Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ScienceWorld (2nd nomination)


 * 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 merge to Wolfram Research.  So Why  08:55, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

ScienceWorld
AfDs for this article: 
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The coverage (references, external links, etc.) does not seem sufficient to justify this article passing General notability guideline and the more detailed Notability (companies)/Notability (websites) requirement. Some mentions - sufficient to confirm the website exists - but nothing to suggest it is notable. WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:57, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions.  WC  Quidditch   &#9742;   &#9998;  19:35, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  WC  Quidditch   &#9742;   &#9998;  19:35, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Redirect??
 * Keep. Immensely valuable web resource on science, complementary to Wikipedia. Passes WP:GNG. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:33, 21 June 2017 (UTC).
 * WP:ITSUSEFUL is not a valid argument. And neither is WP:ITSNOTABLE. Sources, please, not assertions. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 08:49, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep per the previous AfD; the sources mentioned therein (e.g., and especially ); others that are easy to come by (e.g., (subscription required)); and the number of Wikipedia articles that use it as a reference or supplement .  All that said, I have no objection to merging it into MathWorld, since it is an offshoot of the latter project. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:24, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
 * All of those are just one paragraph (at best) directory entries. WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Not a single one is analytical, they just state it exists and what it is. I don't think that merits WP:GNG requirement for in-depth coverage. The merge proposal seems quite reasonable, and offers a possible compromise (I would be fine with soft delete through merge and redirect). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 01:25, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Addendum to my !vote: I found when checking from home that the ProQuest page requires a subscription, so I've made a note of that above. The citation is to the following: Larson, Carolyn, et al. "Best Free Reference Web Sites: Sixth Annual List." Reference & User Services Quarterly 44.1 (2004): 39.  The Google Scholar search which turned that up also finds a smattering of papers which use ScienceWorld/Eric Weisstein's World of Science as a reference, which seems rather sloppy bibliography practice to me, but it does indicate that people read the site. (When one book after another recommends a site as useful and generally reliable, that may be worth noting, even if each individual book has little else to say about it.) But since it's hard to imagine this article growing much beyond what it is now, perhaps merging into MathWorld&mdash;which is hosted on a sibling domain, even&mdash;is the most satisfactory course. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 02:53, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Addendum to my addendum: My search also turned up a piece on the astronomy part of ScienceWorld in a journal called Reference Reviews. However, I was unable to access that journal through my institutional subscriptions. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 03:18, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I was able to access it. It is a short ~1 page? review of the astronomy section of the site. It is certainly better than the blurbs we found elsewhere, but it is also a review of only one part of the site. It is worth noting that the review describes the site as "good - in the past": "Some years ago this site was one of the most valuable and useful sites for the budding physicist or astronomer to turn to. However, today when one takes a critical look at the site while there remain some elements of value; the time has long passed when this could be considered an essential primary resource.... There are links from some of the articles to external resources, not all of which are working.... Overall until a few years ago World of Astronomy was a much loved and valuable resource. Today looking at it in contrast to other printed and electronic resources available, it feels dated, incomplete and sadly long past its time. Whilst there is still limited valuable information in some entries, they are by no means guaranteed to be current or complete. That World of Astronomy is freely available is its sole boon, but this reviewer is no longer able to recommend it as a primary or indeed secondary resource for the astronomical student or professional. A moment of pause to mourn the passing of a legend; no flowers, by request. " and for our own pleasure, I'll quote this: "The site was clearly in part a precursor to multi‐author crowd‐sourced online information resources such as Wikipedia, although with a focus on drawing contributions more from the established scientific community. However, in many regards it has been overtaken by other initiatives – contrast an entry on Blazars: on World of Astronomy this is a scant two lines, not illustrated and with only two cross‐references. On Wikipedia this runs to several pages, with two colour illustrations, and countless cross‐references to related articles. This is sadly not an isolated example, and illustrates how limited this resource is for a reader." FYI, I probably quoted a 20-25% of the entire review, so you can see how short it is. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:49, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for accessing that review! I particularly like the "no flowers, by request" quip.  Moreover, it agrees with my own general impression that MathWorld is the best-developed site of the bunch.  Considering that this appears to be the most substantial thing we could add to the ScienceWorld article, it really does seem now that if the article were kept, it would remain a permanent stub.  Folding it into the article on MathWorld, with a couple mentions of how people took note of it (e.g., the American Scientist blurb linked above), now feels like the best way to go.  On reflection, therefore, I am now advocating a merge.  XOR&#39;easter (talk) 04:00, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Just for our own amusement, I'll note that the World of Astronomy "Blazar" page is still only two lines long, and by the looks of it, it wasn't even copy-edited. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 04:12, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Winged Blades Godric  13:51, 29 June 2017 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: It seems clear that this should be merged somewhere, but it's not yet clear what the right target is. User:timtempleton's suggestion that Wolfram Research might be a better target than MathWorld came late in the AfD and didn't see any discussion. Relisting this mostly so people can sort out which of those is the better target.
 * Delete fails GNG, as evidenced by Piotrus and XOR&#39;easter's search. (Redirect seems like a plausible outcome as well, but I have no opinion whether the suitable target is the editor or the owner. No referenced content to merge to either.) – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:03, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment I think the best target for a redirect is MathWorld. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:08, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Merge to Wolfram Research and redirect - and do the same with MathWorld. Minimal independent third party coverage. TimTempleton (talk) (cont)  23:33, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- RoySmith (talk) 10:56, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment Merging both the ScienceWorld and MathWorld articles into Wolfram Research would be fine by me. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:28, 10 July 2017 (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.