Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kim Bong-han (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 keep. (non-admin closure) –Davey2010^Talk 01:37, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Kim Bong-han[edit]

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Three months ago an AfD was closed as no consensus with a comment that there are very serious issues with this article that need to be addressed or another AfD is warranted. Here is the difference between the article at close of that AfD and how it stands today: [1].

I think the issues have not been resolved because they are not resolvable. There are basically no mainstream sources. As a North Korean, everything emanating from sources in that country is inevitably tainted.And sources outside of North Korea are - well, absent. There are a few sources which are essentially namechecks in discussing a purported new vascular system discovered by him, but this has zero mainstream acceptance and is also effectively ignored other than by North Koreans, hence the article was deleted. There is no reality-based commentary on which to base a WP:MEDRS compliant article on the "primo-vascular system" or "bonghan ducts", and there are no independent reliable biographical sources on which to base an article on Bong-Han either.

The article appears to be kept on the basis that the promo vascular system might be borderline notable, but we don't have an article on it, so the borderline content has to go somewhere, and this is somewhere. That's the politician's syllogism, of course. There's no reaosn not to write a new reality-based article on that subject if sources exist, but this article is not supposed to be an end-run around policy on that. Guy (Help!) 21:14, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep AfD's need to be based on reasons set in the deletion policy. (WP:AFD → WP:DEL-REASON) From your nomination, it isn't clear what the "unresolvable" deletion-specific problem: is it notability? That's what we usually talk about when we talk about AfD.

To say that sources outside North Korea are "absent" strikes me as odd; I get some 60 sources on Google Books in many languages. Note that sources don't have to be "mainstream"; or, as you say, reliable medical sources in a biography. No sources that are currently used have been tagged as unreliable, self-published or primary, so they are both okay for being used as references and support notability. It doesn't matter if a theory is "accepted" by no one; we have an article on Ptolemy despite virtually no one thinking that the Earth is the center of the universe. Dubious theories have their merit in historical and cultural contexts and, without repeating at length arguments in the previous discussion, there seems to be a heavy regional significance (WP:WORLDVIEW). 22:05, 2 October 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Finnusertop (talk • contribs)

There are sources by Korean authors (who are not dependable for well documented reasons), and sources by nutters, but no reality-based sources about Bong-Ha that I can find. Feel free to cite them. Guy (Help!). Warning: comments may contain traces of sarcasm. 22:14, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Here you go, I linked them directly to the pages within the book [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9].--CNMall41 (talk) 00:20, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - While it is nice to see someone citing logic, we must also recognize that AfD is not an "end around" for WP:FIXIT either. Just because someone has not taken the time to address the article issues does not mean that it deserves to be deleted. Afd is NOT cleanup. Checking sources in Google Books, there are plenty of references and discuss him and his work [10]. --CNMall41 (talk) 22:12, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Nor do we indefinitely keep an article that fails policy, as noted in the last close, but nobody can be arsed to fix. Pepole want to keep the article but not fix it. Well, I tried to fix it - and found no credible sources to allow that. Which was also noted in the previous AfD. Guy (Help!). Warning: comments may contain traces of sarcasm. 22:14, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So would you delete an article because it lacks inline citations or it needs more specific categories? Not likely. Deleting an article for not meeting "policy" is not a valid reason for deletion in all circumstances. Here, the article is notable, there are sources as provided above, and may you can be "arsed to fix" it as opposed to accusing other of not doing it. --CNMall41 (talk) 00:15, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

keep; pseuodscience or not, it is a historical notability. There was quite a buzz in 1960s. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:17, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. His impact is clearly notable, and I am finding plenty of reliable sources on him in a simple google search. Messy pages require cleanup, not deletion. Fuzchia (talk) 22:24, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: I am still in favor of keeping this article. It just needs some cleanup. Reliable sources are not absent, and this pseudoscience stuff is pretty notable in the context of acupuncture. Ceosad (talk) 23:24, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So, are you going to do that? There is absolutely no substantive change to the article since the previous AfD noted that it was atrocious. Guy (Help!). Warning: comments may contain traces of sarcasm. 22:17, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Almost certainly yes, I looked at the Google books sources yesterday, and thought about doing some cleanup work. Ceosad (talk) 16:30, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:22, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:22, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Korea-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:22, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I was also almost going to close this as a clear keep and may still but I'm inviting past commenters Dennis Brown, DGG, David Eppstein, Rhoark, I9Q79oL78KiL0QTFHgyc, CFCF, Roxy the dog and QuackGuru. SwisterTwister talk 06:26, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete (though I suspect the best that will happen with this is that we get a no-consensus keep again rather than a clear keep), for the same reason I gave the last time: no mainstream and scientifically-reliable sources to give a WP:NPOV take on the subject's fringe research. As the nominator notes, nothing has improved about the article, so there's no reason for me to have changed my opinion. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:35, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete As I said at the previous AfD - "Doesn't seem to be anything to this other than his associated "discovery" of something that hasn't been found to be a real thing in over forty years. It ought to have been independently corroborated a gazillion times by now, but all we have is wiki eds claiming that acupuncture is vindicated by this guy's 'discovery' (nb: note justified 'scare quotes'). Nope, doesn't work that way." -Roxy the dog™ (Resonate) 06:44, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep
- "Fringe" does not mean "delete". Even hostile sources establish notability. There is ample and verifiable secondary coverage, especially when taken as a biography.
- I see the article on the primo-vascular has already been deleted on the false pretense that it is ignored in the scientific literature. Here are some peer reviewed journal articles about Bong-han ducts: [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] Some of these were cited in the deleted article, and should be re-incorporated at Kim Bong-han.
- Biographies or anatomical observations in rats and pigs do not need to meet the standards of MEDRS. Any claim that these structures are relevant to the treatment of a disease should of course be excluded.

Rhoark (talk) 13:00, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd keep. The current version is satisfactory, with the extensive quotes removed. But I think the article to restore is the one on The Primo vascular system. He is not the only person to have reported it. DGG ( talk ) 16:27, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:58, 7 October 2015 (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.