Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abir (martial art)

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 redirect to Yehoshua Sofer. --Aarktica 19:01, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Abir (martial art)

Abir (martial art) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

The following concern was expressed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism#Abir (martial art): "I think this article is realy strange. Probably you should ask you if it's not a hoax, please take a look on this link.--Kimdime69 20:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)" And indeed upon deeper examination of the article it appears to be nothing more that one paragraph about a non-notable individual (with lots of photos of himself) who has introduced "Abir®" in Israel (as his website states a few times, [1] [2]) as a disguised version of the Korean martial art of Kuk Sool Won. 95% of the rest of the article and the sources it cites is tangential information and vignettes that deal with with this or that group of Jews who fought or engaged in warfare during the long stretch of Jewish history, and not directly related to "Abir®" at all in any direct way. Thus this article violates WP:NOR as well as WP:NOT#OR; WP:NOT#ADVERTISING; WP:NOT#MYSPACE; and based on the information provided by User:Kimdime69 it may also be a violation of WP:HOAX. IZAK 12:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletions. IZAK 12:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of martial arts-related deletions. Bradford44 13:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Israel-related deletions. IZAK 08:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete (most of the "Jewish history" stuff) and Redirect to Kuk Sool Won. IZAK 12:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep This subject is overall unique, some aspects may be not original and this info should be put inside the article itself. We do not delete articles because certain aspects are copies of other articles. If the subject has acquired Notability in of its own being, as the references and citations make the case, we will not delete it. Wikipedia is not censorship.--יודל 13:12, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete At least 90% of the article and all of it if nobody can proove that Abir is notable. Erase the images too--Kimdime69 13:16, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I have added Israeli newspaper profile on this subject, so the Notability factor is not the issue here anymore.--יודל 14:10, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

What needs 2ndary sourcing is the history, and claims like protect in the prime minister. --Nate1481( ^t/_c) 14:26, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok i will have to comb through 3 long newspaper articles and 2 lengthy discussions on Martial arts community boards, and three other wikipedia languages that have this article. This will take some time to source properly, but the overall article should not be deleted because 2 lines aren't yet sourced, give it some time and it will happen.--יודל 14:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

They are examples not the only ones. --Nate1481( ^t/_c) 14:40, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The point is this subject is maybe badly written this is no way a reason to delete. we can fix it but AFd's should not serve as a tool to get articles fixed.--יודל 14:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

That's why I didn't nominate it, but since we are here i'm raising the point. I've Added some cite requests--Nate1481( ^t/_c) 14:50, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The article is in desperate need of sourcing and severe pruning. JJL 14:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and i do my part, i am not familiar with Martial Arts, but i am doing whatever i can to edit it regarding my knowledge of the Hebrew language, which the he wiki has the identical article. Thanks--יודל 15:03, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keep I'm going against my better judgment on this. I would like to see if someone other than the major contributor can verify all of the claims or find better sources apart from the main Abir website. The article states Yehoshua Sofer learned the Korean arts against his will and pictures of him doing said art are carefully listed as "Non-Abir technique". --Ghostexorcist 13:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Very doubtful, at best--Inyan 13:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Unless it can get some 2ndary sources, that my major concern the rest has been cleared up. after disscusion & modification change to Move see below. --Nate1481( ^t/_c) 13:53, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Yossiea ^(talk) 14:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Keep I guess every country needs a Pankration. This sounds like Kuk Sool Won given an Israeli veneer and false history, but it's as legitimate as many other martial arts, I suppose; even Kuk Sool Won and Hwa Rang Do are basically Hapkido plus in the latter case a mystical tale, and Hapkido is Daito-ryu Aikijutsu (or, "I remember Tae Kwon Do when it used to be called Shotokan Karate"). Barely notable. JJL 14:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Most of the article is some meandering thread of various historical warriors, having nothing to do with the current martial arts technique, and what remains needs better sourcing if it is to be acceptable to wikipedia. Avi 14:39, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete The historical meandering should perhaps be added to appropriate articles on the history of the relevant groups though. -- Medains 15:00, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep as the burden of proof has not been met. Many claims in the article are POV (and wrong: the history is counterfactual), though, and I'd be happy to delete it -- but an article on this subject should probably exist, and this does ahave some content to work with. CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:12, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per a lack of independent, secondary source verification. The issue at hand is not whether the lineage is true or not, but if enough independent sources are available to reliably verify information. This is not so at present, and thus there is no evidence that the subject merits encyclopedic treatment. VanTucky ^Talk 15:25, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Let's ignore for a moment that the whole thing is an incredible fabrication. This is a one-man martial art; even if it did not have the silly made-up history it would not be notable. Possibly he deserves a one-line mention in Kuk Sool Won if he really is the only person not of East Asian descent to be a master in it[3] (I have no capacity to evaluate this claim myself).--Pharos 18:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

why not mention this in the article itself, the guy has Television stories, Newspaper stories, and community board discussions about him and his work. I don't think Wikipedia has to vouch for the truth in subjects we only can report what it is out there, and the subject is out there.--יודל 18:25, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keepas per IZAK. His main 'source' and 'proof' (User:Kimdime69) for debunking the abir article is from a blog and the emotionally written blog post is certainly not a reliable source. Article might need to be cleaned up, but a poorly written article is not a reason for a deletion. Other 'delete' comments above are in fact OR judgements of the subject, not sourced 'criticism'. --Shuki 18:42, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The burden of "proof" of notability is squarely on the article, not its debunkers. The problem is there are no reliable source that this is a notable system, just a couple of human interest stories about a man and his invented martial art that has virtually no following.--Pharos 02:58, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• NOTE: Shuki, your vote is confusing (what does "Keep as per IZAK" mean?) as I nominated the article for deletion and to be redirected, but not "keep" in its present form at all. IZAK 08:11, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Keep Everything on the website of the organization that sponsors Abir points to it being a recent creation. The history is merely a set of interesting aspects of Jewish History, that can be utilized for the story. (This is par for martial arts history.) Searching Black Belt online didn't come up with any hits. I'm going to redefine "notability" here. What percentage of the population in Israel have trained in this system? jonathon 19:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

That would indeed be a new approach to the definition. Does it apply to other sports as well? to politics? to religion? I can think of quite a number of small groups of great interest that would not be in WP under that definition.

