Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ecliptic alignment of CMB anisotropy

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 keep. The consensus was to keep; however there is discussion of whether it belongs or it should be moved or merged - this discussion can continue at the relevant talk page. (non-admin closure) -- Dane ^talk 07:30, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Ecliptic alignment of CMB anisotropy

Ecliptic alignment of CMB anisotropy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This article is a fairly poorly written summary of a proposed feature of the cosmic microwave background, in which fluctuations in the background seemed to align with local features. The science is somewhat confused, but the anisotropy in question is the 'Axis of Evil' identified by Land and Magueijo, who are referenced in the article. However, this feature was proven by subsequent data to be spurious - in a later paper the same authors conclude that there is no significant feature. The article could be rewritten to reflect this history, but I do not think that a proposed detection that lasted only a year or two a decade ago would be notable. Chrislintott (talk) 07:13, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

• Keep and move to Axis of evil Notability is established by whether sources talk about a topic, not whether the article's subject is successful, or even sensible. Otherwise we'd delete Time Cube and flat Earth. Also, notability is WP:NOTTEMPORARY. Paradoctor (talk) 08:14, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

EDIT: The current title is WP:NDESC, but "axis of evil" seems to be used far more often than any of the variations of the descriptive name.

I'd strongly support this option if someone could work out how to do so. That's the title used in the papers describing the work that backs up this article. Chrislintott (talk) 12:29, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean. If it is decided so, moving the article over the redirect at Axis of evil (cosmology) will not be a problem. Paradoctor (talk) 21:36, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant I didn't understand how such a decision could be taken in Wikipedia! I wasn't sure 'Keep and Move' was a valid outcome of this discussion, but if so, that would be great. Chrislintott (talk) 13:36, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I could have waited, but why a separate move discussion when a 2-for-1 deal is available? ;) Paradoctor (talk) 16:06, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

• Keep I agree that the article is a poorly written summary. Partly at fault is the want for citations of recent and scientific literature. Thank you for mentioning that Land and Magueijo found the data to be spurious in 2006, which definitely merits mention in the article. I would agree that, if the detection was indeed spurious and lasted only a few years, the conjecture is not really notable. In a plot twist, data from Planck in 2013 found stronger evidence for the ecliptic alignment anisotropy . Therefore, this is a detected, or re-detected, feature of the CMB. The article proposed for deletion is suggested further reading in the article Cosmic_microwave_background#CMBR dipole anisotropy. Therefore, I propose we keep the article and improve it. Friedlicherkoenig (talk) 10:11, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

That Planck article is just about the Earth's movement relative to the background, not about features in the background itself. It's not relevant to the topic. Chrislintott (talk) 12:28, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

• Keep the topic brought enough attention in the past to be notable, whether debunked or reconfirmed. It is not even mentioned at Axis of evil (disambiguation), but perhaps it should be. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:33, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

@Graeme Bartlett: Actually, it has been there from the page creation in 2007 on. Currently fourth line from the top. Paradoctor (talk) 19:32, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

True, I should have spotted it. it is using a piped link rather than redirect. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:31, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

• Keep. Notability is not temporary. Dead end science is just as encyclopedic as anything else. Yes the article does need to be written better Aoziwe (talk) 13:01, 2 December 2016 (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.