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 a trainwreck. There is so much here that no meaningful consensus can be derived. I am particularly disappointed at the volume of single-purpose submissions which appear to have been solicited off-site.

There appears to be one main argument on each side: on delete that the list is OR and has no well-defined inclusion criteria, and on the keep side that "common misconceptions" is a subject which has been covered in reliable sources and that it would be a loss to the encyclopedia to remove it. Neither side holds a clear weight of numbers, and neither has substantively defeated the other's key arguments; these are the two usual measures upon which, rightly or wrongly, deletion debates are judged.

The way forward is something to discuss at the article talk page. I urge the sides not to entrench themselves in their opinions. We may well end up back here in a few months (and if we do, I would be supportive of semi-protecting the AFD page). It may be that the page ought to be split somewhat to avoid becoming a dumping ground for what someone thinks is a misconception. UK telephone code misconceptions is a stable article about misconceptions. I am sure there are others.

As an aside, I am conscious from my fast-approaching-five years as a sysop that the deletion system has failed badly here. I could just as easily have closed this as delete by fiat, at which time it would be hauled to DRV (as I am half-expecting this closure to be) which would promptly spend another seven days coming to an outcome of either "no consensus, default to keep deleted". Perhaps voting has its merits on occasion? Stifle (talk) 11:11, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of common misconceptions[edit]

AfDs for this article:
List of common misconceptions (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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The current "agreed upon" criteria for inclusion on this list is "must have a source using the exact phrase 'common misconception', and that source or another must demonstrate that this misconception is wrong?" That means that this article is a collection of entirely unrelated things, the only thing that they share being a two word phrase. In order for an informative (non-navigational, non-dab list) to be considered notable, we would have to demonstrate that "common misconception" is a notable topic in and of itself. I believe that to be false, because there is no scholarship or field or analysis of the concept of "common misconception" (unlike an article like Urban myth, which, as a category, has been the subject of serious academic inquiry). This list is non-notable in exactly the same way that hypothetical articles List of things that have been described as cutting edge, Movies that have been called awesome or List of topics that are hard to understand would be non-notable, even though we could create a reasonably lengthy list, each and every item on which would be sourced and would meet the "inclusion criteria." This article does not and cannot have an inclusion criteria which is notable, and, as such, should be deleted. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:20, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"The current "agreed upon" criteria for inclusion on this list is "must have a source using the exact phrase 'common misconception', and that source or another must demonstrate that this misconception is wrong?""
This is by no ways agreed upon.
Current understanding is that if a belief can be shown to be widespread or prevalent(65% of Americans in this survey believe XXX), and can be referenced as being false, that it merits inclusion. Not quite the same as Movies that have been called awesome. Besides the article is both interesting and informative.AerobicFox (talk) 08:25, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You may want to check the talk page—that is not the current opinion of other editors, both those preferring deletion and those preferring keeping. In fact, I raised that exact point and was told no percentage could qualify for inclusion on the list. Other items have been rejected because they are only "common misconceptions among physicians" or "common misconceptions in France," or because they said they were misconceptions without using the word common. Qwyrxian (talk) 12:24, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it is relevant what
Notability is not determined by a percentage. There is no guideline that says "A town is notable if it has X ammount of residents" or "This song is notable if it has been played in X% of regions". A request for notability criteria to be determined numerically is impossible and not done anywhere on Wikipedia. If the large prevalence of the belief is notable(an RS says so), and the belief is false, then it warrants inclusion. This is not as impossibly complex as it has been portrayed here.AerobicFox (talk) 23:53, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What % level = common? Is 25% "common"? How about 10%? or to be declared "common" does it have to be over 50%? Of what population group? Can something that is described as a "common mis-belief among US high school students" count? What about "a common misbelief among Estonian high school students"? Or "a common misbelief among members of the Estonian graduating class of 2010"? Can we include something that was "a common misbelief among the graduating class of 1944?" All in all every criteria I have seen is completely arbitrary and leads to a random indiscriminat POV biased collection of factiods. Active Banana (bananaphone 00:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

*Delete: (Changed my vote to Keep now that tight inclusion criteria have finally been added to the article.') This could be renamed to "List of things that, by chance, have been called common misconceptions, but excluding equivalent things that, also by chance, have been been called popular misunderstandings, well known myths, etc". Its contents cannot be sensibly defined. It will inevitably be pressured by US-centric claims (such as today's one about whether Obama is Kenyan). 65% of Americans is around 3% of the world's populations. That's not very common. Basically, it's rubbish. HiLo48 (talk) 08:34, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Commenting on above entries by AerobicFox and SPNic:
  • There is a lot of interesting and informative material that for good reason doesn't make it into WP. 'Gossip' comes to mind. Hopefully interesting and informative is not a valid argument for keeping an article, just as much as boring and hardly useful is not a valid reason for deleting something.
  • I would debate that the list of common misconceptions is concerned with Misinformation and General Ignorance. Instead, I encourage you to start a list of Misinformation and General Ignorance based on those books. At least it will not have the issue of defining what may go into the article. --Echosmoke (talk) 16:05, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and merge material to various other articles (but not separate "Misconceptions about..." articles -- see below). There's no way this can ever be more than an arbitrary subset of a gigantic amount of potential material. Here's a test: an encyclopedia article should be something someone visits to learn something about a topic about which they have at least a vague conception: "Let me check wikipedia to learn more about..." genetics, the history of warfare, whatever. What would someone visiting this article be looking for? "Let me check wikipedia to learn more about the sorts of things many people don't understand." -- ? What would they come away with except a grab bag of examples? The article has no cognizable purpose that I can see which fits into the purpose of Wikipedia. How about Wikibooks? EEng (talk) 18:16, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The material should be distributed to the articles on the various topics each misconception touches upon, ideally as parenthetical in-lines at appropriate points, and occassionally as a section of the article. No need for separate "Misconceptions about..." articles except in the very unusual case that the main article is so long it needs sub-articles. EEng (talk) 18:16, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I'm just concerned that concepts like "Misconceptions about evolution" are so pervasive, common, and widespread that they are culturally relevant enough to have their own article (although in this case Creation-evolution controversy and Evolution as theory and fact cover a significant amount of this information). ShadowUltra (talk) 18:59, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The last 3 "keeps" being, of course, classic examples of "Arguments to avoid in deletion debates". EEng (talk) 22:57, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Articles must be NPOV; and I see no, and have seen no one offer, any way to have this list exist in any form that is non-culturally biased, so that IS a reason for deletion. Active Banana (bananaphone 23:05, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No suggestions? Just add some common misconceptions from other societies. My suggestion is: if you want it to be less Western oriented then add the info yourself as it is not hard to get. You seem to be looking less for suggestions and more for volunteers. AerobicFox (talk) 23:44, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
MORE AND MORE stuff without concern for quality is simply a recipe for disaster. There are insufficient inclusion criteria and no method of actually developing non-POV objective inclusion criteria. Active Banana (bananaphone 21:44, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think those Keep votes above can be summarised as "Yes, it breaks lots of Wikipedia rules, but I like it." HiLo48 (talk) 23:04, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's not rigid, but thoughtful, applicaiton of policy that leads to the conclusion that this article can't possibly work on Wikipedia, as well expressed by several people above. EEng (talk) 22:57, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If a rule prevents you from improving Wikipedia then ignore it. This article is in my opinion an improvement to Wikipedia WP:IGNORE, thus my argument is well grounded in Wikipedia policy. AerobicFox (talk) 23:44, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And how exactly does this random collection of arbitrarily selected factiods actually improve the encyclopedia? 18:18, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
You may want to reread that. I feel you are rather misrepresenting the nominators statement.
Please define Common misconception. HiLo48 (talk) 23:39, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Common misconception is self-defining. You could just call it though a widespread/prevalent/popular, incorrect belief. Instead of a definition you should be looking for criteria. The criteria is:
-The belief is notable due to it's prevalence
-the belief is false
Is that really too complex?AerobicFox (talk) 23:48, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Re "The belief is notable due to it's prevalence" - Prevalence where? In the whole world? In the USA? In another, much smaller country? Within a particular field of interest? How big a field? Is high school mathematics a big enough field? All of these sorts of issues arise frequently in Edit summaries and on the Talk page. Note that for the recent issue of Obama (not?) being Kenyan it was pointed out that nobody outside the USA even thinks about it, and that even 60% of the USA's population (and that would be an exaggeration) would only be around 3% of the world's population. So, again, what does common mean? HiLo48 (talk) 00:56, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Since no 2 editors, be they in favor of keeping or deleting, agree what qualifies as common misconception the term obviously is not self-defining.

Common is relative. There are many items on this list that can be considered common based on personal experience, whether or not they are common from a purely statistical standpoint. Perhaps changing the title to "List of relatively common misconceptions" would be appropriate, but it is an excellent article. Furthermore, it seems a lot of work has been put into this article for it to be deleted at the whim of semantics.

