Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Descent from antiquity

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. with some major cleanup. Chris Bennett is put on notice that articles are not owned, and a lack of collaboration with other editors in improving the article and further combative tendencies may be blocked as disruptive behaviour.  — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:38, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Descent from antiquity

Descent from antiquity (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • Stats)

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An established article in Wikipedia that is almost completely devoid of in-line citations, such as this article, is almost unheard of. A particular user has intermittently laid claim to, as well as effectively assumed, also intermittently, the full ownership to the article since the year 2006, "rather aggressively", to [put] it rather mildly, and has appeared to be arbitrarily frustrated, at whim, any change to the article that is not to his fancy or liking. The article cannot possibly be saved or salvaged in its current and present form. A (non-serious) amateurish essay masquerading to be a serious one, on amateurish (non-serious) genealogy, or "home-genealogy", masquerading as serious, academic or scholarly genealogy (in contrast to those that might had been undertaken by e.g. the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in England, or by such authorities as the Earl Marshal and the College of Arms again in England, or by the Court of the Lord Lyon, King of Arms of Scotland). An history of parallel/circular citations from within Wikipedia as the primary source, judging from the deletions. Possible C.o.I.-editing, self-citation and self-promotion, with his own Internet-only self-published material listed under the (non-citations) "References" ([1];[2]). This is a classic, text-book example of "essay-like" (template:Essay-like). Parts of the text itself are also otherwise poorly written in general, in terms of language, grammar and syntax. — KC9TV 07:08, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

• Keep. Sorry, but it's not at all unheard of for older articles to lack inline citations. (Many of them were created before Wikipedia's policies on sourcing were established, and before the plugins for inline references were developed.) This particular article has about 20 listed sources; the proper course of action would be to add inline citations to them. As to the ownership and COI issues, those should be dealt with through the normal dispute resolution/COI channels, not via AfD. —Psychonaut (talk) 09:50, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Not without some sort of a temporary topic-ban, no. The claimant and effective owner had been warned many, many times, upon the talk-page, amongst other places. Enough "rope" (wikipedia:ROPE) had already been given. This is still an "essay". — KC9TV 18:17, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

If you are looking for a topic ban, you are in the wrong place. Bans are the outcome of dispute resolution, not AfD. I see no evidence that you've pursued the matter through DR, and you can't use AfD to circumvent that process. —Psychonaut (talk) 18:24, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

No, I am not. The article is simply unfit for Wikipedia, that is it. Full stop. There is NO other dispute. This onus is NOT upon me to create a dispute. There is NO rule in Wikipedia, as far as I know, that says that an article has to go through the DR before AfDs are discussed. (Or are you also laying yet another claim of ownership to that article, the same thing that I had been alleging?) — KC9TV 18:32, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

• Strong keep. We might delete 99% of Wikipedia under these terms. A certain lack of inline citations is not a valid reason for deleting an article. --Ghirla^-трёп- 11:03, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is, it is a valid reason (and we probably should do so, too). The obvious "weasel word" notwithstanding, this is not a quote "a certain lack" unquote, for most parts of the article are lacking in it; and you are in fact one of the users who might had written rather poorly in that particular article, and had them introduced thereto. (Perhaps both a TOEFL and an IELTS are in order, strictly for your own evaluation and assessment, of course. You do after all claim to be living in Russia, and I don't think that Russia is a natural native-English-speaking Country.) — KC9TV 18:17, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

• Keep Minor problem as lack of in-line citations is not valid reason for deletion. Article is sourced, notable and verifiable. This nomination looks for me as example of WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT.--Yopie (talk) 13:09, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Notwithstanding of the other "weasel word", this is not a quote "minor" unquote problem (unless this were part of the Czech humour), not even according to the talk-page. — KC9TV 18:17, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

• Weak Keep A strange article - it reads like an essay, appears to have had ownership issues, and probably has far too much OR in it. But it is not doing anything controversial or obviously harmful. Meowy 15:55, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. I believe I am the "particular user" mentioned in 99801155KC9TV's request for deletion, so I am not going to vote on this. While I dispute the accuracy of most of the statements made in the request, this is not the place to do so in detail, though I will happily do so here or elsewhere if it is necessary. However, I do note that the request does not cite any of the reasons listed in WP:DEL#REASON as appropriate justifications for deleting an article. While that list is stated not to be exhaustive, the fact that none of them are cited means that 99801155KC9TV needs to explain why, even if his complaints were all valid, they would justify deletion of the article. --Chris Bennett (talk) 19:06, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

This is the AfD, not the CSD. — KC9TV 19:17, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

WP:DEL#REASON lists 13 standard reasons for deletion in addition to CSD, and they do apply to AfD. None of them apply to your deletion request. Clearly you don't like the article. Fine, you're entitled. But to get it deleted you need to be able to give a valid justification. What is it? --Chris Bennett (talk) 19:28, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

"Reasons for deletion include, but are not limited to, the following .... ." — KC9TV 19:39, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

And your reason is... what? Here is the list of your complaints about the article:

• Lack of inline citations. Feel free to add them. Fixable without deleting the article.
• An editor claims to be owner of the article. I assume you mean me, though I have never made any such claim. However, let's suppose I had. That might be a reason to get me blocked from editing it, or even banned from WP. It is no reason to delete the article.
• The article was not written by someone from Oxbridge or the College of Arms. Why does that justify deletion? Do you honestly believe that WP articles are written by tenured academics??? In any case the sources used include articles and books by Christian Settipani of the Unit for Prosopographical Research at Linacre College Oxford; Nathaniel Taylor of the History Department at Harvard and a Fellow of the American Society of Genealogy; Iain Moncrieffe of that Ilk, Albany Herald of Arms at the Court of the Lord Lyon; and Anthony Wagner, Garter Principal King of Arms at the College of Arms.
• "Possible" CoI editing and OR. Debate that on the talk page. Even if the charge was proven, it's no reason to delete the article.
• Includes Internet-only material [i.e. two supplementary references, one to an article by Doria heavily based on something I wrote and the other to a web page of mine that includes further references; neither of which, just FYI, were added to the reference list by me.] So does half of WP. Remove them if they aren't relevant. Again not a justification for deleting the page.
• Written in an essay-like style and poorly written in places. So rewrite it to your satisfaction (while keeping the content of course). Poor style doesn't justify deleting an article.

That leaves.... what exactly is the reason you think this article should be deleted??? --Chris Bennett (talk) 20:40, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

The reason suggested is Articles that cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources, including neologisms, original theories and conclusions, and articles that are themselves hoaxes (but not articles describing notable hoaxes) -Wikishagnik (talk) 03:09, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

It is not a hoax, a neologism, an original theory or conclusion. It is quite possible to attribute an article on Descents from Antiquity to reliable sources. While there are parts of the article that I don't think can be so attributed, Descent from Antiquity as a concept and pursuit, as well as some specific descents, have received scholarly address from both enthusiasts and critics, so this reason simply does not apply. Agricolae (talk) 03:23, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• We would not be having this discussion if you did allow any such thing. You had, and have, been rather belligerent. I know that I most certainly should not had done this, by I did set up a trap of some sort, in order to serve as a test, and you allowed yourself to step right upon into it.

