Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yimakh shemo

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. People disagree about whether this is only a DICDEF or whether the underlying custom is notable and merits encyclopedic treatment. Sandstein 05:33, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yimakh shemo[edit]

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Delete - Wikipedia is not a dictionary; foreign language or otherwise (WP:DICDEF). Avi (talk) 07:31, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 19:07, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Meets the criteria of independent notability of a foreign language phrase which appears in English texts carrying specific cultural meaning, as per comparison with the 452 articles listed under Category:Hebrew words and phrases In ictu oculi (talk) 22:36, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep. There are third-party sources indicating that the phrase is used in English, and they seem to rise to a required level of notability. (My !vote is weak because I'm not sure whether the phrase warrants a stand-alone article or inclusion in some glossary or list.) Cnilep (talk) 02:22, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. —Avi (talk) 15:17, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Appears to contain a significant amount of original research. The there is hardly any secondary source cited here discussing the use of the phrase. The article is mostly assembled by finding quotes in sources that are WP:PRIMARY for the purpose of this article. Furthermore, almost half the article advances a theory that the notion of Yimakh shemo predates that term, but the sources cited do not make the connection. FuFoFuEd (talk) 21:33, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- FuFoFuEd is quite right that most of the sources on the page are primary sources, but there are four secondary sources, compared to more than 20 primary ones. This seems to be too many primary sources and perhaps too much original research rather than too few secondary sources or an inherent lack of notability. Cnilep (talk) 23:23, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:05, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FuFoFuEd makes legimate criticism about the Amalek connection, - fixed: overweight; nonrelevant primary sources deleted and non-scholarly anecdote from Bobker (2008) beefed up with more substantial ref from Mex (2006) on Yiddish. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:11, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:DICDEF and WP:NOR. The page creator is attempting to build a page where none exists, and the buildup of references citing usage of the term smacks of OR. Yoninah (talk) 08:48, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As the page creator yes I am attempting to create/build a page where none previously existed. That is what create a page means. The article has 7 or 8 refs from actual dictionaries, books on dialect, customs, festivals describing the use of the term. To which I added following 13 or 15 illustrations. If the 13 or 15 illustrations of actual usage are not OR if they agree with the 7 or 8 refs from dictionaries and books on dialect and customs. In comparison with almost any of the 452 other articles listed under Category:Hebrew words and phrases this goes way beyond. However I'm quite happy to go with that provided it's consistent, and can go to the other 452 articles listed under Category:Hebrew words and phrases and see how many can be nominated for AfD. At a brief look, I'm guessing that if this doesn't pass then 150-250 out of 452 should be deleted. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:45, 31 July 2011 (UTC) e.g. at random from those 452, let's AfD Hakham.[reply]

Wikipedia:Other stuff exists. -- Avi (talk) 00:12, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