Oh, excellent! Now personal experience is the new method of validation. I am sorry, I can barely keep my sarcasm at bay. Common is indeed relative and as such not objectifiable. If it was an excellent article it would be marked as such, woudn't it? This is not about semantics but about WP:NPOV and WP:NOR --Echosmoke (talk) 01:55, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So wait, are you honestly saying that all articles that aren't at WP:FA status should be deleted? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:29, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think you'll need to get out in the hay paddock again to get enough material to build that straw man properly. HiLo48 (talk) 02:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
HiLo48: You don't seem to like the article much. Unfortunately, WP:IDONTLIKEIT is an argument to avoid in AfD discussions. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:41, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're starting to get close to personal attack there. No, I don't like it, because it's impossible to effectively define requirements for the article and is a big challenge for serious editors to manage. That's NOT what WP:IDONTLIKEIT is concerned with. Debate the points I have raised please, not my likes and dislikes. HiLo48 (talk) 02:49, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but I don't believe you've raised any valid reasons for deletion. WP:DEL#REASON lists out valid reasons, such as copyright violations, spam, not reliable sourced, BLP violations, etc. None of these apply to this article. You don't like the inclusion criteria. Fine, you're entitled to your opinion, but that's not a valid reason to delete an article. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:07, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with the inclusion criteria is that we don't have any. Not effective ones, anyway. If you think we do, please list them here, taking into account the concerns expressed by several here about the meaning of the word "common". It needs to be very clearly defined. Without an explicit definition, the maintenance load for this article is almost unmanagable. HiLo48 (talk) 03:15, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
HiLo48: That's completely false. The inclusion criteria has been established by the consensus of the article's editors for at least the last year and half. Sure, you're free to disagree with consensus, but that's not a valid argument for deletion. Likewise, claiming that the article is too difficult to maintain is not a valid reason for deletion. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Some valid deletion reasons include that the article fails WP:NOT (as an indiscriminate collection of information), and that it fails WP:N (because there is no notable topic on which it is based), and that any "fix" to the topic will involve WP:OR. To clarify my deletion rationale, which I believe you have unintentionally misunderstood, I'll re-explain. The inclusion criteria for the article is that a reliable sources says the thing is a "common misconception." That fails WP:N, because it's just a list of things that, as someone else said, coincidentally happen to use a particular phrase. By the currently agreed upon inclusion standard, an item which was described in an RS as "a common fallacy" would not be acceptable; neither would "a typical mistake" or "a misconception held by 55% of Germans/Americans/people." Being described by a particular phrase in an RS is not a notable topic--it is just an indiscriminate collection of information. So that says what's wrong with the article write now. But I'm going further and saying that if we "fixed" the problem, we would be engaging in original research, because the phrase "common misconception" is so fundamentally vague and open to interpretation that we could never adequately define it in any way that wouldn't be OR. We'd need to declare a minimum percentage for RS's that use numbers, and we'd need to be able to distinguish what authors "meant" when they used words like "typical" or "common" or "regularly". Doing any of this will inevitably be OR. I am not arguing for the article to be split up. I accept that, as other have pointed out above, some of this information may legitimately belong in other articles; in fact, much of the notable information already is. But any list that somehow collects together such a disparate collection of information with no common thread other than that they have been described with the same two subjective words in at least one RS is not a valid List article on Wikipedia. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:31, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Qwyrxian: I think you've grossly misinterpreted the inclusion criteria. Nobody, AFAIK, has argued that the inclusion criteria is that simply that a source coincidentally uses a particular phrase "common misconception". Nor is your claim that "a common fallacy" not being acceptable accurate. We're more than mindless robots blindly searching for literal phrases. We focus on meaning. I realize that you don't intend on splitting the article up, but that's exactly what's going to end up happening. Your argument that a list on common misconceptions combining separate topics is not notable as a whole inevitably leads to individual articles which are notable on their own. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
keep this is a great page. very informative. and it was referenced on xkcd btw :P

Arbitrary Break 1[edit]

With that said, I fully support refactoring the article into multiple topic-specific children. This idea has been suggested multiple times (even on this page alone), and it seems to coincide with the precedent already set with other articles: Misconceptions about HIV and AIDS is a prime example. By doing that, we would further alleviate the concerns raised by editors here, by setting a clearer standard which domains the topic would cover, and which sources were appropriate to determine notability. The List of Common Misconceptions article could then be changed to a list of lists, linking to each of the sub articles in each section, and perhaps summarizing the lists by detailing a few well sourced and prevalent entries from each article under a main article link. Changing this article to a dab would also be acceptable, though I would argue much less useful, and avoiding coverage of a notable topic. Jesstalk|edits 02:39, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
With what content? We MUST have precise inclusion criteria or there will be constant argument about what's OK and what's not for the article. Saying it's "open to debate" is the primary point here. HiLo48 (talk) 06:09, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But that is a talk page discussion, not a reason for deletion. VQuakr (talk) 07:58, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I see what you're trying to say with "Does this add value to the encyclopedia?", but it really is a poor inclusion criteria when you think it over. Adds value for whom? For how many does it have to add value to be included? To use an oft quoted example: "The New York phonebook is useful, but it doesn't belong on Wikipedia". Nevertheless, I guess a lot of New Yorkers would think that adding the phonebook to WP would "add value". What about if I added an article with all the contacts in my mobile? That would "add value" to me.
And the inclusion criteria have been debated on the talk page without any success. There was even a preliminary debate there about deletion, so I think the nominator really has done his homework on these accounts. He(she?) did not simply "see an article with a problem and nominate it". Dr bab (talk) 08:09, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Editors work hard to make article on common misconceptions, to source it well and write it well.

Other editors come along and decide article is difficult to maintain and don't like the inclusion criteria, so they nominate for deletion.

Deletion is struck down.

Editors for deletion go to talk page and demand adequate inclusion criteria, but then shut down every suggestion presented to them without offering a suggestion of their own.

Editors then go back to deletion and show as proof of their actions that there can be no inclusion criteria, so the article that other editors have written and maintained and proposed criteria for should now be deleted because they do not accept the criteria, and they do not want to have to maintain the article to their standards.

