Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Skygazing


 * 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   redirect to Amateur astronomy. Any mergers from history are subject to editorial consensus.  Sandstein  20:27, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Skygazing

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)


 * This article seems not to be encyclopedic since:
 * The article is for the most part a redundant duplicate of Amateur astronomy with further duplication of other articles (meteorology, aurora, the sun, ect)
 * The major part of the article consists of instruction.
 * There seems to be no way to attributed this article about “skygazing” to any reliable sources material. “Skygazing” does not even seem to exist in any standard dictionary so there isn’t even a basic definition.
 * The consensus view in several discussions Talk:Amateur astronomy, Talk:Amateur astronomy, Talk:Skygazing is to merge and/or redirect. Merger of any encyclopedic material has for the most part has been effected a wile ago and what is left in this article is instruction and or un-referenced and therefore unusable in other articles.

Redirection is my preference because “Skygazing” seems for the most part to be a slang term for the activity formally known in this encyclopedia as Amateur astronomy. It could be this article is not suitable for an encyclopedia at all because it has no definition in the English language. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 12:42, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment&mdash;"Skygazing" is clearly a contraction of "sky gazing", and I find the term has been in use at least as far back as 1926. I don't oppose a merger, but I do believe that skygazing isn't necessary amateur astronomy; the latter is a dedicated hobby whereas the former is just a recreation, like swimming. This distinction should be mentioned on the resulting page. Thank you.&mdash;RJH (talk) 16:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with RJH here, Skygazing is certainly a common term, just perform a google search and you will find thousands of relevant hits. I also agree that sky gazing itself is not necesarily the same as amateur astronomy. Jdrewitt (talk) 17:11, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Redirect Since material from this article has already been merged, redirection is required by the GFDL to keep the paper trail alive on who first contributed this information. Deletion would be a gross violation of the rules and redirection can be applied without performing deletion first. - Mgm|(talk) 12:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Redirect per nom and Mgm. Cosmic Latte (talk) 14:36, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Redirect reasonable search term, but the article is more a howto than encylopedic. Perhaphs transwiki to wikibooks where it might be appropriate. --Salix (talk): 16:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Merely looking at the sky does not seem like a notable topic. Borock (talk) 18:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * comment Looking at the sky is notable since so many people do it, but a redirect sounds like a good idea. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:26, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * comment Looking over the talk and edit history of Skygazing and Amateur astronomy I noticed that a refactoring of Amateur astronomy was preformed mostly by Izogi spurred by the discussion about Skygazing. Material from Skygazing was not merged, it was more "boy Skygazing is a bad article, and Amateur astronomy has similar problems... lets fix Amateur astronomy". So Skygazing could be deleted without GFDL problems since material was not specifically used in Amateur astronomy, it was specifically avoided. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 15:53, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I really cannot understand that logic. Simply because an article is written badly is not an excuse to delete it, instead it should be simply tagged appropriately and simply improved. Jdrewitt (talk) 17:14, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * "Improving" the article is fine. But you immediately run into the problem of this article being un-referenced and totally un-reference-able. So we improve it how? It is not badly written as much as it is a badly written encyclopedic article. To be an article in this encyclopedia there has to be reliable sources describing something clear and distinct called "Skygazing". Those don't exist. The only thing I could possible see doing with this article is to convert its topic headings into a new article called List of things seen in the sky. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 18:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * There are plenty of unreferenced articles in wikipedia. The way to deal with these is to tag them accordingly.  Not delete them.  I don't think you can dispute the factual accuracy of the information in this article, for sure it should be referenced but this isn't a reason to delete the entire article and its history.
 * Note that the article Amateur astronomy is also poorly referenced yet that is no reason to subject it to an AfD. Jdrewitt (talk) 20:07, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Just because other stuff exists is not a rational for keeping an article. Skygazing is not poorly referenced, it has no references at all. Being un-reference is not a reason for deleting an article, being non-encyclopedic is . An un-referenced how-to article that is a redundant copy of several other articles and seems to be a dumping ground of random information about the sky is the definition of non-encyclopedic. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 22:22, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * This isn't an OSE argument, its an issue over whether this unreferenced article belong in wikipedia. My point was that the appropriate way to deal with an unreferenced article and an article that requires cleanup is to tag them accordingly.  Not to delete them.  Quoting WP regulations to try and counter any of my suggestions here isn't going to help. You can find a WP rule to support pretty much any idea you wish. I for one DGAF Jdrewitt (talk) 09:14, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * comment I will transwiki this to Wikiversity if it is going to get deleted.  --mikeu talk 02:37, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Redirect and/or merge. - Should be redirected as something too similar to have its own article, but probably could be merged, also. '''Ceran →(sing→see →scribe) 15:18, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge There is a significant amount of material here which should be first merged into the Amateur astronomy page. Only when this is completed should a redirect be used.  This article and its history should not be permanently deleted. Jdrewitt (talk) 16:58, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Merger with Amateur astronomy is a very bad idea. Almost all of the material in this article relating to Amateur astronomy describes how to observe objects in the sky. Wikipedia articles are not how-tos. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 18:56, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep On second thoughts, I change my opinion from merge to keep. This page and its history should not be deleted.  Skygazing is a very worthy topic of its own article.  The fact that the article needs to be improved is not a reason to delete it.  There is material that could be merged into Amateur astronomy, for example under a heading Observations or similar. The article also mentions day light sky gazing.  This is obviously not astronomy and reinforces the need for a separate article.Jdrewitt (talk) 20:04, 3 November 2008 (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.