Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Penta Water

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was keep. ABCD 02:26, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Penta Water

When I first started reading this, I thought it was an ad, and was about to list it for vfd for that reason. But as I read more, it seemed to turn into an attack article. It's POV, original research, and speculation. And the subject itself doesn't seem notable. RickK 00:42, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

Hi Rick,

Let me see if I can defend this article.

1) There is no point of view being expressed here. I have aimed to write a factual article on Penta water, with fairly extensive references.

2) I have not proposed any original research in this article. All of the science is present in peer-reviewed literature. Is there anything specific you wish to question here?

3) The subject is notable. Firstly the number of newspaper reports and discussions on the (highly accredited) James Randi page show that it is of outside interest. There are an enormous number of hits for Penta on Google.

I reject all of your points, but I of course welcome your views on the page.

Thanks,

Christianjb 00:49, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Keep, double check references maybe. 16,700 hits and the guardian article [1] where they threatened a journalist make this a topic that deserves coverage. Kappa 00:54, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep debunking false but popular beliefs seems to be a reasonable task for an encyclopedia, as long as it can be verified (and a major news source like the Guardian is good enough. I wouldn't mind seeing it toned down so as to be a little less rantish, and perhaps with some sort of voice presenting the other side of the story. The article and its basic message, though, should stay. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 01:13, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your responses. I'm not an expert Wikipedian and I agree that the artilcle may come across as a little strong in places! I agree that more effort needs to be put into this article to calm down the tone of it. I would greatly appreciate assistance from other members here.

I have a PhD in physics and have worked for 10 years doing research into water and water clusters (search for christian burnham on http://scholar.google.com). As far as I am aware all of the science on the Penta page that I have written is non-original and accepted by mainstream scientists in the field. There does seem to be a little confusion sometimes- even though the claims of 'clustered' bottle water manufacturers is often in the realm of pseudoscience- water clusters are completely well established mainstream science that nobody challenges the existence of (in the mainstream literature). Papers on water clusters have appeared in Nature and Science, arguably the two most prestigious scientific journals in the world. Christianjb 01:23, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Keep, press coverage and google hit count seem to establish notability. —RaD Man (talk) 02:05, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, but clean up, the writing style is unencyclopedic in place, especially speculation about the inventoris winning the nobel prize if their claims were treu etc. --nixie 02:08, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I just cleaned up the nobel prize section. I agree that sounded quite subjective and speculative. I've toned it down, but maybe it needs to be removed altogether? The Randi Prize is not speculative, because James Randi has stated that Penta would be eligible for the prizeChristianjb 02:13, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have also just added a section titled "Positive Reviews of Penta Water" in order to reflect that Penta has had many people testify to the benefits of their drink. I think this helps to counter the perceived negative tone of some other parts of the article. Unfortunately I will be in the process of moving over the next few days and so I will have very limited time in which to further improve the article. I hope that others will help to improve this article into something much better. It would be unfortunate if this article (still in its infancy, I only began writing yesterday) were deleted before we have had the chance to improve it. I would also like to thank the Wikipedians on this page who have provided very useful criticism, that I hope should make this article better. This has been an educational process for me! Christianjb 03:52, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. About 99% of the Google hits are marketing hype, this may serve as a dose of reality against all that nonsense. Positive reviews?? - we don't need to hype it with celebrity raves. There is a need for genuine scientific information. It may need some cleanup and also careful watching to squelch any attempts at advertizing that may show up. Should be placed in both physics and pseudoscience categories. Vsmith 04:47, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, cleanup and expand. Megan1967 06:02, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, not original research, all criticisms of Penta Water have been previously reported in the literature (see the Guardian's Bad Science column in particular). If the article seems negative - well, I suppose lying, making false claims and threatening journalists tends to make you look negative. Average Earthman 09:45, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Seems to be notable subject. Capitalistroadster 10:52, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. If this was a non-notable bit of pseudoscience, then that would be an argument for letting it go. But it appears to have made itself fairly notable, so presenting both its claims and the fact that those claims have been debunked is valuable. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:06, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Definitely deserves an entry. -- taviso 17:06, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep but definitely cleanup. Penta-water itself unquestionably pseudoscience, but there is a story here. Fawcett5 21:52, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

For those suggesting a 'cleanup'- could they give me more specific suggestions. I'm new at this Wiki thing and constructive criticism is always helpful. (Maybe this should go on the talk page for this article) Thanks again to everyone for their positive response and support. Christianjb 22:15, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.