Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ScienceWorld

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. henrik•talk 07:45, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ScienceWorld

ScienceWorld (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Speedied once (wrongly) as G11, once as A7, restored both times by Michael Hardy, first because of the user who speedy tagged it and second because the first reason should hold for all deletions, if I read his post to my talk correctly (it's a bit muddled on that score, I feel). His championship of this site, laudable though it is, has yet to extend to including either independent references or a claim of notability. As far as I can tell, this site is a wiki with around a thousand articles. Not big, then. According to Michael Hardy, I NEED to take this to AfD. Happy to oblige, althogh I'd probably have simply merged it to the notable MathWorld (same site owner) if I didn't think he'd instantly revert. Guy (Help!) 21:21, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

• This should either be kept or merged into MathWorld for now. In the latter case it should be redirected and tagged with the "R with possibilities" template in anticipation that it will again become a separate article after it further evolves. MathWorld has for years been acclaimed as a highly successful web site---the primary source of information on its topic on the web, unless it's now starting to be challenged by Wikipedia.

For now, ScienceWorld is notable mainly because it's the same people attempting to do for for science what was so conspicuously thoroughly done for mathematics. Admittedly that may be unclear in the article as it stands, but I think it is a genuine claim of notability, just as a new novel by an author who's won a Nobel Prize in literature may be notable even before its publication because of who its author is.

The proper way to deal with the "linkfarm" complaint would have been to delete the links other than the one to the main ScienceWorld page, rather than deleting the "External links" section altogether and then deleting the article.

The nominator, user:JzG, known as "Guy", wrote a comment that said "can you say 'linkfarm', children?", on his edit that entirely deleted the "External links" section. Then he deleted the article altogether. The question of whether this article ought to be deleted had been discussed on several talk pages including this article's own talk page. "Guy" did not answer those comments except by sarcastically calling "children" those who had opposed speedy deletion, before he deleted it again. "Speedy" is clearly inappropriate for cases in which people are already debating whether the article should be kept. Calling those he disagrees with "children" and then deleting the article without comment is abusive and falls far short of reasoned discussion. Michael Hardy 21:48, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Notable, was very useful internet encyclopedia in pre-Wikipedia days. Samohyl Jan 22:09, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete without prejudice. Just because MathWorld is notable does certainly not mean ScienceWorld is. If ScienceWorld takes off and there are multiple reliable sources establishing notability then it can be looked at again, but at present, there aren't any in the article and I can't find any from a G-search (although I must admit this is hard with such a generic name). The articles currently an A7 candidate. Ryan Postlethwaite 22:25, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
• Merge into MathWorld, only notable within that context. humblefool® 04:57, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. As far as I can tell, nobody has put forward any sensible reason for deleting the ScienceWorld page here at Wikipedia. Weisstein's efforts have been long-standing and well noted in the math community. His non-math pages have been available for almost as long as his MathWorld pages. I was one of the early contributors to his MathWorld page, shortly after he had put it up... ugh, was that 1997? Hard to remember. I got a free t-shirt out of the deal. Anyhow, I've always appreciated Eric's efforts. I stopped contributing to his website when it went commercial. Wikipedia has a much larger role than Eric's pages, and citing Eric's efforts for what they are is the responsible thing to do. Rybu —Preceding comment was added at 06:09, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
  • The sensible reason is that it's not notable. Whilst you seem concerned with Eric getting credit for his creations, this is not what wikipedia is here for and does not answer the concerns raised in the nom. Ryan Postlethwaite 09:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

As I explained, the non-math pages have been around essentially as long as the math pages. I've known about them for years and have had the odd occasion where I look things up, especially on his astronomy pages. So it seems to me like your not notable argument is dead in the water. Secondly, this vote may not be well advertised. You really ought to get the people that are most concerned with this page to address your vote. Such as the people that edit astronomy wiki pages. As is it looks like you're getting math people to vote on the removal of a non-math page, which seems not right. Rybu

And to address your point about Google, how long has the Scienceworld website been up? It looks like it's a pretty new "front" for Eric's pages on physics and astronomy. That, combined with the webpage having the same name as another popular webpage in BC would explain why it doesn't have much Google connectivity yet. Rybu —Preceding comment was added at 19:42, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll rephrase, how does it satisfy the notability guidlines for web pages? There is no current ascertation of notability in the article. Whether you've heard of them or not, or how long they've been around does not affect the notability of the subject. Ryan Postlethwaite 19:44, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd say criterion (1) is satisfied. Go to the astronomy page, stars -> stellar types -> brown dwarf, for example. It states what a brown dwarf is and gives multiple examples and references. Rybu 20:02, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

That's not notability, there needs to be numerous reliable sources written about ScienceWorld for it to satisfy criteria 1 - such as independant newspapers writing articles about ScienceWorld. Ryan Postlethwaite 20:24, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Please!! It's not "criteria 1"; it's "criterion 1". "Criteria" is plural! Michael Hardy 22:47, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Go to Google, type in "weisstein world of astronomy", click SEARCH. You find a variety of links from the standard sources like ask.com and goodle, to high school astronomy pages, to math forums to spacetoday.org, various libraries, astronomer blogs, the Internet Guide to Engineering Mathematics and Computing, it's used as a reference for the "OneLook" on-line dictionary, a detailed description at the Charlottesville Astronomical Society webpage for use as a reference, it is referred to at the "Planetary Science" magazine... the list goes on and on. Rybu 20:45, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. No reason to delete outright, no reason to merge. Why don't we just do Yahoo! Answers → Yahoo!, Google Video → Google, etc? Obviously, argument by analogy extends only so far, but there's no precedent or reason to support an argument that a related or derivative website need necessarily be merged into its parent site. --Cheeser1 06:50, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

You have failed to explain how this site is notable. Ryan Postlethwaite 09:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

God forbid I refute only one of the points in the AfD. I guess I'm not allowed to contribute to the AfD unless I provide enough evidence to settle the matter entirely? Let's just dredge up a few references off the top of my head (ie Google):

1. news article by library of the Boulder Labs (ie the NTIA / NIST)
2. Cited in a report on the LIGO etc. (ie physicists)
3. Coverage in the Washington Times: Mar 13, 2003. The world, atoms to Z particles, all cross-referenced. Joseph Szadkowski. Excerpt available here and verifiable here.

Need I go on? --Cheeser1 20:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe if you have good links of this kind, and they're not password-accessible-only, you should put them in the "external links" section of the article. That would be an assertion of notability. Michael Hardy 22:49, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

• z:If they are article about the organisation, they are usable references in the reference section whether or not they require a password or payment. There is no prejudice against paid sources if they are the best ones. DGG (talk) 00:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Established well-known website, referenced by many many WP articles. (Just look at "What links here"). It's a good thing to have an article which explains the nature of the site that such citations are going to, just as we do for eg Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, or 1911 Britannica. -- Jheald 08:26, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
• Keep or merge. If this hasn't been been mentioned in numerous indepentend sources (which I doubt) it would at least be notable by association. This should probably also be mentioned in the artilce on MathWorld, so I'd merge it there for editorial reasons, but because of this reason outrightr deleting it would be silly. —Ruud 15:17, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable web-site and project, so do not delete. Distinct site from MathWorld so do not merge. Gandalf61 08:52, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Gandalf61. Stifle (talk) 22:16, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
• Keep as frequently referenced source. As for notability, we don't have a policy on that, but for those who think it important, see Cheeser1's remarks above, Internet Scout Project, vol. 3 (2004), #15, or the American Scientist Online. Spacepotato 23:13, 5 November 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.