Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oscar (cat)


 * 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. Raul654 18:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Oscar (cat)

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Doesn't anyone know the difference between a newspaper and an encyclopedia any more? Sure its interesting, but it will be forgotten by everyone but us in 2 weeks. We have and article on Canine cancer detection but no articles on the individual dogs who have been reported to do this, and for good reason. Same reasoning applies here. Thatcher131 03:09, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * KEEP. (OPPOSE) Considering that Oscar is featured, not in any run of the mill news story, but the New England Journal of Medicine (the most prominent refereed publication in the medical community), given the numerous submissions from which the Journal could select articles for publication, that should be enough to let Oscar keep his little space on Wikipedia.
 * Agreed, strong keep. If the New England Journal of Medicine deems it medically noteworthy, there will likely be enough present and future public interest to merit an article on him. special note: cats are not psychic. yalbik 06:34, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Then again, if we really want to settle the issue, simply print out the Wikipedia article and see if he curls up around it and sleeps like he does with the Steere House patients. If he does, it would be a sign of its impending death and we should delete it then.  Quidam65 03:15, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete the cute kitty. One could make a passing mention in Canine cancer detection as a related/similar case, but no need to have an article about it. WP:NOT and all that. Maybe put it up on Wikinews. Maybe. And sorry, Quidam, AfD's are decided on consensus, not sleeping habits of felines. Hersfold (talk/work) 03:17, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that the average person can tell the difference between humor and seriousness; I'm sorry that the above commenter cannot. And BTW Oscar's story is on Wikinews and has been most of the day; one might want to check things out before making such suggestions. Quidam65 03:25, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge to Canine cancer detection or some other related Animal ESP article. The point I would say is, will anyone remember the kitty after his grim reaper status now?--293.xx.xxx.xx 03:30, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Newsworthy is not noteworthy. WP:BLP1E could be considered to apply as well. Resolute 04:08, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete -- This is recentism. WP:BLP1E is an excellent shortcut to know. I should have mentioned that in the murder victim afds yesterday. Saikokira 04:33, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * KEEP (OPPOSE) If well agree that wikipedia should be the most complete encyclopedia ever, this there should be nothing wrong with noting a well known cat. I am guessing that most people that are here and are going to be here onwards got here by searching for it. It is somewhat disappointing when we find wiki to not have a specific page. If the cat can be featured in the New England Journal of Medicine, then it should surely also be featured on Wiki. Abhishekbh 04:40, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep (Oppose) Stories on several noted News stations and featured in a medical magazine. (Ghostexorcist 04:42, 27 July 2007 (UTC))
 * Keep (Oppose) Article is not merely the 'cute story of the day', because it is based on an article in a refereed medical journal (New England Journal of Medicine). Should eventually be merged with Canine cancer detection into a braoder article (perhaps on animal smell and human health) once the science is better understood. --Dr.enh 05:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Why would we merge an article on a cat to an article on dogs? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 05:22, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep (Oppose) Many people will be searching for information on this cat, perhaps for years to come. Has been featured on almost every global news source on the internet. Xioyux 06:24, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, the Oscar story i featured in one of the most prominent medical journals in the world. --Camptown 08:02, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep (but cleanup) This wonder cat, mentioned by BBC and CBS is definitely notable. Of course, the article should focus on what the cat can do, rather than its history. Cleanup is needed.--Kylohk 08:03, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep: The New England Journal of Medicine is certainly a reliable source and its write up of most topics is anything but trivial. Considering the media coverage of Oscar I say the cat is definitely notable enough for inclusion. I seriously doubt half the Pokemon characters on Wikipedia meet notability as well as this cat does, no offense to Pokemon. IvoShandor 09:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * yup, there's a lot of crap around here, so what? --Xorkl000 14:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment I'd thought I'd shared this with you. This cat has even had a half-page report on Ming Pao, Hong Kong's daily newspaper. (It's on the international section, page A22).--Kylohk 10:45, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * General reply to the keepers. I don't say he is not newsworthy, I say this is a newspaper article, not an encyclopedia entry. Works of encyclopedic scope aim to convey the important accumulated knowledge for their subject domain. It is an interesting subject, and an article on mysterious powers of cats (or some better title) would be a good thing to have, and to note Oscar as one example, but Oscar himself is not an encyclopedic subject.  It's like having an article on Child abduction (an encyclopedic topic) but also having articles on only certain individual victims who happen to chosen by the news media.  The first makes us an encyclopedia, the second makes us a newspaper archive.  Before it was deleted, Shawn Horbeck was over 1000 words, and Michael J. Devlin is 1200 words, but Child abduction is currently only 900 words.  That's a problem, and it shows that in general, many editors find it easier to write a summary of some newspaper articles than to write a general article about an encyclopedic topic (that may cite individual cases as examples).  There have been other stories of cats with mysterious abilities.  