Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Kepler exoplanet candidates by ESI


 * 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. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 15:47, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Re-closed as No Consensus, per Deletion review/Log/2016 May 13 -- RoySmith (talk) 18:46, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

List of Kepler exoplanet candidates by ESI
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Fails WP:LISTN. Since the last time this was listed, every entry has been deleted from Wikipedia per WP:NASTRO. Therefore, the list has no inherited notability. There are zero independent sources which identify these Kepler candidates as being notable as a group or as a list. Only a single website. jps (talk) 16:40, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment: This is this article's 3rd nomination for deletion. For the last 2 nominations, see the 1 April 2016 and 19 February 2015 discussions.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:48, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep, Arguing about notibility some news articles that I found nearly instantly do show that there is indeed intrest in Potentually habitable KOI's, (Ex 1, 2). The topic itself of potentially habitable KOI's is notable as well as a handful of the KOI's themselves. "Even if editors personally believe an astronomical object is "important" or "inherently notable", astronomical objects are only accepted as notable if they have attracted notice in reliable sources." I do think this list passes WP:NASTRO.  Davidbuddy9   Talk  20:45, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Neither of those sources mention KOIs. jps (talk) 21:00, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Website #1:
 * Using this index, they found that Earth's H′ is only .82, meaning that from the vantage point of another galaxy, Earth would only appear to be 82% likely to be habitable. This is interesting in itself, but more significantly, there are many exoplanets already discovered that have similar habitability indexes, including Kepler 442-b (.84) and KOI 6108.01 (.87), and are worth a closer look for alien life. Funnily enough, there are several planets that have significantly higher habitability rankings than Earth, including KOI 5737.01 (.92), KOI 7235.01 (.93), and KOI 3456.02 (.96).


 * Website #2
 * One of the unconfirmed planets could end up a real doozy. Located somewhere between 200 to 1,000 light years away, the Sun-like star KOI-7235.01 may have a planet even more similar to Earth in orbital distance and size, at only 20 percent larger than our planet. If confirmed, it would be even more Earth-like than Kepler 452b.


