Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1193 in poetry

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 no consensus, defaulting to keep. If you wish to begin a merge discussion at 12th century in poetry, then by all means do so. Wizardman 19:56, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 1193 in poetry

1193 in poetry (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

Pointless page with no relevant content Markb (talk) 11:21, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

• Delete. The Song Dynasty did not 'die' in 1193 anyway.
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. —Littleteddy (roar!) 11:45, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
• Delete 'Tis a useless page with no real info. AlmightyClam 12:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
• Obivous merge to 12th century in poetry. Unlike historical events like battles and reigns of kings and other items from the Dark Ages, we really don't know the precise year that works of literature were first produced 800 or 900 years ago. Even the 12th century article has four entries-- the [Nibelunglied]] ("1180 to 1210"); The Tale of Igor's Campaign ("dated near the end of the century"); the Chanson d'Antioche ("at the beginning of the century"); and the Ormulum, date unknown. I agree that the poetry project is wonderful for more recent centuries, but this is a case of diminishing marginal returns, where the further back you attempt to go, the less you really find, and... as here... the best that you can do is put in who was born or who died in AD 1193. Mandsford (talk) 13:01, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect: I disagree that it 1193 is the Dark Ages and that we don't know any dates for literature then. We know a few things by surrounding events and context. If there are internal references to events that we know, we can be confident of some dates. That said, the items are few enough that breaking into years before 1400 is really not especially useful. Essentially, the emergence of various "stationers registers" in various nations allow us to have meaningful dating, and the advent of the printing press allows us to have "publication" data. Prior to those, we have few items we can be precise with. Utgard Loki (talk) 13:43, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep: I still hate single line articles; the fact is that we don't always break out "in literature" and "in art" and the like. When there is insufficient material, we contain the details in the master year. I did a ton of "- in literature" articles, and it was obvious that breaking out "novel" from "books" should not occur until there were sufficient titles to justify such a split. The same is true of splitting off "in literature" in general. No one, I hope, is against having book data, but the question is whether an "in literature" article is justified with a single entry. Utgard Loki (talk) 19:23, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
• Keep unless whole scheme is considered together. About half the years in the century have articles, typically with 1-3 items; no doubt other centuries are similar. There is no point in deleting just one in the series. Johnbod (talk) 13:56, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
• Keep We dont delete random years from a scheme. But there is material to fill them: In many cases we do have exact years for this period. In Western Europe, 1193 is the 12th century, by no means the dark ages--indeed, the century in Western Europe is usually known as the "12th century Renaissance" for the revival of humanistic studies--including poetry--and the rise of the schools which were to become the first universities. As we get more and better articles here we will fill these in. A great many of our articles on the middle ages are from the old EB or Catholic encyclopedia, and a much more has become known since then. There's hundreds if not thousands of surviving poetic works from the 12th century in Europe.

Incidentally, it wasn't the Song dynasty that died in 1193, but Fan Chengda, the Song dynasty poet, and we have exact years for almost all Chinese intellectuals of that period. We have many exact dates and much exact knowledge of the arts in China (and the Islamic world) for these years, which were periods with highly developed civilizations, & were far ahead of Europe in everything intellectual. Interesting that almost everyone above assumed we were talking about Europe. DGG (talk) 16:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Please. We have much that is nailed down to near dates and some that is nailed down to exact dates, but the very concept of the year is difficult when we don't have publication. If we are going for composition instead of publication, we're in yet a different mud puddle, and if we go for "appearance to the public - publication," we need a system for being precise. That emerges different places at different times, but the question isn't even "should we have the book data," but "should we have an in literature article for an individual year when it isn't populated?" The speedy delete criterion A3 would come into play if this weren't one of our formula series. Utgard Loki (talk) 19:23, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

