Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New Breeding Techniques


 * 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. No agreement about whether what the sources describe are, to quote one opinion, "new breeding techniques (generic) [or] New Breeding Techniques". Needs expert attention.  Sandstein  21:36, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

New Breeding Techniques

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Attempt to hijack an extremely generic term for a very specific application; has not yet been widely used in this regard, if it ever will. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:05, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Could be merged to main page, plant breeding. RedFlame 09:01, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, the refs might be useful (if the explicit appropriation of the term in the text can be avoided) -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:10, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organisms-related deletion discussions. Happy holidays! Baby miss  fortune 10:33, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Delete. Nothing notable for secondary coverage on the term, nor is it a phrase really useful for a redirect or a merge with respect to plant breeding topics. Seems like an attempt at a WP:NEOLOGISM, and deletion is usually better in those cases. Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:09, 27 December 2017 (UTC)


 * There have been a few keep votes below that actually further justify the rationale for deleting, so it's worthwhile to flesh out those issues since there seems to be some confusion I was already concerned about happening:


 * 1. The term is not encyclopedic and violates WP:RECENTISM and WP:NEOLOGISM. Even this source outlines it is not a scientific or regulatory-based term and is pretty ambiguous (i.e., neologism). Instead, plant breeding is an area to outline additional plant breeding techniques or else genetic engineering, gene editing, etc. with individual techniques like Zinc finger nuclease and TALENs getting content on their own pages.


 * 2. New is just a qualifier. As seen in discussions below, one can google the term and get many results, but that's why deletion should occur. In most cases, "new" is just referring to current generation breeding techniques, which is a level of nuance that often is glossed over in AfD discussions. In some cases, the phrase is capitalized as New Breeding Techniques, which makes it seem like it's a more notable term, but that's mainly an artifact of using an acronym and capitalizing text. It's not a term to center an article under where these newer techniques eventually become older techniques and there will be new "new" techniques. NEOLOGISM cautions against these very kinds of things for notability discussions.


 * 3. Redundancy. Plant breeding and related articles were already mentions as places to discuss newer breeding techniques (and they already do). However, as this article being discussed has been expanded it's also become mostly redundant with GMO articles too. Problems with lumping different methods into an article are already discussed in addition to terminology nuance, so discussion of the techniques without the new qualifier (as Elmidae mentioned above) need to be fleshed out in the context of those articles (if not already present) in order not to run afoul of WP:OR or WP:WEIGHT where the article is already contradicting itself or other articles. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:18, 6 January 2018 (UTC)


 * In short, trying to argue the term should be notable for an article is putting the horse before the cart here in addition to conflicting with being encyclopedic. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:01, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 08:23, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Snow keep Sheesh, does nobody do WP:BEFORE any more, or do those casting their votes just look at the article and don't both using Google for 2 minutes? There are clearly enormous numbers of very respectable sources showing that this is a relatively new but very legitimate and important subject, currently being legally addressed by EU courts, and possibly being used to circumvent current legislation and definitions on GMOs (genetic engineering) worlwide. How it is addressed by governments could well have major global implications on food production. Rather than even suggesting a redirect to GMO or genome editing or  synthetic biology, which are already all quite sizeable articles, I suggest its retention and  improvement  here, at least in the first instance. I've not time right now to enhance this (admittedly very poor) article, but I'll just place these links here for now, and come back and see what I can do to ensure its retention, or possibly modify my !vote in the next few days:
 * http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/POST-PN-0548/POST-PN-0548.pdf
 * http://www.econexus.info/sites/econexus/files/NBT%20Briefing%20-%20EcoNexus%20December%202015.pdf
 * https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/new-breeding-techniques-new-gmos-in-a-legal-limbo/
 * https://www.nfuonline.com/cross-sector/science-and-technology/biotechnology/new-breeding-techniques/
 * https://theecologist.org/2017/apr/04/new-breeding-techniques-and-synthetic-biology-genetic-engineering-another-name
 * https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/tue-farmers-fear-political-court-ruling-on-plant-breeding-techniques/
 * http://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/decision-on-new-plant-breeding-techniques-further-delayed/
 * http://www.nbtplatform.org/frequently-asked-questions
 * https://gmo.geneticliteracyproject.org/FAQ/what-is-crisprcas9-and-other-new-breeding-technologies-nbts/
 * https://www.plantum.nl/Content/Files/file/Standpunten/Factsheet%20Biotechnology.pdf
 * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26552666
 * http://beyond-gm.org/eu-ngos-new-breeding-techniques-must-be-included-in-gmo-regulations/
 * https://www.feednavigator.com/Article/2017/04/05/New-plant-breeding-techniques-opportunity-or-death-knell-for-organic-feed-and-food
 * https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/opinion/new-agricultural-breeding-techniques-eu-must-take-its-ideological-blinkers
 * http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/gmfood/Pages/Review-of-new-breeding-technologies-.aspx
 * http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08974438.2017.1382417
 * https://www.gmfreeze.org/why-freeze/new-gm-techniques/
 * https://ec.europa.eu/research/sam/pdf/topics/ntab_citizens%20summary_2017.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=none