We are repeating history, and the wheel goes round and round, and the deletion editors continue bringing up deletion after deletion discussion that will never be resolved while simultaneously arguing a reason to delete is that they spend so much time "maintaining"(nominating for deletion) this article. Deletion is not a substitute for thinking hard.AerobicFox (talk) 06:34, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What a silly argument. If the basis of my criticism is that I cannot conceive of adequate inclusion criteria, how on earth can I be expected suggest any? Oh, and I have never before participated in a deletion discussion for this article. HiLo48 (talk) 06:46, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's nice to hear, let's hope none of us participate in a deletion discussion for this article again.
"If the basis of my criticism is that I cannot conceive of adequate inclusion criteria, how on earth can I be expected suggest any?"
You suggest an inadequate criteria which is then discussed and improved upon. Rinse and repeat.AerobicFox (talk) 07:07, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(ec)For reference, like HiLo48, I was never here for the earlier deletion arguments either. Some articles have quite famously had many AfDs before they were finally deleted. All of this is irrelevant--the process is valid. As for your final point (AF), my point is that any "adequate" criteria we come up with will be a violation of either WP:NOT or WP:OR or both. If my claim is accepted, then we can't say "we just need to keep working on it," because, by definition, "success" in the work will inevitably be a violation of policy still requiring deletion. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:32, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Like I pointed out above, in the previous deletion debates (in which I also did not take part) the main keep argument was that the article could be improved by finding better inclusion criteria and as such should be fixed rather than deleted. No such criteria have been put forward since then, and I cannot sidestep the conclusion that this is because it cannot be done objectively. Some have referred to books and TV-shows about this topic, but such media have the advantage (in this case) of having a single responsible editor which may subjectively decide what goes into the book/show based on his or her opinion of what is a "common misconception" and on what he or she believes will resonate with a pretty defined target audience. As Wikipedia have neither, this type of articles does not belong here. Just because film critics can publish lists of 1001 films to see before you die, Wikipedia can never have a working article along the lines of "list of good movies" because the inclusion criteria can never be made both sensible and objective. If one went with the exact phrase "good movie" as is the case(?) for the article up for deletion, then it is pretty clear that every movie ever produced would likely have to be included on the list as surely someone, somewhere, have given it a good review. Dr bab (talk) 07:59, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize for the assumption that you all were the same people. Nonetheless I am still of the view that this is nonproductive, and do not see how after viewing the last deletion discussion you have addressed those points, or why this one would go any differently. I also don't like the editors proposing deletion of this article to have apparently done not much work on it other then discussion at the talk page. I will go ahead and strike since this is irrelevant anyways to the discussion, and will mislead people into believing you are the same group. AerobicFox (talk) 16:45, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment By definition, an loss of an article which does not meet guidelines cannot be a loss to Wikipedia. By that argument, anything which someone finds interesting or "useful" should be kept, and a whole variety of policies and precedent show us this is not true. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:32, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Of course it can be a loss. You make the Wikipedia guidelines sound like they are perfect. I'm not stating that it will be a loss to Wikipedia, i'm just expressing that this is my personal opinion (and indirectly that i disagree with the guidelines on this matter), which (i know) may have little interest in a discourse like a deletion discussion should be. However, i do have the right to express my opinion. As i am not part of the us group i do not know how to verify the policies, and have inadequate Wikipedia experience to know about the precedent you speak of. --mgarde (talk) 08:03, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Please do not misstate my intent or policy. That discussion was nearly 2 years ago, and consensus can change (especially since many of our policies have become more refined over time). I didn't do this to "get a different result", I did it because I believe that the article is now and always will be a violation of policy/guidelines, in a way that hurts the encyclopedia. I was not a part of that previous discussion, nor were others. By your argument, once an article is "kept," it's kept forever, and that matches neither practice nor policy. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The result of the previous deletion debate was, to quote the closing admin:
"The result was keep. I've read through the discussion, and from what I've observed, the primary arguments for deletion include WP:IINFO, WP:OR, and the fact that the list is too broad in its scope to be a valid article. Original research and vague scope parameters can be addressed through editing, not deletion. Moreover, the list is not indiscriminate; to quote User:Neurolysis, "we can define common misconceptions by what reliable sources are calling common misconceptions". And there are, indeed, reliable sources to be found. As such, there is no consensus for deletion."
This raises exactly the points that are being discussed, that the "current inclusion criteria" are based on an exact phrase, and that after two deletion debates no-one have been able to come up with a better set of criteria. We are left with the problems raised by the nomination and the first comment by HiLo48.Dr bab (talk) 09:15, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Dr bab: The existing consensus over the inclusion criteria has existed for at least a year and a half. You're free to disagree with consensus over the inclusion criteria, but that's not a valid reason for deletion. Please take such arguments to the article talk page where they belong. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:09, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Whether to include the item "0.999...=1" was debated over more than 7,000 words on the talk page. That does not, to me, indicate that clear inclusion criteria exists. Issues raised in that debate included the definitions of the words "common" and "misconception". Additionally, the problems of the inclusion criteria were raised on the talk page under the heading Question for the audience--who supports deletion?. If consensus existed on inclusion critera, then nobody in either of those debates were aware of it, and can it then be called consensus? Dr bab (talk) 14:43, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Additional comment/suggestion: If the page is not deleted, may I suggest that the inclusion critera are permanently listed on top of the talk page with links to the appropriate pages in the archive where the nature of these criteria have been discussed? It would make it easy for new contributors to judge whether their proposed item is accepted under these criteria. It would also make it easy for editors who disagree with the criteria to 1-Find out just what the criteria are, and 2-find out whether any objectons they might have with these criteria have already been discussed and dealt with.Dr bab (talk) 15:01, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment As I mentioned above, a lot of the discussion on the talk page in recent weeks has been due to an influx of brand new editors, many of whom think "I (don't) like that" is a valid argument in inclusion debates. That a section had "a lot of words" doesn't mean there were valid objections raised, or that consensus did not form. Frankly, the arguments I've seen rehashed on the talk page have all come from the same editors, who have both shot down general agreement that a highly reliable source saying something is a "common misconception" isn't sufficient, and then argued that since there's no such agreement, the article doesn't have valid inclusion criteria. Honestly, I'm not sure how to respond to that... Jesstalk|edits 15:04, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: You are probably right that the increased traffic have made the situation temporarily even more difficult to manage. Regardless, this only highlights the problems inherent in defining precisely what constitutes a "common misconception". If I understand you correctly, the current criteria is that one(?) reliable source describes X as a "common misconception", with no other qualifiers as to in what group the misconception must be "common". As an example, one of the latest items to be added and sourced is the misinformed belief that DNA is made from protein. I could only access one of the sources listed, but it appears to refer to it being a common misconception among people in Initial Teacher Trainee programs, presumably in the UK. Is it also a common misconception in the population of UK as a whole? If it is only a misconception amongst students in ITT programs (unlikely in this case, I admit, but let's pretend for the sake of argument), is that still sufficient to include it in the article because it was described as a "common misconception" in a reliable source? Dr bab (talk) 15:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The current standard is that a sufficient reliable source be provided, which (as across the rest of the site) sometimes means more than one. But yes, there is currently no standard for what group this applies to, and I don't see any problem with that. The topic is "common misconceptions", not "common misconceptions in demographic X" or even "worldwide misconceptions". It very much is not a list of misconceptions that a given reader is expected to have believed or even heard of, which is why the above arguments of "I haven't heard this one, therefore it's not common" are irrelevant. That appears to be the misapprehension most editors casting delete votes are under, which would indeed make the list an arbitrary collection of information. However, it is not. If a topic has established notability, it deserves inclusion, regardless of the demographic's size. The only argument against this criteria I find compelling is page size issues, but that isn't currently a problem, has nothing to do with AfD, and can be properly handled by splitting the article into topic-specific children. Jesstalk|edits 18:13, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The inclusion criteria has been to have at least one reliable source stating that something is a common misconception (or words to the effect) along with an explanation as to why it is false. This can be the same source or a second. To be honest, most of the problems with the article deal with entries which aren't reliably sourced or where an editor believes that something is a common misconception but doesn't have a source to support it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:02, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that. I'm hoping you would have noticed the concerns expressed here over several parts of that. Firstly, "or words to the effect" leaves huge area for debate. Secondly, in English there are no prescribed linguistic requirements for the use of the term common misconception. A good writer on a global topic may use it validly, or a poor writer in a very narrow field may use it sloppily. I think it's silly that we base an article on random individuals' use of an undefined term. Whatever the criteria, why aren't they clearly explained at the head of the article? It would overcome the point you make about unsourced claims. Why is the place where one would expect to look for the definition - Common misconception - simply a link back to this article? We MUST have a clear definition in the lead. HiLo48 (talk) 16:19, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And on this very matter, I thank User:Iraneal for the addition he has just made to the article...
Contrary to popular belief (even erroneously repeated by some scholars[1][2]) William Tyndale did not invent or coin the word atonement.
Let's look at that addition. The editor has used the term "contrary to popular belief", rather than "common misconception", and the sources are print documents, rather than something we can look up online. We are not going to easily know what words were actually used in those sources. And is this really a common misconception? Personally, I've never even thought about where the word atonement came from. Have you? Has anybody else here? This is a classic example of what might be common among that religious or linguistic scholars, but irrelevant to the general population. Please tell me how you would apply the current criteria to this addition. (And convince me that your interpretation is obvious, and unlikely to be debated much.) HiLo48 (talk) 16:32, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The context of this is what matters. If it was a common misconception around the old days then sure. The article should just be clear that this was a common misconception. To better understand whether this should belong it would help to look at William Tyndales article.AerobicFox (talk) 16:51, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Whatever the criteria, why aren't they clearly explained at the head of the article?" I guess because no one's brought it up before? We can certainly add them somewhere in the article or the talk page or where ever's appropriate. I'd also be open to discussing changing the inclusion criteria to something more strict, such as requiring two reliable sources describing something as a common misconception. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This has been raised before, but never agreed to, because the criteria themselves have never been clearly agreed upon. However, the point is that it makes the question of 'what counts as a common misconception' a subjective matter for Wikipedia editors - original research, in other words.
Is this a list of common misconceptions among people in general? American people? English-speaking people? People with internet access? Stupid people? Is an example acceptable if it's only a common misconception among a very narrow group of people? These distinctions are hardly ever drawn by the sources themselves. I fail to see a broad range of high quality sources covering the concept of 'common misconceptions' with any rigour. --hippo43 (talk) 19:25, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So come on, those who think we have the inclusion criteria 100% clear. Should this new item be in the article or not, and why? Let's see how much of 100% obvious agreement we have. HiLo48 (talk) 21:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Although posted in a different section, I believe that 28bytes explained it quite nicely:[1] "As with any article, there be will items that will be obvious to include (because they are heavily covered by many reliable sources), items that will be obvious to exclude (because no RS coverage can be found), and gray areas that will require discussion and consensus on the talk page (things where the significance of the RS coverage is disputed). The fact that it might be hard to come to a consensus on some of the proposed list additions or removals isn't a valid argument for deletion, and it certainly doesn't mean that the topic itself isn't notable." A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for responding AQFK. But I really would like to tease this issue out some more. Can we get specific, so we can work through your claim that the 18 month old inclusion criteria are workable? How would you tackle this addition? Is it in the hard category? Do we include this item, or not? Why, or why not? I really don't feel confident about it either way. I'm genuinely interested in others' views. HiLo48 (talk) 23:43, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I see this as a content dispute which is rarely a valid reason for deletion. Again, valid reasons for deletion are lack of notability, copyright violations, hoaxes, content forks, BLP violations, etc. In any case, if the sources are printed, we have one of three options:
  • Go to a library or book store and verify it ourselves.
  • Assume good faith that this editor has done their homework properly.
  • Ask the editor to scan the relevent pages and upload them somewhere so we can verify them. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:54, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Argh...I swore I was going to stop commenting here, but it just makes me so unhappy to see such a blatant misstatement of policy. If an article is OR, as I claim it to be, and there is no underlying content which is not OR which can be saved, it should be deleted. If the article is a violation of WP:NOT, it should be deleted. You and Colonel Warden don't get to ignore 2 of the 5 Pillars of Wikipedia simply because you want to keep articles. Now, I readily accept that we don't agree about whether or not this article falls under the prohibitions of NOT or is original research--that is the purpose of this discussion. But it is absolutely imperative that we understand that a valid deletion rationale has been asserted, and the only question is whether or not this article meets that rationale. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:05, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm quite happy to Assume good faith, but even then we don't have the exact words "common misconception". We have "contrary to popular belief". So, is that the same thing? We need to decide that. And the breadth of the field of interest HAS TO be relevant to our deliberations. The issue of the first use of the word atonement is not a big issue to the bulk of the human race, so it won't be a misconception for most of us, who have never even thought about it. But that's POV and OR on my part, so it's irrelevant whether you agree with me or not, because we shouldn't be doing it. So, how do we decide on this one, in a way that's unarguable, AND follows the rules? HiLo48 (talk) 00:20, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Qwyrxian: As I already stated,[2] the notability argument is the only one put forth that is anything close to plausible, but it's not really an argument for deletion but for the splitting up of the article into 20 or so separate articles which are notable on their own.
HiLo48: Yes, I would think that "contrary to popular belief" is the same thing as "common misconception". IMHO, we should not be looking for literal phrases. Instead, we should focus on the source's meaning. Yes, this may lead to disputes, but on Wikipedia, there's no such thing as something that is unarguable. The discussion, for example, over whether it's "The Beatles" or "the Beatles" is at 8,000 words and counting. Content disputes happen all over Wikipedia, but are not cause for deletion. Check out WP:LAME for some of the crazy things Wikipedia editors argue about. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:47, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The form of a name is a very different issue from whether something should be in an article or not. And you continue to ignore my point (but not mine alone) of the breadth of a field of endeavour, in this case Theology or Linguistics. Can anything "common" in such a field, but unheard of outside it, really be "common" for the purposes of this article? HiLo48 (talk) 01:22, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Again, that's a content issue. It's not a valid reason for deletion. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:35, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, a content issue that only exists because we don't have effective, clear inclusion criteria. There is nothing in the inclusion criteria to guide editors on such matters. It can only be decided via personal opinion at the time. And that's not acceptable. It's a problem we know will occur. It cannot be avoided while the article exists, unless you can do better than your 18 month old criteria. HiLo48 (talk) 01:56, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Qwyrxian, I fear you are misinterpreting what OR is. It does not mean any article which requires editorial discretion as to what items to include or exclude. Indeed, most articles except for very tightly-defined lists are like that. Editorial disputes are waged all the time on articles to determine whether some bit of information is appropriate to include. The contentions that this is original research and that the topic is a non-notable topic are both shown to be quite weak deletion rationales by the abundance of relevant references which are already present in the article. 28bytes (talk) 01:23, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Alister E. McGrath, Christian literature: an anthology (Wiley-Blackwell, 2001), p. 357
  2. ^ Campbell Gillon, Words to Trust (Rowman & Littlefield, 1991), p. 42
  • On the contrary, it is quite manageable and many of its items are significant. The admin who closed the last AfD gave a persuasive argument as to why this is not indiscriminate, by quoting a very discriminate sourcing standard. Moreover, there often seems to be confusion about what WP:IINFO actually prohibits. Looking at the page, it lists:
  • Plot-only description of fictional works.
  • Lyrics databases.
  • Excessive listing of statistics.
  • News reports.
  • Who's who.
  • FAQs.
  • Catalogue.
It seems apparent that WP:IINFO is completely inapplicable in this discussion. --Kizor 21:00, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you check the talk page, there are numerous numerous discussions about the inclusion criteria for which no reasonable objective inclusion criteria has emereged. If it hasnt emerged in 18 months since the last AFD how much longer do we need to continue have those pointless discussions on the vauge hope that "consensus will eventually lead to an answer"? Active Banana (bananaphone 18:27, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, I read through the entire talk page before !voting here. As with any article, there be will items that will be obvious to include (because they are heavily covered by many reliable sources), items that will be obvious to exclude (because no RS coverage can be found), and gray areas that will require discussion and consensus on the talk page (things where the significance of the RS coverage is disputed). The fact that it might be hard to come to a consensus on some of the proposed list additions or removals isn't a valid argument for deletion, and it certainly doesn't mean that the topic itself isn't notable. 28bytes (talk) 18:42, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'd also point out that, as we've been discussing above, we do have inclusion criteria which is objective, and it's been adopted by most all the active editors managing the actual content on the page. That criteria seems reasonable to me, and doesn't violate policy. If there are objections, discussing (or refining) it on the talk page seems most appropriate here... rather than jumping to AfD after just a week of increased publicity. The only objections I've seen thus far have been predictive (i.e. The page will eventually be too big, or unmanageable, etc). If you see a real issue which is present now, discussing it first before AfD would be good. Jesstalk|edits 19:29, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note that this is an argument to avoid in deletion discussions. See WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No its not. "What we want to know are your reasons why you think something shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. Simply explain what policies it breaks and how it breaks them, or why you believe it is unworthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia." - Toddst1 provided the rationale backing the generalized statement. Active Banana (bananaphone 20:55, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What policies does it break and how does it break them? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:00, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Since it appears that you are not willing to fully read the quote: "why you believe it is unworthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia" which is explained by "Do we really need a section in WP:NOT for stupid stuff you may have gotten wrong? I think not." Active Banana (bananaphone 21:05, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So anything that is "stupid", we shouldn't have an article on? Should we delete the article on Racism because racism is stupid? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you think that "stupid articles" are an asset to the encyclopedia that we should encourage, well I will just have to disagree with you. Active Banana (bananaphone 21:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah. The use of personal dislike as grounds for deletion on a website visited by hundreds of millions of persons. I have often used that as an example of the things that would destroy the entire Wikipedia. --Kizor 21:21, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Toddst1, could you tell me your definition of "encyclopedic" or "unencyclopedic" on my talk page? I've been looking into this every so often for quite some time, but have never found a useful definition. So far it seems to resolve into "this shouldn't be in an encyclopedia because this shouldn't be in an encyclopedia," giving a thoroughly empty argument a false semblance of validity. There are quite a lot of encyclopedias out there, with varying scopes and definitions. Moreover, shouldn't we start the removal of unencyclopedic features by removing the "edit" button? Before that thing goes, we'll never fit conventional conceptions. --Kizor 21:19, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • If we can't allow personal dislike to be a factor, I don't see how we can allow personal preference to be a factor. But the situation isn't that bad: the arguments that it breaks The Rules aren't particularly strong. --Kizor 22:46, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Oh dear, what hope does Wikipedia have? If that Keep "vote" (and many others here saying the same thing in a lot more words) is counted to mean anything, we may as well all give up. If editors truly feel that the rules can be overlooked just because they want to, there are no quality standards left. HiLo48 (talk) 22:49, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Eh, give the guy a rest. It's not like he has any better way to make his opinion known, since our thicket-o-Rules is incomprehensible to sane casual readers. --Kizor 22:58, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
{EC}WP:ILIKEIT is an argument to avoid in deletion discussions. Saying that it may break lots of rules is also not a good argument. Please tell us which policies it violates and how. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A Quest For Knowledge - there is really no point in responding to your questions here. I have done so, many times, with what I see as strong responses, and you have simply ignored the responses, starting a new discussion, and saying the opposite of what others have said, with no evidence to back up your claims. I started a discussion above about an addition to the article which was questionable. I note you just abandoned that discussion. Can you please return to it so we can have some structured discussion here? (It was the one about "atonement") HiLo48 (talk) 23:05, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Responded.[3] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:30, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary Break 2[edit]

