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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Phage monographs

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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 no consensus. There is no consensus to just delete this page outright, but all agree that this content should not remain in article space in this form. There's no agreement about what ought to be done, though. I suggest that interested editors continue to develop ideas about what to do with this type of content in general (possibly through a RfC with a variety of options) and implement it by moving, merging or redirecting this page as required.  Sandstein  11:37, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Phage monographs

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Phage monographs (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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I saw this at prod and brought it here, because I think the community should see this--it raises some general questions. I've known about the article, and never been happy with it because it does not really fit into the framework of an encyclopedia, and would seem to violate NOT INDISCRIMINATE. A few of these works are notable themselves & articles could be written; a good number are part of notable series, about which articles could be written. Not all of them are. We certainly could make a list of the ones we wrote articles for when we wrote them.

But there are other considerations: It would be possible to include all of these in a bibliography section of the already long article on Bacteriophage--and it might seem that a split would make more sense. Some of our articles have extremely extensive bibliographies, listing the important and the unimportant equally--sometimes with the clear objective of listing everything possible on a subject. Is this a role for a general encyclopedia? (but even if not, should we expand our role and do it anyway?) Again, If we accept articles listing all the books of a highly notable writer, and we certainly do, should we perhaps accept articles listing all the books on a notable subject? Another solution is article bibliography subpages, but that would obviously takes some discussion. Another possibility,discussed a little, is a WikiBibliography project; yet another is a Bibliography space within the project. These are really strategic planning considerations.

So the question to be is whether we should accept this as an experimental exception, or merge it, or delete it and save what content is notable. Myself, I'm undecided DGG ( talk ) 02:42, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hmmm. I am inclined to think that WP should offer some room for bibliographies; it's the kind of thing that would be helpful and as long as we don't have a project, maybe this should be it. Let's face it, it's a lot more helpful and encyclopedic than some other content we have. It is discriminate, being constrained by its topic--though the sections starting "the following have not been sufficiently scrutinized" suggest that even this might be somewhat difficult and would, in effect, rely on reliable sources to establish whether they are included correctly. (Now that would be a monk's job--does that expression exist in English?) What's next is, perhaps, an annotated bibliography...eminently useful, and very, very hard to ever make complete (believe me--I'm working on one--but this is not an argument against the idea, of course, though it would be OR, really). For now, but I am very interested in other opinions, I'm going to go with keep, though I think that DGG has raised some interesting bigger issues, and though I think also that the current format needs editiong (but that's for another forum). Drmies (talk) 04:38, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not familiar with relevant wikiprojects, but IMO bibliographies belong there, not main article space. I pinged two WPs that may adopt it (which I would strongly recommend). NVO (talk) 07:03, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • My preference would be to delete the article and move the information out of the article space where it could be used to source encyclopaedic articles. This information does not seem to be acceptable except as a reference list, so merging does not seem to be a good option to me. I am also afraid that leaving the article as an experimental exception will, in the long run, equate to leaving the article to stagnate. Neelix (talk) 13:28, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the material that will be useful to source articles already is; although there are probably several dozen or so articles that need writing on individual bacteriophages, in addition to probably over a hundred biographies, they would not use monograph references much beyond the ones already used in the present articles. One of the problems of this article is that it aims at being comprehensive and includes the unimportant as well as the important. It would all be useful however, if one were going to write an original history of the subject at the research level, including the Russian work. It however does not now include work in non-Western languages.
  • I would say go ahead with either deleting the list or moving it to the bibliography section of the Bacteriophage page. I admire all the hardwork that has gone into making this list, but, Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopaedia, not an almanac. If one Bibliography series is let through, just imagine what sort of topics would turn up with bibliographic lists? We'd end up having the same monograph or book or paper quoted in ten different places and it would clutter up the current system. Even if left in as an experiment, these kind of articles will tend to stagnate, as Neelix has mentioned above. Manoj Prajwal (talk) 21:59, 19 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to wikipedia namespace and delete from mainspace. I can see this as an aid to help people write articles (similar to the websites list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Resources for example), but as a standalone product I don't see how we'd decide what to include and what to say about it. The current revision has some other problems (like a paragraph-long essay about publishing on paper versus publishing on the web, which is rather off-topic), but those are not reasons for deletion (just for cleanup). Kingdon (talk) 22:44, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The List of important publications in ... articles are different: they are intentionally a selected list of of the most important publications, with the inclusion of the justified by sources and consensus. DGG ( talk ) 03:47, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Other ways There are slightly more complicated ways of handling these that could be considered. One of the, is the method adopted by Citizendium: bibliographies on subpages in addition to the actual references for the articles. A good example is the one for Pittsburgh (I note, btw, that the article on bacteriophages there does not have one--since the licenses are now compatible, a step that could be taken regardless of the decision here is to copy it there.) At the moment, this function is turned off for article space, but it could be turned on. What could immediately be done is having them as a subpage of talk space--or as mentioned above, of project space. Another, more elaborate way in structure but in function very similar, is the addition of a Bibliography space, to correspond with article space and talk space. DGG ( talk ) 03:47, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The creation of bibliography space sounds like a positive step in the evolution of Wikipedia. Neelix (talk) 09:35, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JForget 12:40, 23 September 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.
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