Category talk:Flat earth

RFD discussion: February–March 2022

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This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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Category:Flat earth

Very few pages. --2001:16A2:E812:F001:E80C:D474:45D2:20BB 04:41, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Merge into “Category:Pseudoscience”. — SGconlaw (talk) 05:12, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Keep - I’m not sure that having only a few pages is a good rationale for deletion, when it could just be a subcategory of pseudoscience given they’re clearly a specific type of pseudoscience. On top of that, it also fits into Category:Conspiracy theories, and it would be harder to make that clear if we did this. I just don’t see what this adds to the project. Theknightwho (talk) 06:13, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

@Theknightwho: For topical categories, having only a few pages is a good rationale for deletion, and it's already a subcategory of Category:Pseudoscience. Wikimedia categories are navigational aids. They help users find entries that have something in common. For topical categories, 4 members (looking at English, which is almost always the language with the most members in topical categories) is nothing- you'd be better off manually linking them in "See also" sections. While it's true that the parent category is fairly crowded, that's only because people have been adding both parent and daughter categories to entries- compare Category:en:Creationism and Category:en:Pseudoscience, for instance. The point is that belief in a flat earth isn't the kind of thing that generates much breadth of terminology, and it's such an isolated fringe that adherents are pretty much the only people talking about the subject.

There is one thing we need to discuss, though: historically, the idea that the earth is flat was mainstream, with the Ancient Greek philosphers and the Romans and Rennaissance Europeans who learned from them being the main exception. Would terms like turtles all the way down go in this category, or is it limited to the modern Flat Earth movement? Chuck Entz (talk) 07:07, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

There is actual (contemporary) flat earther jargon, but it may be hard to find durable citations. I'm thinking of things like ice wall (probably not SOP, it refers to a specific conjectured object), atmolayer (also used by some people other than flat earthers), anti-moon/shadow object, universal acceleration. What we actually have is comparatively boring: words for proponents and detractors of the theory. 70.172.194.25 07:24, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

@Theknightwho: I think one criterion for deciding whether a category should be retained is whether there is potential for growth. If a category currently only has a handful of entries in it but there is a reasonable likelihood that other entries will be added in the future, then it should be retained. However, if it is only likely to have a handful of entries in it forever, then it is probably not worth keeping. — SGconlaw (talk) 08:00, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Keep. I also think we should create similar categories for other terminology-heavy conspiracy theories. Binarystep (talk) 10:26, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

@Binarystep: based on what you say, it seems that "Category:Flat earth" ought to be deleted since it seems not to be terminology-heavy. — SGconlaw (talk) 12:06, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Disagree. 70.172.194.25 has given several examples of further terms that could be included. Conspiracy theories tend to laden with jargon. Theknightwho (talk) 15:51, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't know more entries had been added. — SGconlaw (talk) 18:22, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Keep 12 terms is enough jargon for me (and there are likely plenty more that can be attested or added to an appendix) and this helps diffuse both conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:56, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

• Kept Notusbutthem (talk) 20:51, 21 March 2022 (UTC)