Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Verdurian language

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 keep -- Francs2000 | Talk 12:53, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Verdurian language

• Delete. This article is about a conlang. I believe that it is not notable for inclusion in Wikipedia. – ishwar  (speak) 15:59, 2005 July 23 (UTC)

• Wholehearted keep. Verdurian is one of the most develloped online conlang. It should also be pointed out that both Mark Rosenfelder [1] and zompist.com [2] have survived VFD. Circeus 16:10, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • hi. i am not suggesting that the articles, Mark Rosenfelder or zompist.com, be deleted here. peace – ishwar  (speak) 19:45, 2005 July 23 (UTC)
    • A point raised here though is what distinguishes the article on the Verdurian language from those other two, other than it concerns a conlang? Personally, given that the language is the most widely-reported feature of the Zompist.com website, this entry should take precedence over both Mark Rosenfelder and Zompist.com. Slac speak up! 23:13, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Hey Circeus, calling in your pals from the zompist.com bboard [3] is less than cool. I'm sure they're great folks, but if they are hanging out there, they don't have an interest in Wikipedia and they do have an interest in promoting conlangs. I'm sorry, but Wikipedia is not your soapbox. Wile E. Heresiarch 19:58, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Excuse me? "Hanging Out" in one forum or another precludes an interest in Wikipedia? While I may only have been editing for a short time, I have certainly had a far longer acquaintance with and admiration for Wikipedia than the ZBB- whenever I want brief information on something I search Wikipedia first, not Google. And I would hardly refer to Circeus's stance as a "soapbox". Dewrad 00:10, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
      • So what's the word for using Wikipedia as the vehicle for the promotion of some concept, if not "soapbox" ?? Of course participating in one forum or another does not preclude participation in Wikipedia -- Circeus apparently participates in both -- the point is that you only need advertise elsewhere to get someone's attention when you know you won't find them here. For example, Warmaster, Curlyjimsam, and Dewrad. Wile E. Heresiarch 00:46, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
        • As we're all registered users, I think it's not fair to say that you "wouldn't find us here". And what's wrong with letting us know about a VfD going on? Were, say, Star Trek up for deletion, I'm sure word would get around Star Trek forums fairly quickly. Dewrad 00:53, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
          • So you've noticed that any special interest group can game the VFD system. This is a bug, not a feature. Wile E. Heresiarch 02:37, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
            • Since you seem to be so interested in the personal background of the people who vote here, I just noticed a few things: that the person who submitted this VfD has been pretty active gathering no-voters himself; and that your own favourite passtime seems to be reverting and deleting other people's work much rather than contributing anything substantial yourself. I haven't found the faintest suggestion that you are knowledgeable about constructed languages at all! --IJzeren Jan
              • hi. perhaps the above is a little misleading. i notified two users. one user is a linguist whose name i had seen on the deletion pages often concerning conlangs - so i invited him to vote. he has not voted delete on all candidates. the other invitee was invited because i saw this user's name on the page history where this user had previously put a VfD but then recanted with the note "too much trouble". so invited the user to participate if he was interested now. i only invited her/him to vote for this one article. i am not trying to rally support for a certain outcome. i really leave that to all of you. thank you. – ishwar  (speak) 15:51, 2005 July 24 (UTC)
                • • Correction - i have made many edits to Wikipedia thank you very much, mostly about my city and different Anime pages, but it still stands. i personally think this article should stay, and saying that 'i was dragged from the board' is a blatant lie. Warmaster

• Most certainly keep This language is far more extensive than either of Tolkien's, and i cannot think of a better 'intro' to conlanging myself than this language due to the fact the author is still adding stuff to it! Warmaster 17:20, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • User has made less than 50 edits. Wile E. Heresiarch 19:41, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep - see no harm. Why does somebody hate conslags (learned this term 5 mins ago) so much? Renata3 16:33, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

hi. i dont hate conlangs (or conslags - what is this?). i have no opinion except that i wish that more conlangers would be interested in learning more about endangered minority languages and make word lists of those (it would probably be beneficial). but, creating an artificial language is probably a nice, fun pastime for many people. i encourage people to enjoy life. peace – ishwar  (speak) 19:55, 2005 July 23 (UTC)

• • One would think someone who had "no opinion" about conlangs would be indifferent as to whether or not they were there, not actively propose to delete them.