A good encyclopedist would research the topic and write a general article covering the whole topic, that would be timeless and interesting long after Oscar is forgotten. We are supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. Thatcher131 11:03, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment So, the article shall be deleted because Oscar is a "victim" of publicity? So, the article shall be deleted because other articles (you may consider similar) have been deleted in the past? So just because (you predict that) Oscar may be "forgotten" in future, the article shall be deleted (before he is forgotten)? Seriously, don't you think it's time to drop the request? --Bondkaka 12:41, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Where did I say he was a victim of anything? Newspaper stories do not automatically equate to encyclopedia articles.  Did you actually read my comments, such as "Works of encyclopedic scope aim to convey the important accumulated knowledge for their subject domain."  There is no encyclopedic scope to the story of one cat. Thatcher131 13:24, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * You repeat "it's like having"... but Oscar himself is not an encyclopedic subject. It's like having an article on Child abduction (an encyclopedic topic) but also having articles on only certain individual victims who happen to chosen by the news media. --Bondkaka 14:41, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you missed my point. I object to the fact that Child abduction is shorter and less detailed than articles about individual crime victims because I think Wikipedia should be an encyclopedia and not a newspaper archive. Child abduction is a serious and complicated topic and deserves a serious and deep article, but what we get instead is barely more than a stub, while individual abductions get in depth coverage, in my opinion, because most editors are lazy, or have no idea what the difference between an encyclopedia and newspaper article should be. Or to take it out of the realm of current events altogether, imagine if IC 10 was a longer and more detailed article than Galaxy. In this case, there have been many reports of cats with mysterious powers of prediction, medical and non-medical, that could form the basis of a good encyclopedia article, if somone would do the research. One particular example does not make for an encyclopedia article. That cats can detect diseases, or death, or predict earthquakes, is interesting. That one particular cat can do this is a newspaper article but not an encyclopedia article. Thatcher131 15:02, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The answer to all arguments of this form is to write a better article on the major topic, whether it be animals and human disease or child abduction. An ideal encyclopedia would contain a balance of short single topic articles, and longer thoughtful essays. In time, consensus might form to merge some of the short articles into the longer one, or information from them might inform the details of the longer article. If the short articles are deleted, then there's no basis for this method of improvement of the longer ones. Espresso Addict 15:16, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * delete - keeping this would be recentism, no way this passes the 10 year test --Xorkl000 12:18, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Well sources article, based on an essay in a most prestigious sceintific journal. It's sad to see how the argument of "recentism" yet again is used by people who are short of arguents. --Bondkaka 12:26, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * its not sad at all, i continue to find the 10 year test to be a very compelling argument --Xorkl000 14:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep Oscar's the subject of multiple, independent credible sources. An article on the cat doesn't preclude writing a general article on cats with claimed abilities, or animals supposedly sensing things we cannot or whatever.  Famous animals, and this is now a famous animal, are as encyclopedic as anything else.  Nick mallory 12:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep - featured in nurmous newspapers across the world, reported on televishion, the web, and The New England Journal of Medicine. Thats notable enough, isn't it? Think outside the box 12:55, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletions.   -- the wub  "?!"  13:08, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. If he's notable enough for NEJM to write an article on him, then he's notable enough for us. I know it's not a good argument but there are already plenty of animal articles with far less reliable coverage. Espresso Addict 13:20, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep: If this doesn't pass the ten-year test, I'm sure that there are 300000 articles for you guys to whine about (Sorry if I offend anyone). This article is worth keeping because it has many sources (CBC, Daily Mail, etc.), and is a subject of interest that, with time, will become encyclopedic. 142.179.121.11 13:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * the fact that other rubbish exists around here is not a useful argument to keep. This is at best a small section in an article about alternative methods of cancer detection (such as Canine cancer detection). --Xorkl000 14:19, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep due to many substantial sources. Propaniac 14:04, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep did get several seperate mentions in the news, so sounds notable (sources independent of the subject) Will (talk) 14:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. And keep that cat away from me. The WP:BLP1E argument is rather undermined by the fact that the New England Journal of Medicine isn't a newspaper. Ergo, it more than meets our notability criteria. Having said that, as I watched this story on BBC News last night I was rather annoyed to hear it get credited as some kind of precognitive feline grim reaper, when the interviewee at the care home explicitly said it was just responding to human cues. --DeLarge 15:29, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep per all of the uses above. James Luftan 15:35, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep for now, although this may be a case of recentism. It is well sourced but I ought to point out that the vast majority of the news outlets carrying this story are carrying what is largely a reprint of the same material. I would prefer some more substative coverage on the topic, however, and perhaps it merits a revisit a little ways down the road to see if anything useful has been said about Oscar or if he's faded away into obscurity. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 15:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep well referenced, and not to be confused with a certain Wikipedia administrator, I trust. --Oscarthecat 17:20, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Its certainly become notworthy given the amount of attention this cat has received in a variety of news sources spanning the internet, print news, TV, and medical publications. Alyeska 17:59, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, solely because Twiggy the Water-Skiing Squirrel has an article. Doc Strange 18:17, 27 July 2007 (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.