Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Xenology

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 redirect to Astrobiology. Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 12:34, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Xenology

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I redirected this to Extraterrestrial life, which was contested by User:VaraLaFey here, so bringing it here for discussion. This page, as currently written, is essentially a list of ways various people have used the word "xenology", and I have little hope for there being more content until the field discovers something to study. 3mi1y (talk) 22:13, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. 3mi1y (talk) 22:13, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect, agree with the above. There is little use for a scientific field with no actual study. Baudshaw (talk) 22:49, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I appreciate you restoring it for discussion at my request. :-) But I can't agree with the notion that there's no reason to keep the page due to the field having not yet discovered something to study. That rationale is contradicted by the existence of entire articles for Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and String Theory, and for the section Hydrogen Ice Theory in the Oumuamua article. All of those fields and ideas - and untold more we could all find - are also situations where there are no tangible discoveries to study, but the ideas still deserve Wikipedia entries. VaraLaFey (talk) 22:52, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect, but maybe to astrobiology rather than extraterrestrial life. Or maybe also consider merging those two, since their content looks very close to each other. We certainly don't need a third content fork of the same topic at the nominated article. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:02, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm very new to Wikipedia editing, but atm I agree that some type of merge might be good. But xenology in this ET context is a social science which relates more to technological life than to natural sciences like astrobiology and exoplanetology. It's the same relationship as human sociology has to earthly biology or geology. Xenology would work in a merge with Extraterrestrial intelligence, maybe as a named section something like "Study of".

The current social, academic and governmental acceptance that ETI/"ufology" is worthy of serious study (as opposed to fantasy and tinfoil hats) means a new paradigm is organically developing. Basically a new file drawer where ETI studies like xenology, Xenoarchaeology, SETI and similar can be kept and referred to. I'm way too new to know how to implement it here, but at least in concept a category of ETI studies seems needed.

And btw, if it's even still an issue, xenoarchaeology and SETI are two more fields which are rightly included on Wikipedia despite not having any actual discoveries to study. There are a lot of such fields.

VaraLaFey (talk) 00:01, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What you describe is WP:FRINGE and per both WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV would need in-depth mainstream-science sourcing documenting its fringe nature to have a hope of being notable as a Wikipedia topic. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:28, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Of all the things I mentioned, which specifically are you calling fringe? And what do you mean by mainstream science sourcing must document its fringe nature? VaraLaFey (talk) 00:55, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect. There aren't sufficient reliable sources to support a separate article on this topic. What we have now are just mentions in science fiction novels and self published books. - MrOllie (talk) 13:00, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You're right about lack of sources. If it's going to be a redirect, it should go to Extraterrestrial intelligence.

VaraLaFey (talk) 13:18, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't agree with the few sources we do have, or with Freitas's original self published coinage. Extraterrestrial life is the better target. MrOllie (talk) 13:22, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be fine with a target of Astrobiology as well. MrOllie (talk) 21:19, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It agrees exactly with the sources you have. See my post below. VaraLaFey (talk) 02:38, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect - The lack of reliable sources supporting a standalone topic seems pretty much agreed upon at this point, but I did want to chime in on the redirect target itself. Given the scope of the articles in question, and through a reading of the lede paragraphs, I do think Astrobiology is the better target since it, like Xenology, is the study of Extraterrestrial life. - Aoidh (talk) 20:15, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Some of Xenology's paragraphs are inclusive of all life, and some are limited to intelligent life. Thus they all have intelligent life in common, and most have it as a common focus. This includes the terrestrial indology paragraph. Further, the root word's derivation also makes clear that intelligent life is the focus; the root is explained in the article as: "from the Greek xenos, which as a substantive has the meaning "stranger, wanderer, refugee" and as an adjective "foreign, alien, strange, unusual." Those overwhelmingly refer to intelligent strangers, as does the derivation "xenophobia". By far, the most fitting redirect is to Extraterrestrial intelligence. I can't believe that's even in dispute. You all have the power to redirect it elsewhere, but you will be incorrect. VaraLaFey (talk) 02:37, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I very strongly disagree with that argument. Xenology's lede makes it clear that it is "the scientific study of extraterrestrial life". The relevant article that most closely matches that is Astrobiology. Extraterrestrial intelligence would make for a very poor redirect target because that's not what Xenology is in any way, Xenology is the study of extraterrestrial life, not the existence of it in itself, whether intelligent or not is irrelevant. Astrobiology is similar to this article in that it is the study of extraterrestrial life, though it does have a broader scope. No other article more closely matches Xenology's scope, certainly not Extraterrestrial intelligence. - Aoidh (talk) 03:52, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Xenology's correct redirect is to Extraterrestrial intelligence or to some direct equivalent because all the Xenology article's examples at minimum include intelligent life, and the overwhelming majority of those examples focus on it. This is not a matter of opinion. 1) The lede includes intelligence. 2) The root "xeno-", both here and if you google it, overwhelmingly focuses on intelligence, as do numerous terms such as Xenoarchaeology and Xenophobia. 3) The article's "In science fiction" section cites societies; the Brin citation asks who is out there; the Orson Scott Card citation draws an analogy to Ethnology which studies people; the first paragraph ends by saying the term can also refer to fictionalized "alternative humankinds"; and the Strugatsky citation quotes a character as disputing the notion "that an alien race would be psychlogically human". 4) The In cultural studies section uses the word cultural, and in that section the Halbfass citation uses the term in context of "cultures". In the "In science" section, Frietas' proposal includes intelligence; and my own proposal - which I tried to describe neutrally, for which I declared my COI, and which nobody has complained about and is thus a valid part of the current article in question - cites my own 3rd-party published op-ed piece as a scientific focus on sapience - intelligence.

