Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Archie (squid)


 * 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 to Giant squid. —Quarl (talk) 2007-01-02 02:09Z 

Archie (squid)

 * — (View AfD)

Totally non-notable and written as an advertisement for the Natural History Museum, London, an institution that hardly needs clumsy linkspam from Wikipedia. The subject of the article isn't an especially large specimen of a giant squid, nor a historically important one. It hasn't provided any unique scientific insight, and isn't the type specimen for a new species. The "Archie" name has the ring of something coined by the marketing department, and without a reference to its use by the national press is pointless. All except the first paragraph read like marketing-speak and add nothing to the value of the article. Will every stuffed bird or preserved fish deserve an article of its own on Wikipedia?

Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 04:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Strong Delete Does not deserve its own article. This might be included in the museam's article itself, but in its own article it just sounds like an advertisement.  It's blatantly POV too.  --Sbrools ( talk  .  contribs ) 05:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 *  Keep Merge Doesn't particularly read like advertising to me. I did a google search and found a number of articles referring to the specimin, including major news sources such as the BBC.  Apparently this particular specimin is notable for having been caught alive, as well as its general size and condition;  the organism itself is extremely rare.   See:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4756514.stm  Tarinth 06:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment from proposer. I know Wikipedia doesn't particularly respect "experts" but I happen to have been a cephalopod palaeontologist and I also know the NHM well, having done my PhD and post-doc there. I've explored the modern cephalopod collection at length and am reasonably familiar with the breadth and depth of the material preserved there. There is nothing the least unusual about this specimen (the NHM has several other giant and colossal squid specimens, and these specimens lack entries on Wikipedia. Even more ridiculous, there is already a photograph of a one other museum specimen of this species on the Giant squid page already, and it doesn't have its own page! Whilst not an expert on modern squids, my understanding is that giant squid are far from rare, and there are literally hundreds if not thousands of preserved bits of giant squid in museum collections around the world. Admittedly, many are unexciting fragments taken from beached carcasses or sperm whale stomachs, for example. But the uncommon preservation of this specimen doesn't make this specimen notable. If it does, there'd need to be entries for nice but not special cuneiform tablets or Egyptian mummies! Simply because a museum is proud of a specimen doesn't make it worthy of its own article. If the thing was featured as a photograph on the Architeuthis page along with some comments on its size and preservation, that would be one thing, and as an interesting addition to the Natural History Museum page under "things to see" that would make sense too. But simply giving one, non-unique, and non-scientifically revolutionary specimen its own page just strikes me as absurd. Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 06:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment Neale, I can understand your viewpoint, and I agree that the article comes off as a bit silly. Nevertheless, there's some precedent for giving common human names to famous museum specimens (Lucy (Australopithecus)) and scientific specimens (Dolly the Sheep).  Since news entities like the BBC have made this particular specimen well-known, it leads one to expect that a person might search for this. Tarinth 15:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Tarinth, I agree that some specimens are so special that they do have common names. I'd also agree that these specimens are so important and well-known that they deserve Wikipedia pages. I'd add to your list things like the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum and Stephenson's Rocket at the Science Museum. But this squid isn't even close to that level of importance. It's just one, nicely preserved but otherwise unremarkable, giant squid. Unlike Lucy, this squid hasn't redefined our understanding of an aspect of biology (as the article notes, because it's preserved intact, it hasn't yielded even basic information like whether it's a male or female!). It isn't the first giant squid or the largest, so it isn't notable in that way either. It's just a nice specimen; nothing more, nothing less. Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 16:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Here is my concern--I'll take your word for it that the specimen has little or no notability within the community of cephalopod biologists; but on the other hand, there seems to be notability within the popular-science-press. I have no expertise on the subject and no particular desire to keep it around (other than that I find cephalopods extremely interesting), but what I'm attempting to do is see whether it meets Wikipedia's minimum standards.  WP's standards for inclusion of an article on a named museum specimen is considerably lower than something of profound historical value such as Rosetta Stone, or even a more current example like Dolly the Sheep.  I think this is an example of an article which falls into the category of "we probably don't really need it, but it meets the minimum anyway."  It does seem to satisfy the minimal inclusion criteria (mentions of it in several non-trivial media sources).  As a comparison, imagine if the BBC did a write-up on a new musical band; that band would easily meet notability on that basis alone, and could claim a page on Wikipedia.  Because WP is not a print encyclopedia, it can be far more liberal.  A compromise worthy of consideration may be to include a sentence on Archie within the giant squid article, and then change this to a Redirect.  