Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Structure of Temperament Questionnaire

Structure of Temperament Questionnaire

Structure of Temperament Questionnaire (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This is a very long article on a very specific topic, written entirely from primary sources, almost all of which are by one or both of the originators of the questionnaire, one of whom actually wrote this article. Another co-author has edited it. Virtually no edits of any substance have been by anybody without a close connection to the subject. What's missing is any independent evidence of significance. Guy (Help!) 06:17, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

The article is no longer than the other articles on psychological tests. The "deletion" tag is therefore not justified, and the STQ page has significantly less grounds for being deleted, in comparison to the pages listed in my other comment. Please review the page again and, please, remove the "deletion" tag. I understand that your position of admin is often stressful, and it is easy to overlook the difference between an informative page and self-advertising. This page is just information about the most distributed test (among psychologists) in Russia that was adapted in Canada, USA and Australia in the 1980-90s. However, this test is a professional test, so only professional psychologists know about it, so it is useful for the general public to be aware of it. Hopefully this will help to clear the air.

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Behavioural science-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 12:32, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

This might be a case of vandalism that should be reported

The user JzG called "Guy" (Guy) continues deleting the reference to American Journal of Psychology and now launched a discussion for a deletion of the page implying that the neutrality rule was violated. We suggest reading the material first: the authors of the STQ are Rusalov (mainly) and Trofimova (derivative), but none of them are main contributors. Yet, the page on this matter should be submitted by someone who knows the material. This is an encyclopedia after all. The user Guy makes cuts and changes without justifying them or commenting on anything in this talk page. I am going to reverse the changes (again!) - if you decide to have cuts please justify your actions. I understand that you want to improve the quality of the Wiki, so I suggest the same quality control over other Wikipedia pages related to psychological tests (much less verified by neurophysiological theories than the STQ). Here is the list for such important checking: Myers–Briggs Type Indicator, Keirsey Temperament Sorter, Revised NEO Personality Inventory,16PF Questionnaire,Self-Directed Search, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory,Synthetic Aperture Personality Assessment,Personality Assessment Inventory,Temperament and Character Inventory,Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire, Karolinska Scales of Personality, and other pages on psychological tests. I also suggest to ask the authors of the page Temperament test to rename it as that page is about testing dogs, but the title can be used for tests of human temperaments. Sulisw (talk) 14:16, 9 September 2016 (UTC) .

Factually incorrect on several levels, but who is "we"? You are a co-author on some of the papers, do you mean you and user:Iratrofimov? Guy (Help!) 19:17, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

What part is factually incorrect? "We" refers to scientists working in this field, who advise to admins of Wikipedia on something that they are not trained in. Problem is that sometimes admins take sides too, promoting one theory and suppressing the exposure of others. I hope we (Wikipedia contributors and admins) can keep the sociology of science aside when building this public encyclopedia. BTW, we, scientists, have to discuss if the Frontiers, a series of scientific journals, are sufficiently established journals to be cited in the Wikipedia. After all, they are indexed in all scientific catalogues, and prominent scientists publish in this series, but Guy deletes references to it as "predatory online journals". In this case the following pages should be deleted as well: Frontiers in Psychology, Frontiers in Zoology, Frontiers in Biology, Frontiers in Energy, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Frontiers in Endocrinology, Frontiers in Neuroscience, Frontiers in Information Technology & Electronic Engineering. I suggest just let the STQ page be, to remove the deletion tag, and appreciate the work of both, admins and contributors. I think none of us are getting paid for it, so we all do an important work with the best intentions, and we all want the same - to spread useful and often not known knowledge to people who need it. Sulisw (talk) 15:49, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

• Oh well. This stinks like a WP:FRINGE theory, but the publication list does not look completely bollocks either. Will give a chance before going delete.

Sulisw, if you want the article kept, could you point out a few (not more than 3) publications that qualify as reliable sources dealing with the subject in detail? Make sure to read the link before saying "scientific papers are reliable"; "reliable" has a specific meaning in Wikipedia.

I am asking you that because Wikipedia's standard of "notability" (again, this word has a specific meaning) require a few very good sources. It is very easy to have tons of poor sources, and it actually is a a common practice of proponents of unnotable theories to flood the "references" section in the hope none looks too closely.

