Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fanery

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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 delete‎. because content in this article fails WP:V. Liz Read! Talk! 01:49, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fanery

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Fanery (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Article was reported at ANI as a possible hoax. A google failed to yield any related hits that did not come back to this page. Subject fails WP:V. Ad Orientem (talk) 01:19, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • (here from AN/I) Delete.Undecided, see below Access to sources about Madagascar is quite limited, as I learned writing a GA in the topic area, so it's worth giving this the 7 days at AfD on the off chance someone finds something. But I cannot find anything remotely approaching verification. Googling fanery -wiki -wikipedia I see a jewelry company called FanerySue and a few random people with Fanery as a forename, but nothing about Malagasy currency/jewelry (and it's suspicious to begin with how the article is unclear on whether it's about currency, jewelry, or both). I wouldn't be shocked if some small portion of this proved true, but the article as a whole is most likely a hoax. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 01:25, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, I'm not sure how reliable https://malagasyword.org/ is, but it defines fanery as either "forced" or "milk". (The former meaning gleaned through looking up the words in the Malagasy definition, clarifying the ambiguous French definition "presse" [sic; presumably intended pressé].) -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 01:37, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh and ping @Red-tailed hawk, my coauthor on the aforementioned GA, in case his Madgascar searching skills are any better than mine. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 01:38, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    About this meaning of the word, I found [1] which states "Fanery: Un outil traditionnel en bois nécessaire pour presser le canne à sucre pour de liquide sucré." ("Fanery: A traditional wooden tool needed to press sugar cane [...]"). Grmbf (talk) 09:36, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Parts of the article are verifiable, fanafody is Malagasy a medicinal charm[2], coins were first used as jewelry or charms and monnaie coupée is French for 'cut money'.[3]. Maybe not a hoax but something obscure, misunderstood by the author or OR. fiveby(zero) 02:18, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. In addition to the above points, note that edits to this article and uploads of the associated images are the creator's only contributions ever. In the case of a suspected hoax, this is invariably a bad sign. Coincidentally, last night I attended a live performance of the Depths of Wikipedia show, and Annie Rauwerda mentioned the Jar'Edo Wens hoax. I could barely restrain myself from yelling out "hey, I'm the one who deleted that page after it lasted for ten years!" It's embarrassing that the "Fanery" page, which also is blatant nonsense, has survived for even longer. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:32, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Ad Orientem, Tamzin and Newyorkbrad, although I agree with waiting a full week. The jewelry company with Fanery in the name is entirely unrelated. I searched Google Books and Google Scholar and came up with nothing except that there is an academic named TF Flannery who writes about Madagascar. Cullen328 (talk) 01:49, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Tamzin - I googled and got a similar set of results (although, not speaking French, I also had to google for the meaning of the French word, which sent me to Google which gives "a drink made from freshly squeezed fruit juice, sugar, and ice". Whether or not it's a hoax, it's almost completely unreferenced (the only reference seems to be to off-line information about the historical practice of bisecting or quadrisecting coinage). It also doesn't have a corresponding page in the Malagasy Wikipedia, and I have left a note on their "messages from people who do not speak Malagasy" page advising them of this AFD. Daveosaurus (talk) 02:40, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Nuke it from orbit; only way to be sure. Really, no need to wait. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:30, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: uncited, potential hoax, but really just a failure of WP:V. StartOkayStop (talk) 04:20, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Finance, History, Archaeology, Economics, and Africa. Skynxnex (talk) 04:40, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, seems pretty clear by now that this is a hoax. Daniel Case (talk) 05:19, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, no sources. Rjjiii(talk) 05:29, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: as this pagewas likely a hoax, failing WP:V, and per everyone’s votes above my vote. Signed, 64andtim (any problems?) 05:30, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hold on a sec! This does partly verify! With thanks to Red-tailed hawk, who found this and sent it to me for translation:

    On voit encore parfois, attaché à l'extremité des ceintures, un morceau de fer ayant vaguement la forme de deux triangles accollés par leur pointe sous un angle de 80 degrés. C'est le fanery, que servait autrefois de tournevis pour le fusil, mais n'est plus aujourd'hui qu'un simple ornement.

