Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Virtues (number and structure)


 * 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 Delete. At first glance there may not appear to be a clear consensus, although there is a small numerical majority for keeping: 7 for deletion (including the nominator), 2 for simply keeping, and 3 for something short of outright deletion but not simply keeping it as it is (Userfy, keep/merge). However, looking further it becomes apparent that much of the reasoning for "keep" is not in line with policy. For example, although Hijiri 88 says "Userfy", the reasons he or she gives are reasons why this should not be an article, and he/she does not say anything at all about why he/she thinks that despite that it should be kept and moved to user space. For another example, Patnovak says "It seems to be a question of formatting rather than content", but in fact the reasons given for deletion are substantially about content. And to give one last example, despite the argument about what "essay" means and related issues, Andrew D's reason for keeping does not at all address the reasons given for deletion: "If they weren't original, they would be copyvio/plagiarism" is obviously interpreting "original" in a different sense than that in which it was used in the nomination. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 17:34, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Virtues (number and structure)

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Original essay. The title is useless as a redirect. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:35, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete as per nom. power~enwiki ( π, ν ) 02:41, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. North America1000 07:02, 9 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep/merge The nomination is absurd because our articles are supposed to be original essays. If they weren't original, they would be copyvio/plagiarism.  If they weren't essays they would be criticised as DICDEF, NOTDIR or some other hand-waving objection to their format.  The topic is notable and there's obviously considerable overlap with other similar pages including virtue; virtue ethics; virtue epistemology; Nine Noble Virtues; Seven virtues; Five Virtues; Cardinal virtues; &c.  See the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for an extensive account of such topics. Andrew D. (talk) 16:27, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * our articles are supposed to be original essays. Hell no. Please read and thoroughly understand our rules WP:NOR and WP:SYNTH. Our article are supposed to be tertiary sources faithfully reporting published knowledge and in the accepted format too. Staszek Lem (talk) 16:45, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * No hand-waving please. If you want to delete a good faith contribution like this, you need to explain the original or synthetic nature of the ideas presented and explain why this cannot be addressed by ordinary editing.  Complaining that the article is in essay format is ridiculous.  Per the OED, an essay is "A composition of moderate length on any particular subject, or branch of a subject" and that's what our articles are expected to be. Andrew D. (talk) 16:52, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * OK here is the very first sentence after the lede (which is bullshitting in its own): In Aristotle’s opinion, the different kinds of virtue arose from the nature of being itself: In order to know what a good man is, he said, we must firstly determine what man himself is.1, with ref #1 being Aristotle. Please explain how the first part (wikipedian's text) follows from Aristotle's utterance. In my opinion, wikipedia's text is baseless. I can give you more. We have quite a few articles on the subject already, blissfully unknown to the author of this essay. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:27, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Complaining that the article is in essay format is ridiculous -- not at all. Encyclopedia articles are in encyclopedic format, not in an essay format. Per the OED, an essay is -- Unfortunately Wikipedia has its own texhnical slang often wildly departing from OED. In Wikipedia, an essay is either WP:ESSAY when in the Wikipedia namespace or chaotic original research when in the article namespace. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:34, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Nonsense. WP:ESSAY is irrelevant, being an internal rules concept, and WP:NOR doesn't use the word.  What WP:NOR says instead is that statements "must be attributable to a reliable, published source".  The author here is clearly attributing the statement to Aristotle.  You might argue whether he is correctly summarising Aristotle's views but that's a matter of accurate translation and meaning.  Addressing such issues is done by ordinary editing, not wholesale deletion. Andrew D. (talk) 17:50, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Andrew, I see you're still violating WP:NOT in your AFD !votes. Do you know what "original essay" means? A thoroughly sourced scholarly paper on a noteworthy topic is not the same as an "essay". Also, it should be noted that Andrew posted this AFD at ARS here. I'm seriously considering proposing a new rule for ARS where posters to the rescue list are not allowed directly edit the AFD themselves (cast !votes, either before or after ARS) except to notify at the AFD that a message has been posted to ARS (which they would be required to do, with a diff). Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 22:32, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * An original essay in the sense of WP:NOTESSAY is text "that state your particular feelings about a topic". They are recognised by personal observations and first-person phrases such as "I think that".  That's not what we have here as the author is instead summarising the views of philosophers like Aristotle and Locke.  