Also, your latest posts are probably counterproductive. We are not discussing all personality tests', or scientific papers' pages. Wikipedia's objective is not to spread useful and often not known knowledge to people who need it; actually, it specifically is about well-known knowledge (in a broad sense), not cutting-edge research. Please keep your posts concise (else others will not read them). I also advise to read WP:COI (yes, even if you are not directly paid to edit Wikipedia).

Finally, I suggest you withdraw the "vandalism" accusation, which is simultaneously wrong (here is what vandalism means), laughable, and potentially grounds for blocking. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 16:36, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Yellow Dingo (talk) 00:21, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Just to respond to the user Tigraan who reacts as an offended user Guy:

• Re: "could you point out a few (not more than 3) publications that qualify as reliable sources" - the body of the article lists references ##3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 13, 14 published in peer-review English-language journals plus at least 36 additional references to also English peer-review journals, plus 2 Manuals of the STQ. In case you don't know, Manuals are the description of technical procedures executed to make a test valid and reliable. Manuals are never published in peer review settings - this is just a format of the psychometric industry, however papers supporting these manuals are peer reviewed. In any case, in my humble opinion, N of sources here already exceeds 3.
• Re: "notability" - comes from the references cited. No need to be mentoring here. The page is not citing Russian-language sources, and I personally couldn't even read it, but from my communication with Russian psychologists, the STQ is known to every psychologist in Russia. The N of English-language citations shows that it was noted here as well.
• Re: "wikipedia is not to spread the knowledge" - we have to bring it to the attention of the owners of the Wikipedia, and review if the definition of encyclopedia applies to wiki in this case. If the owners agree with Tigraan's position, then wiki will risk to be just another tabloid source, recycling the most known and flashy (noticed) news but not informing people about something that was discovered earlier. Using "notability over value" criteria, wiki will end up having a number of cites related to the production of, for example, Star Wars and none related to physical concepts helping to build actual space ships and to calculate turbulence in passing through Mars' atmosphere. Most mathematical concepts are not known to 99.999% of people, and not known to 70% of mathematicians - simply because a single person can't learn everything right away, even when it comes to his or her profession. Yet, wiki's owners consider the pages related to these concepts useful. Notability is therefore not a priority, and shouldn't overshadow the value of knowledge. We have many very specialized areas or knowledge in which only experts know the terminology. Common people need to have access to this knowledge - and this is why encyclopedias were invented.
• the comment comparing the STQ page to the other tests' page is relevant here, as equal standards should be applied to similar pages. Otherwise there are reasons to suspect reviewer's bias.
• I also wonder how the expressions "stinks" and "bollocks" are compatible with the authorization of this page for deletion.

I therefore call for authorized parties to review the "marked for deletion" status of this page and to return this page to a functional status.Sulisw (talk) 21:36, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

You clearly have no idea at all how Wikipedia works, whihc is not a surprise as you're mainly here to promote your own work. Guy (Help!) 23:16, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Sulisw, we can forgive you for not understanding how Wikipedia works. We do not even require that you get familiar with the guidelines. However, you must display some basic understanding of English and consensus-building.

I specifically said no more than 3 references to avoid the WP:BOMBARD effect. Yet you cited 7 refs, in addition to others. I will therefore disregard anything except ref 3, 5 and 6. (Manuals for foo are never independent sources for foo - otherwise, our articles on acupuncture, dowsing and others would need some rewrite of dubious value.)

• Ref #3 is from Personality and Individual Differences, impact factor 2013 1.8. 39 cites since 1989. That is a somewhat decent article, since the cite list does not look too much puffed up by self-cites.
• Ref #5 is from Educational and Psychological Measurement. Same IF, but only 9 cites since 1996. That is not even a niche subject, that is one person and their PhD's subject, so clearly not worth much notability-wise.
• Ref #6 is from the same as ref #3. 9 cites since 1993, so same comments as ref #5.

So all in all, delete - maybe there was some one-time interest back in 1989, but clearly this has not made an enduring academic impact. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 10:40, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:43, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

8Delete per OP and WP:FRINGE 74.70.146.1 (talk) 04:32, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Challenges in judgement =

