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 without prejudice toward a redirect. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 07:39, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Most ancient common ancestor[edit]

Most ancient common ancestor (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

The article is based on original research. The name of the article appears to be coined by the author.

• Article does not cite real sources to support the so-called 'most ancient common ancestor'. The pbs page cited in is merely describing how Lucy (Australopithecus) is a common ancestor to various lineages of hominids. Clearly they meant 'most recent common ancestor' in the article. It was a typo.
• Most 'ancient' common ancestor does not make sense. Clearly, the most 'ancient' common ancestors of all human (or for that sake, between you and me) is the first self-replicating RNA. See the book The Ancestor's Tale.
• The article is clearly written as an attack on Recent single origin hypothesis. The author should be editing Multiregional hypothesis instead of creating your own article.
• The author does not seem to understand what Most recent common ancestor, Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve are, and what they really mean. Mitochondrial_Eve#Eve_and_the_Out-of-Africa_theory clearly discusses some of the issues the author raised in this new article. Fred Hsu 05:17, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong Delete Regardless of what the article specifically says, overall it's clearly an essay, and pretty much entirely original research, and should be deleted as such. User:Calgary 21 July 2007
• Keep The term does exist, and it's a pretty simple concept which therefore needs a sourced definition. There's no need to delete, just a complete rewrite. The MACA is always defined relative to some group, e.g. for all animals it is considered to be some sort of sponge[1] -- rewrite in progress! . --Michael C. Price ^talk 08:20, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That two websites incorrectly used Most ancient common ancestor when they should have used Most recent common ancestor does not make this a real term. As I said earlier, most ancient common ancestor for you and I is the very first self-replicating RNA. Please think about it. Fred Hsu 15:38, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete 92 ghits for the term. Logically, what is described is the most recent common ancestor, which gets 117,000 ghits. JulesH 10:48, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Still no reason to delete. Do a redirect then if they are synonyms. --Michael C. Price ^talk 11:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Antonyms are not synonyms. They mean the opposite, not the same. Edison 21:12, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep I've read worse here. Could we maybe see this article expanded? Thanks. Anthony Chidiac --Achidiac 11:22, 21 July 2007 (UTC) Achidiac (talk · contribs), Rdpaperclip (talk · contribs), T3Smile (talk · contribs), and 60.241.91.14 (talk · contribs) have been blocked as sock puppets. See Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Achidiac. -- Jreferee t/c 17:05, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Notice that 'writing style' was not one of the reasons I listed as reasons for deletion. This article is factually incorrect. It is simply wrong and should be deleted. Fred Hsu 15:35, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• • article quality has nothing to do with the deletion process (can we post this in giant letters somewhere please?) shoddy articles on valid topics should be cleaned up, not deleted. This one is unsalvageable since its very title is unsalvageable. dab (𒁳) 18:01, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per JulesH for looking up the Most Prevalent Common Ancestor Term. The citations are for some decently written articles that happen to use the same combination of four words that fit in the context they are writing about. No assertion or citation suggesting this is a scientifically prevalent term or even a particularly popular term. -Markeer 12:49, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Unencyclopedic for example:

For all living animals it is considered to be some sort of sponge.

You get the impression it is a kitchen sponge.Muntuwandi 13:02, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge into one or more related articles. There's not much to salvage but what's there shouldn't be lost. Category:Phylogenetics has some good merge candidates, including Clade and Most recent common ancestor. Keep only if the article is vastly improved between now and the AfD close. As it is, the article doesn't even do a good job of defining the term. If it weren't for the other articles to merge into, it would be Improve fast, startover, or delete. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 13:30, 21 July 2007 (UTC) see below[reply]

