Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Second Sophistic

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. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 16:53, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Second Sophistic[edit]

This article reads like original research or a synthesis thereof based on existing sources, fails WP:OR; also reads like an essay or term paper. ukexpat (talk) 17:09, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. -- ukexpat (talk) 17:43, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. -- ukexpat (talk) 17:44, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep – based on the nominators own assessment: “…a synthesis thereof<sic> based on existing sources “shows that it is not Original Research but rather a combination of separate elements to form a coherent whole as shown by a quick Google Scholar search, as shown here: [1]. A well researched – written article, that has been around since 2004. Why bring to AFD now? Thanks. ShoesssS ^Talk 18:04, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I chose my words carefully from WP:OR: ...any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position. This means that Wikipedia is not the place to publish your own opinions, experiences, or arguments. The subject may be notable but that's not the point. The article reads like a research paper/term paper. And since when has there been a time limit on bringing an article to Afd? – ukexpat (talk) 18:09, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Commnet - Well, I would argue the point to Keep on several levels. First, it is a notable subject, not currently covered by Wikipedia. Two, the article is well researched and cited. Finally, as there is no timeline on bringing an article to AFD, I believe, age does grant certain privileges :-). An article that has been around for 5 years, should be well vented at this point. Regarding orginal research. In that we cannot copy verbatim from any material, and there is quite a bit of it as shown above, thus violating copyright laws, all material has to be paraphrased. In that anyone can make a claim on paraphrased material is orginal research is a fine line between being technical correct and being realistic. Hope I explained my points a little better so you may understand my point of view. Thanks. ShoesssS ^Talk 19:04, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Query - you argue it is a synthesis. What position is being advanced that is not supported by the sources? Why can the problem not be fixed by editing? JulesH (talk) 19:53, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Shoessss. One possible improvement that could be made would be the addition of some sources to show that the term itself is used by Classical scholars - without this, I can see why the article might appear to be original synthesis. It's not as obvious a term to the general reader as (say) Renaissance, and that article has adequate sourcing for this issue. Tevildo (talk) 20:26, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I agree that the article needs improvement, but this is a valid subject and RS are available (see Google Books Search). --J^mundo 20:49, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Needs work, but it's a clearly notable topic with numerous possible sources (whole books have been written on it). Deor (talk) 22:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: OK one more time with feeling. I am not debating the notability of the subject - I was a classics scholar many years ago so I am not a "general reader". My point is that the article is irretrievable in its current form - it reads like a term paper -- for example, encyclopedic articles do not have conclusions or posit questions. The whole thing needs to be scrapped and completely rewritten, it needs much more than "some work". – ukexpat (talk) 23:55, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - these are not grounds for deletion. Tevildo (talk) 20:53, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - If the subject is notable, then it's a keep; bad writing is not grounds for deletion -- unless the article is clearly gibberish with no hope of salvaging. If the article stinks, then either rewrite it or pare it back to a stub. Deletion is not a substitute for editing. -- llywrch (talk) 19:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as speedily as possible. The problems the nominator identifies are not valid reasons for deletion. In particular, its poor style means that it reads more like WP:OR than it is. And, indeed, we only delete articles for OR if they cannot be rewritten, as this one clearly can. This is a shockingly bad article, true. But I don't see how deleting it would improve are coverage of the topic, which as has been pointed out above is clearly notable and deserving of an article. Eluchil404 (talk) 05:03, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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.