Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Student Linguistics in IIT Kharagpur

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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 delete. – ABCDe✉ 02:18, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Student Linguistics in IIT Kharagpur

Non-encyclopedic. delete UtherSRG (talk) 20:40, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Delete Boy is this a no-brainer. εγκυκλοπαίδεια* 20:46, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. Listcruft of non-notable and WP:NFT neologisms. --Kinu 20:54, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. Something for Urban Dictionary. It's a weighty piece of work, and would be a shame to waste. James Kendall 21:18, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per Kinu.--Isotope23 21:26, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete Let the author put it on a subpage of his user page, but this is not wiki material, IMO Avi 21:55, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete and merge contents with IIT slang or IIT lingo. deeptrivia (talk) 22:26, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete as above.Blnguyen 23:53, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
  • keep: I decided to put up a wiki page of this topic after discussing it in Esperanza's discussion page. I wanted to know if wikipedia policy allows such material to be posted inside wikipedia or should such things be kept aside for just external links. Only after I got a few positive comments did I write the artice on wikipedia. Please dicuss this issue in detail before deleting it. Things I wanted to know (in case a deletion is decided upon) are:
    1. Is there any other platform over wikipedia where it would be suitable to write.
    2. Should it be merged with some other title.
    3. Where exactly should one ask before writing such articles. I hoped Esperazna would be a good forum, but even after a positive reply, I am faced with the challenge of defending my article.
  • After reading the wikipedia guidelines for deletion and the meaning of tags, I admit that the page is a listcruft (a list of interest to a specific group of people), but its possible to de-cruft it by removing items that are specific to IIT Kharagpur(i.e. deeptrivia's suggestion). This way, it can become quite general article on IITs in general and can be kept(IITs are the most famous engineering institutions in India, and hence will have a lot of relevance to groups outside). About Neologoims, I am not very sure as this isn't about just one word. While some fall into the category, others don't. User:Ambuj.saxena formatting edits by UtherSRG (talk) 12:05, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
  • To further defend my work, I can quote a external source for my work. The IIT Foundation is a well known worldwide alumni association and has been very active in improving the student life in IIT Kharagpur. The page indicated has existed long before my work and my work is an expansion of it, though not completely Ambuj 13:28, 9 February 2006 (UTC).
To take up some of your points. The external source happens to be the IIT Foundation itself, and the main problem with your dictionary is that it is merely of interest to students of the IIT Foundation. You may be aware that many schools and colleges develop local slang. It serves no purpose for the general community if every school in the world made lists of their own slang and then used their own school website as a verifiable source.
You point to the internet slang list which you feel is comparable with your own list. It may help you understand why people are rejecting your dictionary while accepting the internet slang dictionary if you consider how many people use the internet as compared to how many people attend the IIT Foundation.
It would seem that a reference on the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi page linking to the page on slang would be sufficient in this case. SilkTork 00:36, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete creating an article with just this list serves no purpose. You should put the list in context inside an existing article on the subject. Elfguy 14:08, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Found another wikipedia entry on Internet slangs which looks a lot similar to my entry. In fact, the linking from the parent article is wierder than mine. What's more surprising is the fact that it quotes urban dictionary as its source/reference. Why are you adopting double standards? As regards to the point of writing in context, I have linked the article from IIT Kharagpur's page which is quite bulky in itself and adding something like this would make it even more awkward looking. Ambuj 16:50, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Would the list be acceptable if he made it into an article if it looked more like the Leet article?
  • Delete and merge contents with IIT jargon ot IIT Lingo per deeptrivia. Arundhati bakshi 17:04, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I wonder why are all of you silent about the Internet slangs article that is quite similar to mine. All the tags like non-encyclopaedic, no brainer and Listcruft of non-notable and WP:NFT neologisms all apply to that also. Should I put a delete tag to that entry also. Anyway, I am an inclusionist and not a deletionist, so I will never do that. But I have all right to demand fair treatment. Ambuj 06:56, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Now to address the point raised by SilkTork, I would like to add that just by knowing that there's a word faccha in the lingo of IITs is not sufficient unless you know that it refers to a first year student, which the IIT Foundation's site doesn't quite do. About the Internet slangs article, I feel that we should compare the utility of the article and not the scope. What I mean is that instead of comparing how many people use the internet, we should see for how many people this page would be helpful. Obviously you can't include those who use the internet for only e-mails and googling into the audience of the article, but definitely include those who use usenet groups and discussion forums. Compare that to the IIT Slang page which makes the social fabric of the IITs. If you are inside the IITs, you have to know what these words mean to really be able to talk to any student. I am not saying that the student are rude, but many a times they don't realise that they are using the slangs. At any point of time, there are 25000 to 30000 IITians studying in the campus. Add to that the 4000+ students who pass out every year. Seeing from an alumni's point of view, suppose you are an alumni from a batch that passed 30 years back and you want to get nostalgic about the student life you had, then each and every word will be invaluable (this work is not made up in class one day, but is a tradition of over 50 years). Take a look at the statistics that the IITs have been functioning since the early 1950s and you will understand the target audience I am refering to is enormously huge. For those who still don't understand the importance of IITs, take a look at this video. I know that giving examples is not quite relevant as some might say that they are exception, but I take the liberty of quoting one for those who might be interested. This incident took place some 15 years back in an auditorium in Los Angeles. There was one IITian who was sitting in it and was not very happy with the movie projector's focus. He became increasingly irritated and blurted out Tarapado, focus as he used to do in his IIT days. Within a few seconds, a voice came from 2 rows behing that said Which Hall?. 203.110.243.21 07:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I think the point is that it is sufficent that we are aware that a particular school, website, village, hobby, etc has developed local jargon. We don't even need to know any of the words, let alone the meaning of them. Once involved in a school, website or hobby you might need to know the meaning of faccha for IIT or lege for RateBeer. But the rest of the world doesn't need to know. That the IIT website does not have a glossary itself is even more argument against including one on here as this is not the place for original research. I suggest you approach the IIT website with your work. I am sure they would find it of value. And that is truly where it belongs. You may notice that I am not voting against your article. I am only here to engage in the debate you requested. SilkTork 09:25, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
You don't need to know most of the stuff in Wikipedia. Including the material in Internet Slangs, marijuana slangs, or in the Jargon file, all of which have entries here. Nonetheless, they may be of use to some people. Arundhati bakshi
  • The argument pointed by SilkTork will lead nowhere. I can apply the same thing to the Internet Slangs article and say that we only need to know that the internet users have developed a slang of their own. So let all those websites/discussion boards that have users frequently use these slangs maintain their own listing of such slangs. I will now give a gist of what I believe should be debated upon.

