Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Petukh

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. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 01:19, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] petukh

This word is a transliteration of a Russian slang term (close in meaning to sissy or homo, see also ru:Опущенный) created by an anon about a year ago. This article is wrongly placed under categories Category:Russian society and Category:prisons in Russia where it clearly does not belong. In Google search there was just a few hits in English. For example, this article explaines usage of names for animals (kozel or a goat, korova or a cow, lisa or a fox) in Russian and English languages. If petukh deserves an entry in English Wikipedia so are transliterations of many other Russian dirty, pejorative, or otherwise offensive words. The article looks like it describes the caste system in Russian prisons, but it does not, in particular it does not cite sources. I may accept mentioning of "petukh" in articles like Russian prison slang or pejorative usage of animal names, or similar. If this article would not be deleted I could only recommend creating a category for Russian offensive words. Also if you like this article, you may also like transiliterations of all terms in this dictionary of Russian prison slang

• Delete Wikipedia is not a Russian dictionary. Although this explains where petaQ[1] comes from. --Charlene 04:40, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
  • PetaQ is also spelled "Pahtak", suggesting that it may rather come from the Italian "patacca" (fr. pataque, sp. pataca, orginally the name of a large, but almost worthless coin) meaning "blot of dirt" and by extension "worthless thing", used as an insult in its masculine form, roughly equivalent to "sucker". Stammer 07:40, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep The word is common in Russian-American slang and widely heard e.g. in Brighton Beach. Stammer 06:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is not a dictionary of slang. What is important is not the word but whether the subject denoted by the word is encyclopaedic. The subject of this article is a caste in Russian prisons. To make an argument for keeping, show that an encyclopaedic discussion of this caste can be had, by citing sources to show that copious source material on the subject exists. Uncle G 11:10, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. One of the most important and widely known concepts of prison subculture.-- Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 11:34, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Good point, I added a link to Prison sexuality. Stammer 12:05, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Delete.May be I did not make myself clear enough. The word is common... So is the phrase dumb ass, yet Wikipedia only has a redirect to Wiktionary. I understand why it is widely used on Brighton together with pridurok and others. Yet the usage of this offensive word on Brighton is not enough to describe the caste system in prisons. I need published sources. the most important and widely known concepts. Yet Google does not return English articles on the petukh caste except for the user edited online encyclopedias and some poorly translated Russian folklore. Please give me sources for the phrase petukh prison caste. I strongly recommend delete per WP:NEO. (Igny 14:09, 1 November 2006 (UTC))
  • Dumbass is not the name of prison caste. If it was, I have no doubt that it would be in the Wikipedia. And it isn't neologism for sure. If you want sources, what's wrong with this one[2]? I'll try to find more. Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 14:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
    • • The source does not have the word petukh! It is a bunch of Russian prison slang terms written in Russian. Trying to bring new words into English by transliteration of words from other languages is not acceptable for English Wikipedia. The source which might be good enough for ru:Опущенный is not good enough for petukh. (Igny 14:44, 1 November 2006 (UTC))
  • Yes petukh is very offensive word, but that is not the reason to delete the article, because WP:NOT (censored). Renaming to Lowered down [3], might be an option. Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 14:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
    • A better idea would be to take ISBN 3882439203 in hand and refactor this as one part of an encyclopaedia article on the overall topic of social status amongst Russian criminals (or some such). Uncle G 18:45, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per above. --Kf4bdy ^{talk contribs} 17:00, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per above. Cbrown1023 21:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per non encyclopedic material -- lucasbfr ^talk 23:41, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment IMO the issue here is the anthropological relevance of the subject matter. A look at Prison sexuality suggests that it's highly relevant. Prison slaves are not just a Russian phenomenon, but petukhi provide a vivid example. Stammer 06:19, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  • That they are but specific examples of a larger topic is why I suggested refactoring the article, citing the aforemented book (which discusses the social strata amongst Russian criminals that are revealed by prison tattoos), as one part of an overall topic. Uncle G 16:27, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Your proposal has merit, but I would rather suggest creating an entry Prison slave, which may be linked to Prison sexuality and to Bullying (the Russian article ru:Опущенный describes a phenomenon that is not limited to prisons) and integrate Petukh in the resulting article. As it stands, however, the article is better than nothing. I have just added links to Bullying and to Dedovshchina to provide some context. Stammer 17:16, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
• I'm really getting bored defending every subculture related article, that is going to be deleted anyway. Del per nom - could not argue with such reasoning. Gotta switch my attention to school choirs, boy, the standarts are much lower in that Wiki area. P.S. And yes this term is used in English academic literature "Gender, Generation and Identity in Contemporary Russia" by H. Pilkington [4] Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 09:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Petukh in Russian means rooster, period. As many other animal names it also has a pejorative usage. In particular it is used with regard to a caste of untouchables in Russian prison. Opuschennyi which literally means lowered down also has pejorative usage, same as petukh. If you want to describe the caste system in Russian prison then use proper names, that is untouchables(неприкасаемые, neprikasaemye, also izgoi, otverzhennye) for the lowest caste. You can then include the offensive names for the untouchables (петухи, гребни, пивни, шкварные, опущенные, обиженные) similar to chura, bhangi, neech, kanjjar, and mirasi in Dalit. I do not understand why some editors try to defend a troll who created the article on petukhs. If you want to describe the caste system in Russian prisons then do it properly, that is investigate the matter before trying to protect the trolling. (Igny 18:59, 2 November 2006 (UTC))

  As I said before, there is procedure for articles that are not named properly and it's RM (not AfD). For me article on prison caste is no different from article on any Hindu caste, and who or why created this article has nothing to do with article itself. It can be sourced, it can be verified and nothing else matters. -- Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 20:40, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

For me article on prison caste is no different from article on any Hindu caste. Good for you. For me, I have learnt about the subject more than I want to know trying to build a case for the removal. They are called untouchables for a reason, and I doubt that Russian editors contributed or will ever contribute to this article. As it currently stands, it looks like it was written by some teenager who just read a fiction novel about Russian prisons, it is simply not encyclopedic. which is good enough reason for speedy delete. Attempts to fix the article by adding to See also some links are plainly WP:OR. (Igny 21:30, 2 November 2006 (UTC))

You can censor information, but you can't censor social reality. If you'll will remove information, that will not change social reality in the prisons. "Solving" problems this way is deemed to failure, as history of our former homeland called CCCP has proven. -- Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 22:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I am against censoring information. Give me a source which investigated the social degradation in Russian prisons and I might write an article myself. What I do not like in this article is trolling. (Igny 13:54, 3 November 2006 (UTC))

• Delete. There is no serious evidence that this word has passed over into general use in the English speaking world. Irrelevant what it means. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, let alone a foreign dictionary. Ohconfucius 12:51, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. If possible an article for the prison caste system should be written and petukh made to redirect to it - the word may not be "notable" enough on its own but the system is. _└ ^VodkaJazz / _talk ^┐ 15:35, 6 November 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.