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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Archaeogeodesy

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 of the debate was delete. – Sceptre (Talk) 16:12, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Archaeogeodesy

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Tagged for Prod but contested by one of the many incarnations of James Q. Jacobs, who seems intent on using this article as a vehicle for personal aggrandisement. Term is clearly very minor, it may be considered significant I guess but it looks from the linked sources as if this is not a serious field of study. All the sources appear to trace back to a very small number of authors. Just zis Guy you know? 11:39, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. Sorry but some of you are under a misunderstanding. I am most definitely not an incarnation of James Q Jacobs - which should be clear from the Archaeogeodesy talk page. (JzG - I would really appreciate it if you considered my charge that you have made an error here). I have reverted away from Mr Jacobs's repeated self-promotional attempts to dominate the article by writing 90% of it as an advert for his own work. He is not the only person to use the term, and he does not 'own' this field. No-one does. The term is used also by the Archaeogeodetic Association, which co-wrote the 1992 pamphlet mentioned in the links (the 'Great Conjunction', ISBN 1871593050), and which has been classed under 'occultism' by the British library (for reasons best known to themselves) and reviewed on the web by an accomplished mathematician at Exeter university.

My view is that for the moment there should be a short article simply listing the alternative definitions of the field (of which I am aware of two), linking to various works. Editors should then, in the fullness of time, create a lovely article that accurately summarises the scope and history of the field. Far from being invented by either Jacobs or the AgA, it dates back for more than a century. Big names for example are William Black, Alfred Watkins, and Guy Underwood. (Alexander Thom is mentioned in the article on 'ley lines' but, as far as I am aware, he confined his studies, where alignments were concerned, to much shorter ones than are studied in archaeogeodesy. Archaeogeodesy overlaps with, but is certainly not coterminous with, the study of leylines).

It is unfair to say that archaeogeodesy is not a serious field of study. This suggests it is merely the realm of hoaxers or people who seek to amuse themselves, which isn't true. I quite agree that the field attracts crackpots. In fact I think Mr Jacobs is a crackpot, but that's just my POV, and is no reason for deletion of an article on the field. In fact, it's no reason even to exclude mention of Jacobs's work. Other fields that attract crackpots include religion, evolutionary biology, psychology, etc.

If it was all a hoax, I think the proposal would be on stronger ground. But I don't think the idea can be seriously maintained by anyone who has read e.g. the 'Great Conjunction' pamphlet, or who has attended AgA lectures.

It is true that the field is fairly obscure and the term has been used only by a small number of authors...but this too is no good reason for deletion IMO.

AIUI, the term archaeoastronomy is fairly new - dating back maybe to the 1960s. It's a good name for a certain field of study which dates back much longer. If Wikipedia had existed in say 1975, when the term had been going for only about 15 years, and let's say it wasn't in very widespread use at that time, would there have been good reason to delete an article on it? I don't think so.

Let's just have a short NPOV article for the time being...and if anyone tries to 'own' it, take what measures are necessary to prevent that from happening.

--158-152-12-77 22:43, 2 April 2006 (BST)