True, but the reality is that in AfD discussions one decision does tend to then carry on into the rest of the category - and a large number of the articles in Category:Hebrew words and phrases aren't sourced. This is. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:49, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete WP is not a dictionary. To whatever extent this phrase is relevant to this encyclopedia, it will be in the context of articles on actual topic— Preceding unsigned comment added by Slrubenstein (talk • contribs) 07:53, July 31, 2011
Keep - The phrase is an important phrase in the Hebrew culture. The current article should be improved and any OR removed, but we SHOULD have an article with this title. Linguogeek (talk) 00:25, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- "an important phrase in the Hebrew culture"^{[citation needed]}. So far no secondary sources for that. FuFoFuEd (talk) 21:30, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Using an alternative (Google suggested) English spelling, I was able to find some secondary sources [1] "Yemach+shemo" "Yemach+shemo". It's not clear no me if they're reliable, and they certainly don't appear to be in-depth--a paragraph at the most in each. So, this seems far more suitable for Wiktionary entry with a soft redirect from here to there. FuFoFuEd (talk) 21:38, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - Gefen books [2] appears reasonably reliable, despite not having a Wikipedia entry, but the tone in that book strikes me as purple prose. Something more academically written would be preferable. FuFoFuEd (talk) 21:46, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In more academic contexts I was able to find [3] about the Jewish traditional approach/attitudes to memory, which encompasses several other phrases, e.g. zakhor. If someone wants to write an article about that general topic, this could become a redirect there. There are a few more hits in Google Scholar, but don't appear particularly useful. "Yemach+shemo" FuFoFuEd (talk) 21:54, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
GS also indicates that the following paper may be of some relevance under the linguistic aspect, but I don't access to it, so I don't know how much coverage is given to this expression, it could be just a passing mention: Bernstein, C. 2006. Representing Jewish Identity through English. In J. Brutt-Griffler & C. Evans Davies (eds), English and Ethnicity: Signs of Race Series Publication. London: Macmillan Palgrave. FuFoFuEd (talk) 22:11, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, per WP:DICDEF. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:24, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:DICDEF, WP:NOR, and WP:SYNTH as explained above. Ovadyah (talk) 04:35, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Could one of the people arguing to delete per DICDEF please explain to me why this is a dicdef? I'd expect to find about 10% of the material already in this (not very well developed) article in a dictionary. --Dweller (talk) 08:19, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Yimakh shemo is a Hebrew expression added on to a name of a Jew-persecutor, such as "Adolf Hitler, yimakh shemo", or "Haman, yimakh shemo". Similarly, religious Jews add on shlit'a (a Hebrew abbreviation for "He should live for many long and good years") to an important rabbi's name, such as "Rabbi Yosef Sholom Eliashiv, shlit"a". Both terms belong in Wikitionary; there's not much else to say about them. Yoninah (talk) 09:25, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - That's odd, because this article already says quite a lot more than that. --Dweller (talk) 09:27, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    - Take a close look at the references. Most are examples of the phrase in use, not scholarly explanations of the subject. Yoninah (talk) 09:30, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      - Fantastic. Why would they need to be scholarly explanations of the subject? We need reliable sources to prove it's notable and then we can expand from there. --Dweller (talk) 09:39, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        By "scholarly explanations" I meant third-party sources which discuss the term, not just use it. As it is now, the article suffers from OR as a collection of citations which just use the term, not explain it. Yoninah (talk) 09:50, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        I struggle to understand that definition of OR. At any rate, OR is a reason to improve an article, not an argument for deletion. --Dweller (talk) 10:20, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        The normal improvement for OR is to delete it, which would leave little beyond a DICTDEF. FuFoFuEd (talk) 10:43, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I just found shlit"a under Honorifics in Judaism. This makes sense to me, as it compiles many different honorifics into one article. Maybe there is a broader category in which to include yimakh shemo? Yoninah (talk) 09:30, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- If it's a notable term and we have more than enough for it to pass DICDEF, it should have its own article. --Dweller (talk) 09:39, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I honestly can't understand any of the rationales being made for deletion. The subject seems to be notable and there's far more material already than you'd find in a dictionary definition. It's a keeper. --Dweller (talk) 09:39, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Can we create an article for the word is that way? Hundreds of thousands of references are available! Imagine awesome examples, "is good", "is nice", "is pretty", all impeccably sourced! FuFoFuEd (talk) 10:45, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - You might want to stay away from to be (except that each of its dozen references are secondary sources). More seriously, per the much-cited Wikipedia is not a dictionary, "Encyclopedia articles should begin with a good definition [...] but the article should provide other types of information about that topic as well." The question is whether other notable information about yimakh shemo can be reliably reported. I think such information exists, but accept that the question is open to debate. Cnilep (talk) 12:01, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Dweller, the "expansion" seems to be calculated just to show usage, and does not add anything to the understanding of the phrase, which should be on wiktionary, and not wikipedia. As mentioned above, we can show usage examples of any word or phrase, that does not mean that the phrase belongs on wikipedia. -- Avi (talk) 14:54, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of additional sources that are reliable and go beyond DICDEF:

(1), (2) --Dweller (talk) 11:23, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Avi

It's easy to say that another editor's sources are OR, and hearing you I'm even convinced myself, (and I'm the one who has been building the article while you've been attempting to have it deleted) but I went and checked, please count them:

