Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hebdo-


 * 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 keep. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:47, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Hebdo-

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No reliable sources indicate that this ever even existed. Online conversion websites are notorious for accumulating fluff. The idea of the hebdometre as the distance from the pole to the equator is appealing, and the etymology is plausible, but it is beyond implausible that the French would have used American spelling; there is zero evidence of the existence of "hebdometre", and only Wikicopies for "hebdometer". Imaginatorium (talk) 07:46, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. — Godsy (TALK CONT ) 08:20, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I have found evidence for the name "hebdometre" (strictly, hebdomètre, in French): Journal télégraphique 1883/04/25 (A15,VOL7,N4) Gallica refers to "Monsieur Clausius" (Clausius?) as proposing the name "hebdomètre" for 1/4 of a meridian. So at least there is evidence for "Hebdometre", but still none for the prefix hebdo-. I suggest that plausibly the name "hebdomètre" could be mentioned (somewhere??) as a non-adopted unit. Imaginatorium (talk) 09:32, 26 August 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, I guess I don't see what your actual argument is here. I mean, you make an unsubstantiated claim that "Online conversion websites are notorious for accumulating fluff" (notorious to whom?) and use that bald assertion as the basis for completely ignoring the citations on the article, and that still leaves unanswered why you believe this constitutes "fluff" therein. The fact that you've found some productive use of it in an historical source seems to directly contradict your assertion that it's merely "fluff" and simply begs the question of what definition you are using for the term "fluff" other than something you don't happen to like. Given the importance of the development of the metric system within scientific history, aren't abandoned units and prefixes of at least historic notability? VanIsaacWScont 02:57, 28 August 2016 (UTC)


