Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pedelec

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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 of the debate was DELETE. -Splashtalk 01:19, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pedelec

Yet another fork. By consensus, there is an article on motorized bicycles which User:CyclePat (who makes electric bikes) has been trying for ever to fork into a separate article on electric bikes. There have been edit wars over the redirect at electric bicycle, addition of excessive detail re Canadian regulations and all sorts. I'm sorry, Pat, I know you are sincere but you just can't keep doing this! Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 22:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

This article exists in Deutch at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedelec. This is a translation in progress. There really ain't enough room to put all that information in the motorized bicycle article. --CylePat 22:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
They have their article; we have ours. If we were missing an equivalent to the German pedelec article, then we could of course translate that article to start ours. However, motorized bicycle lists the German pedelec as its equivalent, and vice versa; there's no justification to start a new article here, because there's no article missing. If "there ain't room" in the existing article, there are procedures for dealing with that, and content forking isn't one of them. Delete per JzG. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:21, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong delete per JzG, yk?. Not only because I trust his judgement in AfD but because his extensive interest/knowledge of two-wheeled transportation. Ifnord 23:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
and when you're in a tunel you should keep digging out so you can try to see the light. Now

I think perhaps you meant Wikipedia:Content forking instead of WP:FORK because I couldn't find anything in that guideline relating to your issues. Let's go through that article on content forking. Here is my analisys:

  • This is not another article on the same subject. This is another subject. (ie.: You have a roller blades and you have inline skates. Both are similar but one talks more about the company than the inline skates.)
  • Stop right there. Pedelec is a class of electric bicycle is a class of motorised bicycle. It says so right there in motorized bicycle and has done for ages - there is even a picture of one. Your legal case in Ontario notwithstanding, nobody else seems to have this problem with somehow thinking a "pedelec" electric bike is in any way a separate class of machine from all other electric bikes. Since that demolishes your point 1, the rest of the house of cards goes with it. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 18:49, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
No! Your reasoning is flawed. It only takes one of these following criterias for this article not to be a POV FORK. (You have reversed the rolls again. I have proven to you with this that all the criteria with POV fork have not been met. You should continue on... in particular the section that regards summary article, to which I have asked you many times... (as discussed further down). --CyclePat 18:51, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Asserted ǂ proven. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 15:56, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Pedelec is a title that is not a synonym of an existing article title motorized bicycle. A motorized bicycle in canada is a totally different class of vehicle (ie.:limited speed motorcycle vs a pedelec often considered a power-assisted bicycle. Also, in certain jurisdictions, such as Oregon, a motorized bicycle is like a moped. We have had a discusion in regards to moped vs motorized bicycle and the concensus was not to merger these articles. Again, for other jurisdiction such as Canada that consideres a motorized bicycle a A pedelec is considered a type of electric motor assisted bicycle. Once the detailed specs on pedelecs are cleared up it will be far much easier to understand that this is non synonymous of the existing article.
  • The content in the pedelec article is being developed not according to personal view but according to consensus elaborated in the German article, and probably the content from the french article.. There is much content that exist on the subject. Not only that, but there was never any issues brought up in the talk page in regards to lack of consensus.
  • There are no personal theories that are at issue for inclusion. Au contraire there may be some interesting research on Food consumption vs. electric consumption and that is a published document. etc...)
  • It is bad faith to assume because of my knowlege about the article "motorized bicycle" it may be a content fork. I believe one should give the benefit of the doubt to the creator. This is not a duplicate article. This is a different class of vehicle.
  • According to Wikipedia:Content forking#Article spinouts - "Summary style" articles,: (for the ease of reader I include it hear):
    • Even if the subject of the new article is one about which people are bound to hold strong POVs, this does not automatically make the new article a POV fork. Even if the new article was created because it's a particularly controversial aspect of the article subject, that does not mean that the new article is a POV fork; if one aspect of the article subject is more controversial than the others, it is perfectly legitimate to isolate that aspect as much as possible to its own article, in order to keep editing of the main article fairly harmonious.
    • (Seeing as there is difficulty in editing and adding anything to the article of motorized bicycle... such as the current debate we are having in regards to the inclusion of a picture of a motorcycle/motor assisted bicycle/motorized bicycle from Triumph. It is 10 folds harder, even though it may fall in as a sub-category of motorized bicycle, to place a little information on a class of vehicle that is not trully related.)
  • Furthermore, According to Wikipedia:Content forking#Article spinouts - "Summary style" articles;
    • Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail, are not content forking, while the main article, written in summary style, will give a balanced summary of each of the subtopics. The sub-articles can each treat a particular aspect - which might reflect a point of view for each of the sub-articles - but these sub-articles should anyhow be linked to the other subarticles and to the main article, for instance by a navigational template.
  • Though it is possible for editors to act in bad faith and make article spinouts as POV forks, this is clearly not the case and nor has it been proven in this instance. Or previous instances. (assides from maybe the in september when I first joined and was new a though I could include a bunch of laws... and that was not a content fork but more or less a fueding debate about what should be included). As soon as user found out about the article he nominated it for deletion. This justs seem to re-enforce my belief that user nominating this article has absolutely no faith in my editing.

