Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:The answer to life, the universe, and everything

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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 snow keep. (NAC) Armbrust The Homunculus 01:22, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

The answer to life, the universe, and everything


Prods are not applicable in the Wikipedia name space. I am therefore taking this to MfD for resolution. Given the level of dispute, I would lean to delete. Safiel (talk) 01:57, 2 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I motion for deletion of this page once and for all. It is causing confusion, misleading people, enraging many people and more. In addition, the page does not serve a notable purpose and is not to be trusted. Mr. Guye (talk) 02:04, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I gather there is some dispute that has gone on. Has there been an RFC?  Could you provide link(s) to the previous discussion(s) please? -- do  ncr  am  20:37, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia talk:The answer to life, the universe, and everything Peridon (talk) 21:09, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Though that is about whether it should be labelled "information page" or "essay". I don't see evidence there of "many people" being "enraged" by it. JohnCD (talk) 21:33, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * A few were getting rather heated. That's where I came to this from, not having posted there (but being alerted on my watchpage). Peridon (talk) 10:26, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep at least until something better appears. There's a lot of people attacking this page, but none of them seem to be providing a simple to understand guide for newbies to replace it. It is said to be requiring too high a standard - isn't that better than giving the message that anything goes? If they manage to achieve it, is that a problem? If they don't, they will still post their referenced to Twitter and Facebook (or if posher, LinkedIn) article anyway. It will be judged by the proper standards not by this. Peridon (talk) 10:27, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep. The page is useful for giving new editors, commonly SPAs with a POV, some clue of what is expected on Wikipedia. It is not meant to cover every nuance of policy, that is what the policy pages are for.  It is a nutshell, and we don't delete the nutshells on policy pages just because they have failed to include this, that, or the other obscure policy caveat.  Spinning  Spark  17:14, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep. Per Peridon and Spark. -- do ncr  am  17:33, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep per Peridon and Spark. We don't want to put newbies off, but we also don't want them, as is too often the case, to put a lot of effort into compiling long lists of trivial and non-independent references in the hope that bombardment will be accepted as notability. This is as good a concise summary of what we are looking for as anyone has yet produced. I have no strong feelings about whether it should be labelled "essay" or "information", but it should certainly be kept. JohnCD (talk) 20:52, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep- The only disagreement seems to be whether it should be called an essay or an information page. The participants generally agree that it accurately summarizes policy and community expectations regarding verifiability and notability. I don't really understand what the nominators are trying to argue. What is the reason to delete? Reyk  YO!  10:45, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete - That page is garbage. New editors will never find this page, I never did. (just see the pageview stats) The three sentences in there are too vague to be useful; the independent section is nonsense, there are many cases where the primary source is useful. Seriously, we have actual guidelines under WP:NOTE that everyone (new editors or old) should be reading anyway. -- Cy be r XR ef ☎ 13:52, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You're quite right that new users won't find this. They also won't find WP:GNG or WP:POLITICIAN, (or WP:MFD). In some cases, they can't even find their own talk page... In all these (and many other) cases, they have to be referred to them. WP:42 is not a policy - it's a quick guide to notability and referencing. Anyone who wants more can then be referred to the full policies. This is the simple explanation that we don't work like Facebook - where almost anything goes. Primary source can be useful - it can't prove notability. It doesn't always even prove existence... Peridon (talk) 14:13, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * No, new users will not find it, but they can be pointed to it. Then the ones who have a notable subject, or are willing to take the trouble to become serious contributors, will get an understanding of our requirements, and the many who are only here to promote themselves or their garage band or their own company will be saved some time and trouble. We cannot expect newbies to read and understand WP:N, WP:BIO, WP:CORP, WP:BAND etc straight away, but we can try to save them from the dispiriting experience of putting a lot of effort into something which will never be acceptable. JohnCD (talk) 23:58, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I like the easy phrasing of WP:42. I'm a new(ish) editor, and it seems like an good way to put it. Can I say how many new pages I've seen on actors, singers and the like with Facebook and twitter sources? Origamite (talk) 01:04, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I can't (too many to count), but you may if you can... 8-) Peridon (talk) 14:18, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. Very useful as a summary of policy/guidelines to give to new editors. Yes, it's inherently flawed (as would be any brief page that attempts to simplify things in the way that this page does), but so are classical physics and the original Bohr model of the atom, but both are still useful in limited circumstances. Given the existing discussion on the project-talk page this deletion nomination had only a WP:SNOWball's chance of succeeding.  The only reason to NOT snow-close is for the sake of the process - that is, so that everyone with an opinion has a chance to air it (WP:Wikipedia is a bureaucracy is sometimes a good thing).  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  03:30, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep Covers the basic cases well, and when it's wrong, just don't link to it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 04:12, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep The wording may stretch beyond policy at moments, with Independent being defined as "Nothing written by the subject or paid for by the subject..." (Paid editing (policy) was a failed proposal), but I think the core message of WP:42 is pretty straightforward. If there is an issue with factual accuracy, let's focus on improving that rather than deleting the page altogether. After all, there are quite a few pages that link to it. &mdash; MusikAnimal talk 07:36, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
 * "Nothing written by the subject or paid for by the subject..." has nothing to do with paid editing and is not stretching policy. Nor does it mean that such works cannot be used as article sources.  Rather, it just means that such works cannot be used to establish notability and that is fully compliant with the WP:N policy.  Spinning  Spark  16:53, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You are correct! WP:42 is about establishing notability, so the "Independent" section would refer to the sources, not the content itself, of the article to be written... This I am (and was) well aware of but somehow got the context mixed up in the above comment. While the context should have been obvious to me, perhaps, just perhaps new users might get confused. I propose changing the first sentence of the Independent section to read "We need sources that are not written by the subject..." Thoughts? &mdash; MusikAnimal talk 16:13, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep: The page seems to serve a practical educational purpose. Not everyone is well able to digest large amounts of new broad ranging details (arcana) all at once. Lower resolution models may look like caricatures in retrospect once one has developed more nuanced views but it's good to recall that for most of us simplified models were the stepping stones to the complex models we now make use of. While Newtonian physics models aren't able to predict observations in as much detail as Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity never-the-less 'outdated' Newtonian physics would likely be more than accurate enough to build a decorative wooden bridge over a small garden fish pond. And much more practical to calculate with. An experienced carpenter would likely find even Newtonian physics to be burdensome overkill for such a task when teaching a novice and simply give them some practical general guidelines learned through experience and weighted for safe—if perhaps a bit over-engineered—defaults. --Kevjonesin (talk) 16:45, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep This page is the best available teaching resource to concisely present some fundamental guidelines of Wikipedia.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  17:48, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep This page is a useful summary. Consider marking it humorous. -   t  u coxn \ talk 23:06, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep. It's a useful page to point newbies to and I see no rational reason to delete it. That some people (or rather it seems, one person) are very upset about it is not a reason to delete. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:26, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep. Much of the dispute arises from arguments over the externally meaningless question of whether this is a guideline, a summary of policy, or an essay, and most fo the dispute appears from my past investigations to originate with people whose articles were rejected due to not being supported by reliable independent sources. This page summarises several policies in one place, and it's easily understandable (unless, I suppose, you are determined that your invalid article is valid and therefore the guidance must be wrong in some way). Guy (Help!) 14:32, 6 March 2014 (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.