Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Posthuman rhetoric

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Synthesizing information from diverse sources is exactly what Wikipedia is not for. Proto::► 15:39, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Posthuman rhetoric

Posthuman rhetoric (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Original essay, for a term which only gets 15 Google hits (and 1 in Google Books and 5 in Google Scholar). No sign that any significant number of scholars really use this term, and Wikipedia isn't the place to promote its use. Prod tag was added, but removed without comment by the article creator. Calton | Talk 23:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment See Talk:Posthuman rhetoric for the article creator's comment. Pan Dan 23:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per nom. I'm actually interested in information technology-related rhetoric myself, but there doesn't seem to be evidence that this term is in wide circulation. Some scholars may be excited about this but apparently there isn't much published using this term yet. Wikipedia should not be used as a platform for promoting new academic terms or other neologisms - to allows this would lead to conflicts of interest or even spam (see the disputes over Loughborough "colonization" (my term) of an article over at Global city for instance). Bwithh 02:34, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and cleanup and wikify. This is exactly what Wikipedia is for, to synthesize information from diverse sources. Its not a neologism if its been published, now its a word in use, although obscure. All the more reason to be here. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 02:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Being published may involve the public coining of a term, but it doesn't turn a neologism into a widely accepted term. Obscure terms may be notable, but not if they're so obscure that they have very little published material to back them up even in their own field. Neologisms constructed from synthesis (or out of whole cloth) are being made all the time - especially in academia, where a main activity is discussing concepts, critiquing them and forming new ones - and publishing them. That's a key way for academics to develop a reputation for oneself or one's research group. Not every published new idea is encyclopedically notable or even significantly influential in its own field however. Wikipedia is not for the promotion of new ideas, original research and neologisms. See WP:NEO. Bwithh 02:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - I found the article informative, enlightening, and consistent with other articles on Wikipedia related to posthumanism. That the human condition is beginning to blur is just another sign that we are approaching technological singularity. Wikipedia is supposed to be a repository of all human knowledge, with Jimbo being quoted on that issue many times. If someone comes across the title of a book with "Posthuman Rhetoric" in it, they may very well look it up on Wikipedia to find out what the heck that means. An article should be waiting here for them. Two of the scholars mentioned are notable in their fields, and all three are educators, which means they have students. If this article can help those students, then I'm all for it. Their reaction might be, "wow, Wikipedia has just about everything!" That's what being encyclopedic is all about. They may also see the value of collaborating through a centralized entity like Wikipedia, and join the community.  The Transhumanist   10:06, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is explicitly not an anything-goes project to include everything as per WP:NOT, just as other encyclopedias are not repositories of every kind of information and concept that has ever been published or mentioned. Rhetorical flourishes by Jimbo doesn't change that. Wikipedia is not a platform for promoting fledgling concepts (just as it should not be a platform for promoting fledgling political ideologies or commercial products), nor is it a personalizable educational whiteboard for local groups of students or a database of academic papers. Wariness about spam/marketing abuse of Wikipedia applies to academic articles as much as to commercial articles. Bwithh 03:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment This article needs to be translated into English. Since several people have voted keep, I'll assume that it isn't simply meaningless gibberish, but can someone briefly express this article's claim to notability? BCoates 11:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

It appears to be a copy and paste job from someone's class essay or thesis (or possibly a book or class handout) rather than a serious attempt at producing an encyclopedic article Bwithh 03:35, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

In addition, the article emphasizes that Posthuman rhetoric is "struggling to define a different kind of rhetoric" - well maybe (or maybe not) there would be a case for having this article once the dust settles and there's a less of a struggle to define the term itself? Wikipedia should not be recruited in this struggle however - its a conflict of interest. Bwithh 03:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• delete no original research and the the proper term is anti-humanist in this case. --Buridan 12:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

well, cyborg would be more of a neutral term perhaps Bwithh 03:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. The topic is encyclopedic. If there is some original research, it should just be edited to conform with NOR policies (that includes the name of the article). Maed 03:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Completely original research essay introducing this new term, which doesn't appear to be used by anyone else according to Bwithh's research. OR cleanup, in this case, means deletion. Sandstein 05:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete WP:OR, WP:NFT, fails the JSTOR test. ~ trialsanderrors 11:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

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.