Talk:Sexual selection

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Female sabotage

Since the only current discussion here focuses on my work, I'm making these comments at the top. There are three facts here:

1) My research is published in peer-reviewed journals. This makes it eligible for inclusion in Wikipedia.

2) My research provides a completely unique and novel interpretation of an existing body of knowledge. No one has ever made these insights nor performed these experiments before. This makes it important for inclusion in Wikipedia.

3) My research offers an alternative explanation, even a challenge, to more widely-held interpretations. This, with the previous two, make it imperative that any fair-minded and objective review of the field should include this research. To do otherwise opens the door to charges of partiatlity.

Lawyers say that when the facts are on your side, argue the facts; when the facts are not on your side, argue the law. The fact that you are not responding to my appeals on the merit of my work, and are instead arguing the law (i.e. rules/guidelines) suggests that you can't counter the facts. Adding to this concern is the fact that, without exception, you have incorrectly and unfairly invoked various Wikipedia guidelines, violating both their letter and spirit. Specifically you have objected to my edit under the following:

Original work. I used the word "original" on one occasion to mean novel, and you seized that word in order to incorrectly invoke a Wikipedia rule which actually says: "... your results should be published in other venues, such as peer-reviewed journals, other printed forms, open research, or respected online publications." So that rule is not applicable here.

Self-promotion. Because I am the author of the research, a charge of self-promotion has been made. The rule on self-promotion says, "Editing in an area in which you have professional or academic expertise is not, in itself, a conflict of interest. Using material you yourself have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant and conforms to the content policies." This rule is also not applicable here.

Notability. I addressed that below and my comments were ignored. So I let me repeat my concerns. The rule says, "On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a topic can have its own article" (italics mine). The explanation continues further down: "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not directly limit the content of an article or list." So another rule is not applicable here.

Style. That charge was made against my edit but never explained. I asked for substantiation, and again, I was ignored.

Number of Citations. One editor, below, said flatly that my work will not be admitted until more people cite it. This goes beyond the pale; that isn't even a Wikipedia guideline.

So not only are you arguing the law, you are repeatedly and consistently arguing the law incorrectly, even creating an ad hoc rule once I had countered your other objections. All of this makes me very worried that there has been a loss of impartiality here. Please look over the preceding carefully as I am hesitant to mention this, but given the foregoing this is beginning to look like an attempt to suppress dissenting voices within this field of research. If that is not the case, I apologize in advance. Otherwise I would urge you to reconsider your objections here.--BooksXYZ (talk) 19:33, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I propose you write your own article on Female Sabotage and we can use that to decide the notability criterion. The problem is that your discussion of your valid, peer-reviewed, published research is in the midst of an article on a very deep, very broad subject and it may confuse some readers. Link your article on Female Sabotage Theory into Sexual Selection. As for self-promotion, I would refer to the second clause of the rule you cite: "...only if it is relevant and conforms to the content policies." I'm sorry, but your line of research does not appear to be relevant to the broader article on sexual selection. If you repeatedly put back your material that the community (at least this community of editors) has agreed is not relevant here then it looks like self-promotion. Finally, once again your "three facts" are not relevant. I'm truly sorry, but those things don't matter: Wikipedia is not a scientific journal.Trashbird1240 (talk) 14:59, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Joel, you're a graduate student with no solo publications to your name, and the other active editor here posts anonymously. The two of you are running roughshod over the very concepts of Wikipedia. You've grossly misapplied the Wikipedia guidelines, and when this was pointed out to you, you began making up new guidelines. You have never admitted to any of this, and have certainly never apologized or tried to make corrections. All of this makes your errors appear deliberate.

Now you have decided yourselves fit to overrule scientists, journal reviewers and editors with vastly more knowledge than you have, to determine, not only what articles are important, but whether those articles are even relevant to the field of study.

And finally you have decided that you will protect the rest us from anything that might be "confusing". The two of you have assumed the right to determine what concepts the rest of us will be permitted to read.

