Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Capybara Walking


 * 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 redirect to Animal Locomotion: An Electro-photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements. Relevant content can be merged from the page history (non-admin closure) Qwaiiplayer (talk) 13:56, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Capybara Walking

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

I neither wish this gets deleted, nor that it doesn't; just want to run it by the community. The current sources are non-RS (IMDb and a YouTube clip), hence more and better would be needed to consolidate notability. My question is, should this have a standalone article in the first place, even if better sources could be found? According to this Wellcome Collection catalogue entry it's one of a set of 781 (!) collotypes from Muybridge's 1887 Animal locomotion publication, and it doesn't seem sensible to me to have an article on each individual one; the only one I've found so far is The Horse in Motion, others are covered in the main article on Eadweard Muybridge. In other words, essentially a question of WP:PAGEDECIDE, I guess. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 13:49, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. DoubleGrazing (talk) 13:49, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Photography-related deletion discussions. DoubleGrazing (talk) 13:49, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. DoubleGrazing (talk) 13:49, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment - In addition to it being in the Wellcome Collection, London, it is in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, the University of Southern California, the Eadweard Muybridge archives of the University of Pennsylvania . Netherzone (talk) 14:31, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Arts and Visual arts. Netherzone (talk) 14:31, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Eadweard Muybridge Animal Locomotion: An Electro-photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements. It's unfortunate that we don't have an article on Animal locomotion: An electro-photographic investigation of consecutive phases of animal movements . This is just one of its more than 700 plates. The article itself is problematic. It's not "one of the first films ever produced". It's not 30 seconds long. In fact, the cited sources say very little about this individual plate. To my knowledge, no significant coverage of the Capybara plate exists. Vexations (talk) 16:30, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment - Too unfamiliar with potential sourcing to make an informed !vote, but I would think for a film - any film - for it to be notable we need something beyond the fact that it exists, and that is all we get from archive and library catalog entries and IMDB (and of course YouTube adds nothing). Has anyone writing about the history of film or the biology of the capybara or mammalian locomotion made mention of this film in a significant way? Without that it is hard to even justify mentioning it on any page, let alone having a page all its own. Agricolae (talk) 16:49, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment I note that has added a few sources, and that is great; however, even if the notability criteria are eventually met, it would still be useful to reach some consensus on whether this article should exist, in addition to could. --DoubleGrazing (talk) 16:58, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Not really a separable (or answerable) question. If it has the sourcing to satisfy WP:GNG, then there is no particular reason it shouldn't have a separate page, ala The Horse in Motion, except WP:PAGEDECIDE, but that guideline depends in each individual instance on what the GNG-satisfying page looks like compared to how the same content might be integrated into another specific page. As such, 'should' can't even be addressed until 'could' is resolved so we know what an acceptable page looks like and how that specific content may look integrated elsewhere. Agricolae (talk) 17:32, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * @Agricolae: where does it say that 'could' automatically and inevitably must lead to 'should'? Genuine question, I wasn't aware of that policy. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 17:59, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I never said it did. The established benchmark for an independent page is NOTABILITY (GNG, as demonstrated by sourcing - i.e. 'could'). I can think of two guidelines whereby a topic qualifying might be deemed better addressed without a stand-alone page ('should'). One is PAGEDECIDE, basically just 'sometimes it works better to cover two closely-related things together', and as I said, that is addressed on a case-by-case basis (and pretty much requires 'could' to already be satisfied or we won't know what we are talking about merging versus keeping separate, what proportion would be unique and what must be duplicated to have separate pages). The other, though not expressed as such, is really just a specific case of the phenomenon PAGEDECIDE covers, OVEEVENT, where if someone's entire notability is inextricably linked to a single event, then they should be addressed on the page covering that event rather than separately (unless it would make the parent page overlong), but that doesn't apply here. Other than these, the only basis for 'should' that comes to mind is the entirely subjective and invalid IDONTLIKEIT/ILIKEIT. Agricolae (talk) 19:04, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * WRT to "should": The larger set that this image is a part of is very notable, and lots of very high quality sources exist. We should have an article on Animal locomotion : An electro-photographic investigation of consecutive phases of animal movements, but not on an individual plate contained in it. Since, unfortunately, no such article exists yet, anything from that Capybara Walking article that is salvageable, which is almost nothing, can be merged into the article on Eadweard Muybridge or into The Horse in Motion. Vexations (talk) 20:19, 24 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep per added sources, as probably the first film about a rodent (Walt Disney, eat your heart out), and a member of a notable series of pioneering films which are not as yet adequately covered on Wikipedia. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:56, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * You know it's not a film, right? Vexations (talk) 11:01, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Neither is The Horse in Motion but the same pioneering technique which later becomes a film when, well, filmed. Worth keeping as another example. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:40, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The article The Horse in Motion correctly says that it is "is a series of cabinet cards" and does not claim it as the "the first film about" anything. The argument that it should be kept as "the first of " something doesn't work if it isn't that at all. Vexations (talk) 12:29, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * As a fanboy of historic firsts, whatever Capybara Walking is it predates most other significant rodent media by decades. Muybridge's series is important, and since there is no central article, keeping another example doesn't seem far-fetched or undue. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:40, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * But we can't base conclusions about significance on a single editor's personal say-so. We need a source  that makes the observation. As to your second argument, the better way to address not having a central article about this collection is to have a central article about the collection. Agricolae (talk) 03:53, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * ...yes, but until Wikipedia has one this page and Horse present the topic. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:05, 26 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Eadweard Muybridge  Edit in light of subsequent creation: Animal Locomotion. The sources added, several archive/library catalog entries, do not indicate WP:NOTABILITY - the bar is higher than simply proving something exists, which is all these do. Neither IMDB nor YouTube are WP:RS so they carry no weight whatsoever. That leaves the article with a grand total of zero instances of reliable sources providing significant coverage, a total fail of WP:GNG. (And there is no guideline that states that 'probably the first film about foo can be presumed to be notable', even if we had a reliable source saying this is what this is, which we don't. Agricolae (talk) 11:34, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Agricolae (talk) 18:16, 25 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Redirect Not a single source is actually coverage about this clip in particular. It's one of over 700 which merely exist, with no sources specifically describing the importance of the capybara clip, just its catalog entry. Reywas92Talk 19:07, 25 February 2022 (UTC)


