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Revision as of 09:07, 20 July 2006 editPhr (talk | contribs)2,508 edits []← Previous edit Revision as of 09:31, 20 July 2006 edit undoTim Smith (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users1,323 edits []: argued for achievable neutralityNext edit →
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:'''Comment.''' If you mean the Google version linked above, the version that was actually deleted&mdash;and which would presumably be restored&mdash;bears virtually no resemblance to it. ] 08:37, 20 July 2006 (UTC) :'''Comment.''' If you mean the Google version linked above, the version that was actually deleted&mdash;and which would presumably be restored&mdash;bears virtually no resemblance to it. ] 08:37, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
*'''Endorse deletion'''. Closure was in-process,and I also agree with the decision. We have ] as a precedent. There is no obvious adoption of this theory outside of its proponents - there is clearly insufficient coverage in reliable secondary sources on which to base a properly neutral article. Come back when it's been published in Nature. ] 08:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC) *'''Endorse deletion'''. Closure was in-process,and I also agree with the decision. We have ] as a precedent. There is no obvious adoption of this theory outside of its proponents - there is clearly insufficient coverage in reliable secondary sources on which to base a properly neutral article. Come back when it's been published in Nature. ] 08:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

:'''Comment.''' '']'' is a scientific journal; again, the CTMU is philosophy, not science. A neutral article can be written simply by qualifying the theory's claims to the theorist: ''describing'' the theory rather than asserting it. If the theory has not been widely adopted, the article can say so. We would need secondary sources to ''assert'' or ''deny'' the theory's claims, but not to ''report'' them; for that purpose Langan's own papers suffice. These are not barriers to neutrality. ] 09:31, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


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Revision as of 09:31, 20 July 2006

< July 19 July 21 >
Full reviews may be found in this page history. For a precis, see Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Recently concluded (2006 July)

20 July 2006

Ampfea

This page was marked for speedy deletion, basically because the first version of the article was a bit vague, and because the community's web site is currently unavailable due to bandwidth and cost considerations.

After I polished the article (I didn't do the initial version) up a bit, it was deleted nevertheless. I have grave doubts whether anyone actually bothered to read the discussion on the talk page, and I would like to have this page undeleted, so we can actually have a chance to work on it. Creation and deletion happened in a 24-hour period, which is rather short. --SeverityOne 06:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

TMNT Engine

Relist on AfD. This was deleted out of process. I agree with the deletion. I was about to put it up myself, but I don't see how this meets speedy criteria. It seems to have been deleted for lack of content, but it was a stub that had only been created a few minutes earlier and while it probably should be deleted on various other grounds (WP:SOFTWARE, for instance), that requires discussion. Ace of Sevens 03:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment The first version I saw was a one-liner that included the words "in development". IMO that may well have pushed it over into the speedy category. Recreated version doesn't have that term, and it appears there is a version available for download now. (It's still a homemade game nobody's ever heard of, but an AFD wouldn't hurt.) Fan-1967 04:18, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe

The article was in a state of edit war for the whole course of this contentious, 93 KB AfD. It was edited over 140 times during the discussion, with huge blocks of text being inserted, deleted, and reverted on less than a moment's notice. The version of the article which was finally deleted bears nearly no resemblance to the one which was originally nominated for deletion. Depending on when users viewed it, they could have seen an article anywhere from 9 KB to 27 KB in size, with anywhere from 7 to 12 sections, 5 to 12 references, and 0 to 42 footnotes.

