Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tetraphobia

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. - Mailer Diablo 07:08, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tetraphobia

del. "Fear of number 4". Not a single reputable source for a supposedly widespread supersition in China and Japan.. 41 unique google hit. Reeks hoax. `'mikka (t) 18:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

• While I have seen several sources regarding a cultural superstition regarding the number 4, that is a wholly different subject than what Tetraphobia claims to be. This article is nothing more than a dicdef. I vote delete. 204.15.220.162 18:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I really need to remember to log in before editing - the above is by me. Arkyan 18:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Syngenesophobia could be expanded, but this has too few G-hits, and it looks like a hoax. --Nishkid64 20:16, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, seems to be at least a notable widespread meme. A search for "asian superstition 4" gives us a useless GHit number but looking into the links its comes up with, added with the reputation of asian (esp. Chinese) societies to be superstitious with numbers, it seems to confirm the idea that such a superstition exists. hateless 23:03, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

  As somebody who is Chinese, I can assure you that the supersition, along with a bunch more do exist. My mom was very concerned that the house I bought did not have a four in it. Houses in Markham, Ontario which has a very high Chinese population can command a premium just by having eights in the house number because eight represent prosperity. -- Whpq 20:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• Merge to 4 (number). The phenomenon is verifiable, definitely not a hoax, but I've never heard anyone call it "tetraphobia." -- Visviva 10:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep. Citations are needed, but the basic claims are not false (I can't speak for specifics). Merging into the number article would be difficult; the number article already has a few sentences on the phenomenon with a link back to this article, and there isn't room for more without unbalancing it, so a vote to merge is effectively a vote to delete. The only valid argument to delete that I can think of is that "tetraphobia" is not a widespread term, and may be a neologism; that could easily be solved by renaming the article, rather than deleting it.
  Note that the only pure "delete" votes are all flawed: the nominator and Nishkid64 are mistaken in their belief that this is a hoax, and Arkyan's claim that this article is "nothing more than a dicdef" is simply incomprehensible; a dicdef is a one-sentence article that does nothing but define a word, while this article is nearly 400 words long and goes into considerable detail about the phenomenon, which is precisely what distinguishes an encyclopedia from a dictionary. — Haeleth Talk 15:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

  It is a hoax in its present form. There is no google hits, man. For an ancient asian supersition is is quite unusual, don't you think? `'mikka (t) 16:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

  It isn't a hoax. It's unsourced, and the name of the article is a word that doesn't appear in the dictionary so googling for tetraphobia doesn't turn up as much as googling for Chinese numerical superstition (and variations thereof). -- Whpq 20:07, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• Keep The article content is essentially correct but needs to be sourced with stuff like [1] and [2]. I do have a problem wtih the title as it isn't a word I've found in the dictionary or in wide usage. It may be better off moved to something such as Asian superstitions or broken up by country since the genesis for these superstitions are that these numbers are homonyms for words repesenting both bad things and good things. -- Whpq 20:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Japan-related deletions. -- Neier 21:11, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and possibly rename or move per Whpq: one of my closest friends is Chinese and has verified this phenomena for me, but she doesn't know the exact name of it (she moved here when she was 4; the superstition is largely held by her parents, but is of little significance to her). The link provided by Whpq has convinced me. Srose (talk) 21:22, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, verifiable phenomenon like triskaidekaphobia. Maybe move to Fear of number 4 or something like that. Kappa 04:12, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep, this attempt is ridiciulous; it is a latin description of an asian belief. ask a roman what's a ghit. User:Yy-bo 18:54, 25 August 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.