Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oleogustus

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. There seems to be enough editors who favor a merge, however, that it may be advisable to propose one at Talk:Taste; that would be a better place to decide whether this should be a stand-alone article or should be incoporated into that article. The consensus is that the information should appear on Wikipedia somewhere. Deor (talk) 10:26, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oleogustus (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Original article PMID 26142421 fails WP:MEDRS, all the sources here are pop-sci sources. Deletion or redirect to Taste#Fattiness. No content salvagable as all sources fail. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 15:24, 24 August 2015 (UTC) -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 15:24, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• It makes it clear that this is a "proposed" new taste. I do not see it as being undue. It is not making an effectiveness claim. Maybe merge to "taste"? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:12, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to Taste#Fattiness, which already has related content. Failing WP:MEDRS is irrelevant as this is a biology article, not a medical article. The citations are fine for a biology article. Bondegezou (talk) 22:08, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  WP:SCIRS is pretty clear that whatever they are, it's not "fine". -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 05:43, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  The article cites the original research report, as WP:SCIRS allows in a situation like this. WP:SCIRS does not disallow news coverage, although it has advice on when and how to use it. The article needs improving in terms of how it uses citations, but that's not an argument for its deletion or not using the content in the article in a merge. Bondegezou (talk) 11:04, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 01:25, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete I'm saying delete because this concept has not received any independent critical coverage. There is no evidence that anybody will remember this term a year from now. I would not be opposed to having an article if the article could clearly state that the concept has not yet been validated, but Wikipedia's policies make that very difficult: it is impossible to find reliable secondary sources to substantiate the fact that there are no reliable secondary sources. Looie496 (talk) 13:45, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge (was delete) per RockMagnetist, albeit severely trimmed. as there is not enough evidence this will become a widely used term. WP:NEO and WP:TOOSOON obviously apply here, and merging/redirecting is moot at this point. The primary source is so recent it hasn't even been cited once for crying out loud! Wikipedia is not a news outlet. FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 20:33, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• keep The sources are adequate to show the phenomenon as a reasonable scientific hypothesis. WP covers such hypotheses; they need to be recognized and discussed before we can cover them, but they don't have to actually be proven true, as long as the article correctly states the status. The sources for this are high ranking scientific journals, and that is all that is necessary for biology. There is however a problem with the terminology--I doubt very mush this will end upas the accepted term, but we need some place to keep the material. Just as Umami was for a long while referred to as the fifth taste until its nature became more defined, and it became accepted as corresponding to a preexisting Japanese term, I suggest sixth taste as a temporary place-holder. DGG ( talk ) 04:56, 27 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • DGG Per your words: "WP covers such hypotheses; they need to be recognized and discussed before we can cover them". This is exactly what we don't have. There is a single study that has proposed this term, and it hasn't even been cited once (it was published last month; I exclude the Time article from my analysis because in the world we live today this sort of thing is easy and catchy reading {see this and this}). If the term is subsequently discussed in the literature, then of course Wikipedia could use an article about it. The fact of the matter is it is too new even to have been discussed appropriately. We can't include this at present per WP:FRINGE. As it stands, this is a single article summary; if there is significant coverage about it at a later point, then I'd gladly see it created again. FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 19:39, 27 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    There's an inherent problem in this: in science, it takes time to write and publish a paper--normally at least 6 months. In contrast, for films or books, a review can come out the same day the item is published, if not earlier. But there are already news items about it: the article give Time and Science News; I see also NPR and the Guardian. Public interest in a hypothesis is just as significant forus as scientific interest (the special restrictions of MEDRS have their place, but this is human biology, not clinical medicine.) This is unlikely to be ignored--using common snese, there is fairly certain to be work either confirming or refuting it. DGG ( talk ) 21:14, 27 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Should we have articles on beer goggles, neurotic people being more creative, autism and gluten, and cricket swings and weather? FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 19:33, 29 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep I find it hard to classify this as a "science" article at all, and it has absolutely nothing to do with medicine. It's really no more scientific than Scoville scale or Pungency or Sweetness. I am unimpressed by the assertion that we should delete the article because the peer-review cycle is too slow to have already produced "discussions in the [scientific] literature" about what food tastes like. That's the biggest problem with this proposal IMO: this is being treated like it's some sort of medical project, and it's not. This is about eating. IMO these are acceptable sources for this point in time. Additionally, there is quite a bit here (e.g., the sourced history section) that could be merged to Taste#Fattiness, if we someday decide not to keep it as a separate article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:13, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep – Passes WP:GNG and also keep per WP:NTEMP. The topic has received international significant coverage in reliable sources. See this link for source examples. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:17, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Food and drink-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:19, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How does this pass NTEMP? I see no coverage previous to July 2015. FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 19:33, 29 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:NTEMP, "once a topic has been the subject of "significant coverage" in accordance with the general notability guideline, it does not need to have ongoing coverage." North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 07:31, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment In terms of WP:NTEMP/WP:NEO concerns, the original academic journal paper builds on an existing literature, so one can build better article content using a variety of sources... but that literature is already covered at Taste#Fattiness. I see no point in having Oleogustus as it is separate from the material at Taste#Fattiness. Either merge Oleogustus into Taste (a simple cut'n'paste job), or take the Taste#Fattiness material out of Taste and merge it into Oleogustus. DGG, in terms of your suggestion for a sixth taste placeholder, while I like the idea, if you go to Taste, there is a lot of material already there about tastes beyond the traditional 5. Indeed, the more obvious candidate for a "sixth taste" is kokumi, so a fattiness taste would be a seventh taste! (There's more literature to support a full kokumi article than there is for oleogustus, I suggest, although those sources haven't been included in Taste yet.) WhatamIdoing: I'm not certain I agree with your argument that this is no more scientific than Scoville scale or Sweetness. This, and sweetness, are entirely scientific topics, like visual perception or hearing; and those are all much more scientific than Scoville scale. (I did my PhD on food psychology: I don't like to see the subject dismissed!) Bondegezou (talk) 21:03, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I disagree. What food tastes like is a fundamentally human topic, about which science can provide some interesting and valuable information. Non-science (e.g., aesthetics, aka "does it taste good?") also plays a role here. Refusing to engage in the overmedicalization of food is not dismissing the subjects: it's restoring them to their rightful (and broader) position. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep The relation with medicines and MEDRS sounds really weird and I see no reason to delete this article on these grounds. The sources are adequate to show the phenomenon as a reasonable scientific hypothesis. The Banner talk 12:29, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't think anyone implied that relation, at least I didn't. I believe the conversation has veered off course, and we are all countering valid yet not quite similar arguments. FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 16:43, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge to Taste#Fattiness. A subject may have enough sources to make it notable, but that doesn't mean that a separate article is the best thing for Wikipedia. Restrict web searches to before 2015, and you can build a similar case for kokumi ([1],[2],[3],[4], etc.), carbohydrates ([5],[6],[7],[8]), and so on ([9],[10]). You could have a separate article for each, claiming that it is the sixth flavor, and leave readers with different impressions depending on how they got to Wikipedia; or you can put them all together in one article and let the reader see all the claims together, as well as the common criteria for what constitutes a taste. I think that would be more encyclopedic. RockMagnetist(talk) 00:53, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I think this is the most reasonable proposal so far. FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 01:20, 7 September 2015 (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.