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. Following a rewrite, earlier deletion arguments may no longer apply. Renominate if still deemed deficient.  Sandstein  08:48, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wild animal suffering

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Wild animal suffering (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Original research. Most of the directly relevant sources are from a few non-notable people: Oscar Horta, Brian Tomasik, Adriano Mannino. This does not appear to be an existing subject in the academic literature. Pawg14 (talk) 16:35, 17 April 2016 (UTC) — Pawg14 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. GabeIglesia (talk) 18:23, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. GabeIglesia (talk) 18:23, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Since the purpose of the article may not be clear, I recommend looking at this, cited in the lede, to get an idea of what this is really about. Also from the same author: "However, many animal advocates also strongly defend wildlife, in spite of the immense amounts of animal suffering it contains. Some animal supporters are environmentalists because they think ecological preservation best advances animal welfare, while others hold an additional moral view that nature is intrinsically valuable. It's troubling that spreading the animal movement risks creating more defenders of wildlife who may cause more animal suffering than they prevent," and Habitat Destruction, Not Preservation, Generally Reduces Wild-Animal Suffering. --Sammy1339 (talk) 13:58, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Also see this early version and note that the article cites the main proponents of these fringe ideas - Tomasik, Donnelly, and David Pearce (philosopher), who have been among the main contributors to this article. --Sammy1339 (talk) 14:06, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The article is not organized in a way that makes his obvious, but some sections of the article are describing why wild animal suffering is bad, and others are describing why wild animal suffering might be okay. This should alleviate some of your concern that this might be a one-sided article. I think it might be helpful for someone to rewrite the section headings to collect arguments against wild animal suffering and separate them from the arguments for why wild animal suffering might be morally permissible. — Eric Herboso 20:29, 18 April 2016 (UTC) — Eric Herboso (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. (Edit: I am NOT a single purpose account, as can be easily seen in my edit history. I am not removing the SPA notice because I'd like to highlight that someone is seemingly indiscriminately marking accounts as SPA when they are, in fact, not. — Eric Herboso 09:25, 24 April 2016 (UTC))[reply]
Eric, you have previously indicated that you formerly worked with Animal Charity Evaluators, a dubious charity evaluator (accused of conflicted interests and pseudoscience by academics) which promotes this idea. Note the essay in the last link relies heavily on Tomasik, the author of the papers I linked in my previous comment and a former board member of ACE. This group is also associated with the idiosyncratic philosopher David Pearce and the others cited in this article. Can you provide concrete evidence that "wild animal suffering" is a notable topic independent of this cluster of interesting people? --Sammy1339 (talk) 22:45, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
At the risk of going on a tangent, I think that's a pretty unfair characterization of ACE. Those critics level far stronger criticisms at other animal protection groups (just look in the pages surrounding the page of that book that discusses ACE), and the book just criticizes ACE because (i) it's "interconnected" with other groups, (ii) it focuses on farmed animal advocacy, (iii) they focus on more than just "vegan" tactics (e.g. welfare reform). Hardly strong critiques. Also, your "pseudoscience" citation doesn't even critique ACE beyond saying it uses weak evidence. It acknowledges, "there is no credible, peer-reviewed quantitative scientific evidence to indicate that any organization is more effective than any other," so it's not even claiming that ACE is ignoring strong evidence, just that the evidence in the field is generally weak. I've mentioned this to you before, but I really think you should focus on substance instead of just the fact that some "academics" have made some claims. Also, there have been multiple WP:RS cited for "wild animal suffering." Sure, you can draw connections between most of the people who have written about it. You can do that with many things that are still notable. It's a small world. Tempo mage (talk) 23:18, 18 April 2016 (UTC) — Tempo mage (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. (strike comment by a now-blocked sock per this SPI Jytdog (talk) 11:00, 23 April 2016 (UTC))[reply]
Please, let's not drag in random off-wiki disputes here. NeatGrey (talk) 23:40, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's not off-wiki, and it does have some bearing on whether Wild animal suffering is notable and worth keeping. But I agree it's tangential and probably not worth discussing further. Tempo mage (talk) 23:54, 18 April 2016 (UTC)— Tempo mage (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. (strike comment by a now-blocked sock per this SPI Jytdog (talk) 11:00, 23 April 2016 (UTC))[reply]
Glancing through the sources, I've gone and removed a bunch which looked like random blogs, but there's still a total of 43 sources listed and the majority look reliable. That's not conclusive proof the topic is notable, but I think the burden of proof is now on people favoring deletion, to explain what's wrong with all the existing sources. The arguments to that effect so far have been disagreements with the article's content, but problems with an article usually aren't a justification for deleting the article. See the policies at WP:IMPERFECT, WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM, WP:NOTPAPER, and the "arguments to avoid in deletion discussions" WP:IDLI, WP:NOTCLEANUP, WP:EASYTARGET, WP:UNKNOWNHERE, WP:ADHOM. NeatGrey (talk) 23:40, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Could you clarify why you deleted the links from Foundational Research Institute and Animal Ethics? While these aren't WP:RS, I don't see why they aren't good citations (and why the claims they back up shouldn't be included). I feel like that took away a fair bit of the substantive content from the article, given that these nonprofits are some of the leading research groups in the field. It seems standard Wikipedia practice to include cites from websites like these, but I am pretty new to this. Tempo mage (talk) 23:54, 18 April 2016 (UTC)— Tempo mage (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. (strike comment by a now-blocked sock per this SPI Jytdog (talk) 11:00, 23 April 2016 (UTC))[reply]
