Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Crank (person)

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 Wikt:crank. While it is true that AfD is not for cleanup, if none of the content in an article is viable, removing it has clear basis in policy. As such this discussion does not preclude a future article on cranks or crankery if built on sources discussing the topic as a whole, but the argument to redirect to the dictionary entry has clear consensus here. Vanamonde (Talk) 01:53, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Crank (person)

Crank (person) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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This article has several major issues:

1) Scope: The opening sentence implies that the article is about the term crank, not the people to whom the term is applied, but in fact the term only gets a very brief treatment in the "Etymology" section – the remainder of that section deals with the etymology of crackpot and kook, and the rest of the article discusses characteristics of "cranky" beliefs.

2) NPOV: The article begins by telling us that "crank is a pejorative term", and then proceeds to continually use the term as a label, with such statements as "Perhaps surprisingly, many cranks may appear quite normal".

3) Sourcing: The majority of the article is unsourced, and the sources that are present do not all provide verification. (For example, footnote 6, "An Editor Recalls Some Hopeless Papers", is a review of a particular set of mathematics papers, whose authors are not referred to as cranks, which is used as a source for the sweeping statement that "cranks tend to ignore any previous insights" etc.) The most heavily sourced section is "Crank magnetism", but half the sources in this section are blogs and dead links, and the other half don't contain the phrase "crank magnetism" (or even "crank").

There may be a notable topic here – either the term crank, or the concept of "crankery", or both – but I don't believe there is any content in the current article worth preserving. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 18:08, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Language, Science, and Mathematics. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 18:08, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Whatever problems the article has, deletion isn't the fix for them. Crankery and crackpottery has been written about extensively over the decades (compare pseudomathematics). Any issues with sourcing or tone can be addressed through ordinary editing. XOR'easter (talk) 01:06, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I do think that renaming to crankery with more focus on the beliefs than the work "crank" would help make the article more encyclopedic. (t · c) buidhe 17:12, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds reasonable. XOR'easter (talk) 18:02, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to the existence of an article about "crankery", but to create such an article out of this article would, in my opinion, involve not only a rename but also a complete (and I mean complete) rewrite, at which point we're entering Ship of Theseus territory – we're saying that we should keep this article so that sometime in the future, someone can overwrite it with a completely different article. I'm also not sure what we would cover under the heading of "crankery" that isn't already covered by Pseudoscience/Pseudomathematics. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 18:06, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Condense heavily and merge with Pseudoscience. Article definitely reeks of a bygone era with all the references to Usenet and hearty helpings of unsourced synthesis in the first section especially. Not opposed to a better future treatment of "Crankery"; this ain't it. DigitalIceAge (talk) 18:29, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Do not merge with Pseudoscience, not the same thing. - Roxy the dog 07:49, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Then Delete with TNT and soft-redirect to wikt:crank. DigitalIceAge (talk) 17:17, 13 October 2022 (UTC) (revised 21:07, 25 October 2022 (UTC))[reply]

• Weak keep I agree that the scope of the article is unclear. Is this about the term's etymology and historical use, or is it about people considered cranks (who can be covered at other more specific topics like Conspiracy theorist or the various articles listed in the "See also" section), or something else? I'm not sure, and in the absence of certainty in this regard, I'd say to keep it to allow it time to be improved. However, I'm not opposed to draftifying the article or merging/redirecting it somewhere else. My lack of certainty as to what the main topic of the article should be makes me uncertain as to how it ought to be improved. WP:TNT may very well be applicable here. silviaASH (User:BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4) (inquire within) 12:10, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  On second thought: Soft-redirect to wikt:crank per User:AndyTheGrump, whose assessment I find reasonable. I suggest soft-redirection, instead of deletion, however, as this page has existed for some time, has no suitable hard redirect target within the English Wikipedia, and literally hundreds of incoming links. Directing readers to Wiktionary is therefore the best available solution. silviaASH (User:BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4) (inquire within) 15:23, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep The nominator has given no policy-based reason for deletion (such as lack of notability), only complained about the bad shape of the article. This is not what deletion is for. Tercer (talk) 15:03, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as a dogs-breakfast article cobbled together to pad a dictionary definition. Much of it appears to be WP:OR, and nothing in it establishes that the topic isn't better covered in articles on actual subjects (e.g. pseudoscience') rather than one constructed around a pejorative term used to describe those promoting such subjects. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:11, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pseudoscience is not the same thing. Plenty of cranks work on subjects that are scientific, like cosmology or quantum mechanics, they are just hopelessly wrong and refuse to be corrected. Furthermore, there is a lot of material on crankery that wouldn't be appropriate for Wiktionary, doing a disservice to the reader. Tercer (talk) 17:24, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not the same thing? The shape of the Earth is a scientific subject. Flat-Earther's 'work' on the subject is pseudoscience. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:36, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment There is certainly WP:SUSTAINED coverage of the topic sufficient to warrant notability: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. Admittedly, such sources discuss crankery within certain contexts and specialities rather than provide a general overview, so I'm unsure if such coverage will satisfy WP:N's requirement to "address the topic directly and in detail". - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:04, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 12:32, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Soft redirect to wikt:crank. Policy reason: WP:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Examples of other soft redirects of derogatory terms: Bootlicker, Chinless wonder, Demoncrat, Dotard, Dumbass, Fatass. Lardass, Trollop. 5Q5|^✉ 10:48, 19 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.