Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Introduction to genetics

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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 keep. Whilst at first, this AfD was going towards the deletion side, there was extensive work done on the article as the debate progressed. As this was done, there was a large switch in the comments and a clear consensus to keep the article, hence my decision. Ryan Postlethwaite 16:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Introduction to genetics[edit]

Introduction to genetics (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

The lead on the Genetics article constitutes an introduction for the layman to this subject. I don't see the point of this article. Perhaps redirect. Nk.sheridan   Talk 01:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nk.sheridan, I'd like to know why you think a layman could understand the introduction to Genetics. As I explained below, I don't think he could. Nbauman (talk) 17:50, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My rough count below is Delete 8, Keep 8, Merge 3. So we don't have a consensus to delete.
But consensus isn't just a vote. We have to address issues. I think there is one outstanding problem for keeping that nobody has answered: Genetics is too difficult for a layman or ordinary non-specialist reader. Can somebody address that problem?
If we did delete Introduction to Genetics, then we would have to substandially edit Genetics to meet the Wikipedia requirement of being understandable to the non-specialist. That would start with a rewrite of the lead -- maybe replacing it with the lead from Introduction to Genetics. Do you agree to a substantial rewrite of Genetics? Nbauman (talk)
Comment No, I don't agree with a substantial rewrite of Genetics. Perhaps I've made a mistake nominating Introduction to genetics for AfD. I saw the article as unneeded at time of nomination although I'm currently not sure this was a valid reason for my nomination. Regardless, it appears that the prevailing opinion and best arguments are for keeping the article. I appreciate the expansion work which perhaps I should have done myself! Nk.sheridan   Talk 23:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Nbauman: As I note below, it's not clear to me that you even read the article. Your misplaced criticism certainly seemed to indicate this. It's incredible to me that you'd be proposing a rewrite of it. Madeleine ✉ ✍ 18:31, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If people got defensive every time someone edited their manuscripts, and accused editors of not having read their article, we could never have editing. When you tell people that their writing is difficult to understand, they don't like to hear it. (One editor told me that she marks up a manuscript, sends it back to the writer, and leaves town for a weekend where she can't be reached.) But Genetics is difficult to understand.
Scientists usually write papers to demonstrate how much they know, to their supervisors, who know more than them. You can't write that way for the non-specialist public.
I write about biomedicine for a living and I've had editors throw stuff back at me because it was so technical that nobody would read it. I've learned to write in ways that people can understand. I spend my days reading transcripts of presentations by doctors and rewriting their words so that other doctors (not laymen) will easily understand them. My magazines compete with the peer-reviewed journals for doctors' time, and the reason doctors read us rather than the prestigeous professional society journals is that they can't get through those journals and they can get through my stories. So I have a good sense of how difficult a piece of scientific writing is.
And it's not just my subjective feeling. There's a lot of communications research out there. If you don't believe me, use the scientific method: Find a typical non-specialist reader -- say, a secretary or computer technician who is not a biology student -- ask that person to read Genetics, and then ask them what an "allele" is.
As I keep repeating, if you want to see a good model of how to write about complicated biomedicine in a way that ordinary people can understand it, the best example I know is the Merck Manual Home Edition. I know some of the people who worked on it (and people who edit Scientific American, Discover, and other books and magazines), and they explained to me how they do it.
Most manuscripts that are written by scientists for publication in peer-reviewed journals or textbooks go through at least 3 and often 10 or more drafts. I don't know why you think you can get it right by yourself the first time.
For example, in a McGraw-Hill textbook, editors will check to make sure that every paragraph has a simple topic sentence. In the New England Journal of Medicine, they clearly indicate parallel ideas with an obvious parallel structure, and by introducing each separate idea with "First .... Second .... Third ...."
Let's take an example from Genetics -- the complicated sentence construction. Simple, direct sentences are easier to read. You wrote:
With this molecular understanding of inheritance, an explosion of research that applied this new knowledge to biology became possible.
Why not just say:
This new molecular understanding of inheritance created an explosion of research.