That is as clear an admission of trolling as I have ever seen. And, I'm sorry, but there is nothing belligerent about reverting an edit and asking an editor to justify it when it seems to be clearly wrong and no justification, or no valid justification, has been given. Nor is it belligerent to pursue the matter when all you get in reply is obfuscation, bombast and insults -- or instantaneous acceleration to AfD. --Chris Bennett (talk) 19:57, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• It works the other way round here in Wikipedia. I know of even of an, and at least one, administrator, best remain unnamed and nameless of course, who was doing just that.
• Sir Iain Moncrieffe "of that Ilk", Baronet, Q.C., was NOT a reliable source. (His posts within the Court of the Lord Lyon, King of Arms of Scotland, were likely to be Honorary, if not (also) borough and paid for, as in simony and barratry, other than serving as the Lord Lyon and His Lordship's Court's contact, point of liaison and representative in London; as one of the Queen's Counsels, he was after all busy as an English barrister doing cases in London, not as a Scottish advocate in Edinburgh, and unlikely to had undertaken much actual genealogical work back in Edinburgh and in Scotland himself. What did he actually do, in terms of genealogy, if he was not back in Edinburgh?)
• The "Unit for Prosopographical Research" is only one woman's, Mrs. K. S. B. or Katharine Keats-Rohan's, research project within a department (Modern History Research Unit) of a "(post-graduate) research institute" (Linacre College) within the University of Oxford. Christian Settipani's connections to the College, and to the University, appear to be rather tenuous indeed, other than the fact that he had co-edited a book, or several books, together with Mrs. Keats-Rohan.

According even to his entry upon Wikipedia, at least in the English language, he is in fact a part-time Ph.D. student (when he is not being busy with his computer in Paris, that is). I think that his works and writings can be safely written off and ignored as unsound and unreliable, if not unsafe; don't you think? Does any-one disagree? When did we start to allow ourselves to rely upon the works of non-lecturing and non-teaching Ph.D. students (or below)? — KC9TV 07:44, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Yeah. A scholar who heads a research program at a major British university, what does she know? And the fact that Christian Settipani has had a book and several articles published by a university press through a group to which he has no direct linkage, that it is not self-publishing in any sense, that is a bad thing because . . . ? The wrong criteria are being used to evaluate expertise in medieval genealogy, but more importantly these are issues for the Reliable Source Noticeboard, not for an AfD. Agricolae (talk) 14:16, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• And finally, do you still stand by the claim made by yourself, and endorsed by others, either explicitly or by implication, at the article that quote "The term ‘Descents from Antiquity’ was coined by T. Stanford ["Ford"] M. S. Mommaerts-Browne in [1984 or 1985] " unquote? Who on earth and in the World is he anyhow? It looks like that he is at the bottom of your House of Cards, I think. — KC9TV 06:54, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I did not make the claim, as a check through the logs would have shown you if you had made the least effort to look at them. IIRC the claim was made by Mommaerts-Browne himself. I thought it was an unnecessary statement to make, but, after all, I don't own the article, and I figured he would know (he was involved in one DfA project) and saw no harm in it. I see Doug Weller has come up with an earlier use of the term (though I suspect Mommaerts-Browne might argue that he was still the first to apply it to this project). I'm glad to see that this debate has at least stimulated some actual editorial attention to the article. --Chris Bennett (talk) 19:57, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:43, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• Delete - A lot of confusion in the above comments but broadly this article falls in the category of WP:ORIGINAL. A lot of conclusions and broad announcements made without any reference to a reliable source. The oroginal premise and all conclusions of this article seems to be that of the contributors. Wikishagnik (talk) 02:53, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
• Keep, but not without reservations. For all that I am not a fan of the current format of the article, a lack of in-line citations is a reason to improve an article, not to delete it. I have long had concerns about aspects of the article, and think it would be better to focus on a description of the concept with only a few examples for illustration, rather than to attempt a broader survey of the various opportunities for such descents, which individually are problematic for several reasons. Still, the concept represents a genealogical term of art that merits an article in Wikipedia, so deleting it is not the productive way forward. Agricolae (talk) 03:09, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. The dispute is not about the lack of citations or the style of the article. The dispute is about the verifiability of the article. Under AfD guideleines the following reason is proposed - Articles that cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources, including neologisms, original theories and conclusions, and articles that are themselves hoaxes (but not articles describing notable hoaxes)-Wikishagnik (talk) 03:13, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. (Well said! I couldn't possibly put it any better myself!) "Essay-like" (template:essay-like) of course, necessarily by implication, ≈, or = Wikipedia:Original research, although I, for modesty's sake, and admittedly and probably not being exactly the most eloquent person, would not possibly wish to be the first person to lay and tender such an accusation, literally and in so many words. — KC9TV 03:31, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• The dispute is not about citations, and yet the proposal led with the lack of citations. It is not about style, but then it is being called "Essay-like", which is all about style. And as I said above, an article on Descent from Antiquity CAN possibly be attributed to reliable sources - the quoted reason is to eliminate things that someone just made up, not articles about real topics that currently contain OR, SYNTH, etc., but which could be cleaned up. Christian Settipani certainly specifically addressed the topic of Descent from Antiquity in his book about them. While citing this book for the individual cases is problematic, citing an established scholar for his description of the pursuit is perfectly valid. Likewise, I recall an article in Foundations (the publication of the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy) in which the author took a critical view of the pursuit of Descents from Antiquity. There have also been published reviews of such descents by several established scholars in the field, in some of the premier peer-reviewed journals, such as The Genealogists' Magazine and The American Genealogist. An article on the topic can absolutely be written based on reliable sources. No matter how badly written you think it is, and how much unverifiable material you think it contains, it is unsupportable to conclude that an article on the topic of Descents from Antiquity cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources. Agricolae (talk) 04:26, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• Hear hear, and by all means add such articles to the reference list. As to Wikishagnik's assertion that the article's content "cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources", this amounts to an accusation that the existing reference list is unverifiable, unreliable or irrelevant. I think there is confusion about sources relating to DfA as a research project and sources claiming actual DfAs. The article is about the research project -- it describes various proposed routes to a DfA (agreed, not all properly sourced) but it does not claim that any of these are proven; quite the opposite in fact. As a research project, and since there are none yet proven (cf. SETI), a reliable source about DfA is inherently concerned with conjectural discussions(again cf. SETI). Where the sources make actual conjectures, as in Settipani's book, verifiability and reliability is therefore not about evaluating their correctness -- that is premature -- but about evaluating their plausibility -- are they based on reliable sources and are they supported by reasonable arguments? In Settipani's case, anyone who looks at any of his books will be overwhelmed by his bibliography, and he has clearly read it all; the man is a research machine. You may or may not agree with his arguments; I have disputed some of them with him myself, and many people feel he makes overly optimistic assumptions about onomastic patterns (a point that should probably be covered in the article). But it is hard to argue that his arguments are unreasonable, and he is always careful to distinguish between what is known and what is conjectured. And so it goes: I quite agree that the article needs additional sourcing, but to those like Wikishagnik who think that the current sourcing is not reliable or verifiable, the onus is on you to show that it is so. --Chris Bennett (talk) 19:57, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. Are there actually any supporters who have NOT in fact co-written the article in some other way, contributing to the current mess that I am proposing to put an end to? — KC9TV 03:50, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, if you call what I am doing support. Not that it matters - someone who contributed to an article has every right to present policy-based arguments for its retention, just as anyone else has, and the same goes for deletion. In fact, it is explicitly recommended that when putting forward an AfD one should inform those who have played a significant role in the article's editing so that they can do just that. To suggest, by implication, that everyone who opposes your proposal is doing so only out of COI represents a failure to AGF. Agricolae (talk) 04:26, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
• You could have easily answered this largely irrelevant question yourself if you had taken the time to examine the article's edit history. —Psychonaut (talk) 06:52, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

