Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Heretic's fork


 * 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 delete. This is a close call, and in other circumstances I would have closed it as no consensus. However, we also have to consider WP:FRINGE, which directs us to require stronger sourcing on topics that deviate from the scholarly mainstream. Specifically, if an idea is widespread but questionable, we need out-of-bubble, critical sources to conform with WP:NPOV. With that in mind, I have weighted the argument that there is a lack of in-depth scholarly coverage over that of notability because it appears in a variety of less reliable sources. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 16:47, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Heretic's fork

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

This is likely a hoax. Source is not trustworthy. There is not a single scholarly or historical source that mentions this device. It is similar to the "Spanish Tickler" which had similar sources and ended up being one of the longest lasting Wikipedia hoaxes. BananaBaron (talk) 03:32, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2018 July 14.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 04:00, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment: Aside from secondary derivatives such as the Leon Golub artwork, the original device is described in a biography of Galileo, so the article is unlikely to be a hoax. AllyD (talk) 06:44, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
 * This may be the same instrument as the Spanish Inquisition's "pié de amigo", described in "A Short History of the Inquisition" and in a 2002 article in The Innes Review pages 9-10 (subscription reqd). AllyD (talk) 09:54, 14 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Very uncomfortable keep, or perhaps a merge/redirect to a list. No weight should be given to Reston's 1994 usage as it is fictionalised history. This is evidence for 1983 -- also as "forcella dell'eretico"", which predates Golub's 1985 work, but there seems to be no evidence online for anything earlier. "La horquilla del hereje" is a 1990 work by Roberto Márquez (painter) -- no prior use of that term found. Given it's use as an inspiration and other coverage, there's enough for some kind of retention (perhaps with careful selection of tone and attribution). Are there any RS casting which cast doubt on its actual existence/use, and that can be quoted? ~Hydronium~Hydroxide~(Talk)~ 07:35, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. Hhkohh (talk) 14:51, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Tyw7  (🗣️ Talk to me • ✍️ Contributions) 07:43, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep -- The material listed by other contributors to this debate needs to be compiled into the article. Even if the 1983 and 1985 items were the equivalent of a HOAX, this seems to have taken on a life of its own.  The article needs to be amended to imply that the subject is at best of dubious historicity.  Peterkingiron (talk) 17:15, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. Presumably AllyD and H3O + OH- haven't found any better sources than the ones they gave (if they had, why would they omit them?), and I'm not finding any evidence of reliability-and-usefulness for any of those sources.  "this is evidence for 1983" is, which is a catalogue of the holdings of a museum: without plenty of details, we can't assume that the authors refer to the concept discussed in this article.  The Beard Book publication was already debunked as untrustworthy.  The other book is published by Edizioni Savine.  I've logged into ProQuest Oasis (documentation) and searched for the publisher, and I can't find a single Edizioni Savine book in their offerings (even a publisher search for savine found nothing relevant).  Oasis lists millions of new and old titles in print and e, and this publisher's complete absence from their listings (even print, which the First-sale doctrine allows ProQuest to sell without publisher permission) makes me guess that ProQuest does not believe that ES titles will be of interest to academic libraries.  I'd need a good deal of convincing before I believed that such a publisher could be considered reliable.  EUP journals are reliable, but we need a reliable source that connects the heretic's fork and the pié de amigo before we use an EUP journal talking only about the latter.  PS, I've just checked Edizioni Savine in YBP Gobi (documentation), which I generally prefer over Oasis because of its search interface and (often) more comprehensive results, and it too returned 0 results.  PPS, the Golub artwork is not a reliable source for the actual existence of such a torture device; it could have been his imagination.  The photo is legitimate, but the hosting museum doesn't exist anymore; museums can be operated by individuals or small groups (see the final paragraph of David Yeiser House, for example), so without evidence that this was a solid professional museum, I'm highly reluctant to trust it.  Nyttend (talk) 03:03, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   15:32, 21 July 2018 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment - On the fence on this one. There looks to be several mentions of this in many publications over the years, but I've yet to find a single in-depth source. It's mentioned at List of methods of torture, but not such that it would make sense to merge as that list stands. Maybe good to turn that list into something a little more substantial that can support this sort of edge case... --&mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 21:43, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Weak delete: As I said in my earlier comments, enough pre-Wikipedia usage can be found to challenge any idea of this having been placed as a WP:HOAX article. However, my searches in various places have failed to locate solid sources to provide positive support for an article about a C16-17 inquisitor’s object – and even when I was confident of finding such, I was still expecting to finish by recommending merger into a list of instruments, much as suggests. Alternatively, following the suggestion by  and, the article might cover the topic as a cultural idea, such as in the Golub artwork, but would I think need to avoid original research by citing a source which had already investigated the topic in those terms. All in all, I wouldn’t be uncomfortable with a "no consensus" outcome, but can’t make a strong positive argument for retention. AllyD (talk) 18:01, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   16:43, 28 July 2018 (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.