Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roxy's Ruler


 * 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. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 19:49, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Roxy's Ruler

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This is a new scientific theory with no secondary or tertiary sources, and the only primary sources are essentially self-published, not peer-reviewed. At best it is WP:TOOSOON. The author of the article is the author of the only publications using this name. Lithopsian (talk) 19:44, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Astronomy-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 20:23, 10 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. Legacypac (talk) 21:04, 10 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete. There doesn't appear to be evidence that this method has been demonstrated or applied in any refereed publications to date, so there is no evidence of notability at this stage. An AAS conference abstract doesn't count as a reliable source per WP:SCHOLARSHIP because these abstracts are not vetted or refereed: it just means that the authors presented this as a contributed conference presentation. Aldebarium (talk) 21:44, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

*Merge to Galaxy and redirect - Sourcing is insufficient to demonstrate notability for a standalone article. All I could find is a paper written by the article's author. Plus, it was published in 1975, so there's no reason that if this were recognized as reliable science, it wouldn't have gotten at least some coverage somewhere. And, I'm mindful of the concerns raised above by and  about the overall lack of sourcing. Nonetheless, I'm on the fence about a pure delete versus merge. It would be a shame to remove info that is valid. One possible compromise could be to add a few sentences about different methods of measuring galaxies in the Galaxy article, sourced with this paper and others as appropriate. I'll post a note on the Galaxies talk page so that others more knowledgeable about this scientific area can also comment. And - you responded the right way, but you can indent your comments by putting one or more colons  in front of your text, or create a new bullet with an asterisk (*). You can also reply to people by putting their user name in this format in the text: TimTempleton (talk)  (cont)  22:16, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep to give the new user the opportunity of adding secondary or tertiary sources that are reliable and published.Oceanflynn (talk) 00:27, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
 * This article is in its early stages and is a conference paper given to AAS. It is also included in Harvard's ADS database here: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AAS...22810307R More references are to be entered and a more experienced Wiki editor than myself is being sought. This is my first article. This galactic distance measure is the result of finding a metric in a rotating coordinate system using an L2 norm. This is a common procedure, but references from Riemann and Lebesgue are certainly available. The Christoffel was first discovered by Landau. These references should perhaps be added, but the crux of your argument is not understood. The technique works and should be available for people to use and it should be included in Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bbrout (talk • contribs) 21:10, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not here to spread the word about new scientific theories or information. Such things must already be widely known and discussed in independent reliable sources in order to merit inclusion in Wikipedia, and even then only what those independent sources state can make up such an article. 331dot (talk) 21:29, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia often carries articles on scientific theories both new and old. This is not a theory but a method. It works and it should be included. Other references are available and can be included.
 * There does not seem to be a response button so I am just editing the page itself. I hope that is ok.Bbrout (talk)
 * Yes, that is the correct thing to do. 331dot (talk) 22:03, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I think you may be misunderstanding the sourcing. If you're referring to the 1977 reference listed in the article, that paper describes the Tully-Fisher relation, which is well-established science but is not the primary subject of this particular article. The article in question for deletion is about a different method, which has no refereed publications or citations to establish notability. There is no justification to add this newly proposed method to the Galaxy article because there is no reliable source to cite for it, no refereed publications, and no evidence of scientific impact or usage by any other scientists. It's just a case of WP:NOR. Without reliable sources there is no basis to determine whether the method described in this article is valid, and the lack of reliable sources argues that the method does not meet WP:N. Aldebarium (talk) 22:43, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * You are correct in explaining the sourcing. The reference was to Tulley-Fisher. More references have been included. Independent sources of citation are also now included. The method was referred to in an arXiv article, which has also been included. Regarding whether the method actually works or not, this may be moot; however, as mentioned below, it was said to work by the editors of WikiHow. So your concern that it is not used by other scientists has been responded to. Furthermore, this method was being taught in some American universities and I am searching for evidence of this. More references and citations are being added. Thank you for your critique as it makes the article much better. Bbrout (talk) 18:55, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
 * - you are correct - I did misread the sourcing. Striking merge vote. TimTempleton (talk) (cont)  23:16, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for all your comments
 * Merge or redirect
 * Some counter-points should be mentioned here in this discussion. This article concerns a method for finding the distances to galaxies which has not been previously published in Wikipedia. Furthermore, it does not rely on the use of dark matter nor MOND. Those in the discipline of astronomy, both amateur and professional, would know what this means. Therefore, I would request that comments include declarations of conflict of interest if any such conflict exists. I have already declared my conflict of interest on my home page.
 * The arguments for deletion mention the need for reliable sources. I have copied the linked page and will go through some of the points and respond to them. I think that is fair. I would also like to point out that this being my first article, I have not extensively included all references and it appears obvious these should be included. Therefore a merge and redirect might be very appropriate for now and perhaps, with greater use, it would garner its own article. Please keep in mind this is not a new theory, it is a method for measuring the distances to galaxies which does not involve red shift, luminosity, dark matter nor MOND.