And how is that an "irrelevant question"? — KC9TV 07:19, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

It shows a lack of good faith and is insulting. I've contributed to this article, one of my edit summaries says "Added {{original research}} and {{refimprove}} tags to article". Does this mean that the !vote I'm about to add is COI and shouldn't be taken into consideration? Or that I've contributed to some mess? Dougweller (talk) 09:08, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• Keep We should never delete an article which is on a topic that passes our criteria for notability. This article can be reliable sourced, it can be rewritten, it can be fixed. I wish it were true that it is almost unheard of to have established articles with few or no citations, but I run into them on at least a weekly basis, sometimes more often. An AfD is absolutely not the way to fix the problem here, especially when started by someone who doesn't seem to have done much more than change the article's title with no discussion and has made no attempt to source it or rewrite it. Dougweller (talk) 09:08, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
• Very, Very Weak Keep While there may be something to be salvaged from this mess, right now I'd say it's a poster child for what Wikipedia's detractors say the encyclopedia is. In its current form it's a poorly-sourced essay. It fails most inline citation requirements (one per paragraph is a good start), leaving it wide open to claims of OR. Wikilinks are not reliable sources, either. I'd modify Dougweller's comments above from "can be reliably sourced" to "MUST be reliably sourced." Looking at the talk page also makes me think that Chris Bennett should step back from this article, but that's not an AfD concern. Barring major work, though, this article should most likely be converted to an essay or go away. Intothatdarkness (talk) 14:22, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I did some significant work on this article in 2006 and since then I have stepped back from it. I keep it on my watchlist, but I don't bother to tamper with changes made to the article, even when I think the change is poorly done, unless I think it is positively harmful, as in 99801155KC9TV's recent article name change (which I assume is the "trap" he set to bait me for his trolling pleasure). I agree the article could do with a strong editorial hand, and I encourage someone to pick up that baton; I'm not going to do it. As to the talk page, look more closely: this is all about a long-running and acrimious dispute with some IP who insisted in 2008 on adding "citation required" tags to every statement in the article and persistently refused to make any attempt to justify them -- for which actions he eventually caused the page to be semiprotected and got himself blocked, with no intervention by me. To understand that dispute and to understand the current state of the article, it is important to note that in 2008 WP did not require inline citations to articles -- it explicitly allowed the reference list style that the article largely still has, and it encouraged editors to follow the established style of the article, which is one reason I objected to the IP's demand. IMHO the main result of the change to require inline citation is the proliferation of (almost universally ignored) "citation required" tags at the head of articles, which have spread across the face of WP like a plague of acne, but that's by the bye -- WP's policy changed, the article now does violate WP policy on citations, and I encourage anyone who wishes to go to the trouble of adding inline citations to bring this article into conformance (I don't) to do so. As to whether the existing sources are reliable, see my comments to Wikishagnik above. --Chris Bennett (talk) 19:57, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I did look at your comments. I also looked at the talk page. But I would also think that if this article is of interest to you, you'd be willing to go after it with that "strong editorial hand." Just a comment, really. And though I'm not a big fan of heavy inline citations for a number of reasons, they are useful both to fend off accusations of OR and to help people with a genuine interest in the subject track back through and locate further sources that may be of interest to them. Requirements and standards from four years ago may no longer be relevant. Intothatdarkness (talk) 20:17, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

And there are times that I think seriously about getting back to this article. But in truth WP can be an enormous time-sink, I only have occasional and limited amounts of time (like now), and whenever I do involve myself in WP in any non-trivial way I get whacked over the head for trying to apply what seems to me to be ordinary editorial discipline. Obviously I am not alone -- the fact that your first justification for inline citations is that they "fend off accusations of OR" speaks volumes. Hardly seems worth it, yet still I watch. I agree with your second point, in the abstract, but I still can't justify the time and effort against other demands. As for 2008, the point is that I am being attacked here, even now, for a dispute that happened four years ago (and which was resolved then in my favour), and the article is being proposed for deletion because it has a style that was perfectly legitimate at the time it was created. This seems relevant background to the AfD to me. --Chris Bennett (talk) 21:10, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• Reluctant keep - predicated on the assumption that this could be whipped into shape, and that Chris Bennett in particular will keep from reverting edits and caution tags without addressing the serious concerns of other editors. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:50, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

What exactly is the reason I should not ask editors to explain what their "serious concerns" are and why they are actually serious, when it is not immediately obvious to me and when they fail to do so at the time they raise the concern? Why am I at fault if they can't or won't do it? And how is it even possible that retention or deletion of the article can be made conditional on my behaviour or that of any individual editor? --Chris Bennett (talk) 19:57, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. I realise it's unlikely that this AfD is going to swing towards "Delete", but in reality there have long been big incentives for people to claim noble ancestry; the article content just takes a huge pile of speculation and optimistic interpolation at face value. Reading between the lines, this article even admits that the best-attested "DFA" involves a bunch of documentary records written a mere century or so after the supposed ancestors claimed their crowns and spouses. It's impossible to cover a subject like this neutrally. We even have a huge section which tries to haggle over the definition of "descent from antiquity" without inline cites - what, isn't there a single decent source which defines what this article is talking about? Just now I added a reliable source which discusses the historic incentives for falsely claiming descent from Muhammad, and multiple mechanisms by which people would forge it; for six years we've had blurb about Great People Descended From Muhammad, but nobody bothered adding a source which says that many of these claims are fake. bobrayner (talk) 20:10, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

