Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Samurang (2nd nomination)

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 keep. Mailer Diablo 00:19, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Samurang

This was speedily deleted during a terminated AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Samurang. WP:DRV opted to overturn that decision, with some concerns over whether this was simply very non-NPOV or actually an attack — see here. It comes back for a full consideration by AfD. -Splash^talk 00:26, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Just some Korea - Japan backbiting written by a non-native speaker. I've seen plenty (2 years in Korea) and stuff like this is usually 5% half-truth, 95% nationalistic spin. Unsourced and unencyclopedic. Deizio 00:59, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Comment article is almost too incomprehensible to judge. if this "samurang" is indeed a korean cultural forgery (despite the POV, it indeed may be such), it may be a notable one - a possibility that the original AfD doesn't go into. i mean, maybe this idea/invention - the idea, apparently, being that korea once featured a samurai-like class of "samurang" who preceded japanese samurai - has gained huge currency in korea and is believed by hundreds of thousands of people. until we have some idea of how widespread this idea is in korea, we should hold out the possibility of keeping and improving the article Bobby P. Smith Sr. Jr. 01:07, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. It is true that being wrongly believed by huge numbers of people is a kind of notability, and there may be something in this but you really have to present it properly or not at all, its not the same as someone creating a really badly written article about "Pepsi" which you can easily label as keep & cleanup. Each case has to be judged on its merits, given the history of this article and the niche interest it holds, I don't see any justification to keep it unless someone who knows what they're talking about has a go at it. We must be very careful not to build a slanted record of history here - one man's biased, nationalist rhetoric becomes an 8th-graders class project. In cases such as this a very high threshold of verifiability must be seen to be crossed. Deizio 01:24, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

• Comment As said above, this article is almost unreadable. Needs verification and serious work, otherwise delete. --Ricaud 01:09, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

• Keep As now improved by author, no longer merits deletion. --Ricaud 18:27, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

