Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Urbanate


 * 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 of the debate was good arguments from both sides. As there was no consensus either way, the result is keep per default. --Ezeu 22:19, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Urbanate
Appears to be a nn WP:NEO. Most of the Google results are for University of Florida merchandise (their coach is Urban Meyers) and a song/album by Michal Urbaniak. Metros232 22:07, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete as WP:NOT a neologism dictionary. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:17, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Do Not Delete
 * What on Earth are you talking about!?
 * This article is about Urbanates!, if you had read it you would know what that means!
 * It has NOTHING to do with "University of Florida merchandise" or any Song or Album by anyone!
 * As for it being a "neologism", Well if you had read the Reference links provided, you would see that the first link is to an article Written on the topic in 1955...
 * "Wilton lvie
 * - Technocracy Digest, Nov. 1955"
 * Now since when is a 51-year-old (at-least) word considered Neo-anything?
 * It is a perfectly legitimate Word and has been in use by the Technocracy Movement probably since it began in the 1930's. The term may not be widely known by most people today, but that does make it illegitimate, over the course of the 20th Century the word has most likely been spoken by Millions of people, just because you have never heard of it or it doesn't appear in many Google searches doesn't make it a neologism according to Wikipedia's rules.
 * If it is not in Dictionaries, then that is the fault of the Dictionaries, as I said it has been used for decades and printed in a vast amount of Publications.
 * I see nothing in the rules here WP:NEO, to warrant a deletion of the article, and nothing in the rest of your argument to warrant it either, I will be removing this template immediately unless you can show some sort of legitimate reason not to.
 * --Hibernian 23:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment. The legitimate reason not to is that an AfD notice is left up until the debate is closed by an admin. Your opinion on whether the article should be kept has been noted. It certainly does not end the discussion. Please review Articles for deletion. Fan1967 14:19, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Strong keep. As Hibernian says, this is not a neologism. I'm not terribly familiar with the technocratic movement, but even so, I'm aware of the concept of urbanates having been around for a good while now, and from what I understand, they're a pretty important part of the whole philosophy. I think this is one of those situations where Google is not a great tool for gauging notability. At the very least this should not be deleted but merged to Technocratic movement. That said, I think the article should be kept, since it describes a fairly specific plan for a human environment, whereas the article about the movement is more about describing an ideology. -- Captain Disdain 01:10, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete WP:NEO. Very rare usage in this context. There's a usage regarding students at U of Florida, and a song by a guy named Urbaniak. After eliminating those, and Wiki and mirrors, only a handful of the remaining few dozen GHits remotely apply to this usage. Doesn't seem to be in widespread use. Fan1967 14:16, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per Captain Disdain. Aguerriero  ( talk ) 17:34, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep The article needs more context at the beginning to make it more clear. A single sentence on the technocratic movement would be good. Yes there is an article, I know, but still the article should be understandable on it's own. Still it seems to be worth keeping for the time being to allow the author to clean it up. I would also like to see some characterization of the size of the movement in this article to give proper context as well.--Nick Y. 18:40, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. We need a new clear definition of notable.  The alternate meanings are more common, but clearly not notable under db-band and db-bio.  Why should this, even less common usage, be considered notable? &mdash; Arthur Rubin |  (talk) 20:08, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Not that I don't see where you're coming from, but just the same, I think it's worth noting that notability does not equal popularity or commonality (and vice versa). -- Captain Disdain 01:21, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * But notability does mean, in the case of a word, have people heard of it, and do people use it? I don't see any use of this word outside the technocratic movement, or even any indication people are aware of it and don't see it deserving of a separate article. Fan1967 22:21, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, this is an old debate. Take OGLE-TR-122b, for example. I'd be very surrpised if you'd ever heard of it (I certainly hadn't, until I looked it up just now), you most likely don't even know what it is until you click on the link, and chances are that most people you talk to won't have heard of it, either. (In fact, chances are that more people have heard of urbanates than that.) Yet saying that it isn't notable would be extremely foolish. The same applies to various subjects that are notable to experts or practicioners of a given field but to which the vast, vast majority of even well-educated people are completely oblivious -- for example, Brauer's theorem on induced characters or branes. I mean, I personally feel rather strongly that notability is an important criterion for inclusion in Wikipedia and implicit in the "not an indiscriminate collection of information" rule, but I also strongly feel that notability cannot be determined by popularity alone. Just because something is somewhat obscure doesn't mean it's not significant (and, in fact, that's where encyclopedias really are at their most useful, anyway -- when they provide information about topics that are not already common knowledge). Not that this is the most hugely important topic in the world by any stretch of imagination, but it's not exactly random trivia either. -- Captain Disdain 13:46, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I don't see the comparison between a rather unique scientific anomaly and a recondite word that a minor movement has tried, and failed, to spread for fifty years. Fan1967 19:53, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * It's hardly a question of spreading the word. It's a (pretty old) word that is used to describe an admittedly minor but nonetheless significant concept. Whether or not that concept is widespread is of secondary importance. Furthermore, I must repeat that judging the concept's importance by Google hits is not a great idea. Google is an awesome tool, but it often fails us on matters like this -- if you're looking for sexual acts or current events or something contemporary that is being done in the scientific community or something related to computers or pop culture, things that the internet is full of, it does very well. It is not a great tool for determining the importance of 50-year old concepts that are no longer popular or topical, either because of their enduring nature or by virtues of nostalgia or appeal to retrophiles. In fact, I suggest that if you are not at all familiar with a concept beforehand, you can't properly judge its significance without proper references. -- Captain Disdain 02:28, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear. I don't believe this is a 50-year-old concept that is "no longer popular or topical". It never was popular or topical. Fan1967 06:29, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Is that assessment based on actual knowledge, or just belief? -- Captain Disdain 07:52, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
