Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Agricultural society (2nd nomination)


 * 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   Merge, disambig. Create a disambig to Agrarian Society, plus "Agricultural Societies" like 4h, merge duplicate content (non-admin closure) ( talk→  Bwilkins / BMW   ←track ) 11:25, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Agricultural society
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Contested prod. "A society that uses plows and drafts animals in growing food". So, that would be every society in the world then? Will never be anything other than a pointless fork of Agriculture; oh, and the "References" are to Britannica and Encarta, respectively. I don't even think it's worth preserving as a redirect (but am happy to be overruled if anyone thinks it's necessary).. –  iride scent  23:53, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete As written, but I can't rule out that there might be some kind of article on this subject. I see industrial society as a see also. But there not much content in the present article, nothing to indicate notability, and it all seems very vague and even inaccurate. Maybe the creator can explain the plan? ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:20, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Redirect Agrarian society ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:47, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep, I created the article so I'd have a COI and my vote may not count, but that is not why I'm here. I created the article in the image after the industrial society article. Perhaps rather than doing a deletion, you could simply tag it to be expanded, or tag it as a stub. As for the references, I don't get what point you are trying to make. They are valid references as Encarta and Britannica both have articles on the subject.Smallman12q (talk) 00:32, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * A stub article needs to provide background and context; this provides neither. Deletion doesn't mean "we don't want an article on this subject", it means "there is no version in the article history which is a valid article". We're not a paper encyclopedia, but that doesn't mean we're a list of everything either. Regarding references, I think you're misunderstanding how Wikipedia referencing works. References aren't "a list of other sources which consider the topic notable", they're a list of reliable sources – by our definition – for the facts in the article. Neither Encarta nor Britannica are reliable sources, although Britannica articles (like Wikipedia) generally contain citations to their sources which are usually reliable. (Although they have more restrictions over who can edit, they work to the same basic principles as us.) –  iride scent  00:40, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit surprised by your comment in considering Britannica unreliable.Could you provide me a link where it says Britannica (and Encarta) are considered unreliable. Is world book also unreliable?Smallman12q (talk) 00:47, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a judgement call; the official policy is the ambiguously worded Tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources. Some tertiary sources may be more reliable than others, and within any given tertiary source, some articles may be more reliable than others. WP:Verifiability describes the criteria for assessing the reliability of sources. That in turn points to a great gobbet of wiki-gibberish, the pertinent point of which is As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is. Britannica.com Inc. (the online Britannica) and the online Encarta are user-generated and website-aggregation sites along the lines of Citizendium – the main difference between them and us is that they have flagged revisions turned on (which is why Britannica and Encarta articles have a "suggest edit" tab where we have "edit this page") – and no longer the academic-compiled works the print versions are. –  iride scent  01:00, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * While Britannica does accept online content, they still adhere to their fact-checking policies online as much as they do in their print version. There's no reason to assume they'd be any less vigilant about their reputation for accuracy. - Mgm|(talk) 10:49, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Out of curiosity, if I was to use the print version would it also be considered an aggregation of website and user content? What about the disc version, is it also considered tertiary?Smallman12q (talk) 01:28, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, they aren't. They in fact show that neither has an article on the subject.  But that's simply because you've got the name of the subject wrong.  Uncle G (talk) 00:43, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I find it quite amusing to see a nomination asserting on the one hand that the subject is unencyclopaedic and noting that the article cites two encyclopaedias on the other. &#9786; I think that the creator is unsuccessfully groping for the concept that is more usually called an agrarian society.  An agricultural, rather than agrarian society is usually a farmers' or growers' association of some kind, as are the ones linked-to in the "See also" section of this very article &mdash; indeed, as also is the Agricultural Society in Poland discussed in the Britannica article that this article's creator incorrectly thinks supports the article.  We don't need deletion order to solve this.  Just turn it into a disambiguation.  Clearly the creator of this article isn't going to be the last person to look up agrarian society by this name, and be so convinced of its correctness that xe starts an article.  &#9786;  And equally clearly, the Royal Agricultural Society, the Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales, the Royal Agricultural Society of Tasmania, and so forth are all agricultural societies.  Uncle G (talk) 00:43, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll agree with Uncle G that it should probably be a redirect to agrarian society.Smallman12q (talk) 01:28, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * In fact, scratch my post above – the "references" don't check out even on their own terms. The Britannica page is about a Polish trade union called "The Agricultural Society" and the Encarta article doesn't exist at all. Strong delete. No problem with turning it into a dab page per Uncle G, though. –  iride scent  00:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I have already created a disambiguation page Agricultural society (disambiguation).Smallman12q (talk) 00:50, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * suggestion. The concept seems valid and notable.  In fact crucial.  In the history and prehistory of civilization some societies are nomadic / hunter-gatherers.  Others practice subsistence agriculture.  Some trade.  I'll wager anything that this is treated somewhere on Wikipedia by a different name.  I'd start by looking at Types of societies and List of subsistence techniques.  It looks like a combination of pastoralism and draft animals.  Wikidemon (talk) 02:03, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure whether you read this entire Afd, but Uncle G mentioned agrarian society which is what I now believe agricultural society should be redirected to.Smallman12q (talk) 02:30, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Redirect to agrarian society per Child of Midnight Mandsford (talk) 13:42, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Either redirect to agrarian society per Child of Midnight, or make a disambiguation page that links to agrarian society and the several institutions that have "agricultural society" in their names. "Agricultural society" is a plausible enough name for "agrarian society" that many people looking for that will search for this.  "Agrarian society" is a slight stub, but it does a better job of defining what makes an agrarian society different from an industrial society. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:10, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. I added a proposed disambiguation text to the bottom of the page.  Part of that was borrowed from another existing page, Agricultural society (disambiguation), which would become redundant if this turns into a disambiguation page. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:22, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment Credit where credit is due, it was Uncle G and not I who realized the existing article agrarian society covers this material. A disambiguation page looks like the right solution. ChildofMidnight (talk) 20:42, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep and Redirect to agrarian society. It takes a lot of patience to be civil in this response, because the nomination is based on the totally ridiculous premise that there is no distinction between the concept of agricultural societies and society in general, or that there is no conceptual distinction between agriculture as a practice and agricultural societies. Read a history of agriculture (or any history of the human race) and you'll quickly discover that a lot of our history has not been in agricultural societies, but in hunter-gatherer ones. There are still quite a few hunter-gatherers today. Thus, to say that every society in the world is agricultural is both abject stupidity and ignorant of history. There is more than enough published, reliable material to make a single separate article on agricultural societies in contrast to agriculture as a practice. That said, the topic is functionally the same as that covered in agrarian society at present, despite agricultural society being a more accurate term. Steven Walling (talk) 06:17, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Disambig I too don't agree the reasoning for this nomination. I propose the article should be changed into a disambig page with a link to agrarian society. I also take issue with the statement that, "A society that uses plows and drafts animals in growing food. So, that would be every society in the world then?" I don't believe that it is a valid nomination rational.Smallman12q (talk) 23:58, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * A merge/redirect to agrarian society seems the most reasonable route to take. &mdash; LinguistAtLarge • Talk  08:22, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Redirect to agrarian society which is what I thought this article was about when I saw the title. -- Whpq (talk) 18:20, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Redirect to agrarian society per Steven Walling. Bastique demandez 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Redirect to agrarian society per Steven Walling -- phoebe / (talk to me) 23:30, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
 * How about the disambig page, should it remain a separate article then?Smallman12q (talk) 13:20, 21 February 2009 (UTC)


 * 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.