• comment. 'We dont delete random years from a scheme'. Where is this agreed? do 'we' really maintain mere place-holders in Wikipedia just in case someone comes up with an entry? If so, shouldn't there be blank entries for every day in 1193 for a poetry-related article; indeed one for every hour within each day? Markb (talk) 18:18, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
• Comment Maybe the scheme itself is extremely unrealistic in how it sets it boundaries, for the reasons pointed out above.... we have articles about what happened every year in aviation, going back to 1900, and before that, for every century in aviation. Was there aviation before 1900? Sure. Do we know what happened in 1193 in aviation? No. Are we likely to find out someday? No. Hence, nobody has a page reserved for 1193 in aviation as they might for 1993 in aviation. The reason why is that somebody took some time to plan the "scheme" instead of setting up a stock template. If you look at List of years in poetry, it looks like nobody really knows the exact year for when a work came out prior to 1571 in poetry. Instead of pretending as if we know anything about the events of 1193 in poetry, the better course of action would be to incorporate all that into the 12th century. Mandsford (talk) 21:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
• Delete This is a very bad idea. Year in year out in the 12th century? That's absurd. Eusebeus (talk) 22:06, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
• comment Look at the listing: its the year the poet died not the year a particular work was published. For all but the most major works that would normally be the better date--as Utgard L says, the year of publication in the manuscript era is a little ambiguous in most cases, and we would not normally want to do every poem in an oeuvre anyway. Birth dates are in most cases much less certain than death dates. so the placement of this item in this specific year reasonable. As for airplanes, people were writing poems long before they were making airplanes; as for " year in year out in the 12th century", that's IDONTKNOWABOUTIT--certainly as applied to the more civilized countries of the period, such as China. DGG (talk) 06:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

  In this case, it's more like "NOBODYKNOWSABOUTIT". Hopefully, there will be a day when someone knowledgable about 12th century Chinese literature (or about 12th century literature anywhere) would contribute to Wikipedia. That day hasn't come yet, apparently. Remember, the 12th century article identifies only four works-- not four works where the dates are known, but four works, period. Let's learn more about the 12th century before we start pretending that we're experts on the 100 individual years there. What will happen if we return Fan Chengda to the 12th century in poetry? A useless blue link will turn back into a red link on the years in poetry template. No big deal. Mandsford (talk) 12:52, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Someone is doing exactly that--adding Chinese poets to the appropriate year here, using death dates, an appropriate choice, not years of publication. Someone starts working on it, and so you want to delete it? DGG (talk) 17:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• I disagree that there's been any "work" to speak of. If the only thing that can someone can mention about Fan Chengda is his date of death, then they don't have anything to tell us about the legacy of Fan Chengda. Can you imagine if the only mention of Robert Frost was "1963 in poetry"? That's not a stub, it's a snub. I'll concede that, had this article not been nominated, I would not have heard of Fan Chengda, and that you have raised a good point, in that someone can find years for 12th century poetry. Books have been written about the poetry of Mr. Fan, (who was born on June 26, 1126) and reasonably accurate dates have been located, such as "On the Road to Nanxu", circa 1153. I'm still in favor of a merge for the time being, although if people truly are working on a Chinese poetry project, the 12th century cup will soon runneth over... ere long. Mandsford (talk) 21:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

(but of course check the article on Fan Chengda, where much else can be said; a list of these years is a chronological guide, nto a ull history of the period--the information is in the article. It couldelll havejust given the date fror Frost--the rest is inthe article. These lists are organizational devices. DGG (talk) 07:50, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

• Keep as part of a series, which can easily be expanded in the future. Nyttend (talk) 17:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
• Comment. So you are arguing for a place holder on the basis something might come along in the future? wikipedia is not a crystal ball. If, and when, content is created then of course there should be an entry; but until then this merely sets a precedent for an editor to create speculative empty entries. Markb (talk) 19:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
• Merge inot groups of years - This appears to be part of a bold project, which seems so far to be collecting together birth and death dates of poets, with provision for the future addition of events. However, at periods as remote as this. the number of candidates for inclusion is likely to be small. I would therefore suggest that all similar articles should be merged into articles on decades, or even quarter or one-third centuries (Early= 1100-1133; mid=1134-1167; late=1168-99), or something similar. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
• Keep and start a merge discussion in the proper place. --Pixelface (talk) 08:20, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. What is the 'proper' place? Markb (talk) 07:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
• Keep or merge to a timeline covering a longer period. Tim! (talk) 18:05, 13 March 2008 (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.