The article does not take the claims at face value. It explicitly says that no DfA has been proven, and all proposals are described as just that: proposals. You don't need to read between the lines on this, it is explicit. Also, you are wrong about the paragraph on Muslim descents. This clearly expressed scepticism even before you added your useful comment about Ottoman tax records, and has done for the last 6 years: "it is difficult to verify them, since the ancestries of even the most exalted of these families include several generations lacking contemporary documentation, or for which the traditions are contradictory". I disagree that neutrality is impossible: you get neutrality by stating the claim and stating what the reasons to doubt it are, without drawing a conclusion, unless there is agreed proof one way or the other; I would agree though that not all proposals are stated neutrally. As to your comments on the section of definitions -- apart from the word "haggle" I agree with you, I am not aware of a single source that clearly defines the term in relation to the issues discussed in that section, which is why I wrote it. --Chris Bennett (talk) 21:10, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

In which case the definition section is original research; so I have removed it. Hope you don't mind a strong editorial hand. If anybody would like to add a new "definition" section which is based on sources, feel free. bobrayner (talk) 21:45, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

A little too strong perhaps, an offer to discuss would have been appropriate, preferably before deletion since the section has been there for years, but after would still have been polite. See Talk:Descent from antiquity#Definitions section for a response. --Chris Bennett (talk) 23:09, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

The content was blatant original research, so I removed it. Discussion is great; if you want to discuss, feel free, but this is not going to help. bobrayner (talk) 21:40, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, this is really a discussion for another place, but I stand by the sense of those comments. WP's OR policy eliminates any role for informed expert opinion, just as its Notability policy eliminates any role for assessment of actual content. WP is now driven by demands for "verifiability" of "reliable sources" to such an extent that it is becoming (has become?) an anti-intellectual exercise, dominated by apparatchiks who insist on conformance to "policy" above all else. I'm still not quite there (I find it hard to let go), but I fully understand why many people have abandoned the project in disgust.

Back to the AfD: It's clear lots of people think the article needs work (I agree) but also that the majority recommendation is to Keep it, however unenthusiastically. Isn't it time to close this thing out? --Chris Bennett (talk) 02:03, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Policy is not anti-intellectual. If intellectuals and researchers can get their ideas through peer review &c then their ideas are more than welcome here. In reality, policy is anti-unpublished-intellectual, in order to keep out the cranks and the ranters who are not taken seriously by the mainstream. En.wikipedia is not a place to publicise ideas that you couldn't get taken seriously elsewhere. If this disgusts you, then your departure might benefit all parties. bobrayner (talk) 09:01, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Not even close. Unless there is no controversy whatsoever (e.g. a completely ridiculous nomination, such as saying that Brazil is not notable), these things run for a week, minimum, and then depends on the availability of a closing admin, and if they think it would benefit the community to have it discussed longer, that can be extended. It somehow seems like this has been discussed forever already, but it has only been 2 days and change. Agricolae (talk) 03:03, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

If that's the AfD procedure, fine, let the clock run out. It does seem to me, however, that there is nothing more to be said, at least nothing relevant to an AfD discussion, unless someone can produce some actual evidence to justify the claim that the article meets the deletion criterion evoked by Wikishagnik: Articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed. --Chris Bennett (talk) 19:04, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

It's just that there are some people who only do Wikipedia one day a week, or only on weekends, so we have to leave the window open long enough for them to have a chance to weigh in. Certainly those who have already contributed to the discussion are unlikely to come up with anything new, but maybe one of the new arrivals will bring a fresh perspective to the discussion. Agricolae (talk) 19:41, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

• Keep Noting Agricolae's comments above that "someone who contributed to an article has every right to present policy-based arguments for its retention", I am adding a vote. I vote for keeping the article on the policy-based grounds that no valid reason for deletion was included in the proposal and, despite several requests, the proposer has failed to produce one since. As Doug Weller has noted, the proposer's only contribution to the article was to change its title with no discussion, and he has made no attempt to source it, rewrite it, or make any other contribution to it. The proposer has confessed here to being a troll ("I did set up a trap of some sort, in order to serve as a test, and you allowed yourself to step right upon into it"), and I have little doubt that springing the trap for myself and the rest of us here was the whole point of the exercise. On a positive note, at least it has encouraged some positive contributions to the article. --Chris Bennett (talk) 21:10, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Comment: COuple of arguments why this article shoud be deleted

Thanks for at least asserting a relevant reason for deleting the article -- the AfD proposer still hasn't given one. It might help this discussion if the current AfD was abandoned, and you submitted a new one on this basis. Not that I agree with you of course. --Chris Bennett (talk) 16:48, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

• WP:DEL 7 REASON - Articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed - Obviously all attempts to find reliable sources have failed
• WP:NOTFORUM - Wikipedia is not a place to publish your own thoughts and analyses or to publish new information. - All information and inferrences must be published and verifiable.

Please note that any of the above two reasons is sufficient grounds for deletion of the article and this article meets both.

"Obviously" is asserted opinion, not evidence. No-one involved in this discussion, including you, has even claimed to have tried to find reliable sources, let alone to have demonstrated that they have made a "thorough" attempt, so there is no reason whatsoever to believe that any such attempts have been made, nor that they have failed.

A good place to start would be with the references listed in the article. Except for two internet references, all of them are published and verifiable. Speaking for the ones that I have personally read, in whole or in part (about a dozen of them), I found that they are all reliable sources according to WP criteria, and they all support at least part of the article as currently written. The ones that I included myself I included on that basis. If you disagree with that justification, please show why, using facts not opinion. For example, I characterised Settipani's work to you earlier -- on what basis do you claim that his work is not a reliable source? Or that it is not relevant? Have you looked at it -- or any of the cited references? Thought not. --Chris Bennett (talk) 16:48, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Further, please 'avoid' these arguments in this discussion, I have included the reasonings given in the policy page

• WP:JUSTAVOTE - "The debate is not a vote; please make recommendations on the course of action to be taken, sustained by arguments" and the same applies to all deletion debates
• WP:PERNOM - It is important to keep in mind that the AfD process is designed to solicit discussion, not votes. Comments adding nothing but a statement of support to a prior comment add little to the discussion. Participants are always encouraged to provide evidence or arguments that are grounded in policy and practice to support their positions.
• WP:ASSERTN - when an article is at Articles for Deletion, claims it makes about its topic's significance do not support keeping it; what matters is what independent reliable sources have said about the topic.
• WP:ARTICLEAGE - Having survived a long time on Wikipedia does not guarantee the article a permanent spot.
• WP:SUPPORT - AfDs are not about voting. The outcome of a deletion discussion is determined on the basis of reference to policies and guidelines, not a simple headcount. If you comment on the basis of the numbers already seen as in the above examples, you are just adding a vote to those numbers and not contributing usefully to the discussion. And drawing others to cast such votes may be canvassing.
• WP:INVOLVE - The number of editors involved may point out the level of interest in the subject. But it does not measure the notability, the number of reliable sources, or its compliance with other inclusion guidelines

And if and when I start beating my wife, I'm sure you'll be there to point it out to me. --Chris Bennett (talk) 16:48, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

In conclusion, please don't give vague justifications about the article, its editors or the AfD. If you can meet the requirements of WP:NOTE (notability) of the article then please provide them. Else, the article deserves to be deleted.

