Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sankebetsu brown bear incident

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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 keep. Snowolf How can I help? 01:53, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sankebetsu brown bear incident

Sankebetsu brown bear incident (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

As one user points out on the talk page, this is perhaps Wikipedia's funniest article but for all the wrong reasons. A series of bear attacks in Japan in 1915 is described in great detail. The reason I'm nominating the article is that I'm not sure about how notable some bear attacks 100 years ago are. As can be seen from List of fatal bear attacks in North America by decade, fatal bear attacks are sadly not anything notable. People are killed by bears every year without any articles about it. In short, where's the notability here? Apart from the lack of notability, the article is so badly written it defies belief. It is written as a strange mix between horror novel and animal psychology. We're told both what the victims and the bear was thinking and the whole piece is as far from an encyclopedia one could get. To make matters even worse, it is written in extremely bad English, filled with language mistakes and virtyally impossible to read. If the event is notable enough to be kept, I strongly recommend that the entire text is deleted and an encyclopedia text is written instead. However, I don't even think this is remotely notable. JdeJ (talk) 20:24, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment In layout, at least, it appears to be a close copy of the Japanese Wikipedia article. Does the tone match, I wonder? —Quasirandom (talk) 20:52, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment For what it's worth, for comparison purposes, here is a computer translation of the Japanese Wikipedia article:[1]. Edison (talk) 00:28, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. Endless detail about a non-notable event. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:05, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Article claims there were two books, a radio play, a stage play, and two manga about this. There also seems to be a permanent exhibit. The only thing I could turn up in English besides this article is a government website that won't display. If the bear attacks were so notorious that they gave the bear a name it could be something like the Tsavo maneaters, even though lions also attack humans on a regular basis (generally, as with bears, for defensive purposes). But we would need to verify the credibility of the sources in regards to WP:N and WP:LOCAL. --Dhartung | Talk 22:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment It's notable because the bear claimed the greatest number of victims in the modern history of Japan. Many novels were written and films were created on this incident according to the Japanese Wikipedia article. Kind of like a bear version of Jeffrey Dahmer. Just because murder cases are nothing special doesn't mean serial murderers like Dahmer aren't notable. --Saintjust (talk) 22:08, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Big in Japan. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:18, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep If it's notable in Japanese, it's notable in English. Yes, it obviously has ridiculous problems and needs massive cleanup, but I don't think it's dire enough that we need to start over entirely. --Hyperbole (talk) 23:31, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment In reply to the comment and the keep vote above, it's entirely possible it's big in Japan but the article fails to claim any notability. And to be honest, I'm not sure that all content that is notable on some Wikipedia versions are notable on others. While the Tsavo maneaters are reasonably famous and yield a high number of returns on Google, this event seems to be completely unknown and the only results are linked to Wikipedia. A sentence or two about the attacks could most certainly be included in the relevant paragraph dealing with bear attacks in general, but this article fails to make any case at all for its notability and judging by the Internet, it simply isn't notable. JdeJ (talk) 23:34, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I respectfully disagree on two points. The link between being notable in Japan (where it took place) and being notable in English isn't immediately clear to me. And as the whole article is a long piece of fiction without any verifiable facts, I can't see how even a massive cleanup would help. There are no proof this even is a real event! I think it is, sure, but the whole article reads like the plot of a Stephen King book. Pure fiction and no facts. JdeJ (talk) 23:45, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I completely agree with you that this article is in desperate need of references. Unfortunately, your Google searches have pretty strongly indicated that nearly all available references are in Japanese. But that doesn't make the subject non-notable - just a bit more challenging. And, yes, it also contains totally unencyclopedic language - stuff about the bear's thoughts and the difficulty of blogging about the incident, as well as stuff that looks like it was written in third person omniscient, as there was no one to report it. That stuff needs to be removed from the article ASAP. Still, I don't think deleting the entire thing is the correct remedy. "Article is broken; I'm too busy to fix it" is not a valid reason to delete. --Hyperbole (talk) 23:50, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • As I've clearly stated, the very bad language and hillarious content is not the reason I've nominated it. It is it's complete lack of notability, at least outside Japan. Searching Google for Sankebetsu + bear and excluding Wikipedia hits yield around 50 results, most of whom doesn't even mention this incident. But let's say 30-40 hits on Google. Compare with 12.000 for Tsavo man eaters. I have to admit, though, that it was tempting to nominate it for not being written in English. I'm not sure what language this is It was thought that the tragedy was the case, what is called the animal which doesn't possess a hole, the bear which failed in the hibernation, became hungry and increased a ferocity. but at least it's a language I don't understand. But once again, the very low quality of the article is a big problem but not the reason for it being nominated for deletion. JdeJ (talk) 23:53, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

