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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Biscuits and human sexuality

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. The analysis principally by Nsk92 and Guest999, which demonstrates that there are no sources establishing the general topic of "biscuits and sex" as such and that the article accordingly violates WP:SYNTH, has not been adequately refuted by those advocating to keep the article.  Sandstein  10:48, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Biscuits and human sexuality

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Biscuits and human sexuality (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

The connection between biscuits and sex, if there is one, is synthesis of published material that appears to be original research. It seems to be a loose collection of info with no other connection than that it somewhat involves biscuits and sex. McVities providing biscuits for Ann Summers parties? Erotic art made with biscuits? Nineteenth century women referred to as biscuits? I have no idea why this article exists. Graymornings(talk) 00:22, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep - The article gives multiple examples of the link between biscuits and human sexuality. — Realist2 00:26, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep obviously, as the creator. In what way is this original research? Every single factual claim, is cited; in almost every case to easily verifiable and indisputably reliable sources. It's only a "synthesis" in that it's an article about different aspects of a topic – which every article of ours other than the most specialised is. What "novel conclusion that is not in any of the sources" are you suggesting I'm making here? I very carefully avoided making any conclusions or value judgments. Your nomination, which appears to boil down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT, seems to me to fail to do the same. Obviously, it's a sketchy article; it was less than six hours old at the time you nominated it for deletion. What policy exactly are you claiming this article violates? – iridescent 00:32, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, there are sexual acts involving biscuits, art with biscuits, etc. but it's not a notable connection. There's no historical link between biscuits and sex other than these very tenuous connections. No one other than you has said "X has a meaningful connection to Y." Graymornings(talk) 00:44, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Xyr nomination only boils down to "I don't like it." if one constructs a straw man and ignores the actual wording of the nomination which challenges this on the basis of the Wikipedia:No original research policy. So where's your source that explicitly discusses an explicit overall connection between sex and biscuits? Note that your currently cited sources have all been demolished below by Nsk92. Uncle G (talk) 03:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • No. This nomination is explicitly on the grounds of WP:SYN – both written out in the nomination and wikilinked, so there's no possible way I'm misunderstanding the intention. As the article does not reach any conclusion – novel or otherwise – it's impossible that WP:SYN applies. When challenged, the arguments are shifting to WP:NOR; again, there is no OR aspect to this article, every claim in which is sourced. You and the nominator appear to misunderstand the way Wikipedia works; this is not Citizendium, and our articles are not handed down on tablets of stone in a finished state. New Wikipedia articles are created as works in progress, which are gradually expanded by other editors; in some cases it can be a matter of years between the initial creation and the expansion into something approaching a "finished" state. There's plenty of scope to expand this one; I've already made a couple of suggestions on the talkpage, most obviously relating to the constant sex-and-biscuit imagery in Two Pints of Lager & a Packet of Crisps. Yes, obviously this article is a "collection of facts on a related topic", but that is the whole point of Wikipedia articles; by this logic you'd AFD Tourism in New York City since all the sections have in common is that they're all about buildings that happen to be in NYC and visited by tourists, or BDSM as a loose collection of assorted sexual practices that happen to involve ropes. – iridescent 12:25, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • Again, you are inventing straw men. No-one has nominated Tourism in New York City for deletion. The subject is this article, and I notice that with your distraction of the discussion to other articles you didn't respond to the challenge presented. So I repeat it: where's your source that documents an explicit overall connection between sex and biscuits? The "every claim is sourced" argument has been demolished below, where it is pointed out that some of the content has been somewhat creatively taken from the sources (at least one of which contains a quote from someone stating that there isn't a connection between biscuits and sex) and that several analyses actually aren't supported by any sources at all, and you've presented no source that documents any such umbrella topic as this.

