Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of ethnic slurs

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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 no consensus. – Sceptre (Talk) 14:26, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of ethnic slurs

Previous nominations:

Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a dictionary:

  • A usage guide, or slang and idiom guide. Wikipedia is not in the business of saying how words, idioms, etc., should be used. We aren't teaching people how to talk like a Cockney chimney-sweep. However, it may be important in the context of an encyclopedia article to describe just how a word is used in order to distinguish among similar, easily confused ideas, as in nation or freedom. In some special cases an article about an essential piece of slang may be appropriate. For a wiki that is a dictionary, visit our sister project Wiktionary.

The list currently has approximately 1462 entries with new words being added every day. Of those, only about 108 (0.7%) (7.6%) are sourced, mostly from a few old slang dictionaries and one unreferenced website. This article is inherently unverifiable, because it includes contemporary street slang and foreign words that are not included in any reliable sources, With no modern sources available it is impossible to be sure that the descriptions of usage are correct and NPOV. Many, if not most, entries are derived from original research, and some are possibly made-up by users, or at least neologisms. So it irredeemably violates WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:NOR. And the article itself is a direct contradiction to Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not.

For those who vote to "Keep" this article I'd ask them to try to answer these questions: "How can we source this?" and "How many of the entries will you take responsibility for sourcing?" -Will Beback 05:29, 17 March 2006 (UTC) Will Beback 05:29, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

  • Delete per WP is not a dictionary or Lists of such definitions, WP:V, and WP:NOR. I note that the prior AfDs had people voting to keep but wanting the article sourced, which has not been addressed. A number of people voted to keep because the list is "useful," but without it being sourced, it simply is not useful or reliable. Transwiki would be an option if the material were sourced, but it isn't. It's also 200 kb! WP:SIZE. Esquizombi 05:55, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Keep Though proper citation may be difficult, the article should be kept. Fans of linguistics/etymology will probably agree. Some of these words are not even offensive/used any more("Tojo", "3/5er"), but the history of how and why they came into use is still important/interesting. If the article is deleted, consider moving these historical entries someplace else or creating new entries for them. Also, how important are credible sources for slang, the origins of which cannot always be easily traced? --Soulburglar 05:24, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

    • About 115 of the entries in the list have sources. I have been adding sources for over two months now because Will Beback insisted on it.--Primetime 07:15, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete for the reasons given above. -- Hoary 06:00, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per nominator. joturner 06:22, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per above --Khoikhoi 06:34, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, ditto. WarpstarRider 06:39, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete as per nominator. Guettarda 06:59, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. I have been working on this article for months, adding citations from printed dictionaries because Will Beback asked me to. Right now, there are about 115 citations in the article, and that number is growing rapidly.

    This list is a remarkable work, comprising over 1400 entries written since June 2003. Deleting them will do more harm than good, possibly creating hundreds of disgruntled vandals and sowing ill will throughout the world. It would also be deleting possibly the most comprehensive and up-to-date list of ethnic slurs available. Further, it sets a bad precedent, threatening to change Wikipedia from the largest encyclopedia ever written into one of the smallest. The current insistence on verifiability was instituted after many of these definitions were written. This discourages others from writing articles in the future for fear that a future policy will result in their contributions being deleted.

    If anyone here thinks the list should be in Wiktionary, they should move it there before nominating it for deletion. I would be much less reluctant to support this deletion if these entries were in Wiktionary, formatted (theirs is much more complex than our own), and accepted by the prudish administrators there. I certainly don’t mind that it is on Wikipedia right now, though, because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The word encyclopedia comes from the Greek words enkyklios paideia, meaning "general education," or "well-rounded education." In a general reference book with almost no size constraints, almost anything can be included. Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged defines an encyclopedia as "a work that treats comprehensively all the various branches of knowledge and that is usually composed of individual articles arranged alphabetically". Stroll by a library reference section and you will find encyclopedias of agriculture, of computing, of bullfighting, and so on. Another example I always like to give is the Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana. It contains embedded French, Italian, English, German, Portuguese, Catalan, and Esperanto dictionaries. At 119 volumes, it is almost as large as Wikipedia.