 * Are you sure of no mention of KOI's on those sites?  Davidbuddy9   Talk  21:02, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Not as a catalog list, no. jps (talk) 21:03, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:LISTN supports notability when the entries have been "discussed as a group", not merely "listed as a group". There is no notability criteria requiring a preexisting list for editors to copy. LISTN also can be sufficient to establish notability, but as it explains it is not necessary. As a side note, perhaps you misspoke, but your initial comment was that the sources did not "mention" KOIs, which is obviously incorrect; when this was pointed out to you, you moved the goalposts without acknowledging it. Let's try to be candid in discussion. postdlf (talk) 15:18, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment The paint hasn't even dried from the last AfD. Valoem   talk   contrib  02:57, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
 * The last AfD was closed "no consensus" and then it was moved to this page. In the meantime all the list items were removed from Wikipedia. What we have here is a list of things that aren't notable and no claim of notability for the list as a whole. This is a different AfD. Consider the arguments and decide. jps (talk) 04:41, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
 * MelanieN the discussion is going forward for new outcome now, please unprotect the page so any issues mentioned during AfD can be addressed. Valoem   talk   contrib  17:04, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the notice. I have removed the protection since it appears (from discussion elsewhere) that the issue of removing the AfD tag has been resolved. Users are now free to edit and improve the article. --MelanieN (talk) 19:54, 21 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment/Alternative options to this article other than deletion. #1) An alternative option to deletion that I am more comfortable with is changing the article name to List of potentially habitable Kepler exoplanet candidates and convert the list to a format similar what jps did here. Although this would require the name of the article to be changed but I think it would be a far better choice than deletion. OR #2) at the end of the day we could always redirect to List of potentially habitable exoplanets.   Davidbuddy9   Talk  02:29, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
 * A third idea that I came up with is possible adding another column and listing the "HITE" index for these objects as well. It appears to be an alternative to the ESI.  Davidbuddy9   Talk  21:34, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:14, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Astronomy-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:14, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:14, 24 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment/RfC I think the underlying issue, of this and several other pages under regular AfD recently, is whether or not use of unique data contained at Planetary Habitability Laboratory adheres to or violates WP:PRIMARY. There is a discussion about this at WT:AST, but it isn't receiving much participation, at least not enough to establish consensus. It would be prudent to suspend this and all related AfDs until that issue is resolved.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:40, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * This is very true! We shouldn't have AfD's regarding ESI topics until we can get some sort of consensus about it first.  Davidbuddy9   Talk  21:21, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * That would probably be more productive than a new AFD less than two weeks after a no consensus close on the previous one (the second such no consensus AFD on this list under whatever title). postdlf (talk) 01:06, 26 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep, ESI rating and PHL/HEC appear to pass WP:NASTRO, the list whether listed as catalog or not has been peer reviewed. Whether the measure is correct or incorrect is irrelevant to notability. Valoem   talk   contrib  16:53, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * DELETE fails WP:NASTRO and WP:LISTN.
 * WP:NASTRO: The guideline covers all significant physical entities, associations or structures that current science has confirmed to exist in outer space.
 * WP:NASTRO: Important note 3: Hypothesized or candidate astronomical objects may be notable if they have been subject to multiple, independent reliable sources that attest to their notability. Owing to WP:CBALL, it is irresponsible for Wikipedia to promote a hypothesized or candidate object as actually existing before confirmation by reliable sources. As with criterion 2 above, the mere fact that an astronomical object has been hypothesized to exist or has been included in comprehensive source catalogs of candidate objects is not enough to confer notability.
 * WP:LISTN This selective subset-list of Kepler Candidates is non-notable. There are multiple conflicting ESI formulas, and this list is defined by a single arbitrary source using a an ESI-formula of a single non-peer-reviewed source filling in those fictional mass values to compute idiosyncratic ESI values. It is utterly encyclopedic, and completely non-notable in independent sources.
 * We already have List of exoplanets discovered using the Kepler spacecraft. The only way this list could hypothetically be kept is by renaming it to something like List of unconfirmed exoplanets discovered using the Kepler spacecraft, dumping the fictional mass values, dumping the arbitrary and fictional ESI-values, and expanding the list to include all 3699 unconfirmed Kepler candidates rather than this arbitrary and non-notable subset. It would be a poor idea to make that list of 3699 entries because unconfirmed entries have very low encyclopedic value, because 3699 entries will be way over recommended page size, because it's merely mirror catalog of basic physical statistics, and because every entry will be removed from the list "soonish" as they are either established not to exist at all, or are confirmed and moved to the other list. It's like a slower version of a "List of potential 0-0 Soccer matches" - listing games that are in-progress. Alsee (talk) 22:53, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * It should be noted that the nominator added Important note 3 to WP:NASTRO (talk page discussion).  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:52, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Strong keep, per my Comment & Comment/RfC above.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:52, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep per my comments at the AfD 3 weeks ago: This is a companion article to List of potentially habitable exoplanets which is extremely well-sourced and surprisingly [was] also nominated for deletion. The sources referenced above demonstrate notability. James J. Lambden (talk) 17:42, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. The article is mostly referenced to a primary source.  The paper "The Host Stars of Kepler's Habitable Exoplanets: Superflares, Rotation and Activity" cited in the article does mention the ESI, and so is certainly a secondary source for the existence of the ESI, but it is not a secondary source for the list under discussion.  