Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/TCM Materia Medica (Others)


 * 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   no consensus. In the future, it may be better to discuss case edits on talk pages rather than mass lumping of articles for AfD, as it makes it impossible to sort out issues. Der Wohltempierte Fuchs ( talk ) 02:00, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

TCM Materia Medica (Others)

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

The article doesn't appear to be very useful for an encyclopedia. The content is entirely unreferenced and might be better suited for Wikibooks. At the very least, referenced mentions of their use in traditional Chinese medicine should be incorporated into our articles on these plants (or not? - WP:UNDUE). All articles being considered for deletion/discussion under this nomination are below. Rkitko (talk) 22:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * TCM Materia Medica (Others)
 * TCM Materia Medica (Tuber)
 * TCM Materia Medica (Stem)
 * TCM Materia Medica (Seed)
 * TCM Materia Medica (Root)
 * TCM Materia Medica (Rhizome)
 * TCM Materia Medica (Plant)
 * TCM Materia Medica (Leaf)
 * TCM Materia Medica (Fruit)
 * TCM Materia Medica (Flower)
 * TCM Materia Medica (Bulb)
 * TCM Materia Medica (Bark)
 * Herb (Translation of herb names)


 * Herb (General Usage Part 1), Herb (General Usage Part 2), Herb (General Usage Part 3), Herb (Meanings of Terms), Herb (hyperlipidemia), Herb (anti-cancer), Herb (anti-oxidant), Herb (preparation), Herb (patents), Herb (formulas), Herb (Chinese-Japanese Common Herbs), and others like it also have questionable titles and content that doesn't seem to warrant an article on its own, but I've left them out of this nomination. See Herb usage for a whole bunch of quasi-content forks. --Rkitko (talk) 22:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Expand and possibly combine. the present article is just a bare list; a fuller discussion might be encyclopedic. DGG (talk) 02:28, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Whatever your opinion of the others, certainly you can agree that Herb (Translation of herb names) should be deleted per WP:LINKFARM? The other articles are just short lists of pinyin/Chinese names with no links to the actual plants. A more complete discussion might help with a companion List of plants used in traditional Chinese medicine, but these article splits are entirely too small, even for summary style. --Rkitko (talk) 03:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * (1) If a split-article is too short and creates too many links, then methinks the solution is not to split it (i.e. to join it back to the main article), rather than to delete it.
 * (2) If there are no links to the "original plants", then methinks the solution is to create such links, which has already been done for some plants, as shown below. It takes time to create more links for the other plants. The article is a work-in-progress, and deleting it will simply make it impossible to update it with the relevant links:
 * Bark-Eucommia, Bulb-cardiocrinum, Flower-loquat, Fruit-tangerine, Leaf-guava, Plant-typhonium, Rhizome-rehmannia, Root-tung oil tree, Seed-oleander, Stem-lambsquarters, Tuber-potato, Oil-walnut.
 * Based on availability, links are frequently made to the common English names, rather than to the Latin names. For example, it is not possible to link to "Folium Psidii Guajavae" but somewhat trivial to link to guava, although they refer to the same plant/leaf. In this case, the rose by any other name isn't quite the same.	Cottonball (talk) 09:49, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Do your sources list the exact species of Guava or is referring to the entire genus Psidium? --Rkitko (talk) 12:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The sub-articles will be expanded in due course. As the list is large, even for a single category, a bare-bones structure is created to hold latter content. References are not found in each sub-article but are found in the main article,Herb (TCM Classification), namely, "Ou Ming and Li Yanwen. The Traditional Chinese Drug and Its Usage. (page 328). Hai Feng Publishing Co. 1994. ISBN: 962-238-199-5." and "Nigel Wiseman. "English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary of Chinese Medicine. Pages 1-387. ISBN:7-5357-1656-3." However, if deemed necessary, these references can be repeated at the end of each sub-article. Cottonball (talk) 02:44, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * References of works in Chinese will be included subsequently, as these need to be translated. Cottonball (talk) 02:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * In addition to the above, English references have been made to one or more herbs in each of the sub-articles. More research or scientific references will be made to illustrate or confirm the medicinal use of these herbs in the modern context.Cottonball (talk) 05:44, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Speedy Keep All The nomination's statements that content is not useful and is entirely unreferenced both seem to be false. The contradictory statement that the referenced portions should be merged elsewhere indicate that this is not a deletion discussion and so should be handled using a more appropriate process such as WP:MERGE. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Some of the pages should be deleted: Herb (Translation of herb names) and Herb (patents)? The first because of WP:LINKFARM and the second for its questionable encyclopedic value. Do we have any other lists of patents? I suspect only when they're notable... And, in my humble opinion, WP:MERGE is broken. The merge tags sit there for months or years until its dealt with. I still maintain, however, that the level of detail in each of these articles is unnecessary and not useful. Why start each entry with the pinyin name in the English encyclopedia when they're not loan words? The common English names listed are vague and ambiguous - which species do these refer to? --Rkitko (talk) 12:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The word species itself can be vague. For example it is said that "A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are often used, such as based on similarity of DNA or morphology." Are you referring to similarity of DNA or morphology? Hair-splitting can be attempted at any level of detail, and may not be very productive, especially when we are talking about terms that were used hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Even authors like Nigel Wiseman would have considerable difficulty in finding references to DNA similarity in ancient Chinese texts.


 * Keep as per Colonel Warden. Edward321 (talk) 14:03, 10 March 2009 (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.