So, if you and I disagree on a topic's inclusion, because we don't have precise definitions, what do we do? HiLo48 (talk) 01:18, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky–try to take over the world!seek consensus on the talk page." —Tom Morris (talk) 15:34, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I should explain myself some more. There are thousands of articles–entire academic disciplines–where one has difficulty deciding on inclusion criteria. The number of times I've read a philosophy article where someone has dumped a load of Ayn Rand fandom on the article and won't be swayed by any number of reliable sources that patiently explain that almost nobody takes Rand seriously as a philosopher (I type Plato into the catalogue search for my local academic library and I get thousands of results, I type Ayn Rand in and I get 20 results–and only four of those are in the philosophy section). The number of times I've seen alternative medicine cranks getting in a huff because Wikipedia doesn't consider their conspiracy-theory laden article about Big Pharma posted on Whale.to equivalent to a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of the American Medical Association is ridiculous. In both those situations, we have to seek consensus and follow some very, very rough-and-ready guidelines around notability and reliable sources. Under all policies there are edge cases: but it seems fairly clear to me that something like "you only use 10% of your brain at any one time" counts as a common misconception.
I'm not sure what's so difficult about this. You have to find a reliable source which explains that it is a widely held belief: this can either be explicitly (i.e. an article in, say, a psychology journal that has research showing how widespread a particular belief is) or implicitly (if, say, it was widely believed in a particular society at a particular time that X, some reliable source which demonstrates that pretty clearly–like if you wanted to say that it was widely believed in the decade 2000-2009 in the United States that Tiger Wolf was considered one of the best golf players in the world and you found an article in a golfing magazine which didn't explicitly say it but which an intelligent reader would consider indicative of widespread belief).
Then obviously you need a reliable source to show that the belief is in fact a misconception. That doesn't seem a particularly difficult issue.
Given that there seems a prima facie case here of the sort of lines on which rough–not precise, but you won't get precise as the Ayn Rand or alternative medicine examples show you because Wikipedia can never do such a thing without throwing out WP:IGNORE and turning Wikipedia into a bureaucracy (going against WP:BURO)–guidelines for inclusion can be developed which are sort of roughly in the same vein as the notability guidelines, I don't really see the point of the deletion discussion.
If you expect precise definitions will solve all your problems, that's bonkers. Definitions get you a lot less far than you think. —Tom Morris (talk) 17:26, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"You have to find a reliable source which explains that it is a widely held belief:; ...Then obviously you need a reliable source to show that the belief is in fact a misconception" is the textbook case of WP:SYN: combining content from two sources to produce a conclusion that is not made in either source. Obviously unacceptable criteria. Active Banana (bananaphone 17:35, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The difference is that we have a definition for notability, but we don't have one for Common misconception. (Do try that link. It's revealing.) HiLo48 (talk) 02:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You will find quite a few Featured lists that do not have articles for the thing the article is listing. To pick an example at random, Unmade Doctor Who serials and films redirects to featured list List of unmade Doctor Who serials and films. Not having a separate article for common misconceptions doesn't even come close to a valid deletion rationale. 28bytes (talk) 02:53, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That article starts with an unproblematic definition of what it means, and is completable. My main contention can be rephrased as this: it is simply not possible to fix the lead section of this article to something like that, without violating WP:OR. Certainly if someone managed to, then I would have to concede the point... --WTFITS (talk) 14:00, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Here is the current lead: "This list describes fallacious ideas and beliefs which are documented and widespread as well as the actual facts concerning those ideas, where appropriate." The "fallacious ideas and beliefs", "widespread" and "actual facts" phrases all carry an implied "according to reliable, third-party sources" assumption as should all assertions that appear in Wikipedia. It can be made explicit instead of implied, I suppose, but I don't think that's necessary, and at any rate, that has nothing to do with WP:OR. Quoting from the policy page, "The term 'original research' refers to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and stories—not already published by reliable sources." The editors active on List of common misconceptions have done a very good job keeping items that aren't "already published by reliable sources" out of the article. 28bytes (talk) 16:23, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • False. Wikipedia is not running out of space for text, and will not do so: see WP:NOTPAPER. There will always be interested editors who will not mind "grooming" - some inclusionists, some deletionists - discussion and consensus, and Reliable sources are the guiding WP:FIVEPILLARS. --Lexein (talk) 18:05, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Woosh - this will end in No Consensus soon and if folks are lucky it won't end in a major news outlet up as another example of needless infighting among an overwhelmingly male young tech-savvy mob with members who put arbitrary policies ahead of a goal to populate the world with facts. This is a factually accurate and popular article and as long as it remains as such there is no reason it should be deleted. --NickCatal (talk) 05:39, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately this article is just a random collection of factoids and NOT any sort of actual knowledge. Active Banana (bananaphone 05:50, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I feel pretty fortunate to have this page to reference and as a gateway to furthering my understanding of each of these concepts. But at the end of the day I don't really genuinely care if this article is deleted, but I want to note how idiotic the arguments that would be used to justify its deletion are. --NickCatal (talk) 07:35, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that drowning looks nothing like popular conceptions of drowning (which was in this article, the last time I looked) means that several hundred children drown to death every year while in the vicinity of an adult. In a large proportion of these cases, the adult is looking at the child without realizing what's going on. On the other hand, I just spent an evening reading medieval military history with a basic overview of formations, combined arms, and the variations and capabilities of various ranged weapons. This is actual knowledge, quite venerable and well-regarded. It has a slim chance of impacting the rest of my natural life. Watch it when you want to deem something not "actual knowledge." --Kizor 20:57, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - "This is a popular article" is an Argument to avoid, and is not compelling. Please consider rephrasing your point to avoid it. --Lexein (talk) 18:05, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The nomination itself is essentially a case of "other stuff doesn't exist" (Movies that have been called awesome? Really?) and completely fails to make the case that this is a non-notable topic, so let's not single out the "keep" votes for using weak logic. There's a lot of "I like it" and "I don't like it" on both sides, but some of us are indeed focusing on actual policy-based rationales here. 28bytes (talk) 07:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The better parts of this discussion have nothing to do with notability. It's about problems of definition (What IS a common misconception?), inclusion criteria, and article management. HiLo48 (talk) 07:56, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that article scope definition, inclusion criteria, and article management are critical discussions to be having, but none of those are covered in Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Reasons for deletion, so an AfD isn't the venue for such discussions, in my view. Here, we have to focus on notability, unless one of the other reasons for deletion is suggested. 28bytes (talk) 08:09, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@HiLo48: I hear you and sympathize to some extent. But we don't delete articles simply because they're crappy. We delete them because there's no possibility that they can ever be good; typically, this is because they are on non-notable topics. Please see WP:AFD which states in big bold letters If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a good candidate for AfD. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 07:52, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Again, it's not about notability, but it IS about what I see as the reality that it cannot be fixed. We have no definition. We have unmanageable inclusion criteria. I've given evidence. I raised a very real, very recent example above. Those wanting to keep the article just run away from discussing how we would manage that example. It's too hard. And THAT'S the point. The fact that the Keep fans won't discuss a difficult case shows that it probably can't be fixed. Their avoidance behaviour is just helping to convince me I'm right. HiLo48 (talk) 08:03, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is uncalled for. There's plenty of discussion here but people are under no obligation to discuss exactly what you want to discuss in the exact way you want to discuss it. And deriding those who disagree as "Keep fans" or accusing them of "avoidance behavior" is wholly inappropriate. While such an aggressive approach may be cathartic, it is almost always less persuasive to others than reasoned and respectful discussion. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 08:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You are missing the point. I don't really care what you think of my observations, for I'm simply noting a reality. I have been making the point that it's really hard to assess some content for the article. Those who say it's not are actually avoiding commenting on a "hard" example. My conclusion is that the avoidance of discussion tends to prove my point. That you won't concede such a point is irrelevant. The observation is still real. If it really was as easy to decide these things as they claim, those wanting to keep this article would be jumping in and doing so on the "hard" example. But they're not. So, I'm not deriding anyone. I'm observing human behaviour and seeing it support my position. HiLo48 (talk) 10:30, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
HiLo48: The fact remains: You haven't been able to articulate a single, valid reason why the article should be deleted. An ordinary content dispute which happens all over Wikipedia is not a valid reason for deletion. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:51, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If it's an "ordinary content dispute", prove it by tackling the "hard" example. If you won't tackle it, you are proving my point. HiLo48 (talk) 20:58, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I already answered your question here.[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AArticles_for_deletion%2FList_of_common_misconceptions_%283rd_nomination%29&action=historysubmit&diff=411475387&oldid=411473538�] You seem to think that this is a trump card when in fact, it's not even germane to this discussion. Please read WP:DEL#REASON. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:15, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't asking for an answer. I was asking you, or anybody else who claims these issues can be solved by "ordinary" discussion, to prove it. Nebulous claims are just words, not evidence. HiLo48 (talk) 21:43, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that anyone's claimed (or at least not intentionally) that all content disputes can be resolved through ordinary discussion, only that ordinary discussion is the proper avenue for resolving such disputes. WP:DISPUTERESOLUTION outlines the whole process. The fact is that some content disputes can last years or are never resolved. The current content dispute, for example, over "The Beatles" versus "the Beatles" goes back at least 6 years[4] 7 years[5] as far as I can tell. This is everyday life here on a Wikipedia. We're all volunteers and no one is forcing you to work on this article if you don't want to. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:58, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"if this article could be fixed through normal editing...." and how would that happen, then? Isn't the whole point that we cannot? And if you don't like notability as a reason for deletion, how about "articles that cannot be attributed to reliable sources... original theories and conclusions" (our definition of "common misconception" would be original to us, unless someone cites an external definition with some acceptance), "any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia" referring to WP:NOT under which we have, as repeatedly mentioned, "indiscriminate collection". --WTFITS (talk) 13:42, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(For the sake of discussion, please expand acronyms at least once when making a point.) --Lexein (talk) 20:04, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree - I agree here with the application of WP:IAR, Ignore All Rules, as applied specifically to counter the claim of "indiscriminate list". In my opinion, since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, lists are possible, and are not all going to be narrow. Here, the list addresses a worthy and narrow-enough category, especially as garnered from established articles, and reliable sources which delineate common misconceptions. This list will be different in different languages. The list MAY require breaking up into specific topic areas, but that's a different discussion. --Lexein (talk) 20:04, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Required: an existing Wikipedia article about the item topic. Other good quality lists use the criteria that each listed item already have an article, and I agree with this criteria, since these articles, to exist, are required to meet WP:GNG, the General Notability Guideline.
  2. Required: one or more reliable source(s) stating "common misconception" or words to that effect in the topic area audience. Examples of audiences include students, people asked on the street,
  3. Required: the linked article (1) should also address the misconception, either in a linkable #section, or at least as a complete sentence, citing the same reference(s) used to establish that it is a common misconception.
Wikipedia is about sources and notability, and much less about the likes and dislikes of editors. We cite sources, and if sources, as a group, gathered together, comprise books, articles and essay about misconceptions, then those sources have established Common Misconceptions as a reasonable, notable topic for a list here.
Wikipedia is also about linking. See WP:MOSLINK. Both lists and categories support the connection of areas of knowledge to supporting information and to other areas of knowledge. This is a fundamental precept of Wikipedia itself. This list ties together an important category of knowledge - things and ideas to avoid, wrong thought paths to avoid going down, with the notable, reliably sourced topics themselves.
In my opinion, it is a defensible position that learning what a thing is not, is as important as learning what a thing is. What Wikipedia Is Not is just as important as what Wikipedia is - both as explained within each policy/guideline/essay, and summarized in one gathering place: WP:NOT.
(revised) It also is possible to have additional clearer inclusion criteria, even if imposed late (now). The above criteria don't have to be the only ones.
--Lexein (talk) 20:14, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So, what should they be? HiLo48 (talk) 20:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(edited in italics above) Aside from #1, #2, and #3 above, I'm open. I'm an inclusionist, and though I do think a few of the entries in the article are junk, I'm of the firm belief that clear inclusion criteria can make this a "good" list. --Lexein (talk) 21:25, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And do you have any suggestions as to what "clear inclusion criteria" might actually be? In the 18 months since the last AfD however many editors that have attempted to do so have simply come up with List of things someone has called "common misperceptions". There are many editors who have serious doubts that any such "clear inclusion criteria" cannot be developed that meet with Wikipedia criteria such as WP:OR WP:NPOV WP:IINFO - but if you actually have one, please present it. Active Banana (bananaphone 21:41, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've given my foundation inclusion criteria #1, #2, #3 above. In my opinion, Reliable sources and General Notability Guideline go a very long way to solving OR, NPOV, and IINFO problems. Again, in my opinion, per 1,2,3, any reliably-sourced statement of common misconception(s) which exists in a reliably-sourced article about a notable topic, merits concise inclusion in this list. That's the clearest way I can say it. The misconception does not need to establish notability enough for its own standalone article, because it piggybacks on the notability of the base topic itself. I think this could become rather short list for a while, if just these three criteria are applied.
Most lists really can be pruned very fairly, purely on WP:GNG and WP:RS grounds. List of indie rock musicians; became alarmingly (to quite a few band fans) short for a while after editors went through and actually verified whether articles existed, having established notability through reliable sources. But after a while, indie rock band articles were written, developed, notability was established, and now that list is almost entirely reliably sourced.
Remember, there is no WP:DEADLINE. I say, see how things work out as other editors dispassionately apply #1, #2, #3 in good faith. I'm an inclusionist with a strong bias toward reliably-sourced material, regardless of editors' feelings about whether lists should exist.
If there's a need for more criteria than 1,2,3, I'd like to hear about that. I don't think that internal organization is a problem: the groupings by overall category are sufficient. If the list grows too large, then it could be split, but I don't think it's there yet.
--Lexein (talk) 22:51, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And at least half of the essay NODEADLINE supports my position. And even #2, which seems to be the section you are talking about, talks about the article improving over time, something which we have not actually seen in 18 months since the last AfD. Active Banana (bananaphone 03:23, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I support deletion of items (or moving to talk) which are not RS and don't pass 1,2,3. I do not support deleting the whole list. I've edited 1,2,3 to better match my intentions. No, #2 does not (should not) imply unbounded WP:Eventualism about enforcement. The AfD nom itself should spur action. Are 1,2,3 sufficient inclusion criteria? I think so, sufficiently to start pruning. Thoughts? --Lexein (talk) 04:41, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
2) certainly doesnt. "stating "common misconception" or words to that effect" is the completely arbitrary "criteria" that cannot be said to meet WP:LIST Active Banana (bananaphone 05:46, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • What part of the rather long WP:LIST guideline is not "met"? Words to that effect is neither arbitrary, nor a problem, to most English language speakers. As I've stated elsewhere, the English language is rich and diverse - to demand that only two words out of - how many? ~400,000? - can serve to satisfy a criterion is absurd on the face of it. Of course the words "frequent" or "universal" or "usual" can stand in for "common", and of course the words "misapprehension" or "wrongly learned" or "mistaught concept" can stand in for "misconception". I can see the point trying to be made, but that overrestriction is ... distasteful and wikilawyerish. Either the sources are reliable, independent, notable sources, or they're not.
Furthermore, we have, expressed in the Glass misconception references, four different formulations, from two sources, which don't comply with the letter of the requirement for the words "common misconception", but satisfy its intent admirably: "It is well known," and "well known, but wrong" (source), and "the belief, held by many", "the persistent belief", and "urban legend" (source) --Lexein (talk) 13:29, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@Lexin "What part of the rather long WP:LIST guideline is not "met"": "The contents of an article that is a stand-alone list should be clear. If the title does not already clarify what the list includes, then the list's lead section should do so. Don't leave readers confused over the list's inclusion criteria or have editors guessing what may be added to the list. " Active Banana (bananaphone 14:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. The list's lead hatnote now lists my four main criteria (C.M. item's topic has article, item has WP:RS stating "C.M."(or synonym), C.M. item is in topic article, item is current (not obsolete)). So that part of WP:LISTS is now better met. I welcome refinements to these criteria, as I begin pruning or improving non-complying entries. --Lexein (talk) 08:05, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My response to that is to no doubt annoy some of the Keepers and ask again how editors would deal with this genuine addition to the article from around 40 hours ago...
"Contrary to popular belief (even erroneously repeated by some scholars) William Tyndale did not invent or coin the word atonement".
It appeared to be well sourced, but to print sources, not something we can check in a hurry. So, is "Contrary to popular belief" in a narrow field like theology the same thing as a "common misconception" for the purposes of this global article? Several of the Keepers said we would just have to work it out by discussion, but they wouldn't (or couldn't?), even though it was a real, current example. With Lexein's new rules, are things any better? HiLo48 (talk) 06:07, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The solution is to keep it in as a common misconception from the 1600s. Even though nobody today thinks of this back when he translated the Bible into English for the first time he was widely believed to have invented many words, this was a common misconception. No longer a common misconception today though. If you disagree then discuss, but please don't delete the article because you do not like the solutions I or anybody else has proposed.AerobicFox (talk) 06:22, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I don't think a "contrary to popular belief" in the field of theology from the 1600s is the same as a "common misconception" today for the purposes of this global article. If it is, we can stick almost anything that anyone has ever got wrong into the article. We must have a tighter interpretation than that. You see, we disagree, strongly, and I cannot see it changing (unless you change to agree with me, of course ;-) ). HiLo48 (talk) 06:32, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, "ye olde" certainly qualifies as distinct from "current" common misconceptions. But worse, that example fails #1 and #3 - it links to a disambiguation page, not an article section containing the same RS'd misconception. And let's be honest, that entry in the list is a scholarly wank - a monkey wrench thrown in to the works - but it brings up a useful criteria #4: Required: Misconceptions should be documented to be held by currently living people, or should be self-categorized as "old" (I also personally feel "and should not be joke entries designed to disrupt the purpose of Wikipedia.") I already welcomed such additional criteria, by the way, rather than arguments as to why 123 are inadequate. And as for this being a global list, it's on the English-language Wikipedia, a language which is understood by a minority of the world's population, so let's keep that in perspective. --Lexein (talk) 12:49, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary Break 3[edit]