Conclusion: There is nothing left for you to argue according to those guidelines. Nomination of this page for the above reason WP:FORK is not justified. --CylePat 03:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

  • CyclePat, please go back and read the part of Wikipedia:Content forking which clearly states that those are not affirmative defenses -- if you're the only one who thought that there should be a separate article on electric bikes, creating one and calling it a "spinout" (weren't you just claiming that it was a translation of the German "Pedelec" article? It can't be both!) doesn't make it not-a-content-fork. Neither can you justify it by claiming that the consensus reached at the German Wikipedia means you can ignore consensus at the English Wikipedia, not when your article's in the English Wikipedia. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:44, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

You address the subject very vaguelly. I understand that some of those issues such as "is not a synonym of an existing article title" is not an affirmative defense. But you are reversing the roles here. You are attempting to make me prove my innoncence, when you haven't even proven that there is guilt. There is no doubt that this is a translation. And yes it can be both! This is because it is a "sub-class" of motorized bicycle... or in the case of this alleged POV FORKING, a "spin-out." (I call it an article with more details.) These vehicle may be, in some instances similar, but they definatelly warants their own pages. The first part of Wikipedia:Content forking stipulates:

  • POV forking, occurs when two or more contributors disagree about the content of an article or other page, and instead of resolving that disagreement, someone creates another version of the article (or another article on the same subject) to be developed according to their personal views rather than according to consensus. This second article is known as a "POV fork" of the first. Wikipedia does not view article forking as an acceptable solution to disagreements between contributors, and such forks may be nominated for deletion.

