Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2006 July 20

Full reviews may be found in this page history. For a precis, see Wikipedia:Deletion review/Recently concluded (2006 July)

20 July 2006

Pirate Party of the United States

AFD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pirate Party of the United States

Was initially deleted because the party didn't exist back then. It *does* exist now -- http://www.pirate-party.us/ -- and since it's been getting a fair amount of international attention, I'd wager it's notable enough for an article...? —Nightstallion (?) 13:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse and keep deleted. The website existed then. Anybody with a couple bucks can create a website. Doesn't constitute notability. Running candidates and getting press coverage would constitute notability. The Pirate Party of Sweden has attracted significant attention, but this article is not about the Swedish party. Can you provide any citations of significant attention to the American offshoot? Fan-1967 13:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

  I'm not too strong in my belief that this article should be restored, I was mainly wondering whether it was notable enough now; significant attraction (in the form of press coverage) I've found would be: Wired, out-law, The Inquirer, DVD-Recordable.org, p2pnet.net, slashdot. —Nightstallion (?) 14:35, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• For the most part, not exactly "non-trivial" reports (they amount to "the Pirate Party is trying to form an American spinoff"), and most of those really don't qualify as reliable sources (p2pnet is not exactly the New York Times). The out-law article is about the French spinoff, not US. Fan-1967 14:54, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

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)

• Endorse Deletion. SeverityOne, it doesn't look "vague"; it looks like vanispamcruftisment for a site which as you note can't even afford to be in business. Sorry. Herostratus 08:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion per above. WP:WEB would apply were this re-created and brought to AfD; I submit that it would not stand a chance. Just zis Guy you know? 08:38, 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)

• It has been recreated and listed on AFD, I think this request is moot. Stifle (talk) 08:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy close per Stifle. And I'm off to vote Delete, since it is vanispamcruftisement created by the game's author. Just zis Guy you know? 08:43, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/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 [1]. The whole reason for the WP:NOR policy is so that we don't have everyone publishing their random physics theory on Wikipedia [2]. 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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)

• Wikipedia 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)

Comment. Wikipedia asserts the correctness of numerous theories. For example, the first sentence of Sun ("The Sun is the star at the center of our solar system") is an assertion of the theory of heliocentrism. The introduction to evolution ("Evolution is ultimately the source of the vast diversity of life") asserts the correctness of evolutionary theory. When theories are sufficiently mainstream, we assert them; when they are not, we report them. To report the claims of a notable theory, we need only establish that the theory actually makes those claims; for that purpose, primary sources suffice. Again, PopSci and the rest of the mainstream media coverage establish the CTMU's notability, while Langan's own works establish verifiability for the fact that it makes the claims we attribute to it. Tim Smith 15:14, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse Deletion 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 Wikipedia 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)

You are missing the point rather. This is a purportedly scientific theory that has not been published in any scientific journal ("proof" is a scientific concept and the statement of the "proof" uses pseudoscientific language). The claim of philosophy appears to be, in the main, a smokescreen to obscure this. Nor has it apparently garnered any significant followers in the philosophical sphere - it appears that its main publisher and proponent is its author. Unlike, say, young-earth creationism, there does not appear to be any significant movement associated with this concept. Just zis Guy you know? 12:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment. The CTMU does not purport to be a scientific theory; indeed, Langan argues that "no general theory of reality can ever be reliably constructed by the standard empirical methods of science." (Langan 2002, p. 12). Proof is a logico-mathematical concept, not a scientific concept, and the CTMU cannot be pseudoscience when it does not present itself as science; again, it's philosophy. Again, notability is established by the theory's numerous high-profile, attention-getting appearances in mainstream media sources like Popular Science, 20/20, The Times, Newsday, and Esquire, with circulations and readerships in the hundreds of thousands or millions. Tim Smith 14:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete. The article is pseudoscience, IMO, but it is notable in the sense that it appears in the media and has a respectable google hit count. There are plenty of other pseudoscience articles (such as astrology or modern Galilean relativity). These articles should all exist with a mainstream critique available and/or a POV tag permanently attached -- this option was not sufficiently covered in the AfD discussion. Sweeping the problem under the rug with a deletion is not a long-term solution to a systemic failure; Wikipedia needs to be a little more inclusive and a little less bigotted. --Michael C. Price ^talk 09:43, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• • Not comparable. There are a bazillion published works about astrology that thoroughly document its teachings with mind-numbing specificity, from an enormous number of publishers and authors. A Wikipedia article about astrology that follows those works cannot possibly be considered WP:OR. There are apparently no such publications about CTMU except those self-published by the inventor or his organization (there are mentions of CTMU like the PopSci article, but they don't document CTMU). As such, any WP article about CTMU has to draw heavily on Langon's own writings, which are primary source material, something of a no-no in Wikipedia. (Per WP:RS, Wikipedia is supposed to be a tertiary source which means it in principle only reports on stuff published by secondary sources, and excludes primary source material as being original research). Not sure about Galilean Relativity but there's at least a supposed journal about it and multiple authors working on it over a long period (centuries) of time, and the WP article more or less lumps them together, which isn't so bad. Phr (talk) 10:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment. The distinction here is between the claims made by a primary source, and the fact that the primary source made those claims. WP:RS explains the difference as follows:

