Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Therianthropy

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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 Keep - crz crztalk 17:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Therianthropy

Therianthropy (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Fails the everything test, WP:OR, WP:RS per WP:V, WP:N, WP:POV, WP:BOLLOCKS, WP:NEO, etc. NeoFreak 09:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Additional comments:This article is a neologism of the neologism Otherkin. Therianthropy is a made up word by an internet group as stated in the body of the article: In the early days of the Usenet group alt.horror.werewolves (around 1992), the members discussed fictional shapeshifters. Some users began to publicly claim that they considered themselves to be partially non-human animal. A number were only joking, but enough people were serious about it, and claimed this was their personal understanding and experience of themselves, that it became the subject of ongoing discussion Initially such people called themselves lycanthropes, but as that word more accurately describes wolf-people, therianthropes was chosen as a more general term. At first glance the article seems very legit (the authors have done an excellent job of presentation) and the author even goes so far as to try and apply his neologism in a "Scholarly" context but once you begin to read it the fact that it is a vanity article created by a "community" of people attempting to create a scientific or legit sounding name to their...belief system is rather obvious. There are no reliable sources, no verifiable claims of notability, it is written in a POV tone, and serves as nothing more than a soapbox. A gross (if not attractive) violation of WP:NOT. NeoFreak 09:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment It should be noted that the terms are, while related, not in fact derived from eachother in any way.
  • Comment: It was my understanding that the word was not made up by the Usenet furries, but rather just adopted by them. The beginning of the article seems to say that it is a more general term for animal people, encompassing werewolves and such. I'm refraining from voting either keep or delete; The term, subcultural use, and variations thereof are pretty popular on the internet, but I'm not sure how much of the subject would be reported on in verifiable sources, even moreso considering Wikipedia's bias against things having to do with the internet. I agree that the article is in gross need of work and NPOVifying. (edit: additional comment— note that the hugely disproportionate amount of furries on Wikipedia are going to flock to this AfD.) Voretustalk 10:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Actually, delete; lack of reliable sources. Voretustalk 15:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment Yes, therianthropy is a combination of the greek words for beast and man. I can't find any academic use of the term and wikpedia is not a dictionary. There is already a article on shapeshifting. Yes, it is popular on the internet as a neologism. I also have no doubt that this AfD will soon be kneedeep in furrie meatpuppetry but AfDs are not a vote, you have to have a reason besides "fursecution!" or "I like this article". We'll see I suppose. NeoFreak 10:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Hey, assume good faith please. It's disingenuous to declare in advance that if lots of people vote keep it's just because they're meatpuppets; the same sort of claim could just as easily be made about swarms of deletionists who hate interestingcruft to "explain away" large numbers of delete votes should they happen. Or, for that matter, dismissing a section of the article because "The section on "Scholarly use of the term" can only be there to try and help justify or help legitimize the "modern usage" section." (from your comment on the article's talk page) Well, if it does, what of it? Bryan 17:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
        • You are of course correct, I should assume more good faith and I aplogize if I've offended you. As I'm sure you know if you spend enough time in AfD and you can get a little jaded and cynical about the process' abuse by conflicts of interest. In addition to my personal opinion of the author's motivations I have also justified all my actions through proper process per the guildlines and policy of an AfD nom. NeoFreak 01:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
          • Well, you were a bit quick on the trigger with this AfD IMO - you left a comment on talk: just two days prior and hadn't recieved a response. But considering I have on occasion let problems I considered "critical" sit for six months to a year while awaiting a solution we could just be operating on very different perceptual timescales. :) Bryan 05:45, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - I'm neutral on this article, but I am reasonably certain that I can scrape up an academic use of the term (at least in the derived form "therianthropic") referring to the animal-headed human depictions of Egyptian mythological deities. That aside, there look to be a couple of actual legitimately published books cited as reference (including a Penguin-published work cited regarding development of the term). Is there something I'm overlooking? ... 14 years is plenty of time for a term to stop being a neologism, especially if its seen print via Penguin. Serpent's Choice 11:21, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