 * (weak) Redirect to Eadweard Muybridge. BTW there is an excellent article on Muybridge's The Horse in Motion. Comparing The Horse in Motion with Capybara Walking makes me lean towards redirect. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 01:52, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment - I have begun an article on Animal Locomotion: An Electro-photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements which could also serve as a possible alternate redirect (or merge) target. It seemed like we needed an article on this important historical photographic series. It can be improved over time, as there are many sources out there. Netherzone (talk) 15:25, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Animal Locomotion: An Electro-photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements, central article on the animal motion studies collection by Muybridge. Netherzone (talk) 17:32, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment The newly created article on Animal Locomotion is a brilliant solution IMO. I see that it includes a link to Capybara Walking, so are we leaning towards keep? WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 17:57, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * No implication about this discussion should be read into the new page linking to a target that currently exists. We generally don't adjust pages to reflect how we predict a discussion is going to turn out, we reflect the current situation, however short-lived that may be. Agricolae (talk) 19:22, 26 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Animal Locomotion: An Electro-photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements per Netherzone's suggestion and WP:HEY-adjacent work. 68.189.242.116 (talk) 18:41, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Animal Locomotion: An Electro-photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements. I could see this as a section there, and possibly a short section on The Horse in Motion that gives the separate article as a main treatment. This would then serve as a framework for any other studies by Muybridge or others using this technique. Lamona (talk) 18:45, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Merge with Animal Locomotion: An Electro-photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements: No need for an individual page. Can be nicely presented on combined page. Gusfriend (talk) 06:56, 3 March 2022 (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.