Turkey Mountain inscriptions – It seems that there is almost unanimous agreement both here and at the original AfD that there should not be a standalone article on this subject. There is also no strong consensus here to overturn the closure to Merge, nor is the argument to overturn significantly more compelling than the argument to endorse (and to be honest, whether it's closed as delete or merge will practically result in a nearly identical result in the long run). So, I'm closing this DRV as no consensus, defaulting to endorse the original closure. To be clear, the result of this AfD has no bearing on whether or not there can be mentions of the inscriptions within Turkey Mountain, Oklahoma. That can be discussed and decided on the talk page of the article, based on available sources. The fact that there were not enough sources for a standalone article does not necessarily mean that the available sources are insufficient for a mention elsewhere on Wikipedia. – -Scottywong| talk _ 17:01, 23 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Involved editors are being overly hard-handed and disallowing any mention whatsoever of the fact that there even exist inscriptions located at Turkey Mountain on the main article Turkey Mountain, Oklahoma, despite the following facts: 1) This is one of the main reasons Turkey Mountain itself is notable; 2) It was shown that these inscriptions at Turkey Mountain are indeed mentioned in multiple, easily available book sources that have been widely deemed reliable to establish notability at least; 3) Anyone can easily get this information from any other source on Turkey Mountain, but evident hostility to the subject prevents it from being alluded to on wikipedia only, and 4) most importantly for DRV, the comments on the AFD from uninvolved editors actually generally supported a MERGE of the info into Turkey Mountain, Oklahoma, except that certain editors now aren't allowing this fact to be mentioned there (where it has actually been noted for many years), claiming the AfD result for Turkey Mountain inscriptions now forbids it. Also, before I created the article Turkey Mountain inscriptions a few years ago, the main information had originally resided at Turkey Mountain, Oklahoma, but this seems like a procedure of doing away with informing readers about this fact altogether on any page, and leaving the Turkey Mountain Oklahoma article without anything notable to say as well. Thanks, Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 21:52, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I sympathize with the frustration being expressed here, but I don't think it makes a difference. The question of whether these inscriptions are notable enough to have a stand-alone article is distinct from the question of whether they should be mentioned in some other article (and, if so, to what extent). The AfD answered the first question, not the second. The answer to the second question is determined by relevance and DUE Weight (a NPOV issue), and should not affect the deletion. They are different situations that are governed by different standards, laid out in different policies. While I do not think that all the editors who opined at the AfD understand this distinction, I don't think their misunderstanding substantially affects the ultimate outcome. These inscriptions simply are not notable enough for a stand-alone article. As for the issue of merging... Most of the sources that mention the inscriptions do so as a passing mention, in the context of discussing a related fringe theory (see: Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact hypotheses). If we are to mention these inscriptions somewhere in Wikipedia (and I actually think we should), we should give them the same amount of Due Weight that they are given in the sources... in other words, we should not do a strait merger of the text. The most we should do is a brief in passing mention. Blueboar (talk) 23:58, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Except we have no reliable sources for it, and it's also undue promotion to mention it in a non-dedicated article. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:31, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm struggling to make sense of either limb of that remark, IRWolfie-. Do you mean you know of no reliable sources for the fact that there are petroglyphs on Turkey Mountain? What is it supposed to be "promoting" to mention them?—S MarshallT/C 10:58, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding sources, the TRUTH is that numerous sources were found on this topic. But the opponents of mentioning this (who are the same ones participating in this review) all asserted their personal expertise over each and every one of these published sources, declaring their uncited original opinion that the inscriptions were "grafitti" automatically trumped all the published sources that these are inscriptions. They used the circular reasoning argument: "If they mention inscriptions then the sources are a priori unreliable, now go find some reliable sources that mention them. What? You found another one? Oh well, it's unreliable, because it mentions inscriptions. Now go find another one, that mentions inscriptions AND is reliable, which we will not accept either for the same reason we just gave." That's what happens when the same editors set themselves up as judge, jury, and executioner over the published sources they don't want mentioned. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 11:46, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No reliable sources exist, beyond some tourist pamphelts etc, stating mere existence of markings. The only reliable sources in the article were synth to the topic (those which cover the form of pseudoarchaelogy in general). IRWolfie- (talk) 20:29, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, it's trivial to find sources that say the petroglyphs exist. I've very little time for pseudoarchaeology but I do think it's important that Wikipedia takes the time and space to give readers the facts about it. I'm not saying that we need to be Snopes, but I am saying that debunking guff of this kind is an important part of the encyclopaedist's work. We should cover the petroglyphs, truthfully and accurately. For example, we might say something like: "In places, there are inscriptions on the rock. Source x claims that the petroglyphs may be in Ogham script. If so they could be evidence of pre-Viking contact between the Old and New Worlds (see Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact hypotheses), or modern forgeries." We can leave it to the reader to work out for themselves which is the more likely explanation. We may also wish to make use of this source, which at first blush looks rather helpful.—S MarshallT/C 23:31, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