  • Weak delete I know there are people interested in the alignments of ancient sites (such as Ley lines). However, the fact that there are two competing definitions suggests that the term is too new to be encyclopedic. Can you offer any examples other than the association's pamphlet that the term is in widespread use (at least among practitioners)? Thatcher131 00:20, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, it is not in widespread use, in the sense of being used by a large number of people, although the association does have members on four continents. Bear in mind that they do not share Mr Jacobs's approach, and coined the term without any desire to own the field, or indeed to own any field. Nobody has made any attempt to monopolise the archaeogeodesy page by referring at great length to the AgA. (If anyone does do so, I'll oppose it the same way I opposed Mr Jacobs's efforts to do so, and for the same reasons). A good comparison would be the use of the term 'archaeoastronomy'. It is meant to be NPOV. 'Leyline' is a more loaded term, and for most practitioners carries connotations of 'energy lines' etc., whereas 'archaeogeodesy' refers just to alignments, and is meant to be basically plain and objective. It does not carry any implied interpretation. Indeed it doesn't even imply the view that alignments actually exist! :-) You say it's too new, but it's been around for more than 15 years. 158-152-12-77 (talk · contribs) 11:19, 3 April 2006 (BST)
One key difference is that archeoastronomy gets 350,000 ghits and archaeogeodesy gets around 600, of which fewer than 150 appear to be unique, and the list is dominated by Wikipedia mirrors and Jacobs' own astroturfing. I note that most of your edits are either to this subject or linking it to other articles, this is not often a good sign. Just zis Guy you know? 13:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To me, the fact that there is no settled definition of the term means it is too new; new being relative, of course. A term like proteome is probably under 5 years old but has been adopted by thousands of biologists and covered in multiple peer-reviewed journals, and has a single definition. The fact that archaeogeodesy does not have an agreed-upon definition after 15 years suggests that the number of people involved in the debate is too small and/or the findings too obscure for a definition to crystallize, which to me suggests a lack of encyclopedic notability. However I said weak delete because I am open to including the topic provided some independent source (apart from the AgA) can be cited. The fact that a small number of people have coined a new word to describe their field of interest, no matter how serious-minded they are, does not confer encyclopedic notability unless other people start to notice. Thatcher131 15:12, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Eric - no, he is not the only one using the term. (Unless you meant something I didn't understand, by the words "in this manner"). See the discussion.
in this manner was referring to Jacob's use of the term, which as far as i can gather is that the positioning of sites (when accurately determined and proper epoch re: the celestial sphere) suggests ancient knowledge of the size and shape of the earth. EricR 17:05, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thatcher131 - you say that "the fact that archaeogeodesy does not have an agreed-upon definition after 15 years suggests that the number of people involved in the debate is too small and/or the findings too obscure for a definition to crystallize". This is not so. See for example 'mathematics', which also does not have an agreed upon definition. Or many other terms. I also don't know what 'debate' you are referring to. There isn't any 'debate' on what the term should mean. There are just different people using it different ways.
JzG - are you going to apologise for stating, as if it were a fact, in the text with which you opened this deletion discussion, that I am a sockpuppet for Mr Jacobs? You were not assuming good faith on my part. Nor can you have seriously considered the contributions to the talk pages etc. And when I say that, I am assuming your own good faith, because I don't believe someone who had seriously considered those contributions, could reach the conclusion that you did. If your statement as an admin is allowed to stand - namely the accusation that I am a sockpuppet for Jacobs - then there just is no point in my continuing to take part in this discussion. If you want to see a list of my contributions BTW, don't just check the ones I made since setting up '158-152-12-77' as a user name. Also look at those I made from that IP before I did so, beginning in Jan 2004: here. You will see that your statement that most of my edits are either to this article, or linking it to other articles, is incorrect. But then I'm not on trial, am I, any more than you are? It is onerous that I have to correct statements of which the falsehood is easily verifiable.
Most of the objections have actually fallen away - e.g. advertising, hoaxiness, lack of seriousness, unverifiability, and so on. The only remaining one, it seems to me, is 'obscurity'. But I thought encyclopedias were for reference, including on obscure subjects. But there probably is little point in my saying any more.

158-152-12-77 17:12, 3 April 2006 (BST)

I disagree that verifiability has been established. We have one 31-page pamphlet published jointly by the AgA and the LPA (which itself only has one other publication and which Matthew Watkins calls elusive); and we have Watkins' site itself, who is an "honorary research assistant" whose web site is hosted at Exeter and whose research interests are certainly non-traditional and eclectic to say the least. You mention Alfred Watkins for example; what did he call these alignments (and did he actually diferentiate between Ley lines and these longer alignments as you do)? It's possible the field is old but the terminology is too new to be widely accepted, in which case it should be filed under the most common current terminology. While I do not doubt your sincerity, generally I think there is a lack of verifiability here. Thatcher131 16:48, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Several issues of the LPA's newsletter are online. I can't see the relevance of whether Matthew Watkins's interests are traditional or non-traditional. He currently only holds a lowly post at the university of Exeter, but he has done noteworthy work in physics (e.g. study of retro-PK using the internet) and published a number of academic papers, and at least one book (possibly more). Did you see the references to AgA work in the other sources I referred to, on the other deletion-debate page? The AgA has been referred to in Neoist publications (e.g.here)and philosophical publications (e.g.here).

The way to contact the AgA (other than using personal connections) is to go through the publisher. The pamphlet was not published jointly by the AgA and the LPA. It was authored by them. The publisher was Unpopular Books, which has published books in a number of different fields, including politics.

It's not merely 'possible' that the field of archaeogeodesy (or whatever we want to call it - i.e. long-distance alignments of ancient sites) is old. It's a fact. I have listed the names of three big authors above.