          And, kiddo, there's a saying about trying to teach people how to suck eggs. I know how Wikipedia works. I've worked on articles that took nearly five years to write. But they all had sources from which they could be built, and that showed that such a topic even existed outside of Wikipedia in the first place. You have no sources. You've presented none. And people who've looked, such as me, haven't found any. (My credentials on finding sources for the seemingly unlikeliest of topics should be well known.) So, again: Where's your source? Uncle G (talk) 00:21, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep - Someone made the same bad argument elsewhere on the project today, and it's now being recycled as an AFD nom. The article is well-sourced, not original research. I don't see why we should expect that this article cannot be improved. لennavecia 00:39, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I don't like it is not a reason to initiate an AfD. This article seems at least as worthy as Gokkun, for instance, and is fully cited to reliable sources. --Malleus Fatuorum 00:45, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's a good thing that that wasn't the reason, then. The reason, as linked-to in the rationale, was that it violated the Wikipedia:No original research policy by synthesizing sources talking about other subjects into a discussion of a sunject that no sources actually address. You cannot refute that by saying that the individual pieces of other subjects that are synthesised together are themselves verifiable. You cannot refute that by making straw man and putting it in place of the nominator's argument. You can only refute that by citing a source that explicitly makes a connection between sex and biscuits. You haven't done so. Neither has any other editor opining to keep so far. And as a result the argument that this is an original synthesis, in violation of policy, remains standing. Uncle G (talk) 03:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • You and the nominator both seem to have missed the point that the "synthesis" objection is only valid if a "novel conclusion" is drawn from the sources. What is the novel conclusion that is drawn in this article? --Malleus Fatuorum 04:09, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • Nope. You have missed the title of the article, where the idea that there's an umbrella topic of biscuits and human sexuality is implicitly propounded — an original idea that is further propounded, without foundation in sources, in the article's introduction. Uncle G (talk) 04:47, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • Well, I've polished my glasses and had another look at the title, so I don't think I've missed it. The only thing I've so far missed is the "novel conclusion" required for your synthesis argument to stick. --Malleus Fatuorum 04:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • I don't know about Uncle G, but I thought the novel conclusion was the fact that there is any connection between biscuits and human sexuality at all beyond these trivial mentions in popular culture. I mean, I could write an article titled Boats and human sexuality and throw together unrelated information ("In the James Bond movie Goldeneye, there is a picture of a boat behind the bed..." "People often go on singles cruises...") but unless this connection has been explored in any depth at all by someone other than me (i.e. in a published source), it's not encyclopedic. Graymornings(talk) 06:30, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
              • An article's title is merely that, an article's title. Where's the "novel conclusion"? ."Conclusion", not what you or anyone else believes to be an inappropriate, or even a novel, "conjunction". --Malleus Fatuorum 07:01, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
                • Original research is any novel concept, idea, analysis, synthesis, or conclusion that doesn't exist in sources. That you are carefully omitting all of the other parts of the policy indicates a degree of cherry-picking. And I find it hard to believe that you've read the title and introduction of this article and failed to see the concept that it is purporting. It's the concept of biscuits and human sexuality. It's right there in both the title and the introduction, staring the reader in the face. Are you going to rise to the challenge of citing a source that documents this concept? The article's creator has not, yet. Uncle G (talk) 00:21, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - I used to believe I'd seen everything, then I just saw the section on biscuit porn... Nonetheless good references are provided for the information provided, and if the connection exists, as it clearly does, why not have an article on it? -- roleplayer 00:46, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment it's somewhat ironic to me that this article has such strong support (and I'm not calling it undeserved, mind you), when a perfectly notable and similar topic, WP:Articles for deletion/Unification Church views of sexuality is having a somewhat rougher go of it. Jclemens (talk) 00:55, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • LOL. JBsupreme (talk) 01:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The nominator is absolutely correct, the subject of the article is artificially chosen and the article is a bad case of WP:SYN, an ad hoc collection of several refs involving the words "sex" and "biscuits" in them. It makes for a good laugh but not for a coherent encyclopedic topic. One can create an article of this kind by taking any two words from the dictionary, running a googbooks