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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 of the debate was delete. --Ezeu 08:28, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of famous successes in science and engineering[edit]

Unsourced, unverifiable list with a generic inclusion criteria of "famous" and "success". Basically a page to hype up one's favorite pet projects. No continuity between topics. Some attention should also be given to List of famous failures in science and engineering. While I can think of possible sources for the latter, what sources are there for this?

To preserve the integrity of the vote, this is not a joint nomination for the "failures" article, but if there is interest, I'll put that up for AfD as well. Mmx1 19:00, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep MMx1, to quote one Daffy Duck, you... are... despicable. Don't take your F-14 anger to ruin other WP articles. Failure to conform to NPOV is usually remedied by editing, Mmx has shown serious judgement failure in the past. He has appointed himself final arbiter of truth on the F-14, see talk on F-14 even though he refuses to recognize any citations contrary to his POV up to Janes Defence, and a VP of Grumman. He has simply followed a link at the bottom of the F-111 page, from the F-14 page, and is simply another example of removing material from the WP without justification. This page is obviously well trafficed and edited, and of use to many people. WP states that deletion of information which does not improve WP is vandalism. His intent is to knock down other people's carefully constructed sandcastles, not improve the WP. In my opinion, this is exactly what Mmx1 is attempting to do. Please do not support this behavior.--matador300 14:05, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Upon further review, I've separately nominated *Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_famous_failures_in_science_and_engineering.

List of songs in English labeled the worst ever (3rd nomination)

  • Strong Keep Observe that lists like this are not banned. Here is a list that has been kept 3 times.--matador300 14:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
duplicate bolding struck out --Sam Blanning(talk) 17:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article fails WP:NPOV and WP:NOR in every possible way. The group of songs listed seems very random, and there are several listed that I would definitely not consider the worst ever. At the end of the day, there is no way this article can be NPOV. Many of the songs follow with explanations of why the user PERSONALLY feels the song is one of the worst ever. This article is mostly original research. I don't see it being useful in any way, as it will always be filled with personal opinions and views. --Musicpvm 01:06, 1 July 2006 (UTC) This article was nominated for deletion on 21 November, 2005. The result was "keep". This article was nominated for deletion on 17 December 2005. The result was "keep".

