Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Syzygy


 * 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. No arguments for deletion aside from the nominator. The issue of merging, splitting, disambiguating, or what have you can be discussed on the article's talk page. (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:20, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Syzygy

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Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and this article appears to be functioning as a dictionary article documenting various usages of the word, rather than providing content appropriate for an encyclopaedia. Icalanise (talk) 15:37, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - Actually a sort of interesting compilation of trivia. No opinion on merit or lack thereof for inclusion. Carrite (talk) 16:49, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep while the article definitely needs more references, the word appears to have an interesting, complex history. the wiktionary definition could never contain all this material. as long as we can get sources for the usages here, i think it justifies having an article, even though its a bit of a hybrid of a disambiguation page and an article. Mercurywoodrose (talk) 20:30, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The history of the word is etymology and thus belongs in a dictionary, not an encyclopaedia. Icalanise (talk) 20:41, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
 * that may be true, but i dont see wiktionary carrying all this data. maybe strictly speaking it doesnt belong here either, but i would disagree with that. I think colonel warden below says what needs to be done with the article.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 04:42, 30 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep There's work to be done here but deletion would be quite disruptive to this. Per our usual house style, the astronomical, mathematical and other meanings should be split into separate articles while this article would either be the foundation for the primary meaning (not clear if it should be maths or astronomy) or otherwise be merged with the dab page.  Colonel Warden (talk) 22:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
 * KEEP, a lot more information than any dictionary entry.  He  iro  23:16, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Overhaul / merge. I would not have minded an article about the actual history of the word, but what we have looks more like a random list of definitions (esp. "in academia") and a collection of occurrences (esp. "in popular culture"). It gives no perspective on how, why and when the term was/is adopted and used in any given scientific, cultural or social field. Was there, for instance, a shared philosophical framework which gave rise to the adoption of the term in different branches of the sciences and the arts? If that sort of thing cannot be fleshed out (and I doubt anyone would care to delve much further without doing any OR), I would suggest: (1) in the absence of any primary topic, make "Syzygy" the disambiguation page, which would require a serious amount of trimming following the usual MOS for dab; (2) while trimming, move any useful information which does not belong here to appropriate contexts in articles elsewhere. This may require creating new articles, like "Syzygy (astronomy)" perhaps, but in many cases, subsections in existing articles serve this purpose much better, e.g. to avoid fragmentation, an explanation of the gnostic concept of syzygy would probably be more at home at Aeon. I hope that sounds like a viable solution. Cavila (talk) 10:07, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Overhaul/Split/Disambiguate per Cavila. The article should either be a disambiguation page or about the term, but presumably the related concepts are notable enough for independent articles. Claritas § 13:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Disambiguate page/merge info – what a cool page. But I agree that it is more of a disambiguation page; the information can be merged into other articles. –  Ker αun oςc op ia◁ galaxies  06:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Way too rich to delete, definitely needs work though. Wikiscient  (talk) 07:35, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Richness of the article and amount of content are irrelevant to whether the content should be included in an encyclopaedia. Icalanise (talk) 07:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * "Each article in an encyclopedia is about a person, or a people, a concept, a place, an event, a thing etc.; whereas a dictionary article is primarily about a word, an idiom or a term and its meanings, usage and history. In some cases, a word or phrase itself may be an encyclopedic subject, such as Yankee or fuck." A syzygy is a concept, an event, and a thing. Far too richly so for a simple dictionary definition; it needs encyclopedic treatment.  Wikiscient  (talk) 08:27, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * So the word syzygy has multiple meanings, that's the case for many words. Doesn't mean they warrant inclusion in an encyclopaedia. Icalanise (talk) 19:32, 1 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep, in some form. It's currently a muddled combination of dictionary definition, essay, and disambiguation page - and I suspect its optimum state is going to be as the latter. The word clearly has verifiable meanings and applications in a wide variety of fields - it may be that merging any relevant, sourceable content to relevant articles and then simply linking to them in the form of a chunky disambiguation page is the best solution here. We definitely need to have a page here due to the word's widespread meanings, but I agree that the current state is pretty dire. ~ mazca  talk 09:05, 31 August 2010 (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.