Ishwar: what does that have to do with anything? It's not as if conlanging is destroying minority languages! And for the record, I know many conlangers who are learning several different languages, not all of which are the major European ones. Most conlangers aren't mindless hobbyists, but educated people enjoying language and experimenting with it-- just like many poets and writers do. In any case, I think any activity that increases interest in language and languages is well worth it, and since conlanging is of growing interest to many, I believe that they should be included in the Wikipedia. Also, I happen to agree with the person above me-- if you are indifferent, why are you actively fighting for the deletion of so many conlangs? Irisheye 17:57, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

hi. it doesnt have anything to do anything. i was responding to user Renate3's speculation about my feelings involving conlangs. i see no need for speculation when i can just write it here. i didnt say that conlanging was destroying minority languages. their loss is part of a very large & complex interaction between political dominant cultures and smaller local cultures. i did not mean to suggest that conlangers are learning or not learning any language of particular geographic region, or mindless and/or uneducated, or dissimilar from poets or writers. (i also dont think that uneducated people are mindless either.) and i dont think that hobbies are mindless. information about conlanging and specific conlangs is included in Wikipedia. the reason why i acted as i did is stated at the top of this page, namely the inclusion of inappropriate material in this encyclopedia. although i am indifferent to the creation of conlangs or their creators, i am not indifferent to the editorial decisions of Wikipedia authors. additionally, i disagree with your fight metaphor: i am not looking for a fight but rather an election which is what i understand this to be. i hope this addresses your concerns. peace – ishwar  (speak) 18:29, 2005 August 1 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Ishwar, but for someone who issues a whole series of VfDs in a row, I find your argumentation pretty weak! You were just "responding to someone's speculation about your feelings involving conlangs"? Now come on! If I ask you about your feelings regarding Star Wars, are you going to do the same in that field too? The only legitimate reason for issuing a VfD (not just voting in it, but starting it, mind) is that you strongly feel an article múst be deleted, and you must have some pretty good reasons for that. As I can see in this case, you were just shooting at random. You mention something about editorial decisions of Wikipedia authors? Sorry, but I don't buy that! There are thousands of articles of far worse quality than the conlang articles in question. You must have had a reason for picking this field. Besides, you picked your conlangs pretty badly: there are conlang articles here that should have been deleted long ago (for example the article about Nalona, an insignificant conlang with no web presence at all: just one sentence and two broken links). Strange you didn't pick those. --IJzeren Jan 19:11, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

perhaps i was unclear. the response i was referring to above is my response to Renata3 @ 19:55. i was not referring to my deletion voting action & comment @ 15:59. i guess my referent was not that clear.

i felt strongly enough & i gave my reason as mentioned directly above & at the top of the page. i was not shooting at random as i have stated on other vfd pages. my choice of conlangs was in a couple of lists of user Assdl (again this i have written on other pages). if the choice of conlangs is pretty bad, it is only because Assdl's lists did not contain the conlangs you would have liked for me to act on. the reason for picking this field is because Assdl added a list of numbers from his conlang into the Numbers in various languages article. a short exchange between me & User:Mikkalai led to my vfd actions. it is not so strange, i think: i just looked at what someone put before me.

i did mention editorial decisions of authors, yes. this was & is my concern & that is what i wrote. i dont know why you question/disbelieve, but if you do, i guess i simply have no response to that. i am not trying to sell anything, so, no, you need not buy.

yes, there are thousands of articles that entered Wikipedia without any kind of editorial policy used to determine their inclusion. again, my concern here is not of the quality of an article, but rather of its appropriate inclusion. i think that my contribution to this project will be more valuable in the coverage of languages & linguistics (since not so many people seem to be interested in this) rather than in the form of regulating content. i get the impression that there are people who enjoy regulating content, voting for deletion, etc. in short, my time is better spent doing research and not decision making. this is the reason why i have not considered the coverage of Star Wars and other fields.

i didnt know my reasons for action would be so interesting to so many. peace – ishwar  (speak) 23:28, 2005 August 1 (UTC)

