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.

List of common misconceptions (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

The result was no consensus. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:42, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of misconceptions[edit]

This was listed way back when on VfD; apparently it was kept but with a rather strong argument to delete. But anyway. I feel this should be deleted because it's an incredibly broad subject, prone to picking up oodles and oodles of unsourced or spurious information while running the risk of growing massively unwieldy. Nothing on this list cannot be sufficiently covered in the items' respective articles. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. So in conclusion, I don't find this list necessary. Crystallina 23:14, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete The idea is OK-ish, but it's far too subjective to ever be a good article. You either allow everyone to add their pet "popular misconception", in which case it becomes an unverfiable mess (it's leaning that way already), or you only allow things that are uncontroversially known to be popularly thought and known to be wrong, which almost by definiton is impossible. --Dtcdthingy 23:28, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Mild Abstain Abstain. --Metropolitan90 04:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per Cantor argument: clearly this article would have to both contain and not contain itself. Michael K. Edwards 07:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Everything in this article should be in the main articles about whatever subjects are involved, assuming they are true, that is. Also these two articles may be worth considering: List of famous misquotations (which I would TW to Wikiquote, and will see about doing shortly) and List of misleading food names. FrozenPurpleCube 13:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • If this is the case, can the closing admin be sure to cut-and-paste each entry and put it on the relevant article before deleting this list? PT ^(s-s-s-s) 19:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Interesting and useful compilation of things people know which in fact are not so. The check against "everyone adding their pet misconception and them being unverifiable is that if so you can delete them. Prove it! is a fair request.Edison 23:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep This is what Wikipedia's all about - even if only 100 people find it interesting procrastination, it should stay. Let those who like it edit it. Danlibbo 00:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Delete this is a perfect example of an indescriminate collection of information. Something wikipedia is not. Eluchil404 21:01, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. List may be better. The right reaction is to improve it, not to delete it. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 12:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Such lists have been created by physics education groups and are used in science teaching classrooms. If the list is too general, perhaps it should be split into more specific articles such as "science misconceptions" etc. Also, I haven't seen most of this information elsewhere on WP, since WP articles are nearly always oriented towards communicating information rather than predicting the existing misinformation and then trying to remove it from users' heads. And about unlimited growth and unweildyness: the article grew quickly at one point, then it stopped. If it expands at the current rate, it will be a very long time before size becomes a problem. --Wjbeaty 08:42, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. It can be quite interesting and educational. Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 11:29, 29 October 2006 (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.