Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of potentially habitable moons

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. This article is a very poorly written article. However, I also do not believe there is a strong consensus here to delete. The only policy-backed argument here for deletion is WP:NOR, however, it is unclear to what extend how that applies here.

While it is nice to have academic sources for this subject, our WP:N does not absolutely require this, rather it is the WP:RS that needs to be demonstrated. None of the arguments demonstrated how this fails our notability guideline, or how the existing sources are not considered to be reliable by WP:RS standards, hence I cannot see the consensus to delete. Yamamoto Ichiro (talk) 03:01, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

List of potentially habitable moons

List of potentially habitable moons (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Entirely speculative article. The sourcing is not done to actual peer reviewed papers and it appears the article is largely original research and selfpublished. jps (talk) 21:19, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

NOTE Please see the related deletion discussions on WP:CRUFT related to ESI: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of potentially habitable exoplanets and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Potentially Habitable Exoplanets Kepler Candidates (2nd nomination). jps (talk) 23:12, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Astronomy-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:22, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:22, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Keep I would argue that it would be best to merge back into Earth Similarity Index which is where the page :was derived from. However speculation and/or OR is not going on in the article because

A) ESI values are known for solar system satellites

B) Exomoon information is provided by PHL/HEC based on data from exoplanets and the planet-to-mass ratio of 10,000:1 as proposed by Bates et al.

If Speculation is such a concern simply remove the information that you think is speculative instead of deleting the whole article. Davidbuddy9 Talk  21:33, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Davidbuddy9 is blocked for confirmed multivoting with sock account QuentinQuade. I suggest all votes by this user be discounted as bad faith abusive voting. Alsee (talk) 10:23, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Essentially the entire article is speculative. It is impossible to remove the speculative information because then the article would be blank. Even the "ESI" values are speculative as the index itself is made-up by a single author and doesn't represent any meaningful statement with respect to habitability according to the inventor's own admission. jps (talk) 22:12, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Confirmed sockpuppet of Davidbuddy9. Mike V • Talk 18:44, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
Keep Table has been removed from Earth Similarity Index QuentinQuade (talk) 21:46, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

There are problems with Earth Similarity Index too. I am rewriting it in my sandbox to remove a lot of the original research that is contained in that article. jps (talk) 22:03, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

@I9Q79oL78KiL0QTFHgyc: I'm sorry I have to say this but nobody believes you with your WP:OR bs, just look at all your AfD's I'll be reverting your revision because apparently 3rd party sources are Original Research. Since Wikipedia is a communtity it would be nice if the entire community can have access to that sandbox. Davidbuddy9 Talk  04:53, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Please don't use the word "bs". I'm truly sorry that you're working on trying to include ESI in many articles, but it simply is not used in the academic literature. It is outside the WP:MAINSTREAM. It is WP:FRINGE. Thus, to write about it, we need independent sources. That is, sources not written by Mendéz which reference the ESI. That is the goal of what we're trying to do here. jps (talk) 05:56, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:01, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

• Delete (changed vote). My original instinct was to try to merge this material somewhere or to rename the article, but I now think that the best solution is to delete it. WP should not describe an object as "potentially habitable" unless there is in-depth, peer-reviewed research which makes such a claim. The UPR source is not peer-reviewed and should not be the basis of a WP article. Moreover, there are other articles (e.g., Europa, Enceladus, and Extraterrestrial liquid water) which discuss in-depth, peer-reviewed evidence that other bodies in the solar system might sustain life. So even if this article were rewritten, it would still be redundant with those articles. See also my rationale at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of potentially habitable exoplanets. Note: for the sake of readability, if anyone wishes to respond to my changed vote, please do so at the bottom of the AfD discussion. Merge to Earth Similarity Index, and remove hypothetical exomoons from table. It seems to me that this article basically applies the ESI to the objects listed in the table. Accordingly, I think that this table should be merged to the ESI article, supplemented with explanatory text. However, the hypothetical exomoons must be removed from the table. We should not presume their existence in the absence of peer-reviewed observational evidence. Listing them alongside objects which do exist has a very strong potential to be misleading, especially to readers without a background in exoplanets. Astro4686 (talk) 23:10, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
  • @Astro4686: The I initially proposed this but after a few incidents (1, 2) I have changed my mind as it appears to not be welcomed on the ESI page. Repurpose this for ESI's of Moons in the Solar Systems which is definitely known whether you like the ESI Scale or not. Davidbuddy9 Talk  03:18, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Comment. Hi @Davidbuddy9: Thanks for pointing that out; I'll think about your point and reconsider my vote. One concern I have with keeping the article is that the use of "potentially habitable" in the title might be misleading, as ESI attempts to quantify physical similarity to Earth and doesn't take into consideration all factors relevant to habitability (as we know it). Changing the title to reflect this distinction might ameliorate any concerns that the article is too speculative. Best Regards, Astro4686 (talk) 05:04, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Having an article on habitable planetary satellites is a good idea. This list is just opinion masquerading as fact, as far as I can tell. jps (talk) 23:06, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

