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 delete. Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:41, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Antiverse[edit]

Antiverse (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Fails WP:GNG, and if not then WP:TOOSOON. Probably also WP:FRINGE. The primary source is a non-peer-reviewed New Scientist article, and the two secondary sources are web reflections of it. Lithopsian (talk) 19:23, 30 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. XOR'easter (talk) 19:35, 30 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete I do not think that WP:FRINGE really applies, at least not the way it usually does in physics-related AfD's (perpetual motion machines, etc.). The work was published in a real journal. My concern is that it's simply too soon — one very recent paper and a splash of press do not the basis for an article make. The Physics World item is just an interview with one of the authors — basically a press release in all but name, without any effort to even get the standard quote from an expert not involved in the work. New Scientist is famously sensationalist; I wouldn't rely on their reporting to establish the notability of anything, though they're probably OK for supplementing material on a topic whose notability is already demonstrated. The Futurism (who?) source is just a pointer to the Physics World interview, with a few brief paragraphs of summary, so it's neither independent nor in-depth. (Amusingly, it also gets the title of the journal wrong: Physical Review of [sic] Letters.) The publicity people at Perimeter Institute earned their paychecks, but proposals like this appear all the time, and few of them go anywhere. This article is simply not warranted at the present time. XOR'easter (talk) 19:54, 30 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete It's definitely not WP:FRINGE, although I'm also skeptical that this idea will prove fruitful. In any case, it's not our job to judge scientific merit: it suffices to notice that there's no significant coverage in secondary sources (how could there be? the paper has just been published!). The coverage it received is pretty much only the announcement that the paper was published. Such coverage is nowadays routine for papers published by major institutes, if we would allow that to establish notability Wikipedia would have hundreds of articles about papers that got ignored by the scientific community. If this one makes an impact, then it will be the time to write an article about it. Not now. Tercer (talk) 20:39, 30 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete – it is definitely too soon, as noted above. The paper is available online, with the title "CPT-Symmetric Universe" (the title "Antiverse" for the article is a popularization). WP does not (and should not) include articles on a published proposal before the notability guidelines have been met, and these cannot be met until some secondary source reviews the topic. —Quondum 21:23, 30 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep The discussion here seems to be about whether the subject of this article is true or not as part of science's description of nature.

I believe we should be talking about whether it is true that the anti-universe hypothesis is a serious topic for debate within the scientific community.

I contend that it is a genuine part of serious scientific debate. because it originates from a highly prestigious institution and has already made some experimental predictions that have been born out.

Wikipedia should be helping it's users who come across this debate for the first time with a brief introduction to its nature ,origin and the arguments on all sides. If the hypothesis is proved wrong then it will form part of the history of science and should be kept to help our readers understand how the debate went and the reasons the hypothesis was rejected.

We are not here talking about fringe or crank science. The encyclopedia is an educational tool often turned to when something new is experienced for the first time. It should reflect all sides of genuine debates in science as they occur.Lumos3 (talk)

Lumos3, I'm afraid you're missing the point. All three comments in favour of deletion argued about WP:TOOSOON, not WP:FRINGE. As I stated above, the paper is definitely not WP:FRINGE, and I think the AfD nominator made a mistake in saying that it probably was.

Note that being true is not a criterion for deciding whether a scientific hypothesis should be covered in Wikipedia. We have, for example, an article on Steady state cosmology. The criterion is notability, and the steady-state hypothesis is definitely notable, as it was debated by several serious scientists. The antiverse, on the other hand, hasn't been debated by anyone yet, simply because the paper has just been published. Perhaps it will inspire follow-up work by other authors, and so become part of the scientific debate. In this case it should be included in Wikipedia, but only after that happens. Now it's WP:TOOSOON. Tercer (talk) 19:15, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What Tercer said. We're not here to evaluate truth, but rather noteworthiness. There's no debate yet to cover. XOR'easter (talk) 14:37, 3 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Then surely a debate beginning at a well respected institution of science will be noteworthy , or will become noteworthy very soon. Are you suggesting we should delete this article and then reinstate it when the debate is more fully engaged? Isn't this just a bit bureaucratic? Wikipedia's prime purpose is to educate. As the debate progresses people new to it will come here to find a summary of what is going on, they will find nothing. We should note in the article the tentative nature of this hypothesis and that it is part of an ongoing debate , then record the debate as it happens and eventually any outcome.Lumos3 (talk) 14:07, 6 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't be so sure. Plenty of papers published by major institutes fail to cause any impact. This policy is not pointless bureaucracy, it is there precisely because we shouldn't try to predict which papers will be taken seriously by the scientific community. There's no harm done in copying the current article to your userspace. If and when debate starts we can reinstate it, so that the readers can know what is going on. What we shouldn't have is an article about a non-existing debate. Tercer (talk) 15:47, 6 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Wikipedia's prime purpose is to educate." No, it is not, even though it may be useful in that way. Wikipedia's purpose is to benefit readers by acting as an encyclopedia, a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge. The goal of a Wikipedia article is to present a neutrally written summary of existing mainstream knowledge in a fair and accurate manner with a straightforward, "just-the-facts style". And yes, we are proposing to delete the article, because it does not meet the criteria for inclusion. There is good reason for deleting articles that have not yet been established as having encyclopaedic value. —Quondum 16:34, 6 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Then surely a debate beginning at a well respected institution of science will be noteworthy , or will become noteworthy very soon. There's certainly no guarantee that it will. Prestige of an institution has little to do with it, apart from their being able to afford more publicity. XOR'easter (talk) 00:52, 7 May 2020 (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.