An opinion is a view that someone holds, the content of which may or may not be verifiable. However, that a certain person or group expressed a certain opinion is a fact (that is, it is true that the person expressed the opinion) and it may be included in Wikipedia if it can be verified; that is, if you can cite a good source showing that the person or group expressed the opinion.

In other words, if Langan makes a claim in a published paper, we cannot use that paper to verify the claim. But we can use the paper to verify that Langan made the claim. In the 42-footnote version, Langan's claims were carefully cited to his published papers, right down to the page number. Tim Smith 15:05, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse Deletion. Not notable enough for our tastes. --Improv 13:07, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment. The proposed notability criterion for non-mainstream theories requires reference in only one mainstream publication, explicitly allowing "large-circulation newspapers or magazines". The CTMU easily passes, having appeared in Popular Science (circulation of 1.45 million subscribers; readership of more than 7 million), Newsday (circulation in the hundreds of thousands), The Times (hundreds of thousands of copies sold daily), on 20/20 (averages millions of viewers per week), and elsewhere (sources in the 12-reference version). It is this level of high-profile exposure which makes the CTMU notable, and which makes an encyclopedia article of use to the many readers introduced to the theory through these sources. Tim Smith 14:40, 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:

• His website: http://www.tourettesguy.com
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/results?search=tourettes+guy&search_type=search_videos&search=Search
• Google Video: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=tourette%27s+guy (also includes clips of people lampooning his behavior)
• Ytmnd.com: http://ytmnd.com/list/?search=tourettes+guy
• Stupidvideos: http://www.stupidvideos.com/video/just_plain_stupid/Tourettes_Bob_Saget/
• Ifilm: http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2682505?htv=12
• Starterupsteve: http://www.starterupsteve.com/video/bobsaget.html
• Jokaroo: http://www.jokaroo.com/funnyvideos/the_tourettes_guy.html
• Alldumb: http://www.alldumb.com/item/29765/
• A tourette's syndrome website considered Tourette's guy notable enough to write an article comparing him to real tourette's syndrome (Although this article is certainly questionable in it's scholarship itself): http://www.tourettes-disorder.com/extra/tourettes_guy.html

I would like to quote Wikipedia'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 Wikipedia's current list of Internet phenomenon

• John Daker - 69,800 results
• Leeroy Jenkins - 212,000 results
• Exploding Whale - 411,000 results
• Retarded Animal Babies - 476,000 results

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)

• Keep deleted due to the lack of reliable sources. Stifle (talk) 08:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, nn viral marketing per Stifle. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 08:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
  • P.S. Tourette's Guy actually generates 292 unique Google hits, not half a million as the nominator claims. [3] --Sam Blanning^(talk) 08:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion. This will be entirely forgotten within 2 years. Not notable. --Improv 13:08, 20 July 2006 (UTC)