Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Late bloomer


 * 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. Article has been improved beyond recognition during this process and is clearly now unsuitable for Wiktionary. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:20, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Late bloomer

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This article reads very much like an essay. Not only that but it is completely unsourced and POV. Essentially Original research. User:Woohookitty Diamming fool! 06:40, 30 December 2008 (UTC) 
 * comment Looking through the history the articl seems to have degraded from earlier versions - I'm not enturely sure that something weird hasn't been going on. If the article is kept it might be worth reverting back to the best available version and starting out from there with future edits. Artw (talk) 07:14, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Looking back through the history shows nothing but unreferenced material and lists of examples almost all the way back to the article's initial creation.  Not a whole lot of encyclopedic material.  Mikaey (talk) 07:54, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I could support the prospect of soft redirecting this to Wiktionary. Mikaey (talk) 03:31, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. Might want to transwiki to Wiktionary... Otherwise, while the article needs work, there are ridiculous amounts of sources available online (Google books search, used often as shown by a Google news search, etc.). An article that can be improved should not be deleted. D ARTH P ANDA duel 20:54, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Possibly stubbing it, finding sources fro the stub, and then keeping a close eye on any examples that are added would be the solution. Artw (talk) 20:55, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Just needs development in accordance with our editing policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 23:37, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Soft redirect to the Wiktionary aritcle. It seems to be nothing but original research that is not verifiable. MuZemike  ( talk ) 06:22, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Soft redirect to Wiktionary. This is ripe for original research and there is not enough information on this subject for a legitimate encyclopedia article. ScienceApologist (talk) 07:59, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions.   —WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:18, 4 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep: It does not yet give sources, but sources should be easy enough to find (I will take a shot). It reads like an essay, but I do not see that as a problem - appropriate for a light, general article. I see this as a subject of wide interest, one that will be useful to many readers and that will attract editors interested in describing other aspects of the subject. Definitely much more than a Wiktionary entry. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:56, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: Added the first 20 independent refs. Sort of mechanical - may do more later. This is a very comprehensive, interesting and well-researched article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aymatth2 (talk • contribs) 2009-01-04 03:00:57
 * &hellip; except that it's not really a coherent subject in its own right. I also had a look for sources. In-depth sources that discuss the subject as a subject (as opposed to sources for simple statements that "Person X is a late bloomer.") are quite difficult to find.  (I notice that all of the sources that you came up with merely sourced "X is a late bloomer who did Y at age Z." statements.) The problem is that the title is a metaphor.  The only things that are literally late bloomers are plants.  (See Gardening Basics For Dummies, ISBN 9780470037492, pp. 149.)  And an article about late blooming plants (or a redirect to an article that covers early, mid-season, and late blooming all in one go) is what properly belongs at this title.  The metaphor can be and is applied to anything that is "late" to "bloom".  That covers a wide range of things, from people who join the peace corps at age 65 through business people adopting new techniques or ideas (late bloomers being the metaphorical opposites of early adopters) to the human race in general (see neoteny), that are better discussed in articles that are actually about them as specific subjects.  This is why you've found it so difficult to find any sources at all supporting the analysis portion of the article, and easy to source the laundry list of individual examples of things being called a "late bloomer".  &#9786; Uncle G (talk) 03:17, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The article is not incoherent or WP:TRIV. It discusses the most common use of the term 'late bloomer', a metaphor that describes people - see [|Late Bloomer]. It could have a "see also" to an article on late-blooming plants if there were one, but there is not. Presumably there are learned books on the subject of what makes people late bloomers (Google books search) as noted by D ARTH P ANDA, but I did not look for refs on the abstract concept. The article makes the point well through examples. It shows that some peoples' true talent emerges only late in life. To many people that will be an interesting and comforting fact. Aymatth2 (talk) 03:54, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not the prose that I said was incoherent. It's the subject.  Please read more carefully.  And you'll find that the books don't define a coherent subject.  As I wrote, I've looked.  All that you are doing is counting search engine hits, without actually reading the things that the search engine finds.  As is often said, counting Google hits is not research.  I've actually spent time doing the reading.  The subjects of the books are things such as the mental development of infants, education, ageism, neoteny, business management, and the like.  There isn't an abstract concept here because this title is a metaphor, applied to a whole range of dissimilar things whose sole connection to one another is that people use this metaphor to describe them.  They "bloom" "late", in some manner or other.  Yes, this article really is a list of examples with an unsourced novel analysis wrapped around them &mdash; an analysis that doesn't exist in sources because it isn't actually a coherent subject to be analysed. The actual subjects are the things with the non-metaphorical names &mdash; including late blooming plants. Uncle G (talk) 04:34, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * These are important points. I have tried to address them in the current revision, but am not at all satisfied with the result. Before you cast your vote, what major flaws remain to be corrected? Aymatth2 (talk) 01:34, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep and develop. Citations look good. Johnfos (talk) 03:11, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep; obviously notable – as a metaphor for all kinds of things; probably rates an article that's sort of like a disambig, dispatching to other articles as needed while mention all the ways people apply this concept. Dicklyon (talk) 04:45, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Redirect to wiktionary, this is original research on an un-encyclopedic topic. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 13:40, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak keep or redirect following improvements. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 07:21, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Soft Redirect to Wiktionary per everything else above. It's a dictionary definition (if not WP:OR)  K50   Dude   ROCKS!   16:48, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment I have started doing some clean-up / expansion. See latest version. Very much work in progress, but there does seem to be potentially a fair amount of real content, theoretical work not covered elsewhere in Wikipedia. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:47, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep based on recent changes. Artw (talk) 17:06, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Much too extensive to be suitable for wikitionary. and it always was clear that there was enough potential discussion of the concept besides just the definition.DGG (talk) 19:19, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep, mainly per the improvements made in the article since the nomination. It's definitely beyond a dictionary definition and all that good stuff. Good job to Aymatth2 in improving the article and making the AFD truly constructive. MuZemike  ( talk ) 06:35, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. Article has improved greatly since nomination into a well-rounded overview of the concept. Squidfryerchef (talk) 00:33, 7 January 2009 (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.