    • The Penguin book is about werewolves and has nothing to do with the neologism labeled in the article. The only "reference" citing the article's POV is a fansite. Like I said the term Therianthrophy is a combo of the Greek words for beast and man so if you looked hard enough you can no doubt find it used somewhere outside the furry community but not in the way as defined by the article as a demographic or recognized academic term. NeoFreak 11:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Amazon seems to list at least one book that directly deals with the topic under this name. An absolutely cursory look at the publisher looks like it might be one step above self-publication, but I'm unsure if this is sufficient to give WP:V weight to the topic. I've got two articles I'm sandboxing at the moment to try to bring through DRV, so I really don't think I've got the time to see if this one's recoverable right now, but there's a start should someone be so inclined.... Serpent's Choice 12:59, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Comment: of the sources that are cited, I've looked up two. The Magic of Shapeshifting by Rosalyn Greene is quite obviously describing the same subculture that is described for seven pages in "Werewolves" by Daniel Cohen. However, using the Amazon.com "search inside the book" feature yields only two uses of "therianthropy" and one use of "therianthrope" in The Magic of Shapeshifting (it mostly uses "shifter subculture" or "shifters" instead) and the Cohen book doesn't use "therianthropy" or "therianthrope" at all. Some further digging seems to indicate that the terms used by the subculture are wildly various: therian, shifter, were, polywere, therianthrope, theriomorph and so on. I think one difficulty is that "therianthrope" is not now the standard term used by the subculture, and never has been. That's one reason why I put a split template on Therianthropy. Separate the mythology from the subculture, and then let the rest sort itself out. Probably the subculture article will need to have a lot of material deleted if it can't be cited properly, but there's enough published material citing the subculture under some name or other that an article about the subculture could easily be supported, just perhaps not under the name "therianthropy."Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 21:10, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
        • I was thinking that the subculture is best termed "therian" and the main article on them might best be named that. But that begs the question of where they got that term at all? Likely derived from therianthropy (mythology) and now they are trying to reclaim the original term for their own. If they have succeeded in that aim then their article can be therianthropy; otherwise it should be therian with mention that the term therianthropy has acheived some limited usage in that sense. --Justanother 21:21, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
          • I'll admit as to being completely stumped as to which different name, if any, the article about the subculture should be under. All choices seem to have a problem, and I've yet to see a print reference for "therian," the current winner in terms of popularity. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 21:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. The "neologism" is not our neologism, but rather a term that the therianthropes came up with for themselves. There's plenty of sources out there that use it. Bryan 17:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment I agree, it's a made up neologism. While not used only by those that identify them selves as furries that doesn't really have any bearing on wether or not this article meets wikipedia policy. If you really want to keep this article could you please provide these sources and do you have any way of rectifying the other fundemental violations of policy? NeoFreak 17:14, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
      • You can't just list every policy under the sun and declare that it fails all of them without any further explanation. The only objections you've given any detail to are that the article's a "neologism" (which is only against policy if we invented the term, not if we're reporting on a neologism that other people recently came up with) and that there aren't reliable sources (the article already lists six published books as sources). Could you explain what the other supposed fundamental violations of policy are? Bryan 17:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
        • Have I not? I assumed most of the violations would be obvious. When I say it has no reliable sources that is because none of the citation's source material meets WP:RS per self-published sources. The few books sources don't really support the position maintained by the article or do so only through original research. All of the POVs that the article puts forth either fail under the aformentioned problems with sources or they have no sources at all, making them WP:OR. The article puts forth a hypothesis about "therianthropy" based on the authors attempts to apply his understanding of the neologism in a "scholarly" context. Note that the actual term is not used, just the meaning of the neologism as he understands applied to that context. More violations of WP:OR. None of the sources in that section apply to the neologism or its use, just the concept as the author understands it: a violation of WP:V as well. This pattern repeats itself throughout the rest of the article except now the author is applying it to the "modern subculture". The author even contrasts his pet term to medically diagnoseable medical conditions such as clinical lycanthropy, multiple or split personality disorder and body dysmorphic disorder without citing any medical work or making any claim of having any expertise. Of course all this is written in a POV and very pro-therianthrophic stance. Zero sources and and violations of WP:OR, WP:NPOV and WP:V. The author also makes unsourced and POV claims about "therian" groupings, belief structure, degrees of identification, variety of involved species and social struture all with little or, more often, no sources at all. See where I'm going with this? It's all original research to support a particular POV that is not sourced or verifiable. Also note that the def of a neologism per WP:NEO is words and terms that have recently been coined, generally do not appear in any dictionary, but may be used widely or within certain communities. It doesn;t matter who came up with said neologism. Of course there is no verifiable notability put forth either and the entire thing is wrapped in a hard candy shell of WP:BOLLOCKS. Etc. NeoFreak 17:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