- Secondary sources Steinmetz (2005), Bermant (1974) Schimel (2002), Rosenfeld (1990), Coldoff (1988), Wolfram (2006), Lehmann (1996), the editor of Scholem (1923, ed. 1995), Rotenberg (2003), Borowitz (1999), Yelin (1984), Swartz (1998), Wistinetzki (1999), Institute on Religion and Public Life (2003), The National Jewish monthly (1928), New York Magazine (1997), Sh'ma (1995), Zangwill/Nahshon (2006), Rav Shach on Chumash (2004), Aḳademyah ha-leʼumit ha-Yiśreʼelit le-madaʻim (1969), Cohen (2004) Klauck p213. Bobker (2008) Wex (2006) Detweiler (1967) Goldman (p250) Haber (2001) Goldman (2004) Frey (1812) ... these are alll commenting as secondary sources on the phrase or its use.

- Primary sources Schloss (2000), Meʼir ben Mordekhai Ṿalakh (2002), Ilan Stavans (2000 citing Alberto Gerchunoff 1910), Jewish currents (1990), Lifschitz (2003), Kranzler (1991), Seltzer (2006), Eliach (1982), Kaplan (2003), Wolfthal (2004)/Cuneo (2002) are primary sources.

- And four more sources in the related terms section on damnatio memoriae

Now the above prompts the question, is the objection to this article joing the other 452 in the Category:Hebrew words and phrases due to the lack of linguistic WP:Notability of this term related to the other 452. Because if it isn't,

then what is it? In ictu oculi (talk) 17:43, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Take for instance Lawrence Schimel Found tribe - 2002 "The worst curse in Hebrew is "Yemach shemo!" May his name be erased!" This is not in-depth coverage. Nobody doubted the expression is verifiable. The Wikipedia article supplements marginal secondary sources like this by quote mining a ton of primary sources, resulting in an article longer than any coverage in secondary sources I can find. Publishing new essays on word usage is not in the mission statement of Wikipedia. FuFoFuEd (talk) 19:31, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FuFoFuEd - by all means, if you link to a phrase/word entry you have done, and I can see how you have sourced/refed it am happy to learn from Wikipedia best practice. But over-referencing aside, is your objection to this article joing the other 452 in the Category:Hebrew words and phrases due to the lack of linguistic WP:Notability of this term related to the other 452 or is it something else?

As FuFoFuEd says above, we know the phrase is used, and if you want to pen an essay about it, you are more than welcome, but that is WP:OR and belongs elsewhere on the internet. My opinion, and it is no more than that, at this point remains that there is not enough critical commentary about the phrase extant to make it worthy of an article in the encyclopedia project here. For example, I could not find an entry for "Yemach Shemo" or similar spellings in the online Encyclopedia Judaica, although there are over 100 references and multiple full articles on Jesus. -- Avi (talk) 02:03, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Avi,

