Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Encyclopedia article (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 to encyclopedia.  MBisanz  talk 22:34, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

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

Article was nommed for deletion before, but speedily kept because the tag was placed by a banned user. Nominating again, as article hasn't improved and even redirecting isn't going to be much help (see WP:NOTDIC). Expanding a dictionary definition doesn't make an article. Mostly unsourced OR.  Graymornings (talk) 07:17, 21 December 2008 (UTC) 
 * Note that the 'hasn't improved' is essentially bad-faith, since it's literally a couple of days since the last call for delete.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:27, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Please don't accuse me of acting in bad faith. I was pointing out that the article still meets the same criteria for deletion as it did when it was first nominated.  Graymornings (talk) 21:31, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, there you go again. Isn't the result of the review supposed to decide that? And for that matter the first review was a speedy keep(!)- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:20, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * If it's a dictionary article, can you give me a dictionary that defines it? I'm doubting that there is one.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 01:22, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete: per nom. -- Oliver Twisted  (Talk)  07:20, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It's only a stub. The question is whether the topic is notable or not. I think if you consider this not to be notable, then other topics such as article (publishing) would also need to be deleted. Note that a lack of references is not nearly sufficient to delete something, you have to look at where, in the long run the article would end up.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:07, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete But not per nom. The problem here is that this is really a how-to on how to write one. The information on encyclopedia articles should be given in encyclopedia.Redddogg (talk) 07:37, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not a how-to, because it only describes an encyclopedia article not the writing of. A how-to would describe the actual mechanics of how to pick a good topic and give guidelines of what is good to write and so forth. While you can sometimes do something from a description of something, there's a big difference between a how-to and a description.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:07, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That's really the problem here - the info's already under Encyclopedia.  Graymornings (talk) 07:39, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Where? It doesn't mention articles at all. There's a difference between an entry in something and the intentions and overall shape of something. That section describes the volume. This nom is a bit like trying to delete counties because there's an article on country- they're just different things entirely.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 16:29, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge to encyclopedia. There is information here that isn't already in that article, e.g. the use of objective style, coverage of debates rather than entering into argument.  It's not much, but it is worth covering there, I feel. JulesH (talk) 10:28, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep merging with Encyclopedia would be acceptable, but Encyclopedia is already over the 30k limit. There's also things here that are much clearer. The article is short on sources, but it seems to me that, as with all the other articles such as essay etc. etc. it has independent notability.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:59, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Redirect. encyclopedia already covers the topic adequately. - Mgm|(talk) 16:05, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Careful here, contrary to what you would reasonably expect without (carefully) reading that article; an encyclopedia article is never, ever defined or described anywhere in Encyclopedia, it's much more circumoluctory, it mentions it, but that's all. And it's completely unclear to me that Encyclopedia should define it in any way precisely. And note that definition and description of something is what a specific article does. Given that, a redirect seems to be a very reasonable call here, but incorrect.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 16:23, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete per the nominator do not merge or collect $200. JBsupreme (talk) 16:48, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. I can see Wolfkeeper is keen to keep it, but quite frankly this is pretty much a nothing of an article. An encyclopedia article is not notable or interesting. It is encyclopedias that have notability. This is a bit like having an article for "rung" independently of "ladder" that says a rung is something that makes up a ladder. Unusual? Quite  TalkQu  22:26, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, in practice, we nearly always do have articles on components of things. I can't imagine that rung would ever be needed, because a rung is quite a simple thing, much more so than what an encyclopedia article is, but we have entries like Headword which seem to be far more obscure than encyclopedia articles, but presumably would survive AFD.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:56, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I mean, isn't this AFD and every other one a good example of how hard it is to truly define what an encyclopedia article is? But they clearly exist, and we spend hours arguing over them here. And the argument is that they're not notable or interesting in and of themselves???- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 23:07, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm going to stand behind Unusual? Quite  on this one. In my opinion, the purpose of Wikipedia is to provide information to users based on a community consensus of what is notable, and useful. I don't see the point in creating pages which essentially state, "this is my personal opinion of what an encyclopedia page should contain." Additionally, the source for this article is not sufficient to provide a world view, since it is a submission guideline to a US-Latin American Relations reference book, which doesn't appear to even be completed: ...The Encyclopedia is planned as a two-volume work containing                  approximately 800 entries. Entries will be organized alphabetically                  by headword for general ease of access, and there will be cross-references                  to other entries of interest on the same subject (see section                  5). Since this is a submission guideline for one particular reference tool, rather than even remotely being a general standard, at the very least, this article should be withdrawn by the author and sourced properly. -- Oliver  Twisted  (Talk)  02:08, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That's not the point of the article. The point of the article is to acrete information on this particular topic. For example, I just went looking for hard sources on this topic, and I found and . And yeah, I know, they're a blog. But they make points that I haven't seen anybody else except me make about encyclopedia articles, (specifically that encyclopedia articles don't have a thesis or argument) and they seem to have come from an encyclopedia publisher, who would be notable if we could get a direct quote. That's what this article is for, it's to collect the hard-to-find information on this topic. You're supposed to take an eventualistic attitude in AFDs, but I feel everyone is assuming that these kinds of sources cannot be found. That's just wrong; your arguments for deletion are entirely on the current state of the article. That's not right. I'm certain that there are dead tree sources on this that we haven't found yet that would make the article.