 * What counts as a reliable source

Further information: Identifying reliable sources The word "source" when citing sources on Wikipedia has three related meanings: • The piece of work itself (the article, book) ◦ The article concerns a conference paper delivered to a AAS conference. • The creator of the work (the writer, journalist) ◦ I wrote it and delivered it. • The publisher of the work ◦ 'The work was previously vetted by NASA and published on the ADS database. Here http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AAS...22810307R ' All three can affect reliability. •  Indeed  Articles must be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Source material must have been published, the definition of which for our purposes is "made available to the public in some form".[7] • ''This method for measuring the distances to galaxies is also included in WikiHow: How to find the distance to a galaxy. The page has over 9,000 hits and so far, no one has found an error to this method. Also, I would like to mention, that the WikiHow article was listed for deletion when it was published five years ago with the same arguments as listed here; but the article was not deleted by the editors, since it was found to actually work. Therefore, this method has been made available to the public "in some form" for quite some time.    • Also, there is tremendous controversy over scientific publication at this time and I do not want to get into that argument. I will say that this method was vetted by NASA and approved to be a conference paper with the American Astronomical Society and included in the ADS database by Harvard. '' Bbrout (talk) 22:52, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: I am a newbie and have had to catch up quickly. Thank you to those who lent a hand. There are two categories within the arguments for deletion, although there are variations in the thread. The first is that the author has been rejected by the scientific community along with his work and the second is the argument that the author is attempting to publish original research on Wikipedia.
 * To respond to the first argument, I uploaded a citing from Hilton Ratclilffe, a rather famous professional astronomer from South Africa. He's retired now. I don't personally know him but in the astronomy business, we sometimes talk to each other. His comments ignited some discussion, which is typical of Hilton. So, to be completely transparent, I have been blacklisted by the arXiv for well over ten years and blacklisted by Nature, the IOP and every other peer reviewed journal in the world. The reason they have done so is because I can prove dark matter does not exist and that the universe is not expanding. All of this has nothing whatsoever to do with the article itself or to it's appropriateness for inclusion in Wikipedia. This is an ad hominem as far as the author is concerned; it makes no difference who the author is. Unless, of course, she is really famous. Regarding content, editors are cherry-picking regarding Hilton and not mentioning Stephen James O'Meara. O'Meara is a world famous astronomer of incredible integrity. Stephen was the first to sight Halley’s Comet on its 1985 return and the first person to determine the rotation period of the distant planet Uranus. One of his most distinguished feats was the visual detection of the mysterious spokes in Saturn’s B-ring before the Voyager spacecraft imaged them. Stephen has been honored with several awards, including the prestigious Lone Star Gazer Award "for setting the standard of excellence in visual observing," the Omega Centauri Award "for advancing astronomy through observation, writing, and promotion, and for sharing his love of the sky", and the Caroline Herschel Award for his planetary discoveries. The International Astronomical Union named Asteroid 3637 O’Meara in his honor. He called me up personally from England to interview me for his book, which is now a standard handbook for both professional and amateur astronomers. I am very humbled by that. Neither he nor Hilton, have ever discredited any of my work let alone the distance measure of which the article, Roxy's Ruler, is about. Also, none of this has anything to do with the acceptability of the article, for or against. All of this is moot. Also as part of the history of the article's formula, the editor of the Astrophysical Journal, Ethan Vishniac, suggested in a phone call that I find a simple formula to determine galactic distance. He ended up blacklisting me because the formula actually works. However, again, that has nothing to do with the article's acceptance.  which author, please, takes "my formula" into dispute?
 * Regarding content: it does not matter if the formula actually works or not. That is nonsense. The detractors cannot say they do not want original research, (which is a point I agree with), and then say articles have to be peer reviewed. Articles in Wikipedia do not have to be peer reviewed and they can be written by anybody. They don't have to "work" or be scientifically correct. They do, however, have to factual. The only reference to my own work in the article is a citation to the ADS abstract of a conference paper. Citations to ADS and to conference papers happen all the time in Wikipedia. The article is not about a conference paper, it's about a method to measure the distances to galaxies which is used by alternative cosmologists, amateur observers, amateur radio astronomers, and is included in a world-famous handbook for astronomical observationalists. It is also taught in some astronomy courses in American universities and colleges. It is controversial because, if it is used, it is discovered that the universe is not physically expanding and that there is no need for dark matter or MOND. The author has been blacklisted by every peer-reviewed journal on the planet and, in spite of that, for some unknown reason, one of his papers was approved by NASA to be given to a congress of the American Astronomical Society. After close to ten years, no one has disproved method's correctness.
