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 no consensus. Xclamation point 02:08, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Typoglycemia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Delete: This article is patent nonsense, just an Internet joke email. It was previously AfD'ed as keep in 2005, but I think under current standards it should be deleted as both unecyclopedic and non-notable. RossPatterson (talk) 16:25, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Question While the word may not be real, the study that's being discussed is widespread and well-known and should be covered somewhere. Do we cover it somewhere already? If not, this might need a rename and some cuts. - Mgm|^(talk) 17:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not sure I'd agree about "widespread" - a Google search for "The Significance of Letter Position in Word Recognition" finds a palty 92 hits, mostly either quotes of the joke or copies of this article. There are several references to the Rawlinson 2007 article (based on his 1976 thesis), but that's a pretty poor showing for anything claiming to be an Internet meme. RossPatterson (talk) 19:34, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep as memes go this one appears to have gained some traction (per gsearch) [1], [2]. JJL (talk) 17:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's certainly true, although it's a pretty poor showing for a meme. A Google search for typoglycemia finds 11,300 hits. Adding -wikipedia to exclude references to this article etc. drops it by more than half, to 4,960. Still, point taken, it isn't completely unheard of. RossPatterson (talk) 19:40, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Searching for this article's title isn't really the best approach. As pointed out in the prior discussion, the name is not mentioned in sources, and the article would be better renamed. Ironically, when I was researching heterography and homography just recently, I came across several sources that discussed research into the mechanisms of reading, with studies done on children and on dyslexics.

  The real problem here is that we have a article by a made-up title that spends all of its time debunking a popular myth about non-existent research, rather than an article by a good title that tells readers about the real scientific research that has actually been done on these particular workings of the human brain. An informative article, possibly several, on subjects such as word recognition, phonological mediation, the dual-route hypothesis, backward recognition masking, and the like, that report the actual cognitive science would be a far better resource for debunking the myth. (We are also lacking the orthographic autonomy hypothesis and other related cognitive neuropsychoogy subjects, although we do have the word superiority effect and the missing letter effect.) This is supposed to be an encyclopaedia that we are creating, after all.

  Of course, as demonstrated by heterography and homography, we don't need deletion to get from here to there. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 04:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge or rename (weak keep): probably not enough for its own article, and certainly not under its current name, but perhaps it could be linked or included as an example of an Internet meme, or, as other users have suggested, move the properly researched parts to a more appropriate place. IByte (talk) 17:11, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Foxy Loxy ^Pounce! 00:27, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep and rename Comment - I agree this is not encyclopedic, but it's funny and it is notable. Perhaps giving it a different name would help, as I'm sure people object to it less for being a meme and more on the grounds that the title is way too close to an existing medical condition. §FreeRangeFrog 00:38, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. "I agree this is not encyclopedic, but it's funny" is not a valid argument for retention. I've deleted the first paragraph of the article, as it was a copyvio of a published book. Deor (talk) 04:24, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I know. I just think it's cute. And it is notable. §FreeRangeFrog 05:20, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I've reverted Deor's paragraph deletion, as it appears the book lifted the text from the article, not the other way around. That doesn't change my opinion - this article still deserves deletion. RossPatterson (talk) 12:11, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep It shows something of interest, which belongs in any encyclopedia. This is clearly a real thing. If they had a proper agreed upon scientific name for this phenomenon, then of course it should be used, and the common slang redirected to it. Remember, wikipedia states the policies are just suggestions, you are to ignore them and use common sense when necessary. Dream Focus 15:34, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. We should not be legitimizing a neologism such as this. Even if the concept has some notability, this is not a well written article and needn't be kept for fear of losing anything valuable. Powers ^T 22:03, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dletee But I admit it is darn funny. Tractops (talk) 06:41, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak Keep - I agree the name is not ideal, but this does seem to be a notable phenomenon, which has been fairly widely circulated and referred to. It does seem like something we could have an article on; alternatively, it might be best if it were merged somewhere, into a more general article about visual perception. The name may be a neologism, but the phenomenon is real. Robofish (talk) 13:11, 17 February 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.