search for their combination and then making a collage Wikipedia article from them called "A and B" where A and B can be anything. There is no indication in the references cited that anyone ever actually considered "sex and biscuits" to be a separate and coherent topic worth saying anything about. For example, the Madonna-Guy Ritchie episode does not even seem to fall into the scope of the article as it is defined in the article's opening paragraph. Madonna claimed[1] that Ritchie was trying to lose weight on a "cookie diet" and that the loss of sex drive was one of the side-effects. That does not really correspond well to the article's stated subject: "human sexual behavior involving biscuits or cookies, to pornographic material involving biscuits and cookies, or to the use of biscuits and cookies as a medium for the production and distribution of pornography". The McVitie's story also seems like rather a stretch. A careful reading of the reference provided there[2] shows that McVitie's justified its partnership decision with Ann Summers by demographic marketing considerations ("new cookies are aimed at the same target market - women aged 20-45") rather than by asserting a special connection between biscuits and sex. The ref given for the Mondongo story[3] also appears to say that Mondongo's choice of buscuits as a medium for making a series of pornographic images was motivated by other considerations and not by asserting some kind of a special link between buscuits and sex. The ref says: "Things stink and no wonder Mondongo has even thought of making a work from out their own faeces. They didn’t, they chose biscuits, this time, equally heinous since they are what the wives of the military would have nibbled on at tea-time as they told stories to their ‘adopted’ children." Again, I don't really see in any of these references a specific discussion of relationship between sex and biscuits as a coherent topic. Overall, the entire subject of the article seems to be an artificially created one to me. Nsk92 (talk) 02:55, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. —Nsk92 (talk) 03:06, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • One would think that if there were a connection between these twain, it would have at least been mentioned in The Sex Life of Food (ISBN 9780312363765). It isn't. So far, I've been through the first 30 Google Books results, and found nothing whatsoever to support such a connection. Google Scholar has turned up nothing so far, either.

    There's a connection between nutrition and sex drive (particularly observed in cattle in the literature, it seems), which the Madonna tidbit clearly fits into. But it isn't restricted to specifically biscuits (or indeed humans).

    Similarly, there's ample discussion of food metaphors for sex and sexual attractiveness, into which discussion of slang names for young women can be placed. (Indeed, they are so placed in actual sources that are more than dictionaries of slang.) But, again, the metaphors aren't exclusively biscuits. ("Coffee grinder" is one, for example.)

    Everything here is a fact taken from a larger overall different subject and discussed here under an umbrella that doesn't seem to exist outside of Wikipedia, rather than in the context of the proper subject that it belongs in, and that it can be found in in sources. Uncle G (talk) 04:26, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete. It *is not* "well sourced". A couple of articles about Madonna, some stories on advertising tripe do not constitute acceptable sources. Did any of you "Keep" folks (other than the author) actually look at the sources? This article is a well done hoax, but hoax none the less. Proxy User (talk) 04:47, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • It is not my experience that Iridescent contributes in bad faith, or writes hoaxes. Uncle G (talk) 04:51, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Quite. Is it in dispute that "there are sexual acts involving biscuits, art with biscuits, etc"? For the synthesis argument to stick, the basis of this Afd, a novel conclusion must have been drawn. What is this novel conclusion? --Malleus Fatuorum 04:55, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • "Biscuits and human sexuality can refer to human sexual behavior involving biscuits or cookies, to pornographic material involving biscuits and cookies, or to the use of biscuits and cookies as a medium for the production and distribution of pornography" is a novel conclusion not supported by any sources. As is "The cultural link between biscuits and sexuality dates at least as far back as the nineteenth century". "Possibly the best known sexual activity involving biscuits" is original research as is "the game became popularised in mainstream culture following its depiction in the 1991 novel The Liar and 2000 film Crazy; the pastime also increased in popularity following the success of the musical group Limp Bizkit, popularly believed to have been named for the sport.