For your opinion to have weight with the AfD closing editor, please bold "keep", and expand your discussion point, being mindful of Arguments to avoid. --Lexein (talk) 04:53, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So, tackle my challenge from 06:07 just above. HiLo48 (talk) 09:45, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Challenge was tackled and is defeated. It fails #1 and #3, since it links to a DAB page. If it linked to an actual article, that article would have to mention the common misconception with support by reliable source(s). It fails #4, since it does not assert that it's a current CM. It fails the hypothetical #5, because its sources do not support the generality or audience. I'm just about to add 1-5 to the top of the article (in hidden comments) and in full to Talk. --Lexein (talk) 03:27, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I'm not really tackling your challenge in the sense of trying to win some game and/or debate, but here goes, my thoughts as a long-time reader and beneficiary of the article in question: 1) contrary to popular belief clearly means the same thing as a common misconception, but it depends on whether this quote was taken out of context (i.e. if the author meant widespread in a particular academic community or widespread in the general population); 2) one reliable source has documented this, but I would personally (simply as an article reader) like to see other (preferably a minimum of three) sources that say the same thing; 3) this inclusion (and all others) could be greatly improved by requiring reliable sources that document a time and place where this belief is/was widespread. Note that this also answers the should this article just be the USA, Europe, etc. question. For example, I found the S. Korea fan death information fascinating, and would love to see each common misconception backed up with reliable sources stating: a) location(s) where this misconception is widely held, b) statistics regarding how common this misconception is, and c) how this misconception has changed and spread over time (perhaps due to the valiant efforts of Wikipedia and the like!). Will I get all that information? Of course not. But it might be a gold standard for inclusions to aim for. No matter what, when you get down to it, I love this article, I've recommended it to friends, and speak highly of Wikipedia for it. While I would love to see it be improved and can understand the frustrations here, I feel it would be a loss for Wikipedia to delete it. Lgstarn (talk) 10:05, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, how could we make your approach work? Right now, the introduction to the article is pathetic. It first makes the standard apology for a list of "...may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness", then says "This list describes fallacious ideas and beliefs which are documented and widespread as well as the actual facts concerning those ideas, where appropriate." And that's it. Straight into the list after that. So, we have yet another set of words for "common misconception" "Fallacious ideas and beliefs". We have absolutely no guidance for editors, despite those who claim the article has been using effective inclusion criteria for the past 18 months. They were pretty much a secret, as far as I can see. In this discussion we have a lot of words about what could be done, but nothing is actually done. Even you were reluctant to try to apply your proposed criteria to a genuine recent case. I wasn't throwing it up as a game or debate. I genuinely wanted to see someone convince me that their words could work in practice. As I have said several times, the reluctance to try just makes me feel more certain that the ideas WON'T work, because no-one wants to demonstrate that they can. Do you think we could add your inclusion criteria to the start of the article, and aggressively apply them to everything in the list? I suspect it would eliminate most of the existing material, and reduce future additions to almost nothing. HiLo48 (talk) 11:33, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with adding "Locale must be stated" criterion, to aid in grouping by section, but statistics and history of the misconception would belong in a linkable section in the original topic article, not this list (see #3 above). In my opinion. --Lexein (talk) 13:15, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't take my reluctance to mean anything at all. It's just that I don't want to invest too much into reiterating the same things over and over. Nothing personal. Anyways, to answer your questions, we could certainly put criteria for inclusion together at the top of the page, or at the top of the talk page. I would not remove most of these conceptions right away - I would add a "citation needed" or "original research" tag, and give them a month or two to be fixed. If they couldn't be - then they could be axed. You didn't say why in particular you think my approach won't work, except for misunderstanding my reluctance to do so. I don't see why it wouldn't, and here is the concrete road map to getting there: 1) keep the article, close the AfD discussion; 2) come up with a consensus criteria for inclusion (difficult, but not impossible by any means - Lexein has some good ideas), and put it on the top of the article or the talk section; 3) either delete the conceptions that don't fit right away and have people add them back, or give them a few weeks with tags as I suggest above; 4) elicit the help of the dedicated editors to enforce the criteria. Note the first step to moving forward with the article is ensuring its survival. Lgstarn (talk) 15:38, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You may feel that YOU have a valid reason to not try applying your ideas in practice, on a real example, but NOBODY has tried. What am I to think? There is no point putting editing guidelines on the Talk pages. A lot of the kind of editors this article attracts NEVER look at Talk pages. One can tell that simply by noting all the rubbish that has been added to the article, and then correctly reverted, while this discussion has been underway. Such editors rarely read instructions at all, wherever they are. I'm still very, very sceptical that a workable solution can be found. It certainly hasn't been demonstrated since the last AfD. HiLo48 (talk) 21:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, granting the fact that nobody has tried in the past, all it takes is a handful of bold and dedicated editors to go through the article and clean it up to meet certain, preferably consensus, standards. As I originally said, in my mind, the only real standard is that common misconception be determined by reliable sources, but as shown above each item can individually be improved in so many ways. If this article is adjudicated with keep resolution, let's take some of the complaints raised here and start a discussion on the talk page on how make this incredibly popular article as encyclopedic as it possibly can be. Keep is the first step in that process. Lgstarn (talk) 23:33, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So, if it's so easy to fix, why isn't anyone doing so? (And haven't for the past 18 months.) I really don't understand the lack of action (but a heck of a lot of talk) by the Keepers. HiLo48 (talk) 01:32, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A year and a half ago, I went through the entire list and I added reliable sources every item that was unsourced. Any item that couldn't be sourced was deleted. I understand that you want the inclusion criteria spelled out explicitly. We can do that, too. I've also proposed on the article talk page that we remove the notice asking readers to add more entries.[6] What else would you like to be fixed? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:50, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say it's easy to fix - but I did come up with a step-by-step road-map for fixing it. That should count for something. And for the final time, step one in my road-map is keeping the article. Why would anyone spend the hours upon hours necessary to fix this article if all of their work is in danger of being deleted? One step at a time. Lgstarn (talk) 02:37, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Many of the misconceptions proposed for that list are not misconceptions but disagreements about terminology. Some are even true. Others are so absurd that the claims of reliable sources that they are common can only be interpreted as jokes. There is no precedent that forces us to include such an article. This is not the idea for an article, it is the idea for a book. Books of this type have been written, but last time I looked no such book has been written on WikiBooks. Why not start now?
This silly list is taking up the time of a lot of editors. Supposed misconceptions about history, geography, politics, mathematics, medicine, religion etc. are being proposed all the time. Each of them would require an expert for verification, but a general article of that kind can't have experts on everything. The concept simply doesn't work here.
The list is not encyclopedic and does not work in practice. Hans Adler 16:27, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The claim of entertainment is false. Correction of false beliefs is just as important as the absorption of new knowledge by lesson or experience.
In your non-linked non-specific mockery and sarcasm, you have ignored the suggested 123 (now 12345) inclusion criteria proposed. The list should simply be RS article-based, not random-items based. Suggested inclusion criteria are #1(topic has article), #2(Com. Miscon. has sources), #3 (CM is in section in article), #4 (CM is current or labeled "old"), and #5 (sources support CM's generality, or list its population). These criteria directly disqualify your challenge entries above. Sources rule, sources establish notability, sources and their specificity should govern here. As for Wikibooks, let me be charitable and just say that it's not a viable solution.
--Lexein (talk) 04:10, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I think this article is perfect for wikibooks. It has some interesting points in there, and I can see it being an interesting task to work with for editors. Like pointed out elsewhere, it is not a problem in a book where you can have subjective editorial discretion. The inherent subjectivity of the term "common" will be a problem unless the only items that are included are based on specific surveys that can be tied to a specific number. When writers of books and newspapers and other Reliable Sources use the word "common misconception" (or words to that effect), I think they rarely do so based on a rigorous survey of a specified population; rather, they write it as en expression of personal opinion. A college professor for example, may state that belief X is a common misconception among freshmen because he receives a question about it almost every time he teaches a specific class. But what does this really mean? How "common" is it? If one student in an auditorium of 350 students asks a question almost every term, that may be the only people who held the misconception! There is no way of telling, and in casual sources it doesn't really matter: language is impresise but not useless. But when using that text as a reliable source to establish that "X is a common misconception" it starts to matter. Since "common" is inherently based on a subjective appraisal, this keeps me coming back to examples from artistic life: an article about a singer can not state "she is among the greatest singers of her generation" even though we have several RS stating those exact words or words that echo their sentiment. What can be done is to write "she has repeatedly been described as being one of the greatest singers of her generation [1,2,3,4,5]". That is fine for an article, it gives information and (in my opinion) brings flavour. But it would be nonsensical to have a List of the greatest singers of their generation.
If we decide to base the list only on actual statistics, then we need to define "common" as a specific probability. Whatever number would be agreed on (say, more than 50%) as constituting "common", this would be completely arbitrary. And if all populations are included it could lead to the inclusion of a misconception held by 60% of shoemaker apprentices over a misconception held by 40% of adult EU citizens. Does that make sense to anyone? Which is more common?
While I applaud the effort of the suggested Criteria 5 in trying to get rid of the time factor: things change. When is a misconception old or outdated? What if the agreed upon common-treshold is 25% and a misconception is held by 30% of Americans including their president. The president makes reference to the misconception in public, the media leap upon it in glee, and with all the excitement and media coverage, now the misconception is held by hardly anyone. Should we exclude it based on "nobody believes that anymore"?
Have we even adressed "difficult" topics here? It is a common misconception that homeopathy has an effect beyond placebo. It is a common misconception that prayer works. It is a common misconception that the existence of one or more supreme beings is more or less likely than the existence of a tea-pot in orbit around a distant star. It is a common misconception that human beings (and sometimes some animals) pocess "a soul" with a potential eternal existence.
Dr bab (talk) 06:34, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You bring up questions that get down to philosophical issues with language as a whole. Fortunately, we don't need (or want) original research on this subject: we want reliable sources (i.e. sources you are able to rely upon) that determine whether something is a "common misconception." Quite simply, if several reliable sources (e.g. the New York Times, Washington Post, and three published books) felt it notable enough to report that something is a common misconception, for the purposes of a Wikipedia article, it is. No need for statistics detailing at this exact second how many people hold that point of view, no need for philosophical musings on the word "common", no need for comparing shoemakers versus EU citizens, etc. This article is simply a practical place schoolchildren and others can come to see that, wow, "the great wall of China really isn't visible from the moon[1][2][3][4]" and dispel other commonly held myths. Your "difficult" topics are non-issues. Just how many reliable sources state that it is a common misconception that prayer works or any of the other topics you bring up? A quick search of the 543 results for "common misconception" "prayer works" on Google reveals exactly zero reliable sources that say this. So it seems to me the issue is solved, unless you can find a "difficult" topic that is quoted as a common misconception by reliable sources (in which case it is no longer difficult at all.) Lgstarn (talk) 07:56, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a plot-only description of a fictional work, a lyrics databases, an excessive listing of statistics, a news reports, who's who, a FAQ or a catalog. Can you please explain how WP:INDISCRIMINATE applies? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:19, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:BEANS, which WP:NOT explicitly points to. The list of examples there is not a list of all possible indiscriminate lists. For example, this part of WP:NOT can be used to delete the hypothetical article List of people under the age of 27 living in California or List of streets in London. This list is a violation of WP:INDISCRIMINATE because it collects information based on a highly nebulous intersection which is not, in its, a notable topic. Alternatively, rather than pointing to that subtopic, we could point to WP:NOTDIRECTORY, which states "Non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations," and arguing that "common misconception" is not an appropriate cross-categorization. Or we could just come back to the more general point, which is that Wikipedia is not here to list everything. I know that a concern raised above is that "unencyclopedic" doesn't have a definition, and, in fact, I agree. In fact, I would argue that, to some degree, what is "encyclopedic" is a matter of consensus. When someone adds a new fact to an article, and someone else finds it to be "unencyclopedic," the issue is hashed out the talk page until consensus is reached. When a whole article exists that some feel is unencyclopedic, we hash it out in an AfD. Like this one. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:58, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It looks a lot like a catalogue to me (point 7 of WP:INDISCRIMINATE). "More than the existence of reliable published information regarding specific items is required for inclusion." --hippo43 (talk) 01:01, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hippo43: Please don't take sentences out of context. The preceding sentence is "Wikipedia is not a stamp catalogue nor a database of collectables."