WP:GNG is all about sources. See discussion above. To justify article deletion the onus is on you to show that the references listed are not reliable or relevant sources. --Chris Bennett (talk) 16:48, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

-Wikishagnik (talk) 04:53, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Of course it satisfies both of those criteria for deletion, the two aren't really independent of each other. If there are no reliable sources, then it must be something of the editor's own creation. Thus the strident declaration that it fails both (bolded, just to make sure nobody misses it) is not a huge shock. Of course the converse is also true - if there are reliable sources (that just aren't well cited), then it is not the editor's own creation, and both are groundless. Given the body of material that is available, it is laughable to suggest that "thorough attempts" have been made and failed. Yes, there is material in the article that I don't think can be reliably sourced, maybe a lot of it, but this is about the topic and not the article as it currently reads. As long as we are making requests, though, I have one to make in return. Please don't lecture people on the appropriate way to behave. Publicly reminding everyone who disagrees with you of the various things not to do just looks like an attempt to diminishing the opposition by implication, something akin to the old political gamesmanship of "I would like to remind my opponent not to beat his wife". In fact, don't characterize the contributions of others at all, whether you think them unworthy, vague, or whatever - that is something for the administrator who closes the discussion to decide, and they know the rules without your help. Agricolae (talk) 05:42, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

A gentle reminder to Agricolae about No personal attacks on Wikipedia. I am only commenting on the content of the article W.r.t. Wikipedia policy. The Notability guidelines and other policies listed above are drawn from consensus. If you wish to change the policies, please make the suggestion at Village pump (policy). Till such times, all articles have to meet these, irrespective of hypothetical possibilities -Wikishagnik (talk) 06:17, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Ah, well, it's not like I expected my request to bring an end to such patronizing 'reminders' about offences that haven't been committed. Who knows? Such a smear-by-implication may even trick someone into thinking I actually made a personal attack. After all, there is no telling how someone may misinterpret what one writes - like somehow thinking that I want to change policy when I have spent so much time here explaining why the existing policy does not support deletion. But enough about me. Agricolae (talk) 07:29, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

• Keep per Orange Mike. Yes, it needs a lot more sourcing, but the topic has been notable for over 100 years. Bearian (talk) 20:57, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Canvassing?

Is anyone else getting email from the nominator? Dougweller (talk) 08:38, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

• No. Bearian (talk) 20:57, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Conclusion - ON the basis of my own research I conclude the following for this article

• Fails WP:NOTE and WP:NRVE - Could not find any book on google about this topic. Most search results return blogs and indipendant research. The term has no deffinition and has been generally used to describe the geanology of a family or person.

You haven't looked very hard then. Again I refer you to the reference list provided at the end of the article. Three items that I have personally read directly address the topic as a topic, as should be clear from their titles:

• C. Settipani, Nos ancêtres de l'Antiquité: Etudes des possibilités de liens généalogiques entre les familles de l'Antiquité et celles du haut Moyen-Age européen (Editions Christian, Paris, 1991) [English translation: Our ancestors in Antiquity: Studies of the possibilities for genealogical links between families of antiquity and those of the European high middle ages]
• N. L. Taylor, Roman Genealogical Continuity and the "Descents from Antiquity" Question: A Review Article, The American Genealogist, 76 (2001) 129-136.
• A. R. Wagner, Bridges to Antiquity in Pedigree and Progress: Essays in the Genealogical Interpretation of History (Phillimore, London, 1975)

University libraries holding both books and the journal are listed in WorldCat, and a link to an Internet copy of the Taylor article is conveniently located in the reference list. --Chris Bennett (talk) 18:32, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

• Meets WP:DEL # REASON - the term is in use in such a generic manner that one can quote a lot of references for the same but all such sources would talk about Genealogy while using the term descent from antiquity as a property of the same. Could not find any seperate deffinition for the same. This phrase has also been used in such diverse fields as theater, baking, dog-breeding etc., but only in generic terms and not as a diffinition of anything unique.

The article is about genealogy. It is not about theater, baking, dog-breeding or anything else. Whether and how the same phrase is used in any other field is entirely irrelevant

I agree that a formal and precise technical definition would be a good thing. But a statement and explanation of that view has recently been excised from the article as "blatant OR", and it does meet a blindly literal reading of WP:OR, however nonsensical it may be to apply it in this case. Given this taboo status, it is inappropriate for either of us to reintroduce that view into any formal WP context, such as this discussion. One is therefore left with the ordinary imprecise meanings of the words "descent" and "antiquity", which can be found in any English dictionary, and which are perfectly serviceable for most DFA proposals.. --Chris Bennett (talk) 18:32, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

• Meets WP:NOTFORUM - The reference quoted of settipani is a review of a paper titled Gaenolical Tables of the Sovereigns of the World by Rev. William Bethamm. it uses the phrase descent from Antiquity as a description of Gaenology and not some unique idea or proposal.

Huh? Doug Weller added that as evidence of use of the term, and he did it since this AfD began. He replaced a statement that Mommaerts-Browne coined the term, and (again, as is clear from the reference list) Mommaerts-Browne certainly did use it in connection with this unique idea and proposal. The quote has nothing to do with Settipani and no-one said that it did. --Chris Bennett (talk) 18:32, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Further, a review falls under WP:ORIGINAL. Similarly the first reference titled A 4000–Year Old Descent from Antiquity: From the 12th Egyptian Dynasty to the Capetians and Beyond. is also an original paper submitted more on Gaenology of Egyptians , and which also does not focus on Descent from Antiquity as a unique topic or subject. Most of the rest of the article anyway reads like the original thoughts of the contributors

The article you cited is not listed as a reference. It is a supplement to the second (not the first) listed reference and is clearly described as a "discussion file". I believe it was added because it incorporates much material from the reference that actually is provided and makes that material more easily available. Agreed that neither the file not the reference it quotes from focus on DFA as a subject. That doesn't make them irrelevant, because they focus on a specific DFA proposal, which is relevant to the article because the article discusses specific DFA proposals, as anyone ought to expect it to do. A large part of this one involved a proposed pharaonic descent, but it also included much later material, also noted in the discussion file. (Incidentally, if you have read the discussion file you will note that it argues that that the proposed pharaonic descent is invalid.)