Those facts don't care if any other users or if all other users disagree. The intent and focus of the Xenology article is excruciatingly clear, and if it must be redirected, then equally clear is the propriety of redirecting it to Extraterrestrial intelligence or some exact equivalent, if one exists. I didn't like or want this redirect at all, but when user MrOllie pointed out the lack of notability for "Xenology" as a term and topic, I was honest enough to concede the point without a fight, and I expect the same from the rest of you. Please don't waste everyone else's time, like one user just did, by posting incoherent denialism transparently motivated by WP:IDONTLIKEIT. VaraLaFey (talk) 20:21, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I told you precisely why Xenology should redirect to Extraterrestrial intelligence, and I'm not interested in your WP:IDONTLIKEIT denialism. And since nobody has claimed that xenology is the existence of extraterrestrial in itself, your statement that "Xenology is the study of extraterrestrial life, not the existence of it in itself" is literally incoherent. It seems that you are just here to troll and to trigger people. VaraLaFey (talk) 20:22, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, the only reason no one is objecting to the inclusion of your piece (which is not published in a reliable source as Wikipedia defines them) is that we expect that the article will be redirected anyway. MrOllie (talk) 20:27, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's fair enough, if the article gets redirected fairly: to Extraterrestrial intelligence.

Also to be clear, my 2nd post above this was directed only to user Aoidh. I meant to place my long redirect as a new bullet point, but being new here I screwed it up. VaraLaFey (talk) 20:38, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully, when you cite "the facts" (which are a cherry-picked selection at best) and then give a summary of what you think those facts show, that is by definition an opinion. Your opinion is also not a compelling reason for why this article should redirect to your preferred target. An article that describes the study of extraterrestrial life, as this one does, should redirect to the article that is also about the study of extraterrestrial life. When I said Xenology is the study of extraterrestrial life I was literally quoting the lede of the article; if that doesn't make sense to you, that's unfortunately not something I can control. The study of a thing is not the same as the thing itself, just as astronomy is a distinct topic from something like astronomical object. Both xenology and astrobiology are the study of extraterrestrial life per their own ledes; that is the most viable redirect target available. Your entire editing history on Wikipedia has been as an WP:SPA who is singularly focused on advancing a viewpoint and promoting your own work, and the redirect target you're proposing is in line with the advancement of your editing history, but out-of-sync with Wikipedia:Redirect. - Aoidh (talk) 20:47, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My facts were not cherry-picked, they literally were an explicit point-by-point summary of the entire Xenology article as it currently stands, and I invite everyone to check this for themselves.

Your response included an ad hominem attack against my motive - an attack which btw is based on the only edit I have made in my days-old account - in place of addressing any point in my summary. So enough of your faulty distractions. Let's start addressing the actual points right now.

1) The lede: does it or does it not include intelligent life?

2) The root "xeno-": does it or does it not focus on intelligent life, both as a root and in many usages such as the two I cited?

Let's just discuss those before we proceed to the others. VaraLaFey (talk) 21:37, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's interesting that you say It seems that you are just here to troll and to trigger people and then claim an examination of your own behavior is ad hominem; unlike your unsubstantiated personal attacks, my description of your activity is based solely on your editing history. The arguments you have presented are not compelling, and the "intelligent" point you're trying to make is irrelevant as this is the study of extraterrestrial life in whatever form that might take, intelligent or not. Astrobiology is the correct redirect target for a topic that is the study of intelligent extraterrestrial life, your proposed target is not as relevant because again, the study of a thing is not the same as the thing itself, as those are ultimately two different topics. There's nothing more to discuss, you have made your arguments and nobody has agreed with them. You are of course welcome to continue making your point, but I will not participate in this discussion further as everything that needs to be said has already been said and I think it's best if we just agree to disagree. Take care. - Aoidh (talk) 22:03, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Since I posted my detailed point-by-point summary of why Xenology is focused on intelligence (as opposed to my earlier generalization), the only person who posted disagreement with that summary (as I type this) is you. Other users can speak for themselves if they join you in that disagreement. Also, your citing their disagreement is an attempt at argument from consensus.