  • Delete. Smacks of WP:OR, and is listcruft. --Coredesat talk 19:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Is there a list of obscure successes? Infamous ones? Daniel Case 21:57, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete inherently POV (same applies for List of famous failures in science and engineering which can probably be discussed with this one. SM247My Talk 23:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom, famous NPOV failures in WP. Reader should be able to read articles and decide for themselves whether they are successes. Project Apollo is declared a success, no way is that a universally accepted "fact", there are way too many complexities for such a glib assessment. WP is no place for introductory statements like "the failures are well remembered, but perhaps not enough has been said of humble designs that were destined for greatness, and stubbornly refuse to die of obsolesence." Per nom, the problem is the success criteria used - inherently problematic, so cleanup will solve nothing. --DaveG12345 01:00, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The individual list entries are oversimplified and have weird POV issues. This seems more like one person's opinion than an encyclopedic entry. Rob Banzai 15:48, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete I gave this article a brief cleanup at one point, but now this article doesn't seem all that encyclopaedic; it has problems with WP:OR and WP:NPOV, and so it's probably better just to delete it. Andrew (My talk · World Cup) 20:57, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete fails both WP:OR and WP:NPOV. -- Alias Flood 19:25, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep Are you guys nuts? This was created by me as a success mirror to the failure page. POV is not judged by the article, only that a large number of people have judged a project or product to be a spectacular success. There are many pages like this listing articles and objects that are most or least of something, and routinely done by journals such as Car and Driver for automobiles. I would much rather have a WP inclusive of these sort of pages than invoke a ban. Surely WP would not object to a list of most famous authors, top grossing movies, or most important events in the 1970s. Many entries show successes that were intially failures. If you kill the science success / failure pages, you'll also have to eliminate the similar list of computer flops, movie flops, governemnt flops, education flops, and sports flops. I don't think you can delete this page unless you can show a WP category ban for this sort of thing. If there is a ban, you'll have to enforce it across all topics, say so in the Wiki documentation in the appropriate list of what not and not to include in WP, and WP will be much poorer for it. I was about to nominate the J79 engine as a success, but you folks are going to take it all way. PlEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ don't kill it.--matador300 10:37, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment Things like top-grossing movies and the like are objectively verifiable based on takings and profits. This is a big list of unencyclopaedic personal opinions and depend inherently on the viewpoint of the reader or editor. I am sure we would object to lists of the most important 1970's events and dicsussions of who is the most 'famous author' as these labelling exercises depend on no objective basis and are not informative. SM247My Talk 11:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
duplicate bolding struck out --Sam Blanning(talk) 17:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Most articles are not directly cited, but link to articles that either are cited, or aren't cited either, and you don't go around tracking those down and deleting them, do you? I am really annoyed at the huge bias towards deleting really fun innovative material you can't find elsewhere in the open source world.--matador300 10:41, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Any article which asserts a proposition must provide a source. Wikipedia is not a sufficient source for this. SM247My Talk 11:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Wikipedia has a policy against original research masquerading as encyclopedia articles. Calling this list "really fun innovative material" kinda incriminates it, I would say. --DaveG12345 12:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep Sure, somebody could look at Apollo at see that it was a success. But who would know to look for it in the first place if he were to look for a list of the greatest accomplishments of the 20th century??--matador300
    • Comment Using words like success or failure if you haven't noticed involves a necessary normative judgment that is largely a matter of personal position, opinion or taste. I don't know exactly what your above comment means, but I assume you are saying that a list of achievements is needed. One like this is not for my stated reason. SM247My Talk 11:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I don't understand your point re "finding" Project Apollo. Any user can type in e.g. space travel and find Apollo pretty much immediately. They can then decide for themselves whether it was a "success" or "failure". The list includes several entries that say "no replacement in sight" as sole validation for inclusion. This is simply not good enough for an encyclopedia. There is no consistent rationale for inclusion in this list, so it boils down to an editor's whim, and that's what makes it deletable as a NPOV/NOR failure. --DaveG12345 12:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
duplicate bolding struck out --Sam Blanning(talk) 17:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep People have tolerated and loved these pages for quite a long time, why delete them now? I hate this attitude of running around looking for excuses to tear down other people's sandcastles. We should spend more time building more stuff like this, not tearing it down.--matador300 10:41, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment No excuse, Wikipedia is big and people familiar with the AfD process or policy may not have seen it until recently. There is no excuse to keep bad articles. SM247My Talk 11:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment There are no "other people's sandcastles" in WP. No editor "owns" any of the articles, including this one. I disagree we should be creating more non-verifiable subjective lists in breach of official WP policies on original research and POV, sorry. --DaveG12345 12:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
duplicate bolding struck out --Sam Blanning(talk) 17:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep MMx, the author of the delete request has shown a strong bias for destroying the work of others. He has substantially reversed the F-14 page to say that it was not and was never designed to be an air superiority fighter, categorically junking every cited source up to Janes Defence and Aviation week. You are only encouraging of this destructive behavior. I suspect MMx is tracking down related pages and putting in delete bombs as revenge, which should certainly not be enouraged. --matador300 10:48, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment Although you appear to have difficulties with Mmx1, mentioning them and asserting bias does not invalidate this discussion, particularly as the reasoning is quite cogent. SM247My Talk 11:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment To user matador300 (i.e., Wiarthurhu), please don't mark all your comments with Keep/Delete, those bold-type indications are designed to help the admin, so should be asserted once per user per AfD. Thanks. --DaveG12345 12:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
duplicate bolding struck out --Sam Blanning(talk) 17:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per all the obvious reasons above, but mainly verifiability and WP:NOR. It would be possible, theoretically, to assemble a list of engineering projects that have been labelled successes by someone--but that would be of doubtful value. A list of projects considered successes by Arthur Hu--with a decided bias towards his interests--is of even less value. · rodii · 18:13, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete random, unsourced, original research. See Films considered the worst ever for the way do a list like this in a way that can surrive AfD. Eluchil404 20:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Euthanise, these lists fail badly without well defined criteria (is something really a success if it sells well but is a piece of junk? Or if early success reverses? And so on and so on....) --iMeowbot~Meow 23:03, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Update[edit]

User has deleted the AfD notice[1] and moved the article to List_of_projects_considered_to_be_unusually_successful_in_science_and_engineering[2] Which is now worse. What's "usually"? Also, moving a page during AfD is bad form and so is removing the AFD notice. --Mmx1 16:32, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment My issue is with the content, not the title. A change of title will not save this article from deletion for POV/NOR failure IMO. Please assume my comments apply to the new page(s). I would guess all other comments above should be considered the same way. The removal of AfD notice and this monkeying around seems to show a general contempt for the AfD process. --DaveG12345 16:41, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Even if the title of the article were appropriate, which I dispute as "usually" only makes it more POV, wiki is permitted to delete an article to restart if the content is inappropriate. I don't think there's any doubt that the content is amateur, unsourced, and essentially the opinions of one editor. --Mmx1 16:53, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This list can never be anything other than subjective. Subjectivity is fine in articles, as long as they're attributed to people, but there's no evidence of that here. Ziggurat 22:02, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Entirely subjective. Zetawoof(ζ) 03:13, 6 July 2006 (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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