Qwyrxian: As has been pointed out by others, this topic has been the subject of numerous popular books, TV programs and even entire websites. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:29, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Quest, it's pretty clear those are two illustrative examples, and that section doesn't just cover stamps and collectables - the point is that Wikipedia is not a catalogue or database of items which happen to have something in common.
As for books, you've mentioned one - are there really a significant number covering this? --hippo43 (talk) 12:41, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, at least on the second two: Mythbusters covers lots of information, and they never prove that their subjects are "common misconceptions." Some of there's are, some of there's are just an excuse to blow stuff up. I've seen several shows and thought, "Seriously, there is no reasonable person that really thought that myth is true." Snopes deals primarily with what are called "urban legends," which, in fact, is a legitimate field with scholarly research on it. Furthermore, Snopes responds directly to the questions of individual readers, never verifying that the topic is common. I really am nailing down the point that "common misconception," as an intersection, is not a valid topic. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:12, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
...which is a great point. To the deleters: does the large amount of positive attention this article receives make Wikipedia better or not? Yes/no - circle one. (To wit: if you go to xkcd: http://xkcd.com/843/ and look at the mouse over comment, the time before this article existed is jokingly called "the Before time" and "Hell"). If you circled "yes," the fifth pillar IAR applies and all other discussions are moot. So, in my mind, you first must successfully argue that "no," the attention does not make Wiki better to succeed in arguing for deletion. Lgstarn (talk) 01:59, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: just to be clear, I believe that the positive attention for Wikipedia does, in fact, make Wikipedia better through goodwill and faith that ignorance can be overcome by our "little" collaboratively-edited encyclopedia. Lgstarn (talk) 02:37, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Edit to strike my comment that in not constructive to finding a consensus Wikipedia is not here to collect click throughs, if that were measurement of an "improvement" to the encyclopedia we should start including free porn, hosting trojan spam adds etc etc. Active Banana (bananaphone 02:44, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with Active Banana. Wikipedia is made better by having well-written articles on subjects of encyclopedic notabilty/quality/merit. I guarantee you we would increase our number of hits and the goodwill of viewers if we included game walkthroughs, directory information, and BLP rumors, all of which are expressly (and legitimately) forbidden. You can't, for instance, invoke IAR to say "But my new theory on transgalactic cosmic wankerdoodles is the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe, so it clearly improves Wikipedia, despite WP:OR." And that's been my point all along—it's not that this article is "bad" or "uninteresting" or "useless", it's that it's in violation of WP:NOT and/or WP:OR and/or WP:N, and as such, needs to be removed. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:12, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My argument is that, based on the fact that several independent sources praise this article in particular, the article serves to increase goodwill and faith in Wikipedia as a collaboratively-edited encyclopedia as a whole, which does improve Wikipedia. Porn, trojan ads, and game walk-throughs, on the other hand, while possibly increasing the number of clicks, do not and would not improve goodwill and faith in Wikipedia. Furthermore, if you agree that this article is "good", "interesting" and "useful," IAR should definitely apply. Lgstarn (talk) 03:38, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is already in the centre of attention and is getting a lot of goodwill. It's the smaller projects that are in need of getting some of it. I propose to move the article to WikiBooks (I assume they will have a use for it), and per WP:IAR leave a cross-project redirect. For many months the article has operated with the compromise that something can be included if and only if a reliable source explicitly calls it a common misconception. That's an extremely bad compromise because most reliable sources don't think twice before saying something like that. It's not a claim, it's an essentially meangingless figure of speech. We can't make a list of things based on whether something has occurred in a figure of speech. Hans Adler 08:14, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikibooks aside, "common misconception" is not always used only as a meaningless figure of speech. It is sometimes made as an explicit claim by a reliable source. For example, here is an example of a claim of a common misconception from a reliable source: http://traveltips.usatoday.com/description-great-wall-china-13938.html I'm sure you will agree this is perfectly fine under WP:VERIFY. To fix the issue you describe, simply include in the inclusion criteria that "common misconception" must be a claim, not used only as a figure of speech. In addition, let us not base our decision to delete this popular article or move it to another project with far less visibility solely on a "bad compromise" used in the past. Lgstarn (talk) 08:33, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A problem is exactly how to prove that a misconception is "common". What is the definition of common? Is it ok with a journalist's statement based on his or her subjective appraisal that "X is a common misconception"? Or do we need a statistical survey? If so, is 5% common or do we need 25%? Dr bab (talk) 07:54, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If a reliable source asserts that it is "common," that's good enough. Wikipedia has an article on Wonders of the World. There's no particular need to prove that the Statue of Zeus was, as a matter of objective fact, wonderful. 75.142.255.237 (talk) 07:58, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Precisely. Yes, it is okay to go with the subjective statement of a journalist from a fact-checking reliable source. If it wasn't, you would undermine all reliable sources as a whole and bring down all of Wikipedia because all language is ultimately subjective. Please see WP:VERIFY which states: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth; that is, whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true. (emphasis is mine) Lgstarn (talk) 08:03, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is different. The wonders of the world refer to things like the American Society of Civil Engineers' list of wonders which is fine, as it is a reference to that published list, and the article can state that "The American Society of Civil Engineers compiled a list of wonders of the modern world:[10]". The article does not attempt to include every item that has been named by an author or journalist as "a great wonder of the world". I suppose, if a teachers society or something, published a list of "the ten greatest misconceptions in the world" and that list became notable, then an article about that list would be similarly acceptable. How do you propose to keep out what, for a want of a better description, are the "uncommon misconceptions that are described as common by some"? If you don't have a solution to keeping out obscure misconceptions held by fractions of fractions of populations, then the list is indiscriminate.Dr bab (talk) 08:32, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm having trouble seeing any logic in the proposition that if an article is sourced from multiple lists of assertions (such as the American Society of Civil Engineers' list) it's okay, whereas if an article is sourced from individual assertions, it's not. That doesn't seem like a very reasonable bright-line test. As for your question about how Wikipedians should keep out misconceptions that are described by reliable sources as common when some editors believe them to actually be uncommon - well, I guess they'll have to do exactly the same thing they do when they're presented with any reliably-sourced information they don't believe to be true. It happens on pretty much every controversial subject, no? 75.142.255.237 (talk) 08:40, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I was interupted, so I did not have the time to phrase my last response as well as I had hoped. My point is that there is a difference between writing "This is the list of wonders of the world as published by The American Society of Civil Engineers [ref. to TASOCE]:" and publishing "These are the wonders of the world [ref. to TASOCE]:". It is similar to the example I gave above that you can write about a singer that "she has been described as the greatest singer of her generation [1,2,3,4,5]", but you can't write "she is the greatest singer of her generation [1,2,3,4,5]", nor can you create a List of the greatest singer of their generation. Dr bab (talk) 10:17, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I've ever seen an AfD discussion with more votes, sorry, posts, of the form "I like it" or "It's entertaining" or "It's a fun article". With support like that, this article hardly needs enemies. HiLo48 (talk) 08:39, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not to mention all the WP:IDONTLIKEIT votes. But the biggest problem is that so far, no one's been able to articulate a single, legitimate reason to delete the article. The complaints are full of sound and fury; signifying nothing. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 11:42, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The arguments to Keep contain lots of claims of things that can be done to fix the article, but none of those things have ever actually been done. HiLo48 (talk) 11:53, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hm. You complain about what hasn't been done, but have not discussed/agreed/disagreed with specific proposed improvements, including criteria improvements. The "win" isn't the just deletion of content from Wikipedia - the "win" is in improving Wikipedia by improving articles by being able to reach consensus either way. If you do or do not agree with the proposals, please say so. Are they valid? Necessary? Sufficient? Please be specific. Once you agree or disagree, you begin to participate in forming consensus for or against a particular proposal. By not answering, instead bringing up more complaints, this just stirs the pot and prevents consensus from forming. I don't care if consensus goes with me or against me! Just please do not block it from coalescing. But maybe I'm jumping the gun. I wonder if you simply did not notice that several "keep" people were (perhaps unboldly) politely proposing actual concrete improvements to the list, before boldly making those changes. Well, take a look at the hatnote and lead paragraph now. --Lexein (talk) 15:36, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean by 'ever'? This AfD is only a few days old. No one's been able to articulate any major problem with the article and the minor ones are being discussed.[7] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:02, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Several editors (yourself included I think) have spoken of the inclusion criteria allegedly in place for the past 18 months. They are not available to editors adding to the article today. HiLo48 (talk) 12:11, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Again, we can more explicitly state the inclusion criteria somewhere in the article or the talk page or where ever's appropriate.[8] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:20, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Done This has been now done. See the hatnote and lead paragraph. --Lexein (talk) 15:36, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that if the question is of 'fixing' something that it is not reasonable to expect the fixing to take place during the AfD-discussion. Demonstrating that fixing is possible should be sufficient to (at least temporarily) halt the deletion process. But my impression is that the people on the delete-side of the argument are of the opinion that the article can not be fixed, because there can never be clear, objective, meaningful inclusion criteria. Dr bab (talk) 12:08, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You lucky man. --Kizor 20:59, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Dr bab (talk) 10:18, 4 February 2011 (UTC) Facebook likes this".[reply]
Delete I don't envy the admin who has to wade through this. Welcome down to the 37kb mark, hope you're having fun. Anyway, the term "common misconception" cannot help but lead to WP:OR. If not, why is Common misconception a redirect to the list? Common is defined by the audience and this article is therefore a list of trivia. The article is one of my favorite on wikipedia, but it really isn't encyclopedic. Worm 12:21, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As long as we're sticking to reliable sources, no original research is required. But if there are any items on the list that contain original research, can you please point them out so we can fix or remove them from the list? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:39, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have an issue with any single items, but with the list itself. The information is a list of unrelated trivia. The concept of a "common misconception" is one that indescribable and totally subjective depending on the audience. Therefore, the reliable sources are being subjective and on this point no longer reliable. Worm 12:49, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that the argument that they're unrelated is valid considering that there are reliable sources on the topic in general. As for individual items, consider one that's currently being discussed for inclusion. One of the sources being cited, Geoffrey K. Pullum is Professor of General Linguistics and Head of Linguistics and English Language at the University of Edinburgh[9] and the work being cited is published by the University of Chicago.[10] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:18, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is not that the they are unrelated, but that they are related to an indefinable topic. I know there is a topic and the topic is notable, QI is pretty much based around it. But it's indefinable, a TV show or a book or a website can use their subjective choice on what they want to include. Wikipedia does not have that luxury. That article on Eskimo's words for snow was very interesting by the way, thank you for pointing me to it. Worm 13:42, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
QI is based on misconceptions common among its target audience (predominantly middle class British people). I've watched QI with English-speaking "foreigners" and they're utterly baffled by much of the Anglocentric stuff. This list has many items that are common only to specific audiences, because it does not have the global perspective an encyclopedia should have. The term is, in global reference, utterly meaningless. --Dweller (talk) 13:53, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How very provincial, that you assume only people from a particular small island nation are the intended audience. Edison (talk) 02:46, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Each section can use a different criterion as is used by scholars in each particular area. This is how all articles in Wikipedia are sourced and NPOV is achieved, after all; why should this list be any different? (This is true for sourced misconceptions. Trivia and unsourced ones should indeed be moved to a Wikibook). Diego Moya (talk) 16:05, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary Break 4[edit]

