Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carnivorous alga

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 per consensus. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 16:15, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Carnivorous alga

Carnivorous alga (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

The article Carnivorous alga was moved to Predatory dinoflagellate, and when Tameeria, creator of the article, contested the move, there was a vote, in which it was decided that the article should remain at Predatory dinoflagellate. However, Tameeria has recently recreated the old page Carnivorous alga with nearly the same content in what I believe to be an effort to circumvent the page-move, which I would call content forking. Therefore, given the consensus established in the above mentioned discussion, it is self-evident that Carnivorous alga is a superfluous article conceived under questionable circumstances, warranting deletion. ♦♦♦Vlmastra♦♦♦ (talk) 02:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

• Merge, then... —TreasuryTag talk contribs 08:05, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. At present the content, scope, references and intended readership of these two articles are quite distinct. They may have had nearly the same content at one point (Sorry but I really can't be bothered to trawl through the histories to find out as it's the articles in their present form that's the question) but they certainly don't have now. Carnivorous alga is describing the media use of the phrase "Carnivorous algae" or "predatory algae" while Predatory dinoflagellate is a scientific article about a specific group of organisms. (I would suggest that as Carnivorous alga is intended for a more general readership the lead sentence should be more accessible ("mixotrophic protists"?), but that's off-topic for this forum). In any case, we seem to be discussing whether or not to merge not an article for deletion. Qwfp (talk) 11:48, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
• Merge the information about media responses and appearances in fiction back into Predatory dinoflagellate, and redirect. Deor (talk) 13:03, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
• Merge to/with Predatory dinoflagellate. --Reinoutr (talk) 18:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
• Merge, obviously. Mangoe (talk) 22:29, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
• WTF?!? First of all, I am very, very disappointed how this is being handled. Here's why:
  • "Carnivorous algae" was a requested article. The article was requested on 2 June 2006 (diff). It stayed on the requested article list until 2 April 2007 (diff). It was probably taken off because it was no longer a red-link since I had created a redirect for it when I first stumbled over it.
  • When I got around to putting an article up for it, there were some concerns regarding the content and comments accusing the term "carnivorous algae" of being "comic bookish" and the article being "recklessly written." Whatever happened to "assume good faith" here? Vlmastra proceeded to "gut" the article and renamed it without discussion what the new title should be based on a few unsourced and refutable blanket statements and personal preference. I happened to disagree with both the reasoning for the gutting and the new title.

1) Vlmastra's statement "a parasite is not a carnivore" can be refuted by scholarly literature which confirms that carnivorous parasites do exist.

2) The statement that "Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, Brooklynella hostilis, and Cryptocaryon irritansis are not algae" might be right, but upon removing that section Vlmastra stated it would be included in an article on parasitic algae or the algae article itself (diff), thus contradicting the very reason given for removing it in the first place.

3) Consensus did not exist for the move from "carnivorous alga" to "predatory dinoflagellate" as that was done single-handedly by Vlmastra without prior discussion of the new title.

4) The new title completely changed the intended scope of that article. "Predatory dinoflagellates" applies to more than half of all known dinoflagellate species, including so-called "grazers" that prey on other algae. There are only two "carnivorous" species in the Pfiesteria genus. Based on my research into the topic, 80-85% of the scholarly literature on predatory dinoflagellates deals with other species. Thus, having solely a scientific discussion of Pfiesteria under "predatory dinoflagellate" is putting undue weight on just one genus, plus it's a duplication of what is already in Wikipedia at Pfiesteria, Pfiesteria piscicida, and Pfiesteria shumwayae. I've tried to address the weight issue by including other species in the article, but in my opinion, "predatory dinoflagellate" should be merged into the dinoflagellate article as a subsection.

• I've asked again and again during the whole move discussion what an article on "carnivorous algae" should look like since the whole discussion quite obviously was more a content dispute than anything else. My conclusion from that discussion was that an article on carnivorous algae probably should put more weight on discussing how the term was used in the media since it is not a scientific term. I thought there was consensus on splitting the article along these lines (see diff) so went ahead and rewrote the article in that sense. I have to say I am very disappointed with the reaction to my efforts and I am rather upset that I am now being back-stabbed for "content forking" when all I was trying to do was to follow along with what seemed to be a good compromise: split the content into discussion of the media term in one article and scientific discussion in another.
• In summary, I vote keep, of course. If there is any merging, I would suggest merging it with Pfiesteria. Merging it back into "predatory dinoflagellate" would just recreate the undue weight problem. - tameeria (talk) 16:16, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

• Keep and start a merge discussion. If the term "carnivorous algae" has been used (and was a requested article), the article should be a redirect at the very least. --Pixelface (talk) 16:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
• Keep possibly move to Carnivorous protists, which is the more general term and avoids the difficulty in defining "algae" in this context. Saying "predatory" is unsatisfactory since a protist grazing on bacteria is certainly predatory, but not close to the subject of the article - protists that consume animal flesh. The line between parasitic and predatory is also a fine one here, and for me would depend on if the protozoan carried out part of its life cycle in the animal it kills. If it does, it is a parasite, if it doesn't it is a predator. Redirecting this to a single species or genus would also be unsatisfactory, since I think the behavior is shared by several taxonomic groups. A very difficult decision though, I'm open to discussion on this. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:07, 13 March 2008 (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.