In fact, you were indeed a little unclear, but that's clarified now. Nobody is attacking you personally, and nobody is accusing you of dishonesty. That's not the point. The reason some people are a little touchy about these things is that there are a lot of people who carry some personal grudge against conlanging and conlangers, God knows why (remember why Tolkien spoke about "the Secret Vice"), and a VfD like this one is enough to trigger them. If some of us overreacted a bit, it's because we are tired of those unfounded attacks. If you issue a VfD just because someone shows you a few links and you have a hunch that they might be unnotable, that's a little thin for a motivation, if you ask me. But I must give you this: you díd succeed in provoking a discussion, and without your VfDs the current discussion on Wikipedia:Conlangs about the criteria for objectively establishing the notability of a conlang probably wouldn't have taken place. --IJzeren Jan 08:13, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

• Keep - If you delete this article, please proceed and remove all the constructed languages that appear in this list. If you delete this one, but keep the others, it'll be unfair. I think this kind of articles is worth enough, and they hurt no one. Thanks. Assdl 16:46, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
  • "There are other articles that should be deleted" isn't an argument for keeping this one. User has less than 50 edits. Wile E. Heresiarch 19:58, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
    • And why is his argument (note: not the one you "quoted" - re-read his post) not? If the argument for deletion is "it is a conlang", and the vote passed as "delete", then all conlangs should be put up at VFD. If it was something like "I hate the Verdurian language and I don't want it here", then it would be a different thing. /Tehvata 17:57, 27 July 2005 (UTC) (Special:Contributions/Tehvata@sv.wp)
• Keep Hardly non-notable, among the conlanging community. Dewrad 16:48, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

• Keep Certainly one of the most detailed conlangs around, and if the other pages related to Mr. Rosenfelder have survived, I can't see any precedence for getting rid of this one. Curlyjimsam 17:14, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
  • User has made less than 100 edits. Wile E. Heresiarch 19:41, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep a low number of hits on Google, but for an obscure topic, it's actually more than I would expect. Language has its own Perl Lingua module, and seems to be discussed in the conlang community a fair amount. Article is POV, and should be cleaned up, though. -Harmil 17:23, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

• Keep Verdurian is a very notable conlangs, and quite well-known in the conlang community. The rex 18:34, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
  • User has made 53 edits (counting sandbox edits) at present. Wile E. Heresiarch 20:17, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep - notable as conlangs go, partly because it is (IMO) very well-developed, not only in vocabulary. -- pne 19:05, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

notability is a function of well-developedness? hmm, i would not have thought so. – ishwar  (speak) 19:47, 2005 July 23 (UTC)

With respect, yes it is. A comprehensively developed conlang with learning materials etc. online is more notable than one that is not (though a legitimate discussion can take place on where exactly the boundary can be set, the point to recognise is that this particular conlang is more notable than some others). Slac speak up! 23:13, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

In conlangs, yes it is. You can whip up a grammar and a few hundred words of vocabulary at the rate of about one language per day if you're talented, especially if you just transform Esperanto, Interlingua (like my own Idido and Faux Romantique, respectively), or some natlang; Verdurian is notable because, instead of these quickly whipped-up conlangs, it has a full and naturalistic grammer and vocabulary, which evolved from a previous mother language, which itself evolved from a 'proto-language', including sound changes over time and borrowings from distantly related languages. In conlang terms, this is the difference between a band like Savage Garden and a band like ToxicMercury (although neither can touch the Britteny Spears of Esperanto). Almafeta 02:45, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• Delete. Yet another personal project looking for advertising. Wile E. Heresiarch 19:22, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