I was grasping at straws, to justify keeping it. If it is an authentic, historical, indigenous, martial art, there should be more than two training halls in Israel for it. There are three or four chains of martial art studios in the town I live in. Each chain has at least three locations.jonathon 02:13, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the current version, I gather it is the external link NRG from NRG (Maariv), is it just a human interest story, or does it attest to actual notability--could you translate a key sentence or two?

It looks like your run of the mill human interest story to me. jonathon 02:13, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keep personally I think that the system is fake, if such a system ever existed a lot of borrowed techniques have been used to pad out whatever remains of the historical system. Going through the You-Tube videos and some of the techniques look awfully like Jujutsu, and others like Shorinji Kempo, the techniques based on the letters of the Hebrew alphabet is pure bad 1970's Kung Fu movie. As an instructor although he looks impressive enough performing the techniques on video, in one he uses the sleight of hand of forcing the uke to stop mid attack to offer a salute breaking the uke's flow and concentration. Despite my reservations about the system and the man I'm still inclined to keep. This is based on the notability based on the system and the man being covered in Israeli television and newspaper articles, also the rabbinical endorsement is probably genuine. The article can probably do with pruning, the history of Jewish warriors can probly be spun off into an article about the Jewish warrior tradition and what remains rewritten with qualifiers that the claims made are the claims of the organisation and not an externally verified truth. KTo288 00:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not much, but I do have a small amount of info about Jews that served in ancient chinese armies. It could be added to the proposed Jewish Warrior tradition article. Other editors more knowledgeable in the Torah and Midrash could add passages pertaining to the subject. Just a suggestion. --Ghostexorcist 00:46, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any sources for "Jews served in ancient Chinese armies". (English, Hebrew, Aramaic, Chinese, or Japanese will do.) Jewish Warrior Tradition might be more suitable for the history in this article. jonathon 02:13, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes I do. I thought others would automatically assume I had citations for the information. It is in English, but the sources were written by Chinese scholars and scholars of Chinese. Keep in mind it is a small amount of info, but still worth mentioning. --Ghostexorcist 02:34, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I doubt there's such a thing as a coherent "Jewish Warrior Tradition", but maybe there could be an article on Jewish military history.--Pharos 02:52, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Pharos: I agree with you that the idea of having an article about Jewish military history is an excellent idea, as in no way should such a broad topic ever have been allowed to be "hijacked" by the "Abir®" club stub. IZAK 08:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

May I suggest you take what you want before the AfD concludes so that it dosen't affect the out come, I wouldn't know where to start or I'd try. --Nate1481( ^t/_c) 08:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Nate1481: Great suggestion. It's DONE. I have taken the relevant sections from the article and added material from others to create a more definitive, balanced, NPOV and historically accurate article about combat by Jews/Jewish combat in the new Jewish military history article, which will now also be the lead article for Category:Jewish army units. Thank you, IZAK 12:48, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Removed overlap that didn't really belong and have added Jewish military history to 'see also' --Nate1481( ^t/_c) 13:47, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks and well done IZAK, the Abir article is looking rather naked without the historical window dressing. KTo288 14:25, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• Move to Yehoshua Sofer and restructure the material accordingly. The independent external references appear to be about the man, not the technique, and it is the man who appears to be notable here. When the technique becomes independently notable, that would be the time to have an article on it. The Yehoshua Sofer article can say something about the technique, but its claims to have an historical basis etc. etc. don't appear to have any independent sourcing and a private website is not a reliable source for such claims. The article could note briefly that the individual claims that his system has a basis in Jewish history and perhaps discuss in a couple of sentences, but there is no source basis for articulating the system or its history in detail this extensive. --Shirahadasha 14:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• Interesting suggestion I could live with that but the article will need cutting down. --Nate1481( ^t/_c) 14:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree with move proposal - individual appears notable, but the "martial art" itself lacks verifiable sources. Bradford44 16:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree Thats a realy good suggestion--Kimdime69 16:34, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Good idea As per my keep per Izak's Afd, well, IMO, the Afd and the reason was poor and this convinced me to support keeping the article. --Shuki 22:58, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Move has been made, and the easy bit has been done, the hard bit is how much of the detail about the martial art should be trimmed. KTo288 15:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: I have erroneously closed this AfD as "no consensus" after two days, because it somehow popped up on WP:AFD/Old and I didn't look at the dates. I'm undoing this closure now. Sorry. Sandstein 07:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I think the move was a good thing but now the debate is hopelessly confused. I suggest closing the debate, allowing a bit of time for the article to get sorted out and start a fresh debate.Peter Rehse 16:40, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - This article lacks any real secondary source verification, and appears to also suffer from notability. Atari400 09:54, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
• Comment As KTo288 notes this article has already been moved to Yehoshua Sofer. Although I proposed this move I believe action should have awaited the outcome of this discussion, and editors are entitled to object. Best, --Shirahadasha 16:33, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
• Comment, though the move (rename) may have been premature, I endorse it as the best option. --MPerel 05:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
• Comment, I strongly recommend that this AfD be closed, now that the titular article no longer exists. If appropriate, it should be reopened at the new location. Bradford44 15:11, 17 October 2007 (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.