          • I would resolve a lot of these issues simply by trimming of the existing article, though. And I think you're being rather extreme in dismissing some of the sources; one of them's published by Penguin, that's rather far from a vanity press. The quality of much of the article is debatable but taking the position that there are absolutely no good sources in here is a bit over the top. Bryan 05:45, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
            • I'm not arguing that the Penguin werewolf book is legit. I'm saying it is misused as the author of the essay is using to justify his POV and apply his term to it. It inclusion does not support the articles POV without original research. Even is that were not the case that doesn't make the article salvagable and the author doesn't specificly justify its inclusion as a ref. NeoFreak 10:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
              • The article cites the book in reference to a discussion on the origins of the term at AHWW. If the book actually cites the term, then we've got no problem; inclusion in a Penguin-published work is pretty much in gold standard category for "not just being a neologism". I'll try to find a copy in the next day or so, work permitting ... a page reference, or the lack of one, ought to put most of this discussion to rest. Serpent's Choice 11:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
                • While it would help it is by no means going to do anything to alleviate the rest of the issues with this article. NeoFreak 11:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
                  • The Penguin book is not misused (since the information in the footnote is in the book and it does discuss the subculture for seven whole pages) but it does not support "therianthropy" as a term used by the subculture - in fact, it doesn't list any of the terms used by the subculture (which is probably just as well, since it is a book for children). So, it is a legimitate source for the article, but not a legitimate reason why the article should continue with the title "Therianthropy." Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 21:51, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete This is a well-constructed POV/OR essay, not an encyclopedia entry: it'd be good as part of an FAQ, but not here. Sam Clark 18:42, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per Sam Clark. Isn't there a Wiki dedicated to wannabe furry creatures? This belongs there. Edison 18:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
    • yes there is, at wikia:furry 65.118.187.102 21:17, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Then again, I am a therian, so you kinda could guess I'd vote to keep it. Otherwise, merge it and Otherkin into one article, as both are related. By the way, why was Otherkin not deleted? EDIT: Now I see that someone did put it up for deletion, but it was kept. Why should that article be kept but not this one? PS: Therians and furries are not the same thing. --CF90 22:57, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
    • They may not be the same thing, but their communities overlap in a great many ways. Delete, merge if you must, but this article is about a neologism for a small insular group, which does violate policy. --humblefool® 01:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment Do you have any justification under wikipedia policy for your "vote" or is the extent of your support based on the fact that you agree with the article's POV? As for the Otherkin article it was cleaned up by myself to help meet policy. NeoFreak 01:22, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Do not merge with Otherkin! Therianthropy and otherkin are entirely separate beliefs although there are people who share both (hence the 'overlap'). Otherkin hold beliefs (past lives, the existence of mythological creatures on an astral plane, et cetera) that most therianthropes do not have. In addition most therianthropes disparage or take offense to the term Otherkin, which they feel implies a rejection or denial of one's humanity. As for this article being a 'vanity' article, therianthropy is a belief, not a community. Therianthropy has no leaders, no central creed, and there is no main community. In describing a belief and not a community, the article stands as legitimate, since therianthopes are not a singular community and many do not even participate in online 'therian' websites. This article simply names and describes a belief held by people who may have little else in common. The term 'therianthropy' is also used by a significant number (in the thousands) of people worldwide. — 24.230.61.31 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
    • CommentDo you have reliable sources to substantiate your opinions? This, as you've described, is a neologism and the article is an essay. NeoFreak 10:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment I agree with the anonymous commenter's point that the article should describe a belief and not a community. However, the views ascribed by that commenter to Otherkin are not beliefs that are universal in that 'community'. If anything, I feel that this reinforces the need to get rid of the Otherkin article, since that one really is a neologism. NickArgall 06:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Neologism, but moderately popular in its niche and (in parts at least) well-written/referenced article. I'd hate to see the content lost so merge it with a more popular or general term for the subject (shapeshifting already opens with a big list of synonyms, and could really do with the references) and redirect. Sockatume 05:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
