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 redirect‎ to Light pollution. Consensus is that sourcing is insufficient to distinguish this. History remains should that change. Star Mississippi 19:11, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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

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Several contributors have noted dubious claims in the article and that the content of the article is not very related to the subject of the article. The article has been nominated before on 2021-12-26 (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Overillumination), and this is same reason as the last time. No significant updates or improvements have been done to the article since. Sauer202 (talk) 16:47, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Science and Environment. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 17:40, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - I don't see an argument that this is not a notable topic so this appears to be a WP:TNT deletion request. The article is not in that bad of shape WP:NOTCLEANUP. WP:NODEADLINES and WP:DOIT for the complaint that the article hasn't been fixed since the last AfD in January 2022. ~Kvng (talk) 17:47, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, the subject is notable, the article could certainly be much improved, but it's nowhere near bad enough for TNT. Elemimele (talk) 18:26, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to Light pollution. I stand my ground from the previous AfD that the topic is too similar, in that both topics are about an excess of artificial light. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 18:36, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to Light pollution, which seems to be be broadly the same thing. Most of the Overillumination article content is poor and can be thrown out. If enough high-quality content specific to indoor light pollution ever manifests then it can be spun back out into a separate article. Popcornfud (talk) 15:26, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  @Popcornfud is making a WP:TNT argument. My AfD experience is that these don't frequently prevail. Normally the community prefers to improve flawed articles on notable subjects. What do you see as barriers to improving this article? Also, what is your assessment of the content at Light_pollution#Over-illumination? ~Kvng (talk) 21:10, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Also, WP:NOPAGE: several related topics, each of them similarly notable, can be collected into a single page etc. This doesn't need to be its own page as far as I can tell. Popcornfud (talk) 21:23, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I believe most people and most of the light pollution lead understand(s) it to be a nighttime problem. It makes sense to cover overillumination separately if that's the case. ~Kvng (talk) 22:03, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I feel it lacks a good definition of what overillumination really is. Open question: Why shouldn't it be possible to have light pollution during daylight? Sauer202 (talk) 15:53, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: Per WP:SPINOFF, Overillumination is already a sub-topic of a fairly long Light pollution article, so a redirect wouldn't be useful. It would be better to clean up the article in question. Praemonitus (talk) 02:06, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Clean it up sounds good, but who are going to clean up the article and when? There are so many good articles that are deleted or moved to draftspace on Wikipedia every day, why should this article be an exception? It has been standing in pretty poor condition for years, and in my opinion most of the content is not relevant to the article topic. Overillumination sounds like term describing a situation where there is presence of too much light, if there even exists such a thing (debatable, but that is what the article could be used to demonstrate). Instead, much of the discussion in the article is about efficient energy use, which is a separate topic and has nothing to do with light pollution - one has to do with energy usage, the other has to do with effects of too much light. Sauer202 (talk) 15:41, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  "Clean it up sounds good, but who are going to clean up the article and when?" Quite. Realistically, this almost never happens, and when it does happen the article require rewriting from scratch. WP:TNT, please. Popcornfud (talk) 16:20, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect to Light pollution, clearly an unneeded CFORK that dups an existing topics.  // Timothy :: talk  13:14, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Treating this as a CFORK presents a problem as they're two different subjects. Anyone actually reading the article on Light pollution will find the following definition, backed by 4 sources: "Light pollution is the presence of anthropogenic artificial light in otherwise dark conditions" (my italics). Overillumination however has a definition "Overillumination is the presence of lighting intensity higher than that which is appropriate for a specific activity. Overillumination was commonly ignored between 1950 and 1995, especially in office and retail environments."

  One is talking about dark environments, the other about light environments.

  We cannot write about overillumination of retail etc. environments (which is undoubtedly an encyclopaedic and notable topic) in the Light pollution unless we change the definition there, and that's going to be impossible to do given that it's very well sourced. So if we delete this article, we can't discuss the subject anywhere. Elemimele (talk) 13:47, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I understand the point here, but I don't think the conclusion is quite correct. I believe we can cover related concepts under a single article if there isn't sufficient content to justify a separate page for the other concept. Popcornfud (talk) 14:04, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Deleting overillumination would not make it a forbidden topic for the eternal future. Quite the contrary, I would love for the article to become good. It just currently sucks very bad, and is written from such a skewed viewpoint that I don't feel it is good enough for inclusion in Wikipedia. It edges towards unscientific if not unscientific. Alternatively I suggest to instead move it to draftspace, so it can die in peace unless someone™ actually comes and improves it. Sauer202 (talk) 14:47, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  That someone could be you. It is annoying when editors say things suck and won't lift a finger to improve them. WP:NOTHERE? ~Kvng (talk) 14:14, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  You have reinserted material that was removed due to a lack of sourcing WP:V. This has been reverted per WP:BURDEN. If you wish to include material in the article you need to provide sources.  // Timothy :: talk  14:29, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect to Light pollution. This article is really redundant in scope with light pollution, and honestly, the light pollution article's content on this is not distinctly different in size either, so there's no real justification for a spinoff. I'm not really seeing anything that has to be merged either, so as others have said, probably best to just start from scratch and work within the parent article instead for focus. KoA (talk) 00:46, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Keep votes have failed to provide sources showing this is a distinct topic from Light pollution and have failed to address why this fork is needed.  // Timothy :: talk  14:31, 30 April 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.