You committed ad hominem when you cited my (lone and only!) edit as evidence of ulterior motive in place of a more thorough examination of my actual points - points which you are claiming to dispute. So I brought the specific points up for exactly that: more thorough examination. Then you find an excuse to run from the discussion, still without examining the points. I don't think this is supposed to function like Youtube comments, so if you believed you were correct, you could have said "no, and here's why....". But you didn't. So don't say my "personal attacks" on you are unsubstantiated at the very moment you are substantiating them.

To all of you: does this particular user, Aoidh, demonstrate the proper Wikipedia discussion tactics? I'd say no, so far as I've seen here.

VaraLaFey (talk) 22:58, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry that my last question above came off as an attack on that user. I meant to question whether that user exemplified generally accepted Wikipedia discussion standards, because if so, then I have to reevaluate my participation here in total. I didn't mean to be so crass as to evaluate any particular user in a comment I addressed to all of you. :-(

So far, I've disagreed with all of you about something or other, but I've not had much reason to question your standards. VaraLaFey (talk) 23:19, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We do our best to remain civil here, but sometimes one can't help but take the kid gloves off when somebody says something like It seems that you are just here to troll and to trigger people. The best advice I can probably give you at this point is covered here: Law of holes - MrOllie (talk) 23:30, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Law of Holes is fair enough. My new bullet post (whatever that type is called) hopefully explains my overall point about why the right redirect is important. I too would rather focus on that. VaraLaFey (talk) 23:41, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to make a new bullet point post here so other users don't have to follow my discussion with just one particular user.

I've already accepted that "xenology" isn't notable enough to have its own article, or maybe even to be listed as a proposed study of Extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI). My point about redirecting Xenology to ETI is that the overwhelming focus of the Xenology article is intelligent extraterrestrial life, as a specific subset of et life per se, and that Astrobiology is its superset. Thus I think it's reasonable that any user who searches "xenology" is either already interested in that subset, or is curious what the term means - and therefore should still be directed to the closest available subset: ETI. To redirect a user to the superset of ET life per se would deprive that user of the specificity they are searching for, or of the most closely related subject which would clue them in to the meaning of the term (presuming the "xeno-" root doesn't spell it out in the first place). That kind of deprivation is contrary to the purpose of any encyclopedia, this one included.

VaraLaFey (talk) 22:24, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Astrobiology. Right now, without actual samples to study, the study of extraterrestrial life is the search of extraterrestrial life. If at some point we found any, then we would have a field that studies what we found, and another that keeps searching; but we're not there yet. I also oppose the merge of Astrobiology and Extraterrestrial life, but simply because this is not the venue to discuss that (we are discussing Xenology here). Cambalachero (talk) 16:50, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, all extra-terrestrial studies are still in the search-for stage. But Astrobiology is a natural science and is a superset, while Xenology is a social science and is a subset. To redirect to astrobiology would be literally equivalent to redirecting Sociology to Biology. In both cases the focus on the activities of intelligent life would be lost, and it's that specific focus that a user is either already interested in, or should be told about if they're just looking up the term to learn what it means. Furthermore, xenology necessarily includes the verification or falsification of whether intelligent life is already visiting us here on earth, and there is credible (though not conclusively proven) evidence that it is - so in that sense science does have arguable samples to study. Neither SETI nor Xenoarchaeology nor any other long-distance search for intelligent life has even that much, and yet hopefully nobody would want to redirect or merge them into astrobiology. Which also doesn't have that much. VaraLaFey (talk) 21:46, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to astrobiology MaxnaCarta (talk) 00:08, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

n.b. Doesn't matter much now since approximately everyone thinks Astrobiology is a better target, but I'll explicitly say I now agree with that. Unsure why I picked extraterrestrial life in the first place; I may not have noticed the other one at the time. 3mi1y (talk) 03:42, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Passes WP:SIGCOV per the sources in the article. With several books and journal articles using this term with in-depth significant coverage, I'm not seeing a valid rationale under policy for deleting or merging the article. I'll note that none of the delete votes have actually engaged with the sources or provided any sort of analysis of the materials used to source the article. It's a reasonable topic, and the article is developed enough beyond the dic-def stage to warrant inclusion. Further astrobiology is a much broader field, and one could argue Xenology is simply a specialized field within Astrobiology (even if it is only theoretical). The same way we have biology broken down into Microbiology and then into Parasitology, Mycology, etc.; we can have overlapping conceptual fields.4meter4 (talk) 15:53, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Some brief encyclopedia/definition entries, a review of a book with the same name, and a Google Drive document are not compelling sources. - Aoidh (talk) 00:55, 18 October 2022 (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.