Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cradle of humanity (2nd nomination)

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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 DELETE, overlaps several other articles, with technically better titles, without adding new information. The title is a possible search expression so I'll create a redirect to Cradle of Humankind (disambiguation). Nabla 23:15, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cradle of humanity

AfDs for this article:
Articles for deletion/Cradle of humanity (2nd nomination)
Cradle of humanity (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

This article was recently up for deletion (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cradle of Humanity), and the AfD was closed as no consensus, even though there a majority of editors (15-9) thought the article should be deleted. The reason given by the closing admin was that the article had been drastically changed during the AfD. Well, most of the changes were by editors who thought the article should be deleted, and since the close of the AfD, the the article has been stable. I initially nominated the article for deletion and I still think it should be deleted. There are a few reasons why:

  • Unclear definition. What is this article about? In the previous AfD, several editors complained that the meaning of "cradle of humanity" was vague and unclear, and no one was able to provide a precise definition of the article's subject. Without a clear definition, the article attracts a bunch of cruft (see this old version).
  • Overlap with other articles. During the course of the previous AfD the article's scope was restricted to a history of modern scientific ideas about human evolution. As currently written, the article has significant overlap with several other articles, including recent single-origin hypothesis and multiregional hypothesis. Redundancy is bad enough, but this article does a poor job of covering current scientific opinion about the origin of homo sapiens, e.g. leaving out Mitochondrial Eve. It's possible to improve the article's coverage of such matters, but then it would simply duplicate material that's found elsewhere in Wikipedia.
  • POV forking. This article started out with a strong Creationist POV [1], and traces of this viewpoint still remain, e.g. "All human cultures contain concepts about the origin of mankind, and through religion and mythology have attempted to anchor these ideas through reference to historic times and places, known to them." If all the creationist stuff gets eradicated, this article becomes a slanted and incomplete presentation of material covered more fully and neutrally at recent single-origin hypothesis.
  • Insignificance. Whatever "cradle of humanity" is supposed to mean, it is not an important term in paleoanthropology or evolutionary genetics; it's possible to write a thorough article on those subjects without using "cradle of humanity", e.g. this article. When the term is used in scientific articles it's a colorful allusion rather than the focus of sustained discussion; in the previous AfD I gave the example of a 384-page monograph about human evolution that used the term once ([2]). But this article implies that the search for the "Cradle of Humanity", under that name, is a central issue in current scientific research. As further evidence of the insignificance of this term, note that other Wikipedia articles on evolution don't use the term; furthermore, there are very few incoming wikilinks (Special:Whatlinkshere/Cradle_of_humanity). Most of those incoming links were created when the article claimed that there was a group of 15 Middle Eastern countries that called themselves the "Cradle of Civilization". There's no source for this claim, so those incoming links should really be eliminated, which would leave extremely few links--under 10, it looks like. --Akhilleus (talk) 06:19, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Most of the editors who have worked on the article recently thought that it should be deleted, and the closing admin's statement said that a new AfD would be preferable to DRV. --Akhilleus (talk) 06:26, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep agree with Kesh...76.199.75.177 06:45, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep There's a hundred new articles a day here, putting one up which closed 3 days ago because you disagree with the result seems excessive. Nick mallory 07:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Speedy keep. It's only been three days. --DeLarge 07:36, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Google gives over 62,000 hits for the term, but as the article now stands its nearly useless, some of the info from the older version needs to be tied back in. The term is a common one used for prehistory and has a long usage in religion, history, culture and philosophy. Hardyplants 07:57, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Prehistory is covered in the article on History of the world and Stone age. That content was also redundant. TimVickers 16:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep - Very common concept in history and human evolution. Ben W Bell talk 08:07, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
However, it is not a clearly-defined term in either. What do you think about replacing the article with a redirect to the new page Cradle of Humankind (disambiguation)? TimVickers 18:08, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. logologist|Talk 09:04, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - I agree with the relisting - It is necessary in order to achieve some degree of consensus. The timescales involved are not reasoning enough to vote keep or delete - merely that and AfD might be best served being extended or relisted. Neither are ghits, for that matter. As it stands, the article is a morass of opinionated original research and synthesis. Verification involves cursory mentions, as opposed to clear, precises citation of the actual topic (not of peripheral or associated topics). These indictments are as fundamental as it gets. - Tiswas(t) 10:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Are you saying that all articles which end in 'no consensus' should be immediately relisted? Nick mallory 11:21, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Not at all, but neither should the relisting, due to lack of consensus, be given as a reason to keep the article. Either way, this is not the place for that discussion. - Tiswas(t) 11:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletions. -- John Vandenberg 13:08, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Neutral: The closing admin certainly suggested immediate relisting, but if the article is flawed, the goal should be to put together an appropriate project to arrive at a consensus to portray various sourced POVs. Other contentious articles have been put together and maintained in similar fashion.  RGTraynor  14:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment from nominator. I hope those editors who are suggesting that "Cradle of humanity" is a common term/concept in prehistory/religion can point us to sources that are specifically about the term. As was said many times in the first AfD, the sources mention "cradle of humanity" in passing, but none are specifically about that topic. If we don't have secondary sources that discuss the history of the term, it's original research to write our own. Perhaps an analogy will help. Both Boston and Philadelphia claim to be the "cradle of liberty". But that doesn't justify creating Cradle of liberty as a history of various cities' claims to be the birthplace of the American Revolution, unless a secondary source has already discussed the subject--and has done so under the specific topic of "cradle of liberty". --Akhilleus (talk) 16:18, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
The subject is valid and a good informative article could be generated - but right now the current page completely misses the point of the term and its use, this should be about history and the historical concept of the '