 * It's based on the fact that I've never heard the word, or read the word, or heard anybody use it. Do you have any reason to believe that in fact it once was popular or topical? Fan1967 21:05, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, that's my point -- you haven't heard of it, but that's no different from not having heard about a particular star or a theory. Clearly, then, there are things that cannot be judged notable based on whether you have heard of them -- so in order to figure out whether they're significant, you need to do research. In this instance, the practical difference between urbanates and stars and theories is that the internet is full of information about the latter simply because of their nature -- but when it comes to obscure and even outdated concepts like this, Google just doesn't do very well with them. If people don't talk about it on the net, it doesn't show up. Point is -- and please don't take offense here -- I don't think you really know whether the topic is notable or not, and you don't have a basis for evaluating it. There may well be something published about the topic on paper that could be used as a better gauge of notability, but I don't think either of us has access to any such publication. As for me, I don't know enough of the background to really evaluate how significant it is in the grand scheme of things, either, but what I do know is that I have heard the word before, I have discussed the concept before, and to me it seems worthwhile enough to qualify for inclusion. That hardly makes me an expert on the matter, but it does indicate, to me, that this is not just something utterly insignificant someone made up on the fly. Yeah, it's pretty obscure, sure, and of minor importance, absolutely. But Wikipedia is not paper. We're not about to run out of space here. This is not a hugely important topic, but it's not a waste of space, either. It doesn't do anyone any harm. It's not original research. It's not vanity. It's not utterly trivial, and the concept's existence is verifiable. It's most certainly not a neologism (as claimed by the nominator). It may even be of use to someone who's researching the technocratic movement. It has some historical significance. This is a far cry from an article about someone's garage band or pet or teacher or random crackpot theory (not that I think the concept of urbanates is particularly realistic, but just the same, this is not gibberish spouted by a lone schizophrenic with a net connection) or whatever. And let me be honest here: I'm not going to pretend that I'm going to cry over this article if it ends up being deleted, because I can't say that I honestly care all that much about urbanates, and it is a minor topic. But as a matter of principle, this just strikes me as a very weak basis for deletion. As I said, I think notability matters a great deal, but I don't think it can be accurately measured just by Googling and whether someone's heard about it in situations like this. -- Captain Disdain 23:18, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
 * So your argument is that it might have been notable once, and Google wouldn't show it. Sorry, but this strikes me as a very weak basis for retention. Fan1967 01:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, well, it's not Wikipedia policy to remove articles on subjects that are no longer as notable as they were. Good thing, too; that would make for a pretty crappy encyclopedia. (Also, that's not exactly my argument, but rehashing it is unlikely to do make a difference here.) -- Captain Disdain 15:25, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
 * But it is Wikipedia policy to require some verification that the notability was ever there in the first place. Fan1967 15:39, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment I think Captain Disdain is correct, it should be included if only for historical reasons (though that is certainly not the only reason to keep it). As I think has been established, it is not a Neologism or a made-up term, thus the original delete reason is not relevant. I do not currently have much evidence to present on how widespread the term ever was (mainly because most Technocracy related material is in paper form and only small pieces of it are online), however what I can say is that the Urbanate concept was an integral part of the Technocracy movement, and that movement certainly was/is Notable. It did once have a membership of something like half a million people in the U.S and Canada in the 30's and 40's, so it is quite probable that all of those members would have been familiar with the concept of Urbanates in at-least some way. The Movement still has several thousand members is North America today (though I don't know the exact numbers), and in recent years it has started to spread World-wide via the Internet (hence how I heard about it). I believe that does qualify it as a notable concept by Wikipedia rules. Now the Article may not be great (I did just write it myself as a short introductory piece to be added to later) and it is by no means complete. I am currently continuing research into the Concept and I hope other people with knowledge of it will also contribute. It will be expanded and explained better with further additions, (one of things I would like to research is the History of the Term, when Exactly it was come up with and by whom, etc.). So I would ask that this deletion template now be removed.--Hibernian 02:33, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, the deletion template is not going to be removed until the AfD process is complete, Hibernian. That's just the way it goes, and how it should be. I wouldn't worry; clearly, there's no clear consensus to delete the article. (No clear consensus to keep it, either, of course -- but we tend to keep things by default.) -- Captain Disdain 14:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep I agree that the article needs to be improved significantly, however the concept of Urbanates is as central to Technocracy as Energy Accounting. Without them a Technocracy could not achieve the performance rates that it claims. Most of the inefficiencies Technocracy purports to be able to fix are contained in the structure and design of cities; hence, Urbanates are designed to replace them. --Kolzene 09:56, 1 June 2006 (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.