That the article needs a better inclusion criteria is not a valid reason for deletion: from the deletion policy WP:ATD "If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion.". As Diego Moya points out, every field can have a different criteria for "common misconception", so every topical section might have a different criteria, and those criteria have to come from reliable sources in the field and not from the personal ideas of editors. As Lgstarn points out, we don't have to make any arbitrary criteria to determine if something is "common" or not, we just follow the reliable sources that say if something is common or not; HiLo48's objections can be addressed by simply tightening the requirements on sources.
None of the reasons listed at WP:DEL#REASON have been met, and I don't see any compelling arguments for deletion apart from WP:IDONTLIKEIT (mind you, there are also several "!keep" happily arguing WP:ILIKEIT). So, I see a lot of !votes that are based in personal likes and dislikes, and not based in reliable sources or on the encyclopedic value of the topic; the closing admin should take care to give way less weight or no weight at all to those comments. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:37, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  1. A reliable source for a certain fact is generally not a reliable source as to the opposite being a common belief. I believe the source that was cited for the fact the US constitution was not written on hemp paper. But I strongly doubt the source that this is a common misconception. Indeed, the source doesn't really explain that. In fact:
  2. Almost none of the items in the list specify in what way something is a misconception (one exception: X% of americans think Obama is muslim). A bare assertion that something is a "common misconception", or the like, is insufficient. At best. At worst, it is a rhetorical device, which is why:
  3. It is important to be specific. Especially where the topic is controverisal, there are neutrality concerns here.
Perhaps some of the items could be salvaged. For instance "in history classes in US it is usually claimed that people at Columbus' time thought the world was flat and they were just going to sail off the edge [cite]". I'm making that up. I'm not sure that's true or that there is such a source for a fact like that. Indeed, I think very few of the items will be able to meet any sensible threshold for inclusion. Certainly as it stands now, almost none of them do, and it doesn't sound like this situation will change. --WTFITS (talk) 23:16, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My expectation, like yours, is that very few items will meet the new inclusion criteria. My intention is to apply them firmly. I suspect it will create confrontation. It will be an interesting exercise. HiLo48 (talk) 04:11, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Now that sounds ominous, doubly so since you just recently said that you "played a little game" with an editor that caused him to sink to personal attacks. Alert, my fellow Keep fans! We are being undermined! AWOOGA! AWOOGA! :P --Kizor 09:14, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I see. Well, it will be an exercise. But I'm afraid that we cannot add it to list of interesting exercises, unless you have a specific sense in which it will be interesting, and some reliable source to back up your claim, kthxbye. --WTFITS (talk) 04:28, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If it means anything, it may very well be the most interesting article on WP anyway — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheFSaviator (talk • contribs) 03:37, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Your dislike of the article aside, I don't see how it is inherently POV. Wikipedia:NPOV reads: "neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." The items in this article must be misconceptions that have been reported to be widespread according to reliable sources, and as such this article meets WIKI:NPOV. Or am I missing something from your argument? Lgstarn (talk) 05:14, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note that based on what I have noticed is a hang-up with the word "common" in the title, and how it seems to some to imply a value judgment, I have started a discussion on the talk page to rename the article to something along the lines of "List of notable widespread misconceptions." Your thoughts there are most appreciated. Lgstarn (talk) 05:36, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, the word "common" is problematic, in my opinion. "Common" has come to have a coloquial meaning along the lines of "frequently occuring", but this stems from its original meaning which relates to shared perceptions, that is, things we "have in common". While many of the facts are well-sourced in terms of their falseness (e.g., that the Vikings did not really have horns on their helmets) there is no adequate documentation to establish that these are ideas held in common'. I certainly do not mean to imply that every person on the planet need be aware of these misconceptions, but the English Wikipedia has become the de facto encyclopedia for the world, and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask whether such notions are commonly held among the Fulani or Hmong or even the "westernized" Japanese. The article is POV because it presumes that Western misconceptions are misconceptions shared by the world. That may be true, but I would like to see the evidence. HuskyHuskie (talk) 06:27, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is a item in the article about the widespread misconception in South Korea that leaving a fan on at night can cause death, so this need not be (and currently is not) just a list of Western misconceptions. Your point about anything able to be "shared" by the entire world is taken, and I agree if that was the intended meaning of the word "common" it would be in fact inherently biased. However, I believe as http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/common shows, that is only definition 2) of the word "common." Definition 4) is "widespread," which is the intended meaning. As the beginning of the article states, "this list describes fallacious ideas and beliefs which are documented and widespread as well as the actual facts concerning those ideas." Renaming this article to "widespread" makes this distinction explicit. That a misconception is "widespread" -- if it meets WP:NOTE -- is absolutely verifiable and NPOV. Lgstarn (talk) 07:23, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A couple of thoughts:
  • First of all, I didn't mean to say that the definition of common meaning "shared" was the only one acceptable, I only meant that its presence in the article title increases my level of discomfort with the whole article. Accordingly, switching it to "widespread" would be better. Still, how do we define "widespread"?
  • Will we include things that are only contemporaneously "widespread" misconceptions? For example, 80 years ago, it was believed in most of the USA, that circumcizing infant boys would reduce the propensity to masturbate. I daresay that this notion is no longer believed (nor cared about) by large numbers of Americans. Would you include it?
  • Speaking of circumcision, it is certainly a widespread belief across much of Africa and the Middle East that "circumcizing" a girl will reduce the chances of her committing adultery. I'm fairly sure that less than 50% of the world holds this belief, but it's likely that a supermajority of people in some of these cultures will swear by this practice, for this reason. Would you include this in the article?
  • And speaking of fan death--interesting that you chose this as an example of the article not being just Western in orientation--but given that fan death has its own article, it would seem to me to be quite unnecessary to list it here.
  • Which brings me to my last question (for the moment). What is the alleged purpose of this article? To inform? Whom? If someone believes these silly things, they probably won't be looking in an article listing "misconceptions", since they don't think that they are "mis" conceptions. If one does not hold these beliefs, what purpose is served by listing them here? So that we can laugh at the foolishness of others? I just think that anything here can be included in an article, or, if it is truly notable, given its own article. HuskyHuskie (talk) 08:04, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As with all Wikipedia articles, we defer to reliable sources. If reliable sources say that something is a "common misconception" (or some reasonable synonym thereof), then we include it. If not, we don't. It's not about laughing at others, it's just a matter of saying "reliable sources say this", which is (or at least should be) standard operating procedure here. 28bytes (talk) 08:14, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
1) As 28bytes said, it is not up to us to define widespread or even common misconception. It is up to reliable sources. Please see WP:note and the above discussion on it. 2) The inclusion criteria for the article currently say only modern misconceptions are to be listed. 3) Sure, the circumcising misconception could reasonably meet the criteria as long as reliable sources back it up. Again, the list is not and need not be only for Western misconceptions. 4) If your criteria is that if something that has its own article doesn't need to be included in a Wikipedia:List, then no lists of notable topics are needed on Wikipedia whatsoever. 5) The purpose of this article, like all lists, is to gather information. Since I'm guessing you missed it above, here is one person who finds the article incredibly useful in helping to educate his students: Wikipedia is the greatest thing ever Lgstarn (talk) 11:25, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • According to many American national newspapers [1,2,3], Barack Obama is a muslim, but in actual fact [4,5,6] he is a christian.
  • Many elementary school textbooks in both the US [1,2,3] and Europe [4,5] put forward the myth that Europeans in general considered the Earth to be flat prior to Colombus' voiage in 1492. Sailors and navigators of the time knew that the Earth was spherical, but (correctly) disagreed with Columbus' estimate of the distance to India, which was approximately 1⁄6th of the actual distance [6,7].

