Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Friedman (unit)

Again, that's just one of many dozens of sound arguments for keeping this article, despite any doubts raised on first-glance. Eugene Banks 08:23, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Huffington Post may be a reliable source. However, the article that mentioned the term was about another subject and spent a total of three sentences on the term. As others have noted, that is not sufficient to establish that a neologism should have an article on Wikipedia. Croctotheface 11:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Also, just to clarify, everything that is "not original reserach" does not automaticlaly become notable. In order for a subject to have its own article, it must be notable. As such, your quote from
  WP:N, as others have mentioned, is being "the subject of at least one substantial or multiple non-trivial published works". I don't see a single published work, let alone a "substantial' or "non-trivial" one, of which the Friedman unit is the subject. It was mentioned in a trivial way (3 sentences) in a Huffington Post article. It was not the subject of that article by a long shot. It was apparently mentioned in passing in an Editor and Publisher article. Again, it was not the subject of that article. Where's the notability here? Croctotheface 12:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• Do not delete. I spent only 5 minutes googling this term, and what do I find: an interview on CNN TV, by Howard Kurtz no less, in which Tom Friedman himself is asked about his repeated use of the "six month" time-frame. No mention of Atrios. It is such a common notion that Kurtz doesn't even feel the need to name his source. He doesn't use the exact two words "Friedman" and "Unit", but there is no question what he is referring to: "you [Tom Friedman] were chided recently for writing several times in different occasions 'the next six months are crucial in Iraq,' 'the next six months.'" This article never should have been flagged in the first place. Eugene Banks 09:07, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Generally, whenever someone uses an "it must be" type of construction, it's because he or she believes something but recognizes that the sources don't actually support it. In this case, you're arguing that "there is no question" over what Kurtz is referring to, but if there were, why doesn't he mention it? Why do you need to hang your hat on the rather dubious notion that this term is SO notable that nobody even needs to use it? We're dealing with a neologism that currently has its own article, not a question of whether Friedman was criticized in a notable way over his repeated use of "the next six months" in relation to Iraq. I would agree that in the latter case that it is completely legitimate to mention that Friedman has been criticized. That could go, say, here:
  WP:N. Without notability, the term can't have its own article. Croctotheface 11:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • The main article on the Friedman Unit cites at least three print publications which cover the term in their articles. This meets the guideline of "multiple non-trivial published works." If you disagree, then please explain how these three publications do not meet the "non-trivial" standard. Davidhc 16:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Could you help me by pointing them out here? All the publications I see cited in the paragraph I assume you're talking about mentioned the "unit" in their blogs, except for E&P. Croctotheface 16:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Also note that the term must be the subject of multiple non-trivial published works. Even if The American Prospect or Washington Monthly mentioned the term in the print edition of their publications, and not merely their blogs, "mentioned in" or "used in" do not meet the standard of notability that I quoted. Croctotheface 16:23, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Let's see. An interview of Friedman. Lots of talk about "six months." No use of the term "Friedman unit." If I had seen that interview, would I have any reason to think that "six months" would equal "Friedman unit" or vice versa? If the term was not used in the interview, then the interview cannot in any way be used as an example of the term. Risker 12:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple non-trivial sources There seems to be a lot of confusion over examples that people bring up in discussion and the examples that are in the article. (If you have good examples of the use of the term, please add them to the article.) The sources currently cited in the article are:

• Editor & Publisher
• The American Prospect
• Think Progress
  (the official online publication of the Center for American Progress),
• Daily Kos
• Washington Monthly
• Huffington Post

