Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Everything (2nd nomination)

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 WP:SNOW kept. Consensus is clear, and further extension of the discussion is highly unlikely to lead to a different outcome. BD2412 T 02:39, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Everything[edit]

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Subject is not notable. Wikipedia has discrete articles because each subject can be specified. How then can we write about an unspecified everything? Who has written where about to what "everything" might refer? My BEFORE search became quite impossible. Much of this article re-states "everything" as relates to philosophy and physics, each of which we already have articles on. The un-cited scope section only restates this bifurcation between science and philosophy, providing nothing new that wasn't covered in prior articles. We already have an entry in Wiktionary for this word. We already have a disambiguation page for Everything. This page is superfluous: somebody's gag to get an April Fools' DYK. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:33, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Philosophy and Science. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:33, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. When taking everything together, subject is notable. Having difficulty writing content is not a reason to delete the article, and I think there has been a substantial effort in doing so here, and it has been done previously for similar topics such as Something and Nothing. I agree there is some redundant material that can be deleted here, because readers can go to their main articles for more information, but there still is enough important material here to justify keeping the article. Mikael Häggström (talk) 13:49, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Mikael Häggström: It's not a difficulty in writing, it's a lack of source material which begets a lack of notability. Also, WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is not an argument to make. Chris Troutman (talk) 13:52, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect or delete. I would suggest a redirect to universe. The article is effectively a dictionary definition padded out with some concepts that use the word 'everything'. The actual subject (all that exists/ all of space and time) is covered in universe. Heavy Grasshopper (talk) 15:51, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation with three entries 1) theory of everything 2) theory of everything (philosophy) 3) external link to Wiktionary "everything". Not notable beyond its use as a word as shown by the refs. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:23, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Meets GNG because the concept of "everything" has received philosophical attention separate from that covered by theory of everything (philosophy). One aspect of that seems to be linguistical: what is denoted when someone refers to "everything"? This is content that belongs on this page and not any of the other pages mentioned above.

Williamson, Timothy (2003). "Everything". Philosophical Perspectives. 17: 415–465. ISSN 1520-8583.
Krämer, Stephan. "Everything, and Then Some". Mind. 126 (502): 499–528. doi:10.1093/mind/fzv187.
Cartwright, Richard L. (1994). "Speaking of Everything". Noûs. 28 (1): 1–20. doi:10.2307/2215917. ISSN 0029-4624.
Priest, Graham; Gabriel, Markus (2022-09-15). Everything and Nothing. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-5095-3748-8.
Overstreet, Maryann; Yule, George (2002-06-01). "The metapragmatics of and everything". Journal of Pragmatics. 34 (6): 785–794. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(01)00036-4. ISSN 0378-2166.

Jfire (talk) 16:48, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per above discussion, this is a core topic. Bearian (talk) 20:24, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: sources provided by Jfire are mostly on unrestricted quantification but definitely go beyond that too, expecially the book by Graham Priest and Markus Gabriel. Enough there to show GNG is met. Shapeyness (talk) 10:44, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep although it could definitely do with improvements and much better sourcing I think this passes WP:GNG. KylieTastic (talk) 11:17, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting due to divided opinion. Not sure we can find a closer willing to delete Everything on the English Wikipedia (jk!)
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 17:10, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - I think this is a pretty good candidate for a WP:BCA. I agree that writing an article on a concept as all-encompassing as, well, everything is going to be challenging, but we shouldn't delete an article just because it's challenging to write. At worst this should be a dab if it's truly not possible to write a BCA, but generally when the covered subjects are philosophy and science there's enough overlap to justify a full article. Psychastes (talk) 01:15, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep EVERYTHING!
I think this should be kept as it provides more than just a dictionary definition. Yes, it mostly leads/refers to other pages. I don't think that accounts for any notability hurdles. In my view, the argument that "Everything" mostly serves as a gateway to other topics can't be a valid reason for deletion. Plenty of other Wikipedia articles function similarly, acting as hubs that provide context and direct readers to more detailed information elsewhere. Plus, the existence of articles like "Something" and "Nothing" is there (can't be sure that someone won't AFD those as well...), and they just show abstract concepts can be covered, even if they're challenging to define concisely.
Sure, "Everything" might not fit neatly into a single article, given its vast scope. But that's precisely why it's important to have a dedicated page for it. Even discarding that angle, the fact that the word everything has been widely used throughout history to point towards manier topics, itself warrants notability - Or its ambiguity, the lackluster characteristics of functioning a definition, itself can be notable. X (talk) 19:46, 20 April 2024 (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.