Testwiki:Articles for deletion/Cassini–Huygens abbreviations

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.

Cassini–Huygens abbreviations

The result was Merge (non-admin closure), Merged w/ Cassini-Huygens per WP:BOLD. See below and old talk page for details and logs. Protonk (talk) 19:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:La (delete) – (View log)

This is not an WP:ARTICLE or a WP:LIST, but rather a glossary of terms used in Cassini–Huygens . No articles link there other than Cassini–Huygens, and it is in the See also. Terms should be defined within the article rather than have a separate page as a glossary. Reywas92^Talk 20:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• Delete, these are not really significant outside of the program. --Dhartung | Talk 22:36, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Unclear why this should be an article at all. The abbreviations should be explained where they are used, not in a stand-alone Wikipedia article. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:03, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. The Cassini mission is quite notable and in reading about it one often finds heavy use of spacecraft-specific abbreviations. Ideally every document one encounters would have a glossary, but it is common for definitions to be omitted. Having this list of terms available centralizes knowledge which can be used while extending one's knowledge of Cassini. Of course no articles other than Cassini–Huygens reference the page since they have no need of doing so; the list is essentially a subpage of Cassini–Huygens. Those interested will find it. There is no need to delete it since Wikipedia is not paper. Maybe the article should be re-titled as a "List of" article. -R. S. Shaw (talk) 02:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
• Delete The notable Cassini-specific ones (instruments and such) can be mentioned in Cassini-Huygens, the general ones (ASI, ESA, DSN) have their own articles, and the non-notable ones (DTSTART? PSIV?) aren't worth mentioning---NASA is notorious for inventing TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) by the hundreds and thousands. This sort of thing is standard content for, e.g., the front matter of a Ph.D. thesis or design report, but it doesn't belong on Wikipedia. Bm gub (talk) 03:45, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp (talk) 22:43, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep an extremely valuable article, and we're the best place for it. Title as List of... for conformity with other lists. But it needs to have the instruments and other terms linked to articles about them or to references for them.DGG (talk) 00:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Even if it was retitled with a list, I still see no use for it. The glory of being online is that all of these can be linked to within the article rather than having a glossary like a book. Also, even though they are Cassini-Huygens terms, it's really just a list of unrelated information. Reywas92^Talk 01:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

It looks to be like all of the (noteworthy) instrument abbreviations are already mentioned in the main article, as are the (noteworthy) major space agencies. If someone wants to expand or fork the article to actually describe the spacecraft data/power/housekeeping subsystems, any relevant abbreviations should be included in-line in the same way. Bm gub (talk) 19:15, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The above may be missing one of the points of having a list like this article: it is helpful as a list exactly because it brings together terms from a subject area. Defining the terms is good and necessary, but having the definitions in another article is mostly a help to the reader of that particular article. When there is a central list, it is easier when reading and learning about Cassini or Huygens when encountering the terms in other materials outside of Wikipedia. In this way it is similar to, say, Acronyms in healthcare, List of legal abbreviations, etc (see some Google results). Such a list can be used not just to find a single definition, but to get a list of such for a subject area, and also provides subject area context so that, for instance, the title of the article which shows up in a Google search quickly guides the user to a relevant definition (and a source for other help which might shortly be needed). Although the abbreviations may appear in other articles, they at times will be less obviously relevant to the searcher or to the search engine. And yes, DGG's point about this list needing wikilinks to the relevant articles is very true. -R. S. Shaw (talk) 03:50, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but your very fine examples are from broad examples: From all of healthcare, and all of the legal world. Rather than being specific, what about Acronyms in space exploration? There should in no way be a glossary for just one specific article, Cassini-Huygens. Reywas92^Talk 04:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Once again you seem to be missing the point--the list is not for the article; one would not use it to read the Cassini–Huygens article. The examples I gave were just a few of the first ones I encountered. There are plenty of specific lists, e.g. List of Japanese Latin alphabetic abbreviations, Oil field acronyms, New York City manhole cover abbreviations, List of steroid abbreviations, World War One - Medal Abbreviations, List of Indonesian acronyms and abbreviations, List of waste management acronyms, etc. Whether Cassini-Huygens is too narrow seems a matter of judgement; lumpers might want all spacecraft and missions lumped together, spliters would prefer separate lists. I think all spacecraft is too broad for most of the items in the list; for all spacecraft the list at that level would be enormous, and less useful because of the size of lack of specificity. Since there is minmal cost to having a specific list in Wikipedia, it seems at least minimally useful to leave it in. It's not like the subject is bizarre or the content false, where its presence in Wikipedia would be objectionable. -R. S. Shaw (talk) 23:58, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

*Delete or shrink and merge this is sort of a catch 22. If the Cassini article is properly wikified, then the glossary shouldn't be needed (or at least one of that length shouldn't be needed). Some terms might need an explanation independent from the main article (e.g. Stub for ISS to differentiate it from the international space station, DSN and some others). Some are clearly defined in wikipedia already (NASA, RADAR). some have no real need to be abbreviated as they only should appear once (GCMS). So I think the end result is probably 5-10 terms that might do to be in a glossary in the main page. Protonk (talk) 06:09, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

• Keep and help me Ok. I've got a solution started on the talk page. Basically, there are easily removable entries to the list and harder to remove entries. It is down to 44 items now. <20 and we can probably justify moving the relevant parts to the end of the respective articles.Protonk (talk) 07:58, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
• KEEP, notable list for a notable otganization.--Sallicio^$\oplus$ 23:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
  • You will really have to explain how Cassini-Huygens is an organization and how a collection of acronyms relating to it is notable. Still, all of these can be merged and simply explained in the main article without having a sepate glossary just to say what the acronyms stand for. I'd be willing to be it. Reywas92^Talk 00:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

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Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein (talk) 06:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

• Delete alphabet soup with absolutely no relevance to anything outside of the control room. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 07:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
• delete the contents, however, should be integrated/merged into the Cassini-Huygens article so as to negate the need for such a list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.128.73.42 (talk) 13:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
• Update Merger proposal is up. Still need some help hammering down links or possible articles related to acronyms on the page itself so I can find/make links.Protonk (talk) 17:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
• Delete This is not an article. The terms are not significant outside of the program. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 03:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
• Page has been merged into Cassini–Huygens —Preceding unsigned comment added by Protonk (talk • contribs) 17:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC) Protonk (talk) 17:56, 24 April 2008 (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.