If you want to delete this article, then you are going to have to prove why ALL of these sources do not meet the non-trivial guidelines (I would say most of them are way above the criteria for non-trivial). You can not just go on slamming the Huffington Post or examples that are not in the main article and then say there is no notability. Please stick to the text. Davidhc 16:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We've discussed E&P and HuffPo at length already, so I won't repeat those arguments again. Daily Kos is a blog. The American Prospect citation is from TAPPED, the publication's blog. The Washington Monthly citation is from Kevin Drum's blog, which is published on the WM's website. In your last comment, you said that "three print publications...cover the term in their articles". In fact, this coverage is from blogs, which is not the same thing, per WP:Reliable sources. Besides that, these blogs just use the term, which is enough to satisfy inclusion in Wiktionary, but not here. You have yet to show that the "Friedman unit" is the subject of multiple non-trivial published works. Croctotheface 16:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for acknowledging that the term Friedman Unit is covered in all of the sources listed above. Please also note, that as explained above in the discussion, the wikipedia guidelines do not exclude blogs. So please explain to me why this article is up for deletion? Davidhc 17:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Per official Wikipedia policy

WP:A, blogs are self-published and therefore cannot be reliable sources. I'm not sure which Wikipedia guideline you are referring to. — Kelw (talk) 17:33, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

WP:SPS. Kevin Drum's blog, for instance, may have a sufficient pedigree to source content, though even something like that could very likely lead to disputes. However, something can be sufficient to source content within articles and still fall well short of establishing notability required for a topic to have its own article. I'd recommend rereading all the policies and guidelines at issue here if you're still a bit unclear about the difference. Croctotheface 17:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

Do not delete, do not merge, do not blank. Croc, firstly, you seem to be engaging in the following style of argumentation: You make argument X. Opponents make arguments A, B, and C. You then conclude "We've already discussed X," trying to get the last word while ignoring the previous discussion. (And if X is rebutted, you then add argument Y.) WP:Reliable Sources concludes: "This page in a nutshell: All material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source." This has been done, with

Friedman unit, many times over. Additional sources keep being added -- I just added CNN

(see above). The fact that E&P has an article with FU as a subject is really all a WP article needs as proof of reliable sourcing and non-original research. (Perhaps a definition of "subject" is in order? Wiktionary: "Subject: 1. In a clause: the word or word group [usually a noun phrase] that is dealt with.") You keep raising the bar on this article as to what a reliable source must be. (Now it seems you're saying it must be the only subject of an article? That's ridiculous. Or perhaps only appearing in a mass-circulation magazine? But E&P is far more notable and credible than e.g. Time Magazine. Each time you ignore new evidence and previous arguments I suspect you are surreptitiously engaging in POV.) The fact that HuffingtonPost is a highly credible online source (whose authors and editorial process are better than most print outlets) also stands alone as sufficient sourcing. (Perhaps we should examine the credibility of journalists and editorial process in other sources frequently used on Wikipedia; the Washington Times comes to mind immediately.) On a whim I just Googled and discovered that the FU concept has been picked up in French, as well, e.g. "Ca vaut les six mois de Friedman pour un dénouement en Irak." The fact that there are many sources for Friedman Unit (including the others cited elsewhere, Kevin Drum, CNN, Washington Monthly, etc.) casts doubt on your willingness to engage in reasonable discussion.

Secondly, part of the confusion may be a philosophical difference. What is important is the

Friedman unit" is the concept (including the never-ending series of six-month projections about war that are forgotten as the period ends, and the widespread uses of this concept which needs to be demonstrated by examples). Thus, the fact that Kurtz on CNN did not use the 10 letters (a, d, e, f, i, m, n, r, t, and u) rearranged to spell "Friedman Unit" is truly not important. There is no doubt that Kurtz, interviewing Friedman about the latter's repeated use of a never-ending six-month horizon in regards to the Iraq war, is discussing this concept. Critics of this page may be more Aristotelian in outlook, but there is room on Wikipedia for articles of both types, and measuring up to one approach or the other is not grounds for deletion, merging, or blanking. Being overly concerned with minutiae and detail about guidelines is not helpful for Wikipedians, especially when combined with a tone that is perceived as condescending, even if it is not being used as a cloak for POV. Eugene Banks 18:05, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

To your second point: what is important, per

WP:N. Croctotheface 18:16, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

Also, I'm going to ask you to chilll out a little bit regarding the tone of some of your comments. I don't think it's really productive to accuse me of being a POV pusher or accusing me of moving the goalposts or anything of that nature. These type of comments, per

