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Wednesday 30 November 2016

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Wikipedia: 20 articles earmarked for deletion

Wikipedia owes its astonishing depth - 13 million articles and counting - to its policy of open-door collaboration. But that openness can be a mixed blessing.

While Wikipedia's mainstream entries offer the most comprehensive free reference material on the web, there is a long tail of obscure, trivial and unreliable content.

'Raptor Jesus' was one of the entries earmarked for deletion
'Raptor Jesus' was one of the entries earmarked for deletion

As part of the ongoing push to make the site more "encyclopedic", there is a system in place that allows volunteers to flag up dubious articles for deletion.

These pages remain live for days while Wikipedia administrators - and the original authors - debate whether the entries should be allowed, improved or removed.

Below we present 20 of the more bizarre and surprising articles flagged for deletion over the past few weeks, with extracts from the pages and some of reasons offered by moderators for why they should be erased.

1) Teddymandering
Extract: "The word 'Teddymandering' is a portmanteau of Senator Edward M. Kennedy's nickname, 'Teddy', and the verb 'gerrymandering'."
Reason for deletion: "Wikipedia is not for things made up one day."

2) Replicas of the White House
Extract: "A 1:25 scale model at Minimundus at Klagenfurt in Carinthia, Austria, is extremely accurate, including the East and West Colonnades and the East and West Wings. In Atlanta, Georgia, a nearly full-scale model exists."
Reason for deletion: "I don't believe either of these mini white houses warrant an entire article."

3) Boycott Scotland
Extract: "An ongoing anonymous Internet campaign protesting the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill on compassionate grounds."
Reason for deletion: "The campaign is a non-notable "bedroom" campaign, It has little to no following."

4) Helen Goddard (aka Jazz Lady)
Extract: "A British musician and former secondary school music teacher who was convicted in September 2009 for sexual misconduct with a female pupil at her school."
Reason for deletion: "Helen Goddard is only known for this one event, and we have a policy for this kind of case, which generally excludes biographies about such people. The burst of news reports about this case has been fuelled by it being a lesbian affair, and Helen Goddard being blonde and photogenic, rather than any serious lasting significance of the case."

5) Matrix (fictional universe)
Extract: "Humans are grown in pods and are connected by cybernetic implants to an artificial reality called the Matrix, which keeps their minds under control while the machines use the bioelectricity and thermal energy of their bodies as an energy source."
Reason for deletion: "Unreferenced, possible original research, reads like an essay written in-universe style. Unencyclopedic."

6) Boo Radley paradigm
Extract: "The Boo Radley Paradigm is a Media Studies theory which can be used to explain the phenomenon of how modern TV uses the more “eccentric” in society to liven up TV viewing."
Reason for deletion: "Non-notable neologism; sources do not mention the topic directly, making this original research."

7) Hate sex
Extract: "Hate sex is consensual sexual intercourse that occurs between two people who strongly dislike or annoy each other."
Reason for deletion: "Page has been created by a banned user and edited almost exclusively by a sockpuppet of this banned user."

8) List of theme songs without lyrics
Extract: "For the purposes of this list, show dialogue and announcer talk, spoken over the theme song, does not count as lyrics. Nor does scat singing and vocalizing which doesn't represent actual words (example: the "ba ba ba ba" vocals in the Rugrats theme)."
Reason for deletion: "Indiscriminate information. I fail to see how lacking lyrics is a defining criterion for a theme song."

9) Shield mate
Extract: "Shield mate is a term used by long-ago soldiers to indicate personal and often sexual bonds between two (men) in times of war."
Reason for deletion: "Unreferenced hoax... I could find nothing to verify this article."

10) Edmund Moss
Extract: "His exact birthdate is unknown as he was born in a remote village in Indonesia, where they do not HAVE birthdays."
Reason for deletion: "Appears to be a hoax... the article says Indonesians don't have birthdays."

11) Exploding sheep
Extract: "The earliest well-known reference to exploding sheep in popular culture was made by Johnny Carson, in the role of psychic Carnac the Magnificent on The Tonight Show."
Reason for deletion: "Exploding sheep, I am sure, make for notable visuals, but the topic in its own right is not notable."

12) Exploding toads (now merged into Exploding animals)
Extract: "An exploding toad occurs when a crow, hunting for toad liver, attacks a toad which then puffs up as a natural defense. What differentiates the exploding toads in these incidents from most other exploding animals is that they explode while alive."
Reason for deletion: "Maybe merge into exploding animal otherwise delete."

13) Exploding donkey (now merged into Exploding animals)
Extract: "There have been several documented incidents of donkeys and mules being used to deliver bombs."
Reason for deletion: "It's cute to have a bunch of articles on exploding animals, but this one shouldn't be one of them."

14) Israeli theft of Arab cuisine
Extract: (now deleted)
Reason for deletion:
"The title is intrinsically un-neutral."

15) Flying Bigfoot of Florida
Extract: "No pictures were ever taken, although numerous people claimed to have seen it walking on the beach or taking off."
Reason for deletion: "Unsourced, no real claim to notability."

16) 2009 Sydney dust storm (now merged into 2009 Australian dust storm)
Extract: "While the cloud was visible from space, on the ground the intense red-orange colour and drop in temperature drew comparisons with nuclear winter, Armageddon, and the planet Mars."
Reason for deletion: "Too minor of an event... A dust storm that took place over 15 hours or less."

17) Turtleman
Extract: (now deleted)
Reason for deletion: "I don't see how this particular superhero character meets the notability guidelines."

18) BBC - List of Animals
Extract: (now deleted)
Reason for deletion: "I'm not quite sure what this article is supposed to be. It starts off as a lead about a part of the BBC, but then just contains a list of dinosaurs featured in BBC series."

19) Raptor Jesus
Extract: "An Internet phenomenon, in which an image of Christ is altered to depict Christ as having the head of a Velociraptor."
Reason for deletion: "Topic seems not to have reliable sources with regards to the topic's popularity, leading me to believe that the topic is not notable."

20) Harry Benjamin's Syndrome (now merged into Transsexualism)
Extract: "Terminology that some people use to refer to forms of transsexualism... those using this diagnosis consider it an intersex syndrome, and there are transsexuals who prefer this terminology and assert that scientific research has strongly suggested that their condition is biological rather than psychological in nature."
Reason for deletion: "Non-existent disease. Not recognized in any book of official diagnoses."

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