• Keep Elite in the conlang community; and what publicity would it be looking for here? krinnen 19:39, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
  • User's first edit.
• Merge with Mark Rosenfelder. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 20:01, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep notability is not a standard for this kind of thing. --malathion ^talk 21:10, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, not very notable, but just about passes. - Mustafaa 21:57, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. As I indicated on the article's talk page, I think there are arguments for both sides and I'm not too fussed either way. Unfortunately, however, Ishwar hasn't put out anything in the way of notability criteria as applies to conlangs (something that would be useful, imho). I respectfully disagree with Wile's assesment that this is a "personal project looking for advertising". As far as I'm aware, Rosenfelder himself hasn't had anything to do with the article. While honestly I'm annoyed at Circeus' response to immediately run to the bulletin board, the points raised by some of the members posted here do have validity. Slac speak up! 23:13, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Well, I though it was worthy of mention there. I think I did mention the previous vfd for MArk there too. Circeus 00:11, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: Users may be interested in the VFD regarding the Talossan language some time back.
  • Other case in point: Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Toki Pona. Frankly, wouldn't it be possible to settle the issue once and for all, so that we won't need to go through the same discussion over and over again? --IJzeren Jan 11:22, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable per CONLANG (been mistaken for a real language, 50 speakers, top 100 most popular conlangs). Almafeta 01:24, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Non-notable conlang pollution. (unsigned vote by Nandesuka)
• Paper-Thin Margin Of Keep Looks like it managed to infect enough speakers to qualify as an actual language and not just the vanity/original research/unverifiable blithering of a crack-smoking parrot I expected it to be and kind of wish it were. The Literate Engineer 06:27, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
• Strong keep. --IJzeren Jan 07:01, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable. Concerning this vote, the trollish gaming of the VfD system by some Verdurian-supporters is regrettable... but then so is the trollish posting of notable content on VfD. -- Visviva 12:45, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
• Comment, I feel a strong sense of outrage at all this unexplained witch-hunt against artistic conlangs. Assdl 15:01, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. As a conlanger, and much as I would like to make public the art of conlanging to the greatest extent possible, I really don't see the need for grammatical treatises and descriptions of individual conlangs here on the Wikipedia. There is already a good Wikipedia article, Artistic language, which should serve as a central locus for this particular art form and has already got a quite a long list of conlangs there. I think it vèry meet and right for conlangers to link to their own pages or to some other conlang oriented source, if they wish to do so. I wouldn't create a Wikipedia article for any of my conlangs, even though at least one of them ìs "notable" per these criteria, and if I found one, I'ld delete it for the reasons stated. Elemtilas
  • Comment: User has 5 contributions, all of them VfD votes - [4] Slac speak up! 21:34, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Response: So what? Elemtilas
• Weak Keep -- having found and read the deletion policies, I have to reconsider my opinion. I still don't think most conlangs warrant individual articles, but they are works of art and as such should not necessarily be removed simply because some people don't get the artform or can't think of anything better than personal attacks against the artists that create languages. Anyone who wants to create such an article on a conlang should be responsible enough to really consider whether this piece of artwork warrants an individual and unique article of its own. If possible, this article should be merged with Constructed languages or Artistic languages. Elemtilas
• Keep: Notable language. And perhaps we can get some WikiLove around here, instead of describing things as the "unverifiable blithering of a crack-smoking parrot"?--Prosfilaes 22:06, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. If a few artistic languages deserve to be in Wikipedia, Brithenig and Verdurian should be in. Chlewey 01:55, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Another pointless vendetta, whose aim is to diminish the coverage of Wikipedia rather than actually improve it. Sad. Grace Note 05:27, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

• Comment Diminished coverage, in many cases, is improved coverage. The Literate Engineer 14:01, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

• • Comment: And war is peace and freedom slavery. --Prosfilaes 20:57, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep! Oh come on, Verdurian is one of the biggest conlangs. I think it's complexity is similar to Tolkien's Elvish. Just look at the long big fat notes just about the language! (unsigned by User:201.133.187.62)

• Keep. If the author is worthy of inclusion, the author's well-known works are. (Of course that doesn't mean it needs its own article; I would also support a merge with Mark Rosenfelder.) —Muke Tever talk (la.wiktionary) 01:52, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