It's personal essays that we don't want and the key word is personal, not essay.  Andrew D. (talk) 08:07, 16 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Userfy This is an unfinished draft at best. The first 25 citations (an entire long section of the article) come exclusively from ancient Greek and early modern philosophical texts -- is this an original interpretation of such texts? What do modern Plato scholars think? This is the kind of article that would have passed muster (maybe even passed GA review) back in the bad old days but should not have passed page curation as late as 2015. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 22:50, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Apologies for late arrival at this debate. As writer of the original article I presumably don't have a vote? I do note however that the proposal for deletion of this article and another follow attempted posting of a new piece entitled Western values. I will not comment on these other articles here but on the relevant pages, except to say that all  have been written in good faith with no vested interests financial or academic. Neither do I think that any of Wikipedia's guidelines have been violated. If they have I should appreciate greater clarification. One of the earliest principles, I note, was that pieces should look outwards and not inwards. My piece starts with questions that a student might ask on being asked to write an essay on the subject. Why are such questions described above as "bullshit"? Where else can he or she find this kind of information? Certainly looking at other articles on Virtues in Wikipedia I cannot imagine them being much help - but Wikipedia is based on people having different points of view. The next sentence which was criticised also seems perfectly logical to me. It quotes an accepted point of view (Aristotle's opinion) and draws the reasonable conclusion that different kinds of virtue must arise from some differentiation within a human being... which is part of the general concept of being. If this were to be fully argued out in the text the article would become an essay! I confirm, in my opinion, that the piece is not original research but is a restatement of ideas, all cited, that have been around for millenia. It is also a piece that imparts a lot of knowledge in a fairly simple format which is surely what encyclopaedias ought to do. However, having said all this I would of course welcome any positive editorial input which might improve the article.Patnovak (talk) 12:51, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The conventional wisdom is that this is not a vote but is instead a discussion and so Patnovak's contribution is welcome. They are entitled to cast a !vote, if they wish, to summarise their view on whether the page should be deleted or not. Andrew D. (talk) 08:07, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz Humbug! 06:42, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. A decently-written college essay does not an encyclopedia article make. This is about Plato and Aristotle's views of the subject, not about "Virtues" per se. Brad  v  14:44, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete -- Text appear to be a copyvio from here ] Rhadow (talk) 16:22, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Rhadow's claim of copyvio seems to be false as that blog just has some general stuff about the same topic. The Earwig evaluation is "Violation Unlikely".  This !vote should be dismissed as a false claim unless and until better evidence is presented. Andrew D. (talk) 14:01, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * No, it is NOT a false claim, see --Rusf10 (talk) 17:37, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is a false claim. The document that Rusf10 suggests is the original is, in fact, an incoherent collection of fragments -- material scraped from the Internet, including Wikipedia.  You simply have to look at it to see that it's junk. Andrew D. (talk) 12:07, 21 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete as per nom as a personal essay which is prohibited by WP:NOT and possible copyvio as per Rhadow.--Rusf10 (talk) 17:38, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Rhadow's claim of copyvio is false. Look at the dates. The blog was created in 2017. The Wikipedia article was created in 2015. The blogger has copied and pasted an entire sentence from the Wikipedia article.Patnovak (talk) 10:32, 20 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep. Following comments above, I have reread the article and, although not too bad, agree that some changes could be made. It seems to be a question of formatting rather than content although I will look at some content issues too. The secondary sources could be given more prominence and I will address the imbalance between Greeks, Moderns and Contemporaries. Give me a week and I will make a substantial edit of the piece. Thanks. The article's creator Patnovak (talk) 10:32, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep, tag with OR. I don't think this merits WP:TNT. Primary sources refs and their analysis need to be replaced, but there is a lot of secondary refs too. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 11:01, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete, this kind of novel synthesis is impermissible on Wikipedia Guy (Help!) 14:08, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Userfy/Draftify for now. There are WP:TONE issues and some WP:SYNTH, but I don't see any compelling reason for deletion. What it needs, it seems to me, is some time in a sandbox and a mentor/reviewer to help get it ready for mainspace and/or identify existing articles it could be merged into. &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 14:25, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. Do not userfy or draftify. thinks Wikipedia is a free host for publishing essays. &mdash; RHaworth (talk · contribs) 16:05, 21 February 2018 (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.