As listed above, the reference list contains at least three items that address the topic "as a unique topic or subject"; you shouldn't stop at the first one you see. Oh, BTW, third party material is allowed to consist of original thoughts. WP has encouraged editors to hunt down and liquidate the slightest taint of originality in its own articles, but it necessarily requires originality in referenced material or the material that those references are derived from. --Chris Bennett (talk) 18:32, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Argument for deletion - In most such circumstances the argument is to keep the article but let future contributors modify it. This does not apply here as the contributors have misrepresented the facts and substance of gaeonology related references to present their own POV, which also shows in the emotionally heavy arguments in this AfD which are light in substance. A new reader of this article would wrongly conclude that the opinions presented here are scientific facts, which they aren't -Wikishagnik (talk) 13:06, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

You mean, statements like:

The following years have seen a number of studies of the possibilities. These are highly variable in the quality of their research. Many, if not most, of the DFA-related publications widely used by amateur genealogists are essentially worthless./No Western DFA is accepted as established at this time, and widely-accepted non-Western DFAs have not been validated. However, research has established the outlines of several possible or likely ancestries that could become DFAs.  ??

And here is where the article runs afoul of the critics. Can any of these characterizations of the pursuit be cited as coming from a specific reliable source? Yes, it is all common knowledge among those familiar with the scholarly work, but has anyone said these things in print? Something as simple as the statement that 'there have been a number of studies' needs cited. That the studies are of variable quality needs cited (and it can't just be individual criticisms of individual studies, but someone has to have compared multiple studies and found their quality to be different). That most western ones used by amateurs are pretty worthless needs cited, that non-western ones haven't been validated needs cited (it cannot just depend on the absence of anyone validating them - someone needs to have made the statement in print that they haven't been). Finally, the last statement is a violation of WP:CRYSTAL, as it predicts the future, in addition to being uncited. I also suspect that if you pick any one of these 'possible or likely' descents, you will not find a clear consensus that it could be proven out. (In fact, there is virtually zero chance that either Iberian route mentioned will ever be proven, and the Armenian one that ends the Caucasian section is the result of nothing but a glorified game of pin the tail on the donkey.) That doesn't mean that the term isn't valid and that Wikipedia shouldn't have a page that deals with the term, or that the namespace should be deleted, but the critics aren't completely wrong when they level the criticism that the article has serious problems with adherence to Wikipedia policies such as NOR, NPOV, CITE, etc, perhaps severe enough to merit blanking and starting from scratch. Agricolae (talk) 21:51, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

This is a clear illustration of the surreal absurdities that result from the overly strict and literal application of WP policies, which is apparent here and which dominates far too many WP discussions I see. Take just your first point: Something as simple as the statement that 'there have been a number of studies' needs cited. The statement is obviously true from a glance at the reference list to this very article. But of course that reference list was compiled for the article, so to cite it to support the statement is a letter-of-the-law violation of WP:OR. One would have to ignore the article's own reference list and find a third party article which has compiled its own reference list, which would include much of the same material, and then cite that article as providing a reference list, first proving that that article is a "reliable source", to meet the letter of the WP Law. Maybe it can be done, I don't know. But life doesn't get much more Kafkaesque.

You are also creating a Catch-22 for the article. Very few DFA proposals have been formally critiqued as DFA proposals in peer-reviewed publications. One can certainly point to sources which support or dispute individual claims made as part of any given proposal, but in almost all cases those sources only consider the specific issue at hand. There is rarely a statement to the effect "this supports/refutes DFA proposal X", which is what you say needs to exist and which must be cited to meet WP policy. If one holds rigidly to the position that the article must be able to cite such statements in third-party reliable sources, the result is to reduce the article to one which defines the term and just lists the proposals, with no comment on their viability, with a few rare exceptions (which Bobrayner would immediately remove if the proposal had actually been disproved). But then the article would create the impression, exactly as Wikishagnik charges, that these proposals are established facts, which they aren't; they are just proposals, and should not, must not, be taken as established facts.

In short, WP policies should be applied with a little common sense, taking note of the context and purpose of the material and the intent of the policy, instead of being applied rigidly and mechanically to each item that comes up in a discussion, according to the strictest possible interpretation of the letter of the law. --Chris Bennett (talk) 23:44, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

You are arguing from the point of view that assumes an article of the style that currently exists should be in Wikipedia, and since we have to bend rules to so that such an article can be written, then we should. That is playing right into the hands of the critics who take the same view of the article as you seem to do - that it can't be written if one must follow the rules, only they are not willing to be creative with the policies, and rather suggest that the article shouldn't be written if the rules don't allow it. As to what the article would be like if it had to follow the rules, I don't think it would be a list of routes without their drawbacks, because the routes themselves haven't received third-party review. We would be left with the definition, and just the few examples that have received the kind of coverage that the rules require, and that probably limits it to the Carolingian/Gallo-Roman connection, the Priory of Sion/Bloodline of the Holy Grail nonsense, and maybe the William of Gellone/Jews of Narbonne connection. I would be OK with that - in fact, I would prefer that over an article that in the interest of completeness gives a mishmash of primary sources, original research and personal opinion. Agricolae (talk) 02:13, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

How big a hammer do you need? For a reader who somehow misses this statement, the article is littered with words and phrases like "proposal", "difficulty of establishing", "one possibility", "still very obscure" "Possibilities ... have been suggested but none are plausible", "most improbable", "repudiated", "highly speculative", "While such a link possibly existed, extant sources do not permit reconstructing it with any degree of certainty", "all reconstructions of the DFA through Western European monarchs must remain precarious at best and speculative at worst", "controversial", "unverifiable", "difficult to verify", "lacking contemporary documentation", "traditions are contradictory", "proved remarkably difficult to establish". Until very recently, the article contained a very specific example of a DFA proposal (from the Jewish Exilarchs via the Carolingian counts of Septimania) which has been positively disproved -- an example which was removed (unjustifiably IMO) for precisely that reason.

Any reader who pays any attention at all to what he or she is reading is thus constantly reminded to be critical of any and all DFA proposals by wording like this. The reader can only conclude that DFA research is still in a very conjectural phase, and that is an entirely accurate assessment of the state of the art. It is certainly within WP's scope to include articles on subjects that are currently only researchable to that level. The analogy I keep coming back to is SETI, which is far more speculative than DFA, since at least we know that every living human had ancestors living in antiquity (however defined). --Chris Bennett (talk) 18:32, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Speaking of light on substance, perhaps there is a reason the term Descent from Antiquity was not found in association with the field of gaenology. It is simply untrue that the term is "generally used to describe the gaeology [sic] of a family or person." As to the claim that a thorough search has failed to turn up any reference to its non-generic use, that is hard to fathom as well, given that it took me all of three minutes to find such a reference: Nathaniel L. Taylor, “Roman Genealogical Continuity and the "Descents from Antiquity" Question: A Review Article”, The American Genealogist, 76:129-136 (2001). The author is a well-published genealogist writing in one of the premier American scholarly genealogical journals, using the term quite specifically to refer to exactly what this article is discussing. If I found this in a 3-minute search, then the readers can reach their own conclusion about the quality of the 'thorough search' that failed to turn it up anything. Agricolae (talk) 14:11, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Why so long??  ;-) That very article is listed in the reference list of the article under discussion, complete with a link to an online copy! --Chris Bennett (talk) 18:32, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