    One sees sometimes, attached to the ends of belts, a piece of iron vaguely in the form of two triangles glued together by their points at an angle of 80 degrees. It is fanery, which once served as screwdrivers for guns, but now are nothing more than a simple ornament.

    That's still a long way from verifying every claim in the article, but does suggest at least that the objects in the images can be correctly described as fanery, and that they are a once-relevant thing that has become less common. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 05:32, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Any kind of expert knowledge here would help a lot. @Brigade Piron: You appear to be the only active user listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Madagascar. Do you have any insight? -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 05:45, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's astonishingly embarrassing, Tamzin. I am afraid I cannot add anything here beyond what has already been said below. @Lemurbaby:, are you still active? —Brigade Piron (talk) 01:19, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Also I don't have access to the source myself but French Wikipedia [4] cites Briant, Joseph, L'hébreu à Madagascar which says about the Antandroy people "Une de leurs amulettes, le fanery, semble la copie d'un bijou des tombeaux du Nil, les "abeilles"" ("One of their amulets, the fanery, appears to be a copy of a jewel from the Nile tombs, the "bees""). Grmbf (talk) 09:53, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Also from Raymond Decary, "L'art chez les Antandroy", "Je représente ici (Fig. 8) un de ces bijoux, en raison de son élégance ; il est d'ailleurs assez rare et ne porte pas de nom spécial. Il est dérivé du fanery qui servait autrefois de tournevis pour le fusil du guerrier. Les deux lamelles triangulaires du fanery, au lieu d'être jointes par leur sommet, se trouvent chacun à l'extrémité d'une barrette horizontale en argent massif [...]". Grmbf (talk) 10:09, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Again Raymond Decary, "Coutumes guerrières et organisation militaire chez les anciens Malgaches" says "Pour le fusil spécialement, la garniture du ceinturon se complétait, au voisinage de la boucle, par un morceau de fer ayant vaguement la forme de deux triangles accollés par leur pointe sous un angle d'environ 60 degrés : c'était le fanery qui servait de tournevis. Aujourd'hui [...] le fanery est devenu un bijou féminin ; de plus petite taille et fabriqué en argent, il s'est transformé en pendentif chez les femmes Antanosy.". Grmbf (talk) 10:19, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • commentEinzig, Paul (1966). Primitive Money: In its Ethnological, Historical and Economic Aspects second edition page 125-126 lists two currencies used in Madagascar. One was cattle money. The other was cut up silver coins or “cut money” with their value derived from their weight.©Geni (talk) 07:06, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete no hits for fanery Madagascar on JSTOR, Nature or ProQuest. Couldn't find anything related on archive.org either, got some mis-spellings of infantery and Fanery can be a surname (perhaps that is the "motivation"?). Assuming this is a hoax, is someone "fixing" the Commons side of things? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:28, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång: Like I said above, that those objects are called fanery does appear to verify, albeit so far only in one 100-year-old source. The rest is less certain. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 07:39, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"simple ornament" is not very close to "the traditional money used in Madagascar", is it? Are you assuming the things in the images are those iron ornaments? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:44, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The original version of the article didn't clearly say they were used as money, more that they were made from money. Most of the article is still about ornamental uses; someone along the way just cobbled together a lede based on the ambiguous first words of the original. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 07:52, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it does start with "Fanery - Traditional money from Madagascar". Also "As far as prior to 1895 no real money or decimal currency existed in Madagascar" sounds unlikely (though perhaps possible) per Merina Kingdom. Anyway, I appnoted a couple of WP-projects. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:09, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Per Wehwalt below, it does seem that they didn't mint coins. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:04, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Gråbergs Gråa Sång It's not a fix as such, but I have done some rewording and removing of tags on Commons so that Fanery is no longer described as a currency. ManuelKomnenos (talk) 16:38, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:03, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Malagasy Wiktionary defines "fanery" as "fomba entimanery" (mg:wikt:fanery); which according to Google Translate means "training method". My very superficial research suggests that 10 or 12 years ago, a bot was adding large numbers of Malagasy words to that Wiktionary even without definitions; negative evidence which casts a shadow over the article under discussion, en:fanery. That article mentions "fanafody" as a name for traditional medicine, which seems to be true; see mg:fanafody. Narky Blert (talk) 08:58, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Delete as hoax. Not mentioned in Campbell, Gwyn, "Currency and Currency Problems in Imperial Madagascar, 1820–1895, Currencies of the Indian Ocean