 * My argument is that "No reliable sources indicate that this ever even existed." Do you have a reliable source which suggests that it did? Among the community of people who have looked at the quality level of the uncounted number of "online conversion sites", the opinion is not that they are reliable sources, because they typically copy anything from anywhere. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?
 * The point is that there is at least one historical quote suggesting that at least one significant person (Clausius) mentioned the word "hebdomètre" at least in a personal communication to at least one other significant person (the author of the Journal télégraphique article) as a name for the distance from pole to equator. This is obviously made by combining the Graeco-French prefix hebdo- with the word mètre, but is not evidence that anyone ever suggested hebdo- as a productive metric prefix to be attached to "gramme", "litre", or whatever. I think therefore that a mention of hebdomètre in an article about the origin of the metric system would be totally justified, because of course I agree with your last sentence. But the article at present is a total distortion. Imaginatorium (talk) 05:43, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * In other words, your argument is that the article should be merged somewhere. So why not withdraw the deletion request, figure out which article you think would be the best repository of the content, and start a proper merge discussion? VanIsaacWScont 18:28, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No, because there is no content in this article of value. None of the three sentences is actually true as a logical proposition; at least the tense or mood of the verb would have to be changed. And there is no credible evidence for the existence of the supposed topic of the article -- the independent prefix 'hebdo' as opposed to its proposed (but not adopted) use in 'hebdometre' in the original definition of the metre -- currently sourced to two websites. I can give you a PPB ("proper printed book", a pejorative expression intended to point out the silliness of assuming that anything in print must be true or even meaningful) reference, but it is one which has been shown to be full of infelicities, and is almost certainly the sourced scraped by the websites. Do I understand that you think this is a spiffing good article? If so I will withdraw whatever. It is simply not worth wasting more than a certain amount of time on nonsense. Imaginatorium (talk) 19:11, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is a work in progress. It is normal for articles to have weaknesses at first, but they continue to develop and typically increase coverage, depth and general quality over time. If you see shortcomings, you should fix them rather than delete the article. Deleting articles because they have weaknesses is counter-productive.
 * Despite your claims that there were no reliable sources, I just added a bunch of sources, including several which are high quality reliable sources per WP:RS. Two of them are historical sources documenting the usage of the prefix in the 1880s and 1890s among scientists. From this alone it should be obvious that many more sources must exist, they just need to be found. The majority of historical sources do not show up in search engines, so not having many Google hits does not mean anything for historical topics such as this one.
 * --Matthiaspaul (talk) 11:53, 30 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Merge to Metric prefix. KATMAKROFAN (talk) 00:23, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. I have expanded and copy-edited the article somewhat, rewording some potentially misleading statements and putting the prefix in its historic context. I have also added a bunch of sources I was able to find in short time, including some high quality WP:RS. I am not aware of any untrue statements in the article. Two historical sources clearly document the international usage of the prefix in the meaning of 10^7 in the 1880s and 1890s among scientists. This already warrants an article about it, and it's clear that more sources must exist. As usual with historical contents, most of it does not show up in Google - but Wikipedia is not a collection of today's mainstream knowledge, but aims to document and put into context the knowledge of the world, past and present. So, for historical topics, you typically have to dig deeper and search for sources in libraries and museums. This, however, may take time (sometimes years) and effort, so it would be unwise to delete an article with possibilities just because it is still developing. I for one would definitely like to learn more about the history of the prefix, much more than what could be put into another article only mentioning the prefix. In fact, I think, (after my recent edits) the article already has more info than what could be put into f.e. the metric prefix article without creating undue weight there, so it seems like a good idea to keep the info in a separate article with a focus on this particular prefix only.
 * Actually, we have dedicated articles about all metric prefixes, including the obsolete ones, including some which were used only in specific contexts, and they all started as weak stubs, most of them have been through deletion discussions with similar (weak) arguments as given above, but as soon as someone really started to dig a bit deeper and dedicate some time, enough interesting contents and sources could be unshelved to warrant separate articles, and over time the articles grew to document sometimes long forgotten but still interesting and important pieces of history. There is no reason to assume why this should not happen with the hebdo prefix as well.
 * I also think having one main "broad concept" article (metric prefix) surrounded by separate articles for the individual prefixes discussing their specific history and containing mostly the prefix-related details is the best-possible organization structure for this contents.
 * Therefore: keep.
 * --Matthiaspaul (talk) 11:53, 30 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment: Apologies! Since there is clearly no support for deletion, I tried to close this as keep, but User:Godsy pointed out on my talk page that this was technically wrong. I would like to suggest that this "prefix" (for which there is no evidence of independent existence) be moved: either merged into the metric units page, or to a separate article Hebdometre. Imaginatorium (talk) 09:30, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * There are many possible outcomes other than deletion for an AfD. Might as well give a discussion that already exists and has garnered attention a chance to play out, instead of starting a discussion elsewhere. — Godsy (TALK CONT ) 10:58, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   07:12, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep It seems that the nomination has been withdrawn. Andrew D. (talk) 13:27, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Followup: following the comments above, and my bodged attempt to withdraw this, I would like to propose that this should either be Moved to 'hebdomètre', or Merged into "Metric prefix". Personally I cannot see that there is enough to say about the hebdomètre to make a whole article: the name was proposed during the 19th century, so there should be quotes, and perhaps some discussion of the fate of this name. However, there is also a very strong case to me made that there is no "metric prefix" as such here at all: there is no evidence 'hebdo' was ever attached to any other unit as a general 107 multiplier at all. So given the general preference for the largest possible number of articles, I will put my !vote (if I have one, WP:RULES being beyond me) behind a move to hebdometre, with or without the accent. Since this is 19th century, I can't see any reason to use American spelling. Imaginatorium (talk) 14:04, 3 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, if you don't think it is a "metric prefix", you shouldn't suggest to merge it into the "metric prefix" article... ;-) But more seriously, hebdo is (or was), of course, a metric prefix. The well documented fact that it was used in conjunction with metre, proves both, that it is a prefix and that it is metric as well. We don't know, if it was used with other quantities (quite possibly not), but this would not invalidate the fact that it was a metric prefix. You are, apparrently, implying, that a prefix must be useable with all quantities to be a prefix - this assumption is true for SI prefixes, but it is not for metric prefixes in general. Hebdo is no SI prefix. For as long as we don't state otherwise in the hebdo- article (and we do not), everything is fine in this regard.
 * We have separate articles for all metric prefixes, so naming this single one hebdometre rather than hebdo- would unnecessarily create an inconsistency and unsymmetry in the organization of the information for no apparent benefit over the already existing and rather clear structure. That's why I think simply keeping it as it is (and further expanding the article) is a better solution.
 * --Matthiaspaul (talk) 11:11, 4 September 2016 (UTC)


 * merge Metric prefix, perhaps create separate subsection? Fruitmince (talk) 20:37, 11 September 2016 (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.