Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Schrödinger's cat in popular culture (3rd nomination)

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. Nominator seems to have withdrawn the request as inapplicable post-WP:TNT (non-admin closure) Dronebogus (talk) 15:48, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Schrödinger's cat in popular culture

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Messy list of media mentioning the concept of Schrödinger's cat at a level that would make TVTropes sigh (ex. "In season 10 of Bones, Dr. Brennan tells a joke referencing Schrödinger's cat." or "In the made-for-television movie Mean Girls 2, one of the characters wears a shirt written "Save the Schrödinger's cat"."). Fails WP:LISTN and WP:IPC, as well as WP:GNG. Much of the content, including most of the prose, is unreferenced WP:OR. IF there is something notable here, which I doubt, WP:TNT applies. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:47, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Science fiction and fantasy, Animal, and Popular culture. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:47, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 16:48, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but urgh. Schrödinger's cat is a pop-cultural icon, and it would be futile to argue otherwise. This is the type of ubiquitous reference that separate pop culture articles are appropriate for. However, the current article looks like a stinking embarassment out of WP's ancient past (time for that XKCD illustration again?) This should be radically pruned of anything that is not solidly third-party sourced, as per MOS:POPCULT. I suspect the remainder will still be a substantial list. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 17:23, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Solid pruning job done by XOR'easter, and as far as I can see all the stuff that is gone really had to go for policy and MOS reasons, so I hope there'll be no back-and-forth about these removals. Useful stub now. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:20, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - The topic may be one that could and should be written about in an encyclopedic manner, but this current list certainly isn't it. As mentioned by the nom, this is not an article about Schrödinger's cat's impact on popular culture, but a list of media mentioning the concept of Schrödinger's cat - a complete mess of an example farm, much of it being extremely non-notable examples at that, that has almost no actual legitimate sources. Pretty much the only decent source being used in the article that discusses the topic is the "100 Cats Who Changed Civilization" book. The "prose" section at the top is deceptive, as it is simply more lists of examples, with the only real difference between it and the rest of the list is that the entries are not separated by bullet points. I am honestly not seeing anything in the current version of this article that would actually be appropriate for preserving for any kind of rewrite or reworking, outside of the single sentence "It was not long before science-fiction writers picked up this evocative concept, often using it in a humorous vein", and I don't think that alone is worth a Keep. Rorshacma (talk) 17:49, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Striking my above recommendation, as the nominator has indicated they would like to withdraw the nomination if possible. Rorshacma (talk) 03:53, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Agree with Rorshacma. The list is largely uncited, and if it were to be cited as it stands, the citations would basically ALL be WP:PRIMARY, i.e. the list is a) unstructured b) uncited and c) WP:OR by synthesis, a collection supposed by editors to be relevant to the topic at hand, with no evidence that any scholar, journalist, or published author actually thinks anything of any of it. The subject is obviously not without interest, but that would require actually reading articles in popular science magazines and seeing what has been written ABOUT the subject in WP:RS. I suggest we delete this sorry list, and - if anyone wants to do the work - to replace it with a proper, reasoned, cited article that's actually defensible and on-subject. Chiswick Chap (talk) 22:12, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, how nice to see an AfD being responded to by actually making the appropriate and necessary improvements to the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:36, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep despite all the WP:VAGUEWAVE action in the nomination and the above delete opinions, no one has credibly argued that cleanup is impossible, just undone in the ~13 years since the last AfD. That's a reason for cleanup, not deletion. The evidence of notability is abundant, yet still indiscernible to many? Methinks someone needs to open the box. Jclemens (talk) 23:05, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 23:07, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The 100 Cats book is one source that can be used to justify WP:GNG, but as is, there is no content worth preserving in the article. We applied a similar precedent at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Far future in fiction, and the article that took its place is decent. Overwriting from scratch without deleting the history, like was done at Earth in science fiction, is acceptable and equivalent but for attribution. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 00:25, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
For future reference, here is the source as cited in the article: Sam Stall (2007-05-01). 100 Cats Who Changed Civilization. p. 34. ISBN 978-1-59474-163-0.. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 01:03, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but overhaul. The topic of Schrödinger's cat being invoked in fiction has received academic study (e.g., [1][2][3]). There's a topic here, to which the current text does not do justice. I sympathize with the desire to blow it up, but I think revising it in situ would be more convenient than deleting and recreating. The current version provides examples that can be looked up to see if secondary sources exist. We could also push it over into draft space and redo it there, but that seems overkill for a page whose crime is just being crufty. XOR'easter (talk) 01:04, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I stubbified the page, removing the trivia while leaving the opening lines and whatever was supported by secondary sources. I've also added a couple references that weren't there before. The junk is gone, and we now have a sensible starting point to build upon. XOR'easter (talk) 18:20, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@XOR'easter Excellent job. I think this can be kept now, although I cannot speedy close this myself as long as there are existing delete votes. I'll ping everyone who voted delete to see if they will reconsider their vote. @Zxcvbnm @LaundryPizza03 @Rorshacma @Chiswick Chap _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:02, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I agree that the article as-is is pretty terrible, but the article absolutely could be good if it was re-written. I think the delete arguments are too skewed towards the idea that it's better to delete and start over instead of keep and re-write. I don't think there's a valid policy reason for deleting this article (as I think it passes WP:GNG and the non-notability reasons given are just essays), so in my opinion it's better to keep and re-write. OliveYouBean (talk) 08:16, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@OliveYouBean " I don't think there's a valid policy reason for deleting this article". The current text fails WP:OR and much of it fails WP:V. It also clearly violates Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trivia sections and WP:INDISCRIMINATE. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:38, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I believe these problems have been resolved by XOR'easter's recent changes, and the fact that they could be resolved like that are why I favoured keeping the article and fixing it instead of deleting it. Needing improvement isn't a reason for deletion. OliveYouBean (talk) 03:04, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Per WP:TNT. While it could potentially be a developed article, in its current state it should be thrown out and restarted as prose. The list content violates WP:INDISCRIMINATE. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 06:23, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Since the article has since been TNT'd and restarted, I will strike my delete !vote, but still say draftify, because it is too short to be a viable article yet. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 06:36, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Withdraw nomination. The article has been effectively TNTed and rewriten a stub or maybe alraedy a start-class prose article. GNG appears met, and other policies (IPC, OR, VER, etc.) no longer seem broken. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:36, 3 December 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.