Talk:Marketing mix

User MrOllie has recently removed my contributions about the computational complexity of marketing mix arguing citation spam. I would like to ask a volunteer to review the relevance to this article of that computational difficulty section existing before it was reverted by MrOllie at 22:30, 20 February 2024 (UTC). EXPTIME-complete (talk) 00:03, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm still new to more involved editing, but here is my review of this section's relevance.

Respectfully, I would agree with @MrOllie's choice to remove this section, albeit for different reasons, namely a COI based on your username @EXPTIME-complete and a referenced article of the same name EXPTIME-complete.

My reasons for agreeing with this deletion are that this added section appears too different and specific from the rest of the article's content, relying on heavy computer science and optimization knowledge. This contrasts the rather business, marketing, and advertising focus of the rest of the article on what marketing mix is.

I would also comment that the proportion of text to number of references seems to rely too much on a single reference. There does appear to be some other references regarding optimizing marketing mix here.

My overall suggestions and compromise for this are either two options:

1. keep status quo of the removed section OR
2. keep the section heading, but significantly reduce the section's text make the section text less technical WP:MTAU

I would also suggest creating a separate page on Marketing mix optimization with opportunities to expand on that single reference.

I'd welcome more opinions and suggestions before making any actions or changes.

Erictleung (talk) 18:24, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

We definitely should not be creating a spinoff article without much better sourcing. And to be clear, an editor with a conflict of interest such as EXPTIME-complete is just about the last person who should do something like that. MrOllie (talk) 18:26, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick and second opinion on the matter. And agreed on the conditional that the spinoff article not be made unless more and better sourcing is done first. Erictleung (talk) 18:35, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

@Erictleung Thank you for judging this case. The paper referenced in the proposed text has more citations than any other paper in the mentioned Google Scholar query, and seems to be the only one identifying the computational complexity of the problem itself (i.e. not the complexity of any specific algorithm for the problem) in that query or any other, so I think this justifies its presence in a section dealing with marketing mix optimization. I'd like to ask permission to write an alternative, shorter version including also some brief comments about at least another two or three papers on this topic written by unrelated authors. I'd post the potential text here in this conversation, and wait for your opinion as to whether I could include it in this entry.

(By the way, I don't understand why the coincidence of my nick with a computational complexity class is relevant. I chose it long ago because I'm an enthusiast of computational complexity, on which EXPTIME-completeness is a very important concept invented 50 years ago ---it's kind of the "simplest" class of decidable problems which cannot be solved in polynomial time. I have never written anything on the EXPTIME-complete entry, I don't know any of the contributors of that entry, and no paper from the same institution as the one referenced in the proposed text is mentioned there. It's like liking biology and calling yourself DNA or Cell or something.) EXPTIME-complete (talk) 19:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I have written a new version of the text, please tell me if if is acceptable.

Let me insist that I have not invented the 50-year old concept of EXPTIME-completeness (I wish I had!), but if the part of the last sentence mentioning it were a problem, then it could be removed.EXPTIME-complete (talk) 01:31, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts to include this topic on marketing mix. The rewrite is much better, but I still feel it contains too much jargon, without context, that is only talked about in this section of the article. Plus, the last sentence appears to be a run-on sentence.

Additionally, as @MrOllie has stated, we should be "citing other reliable secondary sources such as review articles that were written by other researchers in your field and that are already highly cited in the literature". These references, although are relevant to the section topic, do appear to be primary sources, each proposing a new solution to the problem of marketing mix optimization. Are there any review article, short paper, or related that would fit this description?

Also, my understanding of why you were marked for a COI violation because of your username was incorrect. It was more than you were repeatedly citing the same authors, like Ismael Rodríguez, across multiple pages. I believe doing so in so little time across subjects is suspicious in the eyes of editors. As similar situation has occurred to me as well, I empathize with your frustration.

In sum, I would like to see some secondary sources added to your rewrite describing this problem for this section to be included. @MrOllie may have other suggestions for you as well. Cheers. Erictleung (talk) 15:39, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Yes, I also think that's what @MrOllie asked for, so I'll look for bibliography on marketing mix algorithms coming from secondary sources. I don't know if any survey on this particular topic has ever been written ---but if there isn't any, then I guess nothing about this topic can be written in Wikipedia about it until there is one. Nothing to complain about if this is the standard for all topics, I guess. EXPTIME-complete (talk) 23:42, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

This is the new version I'm proposing: