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 speedy delete for all the reasons listed below — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Anome (talk • contribs) 00:18, 12 September 2011

Metadefinition[edit]

Metadefinition (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Whether it's original research/synthesis or complete nonsense is difficult to tell: it's so poorly written it's impossible to guess what a metadefinition is from it. The term is at best a dictionary definition, though more likely a neologism: a Google search turns up precisely one page, this one; a scholar search a handful of results, in each of which it seems to be defined anew each time. JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 13:03, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete, per proposer. OR/gobbledygook. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:07, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete: poorly written WP:OR by WP:SYNTH, with miscellaneous out-of-context quotes. There is a core WP:DICDEF from mathematics (more succinctly expressed as something like "a meta-definition or definition schema is a rule for producing definitions" [1]), but this dicdef does not need an article given the content already at metalanguage. -- 202.124.73.223 (talk) 13:33, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. 202.124.73.223 (talk) 13:35, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - more original research and synthesis. This term seems to have a meaningful significance in mathematics, as one editor has pointed out; but the author, in characteristic style, is trying to stretch this term to cover a vast array of fields it has seldom or never appeared in, to meet his/her goals of some kind of unified-field synthesis. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:22, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Barely readable original research. The references are a motley collection, from The Origin of Species to an academic journal about sexual abuse. Doesn't seem to focus on a single subject. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:35, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - pretentious and difficult to read. No clear subject or meaning. --S Larctia (talk) 14:53, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - I am the article's creator and substantial contributor. Google Scholar yields 498 hits for "metadefinition", that's notable by definition. The example regarding 'Liquid' demonstrates that it's not WP:OR and more than WP:DICDEF from mathematics. Marshallsumter (talk) 16:11, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Google Scholar yields 5,750 hits for "gobbledygook". AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:42, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Any two words in juxtaposition such as "of the" may not be an encyclopedic subject. "Of the" is in some 7,410,000 articles on Google Scholar, but is not on Wikipedia; however, gobbledygook is.Marshallsumter (talk) 18:54, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As I've said before in regard to this whole concept of yours, Marshall, what we've got here is "synthesis by Google": the raw appearance of two words (in this cases, a word and a suffix) together in different contexts does nothing to establish that the term means the same thing to all those using it. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:17, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - incomprehensible original research. LadyofShalott 16:25, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. LadyofShalott 16:28, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Above reasons plus it's so incoherent that it doesn't even say anything. BTW, the word is used only once in the reference list and in that listing it appears in a blue link and is italicized...at first impression it appears to be the title of the work but it isn't. The same thing is repeated in "for further reading" North8000 (talk) 20:41, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment If this article is deleted what should be done with the copy at User:Marshallsumter/Metadefinition? Edward321 (talk) 23:59, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • We have MfD for things in userspace. LadyofShalott 00:02, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Better question, what should be done User:Marshallsumter and the other articles he created in main space? Some of them look legitimate (to someone who knows very little about astronomy), but the series of articles currently on AfD cast doubt on those as well. —Ruud 09:44, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete OR nonsense. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:04, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete incoherent collection of random pieces of text. —Ruud 09:44, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Too much original research. Searches on Google, Google News and Google Scholar do not bring up anything useful. Most hits seem to use the term in a completely different way to how the article presents it. ItsZippy ^{(talk • Contributions)} 17:28, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Bollocks. Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:32, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete I commend the author on producing a lead paragraph unparalleled in its incoherence, but it's still nonsense babble, and seemingly OR. Bretonbanquet (talk) 22:05, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete- I have never seen so little content expressed in so many words. A comparison with this seems highly appropriate. Wikipedia is not a place for things that aren't actually about anything. Reyk _YO! 22:19, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Made-up word with no usage anywhere. Binksternet (talk) 23:13, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. This is an oddball collection of unrelated tidbits tied together with a string of postmodern-like incoherence. Deli nk (talk) 16:39, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Nonsense.AstroCog (talk) 22:25, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - One of the best nominations I've seen of late, right on the money: "Whether it's original research/synthesis or complete nonsense is difficult to tell: it's so poorly written it's impossible to guess what a metadefinition is from it. The term is at best a dictionary definition, though more likely a neologism..." Carrite (talk) 00:30, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. My compliments to the nominator; I agree with Carrite. bobrayner (talk) 15:43, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete WP:OR / WP:SYNTH. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:15, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong delete - I didn't understand a word of this. WP:SYNTH to boot. Linguogeek (talk) 22:04, 11 September 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.