WP:CIVIL, are generally not considered productive for discussion and establishing consensus. Croctotheface 18:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

The Editors and Publishers article is a reliable secondary source about the term, it is not an article that simply uses the term. Davidhc 18:34, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If the text I found through a Google search here is accurate, then this is an article about the concept of Friedman repeatedly saying "the next six months" that mentions the term in one sentence, but it's not an article about the term. Croctotheface 18:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for finding the full text of the article. This full article definitely confirms as a secondary source that the Friedman Unit is an accurate and correct term for describing the use of the phrase "The next six months" in the style of Thomas Friedman. As you can see, the article starts by presenting the term "the Friedman Unit" in the opening paragraph, explains how it applies to the use of the phrase "the next six months", and makes a special note that the word did not originate in the article itself. This is what a secondary source is supposed to do. Davidhc 19:27, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but the article is about Friedman and his procilvity to talk about "the next six months", not the term. The article MENTIONS the term, but it is not ABOUT the term itself. Basically, the Wikipedia article covers the term in far more detail than any other source. This should simply not happen. One sentence in E&P, three sentences in HuffPo...that's just not enough for an encyclopedia article. I'm actually inclined to agree with you that "Freidman unit" is a meaningful phrase with descriptive power and so forth. However, that in itself does not merit a WP article. The term can be covered in Atrios and at Wiktionary to the same effect. Croctotheface 00:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The E&P article is about the Friedman Unit, it talks about nothing but the Friedman Unit, in fact the article proves that the Friedman Unit was not a "one off" event because the main body of the article is on how Thomas Friedman continues to use the Friedman Unit. This article in combination with the other references given meet the criteria of "multiple non-trivial sources". Please see my next entry. Davidhc 21:23, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article is legitimate as determined by the wikipedia guidelines and so it shoudl be kept. The "multiple non-trivial sources" given in this article prove that this article is a legitimate entry in Wikipedia. Wikipedia guidelines do a good job of making sure that articles are not hoaxes or inventions of their editors or made for the pure purpose of pushing neologisms that are not already widespread (by that I mean a neologism that is an invention of the editor). The Friedman Unit is a fact that exists outside of the context of this article, as the sources given in the article prove, and this article does an excellent job of presenting an encyclopedic summary of that fact to the general public. There is nothing more that you can ask of an encyclopedia. Davidhc 21:23, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Again, the E&P article mentions the Friedman Unit in one sentence and then talks about a different subject. As other editors have already said many, many times, that is simply not enough to meet

WP:NEO. — Kelw (talk) 23:03, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

• Keep for now: if you merge with
  Thomas Friedman. The 'next six months' phenomenon in Friedman's columns is notable and supported by multiple non-trivial sources, dating from the original FAIR article. If editors are prepared to migrate discussion of the phenomenon to the Friedman entry (where it currently has an 'original research' tag) then discussion of the 'Friedman Unit' neologism can be migrated to the Atrios entry with an appropriate cross-reference. But I think the Friedman merge cannot be ignored, and has to occur at the same time, because the 'next six months' phenomenon is not limited to discussions by Atrios. Holgate 22:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• Strong keep - While blogs might not be reliable sources in general, they are precisely what is needed to establish the usage of a neologism. If you take a walk and every third person you meet uses a particular neologism, it doesn't matter if the people you've met are experts on the subject the neologism is part of, or whether they are experts on usage, or whether they even properly understand the word or are using it correctly. What matters is that their very use of the word establishes the diffusion of the neologism into the general population, which is really the point. So, if a lot of different blogs are using "Friedman unit", then the word is in usage, whether or not the bloggers understand the first thing about Iraq or Thomas Friedman. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) 14:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's a dictionary's job,
    not an encyclopedia's, to document usage of words. Pan Dan 16:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    • It is, however, an encyclopedia's job to provide background on what it means, where it came from, what provoked its coinage, who coined it, the spread of its use, debate about the meaning, etc. etc. etc. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) 01:03, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Last night I went through the first 500 google-hits on the term "Friedman Unit." Out of that 500, there was exactly one link that constituted a

Thank you for acknowledging that there are reliable sources for this article. Please see my own test results below. Davidhc 17:17, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

An experiment: This may seem like overkill, but I ran a quick test of my own because this is an issue that is important to ALL entries in wikipedia. I ran three variations of google searches for the Friedman Unit to see how it faired alone, with, and without wikipedia in the search criteria using the search terms:

1) "Friedman Unit" 2) "Friedman Unit" wikipedia 3) "Friedman Unit" -wikipedia

The results were as follows:

Friedman Unit alone: 259,000 (Wikipedia entry was first hit) with: 587 without: 261,000

(NOTE: if you run Friedman Unit without the quotes you get over 1.5 million hits)

To get a random sample of wikipedia to compare it to, I hit the "random article" link five times and did the same test on the pages it gave me. The results were as follows:

Thottiyam alone: 546 (wikipedia first hit) with wikipedia: 92 without wikipedia: 510

Yamaha DX7 alone: 127,000 (wikipedia 3rd hit) with: 963 without: 118,000

Enfield Town F.C. alone: 559 (wikipedia 3rd hit) with: 226 without: 508

As you can see, ALL the entries came up with wikipedia in the top 10 hits. Also, the Friedman Unit has by far the best ratio of with to without than any of the five random entries, which means that by the argument given above, we would have to delete ALL of these entries, and I am sure many more. The reason wikipedia shows up is not because of the popularity of any given article, but because of the popularity of wikipedia in general. When people want a source to link a topic in their web page, they link to wikipedia. All the copycat sites know this, and so they farm off the wikipedia entries to get traffic. Hence there is a big difference between a site that mirrors the wikipedia article and someone saying "as defined by wikipedia" in their web page. Making the argument that a wikipedia page is somehow pushing a neologism only applies if that term does not exist anywhere else but in wikipedia. The multiple non-trivial sources given in the article on the Friedman unit prove that the term is in wide use without the help of the article. Davidhc 17:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As another editor already mentioned, counting Google hits is not research. Do you have any "reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term — not books and papers that use the term" to satisfy the standard set at

WP:NEO? Please recall that the "six month phenomenon" that the term describes is NOT the same thing as the term itself. So far, all I can see that you have is three sentences from HuffPo and one sentence from E&P. Where's the beef? Croctotheface 21:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

I'm sorry Croc if you got confused. If you scroll up a bit, then you will see the comment that I was responding to. But thank you for repeating the fact that google hits alone do not insure notability. I didn't feel it was necessary to repeat that fact in order to refute the claims of neologism that I was responding to, but I guess it would have been sufficient. Still, when you read the comment I was responding to you will see that Risker in his google search gave further confirmation to the fact that one of the references listed in the article is in fact a "reliable source." Davidhc 00:56, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're not actually responding to what I asked. I asked if you know of a reliable source of which the "Friedman Unit" is the SUBJECT. That is, not merely mentioned or used in the article, but article itself is ON the "Unit". Not on Friedman or his proclivity to set arbitrary dates in the future, but the actual neologism that we're talking about. It is my contention that I have yet to see a single reliable source that is ON the Friedman unit. I've seen a one sentence mention in a reliable source. That does not establish notability. Do you know of any reliable sources of which the "Friedman unit" is the subject? That is, if you asked the author of the piece what it is about, he or she would likely say, "well, this is an article about the Friedman unit"? Croctotheface 01:46, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That strikes me as an overly stringent interpretation of 'reliable sourcing', and ignores the multiple non-trivial standard that has already been demonstrated. Nowhere do the guidelines on

Friedman unit

is not the subject of reliable sources as cited in the article, it's Talk page, and above. For example:

• It is a significant subject of the E&P article, as Davidhc enumerated above: "The E&P article is about the Friedman Unit, [...] in fact the article proves that the Friedman Unit was not a 'one off' event because the main body of the article is on how Thomas Friedman continues to use the Friedman Unit." It would, of course, be very difficult to write an article on it and not "mention Friedman and his proclivity to set arbitrary dates in the future," as E&P did, so of course those subjects are present as well.
• The online magazine
  Huffington Post
  , a reliable source (as documented above), deems the phrase "Friedman Unit" to be the best new phrase of 2006.
• The phrase is a also significant subject of the CNN interview; even if the exact phrase itself is not used, Kurtz is clearly asking Friedman about the concept.
• An online column (not a blog) for The American Prospect notes that "Friedman has become justly famous for the Friedman Unit -- a 6-month, endlessly renewable time period that will prove critical for Iraq."
• As noted above, the guidelines' caution on use of blogs as a source is not absolute. And in this case (as discussed on the Talk page and here), there are good reasons why one might also consider blogs (such as DailyKos or the thousands of others that use the term) as "multiple non-trivial sources'. Namely, the concept FU contains within it a critique of traditional media (for a lack of critical reporting on the Iraq war early on), hence its widespread usage in informal circles as well as the reliable sources documented above.
• While Google is not a reliable research source, on the other hand at some point in establishing the widespread usage of a term, quantity has it's own quality, and 250,000 hits for "Friedman unit" should not be ignored.

Etc. Twedle 06:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you disagree with the guideline, that's fine, but it's unambiguous here.

WP:NEO says, "To support the use of (or an article about) a particular term we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term — not books and papers that use the term." The word "about" is italicized WITHIN THE GUIDELINE. Some people here seem to be operating as if WP guidelines and policies say something like "if a topic is mentioned at all in any reliable source, it should have a Wikipedia article." That is not the case. Croctotheface 13:19, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

Keep. Yes, and as discussed above, the cited articles are about the term (as well as other subjects). "Some people" is an unrefutable charge. "as if... something like... 'topic mentioned at all in any reliable source'" --

sarcasm is not constructive. Btw, the page on neologisms is simply an ongoing discussion of possible guidelines. There are four higher levels of policy and dozens of other guidelines. At the top, see for example the Five Pillars of Wikipedia. Below that, see the Simplified Ruleset of 15 rules. Below even that, see the Wikipedia:List of policies with 42 policies. Where "neologism" fits is one section below even that, under "No Original Research," for which the main policy is: "Articles may not contain any unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, or ideas." FU clearly fits this overarching policy. And within WP:OR, the emphasis is on attribution: the guidance is only against neologisms "without attributing the neologism to a reputable source." The roots of the Neologism page, which is one layer further down, stated: "Wikipedia doesn't accept fan-made neologisms unless they have realistic evidence of existence via search engine hits (e.g. Google)." This was strengthened to weed out editors who created a term on their own blog, then -- with no little other adoption of the term -- promoting it within Wikipedia. Although a few Google hits to random blogs set up by just anyone are no longer seen as a reputable source, FU goes far beyond this. BipDeBop 17:26, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

Keep. It's out there, it's in use, it's a popular concept. I don't understand the urge to strip Wikipedia of articles. Nor do I understand people who contribute to an online encyclopedia that anybody can edit turning up their noses at blogs. Vidor 04:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry about people slamming blogs. In general its a good guideline to have as it prevents people from pushing their own ideas and then backing it up with their own blogs. Also, in the current case of the Friedman Unit, it has all the references it needs to meet the criteria set out in the guidelines, so people can go on slamming blogs all they want, it won't make a difference. Davidhc 06:48, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - The article cites many cases of people saying things will happen in 6 months, 3 months, 6-9 months etc. It cites no use (except by a blogger) of the term itself. If some one can come up with a citable use of the term 'Friedman unit' itself, they should do so and add it to the article. Otherwise it is a mere neologism. Peterkingiron 13:35, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect, these issues (usage, citations, reputation of online magazines, role of blogs) have been addressed above. BipDeBop 19:14, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Re: neologisms. Since this seems to be the main focus of requests for deletion, I've synthesized some of these points here, with minor improvements/ clarifications/ rejoinders. I hope this is OK with others. (My apologies in advance if not, I'm not trying to claim credit for these, nor put words in the original commenters' mouths, nor just repeat them. I'm trying to move the discussion forward.) BipDeBop 19:14, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

1. The neologism rule is in place to keep people from using Wikipedia to coin a term. In the case of the Friedman Unit, the term is already widely used without the help of this article. While the google test does not assure notability of a term, the many and varied hit results for the Friedman Unit show that it is widely used by millions of people. (User:Risker asked for a reliable source on the estimate of "millions." An appeal to logic: with 260,000 Google hits for FU, including a number of widely-read online magazines and blogs, it is reasonable to conjecture that on average each hit was read by at least 8 people, thus two million is a reasonable working estimate for purposes of discussion.)
2. Wikipedia guidelines do a good job of making sure that articles are not hoaxes or inventions of their editors or made for the pure purpose of pushing neologisms that are not already widespread (by that I mean a neologism that is an invention of the editor). The Friedman Unit is a fact that exists outside of the context of this article, as the sources given in the article prove, and this article does an excellent job of presenting an encyclopedic summary of that fact to the general public. (The E&P article does not just "mention the Friedman Unit in one sentence and then talks about a different subject," as discussed elsewhere.)
3. What matters is the widespread online use of the word establishes the diffusion of the neologism into the general population, which is really the point. (The article goes on to provide far more than a mere dictionary definition.)
4. Making the argument that a wikipedia page is somehow pushing a neologism only applies if that term does not exist anywhere else but in wikipedia. The multiple non-trivial sources given in the article on the Friedman unit prove that the term is in wide use without the help of the article.
5. Please also note the the restrictions on neologisms are designed to prevent the creation of new terms through Wikipedia, not describing existing uses (from secondary sources). This article does not "define or introduce new terms or provide new definitions of existing terms," it simply reports on an existing neologism with widespread adoption. "Articles that use neologisms should be edited to ensure they conform with the core Wikipedia policy: Wikipedia:Attribution," which this article does. The primary source for the term was (it seems) Atrios. The secondary sources include the Editor & Publisher article, and references in the journals listed in the article. This page is a tertiary article.
6. WP's VfD/AfD process has been horribly mangled, if not outright broken, for quite some time now, as people move beyond the entirely laudable goal of culling vanity cruft and spam to grind all of the sharp points off of articles at the edge of Wikipedia — precisely those articles where Wikipedia is most useful, IMHO, in that one can find plenty of good information sources for "Yugoslavia" or "Aaron Burr", but not so many good information sources on, say, Kazu Kibuishi's Copper. I think that "Friedman Unit" is squarely within the ambit of acceptable articles for Wikipedia.
7. Trying to squelch a legitimate new term is as much an abuse of "avoid neologisms" policy as is trying to promote a not-yet-accepted term. (Perhaps someone should revise the neologism policy to reflect this. As Bryan pointed out, WP guidelines are in a state of flux, especially on WP:ATT, WP:RS, WP:OR, etc.)
8. While it is true that "other crap exists" is not a valid argument unto itself, it is also true that guidelines emerge up from the consensus of editing on other articles. In the context of all the arguments for (and against) this page, consider why is
   controversial
   , or political usage, while allowing neologisms relating to technology or the Internet.

BipDeBop 19:14, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I'm no longer going to attempt to engage in the specifics of the debate here. If editors are going to insist that an article that mentions a term for one sentence is "about" the term, I don't really think that there's much hope for arriving at any kind of common ground. It seems to me that most of the arguments in favor of keeping amount to "it's important" or "I like it", which, obviously, are not the same as notability. I want to repeat, for probably the second or third time, that any and all relevant information about this term can be presented at

When I originally merged I used the following arguments. I consider them still to be valid and I still think the article should be deleted and a summary merged with Atrios.