You admit that Genetics in places is "dense." Well, that's not a trivial problem. If you string a lot of dense paragraphs together, the cognitive burden makes it unreadable. (Especially on the computer screen.) I read Genetics (several times by now) and I had trouble, and I already know the content. I read about genetics in Science and I don't have trouble. You don't know the writing tricks that the editors of Science know to make this content easier to understand.
I realize people have an emotional investment in their own writing WP:OWN, and I've been guilty of that myself. (An editor at the New York Times Washington Bureau got his girlfriend a job writing for them, and she came back to him and said, "Darling! They're changing my words!")
But the most important thing I learned about writing is: it's pointless to write something if your target audience can't understand it. The ordinary reader can't understand Genetics. Nbauman (talk) 15:29, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not trying to own it, I am reacting to the criticisms you gave below that seemed to indicate you had not read the article you vehemently criticized. You are the one that made this personal by explicitly naming me in your criticism. The fact remains: you acted like the article did not define allele, but it did—I think it is reasonable that I interpreted this to mean that you did not read it. You're spending a lot of effort here telling us about how the writing is bad and telling us about your writing experience. I'd far rather you actually just fixed up these articles rather than tell me about how I'm not a Science writer, or a McGraw-Hill writer, or a Nobel prize winner, or a high school teacher. If you want to be credible, be constructive. I'm not upset if someone changes my words, but I am going to react badly when someone spits out an essay or two of rant over an FA article and doesn't make a move to improve it. Madeleine ✉ ✍ 20:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, anybody who has been through the PhD process is all too used to having their writing hacked, bent, deleted, expanded and reworded by their supervisor, advisers and collaborators. At the moment Nbauman and I are trying to improve the Intro to Genetics article so it is useful and distinct from the main article, since it doesn't look like it will be deleted. Once I've finished (you would be very welcome to help of course) I hope you'll look it over and see if I've made any unforgivable simplifications! Tim Vickers (talk) 20:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I brought up alleles to try to convince people not to delete the glossary from Introduction to Genetics. I thought it would be very helpful to a lay reader. (The NEJM has glossaries in its review articles, and -- in a journal for doctors -- defines terms like "allele.")
Here's the definition of "allele" in Introduction_to_Genetics:
Alleles are the different forms of a given gene that an organism may possess. For example, in humans, one allele of the eye-color gene produces green eyes and another allele of the eye-color gene produces brown eyes.
and here's the definition of "allele" in Genetics:
At its most fundamental level, inheritance in organisms occurs by means of discrete traits, called genes. This property was first observed by Gregor Mendel, who studied the segregation of heritable traits in pea plants. In his experiments studying the trait for flower color, Mendel observed that the flowers of each pea plant were either purple or white—and never an intermediate between the two colors. These different, discrete versions of the same gene are called alleles.
I'd like to know what other people think. Which definition is easier to understand? Even for a biology student?
And to anticipate the editors who say, "If a reader doesn't understand a technical term, he can just click on the Wikilink," here's what you get when you click on Allele:
An allele (pronounced /?æli?l/ (UK), /??li?l/ (US)) (from the Greek αλληλος allelos, meaning each other) is one member of a pair or series of different forms of a gene. Usually alleles are coding sequences, but sometimes the term is used to refer to a non-coding sequence. An individual's genotype for that gene is the set of alleles it happens to possess. In a diploid organism, one that has two copies of each chromosome, two alleles make up the individual's genotype. Alleles are prominently represented in a Punnett square.