The particular transitory version viewed makes a crucial difference to many of the justifications. A user calling the subject non-notable with 5 references might have approved it with 12; a user calling the article unverifiable with 0 footnotes might have accepted 42; a user calling the 27 KB version gibberish might have found the 9 KB version to be more intelligible. In such a situation, consensus would have to be very solid to justify deletion, and that's not what I see in the debate. Tim Smith 04:07, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Endorse closure ... I looked at this version in Google cache . The whole reason for the WP:NOR policy is so that we don't have everyone publishing their random physics theory on Misplaced Pages . Though, presumably, Langan was not himself an author of the WP article, this kind of thing is what the policy was hoping to avoid. We don't need novel theories from every physics guy with a website. At any rate, the consensus to delete was nearly unanimous among non-redlinked users. So I endorse the closure. BigDT 04:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Comment. That's an old version from before the AfD. Notice that it has 4 references (as opposed to 12) and 0 footnotes (as opposed to 42). The CTMU is philosophy, not physics. Langan is not just a guy with a website; he and the CTMU were profiled in numerous mainstream media sources including Popular Science, The Times, 20/20, Newsday and Esquire (all sourced in the 12-reference version). Those aren't peer-reviewed philosophy journals, of course, but they don't need to be: the goal of the article is not to assert the theory as truth, but to describe it, factually and neutrally. The proposed notability criterion for non-mainstream theories requires reference in only one mainstream publication, explicitly allowing "large-circulation newspapers or magazines" like the ones in which the CTMU appeared. WP:NOR is inapplicable here: we're not introducing our own research, but describing the existing work of a notable public figure. In the 42-footnote version, that work was carefully cited (down to the page number) to ensure verifiability. Finally, among users who had edited before the start of the AfD, I count 12 keeps and 19 deletes, a 61% delete ratio. Tim Smith 05:27, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Endorse closure I looked at the Popular Science article and it was a biographical blurb about Langan but didn't say much of anything about the CTMU theory. As such, Langan himself might be notable (and a suitable subject for a Misplaced Pages biography) because of the Popsci piece, but CTMU is still not notable per the WP:RS criteria which require peer review. Phr (talk) 05:54, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Comment. Popular Science focuses specifically on the theory here—not extensively, but prominently enough to pass the proposed notability criterion for non-mainstream theories, which requires only that they be "referenced in at least one major mainstream publication", explicitly allowing "large-circulation newspapers or magazines" like Popular Science. Other coverage (linked in the 12-reference version) focuses on both Langan and the theory, each of which is notable and deserves its own article. The peer-reviewed sources required by WP:RS would be needed to assert the theory. But to describe it, the popular media is sufficient for notability, and Langan's own work is sufficient for verifiability (because we're just reporting what he's saying). Tim Smith 06:19, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not too impressed by that proposed guideline, which proposes to include WP:OR in Misplaced Pages more or less indiscriminately. PopSci is not much above the National Enquirer in terms of reliability--it's best to stick with actual, peer-reviewed science publications if an article is supposed to be about the "scientific" content of a theory. And the PopSci article really says almost nothing about what CTMU is; it just mentions it by name and vaguely describes what problems CTMU addresses. I looked at the deleted CTMU article (not sure what version) in the Google cache and it's pretty obvious that CTMU is gibberish. Not that Langan is stupid or anything, but another smart guy named St. Thomas Aquinas tried something similar in the 13th(?) century and I don't see evidence of any big advances within CTMU over that. I'd say to put a CTMU summary into Langan's biographical article. Phr (talk) 06:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Comment. Again, WP:OR is inapplicable here: we're not introducing our own research, but describing the existing work of a notable public figure. And again, the CTMU is philosophy, not science. The reliability of PopSci would matter if we were asserting the theory. But to describe it, we need to know only that PopSci belongs to the high-profile mainstream media—which it does, with a circulation of 1.45 million subscribers and a readership of more than 7 million. We don't need PopSci to exhaustively cover the theory; Langan's own work can do that. A mere summary in Langan's article would deprive readers who saw the theory in the mainstream media of a valuable resource for understanding it. Finally, please don't be so quick to dismiss the CTMU. It takes a bit of work to understand, but it's not just gibberish or recycled scholasticism. Tim Smith 07:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Misplaced Pages doesn't assert the correctness of any theories (WP:NPOV)--it only reports on them. The reporting criterion is WP:RS. If CTMU is a philosophical theory instead of a scientific one, then fine, RS calls for cites to to peer-reviewed philosophy literature instead of scientific literature, but PopSci is neither. Give it a rest. Phr (talk) 09:07, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Endorse Closure The AfD was entirely in process. And this deletion review is about process, not content...as can be seen from some of the comments above, the major reason for proposed undeletion seems to be content-based, not process based. I would not oppose a small section on the CTMU (suitable neutrally written in plain English) being included in the bio of its inventor, but I think it is well established by the in-process AfD that the consensus of the Misplaced Pages community (among those who edit articles not related to the CTMU, anyway) doesn't want it as a separate article. Byrgenwulf 07:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Comment. The major reason for undeletion is process-based: the AfD was conducted during an edit war of such magnitude that the article amassed more than 140 edits during the discussion, many of them inserting or deleting entire sections at a time. The version of the article which was finally deleted bears nearly no resemblance to the one which was originally nominated for deletion, and the article's content fluctuated so rapidly that many of the justifications for deletion are valid only in the context of particular transitory versions. The AfD discussion itself was utterly chaotic, filled with one-edit users and IPs, loud accusations of forgery, a large anonymously-added table, personal attacks, irrelevant debates about the validity of the theory, an anonymous user having a conversation with himself, and so on. A mere summary in Langan's article would deprive readers who saw the theory in the mainstream media of a valuable resource for understanding it. Finally, among users who had edited before the start of the AfD, I count a 61% delete ratio of 12 keeps and 19 deletes, a weak consensus in any case and insufficient to justify deletion in view of the exceptional irregularities that bedeviled the process. Tim Smith 07:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Neutral: I think that the request to undelete has some merit due to the changes in the article during the AFD and the difficulty of judging consensus with so many WP:SPAs in attendance. On the other hand I think the article is complete bunk. Those cancel each other out so I won't endorse deletion or request undeletion. Stifle (talk) 08:23, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Comment. If you mean the Google version linked above, the version that was actually deleted—and which would presumably be restored—bears virtually no resemblance to it. Tim Smith 08:37, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Endorse deletion. Closure was in-process,and I also agree with the decision. We have Aetherometry as a precedent. There is no obvious adoption of this theory outside of its proponents - there is clearly insufficient coverage in reliable secondary sources on which to base a properly neutral article. Come back when it's been published in Nature. Just zis Guy you know? 08:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Comment. Nature is a scientific journal; again, the CTMU is philosophy, not science. A neutral article can be written simply by qualifying the theory's claims to the theorist: describing the theory rather than asserting it. If the theory has not been widely adopted, the article can say so. We would need secondary sources to assert or deny the theory's claims, but not to report them; for that purpose Langan's own papers suffice. These are not barriers to neutrality. Tim Smith 09:31, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Tourette's Guy