Should, heaven forbid, there be a consensus to redirect or delete, will the closing admin please draftify this article, too, and I'll work on it as I'm able. I genuinely think this could be extremely important. Just a shame its such a cr*ppily-written page at the moment! Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 01:32, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Update: I've just put in a few hours' editing to make some basic improvements, though a lot more still could be done. Nick Moyes (talk) 04:11, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Good stuff. I admit I found hardly any of these sources that deal with the term as a specific current concept; it seemed pretty much submerged in general use examples. I suppose it helps if you know beforehand that there's something to it. The background material certainly makes a better case for notability. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:04, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * BEFORE is why deletion was recommended prior. None of those sources establish notability, which is why my vote was delete after seeing many of these sources in a google search before you posted. In this case, adding "new" in front of breeding techniques is a WP:RECENTISM violation. Whenever scientists talk about a "new" set of methods, that doesn't make "new X" notable as as term. We don't create articles for new software, new chemistry, etc. The relative age of a method within any changing discipline is just handled under that topic's article. Any scientific sources I've seen are just using new as a qualifier and sometimes using it as an acronym for shortening. Switching from my editor to scientist hat, even when I pop over to agronomy related scientific meetings where crop breeders cover a lot of the agenda, I've yet to see this term be used in quite the way it's being proposed here by the keeps. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:55, 6 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep covered in recent independent high quality reviews . Boghog (talk) 12:17, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Those sources don't cover the term in a manner satisfying WP:N though. The first just uses NBT as a shortened acronym to describe newer breeding techniques (i.e., how do these new methods apply to organic). The second just uses the new qualifier again in an also superficial manner. The third goes into discussion of NBT too in the context of them being newer than older genetic engineering methods, but that doesn't rise above WP:NEOLOGISM either. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:55, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * It is debatable if the above sources cover the subject in a superficial way. The first source refers to NBTs 23 times through the entire length of the article. Here is another source that I think treats NBT in more than a superficial way:
 * Boghog (talk) 19:46, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, they use the term multiple times, but it's the same neologism issue of basically saying "Here's our newest set of breeding techniques with no unique definition for the group." That's a problem I've been running into repeatedly as I've tried to deal with contradictory information from sources at the article on attempted definitions. In nearly every source, it's used a header or catch all to go into depth on relatively new things like gene editing and a mix of other methods that overlap with "traditional" genetic modification too.
 * It's partly a real-world vocabulary mess even in the larger topic, but for us on the encyclopedic end, the true title of this article is really more, "Breeding techniques that primarily began to be used after 2010" or something like that. That's the functional problem for article building once you start really digging into the content matter (and the case for treating the techniques at other articles rather than lump). Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:26, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, it does looks like a set of different techniques intended to circumvent existing legislation on genetically modified organisms. This is not a scientifically justified terminology. It appears like a journalistic-like term, but it does appear in a number of sources. My very best wishes (talk) 22:21, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The phrasing appears in a number of sources, but that usage here in the keep logic amounts to WP:OR . Part of that is what I just described above, and part of it is a misapplication of WP:N simply because a particular qualifier is used (and often is for discussing scientific updates without implying notability). As you've alluded to, this term is not encyclopedic (journalists don't get to define something pretty squarely in the realm of a scientific discipline). The techniques have only been loosely categorized as new because the new techniques are a mixture of gene editing and others (all covered above a few times now). Discussion of individual techniques that don't fit in the GMO regulatory framework belong at the individual technique articles instead of us trying to cobble together a single article of unrelated techniques aside from being under plant or animal breeding. If this article survives AfD, those problems are only going to compound when the next set of "new" breeding techniques comes along in the next 10 years, etc., which should be a strong indication of how unencyclopedic this is. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:51, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I did not tell "this term is not encyclopedic". I said this is not a scientifically solid terminology. But yes, this is an argument in favor of deletion. My very best wishes (talk) 20:34, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:51, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:51, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete - the sources mostly refer to new breeding techniques (generic) not New Breeding Techniques, and there are a lot of new breeding techniques that don't have anything to do with what is being presented here. I don't think it represents a true collective topic as opposed to simply a term of convenience used to lump together a bunch of plant breeding techniques that simply happen to have been recently developed.  Agricolae (talk) 21:20, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete Apparently, this is an umbrella term for techniques used to bypass GMO legislature. The term is misleading and possibly was created to mislead. My very best wishes (talk) 23:28, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   12:31, 9 January 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.