Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gardiner's sign list

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 no consensus. There's clearly no great urgency from the community to delete this article. Any discussion about a merge or page move is more appropriately conducted on the article's talk page. A Train^talk 20:33, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Gardiner's sign list[edit]

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(This also applies to the subpages, beginning with List of hieroglyphs/A, which I haven't individually tagged.) There are several problems with this set of pages. To begin with, it is a copyright violation of this list compiled by Alan Gardiner, who died 1963, so it's still copyrighted until 2033. And then it's also basically a reproduction of a primary source, which Wikipedia is not for (see WP:NPS). That articles are not even supposed to have hierarchical subpages and that the subpages are not remotely in an article format is almost a side issue. Sandstein 10:12, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 17:46, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question If its copyvio why not just delete it? Doug Weller talk 19:48, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's been around since 2005, so a discussion seems appropriate. Sandstein 19:53, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Some form of keep For starters, GScholar claims 1000+ cites for Egyptian grammar: being an introduction to the study of hieroglyphs, so I would assume this has academic notability, and provides multiple secondary sources from which to pick.

I am not sure this is a copyvio; the mapping "character" -> "letter and number" is probably not copyrightable, but the presentation (such as the one in List_of_hieroglyphs/A) might be. I left a note at WP:CV in the hope someone might come help.

While the list articles should certainly not be in subpages, they seem a reasonable size split of the complete list of the hieroglyphs by Gardiner's ordering. It may be argued that this list does not meet WP:SAL but it does not look obvious either way.

Beyond the usual whine when formatting issues are invoked, the current layout of the subpages is actually fairly decent to my eyes. I think readability would be degraded if we converted the current formatting of List_of_hieroglyphs/A to (say) a table such as the ones in List_of_Egyptian_hieroglyphs_by_common_name:_A–L. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 17:04, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

An article about the list might or might not be notable, I'm not an Egyptologist. This assortment of pages here, however, purports to be a reproduction of the list, which is something quite different. Sandstein 19:27, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Gardiner's sign list is (probably) notable, that was my first point. I understand that your concern is more about the "List of hieroglyphs" subpages, but I still would mention it.

About those pages, the thing is, maybe a reproduction of the character <-> numbering mapping is appropriate. AFAIK, the copyright applies to the layout of the ideas, not to the ideas themselves, so it would be incorrect to have a list with each entry organized the same way as in the original publication; but the grouping of hieroglyphs in thematic categories, and the numbering within those, is AFAIK not copyrightable and hence can be reprodued by us.

Whether the list meets the notability of WP:SAL is another question, and while I lean towards saying it passes as size split of the main article, I could see the consensus go either way on that point. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 08:25, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. The only page included in this nomination is the parent article page, which is about the list, it is not a list itself. So whether or not the list subpages that actually list out the hieroglyphs represent copyvios is irrelevant to whether the article about the list(s) should be deleted, about which no argument has been presented. And as the list subpages have not been tagged with notices and not included in this nomination, their deletion is not under consideration at all. postdlf (talk) 18:25, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Right, then I'll just speedy the subpages after the AfD if nobody here feels like discussing them as well... Sandstein 19:26, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The type of copyvio argument you have made here about those lists is not CSD#G11 eligible but instead requires more analysis, whether that's done at a proper group AFD nom for those lists or at Wikipedia:Copyright problems. postdlf (talk) 23:06, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Since we are here, we might as well discuss this. We can also consider this as a group nom and do the analysis here (without the need to actually put an AfD tag on all 26 pages, its unnecessary bureaucracy). --Lemongirl942 (talk) 13:18, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Giving proper notice that a page has been nominated for deletion is not "unnecessary bureaucracy", it is necessary deletion procedure. And I see many editors have edited the subpages but never the main parent article, and so can't be assumed to have watchlisted all of them or notice if it is only placed on the parent article. postdlf (talk) 16:51, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 13:23, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Archaeology-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 13:23, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 13:23, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Egypt-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 13:23, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Do we really need all those subpages? Personally I see this is a reproduction of content. While an umbrella article about Gardiner's sign list is notable, the subpages may not really be. How about redirecting them to the main article? --Lemongirl942 (talk) 14:41, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

~~Redirecting from the current subpaged titles? I would bet there is a guideline against that... Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 17:34, 4 October 2016 (UTC)~~[reply]

Tigraan, is there something like that? I am personally not very well versed with redirect guidelines and stuff. However, I do know of at least one case like that. Kallang/Whampoa redirects to Kallang. If this is not correct, we might have to think of a better solution to merge these pages or failing that just delete/userfy them (or move them without leaving a redirect). --Lemongirl942 (talk) 14:54, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I was wrong, so I struck my comment. There is indeed a guideline, WP:NC-SLASH, but it says that article names with slashes are allowed (it may cause small problems with the talk pages, but the mainspace is not "subpaged"). Unless there is something very strange going on, this means redirects are okay as well. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 15:22, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

comment Well, the sign list is definitely notable. The classification system itself may be copyrightable, but the content of each list is *not* the same as Gardiners (e.g. unicode chars), which puts it equivalent to a dictionary. Add in the educational value, and the copyvio argument fails for the individual pages. You could make a NOTDICTIONARY argument, I suppose. The content is readily available elsewhere. The Steve 17:34, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Some more definite opinions please — Yellow Dingo (talk) 04:52, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Yellow Dingo (talk) 04:52, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep but restructure. Egyptian hieroglyphics are clearly an important subject, so that a classification system ought also to be notable. It is a purpose of WP to bring information together, so that arguments about it being available elsewhere should not hold water. On the other hand an article so much of whose length consists of headings for links to sub-articles is unsatisfactory. That part of the article needs converting to a table, which will provide a much more legible list than what we have at present. In saying this, I am not even considering the issue of whether there may be COPY-VIO issues, though I would have thought that there were none. Peterkingiron (talk) 10:45, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Egyptian hieroglyphics are clearly an important subject, so that a classification system ought also to be notable. Hmm, no. (Though that particular system is.) Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 15:11, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep but Rewrite - as per Peterkingiron, as the topic is notable but it would not survive if not given the proper rewriting and fixes.Your welcome | Democratics ^Talk→ Be a guest 11:35, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment List of Egyptian hieroglyphs doesn't exist, and Egyptian Hieroglyphs (Unicode block) is just about the Gardiner list as represented in Unicode, while Wikipedia's HEIRO extension is also the Gardiner list. We should have a list of heiroglyphics separate from the Gardiner article, with the HIERO extension image, the Unicode image, the Gardiner code, the Egyptological notation for its pronunciation, the ideological meaning of the glyph, in a list. I suggest that List of Egyptian hieroglyphs be created as being a list (with all the HEIRO and unicode glyphs, and any missing from these two systems would be represented by a picture file and the Egyptological pronunciation and meaning. Gardiner isn't the only source, after all, Champollion's works are now Public Domain -- 65.94.171.217 (talk) 02:41, 19 October 2016 (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.