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 delete. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 00:11, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Potato (word) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Although this is a well written article about an English word, the Wikipedia is not a dictionary. This article is on the subject of potato which the Wikipedia already has an article on, and an incident involving Dan Quayle whose article covers the incident quite well. The article cannot reasonably be changed to give an encyclopedic entry, since the topic is a word. The Wikipedia is not about the usage of words either, except in the most general sense (the Wikipedia correctly covers topics like prefix, but tries to cover it for a whole class of words, and ideally does so for all languages, whereas potato is simply and only an English word that is already covered in Wiktionary). In general Encyclopedia articles should be translateable, but because this is scoped to be only on an English word, it is not easily translated.

The lexical companion already has the information on this word, and any more information should be placed there, in the more appropriate place. The Wikipedia is not a dictionary and is not simply about the meaning or usage of single words. Given that the potato article itself exists, the article should be deleted. Given the scope of the article, this article cannot be saved.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 02:55, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. —- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 03:11, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - first off on the grounds that I fundamentally disagree with Wolfkeeper that an encyclopedia cannot usefully have articles on words. Wolfkeeper seems to be on a one-editor crusade to purge these articles from wikipedia... see American (word) or Football (word). There is a difference between a simple definition, as a dictionary would offer, and a fuller discussion of a word, its origins, usages, etc. A well-written article on at least some words should have a place here. --CAVincent (talk) 03:19, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're supposed to quote a policy. This is not a vote.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 03:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're also not supposed to make personal attacks...- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 03:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if that sounded like a personal attack, it was not meant to be. Just seeing your name pop up several times recently. I'm reading the policy now; still not sure I agree with your interpretation, but I'll live if others support it. And it wasn't meant as an empty vote, I stated why I disagreed (even if I failed to quote policy; is it policy to have to quote policy on afd noms?) BTW, if the result is to delete, if someone more knowledgeable than I could help me set up a temporary home for the article I would appreciate it, as I think some of the etymology and popular culture info might be integrated into the potato article. Or, is etymology info no good either?--CAVincent (talk) 03:38, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can I quote an essay? Wikipedia:Articles about words suggests "If someone does create a decent sized, nicely formatted, well written and well sourced word article, though, we hate to turn such a thing down; it does indeed get kept." And, some articles "are treated in an entirely random and haphazard fashion, and might be kept and expanded, rewritten into something different, redirected, deleted, or who knows what else, based on the personality of the editor who finds it, the particular group of editors who wander into the article's AfD page, or perhaps the phase of the moon that day." Heaven help those editors who wander in and (express an opinion / vote) without a quotation, though. --CAVincent (talk) 04:21, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that is not policy, but even if you agree with this essay, the question is whether a ~6K article on the word potato couldn't be better merged with the potato and the Dan Quayle articles- particularly because there seems to be a lot of overlap; even to the extent that it's verging on WP:COATRACK on the latter; about half the article is Dan Quayle and trivia, and the rest is heavily overlapping with potato and the wiktionary.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 05:09, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete, as there is nothing encyclopaedic here that is not covered in the Potato and Dan Quale articles, and nothing dictionaric not covered at the potato entry on Wiktionary. Thryduulf (talk) 08:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Anything encyclopedic about the word can easily be covered in the potato and Dan Quayle articles -- and, oh look, it is! Powers ^T 14:26, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Rnb (talk) 15:12, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Smerge back into the article in chief on potato, which already covers some of the same territory. Dan Quayle probably should be mentioned somewhere in the main article. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC)'[reply]
  • I would disagree with that; his involvement is completely tangential (at best) to an article on the tuber. Powers ^T 18:42, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Once you wash away the subtrivial cruft from this article, you are left with small bits and pieces which can be effectively covered in the Quale and Potato articles. We're not a dictionary, either. JBsupreme (talk) 16:43, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as trivial, unsourced dicdeffery. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 19:35, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Puzzled. I was auto-notified of this because of a single, unimportant edit early in the article's history. But here's the thing. If you look at the very first revision of the article, you will see that it includes two main facts: the Dan Quayle "potatoe" story, which is covered elsewhere, and the fact, moderately interesting in light of the Dan Quayle story, that:

“

"Potatoe" is an archaic spelling of the word potato. The Oxford English Dictionary lists potatoe as a variant form, the most recent usage cited being from 1880: "She found the parson in his garden..making a potatoe pie for the winter." However, in modern English it is considered a misspelling, since although the English plural, potatoes, is spelled with an "e", the singular is not, and no dictionary considers potatoe to be an acceptable modern spelling

”

. Now, as nearly as I can tell, this fact--I assume it IS a fact--is not included either in Potato, or Dan Quayle, nor the current version of Potato (word). Whatever the final outcome of AfD, I hope someone will see to it that the bit about "potatoe" once being an acceptable spelling does not get lost. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:30, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. The detail about the word and spelling belongs in Wiktionary. There isn't an encyclopedia article here.--Michig (talk) 08:10, 24 October 2009 (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.