Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mandarin Chinese profanity

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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. Transwiki to Wiktionary may also be in order, but not as an alternative to this article. lifebaka++ 18:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mandarin Chinese profanity[edit]

Mandarin Chinese profanity (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This is a list of translation of chinese profanities. Wikipedia is not a dictionary. A similar list, Singapore sexual slang was deleted. Laudak (talk) 16:14, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete WP:NOT. RC-0722 361.0/1 16:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absolutely strong keep - Encyclopedic article (not a list, as it contains a great deal of explanatory information on a notable subject) about a category of linguistics in the most commonly spoken language in the world; highly useful to our users and carefully constructed over a period of years. An examination of the content explains very significant things about Chinese culture such as the use of such seemingly innocuous terms as "egg" or "melon" as curses, or the dearth of sacreligious humor, which cannot be found in any other place. See also the excellent articles Finnish profanity, Latin profanity, Spanish profanity, and Mat (language). Regarding Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Singapore sexual slang terminology (2nd nomination), there was clearly no consensus there. Finally, the word "Chinese" is spelled with a capital "C." Badagnani (talk) 16:44, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Article has very strong potential. The nature of profanity in different languages is a legitimate topic, and the list is well organized. One could wish for a bit more discussion and a bit less listing, but that is a topic for the talk page, not AfD. RayAYang (talk) 17:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. -- RayAYang (talk) 17:22, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. -- RayAYang (talk) 17:22, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep AfD records: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mandarin slang (page was moved). Sadly, until we find a book on this topic, it will be really hard to make the article better (i.e. Latin profanity). Etymological research material is beyond the reach of average web users. --Voidvector (talk) 17:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: The article seems to have enough information (both on the expletives themselves and on Chinese culture) to pass WP:N, doesn't it? It Is Me Here (talk) 18:27, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Although I do understand where some "keep" arguments come from, I'm going to have to say delete per WP:NOT. Wikipedia is not a dictionary and this is about Chinese translations of assorted profanities and their short descriptions. Perhaps it could be cleaned up, but at its current state as a list this one is not worth keeping. Tavix (talk) 19:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Surely all it needs is a little more focus on aspects of Chinese culture? And so what that it's a list - surely it's little worse than something like this in that respect? It Is Me Here (talk) 20:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Using the Presidential names is an example of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Please refrain from that. Tavix (talk) 23:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, I'd never seen that essay before, but let me just point out that it does state that: 'When used properly, a logical rationalization of "Other Stuff Exists" may be used in a perfectly valid manner in discussions of what articles to create, delete, or retain,' - and moreover, it seems perfectly logical to me to use precedent as well as the current "law", if you will, to argue a case. Do you not agree? However, I can see that my previous example was not necessarily entirely related to this article, but now that I have done some more searching, let me point out Category:Profanity by language, and the existence of the articles in that list (and, indeed, the encyclopaedic style of some of them) surely suggests that Mandarin Chinese profanity both deserves to be kept and has the potential to become as informative, encyclopaedic an article as some of the others in Category:Profanity by language? It Is Me Here (talk) 09:03, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • It's certainly not solely a list; it is a descriptive article that of necessity includes examples. Badagnani (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • It is not a descriptive article. It is list of translations, not just examples. Laudak (talk) 20:25, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - this article is more than a mere dictionary definition of a few Chinese words. It contains encyclopedic information and is well referenced. I think WP:DICT is designed more to prevent us having an article on every individual word, than to suggest that well researched, well referenced and fairly comprehensive articles about a genre of words should be deleted. There is probably room for improvement to this article, but that's not a reason to delete it either. Wiw8 (talk) 20:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, I think it's pushing it to call this a violation of WP:NOT#DICTIONARY. It seems to me to be a valid article about a whole genre of words, with plenty of potential for more references to their usage in culture. Currently it does resemble a list of definitions in places, but there is more to the article and the future potential is good. ~ mazcat | c 21:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - This is not a dictionary entry. It is an article on culture. Subdolous (talk) 22:09, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment How? All I see is short comments on Chinese words. That sounds like a dictionary to me. Tavix (talk) 23:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I agree that the list is a subject unto itself, and "DICTIONARY" more properly applies to single dicdefs. This is a specialized well-defined lexicon, and listphobia is not a reson to delete. Squidfryerchef (talk) 05:14, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • delete / move to wiktionary - the article is absolutely nonencyclopedic list of translations, also completely lacks of footnotes. While there is some small texts here and there, the artile is just a meaningless list posing more questions than answers. Just two examples:
    • "mazi (Chinese: 马子; literally "horse") a derogatory word for girlfriend." - what is so encyclopedic here and why "horse" is derogatory? I know quite a few animal words which a terms of affection. In particular, in steppe cultures "horse" is very respected and may be used as a positive epithet for many topics: fast, elegant, hard-working, devoted to her master, and many more. therefore this entry is useless.
    • "One of the few insults connected to the supernatural is not used to damn but to compare the insulted person to a disliked god: wēnshén (瘟神) = troublemaker (literally "plague god")" -- it is just an insult. I don't see any proof that it is a profanity.
I can continue this criticism for long, and my conclusion is it is just an arbitrary collection of dicdefs roughly classified by topics. It must be deleted from wikipedia and rewritten from scratch, and I believe there is sufficien amount of published materian to make a good encyclopedic article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mukadderat (talk • contribs)
  • These are good arguments for improving the article, or changing its name (the Maledicta journal, the most authoritative on this subject, has long used the term "verbal aggression" in place of "profanity." Whatever the case, the above commentary does not address the actual comments above, showing that this is a worthy and highly notable subject, worth of details coverage in our encyclopedia, and not different from the other numerous, excellent articles about similar subjects in other languages. Badagnani (talk) 17:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with Badagnani - unless the vast majority of the entries are incorrect or dubious, the current state seems to be a good starting point for article improvement. Errors in the current version are a very poor justification for deletion of the article as a whole. ~ mazca t | c 19:23, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Dubious or spurious terms are added by vandals from time to time, and are speedily and expeditiously removed by the watchful native Chinese speakers who monitor this page. Badagnani (talk) 19:32, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that there are two conflicting issues in this discussion: the topic of the article and the content of the article. The topic of the article (Mandarin Chinese profanity) is certainly valid and notable -- it is a subject of interest to students of culture and language. However, much of the content of the article (the list of words/phrases and their translations) is probably more appropriate in Wiktionary. (I write "probably" since Wiktionary has its own inclusion criteria, about which I know very little.) Is it possible to keep and transwiki? –Black Falcon (Talk) 03:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Transwiki whether you keep this or not I fail to see how transwiki conflicts with this discussion. Whether or not it is transwikied (and it seems like a copy should exist on wiktionary) should not interfere with this process. 70.51.11.219 (talk) 06:05, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The topic of Mandarin profanity and slang is a notable encyclopedic topic, a reliable source or two other than the ones listed in the article can certainly be found addressing the subject, and this article is more than just a list of dictionary definitions, with the potential to be much more. And articles can be transwiki'd at any time whether they are nominated for deletion or not; that is orthogonal to whether this article should be kept on Wikipedia. DHowell (talk) 17:38, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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