    I also want to say that I enjoy reading and editing this list because I find the strange idiomatic expressions in it to be fascinating. English slang is one of the most unusual things in the world. I think that the social effects of a list of words can be easily overemphasized, as these simply show others the degree to which racism exists, rather than encourage it. Deleting articles such as these really helps hide the problem, which could make it worse.--Primetime 07:15, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

    • Comment That Wikipedia is not a dictionary or lists of definitions has existed since 2002.[1] As for whether the list could be judged "remarkable" or "the most comprehensive," that really depends on how reliable it is, and 0.7% isn't very reliable at all. Esquizombi 07:34, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
      • Reply. I have six printed slang dictionaries at my house that I checked out from a library, so trust me when I say that the vast majority (about 75%) is verifiable. I also have access to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. The OED is the largest dictionary of English ever created and M-W is the second largest. Also: 108 is 7.4% of 1462--not 0.7%.--Primetime 07:44, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
        • Comment My apologies, I merely copied and pasted the percentage; I'll round you up to 8% and that still isn't very good. The list has no reliability as a whole at present, and whatever value it gains will be the result of your admirable efforts. It just doesn't belong here, and that has nothing to do with "social effects" and everything to do with policy. Transwiki might be a good case, they're awfully short over there on wiktionary:Category:Ethnic slurs. Esquizombi 08:11, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
          • Reply. No worries. I would be much happier, though, if it were moved via transwiki rather than just deleted. I edit on Wiktionary often. The editors there are a bit prudish, and their formatting is dramatically different from ours--but it's worth a shot if it means saving the list.--Primetime 08:19, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Transwiki to Wiktionary. If Primetime is willing to handle the move then more power to him. I'll help with the formatting. -Will Beback 09:47, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, listcruft. --Terence Ong 12:08, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per good faith in Primetime's efforts MLA 12:46, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Dictionaries don't sort entries in this way. Scranchuse 14:04, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete Wikipedia is not a list of made up and unreferenced dictionary definitions. Particularly as new unreferenced / unsourced 'words' are being added far quicker than Primetime can reference them (and Wikipedia is not Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana). Category:Ethnic slurs collates all those slurs that have articles of their own, and those are the only ones that are sourced and referenced, and encyclopaedic. If an ethnic slur doesn't warrant an article of its own, then it should be on Wiktionary. Proto||type 15:42, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
    Actually, on further review, and reading of many of the 'entries', make this strong delete. It's just a big, bloated troll magnet.. Proto||type 15:48, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, deletion is not a substitute for cleanup. Gazpacho 05:31, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep or transwiki. Good information. Perhaps not in the right place, but deleting this in no way improves Wikipedia. --L33tminion | (talk)
  • Keep. This is the type of list that makes us great. We don't hide from real life like other encyclopedias. We face it head on and deal with it in an encyclopedic manner. Ethnic slurs exist in all cultures. There is no reason they can not be documented and listed here. -- JJay 18:43, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per above. --TM 19:46, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. Don't waste the work effort. Maybe move into Wikitonary or clean up, but don't remove. ( See also Wiki(pedia) Recycle Bin proposal. As implemented, it might help in resolving some borderline AfD cases ) --Easyas12c 19:53, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. If unsourced material is truly overwhelming the sourced material, simply remove the unsourced material. There's no point in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 21:29, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Incidently, there's no reason not to throw out EVERY unsourced word at the moment. The truly unsourceable should go, but ones that have at least a decent circulation should stay, because they CAN be sourced, even if they currently are not. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 21:33, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
      • Given the fight against sourcing last time, I wish you luck in your endeavour. Guettarda 06:23, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per Primetime, Scranchuse, JJay and Dante Alighieri, and this: that it's encyclopedic as an extension and elaboration of our coverage of racism, human race and ethnicity in culture, etc. Delete it and it will surely reoccur again organically, someday not too soon, at someone else's hand as a spin off of some other article. Samaritan 22:31, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Czar Yah 22:34, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep obscure and unsourced items could be removed. APL 23:53, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep What about these: Offensive terms per nationality, List of ethnic group names used as insults, List of words meaning outsider, foreigner or 'not one of us', List of common phrases based on stereotypes, List of sexual slurs, and List of political epithets. -- Zondor 05:25, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - I appreciate all the people who have signed up (as per the nom) to do the work of bringing the article up to standard. Guettarda 06:23, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. I am not convinced this is Wiki-worthy, especially given the italicized quotation at the top. Hyphen5 07:28, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: I don't dispute that conscientious people have put a lot of work into this. Yes, its disappearance would be rather a pity. Well, let it be offered for transwikiing. Also, those keenest to retain it may note that it is GFDLed, so they may take it wherever they wish. Yes indeed it's an extension of WP's coverage of racism, etc, etc., as claimed above; and in a similar way that a list of, say, Hebrew words glossed in English would be an extension of WP's coverage of Hebrew -- which would not make the list encyclopedic. And what about Offensive terms per nationality etc etc, we are asked. They too are not encyclopedic (just as Flattering terms per nationality would not be encyclopedic). Dictionary entries aren't encyclopedic, and congeries (or thematic lists) of dictionary entries aren't encyclopedic. As for the notion that if this is deleted it will surely reoccur; well, that argument could be used to justify inaction in the face of all sorts of behavior on WP: spamming, the insertion of untruths, vandalism, etc. -- Hoary 08:29, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
  • It isn't appropriate, indeed. But people by popular demand just want to keep it because its useful and interesting just like what happened with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of YTMND fads. Anyway, dictionaries contain separate dictionary entries whereas a list is more encyclopaedic. Does Wiktionary support this type of page? -- Zondor 09:26, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Deleting the list of slurs won't rid the world of racism. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.119.203.70 (talk • contribs).