You say that you "know" the phrase is used, I didn't see where FuFoFuEd said that he knew the term was used, but either way most Wikipedia users wouldn't know, and that's why also why the phrase has entries in linguistic works like Steinmetz (2005), Wex (2006), etc. cultural works like Bermant (1974) etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. So now what I'm trying to understand is why it's acceptable for Wikipedia readers to read the other 452 articles in the Category:Hebrew words and phrases, but not this one? So why is this phrase unacceptable, but those 452 are okay? In ictu oculi (talk) 10:57, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The others may not be OK for all I know (although see FuFoFuEd below). There are many articles in many categories which should be deleted, in my opinion, but I do not spend all my wikitime on nominating AfDs. We are all volunteers and may choose where to spend our time and effort. However, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not, and has never been, a valid reason to keep an article. My nomination is not meant to be part of a dastardly plot to destroy your on-wiki work; this article caught my eye due to my involvement with the articles on Yeshu, and, in my (and others') opinion, it does not meet wiki notability requirements. I understand your frustration; I've had articles (well, at least 1) that I have created be deleted at AfD. That is part of the wiki process. -- Avi (talk) 14:42, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Avi. No, with respect I don't think so Avi, this is not part of the Wikipedia process. I've written articles on foreign languages terms before and not had this happen since normally language articles are of interest to language buffs, they don't normally get listed under AfD for one particular religious grouping where people who have never voted on a language AfD get drawn in. This completely innocuous, uncontroversial WP:notable article has been leapt upon, as you say above due to your/Jayjg/Slrubenstein involvement with the article on Yeshu, where yimakh shemo is mentioned, but not explained. I added this article because, like most Wikipedia readers, I wouldn't know what yimakh shemo meant. I didn't know all the history about Haman and Amalek, I didn't know it had an entry on Yiddish wikipedia. I can only conclude, based on the term clearly being WP:notable that this AfD is for reasons of religious sensitivity, you don't want this having an article entry on Wikipedia. In ictu oculi (talk) 20:58, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry you feel that way. I have no problem with this being on wiktionary, and a Wikipedia:Soft redirect pointing there. I don't know Yiddish well enough to read the article and see if it can add anything here; nor do the policies of YiWIki have bearing here and vice-versa. The proper place for phrase definitions is Wiktionary:Wiktionary:Phrasebook. As I said before, even the Encyclopedia Judaica does not have an entry on "Yemach Shemo", b/c the phrase is inherently not notable enough for an encyclopedia article. The wikimedia project space encompasses more than just an encyclopedia, and this should be on Witktionary. -- Avi (talk) 21:09, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Avi, if you want to try a copy paste of the entire article to Wiktionary and see what Wiktionary admins say, then be my guest, but I think they would view that there was too much cultural, historical content. Wiktionary is for Dicdefs. The fact that the term has an entry on Yiddish Wikipedia and not Hebrew Wikipedia probably confirms (what a linguist would expect) that a foreign-language term only has cultural currency as a specific foreign language term in a foreign language, which is why Wex, Steinmetz et al discuss it. Does Encyclopedia Judaica not discuss yimach shemo under Purim, Haman, Hitler or Amalek? Does Encyclopedia Judaica have an article on Hebrew curses? In ictu oculi (talk) 21:35, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yemach shemo is a Hebrew term, not Yiddish. Strange that it's even on Yiddish Wikipedia, unless they're including it in their list of juicy curses... Yoninah (talk) 21:42, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That category probably deserves some scrutiny. In the past when WP:OTHERSTUFF was pointed to me, I nominated some of the seemingly unwarranted ones for deletion. There are also thousands of articles about software products, but that does not mean that any particular article is justified based on the existence of the others. FuFoFuEd (talk) 12:57, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On a quick inspection +95% of the articles in that category are not about words or expressions and usage thereof, but rather about concepts or entities with Hebrew names, which makes the category name fairly misleading. E.g., it contains Ketuvim, Krav Maga, Likud. I did find one questionable article, Maamor, but it's written as a dab page. YMMV. FuFoFuEd (talk) 13:03, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. This Hebrew acronym is used in English. And this article isn't a simple dictionary entry; it is valuable content. I came looking for the abbreviation in Hebrew characters and found it only here, so it was definitely helpful to me. I'm concerned about the arbitrary deletion of worthwhile content off of Wikipedia. There are a lot of very frivolous articles and content on this site, so the arbitrary complete deletion of worthwhile content like this seems to me to be pointless and contrary to Wikipedia's role as a source of knowledge on nearly every remotely notable public subject of interest. Big Mac (talk) 05:16, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Acronym? And the counterargument to WP:EVERYTHING is policy in this case--WP:NOTDICT and WP:NOR. FuFoFuEd (talk) 12:00, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep the article at present is much more than a dictionary entry, but a discussion about the related custom. Being sourced, it's not original research either. In my experience, most widely used phrases of this sort do have sources, and can support an article even if what was intially there is just a definition. Indeed, all articles are supposed to start with a definition!. DGG ( talk ) 17:12, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- "Being sourced, it's not original research either."? Seriously? I think you need to review WP:SYNTH. WP:OR can (and often does) have lots of sources. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:17, 7 August 2011 (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.