Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Language recognition chart

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 move to project space. This addresses the WP:OR issues and the "it's useful" arguments. Since WP:NOR is core policy, any additional usefulness this might have in main space can't override it. I have to disregard Ben Kidwell's "keep and let's publish it" argument, because AfD does not have easy access to a university press. Sandstein 07:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Language recognition chart

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This is a how-to page, and totally unencyclopædic. It's not discernibly likely that any of this material is likely to become encyclopædic or be changeable to a non-how-to format. Irbisgreif (talk) 21:07, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Interesting idea, but completely unusable, and would have to be totally re-written. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 23:47, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Transwiki to Wikibooks, seems like something for them... this article has been here since 2004? 76.66.197.30 (talk) 02:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Very useful. I see no reason why this would be a "how-to" as it clearly states facts, not steps how to achieve something. It's a list similar to others in the context of grammar, i.e. English conjugation tables. --PaterMcFly talk ^contribs 13:33, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Being useful does not make a page worth keeping. Also, this is totally aside, but that article needed a rewrite something fierce. Irbisgreif (talk) 18:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

~~Either keep or~~ move to Wikipedia:Language recognition chart. We should keep something like this around to help us identify the languages of articles that are written in foreign languages but erroneously placed here on the English Wikipedia. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 15:10, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I now believe that a move to the project namespace would be a better decision than keeping it in mainspace, per Lambiam. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:23, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Move to Wikipedia:Language recognition chart. Good work (as far as I could check it) and useful to have around, but not in main namespace, because of No original research and other rules on what Wikipedia is not. --Lambiam 18:58, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment it appears that this is repeatedly moved from the project space to the mainspace. Irbisgreif (talk) 19:09, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is some (shallow) discussion on these moves on the talk page. The argument for main namespace is that this page is useful for everyone. The argument for WP namespace is that this page is OR and unencyclopedic. One editor states that this page was never intended to be encyclopedic, but was intended almost as a help page to accompany Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English to assist people to identify what language an article was written in. --Lambiam 06:57, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as unencylopedic original research, but transwiki somewhere appropriate. A surprising number of editors have worked on this over the last six years(!), and it's oddly useful.--Chris Johnson (talk) 19:19, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and retitle as Language recognition. their are refs for that, dating back (by memory) to Loom of Language. DGG ( talk ) 19:48, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- That retitle isn't the best one, but do you think that Language identification doesn't cover the encyclopædic portions of the topic? Irbisgreif (talk) 19:50, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Well, maybe yes, but this isn't basically an encyclopaedic article but a list or a table. Putting it all into Language identification or Language recognition would bloat those articles. --PaterMcFly talk ^contribs 08:43, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - True... but we fork articles all the time. Could this be treated as if it were the "Specific Examples" section of, say, Language identification? The trick is that it needs to be sourced to be kept. UltraExactZZ ^Claims~ Evidence 13:21, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      - You're right on this one. I can, however, say that for all languages I know of (most western european ones) the information is correct. I don't think lack or sources is on its own sufficent for deletion (unless someone has a high suspicion or even a proof that something is wrong beyond repair). And yes, it's of course not complete. --PaterMcFly talk ^contribs 15:39, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it could be added -- intact--to the language identification article. that article3 is , if anything, over-general and the examples would certainly add to it. ` DGG ( talk ) 02:35, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Question: What would be adequate sources for this? Putting in a grammar book for each language? (May sound crazy, but the question is meant seriously) --PaterMcFly talk ^contribs 13:31, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm not certain reliable sources exist for this kind of thing… Irbisgreif (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:27, 29 September 2009 (UTC).[reply]

check at the language identification article. And , for example, a book I rely on, C.G. Allen, Manual of European languages for Librarians with a long chapter on each language, discusses this in each case. There are sure to be others. DGG ( talk ) 04:45, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 06:32, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