(provisional)Keep This is not the "encyclopedia of things that happened in English speaking countries." I am for keeping this if editors fluent in Japanese as well as English (I expect there are quite a few) can verify the sourcing, so we know that it it is notable in Japan as appears to be the case, and that there is reliable sourcing. A bear attack in Japan in the early 20th century which killed 7 people is every bit as encyclopedic as the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 in which a shark killed four people along the Atlantic Coast of the U.S. And that is hardly an "othercrapexists" comparison. If it is notable in Japanese language sources, then it does not deserve deletion just because of choice phrasing such as "After it when Kesagake was dissected, a lot of peace of the victim are found out from his breadbasket, and the village people made sadness new." Edison (talk) 00:16, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree 100%, it's definitely not the Wikipedia of the Anglophone world (of which I'm no part myself). I still don't think that everything that is notable in every country necessarily is notable here. Having said that, I agree that the situation would look very different in good and credible sources were added. JdeJ (talk) 00:19, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep and clean up. There are a number of works that the article claims were inspired by this incident. However it would be good if references could be added. Capitalistroadster (talk) 00:24, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment The page Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Translators shows several persons who say they are fluent in English and Japanese and who can translate. Would it be considered canvassing in any sense to request they take a look at and improve this article, and evaluate whether it has Japanese sources which satisfy notability and verifiability concerns? Edison (talk) 00:36, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Fascinating. Just needs cutting and cites, which exist. I started the cutting. This event is mentioned in two books by John Knight, Waiting for Wolves in Japan (Oxford U Press), and "Natural Enemies: People-Wildlife Conflicts in Anthropological Perspective" (Routledge), both on Google books, both of which have refs.--Wageless (talk) 04:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Keep and rewrite: It's obviously received plenty of significant coverage (indeed, exclusive coverage) in multiple secondary reliable sources, which are entirely independent of the subjects (interesting to see how we could have any sources not independent of these bears :-). By definition, therefore, it passes the notability test. Nyttend (talk) 04:25, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Keep on the basis of the sourcing and the works based upon it. Clearly of permanent legendary status in Japan -- 92 years later This article actually meets the so called "100 year test" of permanent notability used by some of the most extreme deletionists. Obviously needs to be rewritten into idiomatic index and shortened very substantially. WP is the WP in the English language, not the WP devoted to events from the perspective of the English-speaking countries. It covers events world wide to the extent we have sources (in any language) and editors who can use them. The WMF foundation could have organized the different versions on a different basis, but the distinction is only in the language of the encyclopedias. DGG (talk) 09:29, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep - notability outside of Japan is not necessary in the English wikipedia. When reliable sources exist, in any language, they can attest to the notability; whether or not US/Brit/Aussies have heard of it or not. English is the language we write in; but, not the only language we write about. Neier (talk) 12:17, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep While I appreciate nominator's concern about the notability of bear attacks in general, the mauling of ten people (seven of them fatally) in one week by a wild animal would be notable in any era and in any place. That this more well known in Japan than in the United States is not surprising. Generally, what happens "over here" is given higher priority than what happens "over there". Mandsford (talk) 18:40, 9 February 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.