    • I see this as a reasonable article in its own right, but if enough people disagree then a compromise I'd be comfortable with is merging it into Otherkin and turning "therianthropy" into a disambig pointing to there and to lycanthropy. That should preserve the relevant information and also leave a foundation if at some point in the future more material is added to warrant splitting it back out again. Bryan 05:31, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Concur with merge proposal -- I have come across the word, but could not prove it is not a neologism; IMHO it certainly has the potential to become a formal description of the phenomenon and therefore to be something by which people would search. Simon Cursitor 08:35, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Comment The two terms are significantly unique from eachother, albeit related. If a merger is to take place, it would seem more fitting to merge Otherkin into it, being far smaller in scope and popularity.
      • Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. NeoFreak 10:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Oppose merge to shapeshifting Shapeshifting is about transformation, whereas therianthropy is about identity. There is overlap that can and should be discussed in the articles, but I don't believe they should be merged simply because they are about related phenomena. NickArgall 06:02, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Comment: I agree. The Shapeshifting article covers such a broad concept (in both folklore and fiction) and is already so long that lumping Therianthropy into it would probably just lead to another split down the road.Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 21:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment regarding sourcing. It appears that this term is in reasonably wide use in published works, in both senses of the term. Please see a hastily assembled list of attributions on this AFD's talk page. Clearly, copies of these sources would be required to write a properly verified and referenced article (rather than, admitedly, the current essay), but I think this demonstrates that such an article is well within reach. Serpent's Choice 12:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Much thanks, I've left a comment there. NeoFreak 12:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Hope I'm doing this right, never edited wikipedia stuff before. In August 2003, The Learning Channel aired a program called 'Animal Imitators'. One of the people interviewed was Coyote Osborn, long-time administrator of the 'werelist' website linked to in the article. I don't know if this lends any weight, though. On one hand, the term wasn't actually used; on the other, Coyote is a prominent member of the community but doesn't otherwise put himself out in the public eye very much, yet he was found and sought out for interview by TLC. The video is available for download on various sites; his interview begins almost exactly 37min into the program if you are viewing it with commercials left in.
  • Weak Keep per Serpent's Choice's discovered sources. Cleanup (and probably a fair amount of rewrite) required, but topic appears verifiable even if not all of those sources pan out. The sources would satisfy NN. OR and NPOV issues can be addressed short of deletion. Merge might also be a viable option. Shimeru 06:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
    • For what its worth, I'm willing to do the heavy lifting needed for the cleanup and rewrite, but it would be another day or two until I'm done with my current article projects, and I've already been informed that some of the material I cited will require interlibrary loans. So, if someone has at least some sourcing they can put in place earlier than 1-2 weeks, I'd be appreciative. Otherwise, if the article's still here, I'll get to it. Serpent's Choice 11:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. A useful term with, as has been shown, applications in academia as well as the popular usage. The popular usage alone, which is different from that of 'otherkin', would render it a good topic. -G.E. Wilker 00:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Pretty strong keep per Serpent's Choice's sources. These folks have been referenced in a few books, and the online community is big enough to balance out the not-ideal amount of book sources. Original research is certainly a problem, but with these and other sources, the article is worth keeping. Needs rewrite immensely, but POV-ness is not inherent to the subject; I'm convinced that it can be covered with impartiality suitable for Wikipedia. And being POV is not a criteria for deletion, only significant revision. I don't feel that merge is appropriate, either, although my opinion on that is less strong. Otherkin and therianthropes often move in very different social and subcultural circles, as shown by the sources, which don't share a significant overlap with the Otherkin article. The history of how the subcultures of otherkin and therianthropy came to be is also quite different, as can be seen in their respective articles. (Incidentally, I'm pretty much Wikibreaking at the moment, so I won't be able to answer much query about my comments, but I did want to put in my word on this one. :P) Switchercat talkcont 01:10, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep The article needs to be fixed, not deleted. NickArgall 01:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC) Also, not a neologism - google book search shows that the term was used in 1915, and five minutes with amazon gives an account of people facing criminal charges of 'lycanthropy or therianthropy' in the sixteenth century. So the term is at least 91 years old.
