Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arverni Guard

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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 was delete. W.marsh 01:12, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arverni Guard

Arverni Guard (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Completely unreferenced since creation in Oct 06 and all editors have since tried long and hard to find any references for it, all to no avail (most especially in what should be its main source, the de Bello Gallico) - suspect it is either a synopsis of a novel on the Gallic Wars or, more likely, a hoax. Creator (User:Celticepic) is long-gone, not replying to talk, and was apt to create fictions and exagerations of Celtic military prowess (eg to rewrite Gallic as Celtic). Consensus on article talk page is for AfD at the very least.Neddyseagoon - talk 09:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Delete: fails WP:V. Just for yucks, I Googled it, and out of the forty G-hits there is, almost every one of them were this article or various Wiki mirrors, many highlighting the pleas on the talk page for some sourcing, any sourcing.  RGTraynor  13:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. Hey Neddy, Needle Nardle Noo! <cough>
    I yanked off a prod tag that Neddy placed on this article about a week ago and since then we've discussed it some. Neddy has tried contacting the original editor to ask about sources - but the last time I looked she/he had been inactive since 2006. The problem is that the article is plausible historically and the editor who made it seems to be a good faith editor.[1] Personally, I was originally in favour of keeping the article - hence the de-prod. However, since then I've hunted high (in Titus Livy) and low (Bello Gallico) and even in specific history of Auvergne to see if the natives bragged about their famous fighting forebears (they did but not these ones). I may have found the origin of the original editor's theory for an elite Arverni unit from the game 0 A.D. - [2] - but I'm afraid it's just a nice theory. This article is also the number two hit in Google for "Arverni" so Wikipedia is much better off without it. User:Paxse - talk 15:22, 1 June 2007
Nice work. I would say turn the article into an article on that computer game, but that's pretty pointless seeing as the game itself is unrepresented on Wikipedia, this theory might not even need to appear on the game's Wiki page, and it could cause continuing confusion with historical reality.Neddyseagoon - talk 16:22, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: I'd say the measure of whether the article is plausible historically is if we can find any evidence that it's true. Not every hoax is written in mangled leetspeak by User:PhreakThaPirate.  RGTraynor  15:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
A measure it pretty clearly fails. Neddyseagoon - talk 16:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Hey RGT, you're right of course, the very best hoaxes are probably written by Oxford dons :) What I meant was that the Arverni were the pre-eminent Gallic tribe for a goodly part of history, they were wealthy, influential, powerful and seem to have handed out some military 'whuppin's' in their time. They must have been able to fight, and fight well. So some kind of renowned military unit is plausible given what we know of the tribe. Unfortunately, the historical record around this time is also full of holes. Having done some recent reading on this (does it show!?!) I'd say the fact that the 'Arverni Guard' aren't mentioned in the major sources that have been checked is a pretty good indication that there weren't no such animal. Not perfect, but pretty good. Kind of like failing the Iron Age notability test. Paxse 05:57, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. We have to have some proof they existed, not just assumptions and speculation. --Charlene 10:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. Stoic atarian 22:40, 6 June 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.