Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glossary of alternative medicine

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 no consensus. MBisanz ^talk 17:27, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Glossary of alternative medicine

Per WP:NOT: Wikipedia is not a dictionary, nor is it a repository of loosely-connected topics. Arguably, WP:NOT#FAQ also applies.

Let me expand on the second point a minute, as it's perhaps less obvious. Alternative medicine is a huge, diverse field - each aspect of Alternative medicine has its own jargon, and there's very little overlap. The glossary makes no attempt to deal with this, instead providing random collections of definitions from whereever, ranging from "Index of articles on CAM" (A list of links, filed under I!) Various other sets of links appear somewhat randomly throughout, as it doesn't actually stick to defining terms, but also seeks to duplicate some of the alt-med category trees. Then we get random interjections (Asklepios, Lifestyle), really really obscure therapies that don't even have a Wikipedia article or very little of one, (Bioecological medicine, Group modalities, plus Tibetan eye chart is a one-line stub, and Grahamism redirects to Sylvester Graham, in which article you will find none of the information listed in the glossary) and so on.

While there are probably some subjects that might benefit from a glossary, alternative medicine is perhaps one of the worst choices for such an undertaking. It's far too broad and too disconnected. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 03:17, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as per nom. This is a huge category, unsuitable for a list. RayAYang (talk) 04:26, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:NOT. It is also not neutral in its support for these beliefs, wording, etc. It already is categorised, and that's how this should be done. Verbal chat 10:32, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is also List of branches of alternative medicine which covers the same material without the commentary. Verbal chat 07:14, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to List of branches of alternative medicine which covers the same ground. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:50, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as per WP:NOT - Wikipedia is not a dictionary. I would also argue that Wikipedia should not be a glossary, but that is an extension of policy that will need further discussion. Currently, we clearly ban dictionary entries, but seem to allow "Glossaries". The difference between a dictionary and a glossary is subtle ... To my mind, dictionaries define the words, while glossaries explain the words. To get back to the article in question: dispite its title, the bulk of the article consists of nothing more than dictionary definitions of various alternative medicine terms. In the few cases where the article actually acts as a "glossary" (ie it actually explains a term, as opposed to simply giving a definition of it) a seperate article can be written (or already exists) for the term. Blueboar (talk) 14:50, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Additional comment... I note that the page has already been transwikied to Wiktionary. I do think that that is a better location for the information. Blueboar (talk) 15:46, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep we have lots of "Glossary of..." articles, simply place it in the search bar to see that. AfD is not for cleanup, if the current state of the article is poor we can improve it, but the subject/form of the article is surprisingly not unusual for wikipedia. Sticky Parkin 18:58, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Although WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a good reason to keep, dictionaries do not usually have glossaries, so WP:NOT#DICT doesn't apply. However, if it's been transwikied to Wiktionary, it may be adequate to include the wikitionary pointer to each article which has this in the #See Also section, and remap all links. Pure deletion would lose significant information of benefit to readers, even if the article is deleted. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:23, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the argument here is that a Glossary = a Dictionary... and as such, WP:NOT#DICT certanly does (or should) apply. I am not sure what your comment that "dictionaries do not unsually have glossaries" even means, much less what that has to do with WP:NOT. Blueboar (talk) 17:07, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I believe it's just in a few navigation templates. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 02:42, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep glossaries are appropriate content. Essentially they are related to templates or lists, and serve for navigation. We may need to specify this somewhere. DGG (talk) 04:57, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Transwiki to wiktionary, if this version is newer than the one there already. For some reason, my {{dict}} was reverted because dictionaries are not glossaries??? 70.55.86.100 (talk) 09:19, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That seems to be the issue here... are dictionaries and glossaries the same thing or not?... From the discussions on the talk page, it seems that the consensus at WP:NOT#DICT is that there is some sort of difference... but I can not find any place on Wikipedia that spells out what that difference actually is. Blueboar (talk) 17:54, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:DICT doesn't say anything about not creating glossary pages; it says we should not create dictionary entry pages. The difference is simple: a dictionary entry defines one word, while a glossary is a list of definitions (plus other differences between a glossary entry and a dictionary entry that are not relevant here). Glossaries may be kept per WP:LIST, like DGG says. However, like others have commented, the scope of this glossary may be too broad to be useful. I have no comment regarding that. --Itub (talk) 18:33, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm... if I get this, you are saying that Wikipedia can contain dictionaries (or articles that are essentially mini-dictionaries), but should not, itself, be a dictionary? I am not sure if I agree with that distinction. Blueboar (talk) 15:19, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Additional concern: I note that this article also has serious WP:V and WP:NOR concerns... the vast majority of the terms being defined in this "Glossary" have no citation. Yet another reason to Delete. Blueboar (talk) 17:47, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That makes sense, since the creator and a major controller of the glossary was our thrice indef banned User:Mr-Natural-Health/User:John Gohde, who attempted to control and twist all alternative medicine subject matter to his own ends and even bragged about it. -- Fyslee / talk 21:25, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete in favor of just using the List of branches of alternative medicine. Commentary is unnecessary. The articles serve that purpose. The List serves a valuable purpose, since one editor has single-handedly gone and deleted most categorizations of alt med articles from the Category:Alternative medicine. While being in a subcategory does serve as an excuse to do so, inclusion in the main category is still allowed in many cases. Right now it's difficult to track down all articles that are properly classified as alternative medicine. -- Fyslee / talk 21:29, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep might need to be renamed or modified but not deleted. Trickrick1985 (talk) 14:37, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In what way modified or renamed? Thanks, Verbal chat 14:43, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: Per WP:NOT as suggested above. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 15:36, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to List of branches of alternative medicine. Most of the entries in the glossary are modalities and have entries there. The terminology unique to each practice should be treated in the relevant article or family of articles. The terminology of classification is far too inconsistently applied across alternative medicine to make a coherent article. We could just repeat everything the NCCAM says, but the subcategories Category:Biologically based therapies &c. serve the encyclopedia better. - Eldereft (cont.) 21:32, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Unclear why it would be more clear to rename it but if policy insists we do so then rename away. the article as is is well organized and useful. To me - exactly what Wikipedia is - not what it is not. -- Banjeboi 13:54, 13 November 2008 (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.