  • Strong Delete. The article itself does not seem to advance the base of knowledge too much, coming chiefly from sources which are suspect, not quoted in the text, or seemingly biased in their scope and application. A merge to Otherkin would add citeable sources, but the two don't seem sufficiently linked, to me, to warrant this. I vote for deletion if simply due to the fact that the article concerns what IS a neologism (if not in its original formation, then in the scope and application it has met within its usage in this article), and additionally... no one can deny that this article reads like a POV essay. References frequently aren't cited, it contains comments such as:
"Stereotypically, it is said that furries view therianthropy as "taking it too far" or "too seriously", while therianthropes assert that furries are frivolous, juvenile, and/or don't respect or understand the true nature of animals."
At least one key difference seems to be that most therians see this as being part of their own nature, rather than a dysfunction or psychological defence mechanism, thus it is often valued rather than hoped to be "cured".
These, and many others, are pretty broad statements to be made... has the article writer talked to most of those who identify with this group? Can they quote studies? How do they show this stereotypical history of the opinion of Furries, are they sure these are commonly and majorly held views by Furries? Can they prove it? MY digging through the sources (and I will immediately apologize for my assumptions if direct sources for some of the therefore seemingly POV statements are provided), has turned up nothing. Anyway. Even if the article cannot be entirely deleted, it should be cleaned up in a very huge way to remove some POV or utterly unverifiable/opinionated statements. Merging into Otherkin does not seem to me to be accurate, because it would necessitate defining one article as a subset of the other in some ways. Since the two things seem distinct, and only hazy evidence can really be found about either, I would say that this article should be deleted. As has previously been said, many things are interesting or noteworthy, yet not well enough documented to meet encyclopedic standards.
I feel strongly that this is one of those, or that at least needs to be reworked from an essay, into an article whose goal is to inform, not convince. Raeft 02:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Comment I believe that most of the problems you've cited could be solved by doing what the new split template suggests: splitting the article into Therianthropy (mythology) and Therianthropy (subculture), with Therianthropy (subculture) vastly shortened to just those statements that were supported by the sources. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 20:50, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment I've argued on the talk pages for Otherkin and Therianthropy that believing you're an animal that doesn't exist (Otherkin belief) is essentially a variation on believing that you're an animal (Therianthropy). I strongly believe that any detailed exploration of the differences between those beliefs would fall into the realm of original research. NickArgall 06:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. If what we have here is a modern incarnation of totemism and shamanism and it is practiced by a sizable group of people that prefer this term then who cares that it is a neologism (if it even is one). A good comparison is Wicca as the modern incarnation of witchcraft, Wicca having 50 years behind it. It all boils down to WP:V. The article may need WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOR tags but I would like to see if it develops. --Justanother 16:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment. I was considering weakening my keep based on a poor Google performance of therianthopy. Therianthropic does much better but also gets more into the existing unrelated scholarly usage. Therian does much much better but has other meanings also and is a proper name to boot. (edit: strike that, I do not know what I was searching on earlier today) So I wonder how much of this is wishful thinking regarding WP:Notability, i.e. that it is a very small group seeking to legitimize the term they have adopted for themselves. Upon reflection, my guess is that the interest is broad enough to warrant inclusion. The other option is to create an article for therian, which, as a term, seems to have much more popularity among the community but then what would you call their belief system, totemism? --Justanother 19:11, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. The word wasn't made up by this community, but rather adopted by them, and between this and the related Otherkin article (which will probably be merged with this one) we have enough sources to write some things about the subculture/religion. Its notable enough to have books talk about it, so I think its a keep. Titanium Dragon 18:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. Concerns about WP:NPOV are best addressed by fixing the article, not removing it. I've seen enough sources here, especially with Serpent's Choice's work, to come to the conclusion that the other criticisms can be addressed as well. The discussion on the Draconity AfD convinced me that that article wasn't worth saving, but the circumstances here simply aren't the same. Baxil 03:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - There seems to be a large amount of confusion between therianthropy as psychological/spiritual phenomenon and therianthropy as subculture. 