I read that 4 times, and I can't understand it. Does anyone think that a non-specialist reader could understand that? Nbauman (talk) 21:20, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think both articles can be improved. However, this isn't really the place to discuss how the text of articles could be changed, and since we all now seem to agree that this introductory article needs fixing up and rewriting (rather than deleting) further discussion of genetics and introduction to genetics would probably be best on these article's respective talk pages. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:34, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Have we indeed concluded that we don't have consensus for deleting Introduction_to_genetics, and that we should not delete it? In that case, someone should remove the AfD tag, right? Nbauman (talk)
That's up to an uninvolved administrator. Not something I can do. 01:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I have an outstanding question that no one has answered, and I'd like an answer. Above, I gave the definition of "Allele" from Genetics and Introduction to genetics. I thought the definition from Introduction to genetics was easier to understand. Does anybody disagree? Nbauman (talk) 14:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]


I see that the article has been edited quite a bit and it now reads much better. However, I still think it ought to be deleted. Ironically, the better this article gets, the more it looks like a substantive duplicate of Genetics, that is a clear content fork. I think that having content forks is a bad idea, for general policy reasons. I looked at Genetics and that article looks fine to me. I would prefer that people invested their time and effort in improving Genetics and making it more accessible, rather than in building a functional duplicate from scratch. Having said that, I don't have particularly strong feelings on this specific subject. It seems likely, based on how this AfD is developing, that the article will be kept and I am not going to loose any sleep over it. Nsk92 (talk) 22:36, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete As I understand it, Wikipedia is not in the business of including articles that are overviews of subjects in order to make the actual articles on the subject more accessible to the reader. In any case, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a textbook, and the article itself is supposed to be a general overview of the subject, with some degree of detail. As I see it, if we consider all articles to be parts of the same encyclopedia, then they should all be suitable for the same general audience (a very broad general audience), so making articles directed specifically toward people who are unfamiliar with the subject seems unnecessary. And I don't think a redirect would be necessary, because I doubt people are going to look for an article called "Introduction to genetics" before they look for the genetics article. Calgary (talk) 02:04, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete No need for this article. We already have Genetics. Electricbassguy (talk) 02:52, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Seems like an essay. Probably for a school project. Soxred93 (u t) 03:20, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge into Genetics. RC-0722 247.5/1 04:41, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge anything useful into Genetics. If that article is not simple enough for someone unfamiliar with the subject to understand, that is a problem with the article, but not one that should be fixed by creating a separate "Introduction to..." sort of article. Lankiveil (speak to me) 05:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC).[reply]
  • Delete There is no reason to merge this entry to the parent article. Someone who is unfamiliar with the subject can understand basic concepts from Genetics's lead section and can get further information from rest of the contents. I don't think people will search a topic named "Introduction to genetics" instead of "Genetics" for their needed information. Keep TimVickers has already put impressive effort on this article as it is well improved now.--NAHID 07:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge into Genetics, would provide some good info Light keep After rereading the article and observing Nbauman's response, I can see how it fits "keep" criteria Wiki Zorro 12:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • There might be subtle POV issues here but they aren't jumping out at me, and I don't see anything to suggest that this needs to be deleted. Merge to Genetics in the very worst case, though for a broad topic such as genetics I'm pretty sure an "introduction to..." it could be salvaged and expanded to the same degree as:
So I'm beginning to think Keep and expand would be a better result. — CharlotteWebb 12:44, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • delete it may be possible to write a useful introduction to genetics article but this isn't it. Splitting effort away from the genetics article is not desirable and the article just isn't good enough to justify doing so.Genisock2 (talk) 12:58, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, expand. Introduction to articles are excellent resources for readers ill-acquainted with the topic at hand, and provide a welcome break from the main article, which are usually quite information-dense, and expect intimate knowledge of the topic at hand, or a general knowledge of science at the least. Extremely useful in Wikipedia's mission of educating the public. Those who vote delete due to quality of the article are invited to expand it instead. — Werdna talk 12:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, deleting articles that are A) useful and B) the result of someone's very hard work is A) discourteous and B) destructive. The goal of Wikipedia should be to be useful as a source of knowledge, not a bloody clone of Britannica, just worse. Let me sum this up: there are no real reasons not to keep this and similar articles, and they are useful for a large audience. This is why it's harmful to call Wikipedia an encylopaedia. (and no, do not dare whack me with WP:ATA) --Aqwis (talk – contributions) 13:20, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or Merge at best - just because this is the result of "someone's very hard work" is no reason to keep an article. And, yes, according to WP:ATA, "it's useful" should not be used as an argument to keep an article. Finally, stating that Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia is one of the strangest arguments I have heard. This article is a POV essay; anything useful should be placed into the Genetics article and the rest deleted. Madman (talk) 14:32, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:ATA is also a POV essay . Also, both content license requirements and common sense preclude "merge and delete" from being a valid outcome. If "anything useful should be placed into the Genetics article", the revisions which originally yielded should not deleted, only mildly obscured by a redirect. — CharlotteWebb 14:38, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • You're playing with terms you don't know the meaning of. This is not a "POV essay" in any way. --Aqwis (talk – contributions) 15:10, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Not to argue that other things exist, but the fact that of other introductions to scienttific topics, two are FA and one is GA shows that the consensus is that this article is the sort of thing that Wikipedia includes. If it's a broken introduction, then fix it. —Quasirandom (talk) 16:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep since there are other articles intended to provide an easier introduction to a scientific topic. If there are issues with the article, fix them.--Berig (talk) 17:13, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I can't see a problem with keeping this article. I actually think it is much easier to understand by laypeople than the main Genetics article. It is a complicated subject and I think WP can benefit from a simpler description such as this. Pigman☿ 17:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]


  • Strong keep. Wikipedia is written for the non-specialist, general reader. The main article, Genetics, is much too difficult for that audience. Even the introduction is too difficult.
