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 per consensus. I have no problem with a rename, as was suggested below, but the consensus is to keep this article intact. ----- Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 23:16, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Timeline of the future in forecasts[edit]

Timeline of the future in forecasts (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Delete: The entire article is a hodge podge which involves timeline of all field including nanotechnology to space. Wikipedia is not indiscriminate collection of information. The information in this article should be merged into the individual year articles. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 16:04, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note to closing admin: Since this AfD process started, a significant amount of work has been done on the article. It has been expanded, pruned, cleaned-up, re-formated and re-arranged. References have been checked, and a new lead section has been written. The article should now consist of credible, referenced near-future forecasts, with no fictional sources whatsoever. It simply presents a neutral sumnmary of these verifiable forecasts. There is no additional interpretation or analysis. No conclusions are drawn; no position is advanced; there is no speculation about the reliability of the forecasts. There is no attempt to synthesise the forecasts into a "future history". Please take the current state of the article into account when determining consensus. Thank you. Gandalf61 (talk) 08:20, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yours is the only argument that makes me think. Having read the debate for that previous article, it leaves me with the understanding that it was aindiscriminate information. That does NOT apply to the current article however and I'm unable to compare to the cited article because it's contents are deleted. SunCreator (talk) 10:53, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fair enough, not everything predicted is necessarily fictional; but in the case of this article, it comes so close as to make no difference. Surely, there can be very detailed, realistic scientific studies of how the future may look like, but this article seems to reference mainly some vague, pseudo-realistic musings by various thinkers, whether intended as fiction or as a true prediction of the future. (Nobody can really tell.) However, the main objection seems to be that the sources are mainly primary sources; there are no reliable secondary sources. You say that "use of primary sources as long as there is no additional interpretation or evaluation of their contents" is allowed; I disagree. The most essential criterion for inclusion in Wikipedia is that there has been coverage in multiple, independent, reliable published secondary sources -- sources which really discuss the subject from an independent perspective. Primary sources are indeed allowed for verification of particular statements or facts; but secondary sources are essential. In other words, Wikipedia must only document things which have been discussed elsewhere -- "interpretation and evaluation of content" by independent secondary sources is really essential, and this is absent here. Henrik Ebeltoft (talk) 03:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  1. The references in the arricle include a United Nations report, a US Census Bureau database, economic models from Goldman Sachs and PWC, and reports of research from several universities and commercial companies. Hardly "vague, pseudo-realistic musings", and certainly not intended as fiction (yes, of course you can tell the difference !).
  2. On primary sources WP:PSTS says "Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used in Wikipedia" as long as an article "only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source". This article conforms to that policy. Gandalf61 (talk) 06:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Future timeline of Earth. This is almost exactly the same thing. Editorofthewiki 10:10, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This article cannot be "almost exactly the same thing" as "Future timeline of Earth", because the nominator of this AfD, User:Otolemur crassicaudatus, took a completely opposite position in the "Future timeline of the Earth" discussion, where he argued strongly for keeping that article. An editor would not take such oppositely polarised positions if the articles were similar. Otolemur has clarified the difference between the articles on my talk page. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:30, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You must've obviously not read the debate linked above. Editorofthewiki 10:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: None of which were used here...I don't think. Grsz11 17:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The main account did participate here and once we determine someone is disrupting Wikipedia in any fashion, we usually disregard their comments. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 17:03, 10 April 2008 (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.
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