Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Liquid crystal water

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 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was delete. This discussion, and the development of the draft, both seem to have come to a standstill. Numerically, the numbers are five for delete to three for keep. The strongest argument for keep comes from DGG, that we should not let problems with the draft or the fact that it is FRINGE stop the attempt to create an article. Against that I find the arguments of Roches and TenOfAllTrades convincing, combined with the discussion at the FRINGE noticeboard, that there is not actually a coherent subject here with enough credible secondary coverage to write an article. JohnCD (talk) 22:11, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Draft:Liquid crystal water


I'm not sure what the standard is for this, but I think it is probably hopeless that this particular draft will ever be appropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia articlespace. The reason for this is that the ostensible subject is only promoted by WP:FRINGE groups and no outside notice of this idea seems to exist. Articles on individual researchers can include their particular claims, but this piece is largely an example of synthesis of similar but separate proposals about weird water behavior. Not sure what the standard is for deleting drafts (the policies and guidelines about this are fairly vague), but we did give this page enough time to develop and I'm fairly convinced that we're not going to be able to address the problems that were brought up. jps (talk) 21:13, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
 * We do cover fringe topics, to the extent that they are identified in reliable sources as fringe topics. bd2412  T 21:31, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. I did not mean to imply that this wasn't the case. I just don't see the reliable sources that actually identify "liquid crystal water" as a coherent subject.... at least not ones that are independent of fringe theorists. jps (talk) 00:25, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep with reservations. Actively edited.  Lot's of issues uncontrolled in Draft space, true.  Bad title, I'm sure.  Probably Long range molecular ordering in water is more appropriate.  Probably, this material should be considered a spinout of Properties_of_water.  As such, I think these new barely watched articles in Draft space are a menace.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:38, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Leaning delete per Roches below. I have posted an invitation for further comment at Talk:Properties_of_water.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:51, 13 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep looks to be adequately referenced, and is heading in a suitable direction. A draft can have more flaws than an article. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:25, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete. See the comments I placed on the article's talk page and the fringe noticeboard. The issue is not with the referencing or the structure of the content; the issue I have is with the content itself. It is not a spinout of the discussion of hydrogen bonding and intermolecular forces in water, and I'd be even more opposed to keeping the article under a different title. Long range molecular ordering in water does not happen because of anything like the intermolecular interactions in a liquid crystal.
 * The article presents an unusual problem for a science article. It doesn't look wrong, but it is, and it's difficult to see why it's wrong. I don't think I can clearly and concisely explain why it's wrong; that's not relevant, though. If liquid crystal water is not a fringe phenomenon, there should be multiple independent, high-impact sources that agree, including review articles. Currently, the article does have some references to peer-reviewed journals, but that's below the standard I think is necessary. Roches (talk) 23:24, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I think, consistent with what Roches is saying, that this article can be seen as a potential Fringe / UNDUE spinout of Properties_of_water. As such, as a general principle, I think it should only be allowed if there is consensus at the parent article for a large section to cover the subtopic within the parent article, except only for problems of article size.  From what Roches says, this sounds very unlikely.   --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:32, 13 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep We cover fringe. This is fringe, and it's sufficiently notable to be worth an article; at least, it needs a chance to become an article. I dislike our tendency to reduce coverage of  unpopular subjects, and  I really dislike in the strongest terms any attempt to inhibit people from trying to cover them properly. This draft would need significant rewriting, but it will be easier to deal with that by having a draft to start with.  For a quick idea of where this actually fits into the current scheme  of science, see Gilbert Ling. Articles on either science or pseudo science should include the collection and recapitulation and organization of the individual sources on the subject. That's not what we mean by WP:SYN -- the prohibited WP:SYN is our drawing factual conclusions where the authors of the works cited have not done so. I am not impressed by the argument that this should be deleted because it is fringe--I agree it's pretty clearly fringe, but it is a total misapplication of WP:FRINGE to say we should not cover it. That's what  and  seem to be saying. And, @, that the draft might be misused is no reason not to use it properly.    DGG ( talk ) 05:02, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
 * "that the draft might be misused"? Did I say that?  I read the draft again.  I can't say that it is clever malicious nonsense.  Much seems so reasonable.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12356270  http://home.slac.stanford.edu/pressreleases/2008/20080630.htm  It's a subject of surprising complexity.  Not having any better advice, I advise the authors to very strictly stick to independent secondary sources.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:20, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
 * We should not present the idea that water behaves as a liquid crystal as a fact. The discussion of clathrates in the 2002 article linked above is not related to liquid crystals, nor is the formation of micelles. The term "liquid crystal" means something specific and it means something that this article does not touch on. You could say water is a semiconductor because it's sometimes an insulator and sometimes a conductor, depending on the amount of dissolved salts, right? But that's a misapplication of "semiconductor" and this article is a misapplication of "liquid crystal."
 * I don't think this is really fringe science or fringe research, because there doesn't seem to be any research involved. It seems to consist of, on one hand, actual research into specific behaviors of water, and on the other hand commentary from unreviewed sources on why this means water is a liquid crystal. I guess there is a place for covering fringe beliefs that are wrong. But this article explains phenomena that are adequately explained in other ways and says they should be explained by magic. Roches (talk) 17:54, 15 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete. If it's anything, it's a POV fork of Properties of water.  (Arguably, it could also form a portion of Gerald Pollock&mdash;if this draft were significantly trimmed and contextualized, and if we were to determine Pollock notable enough for his own biography.  Please, nobody go create that bio just to be a WP:COATRACK.) What we have – and despite repeated requests on this point, what we still have – is a very inventive bit of WP:OR (heavy on the WP:SYN) coupled to a serious WP:NPOV violation (centered on WP:WEIGHT issues).  The draft has a fair number of citations, certainly, but their application and interpretation is problematic.  Actual, direct support for this theory comes down to a number of low-impact primary publications (including some self-published books) by a very small number of authors.  In addition, we see a small number of cites to independent, credible sources, from which cherry-picked factoids are pulled out of context to 'support' this theory; these independent papers don't seem to ever use the phrase "liquid crystal water".  There isn't any robust secondary coverage of this theory at all; everything directly referring to it seems to come from its tiny cadre of proponents.  We're left with a situation where not only is there now outside criticism of the topic, we can't even find outside comment. What it comes down to is this&mdash;without independent secondary coverage, it's impossible for us to write a proper encyclopedia article. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:21, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete Per Roches and TenOfAllTrades. This article is based on a walled garden of primary OR, and SPS sources. There is no mainstream high quality scientific source that supports the existence of this form of water, not even one. There isn't even mainstream repudiation of it, mainstream science has so far completely ignored it. So nesxt step is to see if it passes notability as a fringe topic like UFOs and healing crystals? But no, even as a FRINGE topic it still fails to pass NOTABILITY - due to the walled garden nature of the sources. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:07, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep Per DGG. Adequately referenced. The quality of referencing and POV issues are not much of a problem forsomething that's still in draft stage. 103.6.158.193 (talk) 14:54, 16 June 2015 (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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.