If we delete Introduction to genetics, we will have to edit Genetics to make it simpler for the general audience, under Wikipedia rules.
It may be possible to rewrite Genetics for the general reader, but it would be difficult (probably contentious), and we'd have to take a lot out to keep it to reasonable length. It would be a lot easier to edit and improve Introduction to genetics if necessary.
For my work, as I said before, I write for doctors and scientists, and also for laymen such as cancer patients, social workers, environmental activists, and just interested people. Before I write, I try to talk to people in my target audience to get a sense of what they already understand and what they want to know. I was surprised to find out that even well-educated people don't understand simple concepts like "apoptosis" or "randomized controlled trial." I know by now that they don't understand a lot of the terms used in Genetics.
Some people write about biology and medicine in language that their readers absolutely must understand -- for example, textbooks, medical instructions and patient consent forms. They've done considerable research. When people write for the intelligent general public, they usually write on what in the U.S. is called 12th grade level, or senior high school. It's not Advanced Placement or A level, and it's not college freshman biology level. Here's a good example Merck Manual, Genetics of writing for the intelligent general public.
I have to make judgments about readability every day. I would say that Genetics is on at least the 14th grade level -- that is, more difficult than a good college freshman-level biology textbook (like Neil Campbell's Biology). It's more difficult than a news story in Science or a feature in New Scientist. I use Harrison's Internal Medicine as a reference, and I would say that Genetics is at least as difficult as Harrison's -- except that Harrison's is better edited. It's not Madeline's fault -- Harrison's is written by the leading researchers (often Nobel laureates), and edited by some of the best (and best-paid) medical editors in the business. It's difficult for a good scientist to write for people who aren't her peers. But Genetics is not understandable by the general reader, as Wikipedia rules require.
(If you don't believe me, run the Fleisch index -- or ask an art major to read it.)
Look at the lead: "Genetics, a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and variation in living organisms. [It cites 2 sources I can't identify or check.] Knowledge of the inheritance of characteristics has been implicitly used since prehistoric times for improving crop plants and animals through selective breeding."
What does "variation" mean in this context? A lot of people wouldn't know. Nk.sheridan says, that's no problem, they can click on the Wikilink of any terms they don't understand. But if you click on variation, you wind up in an entry that is even more difficult for a 12th grade level reader to understand. I understand that you write "variation" to remind me that genetics is related to evolution, just as the New England Journal of Medicine does. For me, and any biology student, you're taking separate ideas that I already know and putting them together in a meaningful context, like bricks in a wall. It helps me to tie together the important ideas behind it all. That's what biology teachers do. That's good. But the general reader doesn't know those ideas already. You're introducing too many difficult terms and ideas in the introduction -- for a general reader. The general reader doesn't have the bricks yet. That's bad.
A high school science teacher couldn't tell his average-level students to look up Genetics on Wikipedia.
Now look at the lead in Introduction to genetics: "Genetics is the study of how living things receive common traits from previous generations. These traits are described by the genetic information carried by a molecule called DNA." That's a good, simple, direct sentence (in contrast to the compound sentence in Genetics). It doesn't have any unfamiliar words on the 12th grade level. The entire article is a simple explanation (appropriate for Wikipedia) of some important ideas that, in the Genetics article, the general reader couldn't easily understand. Best of all, it has a glossary. Biology students have a lot of problems with all those terms. What's an allele? Even the NEJM will sometimes define "allele." (Don't click on the Wikilink for an easy-to-understand explanation.)