Wikipedia is not your personal fiefdom.--BooksXYZ (talk) 12:09, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since when are solo publications the criterion for competence as a scientist? Pete.Hurd (talk) 21:57, 18 March 2012 (UTC) (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not my personal fiefdom, nor is it yours: using Wikipedia to promote your articles is not appropriate. I'm not concerned with whether my expertise is comparable to that of the scientists who reviewed your work, since Wikipedia is not a scientific journal. It's a wiki, in other words, you put things up with the full knowledge that somebody else will edit it. This sort of discussion is completely part of the process; it's not supposed to involve personal attacks, but discussion of what's appropriate and helpful to the overall goal of the article.

You seem to be expending a lot of energy on this. I understand how you want to share your research with the world and that's great. But you're already doing that through having published your articles. There are other forums: you could write a blog, or you could write a book on the subject and freely share it with the world. The difference is that on Wikipedia there are editors. That is the whole point (as I understand it). Trashbird1240 (talk) 18:17, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Earlier discussions on this topic:

The 1998 article cited to support the Female Sabotage hypothesis paragraph, has been cited a total of two times (once incorrectly) since it was published. The 2005 paper (mentioned but not cited) does not appear in the ISI database. This appears to be a relatively non-notable piece of work given undue emphasis. Pete.Hurd 22:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I found the 2005 paper. Abraham JN Insect choice and floral size dimorphism: Sexual selection or natural selection? JOURNAL OF INSECT BEHAVIOR 18 (6): 743-756 NOV 2005, Times Cited: 0. It's one of the two papers to cite the 1998 article, (the other is Bertini A, David B, Cezilly F, et al. Quantification of sexual dimorphism in Asellus aquaticus (Crustacea : Isopoda) using outline approaches BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY 77 (4): 523-533 DEC 2002, Times Cited: 2. Pete.Hurd 02:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Doh! there it is in the references section... Pete.Hurd 02:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to delete the two paragraphs relating to Joe Abrahams work. Authors are generally quoted in the article when they have been highly influential within the development of the theory (e.g. Darwin, Fisher, Hamilton, Zahavi, Lande, Rice, Rowe, Arnqvist). Their publication records typically reflect this, both in quantity, quality of the journal in which they publish, and citations to their work. Joe Abrahams is not one of these people. He has published two papers in the field, both in fairly marginal journals (current impact factors 0.7 and 1.1) that each attracted only one citation, of which at least one was completely non-specific. This body of work pales in comparison with the typical output of most PhD students. I feel it would therefore be misleading to readers of this article to include the paragraphs, because it suggests that he is on par with the other authors mentioned. The article is long enough as it is. Because this should be reason enough for deletion, I won't get started about the content of the papers, although there are quite a few concerns there too (e.g. Maynard-Smith and Kirkpatrick's personal communications in Saboteuse). Evlshout (talk) 07:03, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am reinstating my work. An encyclopedia, as the name states, is the circle of education, a survey of all knowledge. It is a place that anyone can get an overview of a field. I am citing entirely original work, published in peer-reviewed journals. If Wikipedia has rules governing which scholarly works are eligible for inclusion, please cite it. Otherwise, this is a user-generated website. No one, or now few, have the right to pick and choose what they wish included. Thank you.--BooksXYZ (talk) 11:39, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your work? You have a Conflict of Interest here? Wikipedia urges you to be extremely cautious about citing your own work - it is not forbidden but to be done very very carefully and without any hint of self-promotion. Forgive me if you didn't mean that, it isn't clear.

WP Rules: yes, there are plenty. The key one is to avoid 'original research' which includes 'synthesis', such as by assembling primary sources (scholarly or otherwise) to make a statement. The approved procedure is to use secondary sources, which of course will themselves cite primary ones, to describe the field neutrally: normally by paraphrase but with short quotations as appropriate. Any WP editor may object to the excessive use of primary sources.