"Cradle of Man"/humanity (a PC term) also look under the "Cradle of civilization", how in the world did the article turn into the origin of the human species?? Hardyplants 18:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC) http://books.google.com/books?q=cradle+of+man&btnG=Search+Books http://books.google.com/books?q=cradle+of+civilization Hardyplants 18:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

But what historical content would this article contain that is not covered in History of the world or its more specific sub-article on the Stone Age? TimVickers 18:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
clearly we do not have any historians commenting on this page and I am clearly not conveying my argument well. The two pages you are referring to, do not cover the concept at all but talk about general origins. The terms "Cradle of --", are important concepts that have effected the way we look at the world and an article could be done covering the genesis of the term and ideas, the historical arguments related to the concepts in multifaceted fields like history, literature, religion, theology, sociology. Each field had its own take. Even culturally the concept was used by varying different types of people to promote their contribution's to the evolution of modern thought and civilization. Hardyplants 19:09, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
So you think this article's subject is Origin beliefs in general? But there is already a page on that topic. TimVickers 19:14, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
not even close, its a scientific/historical theory with historical roots that played a major role in the way the world was understood in the 19th centry. But since I do not have the time to research sources and no one seems to be familiar with the field, it appears that its going to go no were. Hardyplants 19:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
If I understand you correctly, it sounds like you are talking about a different article - something like History of anthropology. However, this is not the article we are discussing. and this material has never been the focus of this article. TimVickers 20:07, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep I'm not sure whether the article should be kept, but I don't think it's appropriate to try to delete so soon after a failed attempt. Nyttend 16:22, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
The closing admin of the last AFD suggested immediate re-nomination as a good option to try. TimVickers 18:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • VERY STRONG Delete. In addition to the reasons I gave before, this article is just another magnet for creationist crud, and something else that will divide the energy of the scientific NPOV editors in this area. In addition, the title is just awful.--Filll 16:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom and Filll. If not deleted, I would suggest reducing to a short dicdef-style entry for the historical/obsolete use of the term, and purge out the duplication and cruft that will inevitably accumulate. heqs ·:. 16:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Everything in the present article is either already covered in Human evolution and History of the world, or should be added to these articles. There is no need for this duplication and it would be best to replace this uncommon and ambiguous phrase with a redirect. What possible advantage is there to have two articles covering exactly the same topic? TimVickers 16:45, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep, What's the article about? Perhaps it might be about "a phrase used in world history to denote the beginning of humanity.". If most of the article content doesn't actually concern the phrase, then once again, perhaps the article should have all content not relevant to the phrase removed until it is a stub. And, once again, although much of the article content may overlap with other articles, none of those other articles even mentioned this term when I looked during the last AfD, so the topic itself appears indepedent of the other articles even if the content might not be. This term might not be signifigant for evolution related fields, but just because an Evolutionary Biology Wikiproject tag has been put on the talk page doesn't instantly make this article have to comply to new notability standards, a topic doesn't have to be popular or important to fulfill notability standards, and something being a "colorful allusion" doesn't make something uncoverable by Wikipedia. If the article is wrong in placing undue importance on the term in modern reaserch, the article should be changed, but having undue weight present in articles isn't a deletable offense. Homestarmy 16:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