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 02:21, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I mean, if the wikipedia were ever complete, are you saying that there would be no article on this topic? It boggles my mind that that would be so. That's the only justification for really deleting an article like this one.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 02:21, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Circular logic. You don't write an article and then look for sources to back it up. You write an article based on reliable sources.-- Oliver Twisted  (Talk)  02:23, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That's not very eventualist. We don't delete articles because they are hard to source. From the AFD process: "When nominating an article for deletion due to sourcing concerns, a good-faith attempt should be made to confirm that such sources aren't likely to exist.", I've given what I believe to be reasonable evidence that they are likely to.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 02:39, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * To shake things up, let me start by agreeing with you. You are correct that blog entries are not reliable. Also, from the article you referenced: The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation.[1] The source cited must clearly support the information as it is presented in the article.[2] The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question. Editors should cite sources fully, providing as much publication information as possible, including page numbers when citing books. If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.-- Oliver Twisted  (Talk)  02:57, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I quoted from AFD, you're quoting from verifiability. And we do actually have a source, and I believe it meets the standards of verifiability. The article could really do with more than one source, but nevertheless the article cannot be characterised as unsourced.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 03:31, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * No proof that the source has been published. Non existent sources are by definition unreliable. -- Oliver Twisted  (Talk)  03:34, 22 December 2008 (UTC) added Okay, I've been way too flippant with you, and I apologize. Let me try to restate my point. The source which the article is based upon is not notable, reliable, or verifiable because it is actually an online submission guideline to a very specific reference tool, mostly unrelated to the article, which seems to not have been published yet. Without this as a reference, the article is unsourced, unverifiable, and non notable. I'm going to stop posting to this conversation, and allow other editors to make contributions. I don't believe this argument serves any further constructive purpose. Best wishes, and I hope we kept this as an intellectual debate. No hard feelings? Feel free to continue this on my talk page. -- Oliver  Twisted  (Talk)  03:41, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I honestly believe that this is actually an important article that is difficult to reference, but even if it had no references that isn't grounds for deletion anyway. People above have stated that they learnt from reading the article things that are not in the Encyclopedia article. The material that is here at this article is unlikely to be included in the Encyclopedia article which is about general features of encyclopedias. I'm quite frankly amazed at the nature and level of the arguments being made here, and I do not believe them to be inline with any policies related to the AFD process.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 23:54, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You have policy exactly backwards. Your subjective judgement of importance has no basis in policy whatsoever, and indeed such subjective judgements have been repeatedly and resoundingly rejected as policy proposals.  Whereas the arguments that there are no reliable sources and so a subject cannot be written about are firmly rooted in Deletion policy. Uncle G (talk) 11:23, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete and/orRedirect to Encyclopedia. I don't need to restate what I said in the original nomination, (which actually was improperly closed, as if a nomination was made by a banned user, but has been elaborated on by normal users, nominations should stay open per policy).  &eta;oian   &Dagger;orever &eta;ew &Dagger;rontiers  06:46, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It wasn't just improperly opened, it was improperly run, there were no tags on the article page. Unless you happened to stumble across it on the AFD page then you would never have known it was happening.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 23:54, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't know if you're referring to this nomination or the first one, but today someone accidentally removed the AfD template from the article - I restored it, though.  Graymornings (talk) 02:24, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, –Juliancolton Happy Holidays 02:12, 26 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Restore it to its original state which was as a redirect to encyclopedia. Zuiver jo (talk) 10:23, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to encyclopedia because the topic does not merit its own separate article. Gandalf61 (talk) 17:41, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
 * This isn't a vote...- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 23:14, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I do know that. I assume you are trying to remind me that I should include a reason in my !vote, so I have added one now. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:17, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * delete Article seems to exist because someone wanted to start an article. All of this is already in encyclopedia, and no-one is going to put "encyclopedia article" in the search bar, they'd just type encyclopedia itself. Sticky Parkin 00:10, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You'd think that this material would be already covered, but that doesn't seem to be the case in fact. Note that people don't have to type in a name to reach an article, the article is linked from several other articles.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 01:03, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The reason that it isn't covered is that no reliable sources document this subject. And the reason for that is that the fixed, external, definition of an encyclopaedia article that you assume exists actually does not.  Most of what you've written about encyclopaedia articles isn't actually true.  It's only true for Wikipedia articles. Uncle G (talk) 11:23, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * So, it is true, since at least one major encyclopedia uses it in this particular way. And all you're really saying, I think, is that this article needs to grow to describe the other things and styles of encyclopedia articles that there are; they are all within the scope of the article; and I would agree with that.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:42, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm still certain that in some print source somewhere or other there will be reliable sources that cover this topic; and I challenge anyone to deny this point. The trouble is encyclopedias predate the internet, and nobody has recently thought it that important to write about it precisely and put it online.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:47, 29 December 2008 (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.