Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shilavo

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Delete --Allen3 ^talk 21:24, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

Shilavo

Hoax. There's been something about this article that just didn't feel right to me, & after a bit of research learned the following:

The information in the first paragraph is a giveaway to anyone familiar with Ethiopian history. (I can go into more detail elsewhere, but to say that Ethiopia had a "government protemp" in 1745 is nonsensical.)
A quick search in a couple of books on Ethiopia fail to find a mention of Shilavo, which include Henze's Layers of History & the Bradt Travel Guide to Ethiopia; if this was an important comercial center in the 18th century, I'd expect Pankhurst's History of Ethiopian Towns to at least mention it -- & he does discuss or mention the history of over 50 other historic population centers in the Horn of Africa.
Yes, there is a place in Ethiopia called "Shilavo". However, most of the hits from Google are to articles mirrored from Wikipedia, but one or two do allow us to learn that this community has an airport/airstrip (call letters "HIL"), & is located at 44 deg. 46' E & 6 deg 5' N -- the middle of the Ogaden, hardly the place to attract commercial farms, let alone industry in the late 19th century.
A little more searching revealed that it is also known as "Scillave", possibly the Italian spelling. Google on this, & you find this hit at fallingrain.com. Based on this, Shivalo/Scillave is a small village of about 733 population.
Let's take a look at the original author of this article: an anon IP, which can be resolved to a DSL account in Chicago. Am I the only one to smell the rotting fish at this point?

Please vote delete; after this foolishness is purged from Wikipedia, I'll add an article with some genuine information. llywrch 20:30, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

delete agree with above. --Banana04131 21:08, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per above. Niteowlneils 21:34, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep since Llywrch et al. can just change (massively overhaul) the article as is without having to wipe the slate clean. Also create a Scillave with a redirect. --zandperl 00:03, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- I proposed a VfD for this material to see if enough people agreed with me that this nonsense should be completely wiped from Wikipedia -- including the article history. Regardless if this VfD passes or fails, I will put the correct info at this article location. -- llywrch 17:02, 22 August 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.