I haven't seen any evidence that this term is used in current writing on world history. The phrase is used in writing about human evolution--that's a scientific, not historical context. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:52, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete The topic seems mostly covered in History of the world and Human evolution to me. Or have I missed something? If there are omissions in these two articles, they should be addressed there, rather than in a third, overlapping article. --Plumbago 16:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete or redirect to either paleoanthropology or human evolution. This article overlaps the others was too much. --EMS | Talk 17:41, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete & Redirect It would be obvious that this article is a creationist POV fork of an existing article — if the subject matter were not so imprecisely defined. (Note that the first sentence does not define humanity.) Which article is this a POV fork from? Insofar as this article is about the evolution of creatures into humans, then human evolution; to the extent that it's about the rise of prehistoric civilisation, then paleoanthropology; insofar as history, then History of the world. One could argue that the article is actually a POV fork of all of the above. Regardless, whatever aspect it is argued that this article is "meant to cover", there is an existing article to which the worthwhile portions of this article should be moved, and to which this title should redirect (although probably a disambiguation page would be necessary). SheffieldSteel 17:58, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete as POV fork – now that the modern creationist section has been removed, this inaccurately summarises thinking about human origins shown more accurately in History of the world and Human evolution, while the second paragraph of the lead is now unsupported by anything in the article itself. The first two sections give a woefully inaccurate and incoherent account of developing ideas of origins better summarised at Paleoanthropology, and effort would be better directed into improving that article rather than rescuing this one. Using the old catch-phrase "cradle of humanity" may suit journalism, but does not add clarity. .... dave souza, talk 18:05, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete: Why would the tattered remains of a POV fork be inherently keepable? Lose the whole thing and let's stick with articles that cover the material well. Adam Cuerden talk 18:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment.' I closed the previous AfD on this. That AfD was argued over a different article than this one. Same name, but substantially different content. So I would not count that against this AfD. Herostratus 19:13, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep per everything above. The second paragraph, however, needs to be axed as inherently POV. /Blaxthos 19:30, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
As both delete and keep arguments are above, I don't understand your reasoning. What is the specific content that this article covers that is not covered in Human evolution, History of the world, Origin belief or Stone age? TimVickers 19:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. Per Adam Cuerden, Filll, Plumbago, Tim Vickers and others. This article is better written elsewhere in Wiki, and this article is a POV for of several much better articles. Let's move on. Orangemarlin 19:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Were is this material covered in other parts of wiki?? Having taken a look at the past article, some one had a good start, it needed some changes and maybe a different focus. But the current page as it has been for the last few days is crud and yes covered much better in other places. Hardyplants 19:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
That's not the point. It's original research first of all. Secondly, the ideas are presented in places like Human evolution in a much better manner. Orangemarlin 17:23, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • DELETE, DELETE, DELETE This article serves no purpose other than to stroke the egos of a certain crowd. •Jim62sch• 20:13, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Note - Some of us are working to excise the Creationist stuff from this article, in order to present a factual, scientific article about the location of modern humanity's origin. Those !voting to delete based on Creationist content should be aware of that. It's a problem and this is an article in-progress that I believe can be saved. -- Kesh 20:24, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
But why do that under the wrong title? A simple summary of the contents of the Recent single-origin hypothesis and Multiregional hypothesis should be part of the human evolution article, with links to these two more detailed articles. TimVickers 20:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Tim, and note that many of the editors who have edited the article to remove the creationist slant still believe the article should be deleted. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
This article hinges on a topic that does not appear to be covered by Recent single-origin hypothesis: the physical region where modern humanity arose. That article merely states "Africa" as the origin. This article should be focused on the particular region where scientists believe modern humanity arose. Perhaps that only deserves to be a sub-section of Recent single-origin hypothesis, but I don't see it there. If we could incorporate that, I'd support a redirect. -- Kesh 21:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
That article does note the only real fact that pertains to this discussion "The Omo remains found near the Omo river in Ethiopia have been dated to 130,000-195,000 years ago and are the oldest fossil evidence of anatomically modern humans." There is not much more you can say. TimVickers 22:06, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete, or failing that, merge and redirect. Guettarda 03:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
World Heritage Site