temporarily restored for discussion at Deletion Review DGG ( talk ) 05:13, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I agree with Blueboar's statement of the situation. The problem is that a couple of editors at Turkey Mountain (Oklahoma) now appear to take the position that no mention of these inscriptions will be allowed in that article, because the close was "delete" rather than "merge", and one has stated that DRV is the only remedy.[1] I've asked the closing admin to clarify, but in any event the discussion at the still-existing article should not be controlled by an AfD close on a different article.--Arxiloxos (talk) 05:51, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The text that was present pre-AfD has been replaced with the text of the deleted article. In essence, it has been merged despite consensus against that. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:30, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Consensus against that"? Is this some new definition of the word "consensus"? Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 11:51, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion closed as do not merge into Turkey Mountain, but delete. But the text was merged following an inappropriate non-admin closure of the AfD by Aarghdvaark: [2] during the AfD. This inappropriately merged version has since been kept in the article despite it being reverted: [3]. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:28, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment nobody wanted the article to stay - I would call that a consensus. But there was no consensus as to whether to simply delete the article or merge with Turkey Mountain (Oklahoma). The admin who closed the afd argued that "No one supporting the merger of the article has countered ... [the argument that there are] no independent sources to establish notability". But no one was arguing for the article to stay, so that wasn't an issue. The admin decision is probably a good one - it is not notable so the page shouldn't be in Wikipedia even as a redirect. However that does not mean it is open season on any mention of the topic elsewhere. Aarghdvaark (talk) 08:09, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sure they did: "Since there is no mention of the petroglyphs the few sources I could find written about Turkey Mountain, they should not even be mentioned in that article either. Basically, they are scratchings that look like letters and could have been made anytime". I also asked twice about sources and got nothing back. Also not mentioning it in the corresponding article is exactly what delete means. The consensus was for delete, not merge; hence we delete it and do not merge it into the other associated article. it should be self evident that delete means we don't merge. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:48, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Also not mentioning it in the corresponding article is exactly what delete means." - No it is not. Delete means only one thing, which has been pointed out many times before: That it's not notable enough to have it's own article. It does not mean it can't me mentioned anywhere else. This has been pointed out several times now. --OpenFuture (talk) 10:00, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There were two options discussed at the AfD. Merge, or delete. Merge means inserting the text of the article into Turkey Mountain, Oklahoma. Delete means not doing that, and just deleting the article. Delete was chosen over merge in the discussion. Ergo, we do not merge the article. The content which is being inserted to Turkey Mountain, Oklahoma is that taken from the deleted article. To insert the text into Turkey Mountain, Oklahoma a discussion as wide as that in the AfD should take place, otherwise the consensus holds. In all AfDs, when delete is chosen it always means delete, not (partial) merge elsewhere. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:11, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If we do have an unattributed merge here, then that's a problem with our GFDL- and CC-BY-SA content licencing rules and should be fixed. But does this mean that a real merge has happened, or just that topics from the deleted article have now been covered elsewhere? The fact that an AfD concludes with "delete" does not, and never has, prevented the topics from the deleted article from being covered in a different article.—S MarshallT/C 10:58, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The text was inserted with "merging with Turkey Mountain inscriptions - see that articles afd" [4]. That is unambiguously a merge. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:29, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I broadly agree with Blueboar, but I get to his conclusion via a different route.
My analysis is that it's verifiable that there are inscriptions on Turkey Mountain. It's NPOV-compliant to mention their existence, and it wouldn't violate WP:NOT to do so. The only substantive debate is about the origin of the inscriptions. Now, to me it's as plain as the nose on your face that they're a hoax of some kind; but that in itself doesn't preclude a mention on Wikipedia. And the fact that something's likely to be false but believed by some of the more credulous people in the world puts a basic duty on us, as a responsible encyclopaedia, to explain it properly. This is why we have content about Bigfoot. It's why we have content about the Moon landing conspiracy theories, or baraminology. And it's why we need content about this.
There's also the fact that the outcome wasn't policy-compliant to consider. WP:ATD has been disregarded.