@Astro4686: @I9Q79oL78KiL0QTFHgyc: If its the title that's not OK than how about we rename it? List of Natural Satellites in order of ESI? Something along those lines. Regardless if you agree with the ESI or not a list of Natural satellites should still be accessible to the readers, even if it is repurposed to just include the Solar System. Davidbuddy9 Talk  23:42, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

List of natural satellites already exists. jps (talk) 01:25, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

But it does not list them in order of habitability. Davidbuddy9 Talk  04:08, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Davidbuddy9 and I9Q79oL78KiL0QTFHgyc: Renaming the article would address my concerns, and I am wondering whether the other participants in this discussion might find this to be an acceptable compromise. My interpretation of this discussion is that the fundamental issue revolves around the use of ESI as a predictor of habitability; if the article and its title are amended so that they don't use the ESI to quantify potential habitability, then the issue is remedied without deleting the article. Would the renamed article be too redundant with List of natural satellites, though? Best Wishes, Astro4686 (talk) 04:48, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

@Astro4686: although others might argue otherwise having a separate article for this could be the same reasons for List of potentially habitable exoplanets, although related to exoplanets/(exo)moons it would still be best to have a separate article in my opinion but with a better title. Davidbuddy9 Talk  05:29, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Of course it doesn't list them "in order of habitability" because such an order is entirely the unpublished originally researched invention of the person in charge of a single website (while simultaneously claiming that the ESI isn't actually an index of habitability). I have no objection to an article about the likelihood of habitable satellites, but this is not going to be a well-ordered list and certainly shouldn't be relying on the ESI. Unlike for Kepler candidates, there are precisely zero peer-reviewed papers on using this index with respect to natural satellites. jps (talk) 11:25, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, —UY Scuti ^Talk 19:42, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Merge to List of potentially habitable exoplanets because I don't think it warrants an article of its own. ProgrammingGeek (Page! • Talk! • Contribs!) 23:24, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Delete the article does not cover our own solar system's moons in any useful manner, our solar system's moons can't be merged to an exoplanet article, and the purely hypothetical exomoons shouldn't be merged anywhere. That leaves nothing to go anywhere. By the way, List of potentially habitable exoplanets currently has a slim majority for delete once the sockpuppeting !votes are discounted. There's a good chance it won't even exist as a merge target. Alsee (talk) 10:20, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Comment, just in case this hasn't been mentioned yet, if you remove the hypothetical moons this page could be renamed to List of moons in the solar system compared to Earth based on ESI. I find it hard to believe that there is a scientific consensus that Io is more habitable than Ganymede or Titan, perhaps ranked higher on ESI does not correlate to habitability. This list maybe notable, just not this version. WP:TNT should apply here. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 22:36, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• Delete as the list doesn't cover potentially habitable moons very well, and is poorly sourced. — Omni Flames (talk contribs) 06:20, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Redirect to Habitability of natural satellites (nothing to merge) Per WP:PRESERVE the table could be used the future when reliable sources and actual information can be added to the page. Discovering potentially habitable moons is certainly going to be notable, if it is not already notable. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 15:22, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

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.