Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Notational bias

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. . Several editors opined "Keep and tag as unsourced", which is odd, given that the article already has been tagged as unsourced since May 2007. There was plenty of time to add sources. That this hasn't happened is an indication that either nobody is interested in improving this article, or there simply are no relevant sources. By contrast, EALacey's argument that it's not a term or art is convincing and has not been refuted. — Sebastian 07:52, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Notational bias[edit]

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Notational bias contains no sources. Most of the text consists of three examples. One of them is definitely ridiculous (the programming example), one explains the common fact that multiple choice questions aren't perfect (but that's not a bias), and one ("writing down music western style more or less directs one to writing Western music") that could be a "notational bias" but i don't think it really is a bias. Without any sources, this article should be deleted. Joepnl (talk) 02:17, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I agree with all of Joeph's arguments.Doomsdayer520 (Talk|Contribs) 12:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and tag as unsourced. A Google Scholar search finds lots of relevant uses and confirms the definition. Recury (talk) 01:39, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Tim Song (talk) 09:00, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Some academic articles may combine the words "notational" and "bias", but that doesn't mean that "notational bias" is a term of art. Since "notation" is not a single subject (our entry on notation is a disambiguation page), it's unsurprising that the purported examples of "bias in notation" have nothing to do with each other. EALacey (talk) 15:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Regarding sources, Google Scholar currently finds 17 results for "notational bias". There are vastly more results for verbal bias (307), aesthetic bias (345), military bias (384), demographic bias (462), ethical bias (463), conceptual bias (801) and visual bias (1,350), none of which are the subject of Wikipedia articles. It's possible that some of these are the technical names of well-defined topics, but high numbers of Google Scholar hits don't prove that. On the other hand, the low number of hits for "notational bias" does strongly suggest that it's just two words being used together on an ad hoc basis. EALacey (talk) 10:53, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. May be I should elaborate a bit more on this nomination, especially the multiple choice example. A bias occurs when someone reaches a certain conclusion because there is an unseen error in the methods used. If you make a multiple-choice question "what's your favority hobby", the outcome "only 17% of children like base ball best" could be biased because the questionnaire was filled in by 80% girls, a fact the researcher didn't know or properly correct for. He will, however, know that a multiple-choice question is not a good idea for this kind of question, and moreover, he won't draw the conclusion "no one likes foot ball" if that option wasn't listed. Joepnl (talk) 19:33, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the fact that the article doesn't currently cite any sources isn't a reason to delete it. If sources do not exist that is a good argument for deletion, however as noted above there are sources available. Hut 8.5 21:10, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and tag as unsourced. The articles on Linguistic relativity and Language and thought explain similar concepts regarding language. Angrysockhop ^{(Merry Christmas!)} 06:15, 26 December 2009 (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.