Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Slovenian Prealps

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. J04n(talk page) 00:21, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Slovenian Prealps[edit]

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The article appears to be part of a sustained Internet campaign to promote a book and new classification system for the Alps (SOIUSA) that is not, as far as I can discover, approved by any authoritative Alpine body. The name of the article is one of many new, artificial titles proposed by Italian author, Marazzi, but a search on google books only turns up one reference: Marazzi's book (Atlante Orografico delle Alpi. SOIUSA). Likewise the 2 references in the article are to this book and an article about the book. Of course, if the classification system is officially recognised in future by the countries and Alpine clubs concerned then it could be reinstated, but for now the page should be deleted a) because it appears to be part of a WP:SOAPBOX campaign and b) to avoid confusion with the accepted naming systems for Alpine ranges. Note that these highlands are already largely covered by articles on the Julian Alps and the Pohorje mountains, both widely used in English and part of the internationally approved Alpine Club classification of the Eastern Alps. See also project discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mountains#SOIUSA. Bermicourt (talk) 18:53, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question: Are there more articles like this (I.e., topics only sourced from Marazzi)? It may be worthwhile to discuss all of them at once. —hike395 (talk) 20:02, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reply: Yes, there are several that look likely candidates, but I felt it sensible to test the argument first, before embarking on nugatory work. If the consensus is that this should be deleted, then I would suggest we put up a block delete for the rest. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:45, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

'Delete' per WP:SOAP WP:GNG --- as Bermicourt says, this is an idiosyncratic classification of Alps, not generally accepted, only one author. —hike395 (talk) 01:01, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. : I've just noticed the proposal of deletion of this item and of all the references to SOIUSA on en.wiki proposed here. I edited most of the concerned pages so I think I have to give some reasons why I did it.

First of all I don't have any personal interest to diffuse or SOIUSA nor publicizing Marazzi's works. And I don't think there is any ongoing campaign about this subject; as far as I'm concerned nobody asked me to promote SOIUSA on Wikipedia. I usually contribute to it.wiki, where SOIUSA is widely accepted and used. I thought to propose this classification also on the en.wiki because I find that SOIUSA is quite convenient to navigate through the articles about the Alps. At present it is the only widely known classification which covers the whole Alpine range and which provides names of the sub-ranges non just in one national language but in all the languages spoken in the Alpine countries and in English as well.
Coming to the external recognition of SOIUSA I could remark that the on-line version of Treccani (the Italian analogous of Encyclopedia Britannica) considers the SOIUSA the current Alps classification (see Alpi article on the enciclopedia, unfortunately just in Italian). I also could remark SOIUSA is used in pubblications or web pages produced by official Italian authorities, as for instance the Province of Sondrio (see |here, pag. 73) or the Regione Piemonte (see |Tra Piemonte e Mediterraneo, par. Liguri o Marittime?). SOIUSA is also used in some Italian university pubblications, as for instance in |this one], of the Università di Venezia.
But, of course, if most of en.wiki interested users are feeling SOIUSA confusing or not enough sourced I've no objections to the proposed cleanup work. Good evening,--F Ceragioli (talk) 16:56, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. The main SOIUSA article is probably notable. But the name "Slovenian Prealps" does not appear in English sources and the subject is already covered by the Julian Alps and the Pohorje, part of the existing Alpine Club naming system. Hence the AFD.

Other points:

* You have not cited any national or internation bodies that have approved SOIUSA. Encyclopaedias - including Italian wikipedia or Treccani - are not usually acceptable.

* "Convenient navigation" is not an argument for producing a confusing new set of articles with novel titles that clash with those using commonly accepted names.

* SOIUSA is not "widely known". Internet research shows dozens of wikipedia hits, but few authoritative sites or books.

--Bermicourt (talk) 18:59, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment --- The general notability guidelines say it is acceptable to use non-English sources to establish notability. Just because all of the sources are in Italian does not automatically exclude them. I think the main problem is that there are a small number of primary SOIUSA sources, not enough to support the notability of the Slovenian Prealps topic. —hike395 (talk) 12:37, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Slovenia-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:21, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Austria-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:21, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Are you really convinced that encyclopedias are not usually acceptable by en.wiki? There is a template made just to cite one single edition of Encyclopedia Brittannica (Template talk:Cite EB1911), whith hundreds of articles linked to it and some of them just sourced with a reference to that EB edition. Well, Treccani is not an English source, but Alps are not encompassed in any English speaking country so no wonder if the sources about them are more frequent in other languages than English.--F Ceragioli (talk) 11:29, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reply. WP:NOTRS says "Tertiary sources such as ... encyclopedias... and other summarizing sources may be used to give overviews or summaries, but should not be used in place of secondary sources for detailed discussion. Thus Wikipedia articles (or Wikipedia mirrors) are not reliable sources for any purpose." --Bermicourt (talk) 12:30, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Comment: F Ceragioli is correct here. See WP:TERTIARY for the guidelines for how to use encyclopedias as sources. Encyclopedias are good for determining how much weight to give a point of view, which may be relevant here. I would suggest that SOIUSA has some external validation from Treccani, enough to mention in articles, and enough to support its own article. Is it enough to support an article solely based on SOIUSA classification? I don't see it being enough --- given the general lack of citations to SOIUSA, that would be giving it undue weight. In other words, Slovenian Prealps may be failing our general notability guidelines because there do not seem to be multiple secondary sources that establish its notability outside of the primary SOIUSA sources itself. —hike395 (talk) 12:32, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Prealps have been treated as the fifth landscape type in some newer regionalisation schemes of Slovenia.[1] However, that's all I know. The referenced article is this one. I've posted a request for comment at the talk page of User:Draper, who is the Head of the Department for Regional Geography at Anton Melik Geographical Institute (research field (among others): geographical typification and regionalization), but I'm not sure if he will see it because he hasn't edited for quite some time. Perhaps me or someone else can send him an e-mail. This article also contains an overview of the regionalization of Slovenia. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 22:24, 19 February 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Keep like other geographic regions they are notable. BO | Talk 10:40, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, J04n(talk page) 12:44, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Slovenian Prealps are notable (like other geographic regions)--Soroboro (talk) 23:10, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment -- Only those geographic regions that are mentioned in multiple secondary sources, or perhaps a single official website, are notable. I could make a website that talks about the Slovenian happy alps. That doesn't mean we should create that article.

I looked through Eleassar's first reference [2]: it just mentions that Plut's paper defines the Prealps. Unfortunately, Plut's paper [3] is in Solvene, which I can only read with machine translation. The one mention I could find was "Na drugi strani pa v hribovitem (predalpskem) in ravninskem delu Slovenije potek razvodnic ni determiniral vpliva posameznega gravitacijskega sredi{~a, ki je za oblikovanje funkcijske regije odlo~ujo~." which seems to talk about watersheds in the hilly regions, rather than a well-defined fifth region. Perhaps someone proficient at Slovene can help? —hike395 (talk) 04:37, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Later: I looked through the third reference provided by Eleassar: [4]. That reference does discuss multiple authors who defined Slovenian Prealps. To me, that means that this article meets the criteria of WP:GNG and therefore is a Keep. However, I think we still should not have region articles based only on a single SOIUSA source. There may be others that we should discuss. —hike395 (talk) 05:33, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, the reply by Draper (the researcher of the regionalisation of Slovenia, mentioned above) is available at his talk page. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 15:15, 26 February 2013 (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.