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. As it stands, fails WP:V Black Kite 00:21, 7 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Functional temporalism[edit]

Functional temporalism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Placing "Functional Temporalism" into google returns very few results that are not either this article or mirrors of this article. Even if this is not a hoax, then it appears to fail the notability test. Lear's Fool (talk) 11:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

"as Sokal showed, it's hard to tell postmodernism from parody" LOL! --MelanieN (talk) 01:32, 4 December 2009 (UTC)MelanieNReply[reply]
Regarding Phil Bridger's point, it is certainly true that anthropologists write in scholarly publications; nevertheless, it is true that many of these publications are not often easily accessible. While anthropological academics may receive journals in the field, published texts from this field are often only found in university libraries - not even in book shops or online. While google scholar is certainly a useful device, it is by no means exhaustive. While some anthropological journals, such as "Anthropology Today" and "General Anthropology" are readily accessible online, google scholar returns no articles from other highly reputable anthropological journals, such as "Food, Culture and Society", "Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia and Oceania", and "Archaeological Papers of the AAA" (American Anthropological Association). These are some of the most well-known journals in the field, and this can be proven by research; to illustrate this, Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia and Oceania has been continuously published since 1853, and it is arguably the most relevant sociological journal in that area of the world. I could also list the countless anthropological books that are not recognised by Google Books, but I do not know where to begin. I think I have shown, however, that Google Scholar and Google Books are not sufficient research to determine the merit of an article. There is also another reason that you may have struggled to find information on functional temporalism. You have said that you searched for work on functional temporalism by Clifford Geertz, and you were unsuccessful. Clifford Geertz in fact did not found functional temporalism, nor did he ever write about it. Rather, the theory was developed by postmodernists who came from his school of thought. It is, therefore, unlikely that the two would come up in the same article.
Also, this article is very short, compared to that of many other theories. Where you claim that it seems exceedingly unclear, this lack of clarity is surely due largely to the fact that it does not go in to sufficient detail, but incorporates a vast array of points into just three paragraphs. You have drawn many comparisons to the Sokal affair, but I am sure you are aware that Sokal's article was much longer than this article. Sokal's article contained a huge amount of fraudulent information, all of which was masked by sophisticated language. However, the functional temporalism article seems to be dubious only because its points are not elaborated. Surely you can realise that any article which is not sufficiently explained may appear to be meaningless. I do not see how an article that is unclear because of its inadequate length can possibly be compared with a much longer one, which was unclear because of the way it was written.
I agree with wikipedia's editors that the article requires drastic alteration. However, time must be given so that it can be improved. With the help of anthropological academics, the article can be fixed, but this process requires time and careful consideration, rather than a hasty deletion. Thank you.Higginson21 (talk) 15:59, 4 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]
My point about Sokal was actually in defence of the article - it reads like parody postmodernism, more so than Sokal, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is a parody, because real postmodernism reads like that, too. JohnCD (talk) 16:23, 5 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]
It's not a case of the article being too short to "allow for sufficient references": a reliable reference is required to verify that this concept even exists, by our fundamental principle of WP:Verifiability "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source... If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."
The only name cited is Geertz, and it is now admitted that he had nothing to do with this "did not found functional temporalism, nor did he ever write about it" - there is absolutely no firm peg at all.
There are statements in the article for which, if he is not making them up, the author must have a source and be able to provide more detail:
  • "Functional temporalists maintain... " Who are they? Name three. Where do they maintain it?
  • "Some critics of this school of thought have argued... " Who? Where?
  • "Many advocates of the theory do admit... " How many? Where? When?
These are weasel words - statements which seem to mean something but cannot be checked. If they are right, however, there must be published sources in which the temporalists maintain, the critics argue and the advocates admit - unless, perhaps, this new theory has not yet developed beyond the student union bar (I note the author refers above to "top undergraduate work"), in which case it is too soon for a Wikipedia article.
I do not think we should keep this while waiting for sources - if it is a hoax it should go, if not it needs a complete rewrite anyway, and deletion now does not prevent introduction of a properly sourced article if one can be written. It will have to pass the WP:CSD#G4 hurdle of being "not substantially identical to the deleted version", but any acceptable article will do that. JohnCD (talk) 16:23, 5 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Even more fundamentally we need to have a source to verify the first six words of the article ("functional temporalism is an anthropological theory") before worrying about expanding it. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:28, 5 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The problem with weasel-worded statements is not that they are not sourced; it is that they are not falsifiable. They look as if they mean something, but there is no way to prove them untrue. That's why Wikipedia doesn't like them, and insists on Verifiability as a primary requirement.
I do not understand why it need take lengthy searching to provide any kind of reference. When, for example, the author wrote "Functional temporalists maintain that such paradigms are consistently overlooked by mainstream academics", how did he know that? Either he knew it from his own experience, because he had heard or read them maintaining it, in which case he can tell us who they are and where they maintained it; or he knew it from some other source and can tell us what that source was. If, having made that statement and had it challenged, he has to search for confirmation, and a week later is still asking for more time to search, you must understand our increasing suspicions that this may be another in the long line of hoax articles (including at least one actually written by the Postmodernism Generator) which require constant vigilance to keep out of Wikipedia. JohnCD (talk) 22:03, 6 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[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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