    • Comment Nobody said deleting it would rid the world of racism, so that's a straw man. Esquizombi 01:20, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep or transwiki. This is useful information. I ended up here to find out what 'Wop' meant, and this was exactly what I was looking for. As far as being unreliable - certainly, as with a large number of articles, more information and checking against other sources is useful, but I would suspect this to be by and large accurate already. Wisher 02:14, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, as the information is useful, and we have several other similar lists, like List of sexual slurs and List of political epithets. Carioca 02:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, as was said before, Wikipedia is NOT a dictionary. Furthermore, some of these entries are laughable, and could go on forever. There are billions of people in this world, and everyone could potentially be offended by some word or expression. I use words like "Navajo", "Apache", "Negro", and "Good ol' Boy" every day and nobody seems to find any of it offensive. If this article stays, it should be highly edited to include only the most common ethnic slurs, otherwise this article will become a circus, with people including ludicrous expressions that most people have or never will hear before.
  • Delete, As an undergrad student, I wouldn't use the vast majority of this information in a paper for fear of it being erroneous. Either delete the information that is not sourced, find a source for it, or get it off of wikipedia.
  • Keep Move all unverifiable slurs to a subpage of the talk page, and place a notice at the top of the talk page that people should try to find sources for them. JeffBurdges 16:23, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, Anybody who is offended by these terms should rent a copy of Eddie Murphy's "Raw," anything by Richard Pryor, and watch "Blazing Saddles," and get over it. Grow up and stop being so easliy offended already, you poosty molignons.
  • Keep. This is a useful list (one of the few on Wikipedia) and, as has been pointed out, both interesting and valuable from an entymological point of view. Being offensive is not grounds for deletion. If you find it offensive, have whoever is forcing you to load the page put in jail. Oh, no one is? Well, then... Hiddekel 23:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment. It was not nominated because it is offensive to anyone. It was nominated because it is not verifiable, and because it violates WP:NOT. Are you willing to take a "letter" and verify all the entries in it? -Will Beback 00:03, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak Keep Delete the neologisms and consider transwiki. --Scaife (Talk) 07:14, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete The terms themselves and the explanations of their origins should be moved to the corresponding "anti" page for the ethnicity in question... since it now seems like every conceivable group has some sort of discrimination page. Cyclopean typewriter 11:53, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep very informative, I have used it to look words up. Dolive21 11:56, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak Delete Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Though in light of numerous other lists....Angrynight 02:48, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Please Keep Because it's useful. I'm not a contributor to wikipedia, nor do I usually share my opinions in these kinds of debates. I do, however, turn to wikipedia first when I'm looking for a quick and dirty explanation of something, which is how I got here. We users are *not* that naive: we know that a page like this will be a troll magnet, and we know the information contained in it is not verifiable. Its utility to this user was in no way hampered by its aforementioned shortcomings. --68.51.197.129 03:38, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Conditional keep -- filter out the junk, stick to sourcable terms with historical significance. jdb ❋ (talk) 07:19, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep- lack of sources is reason for cleanup, not deletion. Loom91 13:32, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep~ Eventually they will branch off into their own articles. Keep it. ~regruBgniK ....posted at 01:43, 24 March 2006 by 67.35.157.81
  • Keep per Loom91; and consider comparable sections in Henry Louis Mencken's American Language. I deny that it violates WP:NOT: it's a discriminate collection of information. Septentrionalis 21:37, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep - Wikipedia's list is an invaluable source of information, especially considering the regional nature of most epithets. Web readers should not be forced to troll the internet searching random, nefarious web sites in search of racial understanding. -- 68.192.188.254 03:15, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - Wikipedia was never meant to become a plethora of lists. Regardles of how useful it is, it doesn't mean it belongs on wikipedia. A how to on Calligraphy was deleted from the main article regardless of its usefullness for this reason. Please consider this when voting. Angrynight
  • Transwiki. As a list of terms (rather than articles), this does not belong on Wikipedia. However, it should be preserved and moved to Wiktionary. Bhumiya/Talk 09:21, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


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.
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