This article has been reviewed and nailed down as non-notable twice now with total votes at 14 nn 2 n. The problem I'm seeing is that the site www.tourettesguy.com has been the only source sought in determining the notability of the PERSON 'Tourette's Guy.' The site itself certainly does not have the notability the person does- and it is easily fair game to call him an internet phenomenon. Reliable proof will follow. Quick searches of the largest humor and even non-humor video archives reveal that Tourette's Guy is very popular and even has a cult following. Here are some of the resources I've found:

I would like to quote Misplaced Pages's Notability (memes) page:

Google doesn't establish notability: A Google test cannot be used to establish that a meme is notable because it is theoretically possible that issues such as Google bombing have inflated the count. However, Google can show non-notability for Internet memes. A very small Google count can show that a meme is non-notable.

Google returns over half a million results on 'Tourette's Guy'. Let's compare to some current entries in Misplaced Pages's current list of Internet phenomenon

I only bothered showing four because I don't really have the time to show more- but really all it would take would be one of these to prove that these entries are at least LESS notable than Tourette's Guy according to the statement above about small Google results. So to recap:

  • 1) TG IS NOTABLE as shown by the enormous amount of saturation his videos have made into the online video community
  • 2) TG IS NOT NON-NOTABLE as shown by the absence of lackluster Google results.

I nominate Tourette's Guy (The person not the website) to undeletion. Thank you. Whetstone 06:25, 20 July 2006 (UTC)