BTW I think we should remove the Abraham material given the discussion above. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:15, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done. This material is not notable, as per this discussion. Wikipedia is not a platform for self-promotion, no matter how factually correct.Trashbird1240 (talk) 02:17, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You all agree with my central theses: when males die, resources shift to surviving females and offspring; and pollinators place optimality concerns above floral appearances. You also agree that both of these are alternatives, even challenges, to widely-held dogma.

This is an encyclopedia, a review of all knowledge. More than that, it is the Wikipedia, the most comprehensive and collegial review of knowledge in the history of the world. In addition you are also scientists. As such, you are passionately committed to that same collegiality and comprehensiveness in the investigation, as well as the dissemination, of knowledge. And as scholars, you are also aware of the lessons of history: the dissenting viewpoint must be treated much more circumspectly than the accepted, "known" information, otherwise the critical intellectual dialogue of human progress grinds to a halt.

Concerns of self-promotion must become null once the academic community accepts one's research for peer-reviewed journals, otherwise every time we teach our students or present our research at conferences, our work becomes nothing more than base self-promotion. I also believe that the 'original' work which Wikipedia proscribes indicates work that has not been vetted by other scholars. Finally, I believe Pete Hurd confused 'notable' with 'noted', which are different things; if what I have written is a valid and unique interpretation of the existing facts, then that qualifies as notable, whether it is noted or not.

As scientists, and as Wikipedians, I would urge you to reconsider.--BooksXYZ (talk) 19:51, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I neither agree nor disagree with your theses. The sole question is WP:Notability. You are right that anything not cited by other people in reliable sources (such as by scholars in known journals) is considered unreliable. Wikipedia articles are meant to be constructed from secondary sources; construction from primary sources is as you know forbidden. Wikipedia is not the place for 'critical intellectual dialogue of human progress': it is a place to record the outcome of such research dialogue once it has taken place elsewhere. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:12, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link. If you will re-visit it, I think you will agree that the problem of notability does not apply here: "On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a topic can have its own article" (italics mine). The explanation continues further down: "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not directly limit the content of an article or list." So I can't see how your concerns are grounds to exclude my work.

And I absolutely agree that Wikipedia is not a place for critical intellectual dialogue of human progress, but it is most definitely a chronicle of the intellectual dialogue of human progress. Moreover, like all good reference works it bends over backwards to insure that even discredited work is carefully described and recorded; witness the lengthy entries on Lamarckism and Recapitulation_theory.--BooksXYZ (talk) 20:25, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll just add that Wikipedia is not a review of all knowledge; it is a compendium of encyclopedic knowledge, which is something quite different. If someone had never read about sexual selection, they should be able to get a good idea of the major topics in the field by reading this article. Your research is very specific and takes lots of background to understand; yet another reason it should not be found in an encyclopedia, notability, style and rules about original research notwithstanding.Trashbird1240 (talk) 15:13, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect, the word "encyclopedia" exactly means a review of all knowledge, the word literally means "the circle of all learning." Wikipedia agrees on this point: "An encyclopedia ... is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge." A summary of information must include cogent, contrasting viewpoints.

As to your second point, only the most rudimentary knowledge of biology is necessary to understand that male death leaves resources for surviving females and offspring, and that pollinators need food to survive, not floral appearances. I have explained these concepts to laymen on several occasions, and they immediately grasped the concepts. Concerns of notability and originality have already been taken care of; I cannot see where style is a concern.

Guys, my publications constitute valid, published, and peer-reviewed alternatives to the currently held theory; they challenge what we were all taught. I would strongly warn you not to exclude important dissenting viewpoints from this, or any review. As I noted above, to the contrary: if we understand history, and work toward the strongest possible science, we must take great pains to accommodate dissension.

Wikipedia is a community-generated reference work; we all create it. We all have a vested interest in making sure that inclusion in Wikipedia is based on solid scholarship, not favoritism.--BooksXYZ (talk) 20:25, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but it is absolutely not a research platform, nor for self-publicity. We will include your work when other people have cited it sufficiently, and not before. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:36, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]