Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Man-eating elephant

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. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 06:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Man-eating elephant

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

Contested prod. Looks to me to be a pretty clear case of WP:NOTNEWS. Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:36, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete agree, this one has my ferrety whiskers a'twitchin ---- _nonsense ferret 01:52, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organisms -related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 02:23, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 02:24, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as per nom :) --GDibyendu (talk) 02:31, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per NOTNEWS. Carrite (talk) 03:17, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, Wikipedia is not a new site. JIP | Talk 05:08, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Does not meet WP:CRIMINAL and thus should be deleted under WP:NOTNEWS for trivial coverage. Mkdw ^talk 07:08, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It could be merged to Elephant#Attacks but it seems like sensationalist reporting and I can't find much to back it up - ABC News suggests it may have eaten meat from one human[1] but the article makes it seem like it was on a rampage of flesh-chomping. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:46, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete it may meet GNG, but it definitely fails WP:NOTNEWS. Lukeno94 (talk) 11:10, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep. Doesn't seem exactly like a news article, and it seems notable enough, but it definitely needs better references and some expansion.^King Jakob _C 17:24, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Only a handful of major media outlets appear to have covered this incident; it took several Google searches with different keywords to locate just three stories ([2], [3], [4]). Nothing indicates that this particular elephant attack had a lasting impact or received persistent coverage (fails WP:GEOSCOPE, WP:INDEPTH and WP:PERSISTENCE). Other elephant attacks in India have claimed even more lives (e.g. [5]) so it's not even notable as the worst attack of its kind. It may be appropriate to include a sentence or two about this incident in Elephant#Attacks, but some of the article's details appear to be incorrect. For example, (1) elephants are herbivores and cannot be "man-eating" and (2) the news sources say 13 victims, not 17. --Mike Agricola (talk) 19:21, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment the external link provided by Colapeninsula above does mention elephants eating humans.^King Jakob _C 23:19, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep An herbivorous animal going on a rampage and eating humans is pretty notable. DNA tests proved that human flesh was in its stomach. It really did eat people. This is a newly documented phenomenon in elephant behavior and its totally unprecedented. Asarelah (talk) 23:59, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

is there a scientific paper on that? ---- _nonsense ferret 00:03, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I admit I've haven't got any scientific papers on it, but herbivores don't just go around eating people, for crying out loud. I think its probably never happened before, and even if it did, its rare enough to warrant an article for this particular instance. Asarelah (talk) 16:53, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Have you read WP:NOTNEWS? Where is the prolonged coverage of this, where is the evidence this has had any lasting effects? In fact, where is the evidence this wasn't actually a made-up story that got taken on by newspapers who didn't check the facts or do their own research? Lukeno94 (talk) 16:58, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

well no offence intended, but my point is that if the claim to notability is because this is previously unknown to science and represents a leap forward in our understanding of the zoological habits of particular animals, then I'd expect the interest generated in the field of academic study of animals to be quite high as befits its significance. When I find no such evidence of an academic interest then I start to wonder whether this really is significant from a scientific perspective, or maybe it is just too soon. Also I wonder if there isn't any peer reviewed coverage then how much fact-checking might there have been - I do detect a hint of tabloid sensationalism about a story about an elephant on the rampage killing however many people and this leads me to question also how we can truly verify the details of such a story. If all we have is some 'tabloid' type news that is vague in the exact details, then this would be a good reason in my mind to suggest we don't yet have the sort of coverage that would be suitable for encyclopedic inclusion. (edit conflict with lukeno94 above which more or less covers the same ground) ---- _nonsense ferret 17:03, 31 January 2013 (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.