Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anticancer plants

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. Nomination withdrawn, the one delete !voter agrees it is now worth keeping. Note: I was involved in the discussion below. Non admin closure. cyclopia ^speak! 09:16, 5 September 2013 (UTC) -[reply]

MOVED ARTICLE TO Plant sources of anti-cancer agents Albiet (talk) 03:06, 27 August 2013 (UTC)Albiet[reply]

Anticancer plants[edit]

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

Non-notable topic giving rise to original research. As has been pointed out in Talk, out of three sources listed in support of the definition, only one has the actual words "Anti-cancer plants" - and even that source only uses those words once, in the title. Where plants (more usually their extracts) are researched in the field of cancer they are mentioned in List of plants used in herbalism. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 07:41, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawn by nominator – article title, scope and content has changed since proposa was made. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 21:34, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The topic is notable, being covered in detail in sources such as Plants that Fight Cancer, Anticancer Drugs from Animals, Plants, and Microorganisms and Lead Compounds from Medicinal Plants for the Treatment of Cancer. Warden (talk) 09:01, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- None of those books are on anticancer plants, but on substances derived from plants - a different topic.
  - The first book, for example, is called Plants that Fight Cancer. It lists and reviews the plants, not just particular chemicals. Your claim is therefore false. Warden (talk) 09:43, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    - Not that I could see (admittedly from the limited amount available on Google Books). What "anticancer plant" can you see listed, on which page? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 09:54, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      - The book details over 150 plants such as

aconitum napellus — page 160
acronychia baueri — page 74
annona purpurea — page 81

Warden (talk) 10:16, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

- - - - Well, I don't have access to those pages so I can't see. But just to be clear, you are stating the book describes these plants directly as "anticancer plants" ? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 10:41, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        It uses the word anticancer repeatedly in a variety of phrases such as "plant species with anticancer activity". Warden (talk) 10:46, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Subject passes GNG. That the article is a mess and the content is subject to dispute and debate is neither here nor there. Lack of coverage of the Pacific Yew like THIS is the biggest content failure, at a glance. Carrite (talk) 15:57, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- There's a lot of material on that topic at Paclitaxel#Production Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 22:07, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. It seems like the nominator really only has a complaint with the title, which should be dealt with by a discussion to rename if "anticancer plant" is not the most accurate or best-sourced descriptive. It doesn't appear to be in dispute that the underlying subject is notable regardless of what it's called. postdlf (talk) 16:22, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. I would not say that the article is about non-notable topic, because it is not clear what that topic actually is. It could be the words "Anticancer plants" - in that case it is obviously not notable. It could be the plants that have been used to cure cancer (that's what the source "Ethnobotanical Survey of Anti-Cancer Plants in Ogun State, Nigeria" talks about). It could be plants that actually do cure cancer. It could be plants with chemical substances that somehow influence cancer cells. It could be about chemical substances themselves. All those things are different and whatever we choose, most of the material will have to go.

For a second point let's see if the current version ([1]) has any material worth saving. The lead section is: "Anti-cancer plants (or plants as source of anti cancer agents) are plants which are believed by some[1] to be cancer healing or contain anticancer agents.[2][3]". Three sources - and yet, not a single of them actually supports the statement! Those sources were added ([2]) by the same user (User:Turboscience), who wrote the first version - and added almost all other sources ([3]). And that was done specifically to show the use of the name ([4])! So, if the author of the article couldn't use the sources correctly in case of such simple matter, how can we trust the rest of the article?

For a third point why the material should not be kept I would like to note that the author of it is a sockpuppet of a banned (or, if you wish, blocked with no hope of unblocking) user Ttturbo (talk · contribs). Now, the problem is that the actual evidence is in Lithuanian Wikipedia. It does show that lt:Naudotojas:Turboscience is a sockpuppet of lt:Naudotojas:Turbo, who is known to be "Ttturbo" here. Unfortunately, the evidence is in Lithuanian (for example, the note of blocking administrator - [5]), thus I am afraid that this part will be harder for me to demonstrate "beyond reasonable doubt" here...

Fourth, there was an effort to clean this article up ([6]). As I note in the talk page ([7]), it was not much of a success... I guess that the one who tried to do so is not very happy with the result either ([8]). The failure of this try can be seen as evidence that, perhaps, getting something that looks reasonable here is impossible. Unless we count throwing everything (even the name) away and starting from scratch - but that is not different from deletion...