Given the fact that the Wikipedia community considers the atricle on Internet slangs worth keeping, then it can be concluded that the claims that the page under consideration is non-encyclopaedic and no brainer do not hold. The debate should actually be on whether it is a listcruft or not. That is, whether the people who might be interested in this article big enough to grant it a place in the encyclopedia. Furthermore, if its not, will merging it with an article on IIT_Lingo or something equivalent will make it satisfy the criteria. When deeptrivia suggested that I go ahead with making an article general to all the IITs, I considered it well before deciding to start an article on Kharagpur's Jargon alone. This was because it will require significant editing and morover will discourage people from other IITs to start such page. Even now I feel if the article is deleted, it should certainly be made a part of a larger article involving all the IITs. The reason why I felt that IIT Kharagpur itself merits such an article is that the IIT community (comprising of students, professors, workers, etc.) is 20000+ strong at any point of time. And since the culture of this jargon dates back half a centruy, a lot many non-students have also started to adopt to a good part of it. The only argument that feels that can go against it is that most of the workers here don't use the internet. But I feel that this should hardly be the reason for not allowing this article to be posted. This is because if it doesn't get posted, when these people WILL start using the net, they will refrain from making such a page because they would come to know that such a page was not allowed to be hosted before. Unfortunately I will not be around for the next 3 days, the time when the fate of this page will be decided. It that happens, and is decided on polls rather than merit, here's my choice sheet for the single transferable vote: 1) Keep.

or 2) Delete and merge with IIT Lingo.

or 3) Delete and move to user's sub page.

Ambuj 11:17, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Delete, too specific topic, and more importantly, Wikipedia is not a slang or usage guide. If there is a general academic slang in India in general, it would merit a mention or even its own article, but this is way too academic-crufty. JIP | Talk 19:31, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Except here and here and here and here. Shouldn't rules be enforced consistently? Why is English boarding school slang OK but Indian IIT slang not OK? Arundhati bakshi 21:31, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
      • Of the articles you listed, while I feel all are more notable than this IIT Kharagpur thingy, none meet my criteria above. So my opinion is that if this article is deleted, then the first three should also be proposed for deletion (I thought the list of sexual slurs would be fairly long and complete, but it turns out it's far from it), and the last should be stripped of its slang section. JIP | Talk 23:26, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
        • That's one of my points. Why is this list being singled out and the others not? And why is British schoolboy slang more notable than Indian IIt slang? Arundhati bakshi
          • Pointing to examples of bad use of Wiki is a very poor argument. I would be more inclined to vote to keep if I was shown a good argument for the value of this particular dictionary of school slang. SilkTork 09:50, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
            • And why is it a bad argument? If the rules of Wikipedia apply to one article shouldn't they apply to others as well, or is that only for certain users to decide? I would prefer to see the list incorporated into an aticle maybe of IIt culture -- then it would make more sense -- but if this one goes, why should not the same criteria for deltion not be applied to similar articles of no greater value? Arundhati bakshi


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.