Sure. It's a core policy that everything in Wikipedia has to be verifiable in reliable sources. If these organizations are serious research groups, they'll have published their arguments in journals, academic conferences, books by reputable publishers, or other places that are considered reliable. The content can then be re-introduced, with cites to these sources, and in much more detail than the short bits I deleted. If these same claims are supported by other reliable sources, again, they can be re-introduced in much more detail with cites to those sources. In that case, leaving the old content in wouldn't help much, since the other sources would be much better anyway and since the bits I deleted were so short. On the other hand, if there are no reliable sources which support these claims/arguments, they shouldn't be in Wikipedia, because they don't meet the WP:VERIFIABILITY policy. NeatGrey (talk) 00:23, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I'm surprised I've seen so many non-RS cited on Wikipedia, given that this is a policy, but WP:VERIFIABILITY does seem to confirm that, at least, if the claims are challenged. Maybe challenging is just pretty infrequent? Anyway, thanks! Tempo mage (talk) 00:52, 19 April 2016 (UTC) (strike comment by a now-blocked sock per this SPI Jytdog (talk) 11:00, 23 April 2016 (UTC))[reply]
@NeatGrey: You left a bunch of WP:FRINGE sources that are connected to ACE in some way, some of them self-published, as well as a lot that don't seem to directly address the topic as such. Most of the article is still OR, as it was written by someone who interpreted all academic discussion of human intervention in nature as being about this idea of quantifying the negative utility experienced by animals and using it as a reason to support the destruction of habitats, in order to save animals from existence. Can you clarify which sources specifically establish the notability of "wild animal suffering" as an academic topic? --Sammy1339 (talk) 00:20, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. Haven't checked if these are in the article itself, but from a quick Google, there appear to be sources in peer-reviewed academic journals here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, and a book by Oxford University Press here. NeatGrey (talk) 01:05, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Most of those are not reliably published. The book, Zoopolis by Susan Donaldson is, and so is the article by Sozmen (your 1st link). The article by Kirkwood and Sainsbury is about treatment and rehabilitation of wildlife. I'm not sure whether or not the commentary on Ng's paper qualifies - those are published without review by HSUS. There's really no coherent topic here though - it would be synthesis to try to work these together. Perhaps "wild animal welfare" could be a topic. However, such an article wouldn't include the fringe ideas on which the present article was based, and WP:TNT applies here. --Sammy1339 (talk) 01:32, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sammy1339: Yes, I’ve worked with Animal Charity Evaluators. I’ll put aside your characterization of ACE, since we obviously have differing opinions on whether the research ACE does is worthwhile. Instead, I will point out that the issue is irrelevant, as the topic of “Wild Animal Suffering” has been written about in several scholarly sources that have nothing whatsoever to do with the cluster of people around ACE. There can be no doubt about this because ‘’the published research is in disagreement over this issue’’. A google scholar search for “wild animal suffering” brings up 93 results; removing mentions of ACE and Tomasik brings it down to 66. Even without “that cluster of people”, the topic of wild animal suffering is clearly one that is going on in academic circles. — Eric Herboso 00:49, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of self-published stuff and junk journals, also lots of passing mentions. GHITS doesn't cut it, especially for a fringe topic. Mind you, nobody's arguing that wild animal suffering doesn't exist, but we don't have an article on "wild animal obesity" either. --Sammy1339 (talk) 01:01, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • You mean write a different article? That's why I cited WP:TNT. I would not object to a move if someone made such a dramatic revision. --Sammy1339 (talk) 15:37, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • This seems like a less bad idea than complete deletion to me, but seems worse than keeping the article because (i) I think Dawkins/Mill are relevant - they explicitly endorse the idea that there is a large amount of suffering in nature and this suffering is morally relevant (which is exactly the idea of Wild Animal Suffering), (ii) I think the current article does include opposing viewpoints (see the "Potential conflict between..." section), although I think everyone agrees the organization of the article should be improved, (iii) "humanitarian" refers to human welfare, and I think a title that evaded that, like "Intervention to reduce wild animal suffering," would just be narrowing the issue too much, since much of the information is just about the presence of that suffering and its moral qualities as opposed to intervention itself. Tempo mage (talk) 15:49, 19 April 2016 (UTC) (strike comment by a now-blocked sock per this SPI Jytdog (talk) 11:00, 23 April 2016 (UTC))[reply]

"Few or no other edits"(?) Before this sudden rash of deletion proposals from a new editor who has now reverted to a previous username, my immediately preceding edits were on Giulio Regeni, ‎Pál Prónay, Jonas Savimbi, Otto Ohlendorf, Switzerland during the World Wars, Quantum superposition, the Russian Sukhoi Su-24 shootdown... (etc)--Davidcpearce (talk) 20:14, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organisms-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:47, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:47, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Animal-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:47, 23 April 2016 (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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