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 delete. While redirects are cheap, delete !votes make a valid case for why it would not be appropriate to merge this. I am deleting, but there's no objection to a redirect if someone feels it's helpful to the reader. Star Mississippi 01:20, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Psilon[edit]

Psilon (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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When biologists at Mountain Lake Biological Station in Virginia conduct their annual survey of plants in the genus Silene that grow along the roads in a certain local area, they record their data in 40-metre lengths of roadside, which are called psilons (likely a pun on the name of the genus). And that's what the article is about. It's kind of cute, and there's something very attractive in the idea that Wikipedia can serve as a catalogue of obscurity and whimsy, but we do have inclusion standards and this is very far from passing them. The only coverage I'm able to find is passing mentions in a couple of papers, with the most detailed treatment found in a 1995 paper by Thrall and Antonovics (doi:10.1139/b95-385), which has half a paragraph explaining why 40 meters is a convenient size for those surveys. I was thinking the article could be redirected somewhere (Mountain Lake (Virginia)#Mountain Lake Biological Station?), but I don't think there's a way to work even the tiniest mention into the prose without giving it undue weight. – Uanfala (talk) 00:40, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Biology-related deletion discussions. – Uanfala (talk) 00:43, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge with List of unusual units of measurement or List of humorous units of measurement. It is sort of cute; it probably can't stretch to an article for the reasons nominator listed; it would be nice if we could preserve it somewhere for the whimsical quality. Atchom (talk) 03:16, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge and redirect per the above. Save the fun, but lose the freestanding article. BD2412 T 05:26, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oh, yeah, merging somewhere is definitely preferable, but I'm not sure the units of measurement lists are suitable targets: psilon doesn't refer to the length of 40 m as a measurement unit, it refers to a segment of road verge that is being surveyed for campions and that is around 40 m in length. – Uanfala (talk) 14:01, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge with List of humorous units of measurement; an interesting topic, certainly, but doesn't need a standalone article. Rubbish computer Ping me or leave a message on my talk page 18:58, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete This may be fun, but it is not in common use. The Thrall & Antonovics paper just says "we call this convenient distance a psilon", and the McCauley paper runs with that and says this distance is "known as psilon". Two groups of scientists sharing a whimsical nickname does not encyclopedic material make. We call fledgling African penguins of a certain age (prone to puking on slight provocation) "horkers", and have used that term in a published table because we thought we could get away with it. If anyone wanted to put that into an article I wouldn't let their feet touch the ground. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:39, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as the scientific version of WP:ONEDAY, do not merge, per Elmidae. Sandstein 13:23, 23 March 2022 (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.