I haven't experienced any disagreement about the content of "pedelec". What content don't you agree with? You see none of this was discussed, even with past issues that might have occured with the totally different class of vehicle called the "electric bicycle." This makes it difficult to assume good faith when you don't prove your case. I'm sorry but if the German Wikipedian have decided to "spin-out"(I call it have more details in another article), I see no reason why this precedence could not be used?... But that doesn't really matter because it's not a spin-out or a POV FORK. The key idea here is "summary". When "motorized bicycle" was created consensus was that this was a summary file. Editor firgured it would be better to have all articles under one roof. It was created to summarize power assisted cycles and power assisted bicycles and electric bicycles, etc... Again, as per Wikipedia:Content forking Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail, are not content forking. Again: there is no disagreement on content and motorized bicycle article is a summary style article. We need to go into more details. --CylePat 04:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Delete I think that there is a good argument that the Pedelec article should exist. Amongst other things, the "Electric bicycles" section in "motorised bicycles article is hopelessly inadequate regarding technical explanations of the operation of these vehicles (as is that entire article). The pedelec article is clearly not a content fork, duplicate or stub, and I think that the grounds stated by the nominator for deletion are not sufficient. However The pedelec article is no better than a babelfish of the German article, not including the (excellent) formatting of that page. Cyclepat is clearly not competent to do the translation (or there wouldn't be an AFD). Therefore, the article in question is no better than the babelfish link to the German article [[1]], and I might add that the link preserves the formatting. Wikipedia, is not a personal sandbox, and unusable rough versions belong on user pages. I therefore support a delete until (or unless) a good quality translation results. I would note to Cyclepat, that wikipedia has all sorts of articles with dubious content but excellent quality, but having low quality (even with excellent content) is a guaranteed way to end up on AFD. AKAF 13:29, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
    • comment: First, thank you for you comment. I do agree that this article needs much {attention}. Working on my user page could be an answer that might please the situation temporarily. However, it is sugested, according to WP:DEL, that an {attention} needed logo be added. I also read through WP:DEL and found no grounds for deletion. I understand your concerns for lack of "format" but I don't really see anything that supports that for deletion of an article. --CylePat 14:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
      • comment: Now, Cyclepat, don't take this badly, because I can see that you mean well, but [[2]] has an option for Gibberish, and I think you'll agree that the article is not readable english by any stretch of the imagination. Also, if you delete all of the gibberish (all of it) and replace it by the link I provided, then the article is a substub [[3]], which is grounds for deletion. Additionally, due to your association, the article probably would qualify as a vanity page [[4]]. Now, if the article was well written, you'd have a good ground for dispute, but as it is, there are plenty of grounds to delete, and none to keep. So, I have a couple of suggestions for you. (1) Move the article to your user space and accept the deletion. (2) Ignore this, and other comments, and focus your attention on improving the article. If you spent the energy on improvement that you've spent on this article, there wouldn't be an AFD (3) Spell and grammar check the article and add cross-references (but no references to any companies or organisations with which you are personally involved). (4) Wait 7 days and then re-read (5) Re-create the article and leave a note on the user pages of everyone who participated in the AFD. ; Good luck with the article. AKAF 14:48, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. Poorly writing or formating is not criteria for deletion. I recommend that this discussion be moved to RFD. JoaoRicardotalk 16:30, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Sorry, I didn't mean to say it was. I mentioned it because other people, such as AFAK, claimed the current mess as one of the reasons for deleting. That notwithstanding, I still think this should go to RFC, as we clearly have a dispute between two users, one who claims this article is a fork, and another who claims it isn't. I don't think AFD is the right place to settle these issues. JoaoRicardotalk 20:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • That might be the case if it were an isolated incident, but this is not the first time Pat has forked this topic. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 14:29, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I really don't understand how this can be a POV fork when it is a work in progress from a translation... This is typical bad faith on behalf of the nominator because he knows I have built 2 electric bicycles and he assumes I have an agenda. Since when do we punish people for their knowledge and previous wikipedia edits (That of which I was fairly new to experiencing, lacking arguing skills, and having poor wikipedia etiquette.) Next thing you know you'll be saying Granny Smith smith and Gala (apple) are POV Forks from apple article because the primary creator really likes these types of apples. If the issue of delete is not about formatting, {attention}, etc... and solely about a POV fork, I think, this issue should be closed. Again, according to "content forking": "Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail, are not content forking, while the main article, written in summary style, will give a balanced summary of each of the subtopics." There is obviously a mistake in the nomination of this article for deletion. This, I believe is an error in procedure and may lead to an appeal. As for the gibberish... well... I couldn't possibly comment on that, except for the fact that I am working, slowly but surely at translating this page so inherently there be no POV. (It's a win-win or lose-lose situation.) (I'll be gone for the weekend so if anyone wants to start translating!) Talk to you monday. --CylePat 02:36, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • More nonsense. If you want a work-in-progress you can do it in your user space. The right way to add this content is to merge it into the relevant sections in the existing article - your history re electric bicycle is enough to guarantee that even if this fork is not a bad-faith action on your part, it is always going to look like it. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 14:29, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • furthermore; just to prove my point. Here is a snip of a conversation on my user page.
    • "Pat, I wish you hadn't done that, I really do. Pedelec is a subclass of electric bicycle is a subclas of motrized bicycle. It's already mentioned in motorized bicycle. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 22:46, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Understandable; but I don't think their is room for that information in the main article. Plus the article exist in another language already. --CylePat 22:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:CyclePat"
This above quote demonstrate that "pedelec" article is a subcategory of motorized bicycle. It easy to see that motorized bicycle will never really be able to go into as much details as that of the pedelec article. Hence, motorized bicycle is a summary article to pedelec. Hence, pedelec is a sub-article giving greater detail. Conclusion: not content forking. --CyclePat 03:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
I have expanded the electric section of motorized bicycle slightly to include some additional detail alluded to in the German article and other sources. I have also created two new stubs for crank sensor and torque sensor since we didn't have those. I don't think there's much more in pedelec which does not already exist in motorized bicycle now. There is, however, still no article on storage density or half a dozen other related topics, none of which are addressed by the pedelec content. Incidentally, accumulator is deprecated in favour of capacitor these days, but the translation is inexact since an akkumulator in this context means a battery.
One minor update to respond to a specific point: you say you don't think there's room for this content in the existing article, but you did not even try, let alone talk about it on the talk page. Whereas you have previously tried to turn the redirect at electric bicycle into a separate article, against conensus. I do think there is room for the additional content, not least because most of it is already there and I have recently added some of what little was not. It is useless to appeal to the clauses on splitting out controversial content, because the inclusion of electric bikes in motorized bicycle is not controversial. It represents a consensus position with, as far as I can make out, only one dissenter, who is acknowledged to have a vested interest. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 16:05, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Again, Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail, are not content forking. --CyclePat [[Image:Ladies safety bicycles1889.gif|25px|<nowiki></nowiki>]] 22:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

