Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/C9orf3

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 Keep (non-admin closure by nominator and editor who took it to DRV). Nomination withdrawn as it would appear that the majority don't agree with my arguement and it's starting to get snowy. Dpmuk (talk) 10:57, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

C9orf3

C9orf3 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Totally unnotable human gene. Could find no references outside scientific literature. Had removed speedy as not applicable so prodded instead. Prod was removed by author. Dpmuk (talk) 21:33, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Keep This is a human gene with known function with citations in the peer reviewed literature and therefore is by definition notable. Boghog2 (talk) 21:48, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Keep Notable gene. --Arcadian (talk) 23:36, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Keep -- this is a disruptive, anti-science AFD nomination. The nominator's claim that the gene is non-notable because he "Could find no references outside scientific literature" is directly contrary to our general notability guideline, which expressly provides that

If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable.

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Scholarship clearly states that

Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history, medicine and science...

Thus, his argument that subjects which have received no coverage "outside [of] scientific literature" are non-notable is directly contrary to policy, which provides that significant coverage in scientific literature establishes a presumption of notability. His argument is also unsupported by practice on Wikipedia -- claims that subjects which meet the general notability guideline still aren't "notable in a wider sense"[1] are almost never levied against math, natural science, engineering, and social science articles. John254 01:40, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

• Keep A well sourced article, definitely notable. Horselover Frost (talk) 01:46, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

• Keep, meets Wikipedia's notability standards, as well-explained by John254. --Stormie (talk) 01:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
• Comment. Following is a slightly modified arguement I gave at DRV which I did not give in the original nomination through niavity.

This article comes very close to meeting notability guidelines - many will think it does. However I'd source one is clearly trivial coverage while source three is verging on it (search several thousand genes and this is one that correlates) which leaves just source two which is not enough, IMO, to establish notability. If you feel it meets the notability guidelines I think we need to apply a little bit of WP:Common Sense when considering genes. There are somewhere in the region of 25,000 human genes - if were to have an article on each one that would be 1% of all articles, and that's not to mention non-human genes. The structure, function snd other basic properties of all the human genes and many genes for many other species (especially 'model' species) is likely to be discovered in an attempt to understand the genome and what each gene does and these will undoubtly be published in peer-reviewed journals. To me this does not make an individual gene notable as even those in the field may pay it little attention to it. Therefore I think genes should only be included when they have wider notability for example mention in the popular press or non-trivial mention in the scientific literature beyond it's form and function, e.g. it's the target for a succesful drug and there are studies on it as a drug target. Else I think we run the danger of wikipedia becoming a directory and duplicating the many scientific databases that already hold this data. I would argue that even if the gene meets general notabilty guidelines (which I don't think it does) this gene falls in to this category and so should be considered un-notable. In summary I suppose what I'm trying to say is that people will research genes and publish papers on them purely because they exist not becuase they think they're notable. They may turn out to be of little interest even to other scientists and so we need to remember that WP:N "should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception." Dpmuk (talk) 11:05, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Your argument that "the structure, function snd other basic properties of all the human genes... is likely to be discovered... and... will undoubtly be published in peer-reviewed journals" is based on bare, unsupported conjecture as to the number of human genes which have been the subject of extensive investigation. Even if a large portion of genes do meet our general notability guideline, this would be a reason to provide comprehensive coverage of this subject, not to eliminate our coverage -- please see WP:NOT#PAPER. Deletions on "notability" grounds are primarily employed to remove articles which cannot be rendered in acceptable form due to a lack of coverage in third-party reliable sources with which to write a good article: we should hardly destroy this article simply because the nominator regards the subject matter as unimportant. The argument that this article should be deleted to avoid "the danger of wikipedia becoming a directory and duplicating the many scientific databases that already hold this data" is specious, since for genes that meet our general notability guideline, we will have sufficient source material to write articles far more expansive than mere directory entries. Furthermore, the argument that articles should be deleted to avoid the duplication of existing resources would, if accepted, justify the deletion of any article which does not contain original research, since it would necessarily restate information obtained from other sources. While our notability guideline should indeed "be treated with common sense and the occasional exception", the deletion of articles concerning genes meeting our general notability guideline simply because the nominator fails to appreciate their importance isn't common sense -- it's common nonsense. John254 11:54, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I have informed the editors who have already contributed to this page that I've added the above comment using the text "I thought you might be interested to know that I have posted a longer reason as to why I think this gene should be deleted which I did not, through niavity, include in my original arguement". I have read WP:CANVASS and believe that this is allowable under that policy. I have not posted on Stormie's or John254's talk pages as it's clear that they've read the DRV and thus aware of my arguement. Dpmuk (talk) 11:17, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
• Keep, seems notable and relevant. Stifle (talk) 11:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
• Keep, I find it hard to understand how someone could even consider nominating for deletion a page about a gene which has multiple references in the scientific literature and codes for a protein with a defined and important function in the body! Meodipt (talk) 04:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I thought, and still do, that it sets a dangerous precedent. An article on the type of gene I'd have less problem with as then we wouldn't need one article for each gene of each species but rather one article per gene type. I also queried whether the gene had 'non-trivial' coverage in more than one reference. That said it would appear I'm in the minority on this so am withdrawing the nomination. I'd still argue that starting to set a precedent on this has been helpful as I suspect genes will be nominated again.

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.