Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bioregional democracy

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 of the debate was redirected to Bioregionalism. As David says, the trick in merging useful information is finding it, and as no-one's pointed any out specifically I'm not willing to just let this hang around with a merge tag forever (the last paragraph may indeed have external links, but the connection with bioregional democracy rather than bioregionalism in general seems tenuous at best). If anyone actually wants to do the merge, follow the redirect back and click 'history'. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 11:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bioregional democracy

Normally I might try rewriting or stubbing an article like this, instead of coming to AfD. However, whenever I try, I can't find anything to save. I have some older detailed notes on the Talk page, but here is a summary.

1. First, I'm having a hard time finding widespread usage of the phrase "bioregional democracy" to base an article on (see this Google search)
2. The article intro claims the term describes "a set of electoral reforms, but gives no specifics of any actual or proposed package of electoral reforms". It then goes on to describe what appears to be a confused and incorrect reading of the Great Lakes Commission.
3. The sections which follow seem to be a bit of a hodge-podge of wrapping the term "bioregional democracy" around bits and pieces of hopeful ideas.

I'm sure there are political discussions around the concepts of bioregions and bioregionalism, and perhaps the phrase "bioregional democracy" is used at times, but this article seems to be a poorly written opinion essay, with no citations of sources or uses. . David Oberst 16:24, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

• Delete - David Oberst 16:24, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
• Merge & Redirect to Bioregionalism - the concept is used in academic discussions about green politics (see f.i. Andrew Dobson Green Political Thought p.99-104), but this article is a mess I would advise to merge the useful information on the page with Bioregionalism. and change this into a redirect. --C mon 17:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

The trick would be identifying the "useful information". I suspect that anyone qualified to actually write some sort of "bioregionalism and politics" section wouldn't need this article as a pointer, and I'd hate to see large chunks of the current text just moved over to bioregionalism. - David Oberst 18:52, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

• Merge per C mon +Hexagon1 ^(t) |*̥̲̅ ̲̅†̲̅| |>̲̅-̲̅| 09:37, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
• Redirect per C mon Penelope D 03:30, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect At least the last section on the page is referenced, even if in an unusual way. Ansell 00:23, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

That section quotes a pair of linguists, and the referenced text in neither case contains the words "democracy" or "bioregion". I'd also note that some of the Fettes stuff links to his definition "Linguistic ecology may be briefly defined...as an approach to thinking about language which attempts to see it 'steadily and whole'. I thus suspect that the use of "ecology" in this context may not even necessarily be the normal "environmental" version. Presumably some of these interests in small communities and languages may overlap with small-scale or "bioregion" politics or advocacy, but this section is hardly an example or citation for the term "bioregional democracy", whatever that may be. - David Oberst 22:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. This article exists in four languages. Who could possibly assert that there is not enough interest in it? If it's poorly written, rewrite it. But don't delete it. Greyscale 19:28, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The articles appear to be translations of the English one, so if it is out to lunch, the existence of translated versions don't provide any separate credibility. It isn't just a matter of bad writing in the article - so far no-one has actually come along and pointed out any good reference on which to base an article starting "Bioregional democracy is...". David Oberst 22:38, 4 July 2006 (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 article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.