And here is another one - Rafal Prinke publishing in Foundations (3:489-502), the peer-reviewed journal of the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, who states "Genealogical links between the dynastic and aristocratic families of Byzantium and those of the Christian states in the Caucasus are of special interest to the “subculture” of genealogists pursuing what has become known as “Descents From Antiquity” or DFA." Again, a scholarly peer-reviewed journal, and using the term in a specific sense (note the capitalization), which is the exact sense used in the article under discussion. So, that's two scholarly instances of a specific usage that we are led to believe is just figment of the editors' collective imaginations. Thorough search, my @$$. Agricolae (talk) 14:30, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Rebuttal DfA is what? a project? Does it have verifiable secondary sources as a project (as against your conjecture, conclusions etc.)? If it does not, then it fails to meet WP:SIGCOV and that alone is sufficient grounds to delete an article. Agricolae and other contributors, are you quoting original research papers? If yes, then please refer WP: OR as these papers are not reliable secondary sources, but are primary sources and cannot be used as a reference, no matter what they have to say, or who says it. The policy also clearly states why they cannot be used. Does this article run afoul with critics? Do you feel any knowledgeable reader who reads this article would conclude so and so? Then please understand that this is due to the fact that no reliable secondary sources have been quoted, as such sources atleast try to resolve the difference between vairious schools of thought.

DfA is not a project (the article shouldn't say that it is, but that is yet something else that needs fixed), it is a term of art. A DfA is exactly what the name suggests - it is a descent from antiquity (basically, pre-medieval times). There are genealogists who make this their special interest, the quest for such DfAs, but there is no project, per se. As to primary vs secondary sources, it is not as simple as you suggest. The same paper can be a primary source for the research it is presenting, and a secondary source for what is says about the state of the field. The Prinke text was a description of the field and hence is a secondary source for that information. (The Taylor reference was just being mentioned to refute your mischaracterization of the term as a generic term without specific meaning.) Does the current article adequately express the various schools of thought? Well, that's tricky, but irrelevant. Again, the current state of the article is not at issue. It is the worthiness of the topic that is what determines whether and article namespace should be deleted.

This article and the arguments presented here are still about what a project like DfA should and should not focus on based on the opinions of the contributors which in turn is based on their reading of some papers written by authors who they feel are experts, rather than being an article about a topic. Wikipedia is not a forom for discussing such ideas WP:NOTFORUM which should be left to scholarly debate outside of Wikipedia.

It's not a project, it is a clearly understood term. I agree that the article should be about the topic and not a listing of possible routes for a DfA. Unlike you, I do not think that since the article currently does not have the focus I think it should have, the namespace must be eliminated from Wikipedia rather than simply fixing the article.

Please don't confuse article policies like WP: CRYSTAL with discussion policies. Else, the simple act of voting would become soothsaying.

Why do you insist on giving such condescending and completely irrelevant advice? Nothing in this discussion suggests that anyone is confusing policies in this way. To suggest people not commit an error they show no indication of doing is condescending and incivil.

And, please be civil in your conduct. Please allow others to finish their thoughts before butting yours in. I may be wrong, and so may be others, but that does not mean we can't discuss our opinions with dignity. Thank you. -Wikishagnik (talk) 00:12, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Excuse me, but what are you talking about? It is impossible to butt in before someone finishes their thoughts, because nothing posts live. When someone finishes their thoughts, they hit the "Save page" button, and only then, when you are done does anyone else get to see what they have been thinking. It just makes no sense. Agricolae (talk) 01:47, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

The article states that Descent from antiquity is a project, then Agricolae suggests its an art. Lets revisit the central idea behind WP:NOTFORUM that Wikipedia is not a forum to discuss new ideas, nor is it a place for generic opinions. As I have said, descent from antiquity is a generic term that applies to theater, baking and dog breeding. I dont find any mention of DfA in scholls of geneology like Burke's Peerage or de Henage. Google search on dfa as a branch of genealogy or dfa as a field of genealog does not give any hits and neither does a google books search on the same. Just to be sure even a search descent from an antiquity as a field of genealogy does not give any results. Isn't this is a sufficient breach of WP:VERIFY? And Agricolae, by butting in your arguments I meant your penchant of pasting your comments in between those of other's. This not only leads to unsigned paragraph, it also break the flow of a paragraph -Wikishagnik (talk) 09:30, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