I don’t think that I deserve being insulted by the user who goes under various names "JzG"="Guy" and Tigraan, and who now appears to be a rather biased admin. I am not as young as he is, I am not British but just a 4th-generation Canadian, and, as a career scientist with an MD and 2 PhDs I don’t have as much confidence in scientific merit of journals impact factor (IF) as he does. So, we have differences, and we need to work on consensus being realistic about imperfection of the informational sources, in a civilized manner. Yes, I am not an admin, but I wish there were easy ways for admins to judge specialized wiki pages without much expertise. IF or citation rating are, perhaps, “better than nothing” to facilitate this judgement, but they should not be the main criteria. For example witness the problems now arising in the literature on the role of fat in heart disease. High impact journals promoted these ideas for decades and now we learn how much they were corrupted by second party influences. As another example, a paper linking vaccinations to autism had a very high citation index, even while long known for being a total fraud. It has been also recently shown that a citation index is often busted by “within-group” citations. Ultimately it is the scientific community and the test of time which determine the value of any work, and some concepts/products/tests get accepted so well that they are simply used but not being cited in recent publications. I could mention many areas of mathematics that are supported by small groups of researchers – does this user believe that such knowledge should be ignored or abandoned because it hasn’t achieved notability within the general public? By this logic the page Law of Continuity should not exist as the number of people who know/use this law is likely lesser that the number of people who used the STQ in their practice and research in the past 30 years.

Yes, I contributed only to a few Wiki pages in the field and I am sure that the majority of other wiki contributors do the same amount of modest editing, also only in a few areas. Putting down occasional contributors and bullying them is counterproductive. This user/admin also insists that I promote my own work. The STQ (or another page – Activity-specific approach) is not my work, I am not even a psychologist, I simply used the test for my studies and found it useful. I already commented on this matter and I find the continuing accusations rather insulting. I think that if this user-admin feels that his own personal information on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:JzG might benefit the Wiki’s readers, the information about a useful psychological test coming from a verified neurophysiological research has no lesser value. We, scientists and the readers of the English Wikipedia, have to be aware of good scientific products that are used in English-language countries even if they were initially developed in other countries a couple decades ago.

We all wish we had easy criteria for selection what is valuable and what is not in science, or basic knowledge, but we don’t. Science is not only complex, in terms of its structure, concepts, multi-cultural sources and opinions, but also is “a living thing” that constantly changes. A mechanical approach to judgement on what is valuable what is not, and even what is notable and what is not, just by looking at citation statistics is not sufficient. After all the IFs of journals depend on applicability of the topics in industry, and this bias is overlooked here. When this user/admin points out to the low impact factor of the journals cited let me note that the majority of journals in psychology have low impact factors, in comparison to journals in medicine, biology, physics and engineering. This is just specifics of the field of psychology. Surely the user does not believe that much of the knowledge within psychology should be eliminated from the Wikipedia.

Let me also mention that notability of many TV shows and movies that have pages on Wikipedia is high not because of its quality but because there was a financing of an advertising, to make these shows notable. I hope the judgment on the value of the Wikipedia pages will not depend on finances spent on “notability” by advertising departments of the show producers. Science has significantly less finances for advertising than a show business, so, if we are not careful, the Wikipedia will be an encyclopaedia of show business but not of anything related to reality, including science. What is even more challenging is that historically we had a iron curtain over some cultures and so the “notability” of their scientific products did not catch up yet with the level of notability of Kardashians. This doesn’t mean that we have to continue with our Western ignorance to non-Western science. In my view there is science, not Western science or English science.

Having said this, I sincerely sympathize with the challenge for admins in dealing with scientific pages on the Wikipedia, as they have very limited ways to verify notability and value. That is why the early version of the STQ page had so many references (and I agree it was too many for the final version), to show notability of the STQ. I suggest we close the discussion about notability of the STQ as a general test (seriously, this is the test used by all psychology students in Russia, now multiply it on the N of students graduated over the past 20 years, plus it was adopted for school and daycare kids and was used in educational studies). The notability of the English-version of the STQ is based on at least listed references in English, and, considering the average IF of psychological journals, the list indicates sufficient notability (I mean, for a psychometric test, not for a movie). I also suggest that I edit the page leaving references to manuals on the page (they are the source of obligatory psychometric information of the tests) and reducing the references to 5 or so. That’s how I see the consensus.Sulisw (talk) 20:10, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

"I didn't see what was happening here for a while - who in a right mind would want to delete this page? The STQ is classic in Russia and now it is used in Australia and Canada. Those who are deleting it - are you psychologists? You obviously judge by wrong sources or have issues with the origin of the test. It is known for its use, it has 12 scales that are commonly cited in Russian psychology - this is if you worry about notablity. If you worry about citations with impact factor - the given list is sufficient. We, psychologists, will never have an international collaboration if we will not exchange information about our tools, and the STQ is a rare one that made it to the West from Russia."