'Therianthropy as subculture' is not what I feel the article should be about, although I think a section on subcultures associated to the phenomenon is of some relevance. Arguments that 'Otherkin and therians are different subcultures' misunderstand the purpose of an encyclopedia (although the obsessive detail on some fan topics might lead people to think otherwise). Therianthropy, the belief that one has an animal soul, is a long-established phenomenon that plays an important role in understanding tribal cultures. The fact that this belief crops up even without cultural supports and in the face of societal sanctions (such as the 'clinical lycanthropy' diagnosis) is noteworthy. On the other hand, statements that "Otherkin think therians are far too serious" are pointless, and should be excised in favour of encyclopedic content. NickArgall 05:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. Not a neologism - I first read the word more than 20 years ago. Documented in various places, including dodgy 1930s books on psychical research, I fear ( I'm ashamed of some of the junk I've read over the years ). Distinct from lycanthropy, and with enough of a difference in conceptualisation to differentiate from otherkin. I would like to see lots of work done on all the articles in this special-interest cluster, to bring them up to a high standard, but this should not be beyond the combined wit of Wikipedia. WMMartin 17:33, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. I came across the term, didn't know what it meant, found a detailed explanation here. It's a usefull article. Even new words need an explanation. Especially new words.
  • Strong Keep per Serpent's Choice, Baxil, WMMartin, et al. Furthermore, Strong oppose merge from Otherkin merging these two articles will do far more harm than good, as there are many many wildly differing oppinions on these two terms even within the communities they refer to and the other/theri/whatever community at large. -- Toksyuryel talk | contrib Image:Toksyuryel wikipedia sig img.jpg 23:57, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per above. Sharkface217 03:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep but split into separate articles, one dealing with the scholarly definition (once split, the scholarly article should be considered for possibly merging with Lycanthropy) and the other article dealing with the subculture (which should then be considered for merging with Otherkin or deleting, as appropriate). At least half of the problems that led to this Afd come from these quite separate contexts being hopelessly tangled in one article. Note: a split along these lines was already attempted (see Talk:Therianthropy#Disambiguation and the older edits [1] and [2]) but was apparently reverted by furry meatpuppets. It is ridiculous for a scholarly concept about 100 years old to be tangled up with a subculture less than 20 years old. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 18:07, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: I think the two uses are sufficiently dissimilar to warrant two articles: Therianthropy as the scholarly usage and Therianthropy (subculture) as the modern totemism. Do not merge with OtherKin but consider merging that into the Therianthropy (subculture) article. --Justanother 18:16, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Okay, I've now placed a split template on Therianthropy and I've reverted Therianthropy (subculture) and Therianthropy (mythology) to their earliest clean versions (for easier viewing for those contemplating the split, so they don't have to go to the work of digging through the history). However, Therianthropy (subculture) would need a lot of cleaning in order to bring it up to par. (Note: there is also a Therianthropy (fiction) floating around, which should probably be merged with Shapeshifting or deleted). Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 18:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
At the risk of being premature (this AfD being still in progress); I added an item for the split discuss and noted my support. Also, modern use in fiction can go into the main article if we take the main article as being somewhat generic. --Justanother 19:12, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't want to be premature either, so I'm waiting to see how this Afd goes before transferring content from Therianthropy to the two articles in the proposed split. However, I've created a temporary archive at User:Mermaid from the Baltic Sea/Therianthropy just in case. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 20:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • delete Neologism with no repuitable references. Mukadderat 02:25, 3 December 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.