Introduction to genetics looks as if it were written by a high school science teacher who understood how to explain genetics to ordinary people. Genetics looks as if it were written by a scientist who understood genetics very well, including some critical ideas, but threw out important ideas so fast and in such shorthand that a non-scientist can't follow them. That's not Madeline's fault; she's a scientist, not a high school teacher. High school teaching isn't as easy as it looks.
Let's compromise. Keep Genetics, tweak it a little to make it easier to understand, and keep it on a sophisticated, biology-major level (even though that strictly speaking violates Wikipedia rules). Keep Introduction to genetics so that ordinary people who come to Wikipedia for an introduction to genetics will have something they understand. Nbauman (talk) 17:32, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Did you even read the article? What is an allele? The Genetics article defines an allele when it gets to this term: In his experiments studying the trait for flower color, Mendel observed that the flowers of each pea plant were either purple or white—and never an intermediate between the two colors. These different, discrete versions of the same gene are called alleles. Maybe the information is dense when you shove it into an automatic evaluation, but the article is making a large effort to define each term as it comes to it. It does not have a glossary, because I was avoiding Wikipedia:NOTTEXTBOOK. You'll see that other terms are similarly defined as you get to them.
Your criticism that references are inaccessible is also unfair; most of the references in this article actually link back to textbook sections that you can click on, including many references into the Griffiths book. I've added a link for the first Griffiths citation, since you think it should have one; it didn't before because I was citing the entire textbook as a general reference for the article, per Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines.
I'm not making a vote yet on whether the intro to genetics should be kept, but I resent your cursory dismissal of the main article (one that looks like you may not have actually read it). Madeleine ✉ ✍ 17:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, while it's true that a normal encyclopedia would not contain such an article, normal encyclopedias also tend to have lighter main articles in the first place, both in terms of amount of content and depth. We could limit ourselves as such, and thus need only one article. Or, we could the depth of interesting material that we've got currently, and split off a simpler introduction article to ease laypeople into it (ie. the article in question). Considering that Wikipedia has (essentially) unlimited space for text, as well as an active community which consists of tens or hundreds of thousands of users, both of which are limitations for a normal encyclopedia (space required for an article and time devoted), I don't see why we don't simply go with the second option. Written properly it doesn't fail WP:V, and it's only borderline for WP:NOT - 206.126.163.20 (talk) 01:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp (talk) 16:04, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, the article could be improved, but AfD isn't cleanup. No clear reason for deletion has been proposed beyond "I don't like/can't see the point of it". However, this is certainly a notable topic. As to introductory articles, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Introduction to evolution (2nd nomination) for a general discussion of the utility of this class of articles. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note, I've rewritten the introduction, but I'm hesitant to do too much work on the article if there is a chance that it will be deleted. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:33, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Introductory articles on certain technical topics of wide interest are acceptable on Wikipedia, judging from previous deletion and featured article nominations. --Itub (talk) 10:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This is a useful, laymen's intro to genetics. It's not perfect, and it could be improved, but it compliments the main article nicely. This is the kind of thing wikipedia needs more of, especially on technical science and mathematics pages lacking understandable LEADs, e.g. [1] (provided that these intros don't turn into POV forks and are kept relatively short). Yilloslime (t) 20:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: My problem with this is this: Wikipedia is not a textbook

Wikipedia is an encyclopedic reference, not a textbook. The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to teach subject matter. It is not appropriate to create or edit articles which read as textbooks, with leading questions and step-by-step problem solutions as examples. These belong on our sister projects Wikibooks and Wikisource. Other kinds of examples, specifically those intended to inform rather than to instruct, may be appropriate for inclusion in a Wikipedia article.

The "How genes are inherited" section just added reads painfully like a textbook, with that extended example with cards. Same goes for the glossary.