• delete as unverifiable. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens 02:41, 16 March 2006 (UTC) Keep after cleanup. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens 20:31, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as unverifiable, no encyclopaedic value. --Terence Ong 04:44, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Delete for the same reasons as Deizio. Note I was the one who originally added it to AfD the first time. Users from the ips that most frequently edited this article have also been repeatedly adding similar nationalistic stuff to Kumdo. At best this article should be heavily NPOV'd up and merged with Haidong Gumdo, since they seem to be the ONLY supporters of this concept. AKADriver 06:19, 16 March 2006 (UTC) Changing vote to Merge with Haidong Gumdo and redirect. I still don't see the term being used outside the context of Haidong Gumdo, but at least the article is no longer excessively biased. AKADriver 17:20, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per niffweed --Khoikhoi 08:00, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, as Deizio is right on the money.Vizjim 09:45, 16 March 2006 (UTC) Changing vote to Keep following clean-up. this article still needs work, but nmow seems to be edging towards NPOV and encyclopedia quality.Vizjim 16:36, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per User:Deiz. JIP | Talk 10:34, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I am the original author of the article and just revised it. I would like to ask you to judge by the current version.
  Yes, I am a non-native speaker and I admit my English is not good, but I think what really matters is whether we share background knowledge. I'm not sure about it. I want to know what obstructs your understanding.
  Notable? Google returns 10,400 hits for samurang [1]. Doesn't it suffice?
  Does anyone claim this story? I added three related webpages to the article. You will see this (absurd) story is actually believed by some. I used to assume no one would take it seriously, so I was shocked when I met a proponent on the Net. That's why I created this article.
  Does it really a Korean cultural forgery? Read the article. Search Classical Chinese documents for 士武郞 and you will get no result. Look up samurai in a Japanese dictionary and you will learn its true etymology.
  By the way, I want to ask Deiz. Which do you think is 5% half-truth, 95% nationalistic spin? The story of samurang or my explanation against it? --Nanshu 14:33, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Sorry, didn't mean to insult your English - the main problem with my understanding of the article is my total lack of familiarity with the subject matter. Anyway, let me ask some questions: 1.) "samurang" are (according to people who believe that they exist) a korean class that came before the japanese samurai, right? 2.) the "samurang" did not actually exist, right? 3.) the "samurang" idea is a product of korean nationalism, or something like that, right? 4.) most importantly, in korea, how widespread is the idea of the "samurang"? How many people believe in the "samurang"? Thanks - Bobby P. Smith Sr. Jr. 15:53, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Hi Nanshu, good on you for doing up the piece and answering the comments here. My comment "stuff like this is usually 5% half-truth, 95% nationalistic spin" was a general comment based on my experiences in Korea where I came across many such nuggets of disputed history. While I stand by my comment - there is plenty of rubbish out there where Koreans believe one thing and the Japanese believe another, and such stories almost always get embellished with supplementary depth, colour and shade over time - I am happy to see the article improved and brought towards a neutral point of view. I am switching my vote to neutral, as I still have concerns about the POV and verifiability. I trust it is plain from my comments that my concern is this must be properly sourced and referenced or risk being open to question. Also please don't take offence from my comment about your English (I wasn't in Korea for the weather, I know how hard it is!) but the English Wikipedia does demand a native standard of English in articles, such as would be found in a published English-language encyclopedia. If the content of the article is brought up to scratch you'll find someone who is happy to clean up the English. Deizio 20:56, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Bobby, I think I've already answered your questions above. Haidong Gumdo, which broke into numerous organizations due to factional strife, claims the samurang were an elite class of warriors of Goguryeo. Most Koreans believe Goguryeo was a Korean kingdom although the characterization is disputed by China, and Goguryeo was destroyed long before samurai emerged in Japan.
      It is almost impossible to prove the nonexistence of something. But it is safe enough to say that the samurang did not exist because there is no evidence for the existence. When Koreans are blamed on absence of evidence, they usually claim, "Hideyoshi/Japanese imperialists burnt evidence (so we cannot prove it)." I heard this plenty of times and always think if Japan had had enough time and money to do such a stupid thing, mighty Japan would do something for her own good instead.
      The samurang were cooked up by Haidong Gumdo and it pander to people (or potential practitioners) with nationalistic narrative.
      Does the google result suffice?--Nanshu 00:43, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I don't pretend to understand the underlying issues, but from the version I read I understood that it alleges that a false etymology of the word samurai has been circulated in Korea for propaganda purposes. I have no basis for an opinion as to whether this is true, or widely circulated, but it is interesting; and where unfamiliar cultures are involved, that's good enough for me. Smerdis of Tlön 15:27, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Keep: Since the Haidong Gumdo community is steadily growing and more and more people are bound to look up "Samurang" I'd recommend keeping the version submitted by me earlier for NPOV reasons. People should be made aware of the controversial nature of the term and the numerous indicators that it's actually a neologism. The current version is also too heavy on the Samurang/Samurai wordplay. Whether the words are related or not has little bearing on whether one group was modelled after the other since the similarity (though unlikely) could be purely coincidental. I'd also like to learn more hard facts about those legal actions that were mentioned. Information about the trials written in English is very hard to come by. SpiralKnot 15:37, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
  • See [2] (written in Korean!). --Nanshu 00:43, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, see comments above. I think the article is heading towards NPOV, and the author appears willing to abandon POV to keep the article.Bobby P. Smith Sr. Jr. 16:01, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Does need work. David Sneek 16:24, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and cleanup per above Computerjoe's talk 17:07, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and cleanup B.ellis 21:15, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• This article needs Cleanup and Verification. --Tone 21:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Keep & cleanup. --Saintjust 23:11, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, on the right track with the clean up so far -- Samir (the scope) 23:22, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Keep at last I understand it! Just zis Guy you know? 23:36, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, as well as note the warm, fuzzy feeling that one gets from seeing how this pulled together. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 23:51, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Seems to be good enough for inclusion. Batmanand | Talk 23:52, 16 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.