So, even if we are going to ignore the third point, we have an article with no material trustworthy, an article that is a mess with no clear topic, an article with a name that is clearly wrong for all reasonable topics. There is nothing left to save. Perhaps in some other cases it is reasonable to argue that "deletion is not cleanup", but in this case it is probably time to ignore that "rule" per WP:IAR... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 18:51, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organisms-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 19:06, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 19:06, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Valuable stub which can be expanded into even more valuable article with addition of specifics and if not allowed to become an advertisement for alternative medical or self treatment. Should be tagged as stub. Did some perliminary editing which I hope is helpful. Maybe worth a second look. Albiet (talk) 20:51, 26 August 2013 (UTC) Albiet[reply]

Well, you defined this as an article about "plants or their derivatives, useable in treatment of cancers" ... which is not a classification from any source that I can see, and is going to be pretty restrictive (remember sources for this will need to be WP:MEDRS compliant). A looser classification would be "plants or their derivatives which have shown anti-cancer potential in research". But this troubles me: we're not following sources, we're synthesizing a topic (and one that overlaps heavily with List of plants used in herbalism in the second classification). Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 20:59, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't classify this article as anything. Today is the first time that I've even seen the article. Might I suggest though that with my initial edits, the article could be made far more coherent by also moving the page to "Plant sources of anticancer agents". This would also allow for the removal of all of the "not in citation" notes as to sources 1 - 3. This article is clearly salvageable and could be developed into a valuable addition to the Wikipedia. Albiet (talk) 21:17, 26 August 2013 (UTC)Albiet, sorry forgot to sign when saved earlier[reply]

Also, my most extensive edits toward greater cohesion and coherence are included in the articles "History" section. Albiet (talk) 21:24, 26 August 2013 (UTC)Albiet[reply]

I think it might be a good idea to add a diff: [9]. Anyway, if you really want to write a decent new article with a new name, new topic and new sourced content without actual deletion (and are able to pull that off), that's OK with me. But the text you added is not a step in direction of a decent article. Almost all of it is "offtopic" ("For example, the component of the foxglove, which is active at remedying congestive heart failure, is digitalis." - the definition doesn't say anything about "congestive heart failure"). Also, the rest of the text becomes "offtopic" as well: "Plants like medical cannabis are used for palliative treatment rather than targeting the tumor." is the only sentence that talks about actual usability in real treatment... The rest of the text would have to be deleted.

Of course, I should note that such process is almost indistinguishable from deletion, followed by writing of a new unrelated article in a new place...

Oh, and you have to choose: "Plant sources of anticancer agents" is completely different from "whole plants or their derivatives, useable in treatment of cancers". You can have sources of chemical substances that are useless in treatment themselves (having some substances in too small amounts, or having substances that kill tumors together with the patient)... And you have to show that someone actually groups the plants in such way. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 21:30, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Because we have no sourced definition of "anticancer plants", the first sentence of the article (and your re-write) effectively defines that classification. If we re-title the article and gut it that could work (logically equivalent to deleting). Would you want the new article to be about proven anticancer agents or potential anticancer agents; and would the anticancer effect be in petri dishes, in laboratory animals, or in people? Are there suitable sources? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 21:39, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(add) and the new definition you've given in the lede ("An Anti-cancer plant is a whole plant thats derivative(s) are useable for treatment of cancers") means we should delete the whole body, since so far as I can see none of the substances mentioned are "usable for treatment" -- they're all just lab experiments. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 21:46, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

MOVED ARTICLE TO Plant sources of anti-cancer agents Albiet (talk) 03:06, 27 August 2013 (UTC) Albiet[reply]

Cool — with the new name and scope I think we have the basis of something worthwhile. Martynas Patasius — if you don't object, I suggest withdrawing my nomination for deletion and we can wrap this up. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 07:05, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think you had to wait for my permission: by now the article ([10]) has a different name, different content, different topic and different authors. It is as if the article has been deleted and a new one created, just using the first one as a source of inspiration. Even from a completely procedural point of view those two articles probably shouldn't share an AFD discussion. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 21:19, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Proper notable topic, lots of sources. I appreciate the move to the new title. --cyclopia ^speak! 21:03, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy keep per criterion 1 at WP:SK. The new name for the article has clarified its scope and several references describe the topic. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:03, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment N.B. after largely rewriting the article according to its new name, I withdrew the deletion nomination (see above); just waiting now for a passing admin to close this as a keep ... Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 09:11, 5 September 2013 (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.