DGG: Which article exactly names that book you're talking about? Could you add it to the list. I do think that if this list has problems, it's lack of sources, but I still don't think it's a good idea to merge it with some other article, just due to it's size. --PaterMcFly talk ^contribs 11:17, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete unsourced, and might be a hoax for all I know. Surprised anyone would want to keep what apparently is a personal essay by somebody that is totally unverifiable and could make Wikipedia a laughingstock if it is not correc.t --JohnnyB256 (talk) 16:04, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- How does this look like a personal essay or a hoax? I don't understand your point. It is no secret what letters are used in any given language, and probably all of the content here is verifiable regardless of whether it has been sourced yet. From the languages I'm familiar with, I don't see anything obviously incorrect in the article, which leads me to think that the article was written by editors who know what they are talking about. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 16:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - As I already wrote above, there's no indication whatsoever that the article contains wrong information. And if there were errors for some of the languages, that wouldn't be a reason to delete everything. --PaterMcFly talk ^contribs 21:33, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Metropolitan: what about the languages you don't know? The whole point of WP:V is that we need to be able to verify what is in articles. This is sheer original research and we need to treat it warily. It may very well be a very fine piece of work, or it may contain gobblydegook. It's not our job to verify's somebody's unsourced original essay. People need to supply sources. Wikipedia is not a place for first publication of language guides that are the original research of a particular person.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 21:35, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Who is the one "particular person" whose original research this is? It looks like over 50 different Wikipedia editors (not counting anons) have contributed to this article in the almost six years it has been on Wikipedia. As to the languages I don't know -- the editors who have contributed to this article don't know which languages I am familiar with and which ones I'm not. They couldn't have decided, "Let's make sure that all the languages Metropolitan90 is familiar with have correct information, but we can say whatever gobbledygook we want about the languages Met90 doesn't know, because Met90 won't know the difference." Besides, all of the information in this article is likely to be sourceable. I think we ought to find sources for all the information, but that doesn't mean we should get rid of it in the meantime. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 22:19, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Then it is original research by numerous editors. Look, if it is to be kept, then let's recognize it as a case of ignoring the rules. I can't very well argue against IAR as I just cited it in another deletion discussion. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 22:56, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Source Publish and Keep This does look like original research, but can we get some academic to slap a couple sources on it and run it off as a pamphlet from their university press? Then we'd have a published reliable source for the article. The topic of "distinctive characteristics of written languages" I believe is absolutely appropriate for an encyclopedic project, and something like this is factually sourceable. Sorry for the "I like it" argument but this is the kind of valuable encyclopedic information that is useful in reference works, and I think the information will be missed by most users unless its in mainspace. Ben Kidwell (talk) 17:18, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The editor who wrote it should find a publisher, and then this article can be adapted from that, or from a similar work. Wikipedia is not the first publisher of reference works that are unsourced original research.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 21:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The article has been edited by 143 different registered users and 49 different IP addresses, so there is no such person as "the" editor who wrote this. Can't we just agree to move this back to WP namespace where it came from? It was originally created and happily resided there until someone moved it, in disregard of policy, to article space. --Lambiam 01:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Move back to WP namespace, without redirect, ~~and move-protect the page~~. Per Lambiam. ~~The repeated moves into mainspace seem to suggest that protection is necessary.~~ Tim Song (talk) 09:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- This is not true. The article was created in main space and then moved to the project namespace against most statements on the talk page, so I moved it back. --PaterMcFly talk ^contribs 12:00, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Fair enough. The move was two years old and the statements even older. We had a rather different policy on OR those days, I'd imagine. Tim Song (talk) 16:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Seems so, yes. I think that a delete due to lack of sources does require a strong indication or even a proof that the content is wrong, not only that it may contain errors (which is -btw- true for all articles). --PaterMcFly talk ^contribs 16:10, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Move to Wikipedia namespace. OR issues as an article, but quite useful internally. — Jake Wartenberg 02:58, 11 October 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.