What do you think? Are there ways in which these criteria are not discriminate enough? Are they way too strict? I have also posted this to the talk page, under the "Renaming the article" heading. Dr bab (talk) 08:29, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. Yes, that idea, of providing refs for both the misconception and for its falsity is definitely an improvement. But now by bias is showing, because, despite the efforts of you and others to compromise, I can't help feel that this article is, conceptually, a piece of crap. I just don't see it belonging in an encyclopedia. But I also know that there's not a snowball's chance in Hades of getting it deleted, and I've just outed myself as unyielding in my opinion, so it's time for me to withdraw from the conversation. (This must be why, after four years, this is only the second or third time I've visited AFD. HuskyHuskie (talk) 10:49, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I support the idea of this list. However, I think the current criteria may be too weak. In addition/as replacement to your suggestions I think that the list may only contain entries that have been determined being notable for inclusion in other articles or that provide the basis for other articles. Nageh (talk) 08:45, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
With all respect, Nageh, I don't consider this to be, at its core, an issue of inclusionism vs. deletionism. I think I'm a relatively inclusionist guy. What I object to is the fact that I don't believe it's possible for this to ever evolve into anything more than a random list of inherently disorganized crud, infused with cultural bias and lacking in general utility. In other words, to use a term that is apparently a dirty word, it is not "encyclopedic". I know we're not paper, but neither are we yahoo news. HuskyHuskie (talk) 04:29, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think this issues can be resolved quite easily. This list may only contain entries that have been determined being notable for inclusion in other articles or that provide the basis for other articles. Nageh (talk) 08:41, 8 February 2011 (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.
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