 * This article should not be deleted. It is of interest to the public and it is both useful and factual. It should be kept or merged with another article. You do have an article for Non-standard cosmology, so it might work there. Bbrout (talk) 18:49, 12 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Notice: The above comments were moved as a result of a request by (see talk) and was not intended to disrupt the flow of discussion. Bbrout (talk) 16:12, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * COMMENTS:
 * asked on my talk page that I back up this article because it was going to be deleted. There is no backup of this article, not in my sandbox nor anywhere on or off line. There is only one copy of the article, which is on the article page. If the article is deleted, it is deleted forever never to return. Ever. There is no trash can and no un-delete key.
 * Erm... there's nothing stopping you from making a copy at any time, like NOW, you know? (Unless you wish it to be gone forever as some kind of statement...) -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:16, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't understand. No "statement", other than silence, would result in the article's deletion. No one would care. Neither you nor anyone else would be able to see it on Wikipedia either now or in the future whether I have a backup or not. There is no reason to have a backup. (Although TBH, I think I saw it somewhere on another site). I am too old to be playing games. I also don't know how and I am not very good at it. If you find the article useful, then I see no reason why you, yourself, couldn't make your own backup although there are references to much better articles and instructions for how to use Roxy's Ruler elsewhere. I have a longer note below to Marchjuly which may clarify. Bbrout (talk) 03:22, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * PEER REVIEW: I have two rhetorical questions regarding peer review:
 * 1. Should articles in Wikipedia be peer reviewed?
 * No. Peer review is for original research which does not belong in Wikipedia.
 * 2. Should Wikipedia articles only be about peer reviewed material?
 * No.
 * This article is not original research, it is a method to determine the distances to galaxies which ... etc. The conference paper in question is a reference or citation which is not part of the article. That was corrected.
 * Peer reviewed articles are being retracted at an alarming rate. Peer review does not indicate validation or scientific correctness, it just means that the paper, or whatever, has been reviewed by a member of the scientific community. References and citations in Wikipedia need to be from reliable sources of which peer reviewed articles are included. Citations of conference papers and citations to ADS abstracts are also often made in Wikipedia. Bbrout (talk) 16:42, 13 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete Bbrout's own Talk page mentions that astronomy journals have rejected submitted manuscripts. AND mentions an author who takes Rout's formula to dispute the red-shift theory of an expanding universe. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not WikiHow and a conference abstract. David notMD (talk) 08:52, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete WP:OR is policy: "If you discover something new, Wikipedia is not the place to announce such a discovery". Bakazaka (talk) 16:33, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Speedy Delete No citations, rejected by peer review, OR, lacks notability, et al. Implications challenge mainstream interpretations which sets a high bar for creating an entire article. A non-standard cosmology also reduces the likelihood that it will be accepted for publication in a legitimate journal or discussed by the field. The Static Universe endorsement is attributed to Hilton Ratcliffe who has "published" in the "Journal" of Cosmology. (Some of the material in A Brief History of Galactic Distance Measurements could be merged to extragalactic distance scale, if it is not already there) --mikeu talk 22:33, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete This is a textbook case of the type of original research which is prohibited from Wikipedia by policy. Mention by a fringe scientist in a dubious journal such as the Journal of Cosmology does not amount to significant coverage in reliable sources. WikiHow may be an entertaining and Interesting website but it is most definitely not a reliable source by Wikipedia's standards, since it consists of user-submitted content without professional editorial review. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  23:34, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete: per Aldebarium. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:16, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Notwithstanding the above voluminous demonstrations that the author does not understand why we have notability rules: Wikipedia is not the place for the popularizing of scientific concepts or findings; it is a place to summarize them once they have been popularized. Until then, stick to the peer-reviewed publication process. It offers fewer shortcuts but that's the playing field. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 00:49, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete: The "keep" arguments seem to be primarily WP:VALINFO, WP:ITSUSEFUL and WP:EFFORT, which in my opinion are not sufficient enough to overcome WP:NOR and WP:TOOSOON. Perhaps as some have pointed out, there will more written about this in reliable sources in the (near) future, but the mainspace's purpose is not (once again in my opinion) to act as an incubator for "articles" about subjects which might someday be the subject of WP:SIGCOV. Nobody has suggested this yet, WP:DRAFTIFY or WP:USERFY might be worth considering if there's a strong feeling that this might someday be notable; the creator or anyone else interested in doing so can continue to work on imroving and adding citations to reliable sources. Then, it can be submitted for WP:AFC review if or when the concerns expressed in this AfD have been addressed. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:35, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * How would I go about following your suggestion? Bbrout (talk) 17:56, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * You can state that you want the page to either be draftified or userfied and see what others think. Such a request may be granted as long as nobody strongly opposes it because it will only delay the inevitable, i.e. deletion. You need to understand that the draft namespace (in particular) and the user namespace are not really intended to be holding pens to place content which has serious concerns about ever meeting Wikipedia's notability requirements; so, you should only request something such as this if you really intend to continue to improve the article and continue to look for the significant coverage in reliable sources which help meet the concerns being raised by others in this discussion. You should not see this as a way to create a quasi-article, just to keep the content somewhere on Wikipedia. You should also understand that if such a request is approved, it will mean that others will likely be watching your progress to make sure that you're moving in the right direction. Even a draft or a userspace draft can be nominated/tagged for deletion if it appears to be going nowhere or is just an attempt to use Wikipedia in an inappropriate way. I also suggest that now is the best time to copy and paste whatever content you want saved from the article onto your computer because you won't be able to see it if the consensus here turns out to be delete. So, if you want an off-Wikipedia record of your work, you should create one now. Finally, a notification like re only works if the post is signed when you click "Publish changes"; it won't work for unsigned posts and going back to add a signature to an unsigned post won't make it work. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:00, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Your comments are very useful. From what you say I don't think there is any value in draftifying or userfying. If the article is deleted I see no way it can come back and I don't want to see it hidden and just taking up people's time for no reason. So I appreciate your direct explanation. The issue has nothing to do with peer review, all of that is just a red herring. The issue is whether or not Roxy's Ruler is original research. I cannot fathom how anyone could see it as such. It is just a way to measure the distances to galaxies which is simple to use and available to anyone. It would never be peer reviewed nor placed in a journal because it is already being used, hence it would not be seen as original research by a journal. And a journal would just put it behind a paywall anyway if it did see it as such. If it is judged to be original research by Wikipedia editors, then it would never be in Wikipedia no matter what happens. However, that is the crux of the argument. Peer review requirements are completely irrelevant. Thanks for giving me a space to state that clearly. If its popularity of use comes to light somehow, and under the circumstances of modern science these days I cannot see how that would happen, then the article would have to be so drastically changed that it would be much easier to start it over from scratch. (That would be the task of some poor unfortunate). I already know what the article says so there is no reason to have a backup. I put the four tildes in before writing this note because I'm old and forget things. Again, thank you for your kind and straightforward comments. tldr: Roxy's Ruler is either original research or it is not. Bbrout (talk) 03:09, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Just want to clarify that a reliable source which is behind a paywall can be cited in a Wikipedia article per WP:PAYWALL. So, as long as the source is reasonably accessible so that it can be verified to say what it's being claimed to say and that it's being used in proper context, it shouldn't be an issue. Moreover, there are ways to format a citation to indicate to the reader that some form of registration or subscription is required to view the source. A reliable source only needs to be WP:PUBLISHED; it doesn't need to be freely available online, either completely or in some part. There are lots of different types of editors on Wikipedia and many can and do have access to sources behind paywalls or online databases, etc. (see WP:SHARED and Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library/Databases); so, that's not going to really a valid reason for deleting any article from Wikipedia (see WP:NEXIST). WP:OR doesn't mean that what's being written about is false or useless garbage; it's just that Wikipedia requires verifiability to a high degree. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:12, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom -Roxy, the dog . wooF 13:27, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Snow Delete. Article should have never been allowed to have been made in the first place. Was it an WP:AFC submission or was the user given creation rights? jps (talk) 11:04, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete The points raised by mikeu and Cullen are compelling. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 13:46, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * mikeu is self-contradictory and excludes the Cambridge citation. Peer review is for original research and this article is not original research. It should therefore be kept. Not one comment has stated how this is original research. This article is in response, in part, to the requested articles page. Wikipedia:Requested_articles/Natural_sciences. This is a requested article. Comment by User:Cullen328 et al are irrelevant although it does direct towards what original research is. Again, no one has supported their case for deletion by giving any evidence of this article being original research. Much of the comments are treating the article as though it would be a submission to a scientific journal. It would not qualify as such. I am not saying this in anger at all; I am just pointing out what is being said. Wikipedia is not for original research. I therefore ask you, and others, specifically and without hand-waving, how is this article original research? If there is a specific instance of original research in the article, (I think we know what is meant by that: in the article itself), the article could be edited and that be removed.