[7] Numerous depictions of the pastime exist in both pornographic and non-pornographic material; however, there are few if any commercial pornographic movies featuring the practice." The "pornography section" presents a biscuit tin created by a worker annoyed at their employer - the fact the tin contained biscuits rather than anything else was irrelevant. Guest9999 (talk) 05:37, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • Those appear to be simply statements supported by the sources, not novel conclusions drawn from original research. Have biscuits not been used to create pornographic images (production and distribution)? Has the term "biscuit" not been used since at least the 19th century in reference to a female of easy virtue (cultural link)? Still don't see any "novel conclusions" being drawn in this article. --Malleus Fatuorum 05:47, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • They are unpublished facts and analysis of sources - original research as defined by Wikipedia:No original research. None of those statements appear in any sources given in the article. The fact that the term biscuit was used to describe a woman of easy virtue - doesn't mean that biscuits have been culturally linked to sexuality - the term doesn't even necessarily relate to biscuits. Without sourcing how do we know it's not derived from the particularly promiscuous wife of of Lord Biscuit or some kind of play on words. Guest9999 (talk) 06:12, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - no reliable sources appear to have written about the purported links between biscuits and human sexuality - Wikipedia is not a publisher of original work and so should not be the first to publish on any topic. As it is this isn't even an article about "biscuits and human sexuality" it's a list of a few instances that have - supposedly - involved both, since no one has written anything about any connection between the two it's effectively a non-encyclopaedic cross-categorisation. Additionally a lot of what makes up the article is very misleading, describing this as pornography is borderline-ridiculous in my opinion (and more importantly not supported by reliable sources) - additionally a worker trying to get one past their employer really has little to do with either biscuits or human sexuality. There's synthesis throughout (for example from the sourced "in nineteenth century American usage the term "biscuit" referred to a young woman seen as a sex object" the editor has derived "The cultural link between biscuits and sexuality dates at least as far back as the nineteenth century" - a slang term does not establish a cultural link, especially when the etymology of the slang isn't known). The lead is also original research as the phrase "biscuits and human sexuality" seems to have been invented purely for the purposes of this article, the list of things it can refer to appears to have been arbitrarily defined by Wikipedia editors - it can't be defined by sources because there aren't any. Guest9999 (talk) 05:16, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Food and drink-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 06:48, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, no rses, bunch of randomness does not a real concept make. Aunt Entropy (talk) 06:51, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since apparently biscuits is too specific, have Iridescent write Food and sexuality and merge with that -- Gurch (talk) 10:08, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per the explanations given above. Article is fully cited and I don't think it is irrelevant to Wikipedia. Chamal talk 14:23, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or relist due to last-minute AFD-related merge, see comment below. Not sure - postpone AFD? This is a very new article. I'm not sold that this is pure WP:SYN but it's close. I'd recommend withdrawing the AFD and seeing if the article can be improved or merged with a future, perhaps largish, sex and food article as I suggested on the talk page. If not, redo the AFD in a few months. In the alternative, keep/no consensus to delete for now with a recommendation of "improve ... or else." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:56, 29 December 2008 (UTC) updated davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 05:32, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment: if it does get deleted, userfy and tag with a joke box like the one at the top of WP:Editor for deletion. Oh, and while you are at it, nominate the primary author for deletion. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 15:00, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, while it is drawing information about various aspects of biscuits & sex together as one article, that's simply the function of an encyclopedia. No original conclusions are being drawn and information appears to be supported by sources. While it is a "synthesis" in the sense of "a combination of information on a subject", that's simply what an encyclopedia article is. It is not a "synthesis of published works to reach a new conclusion" that would actually violate WP:SYNTH. ~ mazca t|c 15:13, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's a novel concept that is being propounded here, namely the umbrella concept of biscuits and human sexuality. If you want to refute that, please cite a source that documents the existence of any such umbrella concept, or that links the disparate facts (taken from other subjects) presented in this article into a single subject. I presented this challenge at the start of this discussion, and even went looking for such sources myself. As you can see from the above, I couldn't find any. No-one else has cited any, either. Uncle G (talk) 00:21, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep bizarre articles like this is what makes Wikipedia great. Graymornings desperatly needs a sense of humor. travb (talk) 18:54, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • However "strong" your keep may be, I notice that you haven't risen to the challenge that I made at the start of this discussion, and haven't shown a supporting source documenting any such umbrella subject, either. Uncle G (talk) 00:21, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. In so far as the citations refer to biscuits or sexuality but not the other, their use violates WP:SYN, and in so far as they relate to both, the coverage is desperately trivial. Stifle (talk) 19:33, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. An artificial grouping of several pairings does not a topic make - in other words, amusing as the title is, this is still OR. KillerChihuahua?!? 