I happen to live in the vicinity of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site first named by UNESCO in 1999. I don't have an opinion on this debate one way or another. Whatever you do please provide a disambig page that distinguishes:

Suidafrikaan 20:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I have created a Cradle of Humankind (disambiguation) page and added a link to the Cradle of Humankind page. TimVickers 20:22, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete and salt per above. Bigdaddy1981 21:19, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposal - A relevant disambiguation page now exists, Cradle of Humankind (disambiguation) I suggest replacing this article with a redirect to this page, as with the redirect pages Cradle of mankind and Cradle of man. TimVickers 21:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Keep consensus hasn't changed since last time. Carlossuarez46 22:07, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
However, the article has changed since last time, so as suggested by the closing admin, the AfD is being run again. What do you think about the current article's overlap with other articles, as described above? TimVickers 22:13, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
At any rate, last time there was a 15-9 majority supporting deletion, so I don't understand the claim that there was no consensus. --Akhilleus (talk) 22:18, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Thats easy to fix- revert it back to the point of the previous vote - it's obviously taken a wrong turn and become redundant. Hardyplants 22:54, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

You mean back to the version that gives enormous undue weight to creationist stuff? --Akhilleus (talk) 23:04, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
There was a supramajority for delete, and your suggestion is to revert back to the version that caused such ire?! Adam Cuerden talk 00:01, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Changing to a different version of this ill-advised article does not address the root of the problem - that there are other and better articles covering whatever subjects people choose to try to fit under this vague and confusing heading. TimVickers 23:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Afd's aren't "votes" so 15-9 is an irrelevancy; if the 9 have as good or a better argument than the 15, there's either no consensus or a consensus against the majority of "voters". If you don't like the version of the article; which seems like an appopriate topic, then be WP:BOLD and make it better, rather than delete it. Carlossuarez46 16:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
What, in your opinion, is the topic of this article? As I and other editors have said, one of the problems here is it's not clear what this article is supposed to be about. If the article's topic is "where modern humans first appeared", an improved version of the article will be fully redundant with recent single-origin hypothesis. Why should we have two separate articles covering the same material? --Akhilleus (talk) 16:33, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it is an appropriate topic, as it is already covered in other, better articles such as human evolution, world history, stone age and creation myth. These clearly-defined articles cover any conceivable interpretation of the ambiguous phrase "Cradle of humanity" - why work to improve a second-rate article that simply duplicates material covered elsewhere? TimVickers 16:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Keep: I'd feel differently if it was a neologism, but it isn't. The argument that it should be deleted because it's a magnet for creationists isn't a valid argument. That's like saying the Bill O'Reily page should be deleted because it's a magnet for his fanboys. Yes, maintaining quality in pages can be hard, but that doesn't justify deletion.
There's no reason for Wikipedia to take sides of either evolution or creationism. Present evolution as a theory that a very large consensus of scientists believe was likely, and various creationist beliefs as beliefs of their respective religions. 171.71.37.103 23:46, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
This is already done in Human evolution and Origin belief. Why have a third page duplicating this content? TimVickers 18:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete/ Merge: the disambig page on Human origins has three entries and the scientific explanation is covered under Human evolution. In most senses the "cradle" is used for geographic origin (or Phylogeography) and this would be best treated in the article Human evolution. There are numerous phrases used for essentially the same concepts and which can be mentioned in passing in the existing article, and does not need to reflected as a separate article. The point would be different if the phrase itself was notable and had a long history worthy of an article. Shyamal 01:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

It does, but under a histroical usage. As things are right now and the way it looks like this article would progress, I would amend my vote to delete.Hardyplants 05:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

