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. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 19:24, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Weight loss effects of water[edit]

Note: This discussion was listed on 12 September 2010, because of an error made when creating this Articles for Deletion page. The customary 7 day period should therefore be taken as starting on 12 September 2010.--greenrd (talk) 20:27, 12 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Weight loss effects of water (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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Not Notable, all sources refer to one primary source, no verifiable secondary sources. Fails WP:NOT#OR  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   14:31, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am the sole author of this article at this point. It's not actually correct that all sources refer to one primary source. Have you actually read the article in its entirety?--greenrd (talk) 15:00, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - I agree that this is written quite poorly. But it is wrong to say that "all sources refer to one primary source." These are clearly secondary sources. I say keep because this seems to be a valid subject.—Chris!_c/t 20:37, 12 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Both refs linked above actually refer back to the one single piece of work - The reference to "Davy" in both artcles confirms this and both appear to be responses to the same Press release. The dates of the two releases only one day apart is a strong confirmation of this. These are only references to a single source and not to any peer reviewed secondary or tertiary sources as required by WP:Policy  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   21:05, 12 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On peer review, which policy explicitly requires "peer reviewed secondary or tertiary sources"? I am aware of the reliability requirement, but not a peer review requirement. On the supposed "single primary source" - I suggest you count the actual number of primary sources cited, and verify for yourself that they are indeed referred to by secondary sources that are also cited. There's more than one primary source already, and there are some further primary sources which do exist, but that still need to be added to the article at this point in time (identified by "citation needed" in the text).--greenrd (talk) 21:28, 12 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - Clearly a notable health topic. Carrite (talk) 21:01, 12 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do you concede that it might potentially be merged with a more general article on active weight loss? JFW | T@lk 13:31, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Any article on any topic is "potentially" mergeable with a more general article. This strikes me as a significant topic which merits encyclopedic coverage. Carrite (talk) 15:27, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - The article is poorly written, and is essentially original research. The use of one press release to make up an entire article on Wikipedia is inappropriate. A brief scan through peer-reviewed journal articles in the health literature (on PubMed, for example) provides very little evidence of any use of water as a means of losing weight. I feel that this article is written as a vehicle for broadcasting very preliminary results of primary research and as such is totally unencyclopedic.Jimjamjak (talk) 09:40, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, multiple primary sources have been cited, and more are on the way. Please read the article you are criticising! Also, being poorly written is not a valid reason for deletion, because a poorly-written article can be improved instead of deleted.--greenrd (talk) 12:50, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Preliminary research—still not enough reliable sources to flesh out a decent article, and, even so, I am entirely unconvinced that the topic warrants its own article. Properly sourced content can easily be merged into relevant articles, such as overweight, obesity, weight loss, etc. I am aware that WP:OTHERCRAP is one of the canonical arguments to avoid in deletion discussions, but I can't help but note that we have no articles on the Weight loss effects of physical exercise, for instance; that's because all encyclopedic content pertaining to the topic is spread around various relevant articles, such as Physical exercise#Benefits and Obesity#Management. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:05, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How many reliable sources do you think are necessary to write a decent article? Isn't over a dozen enough? Moving all of this content somewhere else would probably go against WP:UNDUE. It warrants its own article because there is useful content here that would almost certainly have to be shortened drastically - which would mean losing information - in order to avoid going against WP:UNDUE. I agree with WP:MEDRS that health journalism is sometimes poor quality and unreliable, but not, I think, in the case of the particular articles I've used here. I would argue that unless specific evidence to the contrary can be provided, or better secondary sources can be provided, we should presume they're reliable. You're welcome to read the primary sources and check for yourself, if you want.--greenrd (talk) 13:14, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge - various candidates. This is supported by a few papers and seems notabe, but not to the point of devoting an entire article to it. JFW | T@lk 13:16, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe that any possible set of merge candidates would result in useful information being removed, due to WP:UNDUE. So I am opposed to a merge. I don't believe that notability is a gradual thing - either something is notable enough to have its own article, or it isn't. The general notability guideline is only applicable for articles anyway (and, by community consensus in individual cases, the contents of lists). It is not applicable to individual sentences!