Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Why Gender/Gender Construction

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This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was DELETE. Postdlf 03:28, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why Gender/Gender Construction

Article looks a lot like another essay that is not quite encyclopedic material. Several definite statements are made which are everything but uncontested or uncontestable. For example, the first four sentences contain four statements which would provide enough questions for about 40 books; they can under no circumstances be left like this. Same is true for much of the rest. Maybe there is some usefull stuff in there, but I'd say that if one takes anything out that is questionable, there isn't much left. -- AlexR 22:36, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I made a (hopefully) complete list of all the articles and contributors of this school project, there is more work to be done: User:AlexR/school project -- AlexR 08:39, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Note: I recieved a mail today from the instructor, and she is perfectly willing to help to either move the contributions of her class to WikiBooks, or make them encyclopedic. Under these circumstances, please do not delete the article yet. Voting of course or debate can and should continue. -- AlexR 08:12, 2 May 2005 (UTC)


  • Delete. If anybody wants to try to extract the encyclopedic content out of this article, they have five days in which to do it. Until then, it's original research. Kelly Martin 22:46, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. original research. -R. S. Shaw 22:50, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Gender Construction and Why gender both had the exact same content, so I've redirected both to Why Gender/Gender Construction; if this is deleted, those redirects should be too. No vote from me. CDC (talk) 23:23, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete them all. original research, POV, unencyclopedic, etc. Gender issues are already well covered on the Wikipedia (I've had to point to the numerous gender articles several times when editors have confused sex and gender). On the other hand, Why sex is a highly debated topic in biology and probably should have its own article. BlankVerse ∅ 08:00, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Userfy. I disagree that gender issues are already well covered, but this essay as it stands doesn't extend the coverage usefully. I'm concerned about the other contributions of this author, GenderStudies (talk · contribs), which also look like original research. FreplySpang (talk) 12:57, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Essays are never proper encyclopedic material, and as mentioned, is original research. Dysprosia 13:32, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • "Don't delete". This material is encyclopedic in reviewing orginal rsearch on the subject of gender studies in early modern visual culture, a topic not otherwise found in Wikipedia. It organizes the material according to topics in use in the field and summarizes the state of the issues. Gender issues are not well covered with respect to visual culture. I am writing as the instructor of these students. User: Claire Farago/Claire Farago
    • Welcome to the Wikipedia Prof. Claire Farago and students. You should each sign up for a User account so that you won't be anonymous, and so that you can take advantage of features such as having a personal Watchlist. You should also familiarize yourself with the various Wikipedia policies and learn how to properly edit and "wikify" a page. Specific to this debate, you should read What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:No original research. From what I've seen so far, the articles that you and your students have been contributing have been little more than student essays or perhaps journal articles, and certainly not the type of article that would go into a general encyclopedia. A more encyclopedic article might be "Gender role representation in the visual arts". You might also take a look at some of the other online encyclopedias such as Encarta and the Encyclopedia Britannica to see if they have any similar topics. To see examples of what topics are currently covered by the Wikipedia, look at gender and art. You might also investigate the Visual arts WikiProject for ideas and help. BlankVerse ∅ 01:35, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
  • The same thing or a fork has been recreated today as Why gender/gender construction (complete with vfd tag that didn't point here, which I fixed). No vote; mistitled but there's probably saveable content here. Samaritan 14:31, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Note: Somebody - probably the author - tried to NPOV the article by inserting weasel stuff. I uphold my VfD, because stating that one defines terms just for one article does not help, either. -- AlexR 17:54, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Don't delete: We are the undergraduate student authors of this collaborative classroom project. We are in the process of adding references and we are new at this. We are responding to your constructive criticism. We agree with those who think that gender issues and visual culture need more coverage. We invite you to join us in adding good information to the site. -- GenderStudies 12:44, 30 Apr 2005 (MST)
  • Frankly, even though I welcome collaborative efforts and everything, there is a difference between articles and essays, and this is not an article. Weaseling around with the definitions will not help, either - for WP purpose one does not re-define a term, although of course one can concentrate on a particular usage. Then there is the title, which is extremely useless for this article. "Gender construction" could be a much wider topic, after all, the world does not consist of Europe in the Renaissance only. And "why gender" is a question (which is not even remotely answered in the article/essay, either), and a question is usually not exactly a good article title. Not to mention that WP lives from the linking between articles, and who is ever going to link to an article with that title in a text link? Same, BTW, goes for some of the other titles of other articles you choose. Making tons of redirects which, should articles be written which fit those redirect titles much better than this one, will not lead to it any more, and are therefore not exactly helpful, either. Seriously, you missed the point of the Wikipedia with this article (but also with at least parts of the other articles). Articles are articles, and essays are essays. If you want to put essays somewhere, try Wikibook. If you want to edit Wikipedia, you will have to write articles. Oh, and kindly stop that renaming, doubling, and making of redirects. Somebody will have to clean up after you, and the admins have better things to do. Lastly: I did not write this to discourage you from participating in Wikipedia, but to help you become better contributors. -- AlexR 19:54, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Userfy It's a draft page in a subspace of Why Gender. And redirected from there? What's this? Oh hmm, well anyway, right idea, wrong spot. Move it to the relevant user space, and users can stick it back on the wiki when done. Essays are okay, we can wikify them better later, especially from user space. This page is still being worked on, so it's really REALLY too early to make a call on doing anything else to it anyway. Kim Bruning 20:06, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Going to have to delete this. Andre (talk) 00:25, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Possibly nice essay (haven't read it), but this is an encylopedia not essay respon. -- KTC 01:37, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Refer to Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Teletraffic Engineering and Wikipedia:School and university projects for more on use of wiki in collaborative school projects. Feco 05:10, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Userfy is OK with me; presumably, under these circumstances, it would be understood that a subsequent re-creation of the article, in proper form, would not be a candidate for speedy deletion. To the authors: I've looked at this article and a few of the others, not the whole set, but your main problem is that we don't publish original research. A scholarly paper would try to add something new to further the discussion, but an encyclopedia article merely reports on the discussion. I assume some passages in these articles are intended to summarize the thoughts and arguments that have already been presented by experts in the field. In those instances, you should step back one pace from the discussion, and describe the different views or schools of thought, with proper attribution. For an example from a completely different field, see our article on Steady state theory. It tells the reader about a group of physicists, summarizes their beliefs, names the most prominent proponents of the theory, presents its strengths and weaknesses, and assesses its current status among experts in the field. You should be especially careful to avoid stating a conclusion or an interpretation as if it were an observed fact. (A prime example in this article is the beginning of the second paragraph. These statements may be considered self-evidently true in some circles, but Wikipedia articles are written for the general reader, and statements like these should be attributed to the scholars who've propounded them.) JamesMLane 08:41, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

If this article is really causing anyone distress, then why not help by posting your own research. This would be much more productive than merely throwing around juvenile put-downs. It is important to realize that regardless if you agree with someone's work, it doesn't discount the effort and time that went into writing it.

The above comment was posted by 67.165.194.187. Eric119 00:03, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
Well, sorry to have to say that, but Wikipedia is not the place to publish original research, no matter how much work went into it. Wikipedia is for articles, not essays. So if people do not want to write articles, then deleting the results of that is not a "juvenile put-down" but simply household cleaning. As I have told you before, if you want to publish essays, or course efforts that are not articles, or the like, do it on Wikibooks (or get a webpage). Oh yes, and sign your comments with -- ~~~~ ; otherwise somebody has to do it for you, as Eric119 had to. Otherwise, after a while, nobody will know who said what. -- AlexR 01:28, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.