• Keep The original reason for deletion is because it was a 'conlang'. This isn't a valid reason for deletion. Also, it is one of the most popular amateur conlangs, and is very well-known through out the constructed language community. I would also support a Merge with Mark Rosenfelder if it came down to that. Antley 03:00, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete self promotion. JamesBurns 04:12, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: Do you have cite for that? There is no evidence that of the dozen people who edited the Verdurian language article, that any of them are Mark Rosenfelder. --Prosfilaes 06:01, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
    • It's obvious: people like this simply go on autopilot with this kind of arguments once they encounter something they are ignorant about and therefore dislike. In another VfD I got angry about a similar unwarranted accusation at the address of Andrew Smith. By now I've understood that it's simply background music here. In all honesty: the atmosphere in the Dutch wiki is a hell of a lot nicer, folks! --IJzeren Jan 07:20, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
      • Maybe you should stick to the Dutch wiki then instead of making aspersions on the voters motives. JamesBurns 06:28, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
        • What are your reasons for calling it "self promotion"? You still haven't answered that question.--Prosfilaes 19:49, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
        • Indeed. "Self promotion" is an insult both to Mark Rosenfelder and to the person who wrote the article. Instead of making wild assertions regarding their motives and blindly voting "delete", you should at least read the article and take a look at the list of people who worked on it before doing so. --IJzeren Jan 21:58, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. I'm a conlanger. Ishwar, what have conlangs done to you that justify you going on a vendetta against all articles about them? I don't see a good reason for not having someone go to all conlang VFDs and voting keep if you basically did the same thing with the same VFD reason for most conlang articles out there. I'll agree that not all conlangs need an article (mine most certainly doesn't), but Mark Rosenfelder is a big name on the online conlang scene, as is Almea and Verdurian, his most developed conlang. Also, I question whoever said that conlangs are "a goofy way to spend your life" about the "goofiness" of knowing so much about a videogame. Cctoide 15:56, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
  • hi Cctoide. i am not a conlanger, but i am a langer (& also a linger). conlangs have not done anything harmful to me, i dont think. i do not have a vendetta against articles about every conlang, but i do question the inclusion of the articles that i have acted on. the main source of my actions here is results from a conlanger's question about the inclusion of certain conlangs. the articles that i have acted upon are those that appear in this conlanger's list. i additionally, voted on another conlang because i happened to see it in that day's viewing of the deletion pages. i have not acted on any other conlangs and i dont anticipate any further action (because i want to work on Wikipedia's documentation of American languages). i see a good reason for not acting as you suggest: i carefully considered each article and acted accordingly, i (gently) encourage us all to do the same. if my evaluation of the article is uninformed and in bad perspective, hopefully this will be remedied by wiser voters. i also wish that "goofy"-ness was not mentioned as this could perhaps be viewed as negative by some readers. peace – ishwar  (speak) 00:09, 2005 July 27 (UTC)

• Keep -- Verdurian is a big name in the conlang scene. I don't buy the whole not notable thing, as long as it's reasonably notable, and verifiable, it's notable enough for wikipedia. --Phroziac (talk) 19:50, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

• Weak keep. Besides the official site, there seem to be several fan sites by people other than Mr. Rosenfelder, so it's clearly not a one-man/vanity project. It's fairly well-known and influential as a thoroughly-developed conlang. If it really has 50 speakers, it's certainly notable, and I would argue that, as a naturalistic artlang (not designed for easiness like an auxlang), it probably would be notable enough with considerably fewer fluent speakers than that. --Jim Henry | Talk 03:47, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
• Maybe we should consider discussing and voting on a Wikipedia policy on criteria for inclusion of conlangs? Almafeta's conlang notability criteria might be a good starting point. Where would be the appropriate place to propose/discuss such a new policy? --Jim Henry | Talk 04:27, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Hey, you find out how to start such a policy discussion, you find an impartial admin who would be willing to administrate the discussion and the resultant voting, and I'd support it. You could use my suggested criteria as a starting point. Almafeta 05:19, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

IJzeren Jan suggested starting the discussion on Talk:Constructed language. As far as I know that is a good place to discuss the draft policy, but I'm not sure about how to go about proposing it as a policy and getting it voted on, once the people discussing the draft have some consensus on what policy to propose. Maybe we should copy your conlang notability criteria to Talk:Constructed language/Conlang notability criteria or Talk:Constructed language/Conlang article inclusion policy draft, and then let people revise the draft and comment on the reasons for their proposed revisions, etc...? --Jim Henry | Talk 16:47, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

• I conlang myself, and I generally feel that only clearly notable conlangs should be included on Wikipedia (the trouble, of course, is how one definres "clearly notable"). In any event, Verdurian is certainly one of the most famous languages in the conlang community. Keep. I was at one time a member of the ZBB, by the way, although I've gradually stopped posting there; but as I've been on Wikipedia for months I don't think this fact should be particularly relevant, but just so I'm not hiding anything, there it is. --Whimemsz 08:23, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
• Wa hey, this vote hasn't been closed yet, almost two weeks later. Is an admin going to close it, or is a certain someone waiting for an influx of delete votes so he can delete the article based on the 'obvious concensus'? Almafeta 09:26, 5 August 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.