Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pronunciation respelling key

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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 of the debate was no consensus to delete. W.marsh 15:53, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation respelling key

Conflicts with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation), Wikipedia:Avoid self-references, Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Verifiability, and Wikipedia:Citing sources. —Michael Z. 2006-03-20 17:36 Z

  • Delete—my request. —Michael Z. 2006-03-20 17:36 Z
  • Keep. There is no conflict with Original research, Verifiability, or Citing sources: This is a guide, as as such is self-defining. It no more needs cited sources than a table of contents does. Self reference is generally a problem because it is unprofessional, but this isn't the case with a pronunciation key: Guidelines such as this are standard in print encyclopedias such as the EB. As for Wikipedia's pronunciation guideline, these issues are covered in the key's talk page: No one has yet come up with a way to represent English in the IPA in a dialect-neutral way, so the IPA has resulted in edit wars over "cultural imperialism". Also, many people are more familiar with this kind of system than the IPA. Think of middle-school kids in the USA, for example. The IPA should always be used as well, of course, but this extra info is helpful, which is something we should always keep in mind. kwami 20:59, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, unless MichaelZ can explain his reasoning in more detail. Kwami's justification seems sensible to me. The Singing Badger 21:08, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
    Please also refer to what Wikipedia is not: not an instruction manual: "Wikipedia articles should not include instruction - advice (legal, medical, or otherwise), suggestions, or contain "how-to"s. This includes tutorials, walk-throughs, instruction manuals, video game guides, and recipes. . . . Note that this does not apply to the Wikipedia: namespace, where "how-to"s relevant to editing Wikipedia itself are appropriate"
    This is not an encyclopedia article, although it could have a place in the help: or Wikipedia: namespace. However, I am skeptical that it represents any Wikipedia policy or conventional practice. —Michael Z. 2006-03-21 01:35 Z
As for Wikipedia not being an instruction manual, by your reading of the policy Wikipedia should have no pronunciation guides at all. However, these are clearly acceptable and are not considered "instruction".
And no, it's not an article at all, it is a key, just as we have in any other encyclopedia. (The pronunciation guide in my print encyclopedia appears at the begining of volume I, separate from the articles.) I would be fine with this in help or namespace as long as articles could still link to it once it's there, but I have a feeling that people would object to that as "self reference". kwami 05:17, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
I think a key like this wouldn't belong in the article namespace, and I think there are templates made for references to help pages like this. But the other question is which articles refer to this key? Is this respelling method used anywhere in Wikipedia? —Michael Z. 2006-03-21 17:36 Z
Check the 'what links here' link. kwami 19:40, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Okay, after looking at 'what links here', I'm wondering if this is a particular respelling standard that's used in astronomy? If so, then it may be appropriate to offer it alongside IPA (which is already the recommendation) in astronomy articles. The "key" article is lacking references and context. —Michael Z. 2006-03-21 21:22 Z
The purpose of the manual of style is to avoid haphazard pronunciation spellings. However, this key is intended to avoid that problem as well, by making the pronunciation spellings regular and consistant. The manual of style causes its own problems because people fight over whose dialect to use as the approved pronunciation. This system avoids that problem, and having both it and the IPA addresses the needs of more people. kwami 05:17, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. Perhaps find a place for it in the Wikipedia: namespace. Robin Johnson 11:47, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep or move to Wikipedia: namespace per Kwami and discussion on the article's talk page.--JHJ 13:05, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep The article is not redundant, but just mistitled or mislocated. (Or misremembered? haha) English phonology (at least can we please refer to articles by the correct entry?) delves into dialectical issues and doesn't address phonetic respelling. Also, as pointed out, there's no one way to unambiguously transfer a pronunciation into IPA: the beauty of the idea of this article is a very elegant way of doing that. I'd recommend that at the worst, the namespace idea happens. I'd much rather see it developed more to provide a non-IPA method of pronunciation transcription that could be useful throughout linguistics and languages pages, classical literature and history pages, biology, and so on. Every page of my oldest Webster's has a similar pronunciation guide on every page. Another advantage is that this system (similiar to what most newspapers and magazines would use) only requires one special character, the unambiguous schwa, [ə]. I'd rather see us first work to edit the article to address MLA's POV that it's "not very well written". Then let's rewrite it so it is, and make it so it could be used throughout the English language Wiki.--Sturmde 00:54, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] discussion

Would it be acceptable to everyone to move this key to wikipedia:help or wikipedia:namespace and still allow the actual articles to link to it? kwami 05:29, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

That would definitely be more acceptable. After it's moved we can address the question of whether it should exist at all. —Keenan Pepper 03:16, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Don't fudge the issue. Would it be acceptable or not? kwami 05:21, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
I would argue against it existing at all, so no. —Keenan Pepper 05:24, 22 March 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.