--greenrd (talk) 13:23, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • • I disagree that notability is a guarantee for a dedicated article. The evidence is just very limited, so we should not pretend that this is a fully evaluated phenomenon. Much of the article consists of news items based on the primary studies anyway. JFW | T@lk 13:33, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • The very first sentence of Wikipedia:Notability is "On Wikipedia, notability determines whether a topic merits its own article." I agree that sometimes there is no good reason for a topic to have its own article, but I don't think that is the case here - there's a lot of information in the article, more than in thousands of stub articles that are already accepted.--greenrd (talk) 13:35, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • That is not what I said. Not every notable concept is notable to article level. I did not use the word "notable" in the policy sense of the word, but I'm sure you knew that already. JFW | T@lk 14:09, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I didn't realise that's what you meant. I was thinking in terms of policy because deletion discussions are usually supposed to be focused on policy and guidelines.--greenrd (talk) 14:30, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Just add stuff. Greenrd invited me to look at this, and I am a known inclusionist, so rather than focusing on my vote, focus on the fact that I just found three scientific review articles at least somewhat related to the topic by searching "water obesity" in PubMed.[1] And that's only going back to 2007. This article needs a whole lot of work, and a wider variety of sources, and I'm not really volunteering to do it - but deletion or merging is not the right answer. Due largely to its deceptive simplicity, this is actually a fairly major public health issue. Wnt (talk) 00:07, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge. Not convinced that this identifies notable topic which is sufficiently distinct from Physical exercise#Benefits or Obesity#Management among others to warrant its own separate article. So saying, it also needs rewriting (and no I'm not volunteering) to redress various shortcomings. Those that I noticed: 1) the inclusion of hyperlinks to commonly understood words like water, fruits, vegetables. While there do exist articles for these, no reason was evidenced for needing them in this context. 2) As noted above, use of apparently diverse references which collapsed to a single source. 3) Paucity of hyperlinks where they might actually have been useful. 4) Writing style problems: to truly be useful, an article needs to be readable. Failing this not only lessens the reason to keep it, but interferes with some of the very reasons for Wikipedia's existence, which must include facilitating access to (established, notable, non-biased) information. I also reviewed the discussion to see what I might have missed. I think we should bear in mind that inclusion or exclusion based solely on whether the article passes or fails literal readings of the criteria may miss the mark somewhat. Jwilsonjwilson (talk) 22:16, 15 September 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jwilsonjwilson (talk • contribs) 22:10, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am really puzzled as to why you would suggest putting this content under "benefits of physical exercise". No-one would expect to find it there, I cannot see the connection, and there is no mention of water in that section at the moment! Indeed, I have seen no concrete suggestions for merges which I could agree would be workable. Points 1, 3 and 4 are not valid reasons for deletion - they are arguments for improving the article, not deleting it. Point 2 might possibly be a valid reason for deletion if it was true of all the references, but it isn't true of all the references! As I keep saying, there is more than one primary source! In relation to your last sentence, I appreciate of course that use of popular media coverage as sources is not ideal, as stated by WP:MEDRS, and I will try and improve this situation over the coming days.--greenrd (talk) 20:43, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sorry. I copied "benefits of physical exercise" uncritically from prior comment. My fault. And within my admittedly non-comprehensive knowledge of Wiki deletion criteria, points 1, 3, 4 don't qualify this for deletion. And note that I voted Merge. My concern in those observations is rather that as this may indeed be a worthy (hence notable) topic, that persons wishing to read about it find that as easy and rewarding as possible. I commend you for trying to facilitate that, and am mainly trying to point to how the presentation might be improved. I think everybody who contributes to Wikipedia is a hero because they are (without any pay usually) trying to help others. Bravo! Jwilsonjwilson (talk) 18:56, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. I have found the following additional reliable source: Melissa C Daniels and Barry M Popkin (September 2010), "Impact of water intake on energy intake and weight status: a systematic review", which I have added to the article under "Further reading" (my institution does not have an online subscription to this journal, so I'm not able to view a full copy of this paper right now). Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) classifies this type of source as an "ideal" reliable source for such an article, and the fact that it is a review article means that it must cite multiple other reliable sources. I think by this point, it is very clear that notability has been met. No-one disputes that the research is preliminary (i.e. inconclusive), and the article makes that clear from the outset, but that alone is not a reason for deletion. As I've argued elsewhere, string theory is an unproven theory, but it is clearly notable and clearly merits inclusion nevertheless - so the fact that this article is about an under-researched field is not a reason to delete. Since notability has been met and the article is already substantial and tightly-sourced generally speaking, I don't see any case for a merge, either.--greenrd (talk) 18:53, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Food and drink-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 18:42, 14 September 2010 (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.