Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Changes of the length of day

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. The issue of merging can be discussed on the article's talk page Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:39, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Changes of the length of day[edit]

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Redundant with Earth's rotation and Solar time. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:51, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – possibly a merge/redirect to ΔT would be appropriate. (ΔT is a section link on the Earth's rotation article.) Otherwise, a certain level of redundancy is acceptable in Wikipedia articles (per WP:SS), and the article is cited. Regards, RJH (talk) 14:44, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. RJH (talk) 14:46, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Given Earth's rotation, ΔT, and related articles, this article is redundant. That would normally suggest a merge, but much of this article seems to be WP:SYNTH, and the main calculation is clearly WP:OR by the article author. With no online references it's hard to sort out the wheat from the chaff. There are other content problems as well (if lunar tidal torque slows the earth,, how can the total angular momentum of the whole system Earth be constant?). -- 202.124.75.69 (talk) 11:00, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

*Merge ΔT into this article. ΔT is a measure of changes in the length of day. There is already discussion on its talk page about the appropriateness of the title, which could refer to many other things. Between the two articles there is more than enough material to justify keeping this page. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:14, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone employing algebra may define ΔT to mean whatever one pleases. At the same time, "Changes of the length of day" can mean many things, depending on what means by "day". But professionals in the field consistently use two terms, "ΔT" and "LOD" (for "length of day"), to discuss the topic that forms the bulk of the article. The professionals in the field do not use the term "changes of the length of day". So I would suggest that any worthwhile material in the present article should be added to "ΔT", after being improved to provide sufficient detailed references and proper definition of terms and context-setting. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:45, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since this page is about a deletion proposal, I'm going to discuss my merger proposal on the article's talk page. RockMagnetist (talk) 19:14, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: After some thought I am changing my mind on this issue. First, it is certainly notable enough for an article. I have added a classic reference, Lambeck's book, which is devoted to the subject, and some of the other references are pretty general. (If anyone is not satisfied, I can probably track down some more pretty quickly.) Secondly, the articles ΔT and Solar time concentrate on the definition and measurement of time, while this article emphasizes the physics. It makes much more sense as the main article for Earth's rotation#Changes in rotation than ΔT; in fact, Earth's rotation#Changes in rotation is a pretty good summary of the appropriate contents of this article. Third, content problems are not relevant to a deletion decision - they can be fixed. I have added DOI's to the references, so at least some online content can be accessed quickly for verification. RockMagnetist (talk) 04:39, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Redundancy is not an adequate reason to delete; rather, it is a reason to merge. The title seems quite clear and so is arguably superior to obscure jargon such as ΔT. Warden (talk) 07:43, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per WP:SUMMARY, the changes of time is a subsection at Earth's_rotation covering a subtopic in enough detail to have a separate article. A merger would lose information and prevent the topic from expanding. Diego (talk) 12:19, 4 June 2012 (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.