A DfA is not a project (although some genealogists make a project out of the pursuit of them) and it is not an art (and I never said it was - please do not misquote in a way that distorts things), but a 'term of art', which is a specific word or phrase used by practitioners of a field to refer to a specific act, object or concept. The words 'Southern' and 'blot' will be found in other contexts, but when a molecular biologist uses the term 'Southern blot', they mean something absolutely specific - that is a term of art. It is not a new idea, in the sense that the cited mandate intends: as in something somebody just thought up. It is not a generic opinion, as it is neither an opinion, nor is it generic, which has been adequately demonstrated with citations here - two papers that use the term in capitals, and in one case in quotes, indicate the term is being used quite specifically. Finding instances of a particular string of characters is completely irrelevant - it doesn't matter if a book about golf or nautical warfare happens to use three words in the same order, in genealogy it is being used specifically. The Burkes do not use the term because the Burke publications do not concern themselves with the issue of whether Charlemagne descends from Ansbertus the Senator - what you are doing is like saying that ancient Assyrians didn't exist because a single book on the history of Islam in the Middle East doesn't mention them. At to de Henage, who it that? Your reference is to a book written by Round, and he wrote a century ago. The term DNA does not appear in Gregor Mendel's work, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have a specific meaning in modern science. Given that a DfA is neither a field nor a branch, you might as well search for "cricket bat is a sport" and then conclude that the existence of cricket bats is a breach of VERIFY - nonsense searches for nonsense strings of words are only ever going to lead to flawed conclusions. Agricolae (talk) 15:00, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Agricolae, for the same of any new reader who might be trying to follow this argument, and for the sake of not emotionaly repeating ourselves again and again, can we pause for a second? If we may (and thanks for that) can you please do me a favor? Can you please click on the scroll bar and drag it to the top of the page and then to the bottom? If you do that you might be able to conclude like me, that this debate has been a bit more informative and far more volumnous than the article itself, and yet we are far from agreeing with each other. Can we ask ourself why this is so? Let me start with your argument. You say that DfA is a term of art. OK, so let me compare this with terms that are generally accepted as terms of art - say Blue sky law, TINA and Black Box. Now, just do me another favor, turn around and ask any friend of yours Hey! What's a black box? Chances are your friend will tell you exactly what a black box does (although technically its a Flight Data Recorder). I have marked the example of TINA for a reason, the link points to the website of Northrop Grumman, who are not a legal firm but an aviation firm, but who still seem to have a good idea of what TINA is. You see! Just because a term is a term or art does not mean it has to fail WP:Verify. Coming back to the discussion, you say that DfA is not a project and then later state that some researchers might make it a project. It is an actual project and there is a page giving some details of this project. The article shows the various genealogical studies for different cultures (lets ignore the citation confusion for now). There are some who believe that no descent can actually be proven. So what do you believe, and what not? At this point you might be tempted to pull out the sword of scholarly articles and stick to their point. But you know what? Scholarly articles by a lot of important researchers including Johann Joachim Becher, Aristotle and Giovanni Schiaparelli have been proven wrong over time. And that my friend is the crux of my argument. A lot of material for this article would come from Primary sources such as research papers and blogs. But you and I don't know whose POV will stand as correct years down the line. Do I need to elaborate what that might do to the credibility of this page? It is for this reason that I and some other critics have insisted on multiple secondary sources which discuss such research papers in detail and give a scholarly impression about the articles. Yes, even these books might br wrong in the long run, but that is the best that we can and should do for any content on Wikipedia. Don't get me wrong. Not all content on Wikipedia is right all the time. Even aricles about List of hoaxes, List of fictitious people and Pseudoscience are all genuine Wikipedia articles and the last one is actually a Class B article. However, all of these articles clearly state what they present from a neutral POV and yes, they do rely on reliable secondary sources. So, lets not start a war over what must, could should and would be understood and accepted as a scholarly presentation and wait for a historian or an anthropologist to do his or her own research on these articles, come out with a book that other researchers feel is safe enough to qoute not just by them, but by you and me. Then will we be able to publish an article that not only meets WP:Verify but also WP:NPOV. Till then lets shelf this article because if we don't then a lot of people will read what you and I agree is at-least to some extent incorrect information and assume it to be encyclopedic. - Wikishagnik (talk) 00:30, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, you are right about one thing - there has been a whole lot of text in this discussion and not much agreement. Tell you what, though. As soon as the standards for verifiability on Wikipedia indicate that no article can be retained by the project unless/until a historian or anthropologist writes a book on the subject, then we can follow your advice. And please, PLEASE stop arguing that DFA is a project - IT IS NOT A PROJECT!! Just because the Wikipedia article currently incorrectly calls it a project doesn't make it a project. Just because Facebook's mirror of Wikipedia (you did realize you were just citing another version of the same article, didn't you?) unsurprisingly repeats this doesn't make it a project. Just because some genealogist decided to trademark the name Project DFA doesn't make Descent from Antiquity a project, any more than the trademark of Project UFO makes UFOs a project. A Descent from Antiquity is a genealogical descent that can trace (from the medieval period, in a European context) to antiquity - some people make a project out of studying such descents (or rather, out of studying the potential for them), but that doesn't mean a DFA itself is a project. At least one organization (The Augustan Society) has a committee dedicated to the elaboration of them, their Descent from Antiquity Committee, but that doesn't mean a Descent from Antiquity is a committee either. Given that yesterday you didn't even know how to spell genealogy, have you considered the possibility that perhaps you aren't the best person to be lecturing me on what a genealogical term means? Fundamentally I am still of the opinion that a bad article on a noteworthy topic should be fixed, rather than a knee-jerk 'kill them all and let God sort it out' approach, and the fact that some of what Aristotle said is now thought to be incorrect does nothing to make me question that opinion. Agricolae (talk) 04:42, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Agricolae, in other words you want a special treatment for this article because you feel this article is noteworthy. You have not been able to provide any reference or source that can show that the article meets WP:NOTE or WP:VERIFY. The only evidence you provide falls under WP:OR, and hence, while there is no reliable secondary source available we shelf this article. I have tried for a really long time that Wikipedia is not a forum (WP:NOTFORUM) to discuss new ideas, nor is it a place to write essays (WP:NOTESSAY). Please don't give emotional reasons like your feelings etc. in an AfD because nobody owns articles on Wikipedia WP:OWN and we all have to maintain a neutral POV (WP:NPOV). If you are feeling angry about me sticking to a point and you having to repeat yourself then its because you have not been able to give any convincing arguments that can stand scrutiny of common sense, let alone Wikipedia Policy, and if I have to say this a thousand times in this AfD than I will say it. -Wikishagnik (talk) 22:19, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh, please. You couldn't pack more straw-man arguments, misapplication of policies and insulting mis-characterizations into such a short paragraph again if you tried. Now I am trying to OWN an article and am guilty of POV, just for saying, in perfect agreement with policy, that a bad article should be fixed rather than deleted? And don't you think it is more than a little bit hypocritical to explicitly ask me how I feel and then berate me because feelings have no place in an AfD discussion? You are right that I have not shown the topic to be verifiable, because I haven't tried, but then neither have you demonstrated that a thorough search is unlikely to show it to be verifiable, the burden for deletion on this basis. Not surprising given that you didn't look in the right places and didn't even spell one of your search terms correctly, and you thought a Facebook mirror was independent evidence. IDONTLIKEIT dressed up with misapplicatied policies, a half-arsed Google Books search, and ludicrous accusations of misconduct against any and all who disagree with you are insufficient reasons to delete an article. Agricolae (talk) 01:52, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Assuming all trangressions suggested by you to be true and more thorough search done by you, we both are in the same boat, arent we? Neither of us can show that the content of the article can be verified WP:Verify or is notable WP:NOT. We are shovelling each other but the boat isn't going anywhere. You feel the article is notable because one or two papers written by experts quote the phrase while I believe that in itself is not sufficient for the purpose. You feel that all criteria might be met on a future date while I believe that is not good enough for an article today. Let's wait and see how other editors feel about this. -Wikishagnik (talk) 04:29, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Why am I not surprised that you would again portray my position as such a ridiculously self-serving and grotesque caricature, and then suggest that I should not respond. I never said that two articles make it notable - I cited those two references to highlight the erroneous nature of your uninformed claim that the term 'Descent from Antiquity' is only used generically. Likewise, I have no expectations about the future with the exception of death and taxes, and I base no conclusions on such 'feelings', nor have I ever hinted that future events drive my decision making process. Given that you seem utterly incapable or unwilling to summarize my arguments without twisting them about in the most dishonest fashion I recommend that you cease to do so, and instead leave the readers to figure out what I am saying without your 'help'. And one more time, the standard for deletion due to lack of verifiability is not whether the article is currently verified, but that the article "cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources". Agricolae (talk) 09:04, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

So to conclude, while I accept responsibility for my behavior, we both have nothing to add to verifiability or notability of this article. -Wikishagnik (talk) 23:20, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

The difference is that you have nothing to add because you have looked in the wrong place (Google Books, at least based on what you have stated here), and I have nothing to add because I know the right place to look, but haven't bothered to do so since I know for a fact that the page meets the burden of 'can possibly be documented'. It is simply not worth the effort (and a week is not nearly enough time) to get hold of the correct publications (that are not on Google Books and not in local libraries, but may be packed away in poorly-organized moving-boxes in my garage), not because the material doesn't exist. Agricolae (talk) 01:39, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

• Strong Delete per nom and Wikishagnik. Buckshot06 (talk) 03:32, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

References

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.