Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Looming, Towering, Stooping, and Sinking


 * 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   no consensus. Stifle (talk) 14:10, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Looming, Towering, Stooping, and Sinking

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Poorly referenced essay which merely paraphrases another article with the same title at a different website. There is no real evidence that these four phenomenon are usually grouped and titled this way, excepting the lone article cited, nor that this is somehow a concept distinct from other concepts that already have at Wikipedia, such as atmospheric refraction or mirage. There are a few other references, but they discuss THOSE concepts, and not the title of this article, which appears unique to a single other article, which itself is merely about atmospheric refraction or mirages. A redirectless merge may be worthwhile, since a bit of this info may be useful in a few other articles, but the title itself is too cumbersome to be a reasonable search term. Jayron  32  21:08, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Looming, Towering, Stooping, and Sinking is not a mirage. Mirages produces at least one more image of the object. The phenomena described in the article do not. I am not sure what is your experience with atmospheric refraction, but Dr. Andrew Young, Astronomy Department of San Diego University is the best specialist in the area. Besides I am not sure why this source is (page 449) a "poor reference". Neither of the article you mentioned is describing Looming, Towering, Stooping or Sinking. Besides the article has an image evidence. --Mbz1 (talk) 21:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: No doubt he's a specialist - but the best? Wouldn't a merge to Atmospheric refraction be better? And isn't the lead an almost direct copyvio of this page? Chase me ladies, I&#39;m the Cavalry (talk) 22:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comment, Chase me ladies. About Dr. Andrew Young, yes, he is the best. About merging, here's the deal: it cannot be merged to mirage because it is not a mirage as it was explained in the article and in this deletion request. It cannot be merged to Atmospheric refraction because then we have to merge mirage, Fata Morgana (mirage), green flash and Mirage of astronomical objects to Atmospheric refraction too. After all they all refraction phenomena. I know Dr. Young personally. As you see, he used my image on the page I am referring to. I am sure he would not mind the article with references to his pages, but English is not my first language. I will appreciate, if somebody could fix English in the article, and rephrase avoiding copy violations, if any. About phenomena themselves. They could be seen quite often, maybe more often than mirages, but there are little references about them. I believe the article should be kept, and kept on its own. Wikipedia readers will not suffer from extra knowledge. --Mbz1 (talk) 22:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Split into separate articles/merge into others, possibly rename?. Creator has a major conflict of interest, and the arguments for it to be kept seem to rely more on WP:ITEXISTS, and I feel the article would be better as part of a larger article on Refraction phenomena, or something similar. I have to echo the nominator in saying that A redirectless merge may be worthwhile, since a bit of this info may be useful in a few other articles, but the title itself is too cumbersome to be a reasonable search term. Sorry Mbz1. Chase me ladies, I&#39;m the Cavalry (talk) 23:21, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Conflict of interests??? There's nothing to be sorry about toward me. I saw the phenomena myself, I took many images of them, I was exited, when I saw them for the first time, and could not understand what is going on with the familiar landscape. I enjoyed working on the article. So, I do not deserve your sorry. I'd say Wikipedia readers do, they will be denied the knowledge, if the article is deleted.--Mbz1 (talk) 00:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "I know Dr. Young personally, he's the best" sounds like a pretty strong COI to me... In any case, they won't be denied the knowledge, we'll just move it to a more appropriate article. Chase me ladies, I&#39;m the Cavalry (talk) 09:07, 15 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep I find this article very interesting. The subject is notable enough in my opinion (an Atmospheric optical phenomen), and it seems that there are reliable sources to this. I see no strong reason for deletion. The deletion reasons aren't that convincing. Broccoli (talk) 00:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete and merge or Rename - Firstly, although the current article name is exactly what it says on the tin, there is no way anyone is going to search for all four of these phenomena together. They don't appear to be linked from what I have read, at least not directly. It's just a collection of atmospheric phenomena which are otherwise unrelated. So at the very least this article should be renamed. Secondly, there doesn't seem to be enough coverage of these subjects to warrant any of them having their own articles. There are even fewer sources which deal with all four phenomena at the same time, and this grouping seems understandable but still odd. Ideally the article would be broken up and distributed to the places they'd add the most to. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 02:05, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Not only they are related, but they sometimes appear together. Once again, please take a look at the book (page 449). They are described together there. The article is linked from three other articles. Surely it will be found.--Mbz1 (talk) 02:18, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * google search for "looming stooping" already finds the article--Mbz1 (talk) 02:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - Self admittedly, I don't know much about photography. But I found this article very interesting and it seems notable as a technique... I don't agree that there is a good reason to delete it. Breein1007 (talk) 04:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia editors are a pretty diverse group of individuals, and potentially, any subject or topic may be of interest to some editor somewhere. And on the converse, there are any number of subjects or topics which an individual editor may be apathetic, or not care, about. However, personal interest or apathy is not a valid reason to keep or delete an article. Chase me ladies, I&#39;m the Cavalry (talk) 09:07, 15 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep and rename to Optical refraction phenomena (or something similar; I am not an expert on the subject). The article is sound and if it's too similar to a certain source, things can be reworded or rearranged (I didn't notice copyvio or plagiarism, and would like to see evidence from those who claim this). In any case the article offers enough sources to work with. The title however is clearly wrong according to any Wikipedia naming guideline; if these phenomena should be grouped, then there should be a name for that group. Input from an expert on the subject would be of great help here. —Ynhockey (Talk) 10:26, 15 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment. The article's title is completely inappropriate. The above mentioned book doesn't use this exact phrase: it discusses the phenomena one by one and indexes each term separately. See also: Optical phenomenon and Looming. — Rankiri (talk) 13:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * In that case, maybe we should split this into 4 different articles, on each effect? Something needs to be done, and if it isn't deletion and/or merging, then we need to come up with a better way to organize or work with this information.  -- Jayron  32  14:51, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Please give me some time to think about different name maybe. I do not think the article should be split. The effects is closely related, and may appear together--Mbz1 (talk) 17:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * There's also the issue of WP:SYNTH. Unless there is a source that treats all four illusions as a single interconnected subject instead of simply singling them out or categorizing them as separate optical phenomena, we shouldn't lump these subjects together and detach them from the main group. That's the reason why we don't have Bread, Milk, and Eggs or Fruits, Vegetables and Whole Grains. — Rankiri (talk) 17:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * They appear together, and there's a source . In mirage we have section for inferior mirage, superior mirage and Fata morgana. Here's the situation is very similar.--Mbz1 (talk) 17:35, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The introduction to that source says "Here are some simulations of terrestrial refraction phenomena that do not involve mirages." To extend my earlier analogy, bread, milk, and eggs are also some examples of common grocery items. — Rankiri (talk) 17:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I provided the example with the article mirage, which describes few absolutely different types of mirage in the same article. The structure of the article Mirage and the article Looming, Towering, Stooping, and Sinking should be similar to the structure of Mirage.--Mbz1 (talk) 17:45, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I think we have it there... The source says "terrestrial refraction phenomena" and include "mirage" in the list. We could have each of the 5 phenomena in the article, with a link to the lengthier mirage article as well.  Why not move the article to that title and work from that?  As the nominator, I think I could withdraw my initial objections if that were the case.  You'd have to convince all of the other folks who voted delete.  -- Jayron  32  19:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * As I explained few times already Looming, Towering, Stooping, and Sinking do not involve a mirage. Mirage article has description of few kind of mirages already. If we are to merge the new article into mirage it will be confusing. If we are to move Mirage somewhere else, IMO it will not be such a good idea. I am still thinking about better name.--Mbz1 (talk) 20:43, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The article was renamed to "Looming and similar refraction phenomena". I thought about the comparison between bread and milk, and I'd say those phenomena could be compared as milk and buttermilk for example, but not as bread and milk. They are way too similar for that comparison. The use of "looming" for refraction phenomena goes back several centuries, and certainly precedes the psychological use of the term.) That's why I believe stub looming should be renamed--Mbz1 (talk) 20:52, 16 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep ~ N ERDY S CIENCE D UDE  (✉ message • changes) 15:48, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Could you elaborate on your arguments slightly? Chase me ladies, I&#39;m the Cavalry (talk) 17:45, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Would somebody please care to comment on the new name I gave to the article? Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 16:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Merge to atmospheric refraction. Sources from 1798, 1894, and 1920 are unacceptable for an article that appears to be about present science. Science builds on itself. Just because some people in the eighteen and nineteenth centuries used these terms one or twice does not mean they are notable for a present day encyclopedia. One of the other two references is by a non-notable person who has published only 1 article in a peer-reviewed journal that has received more than 2 citations. It was not on the subject of atmospheric optics, but on ozone photochemistry in 1967. This self-published website is not a reliable source. The only remaining source is this. The author of this page does appear qualified to have this self-published source be reliable by Wikipedia standards. But this does not mean we need to have a separate article on these "4" phenomenon like he does on this page. These aberrations are the result of differing temperature profiles. They are all exactly the same thing but with slightly different profiles. Current usage does not use the terms "looming", "lowering", "stooping" or "sinking" like the article suggests. This is old terminology from when these phenomenon where not understood to be the result of the same physical process. -Atmoz (talk) 19:10, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I agree that terms Towering, Stooping, and Sinking are not widely used, but the term "looming" is, and now, when the article's name is changed I believe it should be left as it is. Mirages, green flashes and some other phenomena are also due to atmospheric refraction. Should we merge them into atmospheric refraction too? --Mbz1 (talk) 19:56, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * As I mentioned earlier, Looming already has its own page. — Rankiri (talk) 20:09, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, and I mentioned earlier the use of "looming" for refraction phenomena goes back several centuries, (and is in use up to now), and certainly precedes the psychological use of the term.) That's why I believe the stub looming should be renamed.--Mbz1 (talk) 20:13, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec) @Mbz1: I disagree that looming is widely used. The first search result and the second both call looming a type of mirage. Which is directly opposite to what is presently stated in the Wikipedia article and what you have stated above. Also, I learned from one of those books that the phenomenon of the sun actually being lower than the horizon when it appears on the horizon is "looming". Of course it's not by the definition given in the other reference, which requires there to be a temperature inversion at the surface. This leads me to believe that "looming" is a word that nobody knows what it really means. Kinda like eddies. Atmospheric optical phenomenon that are independently notable are eligible for their own articles. For instance, the green flash is probably discussed briefly in most introductory undergraduate meteorology texts. Of the two that I have within arms reach, both discuss the green flash, superior mirages, and inferior mirages with one specifically mentioning Fata Morgana. Neither of them mention looming. -Atmoz (talk) 20:20, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for you comment, and continuing the discussion with me. I am well aware that many sources connect looming and mirage, but this only means that the authors do not know what a mirage is. In order for mirage to appear at least one more image of the object should be seen. If it is not the case, there's no mirage. Many authors are mistaking about those phenomena. Here's only two cases from my own experience. One of my inferior mirage images was used in German's textbook. I explained to the author that it was an inferior (desert) mirage in great details. When I got the copy of the book, I was surprised to see my image was called Fata Morgana. Later I found out that Fata Morgana is a term that is commonly and mistakenly are used in Germany to describe all mirages. When my article about Fata Morgana was published in a journal, I've got some rather strange questions from the people (meteorologists), who should have known better.--Mbz1 (talk) 20:43, 21 April 2010 (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.