Thoughts? Tarinth 22:06, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Hello Tarinth! I have no argument at all with having "Archie" mentioned in the Giant Squid article. The difficulties involved in photographing, capturing, and displaying these animals are very interesting. There's an excellent book partly on this topic by Richard Ellis, The Search for the Giant Squid, that has chapters on the 'evolution' of model giant squids in museums. But the place for such discussion would be in the Giant Squid article, where there could be a proper discussion of how the first specimens were found and displayed. The Museum itself has a very nice 3D model in the marine invertebrates gallery that is one of my favourite things there. It really gives you a good idea of how big these things are! Anyway, there could be explanations of why they're not easy to find (live in deep water), recover whole (not robust, rather gloopy ammoniacal tissues), or put on display (not hard parts and no easy to 'stuff' like bird or mammal). In such a context, figuring "Archie" along with an outline of the good luck that led to its capture together with discriptions of how it is preserved and displayed would be perfectly logical. My problem is that given that this squid is otherwise completely non-notable, it justifies any museum or historical society creating a page for any specimen in their collections. While they're free to do so on their own web pages as advertisements or science communication, on Wikipedia there needs to be at least some level of discrimination, surely? Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 00:08, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Changed my vote to Merge, but I'd like to see the giant squid article capture the information Neale suggested, or we'll be back here in a month after someone makes the article again because it wasn't included elsewhere (and might be shy about editing a good article like giant squid).
 * Comment I am against a merge, I think it should stay with its own article. At first glance everything Neale says about Archie's non-notability as a specimen seems to make sense and he certainly talks like an expert.. but the press coverage strongly suggests otherwise. I also got slightly suspicious when Neale used Archies intact state to begin a line of argument that ended with Archie being less valuable to science.. ultimately they could always open him up, and anyway in 20 years time there will likely be non-invasive methods of imaging Archie's insides. A disingenuous argument, I think. Zargulon 20:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Zargulon, press coverage is a debateable standard for the value of something being included in Wikipedia. There are presumably millions of events around the world that don't get included in the Encyclopaedia Britannica or in Wikipedia. Should there be an entry for every amusing dog or every beached whale? As for the "intact condition" of the specimen, my argument is basically this: in science, the value of something comes from the information it provides. This specimen has not yet provided anything exceptional, and since we don't even know the sex of the specimen, it has actually provided less information than the average NHM specimen that is dissected and studied more closely. Note that I'm not saying the article contains nothing of value, but I do think that it could be used more productively as material for the Giant Squid article where it can be used to illustrate the issues surrounding the exhibition of giant squids in museums. Instead of focusing on this specimen and how wonderful the NHM is (which I don't disagree with) why not explain the problems with finding specimens and why specimens such as "Archie" are so rare and thus newsworthy. Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 21:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Neale, the key word which you are glossing over is yet. Your argument would treat a scientific artifact of no value the same as one so valuable that people have to prepare very carefully to analyse it. Then you say "instead of A why not B?" but there is plenty of room in Wikipedia for both A and B. Provided there is no misleading glorification of Archie, I don't see how you can begrudge a perfectly coherent and informative article. Zargulon 21:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Zargulon, there are lots of objects in museums and elsewhere that may yet yield useful information. I dare-say there are still interesting fossil hominids in the ground that are yet to be discovered, and perhaps there are letters by Dickens and sketches by Picasso lying around in attics that will tell us more about them. But they don't deserve an encyclopaedia entry until that time. I am not an expert on giant squid, but I know the NHM collections (at least during the 1990s) somewhat, and know for a fact they have lots of more material of this species as well as other large squids. The single thing that makes this specimen unusual is that it is in good condition. But it isn't unique in this regard. By all means create a section on the Giant Squid article about specimens in museums, but there's no point having an entry on just one specimen, especially when a similarly well preserved specimen in the Melbourne Aquarium is featured on the Giant Squid page! Should that specimen have a Wikipedia entry as well? Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 22:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know anything about the Melbourne squid.. I'm not sure I see your point. Something can be notable but not unusual. Zargulon 01:45, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Weak keep. With respect to the resident expert here, the article does assert some notable things about this squid: That it was captured alive, and that it's the best preserved whole specimen in existence. Giant squids may be numerous, but my understanding is they are nevertheless rarely seen whole even when dead, let alone alive. I would be happy if the salient facts about this squid were merged into the giant squid article or somewhere else appropriate. I don't mind seeing the article deleted as long as the relevant content still exists somewhere. As long as the content is to be found in this article, it should stay, but if it's merged somewhere else, it should be deleted. =Axlq 06:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Merge the relevant information into giant squid. That seems best. Charlie 08:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep.. there should also be reference to the media coverage. Zargulon 10:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. With due respect, I don't think a singular museum exhibit is notable on its own unless it is unique. Do the dinosaur skeletons in the Natural History Museum get their own entries? The Science Museum has lots of unusual machines, but I don't think any of them get their own entries. Also, I cannot see how anyone is going to look for information on this subject under the name of "Archie". Leave that to "Have I Got News For You". Sam Blacketer 15:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. per nom.  Madman 23:02, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Merge into Giant squid. CyberAnth 01:19, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per Neale Monks' second comment. CRGreathouse (t | c) 10:19, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Redirect The relevant material is already at Giant squid with better sourcing. I see multiple publications about a single day's news event, and thus don't believe that the primary notability criteria is truly met.  GRBerry 22:09, 29 December 2006 (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.