  • delete I voted delete before since I thought it seemed redundant with other articles. Reading through this discussion and this modified version of the article it still seems to be the case. David D. (Talk) 15:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. The phrase is not notable enough for an article. The content is redundant with other articles. -- Avenue 04:37, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete POV fork of Human evolution. That the phrase has been used is not an argument for an article on the phrase, and the content is a POV fork as stated. KillerChihuahua?!? 11:16, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment in support of DELETE This article consists of
  1. a title
  2. some bad content
  3. some reasonable content

and needs much more work to make it reasonable. The problem is, the title is just a phrase that is not used heavily and is not a technical term, so it is not appropriate as a title for an article in Wikipedia. The bad content will have to be ferreted out, and there will be a constant flood of it with this title I fear. The reasonable content is already covered in WP, and covered better in other places. So we can spawn off hundreds of thousands of articles like this, or we can cull them down and concentrate on making a few very high quality articles with reasonable titles.--Filll 17:40, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Keep Not because it is necessarily true scientifically speaking but only because it is a known theory out there among others. Wikipedia should have an an article about it.69.116.234.208 18:04, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
What is the specific subject area that this article covers that is not already covered in Human evolution, History of the world, Origin belief or Stone age? TimVickers 18:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Please correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that this article refers to Central Asian countries specifically, whereas the other articles you refer to do not.69.116.234.208 20:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
There are no references to central Asian countries in the current version of cradle of humanity, save for a general (and unsourced) claim that 18th century scientific opinion thought "man" originated in central Asia. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
In an older version there was a paragraph that discussed Java Man and the idea this provoked that Homo erectus might have come from Asia, but this subject is already covered in the human evolution article. TimVickers 21:01, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Your responses are satisfactory to me. Therefore, I change my vote to Delete.69.116.234.208 22:24, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Are IPs allowed to vote? Because I thought that this was a registered-users-only thing. Adam Cuerden talk 18:58, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
IPs are allowed, although their contributions are usually given less weight. Remember, this isn't really a vote, otherwise the article would have been deleted after the first AfD. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:07, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Ah, right. It's not that I object to the IPs here - they seem sensible enough. But I was thinking of that George Vithoulkas AfD that became Circus of the Socks. Adam Cuerden talk 19:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I wonder if we are being gamed by anons who are attempting to create as many duplicate articles as possible on this same topic. And they are just jerking us around.--Filll 21:07, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
What other duplicate articles are there? Your comment sounds a bit alarmist, unless there's stuff going on that I haven't noticed... --Akhilleus (talk) 22:00, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I created Cradle of man and Cradle of mankind as redirects to the new Cradle of Humankind (disambiguation) page. TimVickers 22:03, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Sir/Madam, I have no clue what you are talking about. I just found this discussion because somebody removed the link in a different article that I was monitoring. For the rest I have edited Wikipedia for more than a year now under the same IP address. Therefore, it is wrong to say that my contribution is anonymous. On the contrary my edits are less anon since they link directly to my IP address, contrary to you Ladies & Gentlemen.69.116.234.208 22:24, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
As I said, I have nothing against you, just was a bit surprised to see IPs voting, as I seemed to recall IP votes somewhere being deleted because of being IP votes. Who knows what I was thinking of, though. Adam Cuerden talk 22:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Speedy keep. Notably used expression and it's been only three days since no consensus to delete was found. —AldeBaer 18:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
We all agree people occasionally use the expression, but what is the specific subject area that this article covers that is not already covered in Human evolution, History of the world, Origin belief or Stone age? The main problem is that this article is redundant with other, better articles. What do you think of the proposal to replace the page with a redirect to Cradle of Humankind (disambiguation), as with Cradle of man and Cradle of mankind? TimVickers 18:48, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Speedy change my opinion. Actually, you're right. Why not redirect it to Cradle of Humankind (disambiguation). —AldeBaer 21:02, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
If we allow this article to set a "precedent" of sorts, what is to prevent another 5 or 10 or more articles just like it, covering basically the same material, that all will have to be edited and maintained?--Filll 21:50, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong keep - "cradle of humanity" is a phrase used often when discussing human origins and pre-history. I've just added some external links from reliable sources that prove it. --172.163.27.164 07:31, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
I can't find the phrase in either of the links you have added. In any case, what is the specific subject area that this article covers that is not already covered in Human evolution, History of the world, Origin belief or Stone age? TimVickers 14:11, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
I can't find any use of "cradle of humanity" in those links either. Ironically, you've shown that human origins (the ostensible subject of the article) can be discussed without using this phrase that's supposedly used so often. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:14, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
This was only the fourth edit that this IP has made, probably an honest mistake. TimVickers 15:19, 16 June 2007 (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.