sure anyone will want to try, given your reaction. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 14:51, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Some more posting about the "not many cites on GScholar" argument, collapsed as to not clutter the page, even though the above makes me feel compelled to answer.

My point about "not many cites on GScholar" was a tangential one, but your reaction is interesting. It is not a great metric, because some fields cite more than others, etc. but your answer is (paraphrased) "it is used much in the industrial R&D, just not cited in academic articles". Very well, so it is unprovable. In that case, it would be great to drop the appeal to authority "X is a great scientist and wrote the article, hence the article should be safe from deletion unless an even greater scientist comes" (which BTW was not a good argument against deletion to start with). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 14:51, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Side note: the article content was copied into Draft:Physical_properties_of_lead_iodide. Not sure what to make of it. On its face it is a new user copying a current article as a template to make their own, but I have a hard time to believe they found the article under discussion here by chance. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 14:51, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to the extent of adding some of the content to Selenium#Physical_properties, and evaluating the worth of the references and porting over what's topical and relevant of these (slimming down the over-representation of that single work group). As it stands, this reads like the abstract of a methods paper - not material that requires its own article. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 10:34, 16 November 2017 (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.