 * Continuing on: The article does not claim that dark matter does not exist nor does it claim that the universe is not expanding. (I'm going back to it to make sure it doesn't and editing it if if does). The article says everybody else is finding out that dark matter doesn't exist and that the universe is not expanding by using Roxy's Ruler. (NOTE: This has been removed by another editor). There are no journal articles on Roxy's Ruler because it is not scientific research. There may be some pre-print stuff, but I have not published any peer reviewed articles on Roxy's Ruler. Personally I think the issue here is no one know how Roxy's Ruler actually works. It is certainly not anything new. Spirals were invented by Archimedes and that is public knowledge. Spiral galaxies look like spirals. That is not new and is public knowledge. The speed of light is constant as is the "speed of gravitational influence" and again, that is not new and is public knowledge.
 * We pick up a ruler which consists of mathematical techniques which have stood the test of time. We hold it up and measure the universe with it. Lo and behold we see the universe is not expanding; it is infinite and eternal. Now, the statement that the universe is not expanding is not a part of Wikipedia as a "new" statement; many people have made that statement elsewhere. That is definitely not original research. I think we all agree on that. However, the fact that people are finding out the universe is not expanding, although not original research, may qualify for an article. Nevertheless, the ruler itself does qualify as a Wikipedia article. (People know about it, it's useful, it's factual and it is of interest to the public). That is obvious. The ruler is not original research. That being said, and to be fair, if anyone can clearly point out, without hand-waving, how Roxy's Ruler, which consists of mathematical techniques that have stood the test of time, is original research, then the delete side wins. If no one can, the keep side wins. Oversimplification: How is a spiral original research?
 * tl;dr: Wikipedia editors are challenged to state clearly how the Roxy's Ruler article is original research without using an antithesis as a thesis. Bbrout (talk) 20:49, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * "Roxy's Ruler" is original research because you developed it (it is original to you) and because "Roxy's Ruler" as a topic has not received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of you. Is that clear, ? Cullen328  Let's discuss it  22:23, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * No, it is not clear. Yes, I came up with the formula over ten years ago. That is a conflict of interest which I have declared. It is questionable to be called a "topic", but moving on. Coverage, whatever that means, has been deleted in the article. However, that may be a correct thing for an editor to do. These references included reliable independent sources from myself. You have not answered the question: how is this classified as "research"? How could this possibly be a scientific journal article or part of one? What, specifically, about Roxy's Ruler is research?Bbrout (talk) 23:03, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Hello again, . "Topic" in this context refers to the subject of any Wikipedia article, which might be a city or a person or a butterfly or a sculpture or a mathematical theorum or a galaxy or an event in history. "Research" in the policy forbidding original research includes any individual editor's personal experience, personal ideas, personal theories or personal knowledge and anything else that is based on what an editor thinks and knows. It is far broader than academic research and includes drinking games that a person has developed and then tries to write about on Wikipedia. It includes what a Wikipedia editor has learned in their personal life about a famous relative. That is all original research in Wikipedia terms. "Independent" means that the reliable source has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic or the person who developed the topic. When you write "reliable independent sources from myself", that is powerful evidence that you have absolutely no idea how Wikipedia actually works. The closing adminstrator will decide whether your arguments are based on an understanding of Wikipedia policies, or whether I and the other editors recommending deletion understand those policies better. I am quite confident of the outcome. <b style="color:#070">Cullen</b><sup style="color:#707">328  Let's discuss it  00:17, 15 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Greetings again to you You are correct on what a topic is and Roxy's Ruler is a topic. I stand corrected. "reliable independent sources from myself" should read "other than myself". That is what I had meant by independent. Whether you are confident or whether I have any idea of what I am doing have nothing to do with the acceptability of the article. However, you are getting to the meat of the issue. Your statement of what is scientific research appears to be something you just made up. This, I think, is the paragraph in original research that may apply:

"Original research can take a number of forms, depending on the discipline it pertains to. In experimental work, it typically involves direct or indirect observation of the researched subject(s), e.g., in the laboratory or in the field, documents the methodology, results, and conclusions of an experiment or set of experiments, or offers a novel interpretation of previous results. In analytical work, there are typically some new (for example) mathematical results produced, or a new way of approaching an existing problem. In some subjects which do not typically carry out experimentation or analysis of this kind, the originality is in the particular way existing understanding is changed or re-interpreted based on the outcome of the work of the researcher.[8]"

I have made bold the pertinent part. In this case, Roxy's Ruler is classified as original research and you win the argument. I shall delete the article. Bbrout (talk) 00:38, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * , only an uninvolved administrator can delete the article. You are involved and you are not an administrator. <b style="color:#070">Cullen</b><sup style="color:#707">328  Let's discuss it  02:59, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I stand corrected. It seems you are winning all of our arguments :-) Bbrout (talk) 17:37, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment This page might qualify for speedy deletion if you blank the page (by removing the current text that you've added) and replace it with  . That is the process for requesting deletion. Please leave the existing notice about article for deletion in place though. --mikeu talk 10:05, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

*Delete. Hi, co-author of original article here, thanks for your guidance. The distance measure is pretty simple to derive and the comparison to TF and Ceiphids shows that it's accurate, so while I understand that it does constitutes OR, it may still be interesting or useful. Is there any other recommended forum for discussing new topics? I'm sure you can imagine how hard it is to find a forum to discuss a method that calculates unexpected results despite the straightforwardness of its derivation. We've shared this measure at conferences at the AAS, the Canadian Association of Physicists, the National Radio Observatory at Greenbank, Stanford University, and Embry-Riddle, and has always garnered some interesting conversation.
 * Comment: The above vote was a copy-paste error. I intended to vote to keep.


 * The above comment is not signed. You need to sign your comments with four tildes at the end of it. Otherwise the ping won't go through. Bbrout (talk) 17:39, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

"Primary sources are original materials on which other research is based, including:
 * Keep. :: One last comment after reviewing the the complete discussion. I'm not sure if through all of this it was noticed that the work is described in Stephen James O'Meara's book ten years ago, this seems to be ignored by all Delete votes. O'Meara is a popular and respected author on the topic which I believe makes a strong case for it being interesting to the community and no longer original. Cameronrout (talk) 19:40, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: The above comment pings the originator of the comment. Perhaps it should ping ? Bbrout (talk) 19:43, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment As mentioned above, Cameron Rout is a co-author with Bruce Rout on reference #5, and presumably a family member. Does not preclude Cameronrout from voting Keep, but not an independent opinion. Adding O'Meara as a reference does not absolve this article from being original research, unpublished in peer-reviewed astrophysics journals. David notMD (talk) 00:05, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Coment No, it does. This is a direct quote used by Wikipedia itself:
 * original written works – poems, diaries, court records, interviews, surveys, and original research/fieldwork, and research published in scholarly/academic journals."