I don't think the closer misinterpreted the debate. But I think the debate reached the wrong conclusion. The options I like are "overturn to merge" or (if we decide to enforce "DRV is not AfD round 2" in this case) "relist, with instructions to AfD participants that they should decide where to cover this content".—S MarshallT/C 08:42, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse close The original poster has given no reason as to why the admin close was incorrect, or incorrectly weighed up the consensus. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:31, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The instructions say to notify the closing admin. The original poster has not done so; so I have (the only person who was notified was someone who voted merge [5]). IRWolfie- (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse close - As per IRWolfie. (This is the first DRV I've been involved with, so sorry if this isn't how you do it.) --OpenFuture (talk) 10:03, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse merge or delete were reasonable outcomes from that discussion, so I can't say the closer abused their discretion. That said, a deletion (rather than merge) outcome doesn't mean that the issue can't or shouldn't be discussed in the parent article. We can certainly mention fringe theories and in this case there is now doubt that the inscriptions exist AFAICT. So WP:FRINGE doesn't really play a role unless someone wants to say more than "they exist and folks come to see them for reason X" Hobit (talk) 10:49, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
WP:FRINGE does play a role for undue promotion; saying they visit them for "reason X" per WP:ONEWAY: "Fringe theories may be mentioned in the text of other articles only if independent reliable sources connect the topics in a serious and prominent way." IRWolfie- (talk) 12:24, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the petroglyphs are mentioned (in passing) in several reviews of bicycling trails on Turkey Mountain (in fact, it seems that one bike trail is commonly known as the "petroglyph trail"). I think these are enough for us to at least note (in passing) that the petroglyphs exist. Blueboar (talk) 13:57, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. And a brief mention that they are likely bogus would be just fine. If there is forged painting that is notable, we don't suddenly become less likely to mention it because someone has a crazy theory that it isn't forged. Hobit (talk) 15:25, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Except in this case they are SYNTH-ing sources that make no mention at all of the topic of Turkey Mountain, to promote their POV viewpoint on that article that "anything suggesting pre-Columbian /pre-Norse contact is automatically to be rejected as forged, no more questions need be asked, and nothing to see, please move along." Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:49, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse close noting that the editor (Til) who brought this here not only did not follow procedure here, but also canvassed during the AfD (which was noted in the closings statement. The sequence of events is relevant - in May 2008 Til removed the disputed fringe material from the Turkey Mountain (Oklahoma) article and created its own article. That article has just gone through the AfD process. During the AfD process an editor merged it with the TM(O) article. There's been a dispute as to whether it should be there. It concerns me that one way around a deletion decision can be a merge, which is one reason why I removed it. Later I asked the closing Admin for his opinion. If we do allow this, I can see a possible scenario where after an article is deleted editors move its material from article to article until they finally find one where no one objects or notices. Is this a good idea? Note that I wrote this hours ago and it got lost in an EC I didn't notice. I see Til is now objecting to content he added himselfwhich is the 3rd edit to the article, the earlier ones also being Til's - which would mean that we just get left with fringe claims, claims about petroglyphs that have absolutely no reliable sources mentioning petroglyphs (so far as I'm concerned, those sources would be rock art specialists, not Farley et al). I don't think reviews of bike trails are enough to say there are petroglyphs. Dougweller (talk) 18:20, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The claim that the article did not mention the inscriptions before some material was moved during the AfD is false. Please stop claiming this, it is not helping. Some material was copied over, yes, but that is of no relevance either for this deletion review or for the Turkey Mountain (Oklahoma) article. --OpenFuture (talk) 20:13, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Is this aimed at me? I don't think I said the article didn't mention the inscriptions before the AfD took place. Dougweller (talk) 18:28, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Then I misunderstood. --OpenFuture (talk) 19:29, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to Redirect From the above discussion and the edit history of Turkey Mountain (Oklahoma), text was merged from Turkey Mountain inscriptions before the deletion close; according to WP:MERGETEXT, the edit history of the Inscriptions article, therefore, needs to be preserved by redirect for copyright licensing purposes. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:06, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse close. I think the decision is technical rather than about the content (as nobody was arguing for the article to stay). The reason we have this DRV on Turkey Mountain inscriptions is because it was claimed[6] at Turkey Mountain (Oklahoma) that the only way to argue for content on that page was to go for a DRV on Turkey Mountain inscriptions. So the purpose of this DRV is apparently to argue about content on another article, which is clearly not the purpose of a DRV. I think we should forget about Turkey Mountain inscriptions and this discussion should be redirected to talk at Turkey Mountain (Oklahoma), but that it should be noted that a delete decision on one article has no bearing on another article. Aarghdvaark (talk) 02:32, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse with the caveat that DRV and AFD do not supplant local talk page discussion. --NYKevin 02:49, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (to redirect, with possible merge to Turkey Mountain (Oklahoma)). There was a consensus that there should not be a standalone article. There was not a consensus against a merge and redirect. Multiple people, including the nominator, were discussing a merge and redirect as a workable outcome. The subject already has mention at the target. I note that User:IRWolfie- opposes the merging of any content, but that discussion was unfinished and belongs on the talk page of the target anyway. If User:IRWolfie- is right, then the page can be just left as a redirect. There is nothing in the history that can't be allowed to stay available there. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:39, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to merge per WP:ATD, if there is a reasonable merge target for the verifiable content, regardless of whether it has standalone notability, deletion is not a policy-based outcome. Having said that, I agree with the above posters that deleting one article makes no difference at all to whether the content could be re-created in another article. Mind you, as also noted above, copy/paste merges from the deleted article create licensing issues, which is another very good reason to avoid deleting anything if there's encyclopedic, verifiable content that can either be merged or rewritten into another article. Jclemens (talk) 07:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What reliably sourced content do you wish to merge? What those in favour of merge appear to be ignoring is that we don't have any reliable sources for what was in the article; except for those that are a synthesis to the topic. IRWolfie- (talk) 08:57, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Have you looked at the offline refs? I have not. If they've been discussed and adjudicated as non-RS somewhere else, I'd appreciate a pointer to that discussion. Jclemens (talk) 04:28, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I am the admin who closed this deletion discussion. I won't make too much comment here, but I clarified my close in response to questions at my talk page. What I wrote here may be of interest. ItsZippy(talk • contributions) 11:33, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to merge. There was no consensus about how much to merge, and so the closing was a supervote. The closer additionally said that "No one supporting the merger of the article has countered this argument, so no strong case has been put forward against deletion" It is not necessary to put a strong case against deletion, it is necessary to put a strong case for deletion. The relevant rule is at Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Deletion of articles "The deletion of a page based on a deletion discussion should only be done when there is consensus to do so." DGG ( talk ) 16:44, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There was a strong case for deletion, which was summarized in the closing statement directly before the quote you took out of context. The point is that nobody countered those arguments. --OpenFuture (talk) 16:52, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No independent sources exist is a strong argument for not merging. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:09, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
IRWolfie's contention since the beginning has consistently been to declare that no matter how many books or sources discussing the inscriptions are found, each and every one is invalid, reason being because they mention inscriptions. Then, to continue the circular argument, he challenges me to find a RS mentioning the inscriptions, but with the caveat that if it mentions the inscriptions, it too will be invalid. (You know that old chestnut) This is obviously an impossible standard, being imposed by IRWolfie. It may be the reason that he was not "answered" the last time he said "there are no RS that there are any inscriptions, period" on the AFD, is because it is no different from the same position he has been repeating from the get-go. The fact that no one answered him the last time he repeated it, should not have swung the consensus from "merge" to "delete" IMO. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 21:13, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to merge or redirect - For the reasons above, and the following significant new information has come to light since a deletion: Susan Jakobsen (February 2, 2000). "Mystery mountain". Tulsa World. Retrieved 19 August 2012. provides details on the inscriptions. That info can be added to the Turkey Mountain (Oklahoma) article. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 05:04, 19 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In case the article deletion is upheld, the references cited in the article were:
Fell, Barry (1984) America B.C. : Ancient Settlers in the New World, New York, Simon & Schuster
Farley, Gloria In Plain Sight: Old World Records in Ancient America, self-published, http://www.gloriafarley.com/
Williams, Stephen (1991) Fantastic Archaeology, Phila., University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN0-8122-8238-8, pp. 264-273
Feder, Kenneth L. (1996) Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology, Mountain View, Mayfield Publishing Co., ISBN1-55934-523-3, pp. 101-107
I can hardly see on article in a local paper is "significant new information". :-) Also, note that Farley is self-published and hence not a reliable source, and Williams and Feder do not mention Turkey Mountain. --OpenFuture (talk) 07:42, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to redirect purely for attribution reasons. Whether or not we want to incorporate text from the deleted article into the main one, which should be debated on the talk page, some of its text is now contained in (at least) the history of the main article and needs to be properly attributed via either a redirect or a history merge. Alzarian16 (talk) 12:47, 19 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