158-152-12-77 18:50, 3 April 2006 (BST)

Sorry - I missed your question about Alfred Watkins. No, he didn't differentiate terminologically, but he did study alignments of different lengths. Bear in mind that the 'geodesy' part of 'archaeogeodesy' is basically about making measurements on the earth's surface, and conceiving of the shape of that surface, taking into account its curvature (using a spherical model, and in some contexts, a spheroidal model). See in particular what geodesists call the 'principal' and 'inverse' geodetic problems, referred to in the geodesy article. (This terminology is standard). People making alignments over long distances have got to have some sort of appreciation of these problems. Which begs the question, of course, as to whether anyone made such alignments in ancient times. I'm not sure how much you know about the field, but some of the work by Alexander Thom (a professor of engineering) on archaeoastronomy appeared first in a statistics journal, and a fair amount of the AgA's work is also statistical.

If you put a 1m-wide stone half a mile from another, it makes very little appreciable difference whether you take into account the curvature of the earth or not. If you do it over a distance of 500 miles, it does make a difference. At any rate, when you're talking short-distance sight-lines, there isn't the data to support an opinion as to whether or nor the curvature of the earth was taken into account. The distances are too short. So that's one of the reasons why long-distance alignments are seen as a separate field, or sub-field, or whatever you want to call it. None of what I've just said is controversial. Whether such alignments exist, of course, is.

I should also mention that many leyhunters don't think there's any case for believing that long-distance alignments exist. E.g. Paul Devereux and the 'Ley Hunter' magazine crew. They think the idea is kooky. It conflicts with their 'paradigms'. But they still accept the distinction. I haven't come across any author who doesn't.

Oh, and the lines have got to be straight. Various authors talk of wiggly lines, 'dragon' lines, lines tracing pictures, and so on. Questions concerning these, or their existence or otherwise, are not included in the subject-matter of archaeogeodesy, for the simple reason that geodesy isn't involved.

I don't know what you would suggest as the comon current terminology to take the place of archaeogeodesy. I'm afraid leylines is a very loaded term, and is insufficiently specific.

158-152-12-77 19:23, 3 April 2006 (BST)

DELETE. James Q. Jacobs here. Get rid of the slander against me. Someone is unwilling to have any history of archaeogeodesy posted on this page, and continually vandalizes the content. I would prefer to have the page deleted because of the conduct of the person who will not allow any history of this research to be posted, and uses the page to slander me.

Archaeo- is a combining form meaning ancient. Therefore, archaeogeodesy means "ancient geodesy." Geodesy is a known science and not available for redefinition by ley hunters or followers of some unscientific and much criticized author. Geodesy is science, a very large science encompassing surveying and cartography, and hundreds of thousands of professionals worldwide. Ancient geodesy encompassed all geodesy in prehistory; all navigation, surveying, measure and representation of the earth, and map making.

Archaeogeodesy is the specialized area of scientific study I defined. I have worked on this research for 20 years. I am an anthropologist and archaeologist, and an academic instructor. I attained 4.0 GPAs in undergraduate study at two institutions and graduated summa cum laude. I have taught college anthropology, archaeology, education, mathematics, and computer information systems. But, call me whatever you wish. I was one of the first people creating Wikipedia, when it was worth the effort. Now it has devolved into this sort of banality! I can't even fix typos or capitalizations any longer w/o someone reverting to the previous errors. Why bother.

Archaeogeodesy has nothing to do with occultism, the ley line concept, or other new age ideation. From the discussion above, it is obvious that geodesy is being confused with new-age pseudoscience. If someone used the word "archaeogeodetic" once in 1992, fine--Let them write a book about it if they wish. But printing the word once does not justify erasing a history of serious scientific study. Nonetheless, at this point I vote DELETE the slander.

  • Mr Jacobs appears not to want an article on this subject unless he owns it. A "history of serious scientific study" indeed! His version was 90% devoted to his own work, and he was even caught out vandalising the AgA page, trying to advertise his work. The marks (US: grades) he got when he was a student are irrelevant. It was his continued reversion to a self-promotional version that led to the calls for semi-protection and the alert on the admin announcements page.

158-152-12-77 02:13, 7 April 2006 (BST)

Latest version

Rather than concentrating exclusively on delete/don't-delete, I'd encourage anyone interested in improving the article, to try to do so, with the aim of getting it as good as we can while the discussion is going on. I've just added a hopefully non-controversial first bit and an explanation of what is relevant about geodesy. 158-152-12-77 02:17, 7 April 2006 (BST)


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.