World, pp.93-112, August 2019, Springer, DOI 10.1007/978-3-030-20973-5_5 - which looks about as RS as it's possible to get. Narky Blert (talk) 09:28, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, the only source cited ( online at https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/520966 ) is focussed entirely on monnaie coupee with no mention of fanery. Cabayi (talk) 10:56, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete (summoned here by note at WikiProject Numismatics) I can't say if fanery exists as a decoration, but from James T. Harris, "'Cut' Money of Madagascar", The Numismatist, March 1956, pp. 263-264, available here though you may hit a paywall (I'd send a screenshot to anyone who emails me), "From the early days of European contact with the island various coins were used, but as the Malagasy had no national or native coinages, foreign coins were used. The chief coin was the Spanish dollar which became the money of account and the standard of recoining. This coin predominated until the early years of the 19th century when increasing trade with foreign nations introduced to the islands a weird mixture of the dollar-sized coins of the world. United States, Mexican, Peruvian, and other American states, Belgic, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Austrian, Sardinian, or any other dollar-size coins were accepted. By the middle of the century the French five franc piece was the main coin in circulation. Referred to in Primitive Money (P. Einzig) p. 135-6, Madagascar and Its Peoples (James Sibree, Jr. , London, 1870) and Three Visits to Madagascar (W. Ellis, London, 1859).
"Ellis says of the Tamatave market, "the money changers were busy cutting up dollars, half dollars, quarter dollars, and smaller pieces, cut silver valued by weight being the universal currency. " Sibree gives the following valuation list.
The dollar had a high relative value when divided into 720 parts. For the payment of all amounts less than a dollar, coins were cut into irregular pieces of varying sizes and weights and weighed by means of a neat little scale and weights which every person carried for that purpose.
"Money weights: Loso — Half dollar Kirobo — Quarter dollar Sikajy — Eighth dollar Roa-voamena — Twelfth dollar. Divisions of the dollar: Grain of rice one vary-venty 10 vary-venty — one eranambatra 9 eranambatra — one sikajy 8 sikajy — one dollar The use of money scales and weights was strictly regulated by law. Four money weights marked by government stamps were used for weighing money. Other amounts were obtained by varying these weights in the opposite scale and adding rice grains.
"Originally money changers charged a small fee for cutting up the coins but subsequently the cut segments passed at a discount from the whole dollar. Occasionally this discount amounted to one-sixth or more but about 1880 it was officially established at one-sixteenth.
"Attempts to introduce a national coinage took place during the reign of Radama II in 1855. This ruler, while still a prince, had granted a charter to a French subject which included the right to coin money with the king's effigy. In 1862 steps preliminary to preparation of this coinage were taken. :"The death of Radama II in 1863 and the repudiation of the charter by his successor caused the project to be abandoned. Another attempt took place in 1866 and originated from a proposal made by the French Resident that instead of chopped off silver from French five franc pieces and other dollars, a national coinage to be minted in France should be instituted. This suggestion was rejected by the Hova Prime Minister who was not prepared to see Madagascar linked with the French Empire, but in the same year orders were sent to England for the minting of a coinage with the head of the queen and an inscription in Malagasy. Like the earlier attempt, this project was abandoned on the death of the queen in 1868.
"After the establishment of the French protectorate in 1896 and the abolition of royal power in the following year, the cut money was prohibited, by the French government. For a time, great difficulty was experienced with the natives in monetary transactions, especially in the interior, but the introduction of vast amounts of silver and copper divisions of the French franc by the protecting power, soon restored public confldence in the islands and the cut money passed out of use."--Wehwalt (talk) 13:50, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Wehwalt, consider putting something of that on Merina Kingdom. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:36, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Complely unverified. NW1223<Howl at me•My hunts> 14:17, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My french is not good enough to see whether or not all of these are spurious, and I don't have access to the full sources, but I'm noting this here in case someone with access can check. On a separate note, the translation of the one source provided by Tamzin above indicates that this is probably actually Fanery, and the existence of an object called this is not made up. Whether or not this was used for money, I can't tell. I'll refrain from !voting on this, since I was alerted about this by ping, but I think it's worth digging into sources a bit more before declaring the whole thing to be a hoax. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 15:48, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Noting that this image File:Ombiasa.jpg by the article creator is used in the mg-WP article Ombiasa, that may be perfectly "legit" too. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:10, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Red-tailed hawk: I managed to find the Coutumes link in Google search myself. My French is a tad rusty, and it's high school level, but with the assistance of Google Translate (a little) I get the following:

"Especially for the rifle, the belt's trim is completed, adjacent to the buckle, by a piece of iron vaguely in the form of two triangles attached at their point at an angle of around 60 degrees; this was the fanery which served as a screwdriver. Today, same as the felana, the fanery has become a woman's jewel: smaller in size and made of silver..."

So this is something that did exist, even a century ago, but not for the purpose accorded to it by the article, so far as I can tell. Hope this is useful. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 17:45, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Red-tailed hawk: - Can you provide links to scans of your finds rather than to title pages? I'd be happy to have a look at the French originals. Narky Blert (talk) 20:00, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Narky Blert: My finds are only what's available through the google books preview. I don't have access to anything else. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 17:39, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I had a look for scans or full texts, but no luck; not even on the old stuff. Narky Blert (talk) 17:10, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment As of this post, and after reading the above comments including some serious digging by editors, I think we have reached a point where we can make two observations. First, that some doubt seems to exist as to whether this is a deliberate hoax. And secondly, that despite an exhaustive search of available sources, the claims of fact made in the article remain almost entirely unsourced and suspect as to their veracity. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:00, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I would say that it isn't important whether it was a hoax, really. But there's enough doubt as to the major assertions in the article to dictate that we should delete, if only in an excess of caution. If later it appears we have erred, why, we can always restore the article. Wehwalt (talk) 18:43, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree. Though I'd be a bit more emphatic to the point that we just can't have an article where 99% of the claims of fact are completely unverified. Unless somebody uncovers a trove of reliable source evidence for this article, it has to go. And although I didn't mention it in my opening statement above, obviously an article that is effectively unsourced would also fail GNG. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:51, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    (further to my !vote) I agree, in that it doesn't really matter whether this is a deliberate hoax or not, what matters is that it fails WP:V. Narky Blert (talk) 19:46, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, I think this is a fair point. The reason I've emphasized that part of this verifies is because, if someone does manage to find sources for a ground-up rewrite someday (because who knows, maybe said trove of evidence does exist, undigitized, in a Malagasy or French library), I wouldn't want that getting G3'd or G4'd based on a misunderstanding. But WP:V is the most basic requirement for an article (even if for argument's sake we assume that SIGCOV exists somewhere on planet Earth), so unless someone comes up with something in the next week, deletion is the right outcome. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 20:14, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - As noted, this appears to be partly invented and partly merely unverified, but it all fails verifiability. It isn't important how much is a hoax. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:03, 16 September 2023 (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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