The caltech exoplanet archive is here apparently being used as a "reference" for much of the content of the article, but it does not (as far as I can tell) discuss ESI, so there seem to be some WP:V issues.  Others have pointed out WP:V issues with using the "fictional" mass values as well.   S ławomir  Biały  17:39, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, &mdash; Coffee //  have a cup  //  beans  // 09:09, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. The article List of potentially habitable exoplanets previously contained much of this information, such as Earth Similarity Index, but has been edited and is no longer such a good guide as it was to which exoplanets are really potentially habitable.  For a listing of exoplanets' Earth Similarity Index you now have to come here and that's why I wish it to be kept.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amyzex (talk • contribs) 14:26, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * "a good guide...to which exoplanets are really potentially habitable" this is like an article list of drinkable beverages by radioactivity. Radiation content doesn't really say much about drinkability, just as ESI doesn't say much about habitability.  But in a way, it's worse, because apparently the ESI uses fictitious values for things like the mass, meaning that an already useless index (at least, for this purpose) is also rendered not even very accurate.   S ławomir  Biały  17:12, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Personally I think ESI does not measure habitability in anyway and mostly likely will not be the used measurement in the future, but that does not mean it is not notable. Things can be notably incorrect and I hope you understand that. Valoem   talk   contrib  20:41, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, but the keep rationale wasn't that. It was keep on basically the exact reason that these articles are so problematic: they have become de facto proxies for "habitability".  An index being "notably wrong" seems like a poor reason to have a list article organizing the topic, and I would need a good deal of convincing otherwise if it were suggested that this was the norm (under whatever alphabet policy soup fits the bill).  Obviously, conventional articles about topics are a different matter, where it's clearer how to write material in a more manifestly NPOV-compliant manner.   S ławomir  Biały  22:16, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Well technically its not notable for being wrong yet, but it is notable based on the these sources Website #1 and Website #2 the sources do list ESI ranked planets. ESI measures Io higher on habitability than all other moons in the solar system which contradicts all other measurements, so I think it is wrong, but I also think it is notable because notability and factuality are not related. Valoem   talk   contrib  22:27, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * It is rather hard to construct a list in an NPOV-compliant fashion, though. How do you WP:DUEly weight a column in some damned table?!  Notability of a concept (and even somehow organizing that content into a fully-formed list) is a necessary, not a sufficient, condition for inclusion as a list.   S ławomir  Biały  22:36, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Can't we just write that this is not an accepted measure of habitability and cite oher measurements which contradict? Valoem   talk   contrib  22:49, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:IINFO. jps (talk) 18:29, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
 * On what policy basis do you want Wikipedia to host a list of ESI values? jps (talk) 17:13, 3 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete because the "ESI is not a measure of habitability." It has been misused by both the authors, the media and a couple of Wikipedia editors. BatteryIncluded (talk) 19:55, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
 * But the article is List of Kepler exoplanet candidates by ESI not List of habitable Kepler exoplanet candidates by ESI. So I don't understand your point?  Davidbuddy9   Talk  03:00, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I've been cleaning your mess in that article regarding habitability. BatteryIncluded (talk) 03:03, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, just remember that this article used to be called List of Potentially Habitable Exoplanets Kepler Candidates.  Davidbuddy9   Talk  20:48, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
 * If habitability is not the motivation for the list, then what is the motivation? jps (talk) 03:04, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I didn't rename the article you should ask the people who renamed the article from the last AfD. It appears just to listify Kepler Candidates by ESI that are within PHL's equilibrium temperature range. That takes us back to the discussion we had on my talk page.  Davidbuddy9   Talk  20:45, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
 * You're voting to keep. If you cannot justify the raison d'etre of the list, you shouldn't have argued for it to be kept. jps (talk) 21:29, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I voted keep because you were arguing that the list is not notable. The entries were kept from the after the renaming of the article which now appears that you are exploiting this to completely delete and hide the edit history of articles mentioning or using the ESI completely. I understand that you may not feel that the use of the ESI is not acceptable but trying to cover up edit histories of articles that used it by deleting them doesn't sound right to me. However, yes I do feel that this list is notable, but I think it needs restructuring like what happened at List of potentially habitable exoplanets rather than a complete deletion. Really this AfD should really be an RfC instead discussing how to improve this article.  Davidbuddy9   Talk  04:47, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

That's not an explanation. The list is by design a list of ESIs and nothing more by your own admission. You !vote to "keep" is based on some silly vendetta and not on policy which is what this discussion is supposed to hinge upon. jps (talk) 18:53, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
 * In your nomination you were questioning the articles notability and that appears to be why you nominated it for deletion. In my !vote I was pointing out sources that disprove that and I was arguing that it does meet the criteria of being notable and therefore it should be kept. This is not about vendettas jps I don't even know how you made that connection here.  Davidbuddy9   Talk  04:59, 8 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep - Notable and important information. Should be kept.   Nik ol ai Ho   22:00, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete as per Alsee. I also call on nominator to restrict comments to the matter at hand, without words like "silly" or "vendetta". DeVerm (talk) 22:38, 10 May 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.