Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Postliterate society (2nd nomination)

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. Cirt (talk) 07:13, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Postliterate society (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

I already nominated it once and the decision was keep. While i can agree that this concept may be notable, no significant editing happened since then. The article still doesn't have anything that remotely resembles reliable sources. If it is a significant scientific or cultural concept, it should be either improved or deleted. Otherwise people who don't pay attention to "unreferenced" tags can actually believe what it says now. And maybe it is even true (although i doubt it), but there's no way to verify it. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 16:06, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. In the first line of the article it dexcirbes the term as hypothetical, and cursory searches of the web and google sholar seem to show it is a notable hypothecy. Yes, it needs referencing, but that can be fixed by editting. Dylanfromthenorth (talk) 16:27, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree that it's possible that the concept is notable and that the article can be fixed by editing, but the same claim was made in the previous AFD and nothing happened since. All of the information in the article is unreferenced and, as far as i'm concerned, wrong. If the concept is important enough, someone will write a properly referenced article soon enough. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 18:14, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  OK, but the correct thing to do with an unreferenced article is to fix it, not delete it. Dylanfromthenorth (talk) 18:42, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  I would gladly fix it, but i don't possess enough knowledge to do it. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 19:10, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Timotheus Canens (talk) 02:12, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Rename to Post-literate per Marshall McLuhan, [link] (or a google search for "post literate" mcluhan gutenberg galaxy) seems to show he was an early user, probably coined the phrase. i think the word society is not needed, but the word, if coined by mcluhan, is an important one, and probably deserves a larger article. i would start with this reference. i admit its hard to find reliable sources for its use, but its now ubiquitous. Mercurywoodrose (talk) 03:43, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Could this AFD be listed or noted at Wikipedia:WikiProject Media? i sometimes see afd's included in other discussions. this is really not so much about sf as postmodern media theory. i dont know how to do this, though.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 04:02, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. -- Timotheus Canens (talk) 06:01, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep The article needs more content and sources, but just clicking on the automatic "find sources" link above shows that this phrase still gets used in books and news articles. Concerns about technology creating a generation that doesn't read have been an ongoing concern. It used to be television, now it's the internet, and I'm sure that in another ten years, it'll be voice-activated information retrieval. Mandsford (talk) 14:12, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep "failure to be improved" is not a sufficient reason for deletion of a verifiable and notable literary trope. Having said that, this can clearly be improved and certainly should be, but it isn't so bad that deleting what we have here would improve the encyclopedia. Jclemens (talk) 17:10, 13 January 2010 (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.