20:28, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - There is no coherent link between biscuits and sexuality. None of the sources posit one. Therefore this article is no more appropriate than "Corn and bacon" or "Leather and smoking". --Alynna (talk) 21:26, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - I've read, reread and read again (and thoroughly enjoyed on every occasion) but I'm still struggling to locate the alleged WP:OR / WP:SYN. As Malleus has oft repeated throughout this discussion there is an absolute absence of "novel conclusions" & what I read is a factual and perfectly sourced article. Nancy talk 23:07, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Perhaps re-reading the Wikipedia:No original research policy may help, then. Original research isn't limited to just conclusions. It encompasses novel concepts, ideas, arguments, analyses, and syntheses. Please point to a source that documents the concept that is embodied in this article's title and introduction, and that is the umbrella concept that purportedly brings all of these separate and individual items in the article together. Uncle G (talk) 00:21, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete -- the sources evince nothing more than the coincidental juxtaposition of two unrelated topics. This supposedly encyclopedic coverage of the purported connection between the two is simply synthesis. Jfire (talk) 04:00, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep--Article has good sources. The nomination has a bad case of I don't like it.--Jmundo (talk) 05:16, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The only material vaguely encyclopedic is the Soggy biscuit part, which already has an article. DGG (talk) 08:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. You must be joking. I'm not seeing any explicit citations for "Biscuits and human sexuality" as a specific topic: on the other hand, taking two unrelated concepts and cobbling together every intersection, no matter what lovely citations you add to it, constitutes original research. Is this intended to be the Rule 34 of Wikipedia? --CalendarWatcher (talk) 11:10, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nominator and CalendarWatcher, this one is basically an OR essay Tavix (talk) 19:48, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per SYN. Tgreach (talk) 02:34, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Uncle G. Nothing against Iridescent - she's a great admin and article writer, but I think the connection between biscuits and sexual behavior is incidental and not an example of a phenomena worthy of an article. Avruch T 18:36, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Violates WP:SYN. Epbr123 (talk) 19:20, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, I'm really reluctant to say, for Iridescent is a great editor, and this was a fun article to read. However, Uncle G's and Nsk92's analyses are telling. I can't see that this is a 'unified' topic, but more like a series of (sourced) tales in each of which 'biscuit' and 'sex' both appear. The Food and sexuality article sounds like a good idea. — BillC talk 08:04, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - everything is cited to (as far as I can tell) reliable sources. Also per WP:IDONTLIKEIT. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 16:34, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I'm sure somebody could source a "Whipped cream and human sexuality" article as well. Still just as pointless. BJTalk 18:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per rule 34 (and WP:OR too). Миша13 20:41, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I have to say, quite a lot of people seem to think I've nommed this per WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Let me make it clear: I do like it! I laughed when I read it. It's funny. That said, humor isn't a good reason to keep an unencyclopedic article. If we're really going by WP policy (and not WP:ILIKEIT), this article doesn't have much going for it. Graymornings(talk) 21:05, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - well reasoned nomination. Clear case of synthesis. A number of entirely unconnected events have been put together to try to build an encyclopaedic relationship between biscuits and sexuality. In fact, if we want to go down the food/sex line bananas, oysters and asparagus have better claims - see here. TerriersFan (talk) 00:53, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, though difficult for me take an adamant position. In the end I feel an RS-supported listing of instances throughout history where there are clear connections between biscuits and sexuality doesn't fail WP:OR as i see it, and with growth this might be much more clear (the article has not yet touched upon the school of sex urge-suppression of Graham crackers) so I don't see any hurry in deleting it. MURGH disc. 01:11, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. A clear case of synthesis as has been explained well by several people commenting here. This is sort of a pons asinorum for WP:SYN. If you don't see how the article lead and in fact its existance violates the policy, then you don't understand what synthesis means in the context of Wikipedia. Quale (talk) 20:20, 2 January 2009 (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.