Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timewave zero (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   no consensus. Stifle (talk) 08:44, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Timewave zero
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

After this article's previous deletion nomination, it was decided to keep on condition that an attempt be made to bring the article up to some kind of academic standard. Instead, the opposite happened. As this previous version shows, it became even more swamped under preaching and jargon. I decided that the article would be better employed if shortened and kept as part of 2012 doomsday prediction, which currently has a wide range of committed and skeptical users able to keep such excesses under control. However, User:Lumos3 has contested the move.  Serendi pod ous  16:47, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's tough to have an academic-quality debate about a crackpot theory; you can either have a long entry that picks apart every nonsensical claim, or you can have a short entry that merely mentions it as a crackpot theory. Neither article is that interesting. Hairhorn (talk) 16:55, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The point is that that previous version did NOT pick it apart. It was written as an opinion piece that extolled the idea's virtues and dismissed all criticisms. This article, left to its own devices, will just revert to that form, as only true believers will be interested in editing it. It needs to be somewhere where an eye can be kept on it.  Serendi pod ous  16:58, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ugh, I was hoping it wouldn't come to this. I wouldn't say that Timewave Zero is a "crackpot theory".  I'm not saying I agree with it, but it does make some logical sense.  The previous version was, as Serendipodous said, simply a show of bias, rather than a NPOV expository piece.  If this article stays, and someone has to keep an eye on it, I would be willing to do that (even if I'm only causing more harm than good right now). Chocolate Panic! (talk) 17:27, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I understood the point of the nomination. Did it not sound like I did? Hairhorn (talk) 17:32, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I didn't mean to imply that at all. I was just stating my opinion. Chocolate Panic! (talk) 18:29, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Appears to be a notable, if not particularly useful, theory. The fact the some editors might or might not change the article in the future is not a reason to delete. --Pontificalibus (talk) 19:18, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Speedy keep. Uncle G showed why this article is appropriate in the second deletion debate linked above, and his arguments have not been refuted. The nomination contains one of two serious errors, depending on how you read it.  Either the nominator's argument is "let's merge this to 2012 doomsday prediction"—in which case this is a clear case of speedy keep ground 1 without further discussion—or else it's "This article is bad, and it's getting worse, so let's delete it" which fails WP:BEFORE.  See also sofixit.  Either way, it's a speedy keep, under ground 1 in the first case or a snow failure of WP:BEFORE in the second case.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  20:25, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No. I want to merge this article with 2012 doomsday prediction. I did so, but that merge was challenged, and the person who did so said s/he would only accept the merge if the article went through an AfD.  Serendi pod ous  06:52, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. I really don't see this as a speedy keep.  The article borders on crackpot nonsense.  With one exception, all of the sources are fringe ones, and that lone source is an article on an event where the guy who made up the theory spoke.  This is one of many such theories, and I really don't see it as having a place on here.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tyrenon (talk • contribs) 21:58, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * In case anyone else shares Tyrenon's view, I'll quote Uncle G in full. Google Web is not the only search tool in the world. Google Books turns up a book by Graham St. John, Postdoctoral Research Fellow the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland, which addresses McKenna's Novelty Theory and Timewave Zero on pages 214–218.  (The reported criticism of the idea by Gyrus is quite amusing.)  ISBN 9781591796114 pages 20–21 and 309 discusses McKenna's theory and xyr slide-the-date-up-and-down methodology, and, amusingly, gives two different dates for what McKenna claimed to be the zero point.  Daniel Wojcik, Associate Professor of English and Folklore Studies at the University of Oregon, deals with the subject on page 293 of ISBN 9780415263245.  And those are in addition to the web pages linked-to by the article itself, including the criticisms by Watkins and Meyer.—Uncle G, in the debate linked above.  In other words, there are non-fringe sources.  Crackpot nonsense it may be, but crackpot nonsense can be encyclopaedic; there are good reasons why Wikipedia has an article on bigfoot.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  22:08, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quote! Chocolate Panic! 22:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Crackpot theories are still notable if people are talking about them in areas Wikipedia sees as verifiable places. I count around 60 published books that mention the theory see http://books.google.com/books?q=timewave+mckenna&lr=&sa=N&start=0, many from mainstream publishers. Its clearly notable. Lumos3 (talk) 22:40, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * PS this is actually the 3rd nomination it was voted keep under the title Novelty theory in 2006. See Articles for deletion/Novelty theory . Lumos3 (talk) 22:45, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * ... and it was voted keep under the same title in 2008. See Articles for deletion/Novelty theory (2nd nomination). There's a bit of WP:KEEPLISTINGTILITGETSDELETED going on here, though I'm sure it's in good faith.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  22:54, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep bizarre pseudo-science that is notable deserves an entry --- the downside is that crackpots flock to them and try to make them plausible with lashings of pseudo-math. Bigdaddy1981 (talk) 00:29, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * So are you willing to spend the rest of eternity stopping crackpots from flooding this article with bias? In my experience on Wikipedia, people who claim that articles should be kept as long as the crackpots are kept out always expect other people to do the job. I have a HUGE in-tray on Wikipedia right now. I don't want to add this to my already heavy workload. And don't tell me I don't have to do it. If I don't, nobody will. This article's previous AfD provided a very clear means to prevent this from happening again, and yet nobody did anything.  Serendi pod ous  06:57, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Good point --- I tried to do this once with the quackey of thermeoeconomics and it was gruelling. I am not sure of the correct solution. An encyclopedia must give correct information and it is better for it to give nothing on a topic rather than made-up things. If crackpot ideas are allowed to passed off as truth then it is better to not have articles on them. Sure. someone can say "what is a crank" idea and blather on about relativism and post modernism etc. But people with such ideas should then be hostile to the very idea of an encyclopedia -- which is premised on the basis of the existence of truth. Bigdaddy1981 (talk) 19:08, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Per your remark above confirming that what you seek is a merge rather than a deletion, this is in the wrong place. Please look at WP:SK ground 1.  AfD is for deletions, not mergers.  The editor who asked you to take it to AfD was, simply put, wrong. Mergers take place on the basis of a talk page consensus, being the talk pages of the two articles to be merged.  "Merge" is a common outcome of AfD, but that's usually done to preserve a paragraph or two of well-sourced content from an article that's mostly rubbish, and it's usually the result of an inexperienced nominator.  (Experienced nominators act to preserve any valuable content by merging it to another article and then take whatever's left to AfD.)  I'm sorry if this seems obstructive or bureaucratic—I realise it would be convenient if you could bring these matters to AfD where lots of people will see it—but the criteria for AfD are deliberately very narrow because otherwise AfD would be even more swamped than it already is.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  08:58, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * OK. Close this. I'll take this debate back to where it belongs.  Serendi pod ous  11:06, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I probably shouldn't close it because there's a delete !vote and I've participated in the debate. Hopefully an uninvolved editor will agree to do this.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  11:19, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge with 2012 doomsday prediction. Dougweller (talk) 16:59, 29 May 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.