Perhaps the latter? Extremely sexy 14:40, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge. As per the previous user. Extremely sexy 14:42, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not merge until someone comes up with a clear definition of this term which makes sense. Please also cite real sources for this term. Currently cited sources talk about most recent common ancestor which is already well written in its own article. What can we add to that article that is not already there? Fred Hsu Fred Hsu 15:32, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that the grammatically-challenged may refer to it as the "most ancient common ancestor". Sohelpme 19:51, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak Delete - Article just contains a definition now and that's it, which could be construed as violation of WP:NOT#DICT. I dont think we're losing much to start over Corpx 15:30, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete and merge - if there is anything of value here it should be merged into one of the other main articles. This is definitional in scope, which is not the purpose of Wikipedia. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 18:26, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete to get unsourced, OR/POV essay out of the page history, then create Redirect to most recent common ancestor and add a note there like "sometimes erroneously referred to as most ancient common ancestor". Compare [2] to [3]. The "most ancient common ancestor" of any set of living things is the world's first living single cell--not all that interesting or important. Sohelpme 19:51, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Unlike WP:BLP, copyright issues, and a few other things, it is not necessary to hide original research through deletion or edit-masking. It may be convenient or even A Good Thing but it is not necessary. I'm sure there are lots of articles in Wikipedia that were OR at one point until someone cleaned them up. Those edits remain in the history unless someone bothered to remove them. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:39, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect per Sohelpme. Has very little content which in fact should be in most recent common ancestor. Dan Gluck 19:55, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Reminder: hey folks, you are now looking at a completely trimmed down version of the article, if you simply click on the article link. The original revision which I talked about in my deletion nomination is THIS ONE. Fred Hsu 20:19, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Revert and Merge the original version Fred Hsu mentioned above at 20:19, 21 July 2007 (UTC) with Multiregional hypothesis and redirect. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:05, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: After Merging, delete and replace with a disambiguation page, such as the one I posted on the article talk page. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as complete nonsense, or Redirect to Most recent common ancestor to assist people who type the opposite of what they mean. Current evolutionary theory would say that all species have the same most ancient common ancestor, perhaps a single cell organism in a primordial pool. Most recent common ancestor would make sense. This is not a term with sources to show it is used in the literature and if not a hoax is at least original research. Edison 21:09, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Even if this is not original research as claimed, any useful content in both the old and new versions should be merged into existing articles. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:19, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Update: Any useful content that can be sourced, that is. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I will restore the Fred Hsu 20:19, 21 July 2007 version sometime after 0300 unless someone objects on the article talk page or the current article is drastically improved. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:19, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Er... folks, it's not my version. I added original research template first. Then I added the nominated for deletion template. I think the entire article is simply nonsensical. There is nothing to be salvaged from the original article. I posted the Reminder comment earlier to give newcomers to this thread a heads-up, in case you mistake the current version for what I nominated, in which case my nomination comments would make no sense. Fred Hsu 23:19, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Hearing no objections and seeing no improvement, I reverted to last version by Fred Hsu. Any comments made here between 08:39, 21 July 2007 and 04:38, 22 July 2007 may be referring to a rewrite started by 08:39, MichaelCPrice at 08:39, 21 July 2007. Which bore very little resemblance to the version that is now up. The version that is now up is the same as the version that was up when the AfD started. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 04:45, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It looks like everyone above, except the original nominator Fred Hsu, Calgary, and the man who attempted a good-faith rewrite Michael C. Price, stated their opinion while the rewrite was up. The closing admin should take this into consideration. IF the consensus is for deletion based on OR grounds rather than other issues, I recommend instead reverting to the latest version of the rewrite and hiding the OR-version edits. Personally though, I think the OR version is more salvageable than the rewrite. The rewrite has issues of quality and readability. The text needs to be vastly improved before it should be placed in the main body of the encyclopedia. The OR version just has issues of OR, adding sources and citations should fix the problem. See Multiregional hypothesis for potential source material. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 12:25, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: the article should be deleted. The term simply does not exist. Multiregional hypothesis references are irrelevant to this article. If this article exists simply to support such hypothesis, then it should be part of the multiregional hypothesis. Please let us not create an article with fake, nonsensical scientific name with body text which talks about something completely different. No amount of out-of-context citations can salvage this article. Fred Hsu 13:13, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: At best, I found 4 sources on Google. These sources are ambiguous and may in fact not be sources at all. See the article talk page for details. In contrast, I found 8 sources that use this term in the context of Clade and 1 that used it in the context of geneology. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• REQUEST for closing admin: Userfy the talk page if the article is deleted. There's some stuff on there I want to hang on to for a bit. Don't leave it where it is, if the article is recreated as a redirect to something else, a stale talk page will be confusing. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:34, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Still delete. The article may be substantially different from the one that I previously commented on, but now it looks like original research, rather than a duplicate of existing information with the wrong title. There are two references in the article, but neither seems to be discussing the idea proposed by the article, which to me seems nonsensical. JulesH 16:44, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• delete. the term is used (a) incorrectly, by authors who don't know what they are talking about, and (b) casually, within some understood context. nothing to do with what the article pretends to be about. Arguments for Multiregional hypothesis can be discussed at that article. dab (𒁳) 17:59, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• comment the concept that the original author is apparently trying to describe is that of the identical ancestors point, which could indeed be split off the mrca article as an independent topic. dab (𒁳) 18:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

arbitrary break[edit]

• Comment dab gutted removed most of the unsourced material from the article again but this time left at least some of the original. I moved what's left into a section and turned the header into a disambiguation section, with some citations to back it up. The article is no longer unsourced original research. However, the section that's left of the original is and remains tagged as such. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC) edited davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:18, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as unsourced (a non-scientific popular publication and a throwaway, uncited reference in a scientific one?) original research. The use of unmoved mover doesn't help it either, makes it look like creationist BS. The original article was worse, with extensive use of first-person plurals - POV OR. WLU 13:54, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. "Most Ancient Common Ancestor" is not sourced and the article gives one no idea what it's supposed to mean. It just says that the two things it might mean - it doesn't. There doesn't seem to be anything worth saving here by merging into another article. Perhaps a redirect to most recent common ancestor or abiogenesis. Bgplayer 19:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete There is article Last universal ancestor. This article does not seem to have any useful content. Biophys 02:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• comment: I feel that the references davidwr mentions are really referring to Last common ancestor. So I favor redirection to Last common ancestor now. I have enhanced the MRCA article to talk about different between MRCA and Last Common Ancestor (LCA) and point to LCA article, the same way the MRCA article talks about the identical ancestors point. Fred Hsu 04:27, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Resolution[edit]

I know people usually don't vote on deletion nominations. But given that we have wildly different opinions here, I thought perhaps we should quickly do an informal survey to see where people stand. Please don't post opinions in this section. Just put your signature below your choice. Add your own if you want. Fred Hsu 04:27, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• redirect to Last common ancestor:
  • Fred Hsu 04:27, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Extremely sexy 11:45, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • --Michael C. Price ^talk 20:59, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• redirect to Clade:
  • davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 12:54, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• delete:
  • WLU 15:21, 25 July 2007 (UTC) (redirect is second choice)[reply]
  • JulesH 16:16, 25 July 2007 (UTC) (although I would also support a redirect to most recent common ancestor)[reply]
  • dab (𒁳) 20:55, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• keep:
• Anything but keep:
  • Corpx 16:21, 25 July 2007 (UTC) (I'm split on the merge/redirect issue, but I definitely don't think this should exist).[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.