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 keep. The consensus is to keep this article but the nominator is right. Currently this article is nothing more then a dicdef. If it isn't expanded I suspect we will be back here very soon. Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sophistication[edit]

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

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Per WP:NOTDICDEF Yaksar (let's chat) 02:53, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - Per nom. Wikipedia is not a dictionary. --Kudpung (talk) 03:45, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep The article is a stub and the dicdef policy goes to some trouble to explain the validity of such stubs in our work. The source provided to support the topic is a book of 232 pages which documents the history of the concept in a detailed and scholarly way, being published by a university press. The notability of the topic is thus established. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:35, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment From DICDEF: "Wikipedia articles should begin with a good definition and description of one topic, however, they should provide other types of information about that topic as well." (emphasis mine) This article is literally just one sentence that is (an incomplete) definition.--Yaksar (let's chat) 08:40, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Provision of other information besides the definition is obviously not achieved by deletion. The policy goes on to say ,"The full articles that Wikipedia's stubs grow into are very different from dictionary articles.". This indicates that stubs are allowed to grow. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:52, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• There's not a single word that couldn't "potentially" possibly have substance on it somewhere out there. When an entry has nothing that wouldn't belong in a dictionary, that's a bad sign.--Yaksar (let's chat) 13:54, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• To be fair, I'd like to point out that Colonel Warden is the author of the article. (Nothing wrong with that, just wanted to make note.) Guoguo12--Talk--  02:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Per CW.--Epeefleche (talk) 08:34, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep They have been ample books published on this topic. Click Google book search at the top of the AFD to find some. Also, Sophistication even comes up during political campaigns, as the case of a the wife of Senator Kennedy saying she was better qualified to be first lady than Jimmy Carter's wife. 'Sophistication' cited by Joan Dream Focus 10:17, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Obviously with a word like this there will be thousands, if not millions of uses. But a word often being used does not necessarily make this notable, nor does it make this article any more than a piece of a definition.--Yaksar (let's chat) 15:18, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. -- Danger 14:23, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Its not just a word but a concept, and one notable aspect of society with ample coverage in books and other reliable sources. Dream Focus 20:02, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per DreamFocus. I don't have time to rescue this one, as I have done more than my share this month, but it does have great potential, based on possible reliable sources. Bearian (talk)
• Keep. I originally prodded this article but it was challenged by the author (Colonel Warden). The article as it is now actually resembles a dictionary article, but I believe that I was wrong because "Sophistication" itself could definitely be expanded upon. It's a piece of culture, if you think about it; it could be encyclopedic. Guoguo12--Talk--  02:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: The article under discussion here has been flagged for ((rescue)) by the Article Rescue Squadron. SnottyWong ^gossip 02:39, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - This is a clear WP:DICDEF. The single sentence lead is the dictionary definition of the word, and the 2-sentence "history" section is a partial etymology of the word. These are all elements of a dictionary definition. It has been claimed that this article is only a stub and is capable of being expanded beyond a dictionary definition, but this has not been shown to be true and I have my doubts that it is possible. SnottyWong ^gossip 02:39, 16 February 2011 (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.