Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Agta (mythical creature)

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 delete. sourcing doesnt pass muster Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agta (mythical creature)[edit]

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Queried speedy delete Anthony Appleyard (talk) 14:01, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It was speedy-delete-tagged "because it is an unambiguous copyright violation of the two references in the page.'".
Copy of message sent to me:Idiots why didnt you write the def?

When looking for information on this subject I discovered you deleted an article called "Agta (Mythical Creature)" in April 2009.

I lived in the Philippines for three years and did not become aware of this cultural belief in this super natural being until it was almost the time I moved back to the United States. Looking for information on this subject I stumbled onto Wikipedia and discovered that YOU had erased the article I was looking for. In my opinion this was a very culturally insensitive thing to do.

Please restore the article immediately because I do not know how to do this. If you don't believe this is a mythological creature in the Philippines among Cebuano speaking people I have a reference from Dictionary of Cebuano Visaya by John U. Wolff.

Because you erased the article I was seeking I am unable to find more information on this subject. Dr CareBear (talk) 05:57, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- - Anthony Appleyard (talk) 14:05, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete (1) The only references given are to a blog post and an open wiki, neither of them reliable sources. (2) Neither of the two references could remotely be regarded as substantial coverage anyway, even if it were reliable. (3) I have made a web search and checked dozens of pages, and cannot find any reliable sources for this, although there are various posts to blogs and such unreliable sources. (4)"Because you erased the article I was seeking I am unable to find more information on this subject" is not an argument for keeping the article: on the contrary, it strongly suggests that the information in the article is not to be found elsewhere, i.e. that it is not verifiable, and not notable. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:59, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Because you cannot find any references on the subject it doesnot mean it is not notable. It is about some sort of a belief and mythical creatoure and so it is notable. In the very end because YOU could not find any info about it in the Internet only means that it is noyt very known to the people not that it is not true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tmiloulis (talk • contribs) 15:14, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Wikipedia uses the existence of substantial coverage of the subject as its criterion of notability, so, as far as we are concerned, if there are no references it does mean it is not notable. If a subject is not well known and not much written about we do not have an article about it: whether it is "true" is not the criterion. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:44, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete For obvious copyvio. Contrary to Dr Carebear's note, the article wasn't deleted, but merely moved to correct the capitalization. Regardless of that, the article is not encyclopedic and if the subject were notable there would be some reliable mention of it online somewhere. --| Uncle Milty | talk | 16:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, assuming the copyvio issue can be cleared up. I found this and this. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:52, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, Dictionary of Cebuano Visaya by John U. Wolff lists this Agta in it's two volume dictionary. Dr CareBear (talk) 23:45, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Article Edited
I have edited the article sufficiently so that it is not a simple cut and paste dump from somewhere else so that it can not be argued that it is a copy right violation. Hope you like and enjoy the edits. Dr CareBear (talk) 02:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good job, it's looking better already! Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 15:06, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge Merge to Kapre it is apparent that they are the same thing. --Bejnar (talk) 05:49, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment We have certainly moved on since the proposal for deletion was made. The copyright problem seems to have been dealt with. We have four references in the article, and one of the links given above by Andrew Lenahan is not included in the article, so that gives us five online references. In addition we are given a reference to J. U Wolff's Dictionary of Cebuano Visaya, making a total of six references.

The dictionary confirms that the word exists with the stated meaning, and gives us two sentences about the use of the word. That is all.
This reference is a mistake. It refers to a member of a negrito tribe called "Agta", not the mythical creature "Agta". You can read about the Agta tribe here here, here, etc etc.
This is a list of mythical creatures in a television series. It is an open wiki, which anyone can edit, and so is not a reliable source. Even as an unreliable source it serves only to tell us about the television series, not about Philippine mythology.
This gives six brief bullet points jointly referring to Agta, Bawa, and Ungo. Not exactly substantial coverage.
The Encyclopedia Mythica article gives five short sentences on the Agta.
This article is about a cave called "the Balay sa Agta". The article briefly mentions the fact that "agta" is also the name of a mythical creature. In fact here is the full verbatim text of all that this "reference" tells us about the mythical agta: "An agta is a Philippine mythical creature described as tall, brown, and hairy, and usually portrayed as smoking a big tobacco pipe".

The conclusion of all this is that we have no substantial coverage of the subject at all. Some of the references have to be discounted altogether, as being on different subjects and/or unreliable, and none of them is substantial, so there is no evidence of satisfying Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Even if we were to accept all the five references they would serve as sources for only a small fraction of what is given in the article, and the article would therefore have to be reduced to a stub. Leaving out Tmiloulis, who clearly does was not aware of Wikipedia's notability criteria, we have two editors who have asked for "keep". With every respect to these two Wikipedians, who have put some effort into finding references and defending the article, finding Google hits or other sources which mention the topic is not enough: it is necessary to show that there is substantial coverage in reliable sources, and, despite the efforts of these two editors, this has not been done. "Delete" is the only result consistent with Wikipedia policy under the circumstances. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:24, 8 January 2010 (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.