Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Egyptian inventions and discoveries

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. While the argument to delete makes intuitive sense, those arguing for it have not quite demonstrated the non-viability of this page, and as such NOTCLEANUP applies. In discussing this, and similar, pages in the future, it will be helpful to focus on whether this can be a reasonable list, rather than whether it currently is. Vanamonde (Talk) 06:52, 3 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

List of Egyptian inventions and discoveries[edit]

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New article which violates WP:EXCEPTIONAL, WP:RGW and WP:FRINGE.

It reads like a fancruft which is mostly unsourced and has mentioned things like Law as invention of Egyptians but not Slavery.

The most used source is www.touregypt.net which is an unreliable source.

While the subject is notable, it needs to go before editors can write a fair article with some additional oversight than leaving it to become extension of fringe POV. Georgethedragonslayer (talk) 05:25, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Georgethedragonslayer has posted this at the Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard at 05:32, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
Agree that "list of inventions" is not the right format for this; also agree that something might be salvageable as a less ambitious "stuff that we know existed in ancient Egypt because evidence survives" article. Swimming as an Egyptian "invention" is just too silly! GPinkerton (talk) 05:48, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. ^{Engr. Smitty Werben} 07:26, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Egypt-related deletion discussions. ^{Engr. Smitty Werben} 07:26, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. ^{Engr. Smitty Werben} 07:27, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as far too broad, especially in the modern world. It would be more manageable to restrict it to ancient Egypt and maybe prehistoric Egypt. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:26, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep If you want to break it into different time periods, then discuss that. The article for America does that already. If you have a problem with the article, then discuss it on the talk page. Look at the template! Template:Inventions These are common articles. Any problems can be solved by regular editing, there no reason to delete everything. Dream Focus 09:09, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - the list is way too broad and very weakly substantiated; many entries are wholly uncited; the main source is unreliable; and many of the claims do not even assert Egyptian invention, e.g. "Flag or Emblem – As early as the Predynastic times, each nome had its own standard": well, maybe they did, but other empires had similar things. Or "some scholars have argued that..."; "Evidence ... suggests the presence of..."; "...was used in Egypt as early as..." - these and many others are not proof of "invention" (just deleting these 3 examples won't begin to fix the problem). Delete as a hopeless ragbag. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:17, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep An absurd nomination which is so preposterous that it's a sign of Wikipedia's senility that it is being taken seriously. Let's count the ways this is wrong:

It is clearly contrary to policies such as WP:ATD, "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page."
The contrary idea of WP:TNT – that we have to "destroy the village to save it" – is not a policy nor even a guideline – and is contrary to WP:BLANKING.
The topic clearly passes WP:LISTN as a quick browse soon finds sources such as The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology which says things like "it follows that metallic copper was an Egyptian discovery ... on present evidence, both glazed steatite and glazed quartz were Egyptian inventions."
The existing page has 359 citations of sources including Encyclopedia Britannica; Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt; numerous histories of mathematics and a variety of books from respectable university presses. The idea that we should just wipe all these out and start again from scratch is obviously disruptive.
We have so many similar pages for other countries that there's a template {{Inventions}} and category. These include countries such as Azerbaijan and Bulgaria which not so well known as a cradle of civilisation. And WP:OSE explains that "the encyclopedia should be consistent in the content that it provides or excludes".
There's a vague wave to WP:FRINGE but that cuts both ways. The idea that river valley civilizations tended to produce hydraulic empires as a result of the need for engineering to control the water is so well-established that it is more of an orthodoxy than fringe.

Andrew🐉(talk) 12:20, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This is an interesting case where I think WP:CLEANUP may be more appropriate than deletion. The delete commentators are correct that a lot of the listed entries are overbroad and potentially original research while the entire list appears to be overly focused on a peculiar idea as to what "discovery" means. On the other hand, knowing that there is Egyptian provenance for such things as measuring the circumference of the Earth is a perfectly encyclopedic enterprise. Coming up with rigorous and solid WP:LISTCRIT and removing the cruft definitely needs to be done, but I'm not convinced that we are in WP:TNT territory here as of yet. jps (talk) 13:40, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Mainly unsourced and overly broad article. I agree it makes no sense to keep it and if it has been ever recreated it must go through WP:AFC. ArvindPalaskar (talk) 14:45, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. We are volunteers and don't have the time to fix every faulty entry with lengthy explanation especially when basically whole list is unsubstantiated. desmay (talk) 16:02, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -- This is a fairly harmless list article. Whether everything in it is accurate is neither here nor there. If there are errors, they should be removed by editing, not deletion. Because Egyptian history goes to 3rd millennium, Egypt has a lot of firsts, but many will be first recorded, rather than actually first. I doubt the Egyptians invented swimming, but they provided the first picture of it, for example. List articles no not necessarily need sources, as the object to to link to articles (which will - or should - be sourced). Peterkingiron (talk) 17:41, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep we have List of Serbian inventions and discoveries which is far worse quality-wise, so I don't see a need to TNT this. There are plenty of sources, several of which have been already mentioned in this discussion. I do support the suggestion to split the article by timeferame, but that's really a discussion for the talk page, not this AFD discussion. power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:47, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep notable and well-sourced - as has been pointed out, there is an entire category of these lists: Category:Lists of inventions or discoveries that has existed since 2009. —Мандичка^YO 😜 00:28, 27 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but clean-up and rename - These may all be the FIRST KNOWN incidences of these things or processes etc according to existing evidence, but it absolutely cannot be said that the Egyptians invented swimming or fortifications or pets or irrigation or cancer or depression etc. Perhaps rename to "Oldest recorded incidences of ...", or something similar? Wdford (talk) 14:51, 27 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The article looks well-sourced. This should not be considered WP:FRINGE either. Some clean-up, polishing and clarification could be had though, as with most Wiki articles. HocusPocus00 (talk) 01:12, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Nominator himself says the topic is notable, yet makes an insufficiently justified arguement for delete. As others have noted, I agree that it must be cleaned up and improved instead of deleting. Walrus Ji (talk) 17:31, 2 January 2021 (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.