NO. STOP MISQUOTING Wikipedia:Content forking. "meeting one of the descriptions listed here" -- such as "Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail" -- "does not mean that something is not a content fork -- only that it is not necessarily a content fork." Your bad faith is becoming more and more blatant. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Obejection... bagering the defence. euh! Yes... :) I think if you calmed down and explained yourself you would make a litle more sense. YOu might then be able to see that my second comment, way up top, shoot down every hypothesis that this is a fork. I suggest you present your counter arguments instead of claiming bad faith. (You really haven't proven anything we don't know.) You see, to argue something I have to take a side... it is your responsibility to try and point out these things. I am clearly aware that "it is possible for editors to act in bad faith and make article spinouts as POV forks," however I still haven't seen any proof. As I indicated this is a translation page. No agenda's. And I don't think I am close at all to meeting the situation that is portrayed in the Wikipedia:Content forking#Article spinouts - "Summary style" articles for content forking.
I can use the same argument you have used... "meeting one of the descriptions listed here" (wherever here is?) -- such as "Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail" -- "does not mean that something is not a content fork... And that may re-enforce my hypothesis. However I wouldn't try to infer such a wonderful though because that goes against the afformentioned quote, that of wich you have alleged I missed quoted in bad faith. (To clarify the subject I suggest anyone joining in read the section... it's better to get it from the main source!)--CyclePat 03:10, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Again, new articles on existing subjects are content forking. As previously when you tried to make the electric bicycle redirect into a separate article. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 00:13, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what you mean by "again" because that's virtually the first time you talk about it that way. And you have stated that it's not the same subject it a sub-class vehicle of "motorized bicycle." Kind of like my afformentioned apple example. I have discussed that above in the section you ignored because you assumed all the house of cards had fallen. But just for clarity here it is again:

According to Wikipedia:Content forking#Article spinouts - "Summary style" articles,: (for the ease of reader I include it hear):

  • Even if the subject of the new article is one about which people are bound to hold strong POVs, this does not automatically make the new article a POV fork. Even if the new article was created because it's a particularly controversial aspect of the article subject, that does not mean that the new article is a POV fork; if one aspect of the article subject is more controversial than the others, it is perfectly legitimate to isolate that aspect as much as possible to its own article, in order to keep editing of the main article fairly harmonious. --CyclePat 00:28, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Pat, an old English proverb for you: when you are in a hole, stop digging. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 22:21, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Delete For reasons stated in nom. The annoying and repetitive comments by cyclepat above don't help. Eusebeus 18:42, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

A precedence exists at [[Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Precedents#Content of articles ]] that is related to this article. "Statement(s) of principle: An encyclopedia article is a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject, not a complete exposition of all possible details." Using this precedence, we may argue that motorized bicycle, should remain a summary article. Furthermore using the precedence Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Precedents#Splitting of articles will also support my theory of creating this article. I must make an attack on the article of motorized bicycle for we are generalizing within that article and have started original research. ie.: That a pedelec is a motorized bicycle. According to Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Precedents#Neutral point of view (and associated principles), "Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy contemplates including only significant published viewpoints regarding a subject. It does not extend to novel viewpoints developed by Wikipedia editors which have not been independently published in other venues." (It however makes sense to include all machines that meet the definition of a "motorized bicycles", right? I would say yes, but that's only because we have mis interpretated Wikipedia's neutral point-of-view (NPOV) policy which "contemplates inclusion of all significant points of view regarding any subject on which there is division of opinion." We are meeting the wiki policy of NPOV in the article of motorized bicycle and I think we need some supporting sources regarding the subject of the article. According to Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Precedents#Neutral point of view (and associated principles) "Wikipedia articles should contain information regarding the subject of the article; they are not a platform for advocacy regarding one or another point of view regarding the topic. Sweeping generalizations which label the subject of an article as one thing or another are inappropriate and not a substitute for adequate research regarding details of actual positions and actions which can speak for themselves." This being said, I sugest we resolve this issue as per a suggestion from NPOV precedences: "Injection of personal viewpoints regarding the subject of an article is inappropriate and not to be resolved by debate among the editors of an article, but referenced from reputable outside resources. See Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view." --CyclePat 00:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Pat, do you not realise that bearding Arbcom members at their talk pages (User Talk:Fred Bauder) over AfD debates in process is considered extreme bad form? - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] RfA! 19:35, 10 January 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.
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