• The Friedman Unit is undoubtedly a neologism. The source is recent and known. Secondary sources almost invariably use the same primary source, Duncan Black's weblog.
• While the page makes note that such things must be referenced,
  WP:NEO
  specifically mentions page intended to track the growth and adoption of neologisms as an example of infringing articles. it should be noted that this is the primary purpose of this page.

• Few if any of the "sources" listed in the main table have ever heard of the term "Friedman Unit", let along used it themselves. Using them as "references" for the
  WP:SYN
  .

In addition, and importantly:

• Practically all of this is taken from sources Black has linked himself. In essence, it's just a distillation of a bunch of Eschaton posts.

There are far better places for such research than Wikipedia.

This really belongs in either list of political epithets or in the Atrios article for these reasons. An expansive article on the term is unwarranted and really not greatly suitable for an encyclopedia.

Chris Cunningham 14:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Croctotheface, Risker, and Dhartung for changing your position from delete to keep with edits. If there is now a consensus to keep the article, then I think it is time to end the deletion debate and move back to the normal editing discussion on the article's talk page. If you would like to edit the article, however, please refrain from deleting large sections without reaching a consensus through the proper discussions. Davidhc 17:13, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have most certainly NOT changed my position from delete, and you know perfectly well that is the case. Regardless of the merit of an article, I personally feel if I am going to to take a position (whether keep or delete) at an AfD, then I have accepted an obligation to try to improve the article. The fact that the three of us have all deleted the original research from the article, only to be reverted with tags such as "vandalism," makes a mockery of this process. I have retitled this section because the former title borders on

NPA, and at minimum is beyond presumptuous. Risker 17:52, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

I thought this was pretty bizarre as well. Croctotheface's last comment was a belief that the best result would be a merge and last edit was a removal of the contentious table. How this can be construed as a U-turn is beyond me. Chris Cunningham 18:01, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My position is very much for delete with redirect to Atrios. This comment from Davidhc strikes me as very, very strange. Croctotheface 18:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's clear at this point that there is no consensus to either delete or keep. With some improvements and judicious content decisions, this article should be a keep, especially in light of the multiple reliable sources cited as using the term. Bill Oaf 01:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Don't Take the law into your own hands We have not heard back from Dhartung, but if you all are still strongly for deletion, then your efforts to erase large sections of the article currently under debate in the absence of any consensus over those sections, can only be interpreted as having the intent to override the AfD procedures. It is important to note that there was no "editing" involved, only "white blanking" whole sections of the article along with their external references. Once more, the table section that was deleted was not debated in these pages. Much of the debate centered on the references in the body of the text, not the table. If you have issues with the table, then I suggest that we end the deletion debate and move back to editing, or that you debate the contents of the table in this discussion, and keep pushing for deletion. However, if you want the article deleted, then you are going to have to either wait for a consensus, or wait for an administrator to weigh in, as specified in the discussion guidelines. You can not take the law into your own hands and start deleting the article at your own discretion while a debate is ongoing. This is not my opinion, this is simply following the guidelines of a discussion. I am going to restore the article so that it can be debated properly without censoring the very text that we are supposed to be debating. Davidhc 20:50, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is common practice during AfD discussions to edit the article. In most cases, these edits serve to improve the article and often help the case of those seeking to keep. It seems that your declaration that by editing the article, I was somehow "changing my position from delete to keep" was an attempt to use this AfD discussion to make a

WP:POINT. Instead, I was making an edit based on the fact that I saw basically nobody, regardless of their history with the article or opinion on whether it should be kept or deleted, defending the inclusion of the table that I deleted. I also want to note that this is not a discussion over whether to delete certain bits of text in the article, but rather whether to delete the whole thing. If this discussion is closed as keep or no consensus, that would not be an endorsement of everything within the page. This case is a content dispute. Your leveling accusations of "vandalism" (in edit summaries at the page), "blanking", and "censorship" do not add to the discourse here. Your assumptions of bad faith do not aid the goal of reaching a consensus about what is best for Wikipedia. Croctotheface 21:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply

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Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly, as you are doing in

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.