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 no consensus‎. Star Mississippi 02:48, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

IMPDH RNA motif (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Does not meet WP:NBIOL and WP:GNG. No source besides one paper. Hongsy (talk) 04:13, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Biology-related deletion discussions. Hongsy (talk) 04:13, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Draftify or Delete. Published in 2017, it is possible this has been mentioned in other manuscripts under a different name, which might be identifiable via sequence searches or deep review of articles citing the paper supporting this stub. However, I believe that until a motif such as this has been confirmed in some way through experimental evidence, we shouldn't have an article about it. I looked and we do not have an appropriate list to add a mention to. Therefore, my !vote to either Delete or Draftify. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:39, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: The nominating user cites WP:NBIOL. In fact, the text for WP:NBIOL states "RNA motifs: de facto notable? Subject of the recent AfD. Closest equivalent are protein motifs, though no database currently collates an equivalent to Rfam's RNA motifs." The IMPDH RNA motif is an RNA motif and is present in the Rfam Database, as shown in the Rfam infobox within its article. Therefore, previous discussion on Wikipedia that is relevant to this RNA motif tends towards regarding it as de facto notable. Is there a reason to revisit this question? Zashaw (talk) 09:21, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Zashaw - yes, there is reason to revisit because the AfD discussion is 2 years old already. Hongsy (talk) 13:17, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I get the logic there. I expand on my question as follows.

Two years ago there was a big discussion about deletion of a similar page, which you link to ([1]). In that discussion, many editors argued in favor of deletion, as you do, while others argued against. Ultimately the result was to keep the article, and the line in the WP:NBIOL article that I quoted above was added based on the decision. As far as I can see, your deletion nomination would start a discussion that would essentially rehash the discussion from 2 years previously. This does not seem like an efficient use of Wikipedia editors' time.

My question is: when you nominated this article for deletion, did you have any new facts or arguments in mind that (1) were not available in the discussion 2 years ago and (2) are likely to lead to a different decision about the fate of the article? If not, I don't see a reason to revisit the text in WP:NBIOL. Zashaw (talk) 23:14, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: might it make sense to put a bunch of RNA motifs in a list? Notability is not required for list members; they just have to be reliably sourced. Here's a list I made of 177 RNA motif articles:

• User:A. B./List RNA motifs

My sample list above is too basic to be useful, but it could potentially be expanded with more columns into something that conveys more information similar to:

• List of cat breeds

I don't know if you'd want one big list or several smaller lists grouped by type of RNA motif. The list(s) would contain a mix of:

• Notable RNA motifs with their blue links to their own articles containing additional information
• Notable RNA motifs that don't have their own articles because there's nothing of interest beyond what's already listed
• Non-notable RNA motifs that are reliably referenced

Such a list (or lists) could allow us to shrink our article count, provide the same information in more compact form and provide an alternative to deletion (WP:ATD) for non-notable RNA motif articles. 25, 50 or 100 articles are easier to maintain and watch than 177.

For example, if you found this article non-notable, you would just redirect it to the list article. Wikipedia would still have the same information.

Is this list idea feasible or is there just too much variety among RNA motifs? If it is feasible, is it desirable?

Caveat: I'm not a molecular biologist, just an editor who prefers lists over lots of stubs.

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 01:43, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You would need to distinguish between experimentally verified motifs and those that are predicted based on computational analysis alone, in my opinion. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:43, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: It would help to alert areas of the project where there might be editors who have knowledge on this subject.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:35, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Since we're an encyclopaedia, not a global database, I would favour our having articles about RNA-motifs that have been written about by multiple authors, not just whoever proposed or discovered them. Databases can very properly include absolutely any publication of a motif because that's their job. Without any reflection on the current article up for debate, do we really want a guideline that tells us to keep articles on a motif that one person proposed on computational evidence, published in a minor journal, and which no one else ever looked at? Elemimele (talk) 06:58, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:32, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. I've added some more of the motif's biology from a PhD thesis, so we now have an additional WP:RS. The motif certainly exists; it seems to have a definite regulatory function; and it seems to behave by a novel (and interesting) mechanism. I'd say this was definitely notable. More research can certainly be expected. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:03, 24 November 2023 (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.