When I go to Introduction to general relativity I see a fairly complex article. Go look at it! It's not nearly as "dumbed down" as this Introduction to genetics is -- if that "intro to" article is your ideal example, it is if anything showing a lack of need for Intro to Genetics -- it is nowhere near the textbook simplicity that the "Introduction to genetics" article is promoting. Same goes for the other articles. Take those "intro" articles as your standards for readability and reconsider whether you think Genetics is significantly more complex. It seems to me that any further simplification of the Genetics article results in a textbook. Madeleine ✉ ✍ 20:47, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My fault I'm afraid, the cards analogy was a bit strained, I've rewritten this section to try to give it a bit more encyclopedic tone. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:34, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Much better ... I think the glossary is still problematic but I'm removing my delete because I don't want to be voting on this and am a bit conflicted about what should be done. I'm glad you're interested in working on it, I'm worried about making it into a textbook and consequently I have trouble figuring out what to say and whether it's possible to make this article significantly more accessible than the main one without creating a textbook. But I'll let others think about that. Thanks! -- Madeleine ✉ ✍ 21:46, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think you can make it more accessible by removing some of the precision. For example in this article we can just say "genes encode proteins" but in the main genetics article we would need to say "Genes encode RNAs, many of which are translated into protein, but others function by themselves, such as rRNAs or tRNAs" Removing that kind of detail makes it easier for somebody who knows nothing about the area to grasp the principles involved. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:57, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that you have to remove some of the precision.
More significantly so does Francois Jacob:
I heard one of the prize winners, Professor Jacob, forewarn an audience of specialists more or less as follows: «In describing genetic mechanisms, there is a choice between being inexact and incomprehensible». In making this presentation, I shall try to be as inexact as conscience permits.
Nbauman (talk) 15:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. We've been through all these arguments before when Introduction to Evolution was up for FAC. As for not allowing anything that resembles a text book I'd say that is a case of IAR if ever I saw one. David D. (Talk) 17:24, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per TimVickers. No clear reason for deletion proposed. Introductory articles are helpful for the newcomer to a subject.--Sting au Buzz Me... 05:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The existence of an "introduction to" article is not automatically a bad thing, but I'm not sure whether Genetics is unavoidably so technical that it is the right solution in this case. See Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible#"Introduction to..." articles. My instinct is to lean towards keep where there is uncertainty, though. Kingdon (talk) 05:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Encyclopedia Britannica has 6 levels of articles in its portfolio. Wikipedia can have 3 levels for some subjects. It definitely is an advantage for the general public and for those who want to have more advanced technical articles to create this kind of article. It is not possible for one article to be all things to all people.--Filll (talk) 06:34, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep. There is a well-established precedent for such introductory articles on WP, and they perform a useful function for technical subjects. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 07:34, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and improve both Genetics and Introduction to genetics. GoEThe (talk) 08:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and improve to minimize the "textbook" tone. Redundant content is not grounds for deletion when considering Introduction articles. It is suppose to be redundant. However, the Introduction version takes into account that many potential readers will lack the pre-request skills to decipher the main version and could benefit from one written with less detail and with less scientific vocabulary. The shear length of the main article would intimidate the average "non-science" reader. Of what value is the presentation of "facts" if the article is formulated in a way that is beyond the grasp of the average reader? Ideally we would tone down the main articles to eliminate the Doctoral thesis feel about them - since that will never happen - an introduction is a reasonable solution.--JimmyButler (talk) 16:32, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • As a comment, I'm re-writing this article to be an introduction to a broad range of related and more specialised main articles, including genetics, DNA, genome, mutation and molecular genetics. This should solve the problem of people not knowing enough of the general background to understand the detailed articles (see this comment on the DNA talkpage for example.) Tim Vickers (talk) 17:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and, by all means, improve. I would think that genetics is both sufficiently important and sufficiently complex to warrant an in-depth treatment in Genetics supplemented by a more accessible Introduction to Genetics. I'm all for making Wikipedia valuable to a general audience and to more specialized readers alike – it can and should be many things to many people. Markus Poessel (talk) 02:18, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment you can stop voting now... the article has changed dramatically since this was nominated for deletion and the consensus clearly seems to be "keep". Someone should close this. Madeleine ✉ ✍ 05:16, 16 May 2008 (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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