- -http://libguides.merrimack.edu/research_help/Sources May I add that conference papers, depending on the conference, are often used as reliable sources on Wikipedia. I have run into tons of them in using references in papers which both I and write. That being said, the issue is, I think, some independent reliable source after the fact. Bbrout (talk) 02:55, 16 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Your account was created way back in November 2006, but seems to have remained unused until you posted here in this thread. I don't think I would be the only editor to find such a thing more than just a bit unusual; so, perhaps you could clarify why after all these years you've decided to resume editing Wikipedia by adding a comment to an somewhat obscure AfD discussion. If by chance you were asked to participate in the discussion, then please clarify. Please also be aware that there are some Wikipedia administrators who are pretty good a detecting things like WP:MEAT and WP:SOCK; so, if these might apply to you and you didn't know such things weren't allowed, you should clarify things before it gets too late to do so because the consequences can be quite harsh if you don't. As for the link you've provided, it's simply to an Amazon page about a book; it's not really an example of the type of significant coverage others have been mentioning in above. It might help if you can provide more (i.e. page numbers, etc.) details on what the book says about "Roxy's Ruler" on the talk page of this AfD discussion for the benefit of others. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:21, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I'll let speak for himself. He was listed as a co-author of a conference paper on reference 5 in the article. He has a conflict of interest which I am sure he is willing to declare, but he may not know how. Unfortunately, neither do I. Perhaps you can help him with that. The link concerning "it's simply to an Amazon page about a book" refers to, what is now, reference 13 in the article complete with page numbers and so on. It was mentioned in my lengthy comment above. An editor had deleted it and this has caused confusion. It has been added back in.  O'Meara, Stephen. The secret deep. Cambridge University Press. pp. 186–188. ISBN 978-0521198769. Bbrout (talk) 02:59, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I believe that Cameron Rout is a family member, not Sock Puppet. And not Meat, either, as having been co-author of a paper means not just a warm body added to the chorus. My point in pointing out the name connection is that Cameronrout should have been clearer about the connection. And with this comment, I am out of here, as nothing else to add. David notMD (talk) 03:16, 16 March 2019 (UTC)


 * The first thing I mentioned above was that I am co-author on the paper, as noted by . I don't know how to make my connection to the topic any more clear and I have no idea why the fact my account is over a decade old should be a strike against my legitimacy compared to the fact that I actually co-authored the discovery in question. I find your comments and several others in this thread to be hostile and pretentious, betraying extreme biases in the selectivity of comments. The voracity and haste at which this article was ripped apart with references and details deleted wholesale without any conversation has me concerned and has made it very difficult to explain clearly why this is a reasonable topic for inclusion because every response is only exposed to half of the information provided. I am jumping in now to comment for the first time in a decade simply because it's the first time I've had to defend myself from such professional miscategorization. For the sake of my own reputation, I think it's important to have a chance to state for the record why this topic is interesting and should be in Wikipedia, especially after the brutal cherry-picking, interference, and near name-calling I've had to endure by reading this thread.

It's okay to believe that we are quacks, it's okay to believe that the method does not work despite the validation provided, it's okay to think that the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers does not qualify as a valid scientific community or should never have invited us to 3 of their conferences, it's okay to think that the American Astronomical Society and the Canadian Association of Physicists are not qualified to determine this topic is of interest to the scientific community by inviting us to their national conferences, it's okay that you think a topic has to be peer reviewed rather than only published in texts like O'Meara's in order to be on Wikipedia, but it doesn't, and your own rules of your own community state that none of these opinions should prevent this obviously interesting topic from being documented.

THIS TOPIC IS CONTROVERSIAL. Why is that a problem? It's also fascinating and well validated and has generated hundreds of interesting conversations across the country over the years. Instead of embracing an interesting but controversial topic and simply documenting it, this community is trying to make declarations as to which sources should constitute legitimacy. I do not believe that is the purpose of this community at all and I would like to see those involved in this process start applying the principles with judicious objectivity.Cameronrout (talk) 07:05, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete, The process has not been proved to be correct yet. Alex-h (talk) 18:10, 17 March 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.