User talk:Retterama

A tag has been placed on Schola Latina Universalis requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done because the article appears to be about a person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is notable: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not indicate the subject's importance or significance may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable. If this is the first page that you have created, then you should read the guide to writing your first article.

If you think that you can assert the notability of the subject, you may contest the deletion by adding  to the top of the page (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the article's talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would confirm the subject's notability under Wikipedia guidelines.

For guidelines on specific types of articles, you may want to check out our criteria for biographies, for web sites, for bands, or for companies. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this.  brew crewer  (yada, yada) 20:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)


 * First of all, the Schola Latina Universalis offers its teaching for free, so lucrative ends can be discarded. Now, the notability of the Schola Latina Universalis is due to the fact that it is the first ever attempt to teach living Latin, i.e. recent Latin as a language for contemporary use, over the Internet. It is well know in the Latin speaking world and has no parallel. Myself as a student, can bear witness that it is a most remarkable enterprise and a landmark for Recent Latin. Retterama.

Nomination of Schola Latina Universalis for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Schola Latina Universalis is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Schola Latina Universalis until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. — Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 17:09, 26 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Dear Mr. Stradivarius , I am here following your request from your Talk page that «If I left you a message: please answer on your talk page, as I am watching it». I am just about back from a protracted winter holiday, and starting to get on top of the backlog of business at the beginning of a new term, when some colleagues alert me to the fact that the article on the Schola Latina Universalis has been deleted. I have been looking at the possibilities that may remain open after such a deeply regretted move; but I can most candidly confess to you that I have long lost most of the Wikipedia editing skills I once may have had, have been completely unable after much reading to determine which formal procedure (undelete, relist, review, ...) may be best to attempt in the current circumstances, and do not really have enough time to engage in the kind of bitter battles that I know can arise in Wikipedia about these matters. I can only therefore appeal to your good will and your guidance. You will agree that the chosen date for this process (boxing day, cf. above) was a particularly unfortunate one, such as practically ensures that very few people would be able to take any notice in time (indeed, the discussion had to be reinstated at least three times). That was certainly my case (I was on holiday 28/12 to 14/1, and I don't look at Wikipedia every single day, not even every week). As you will notice, it is basically the same time the previous attempt at deletion was carried out (christmas eve of 2007). A remarkable coincidence? When I examine the recent discussion page, I see that indeed hardly any participation took place until the 22nd of January, when there was a mysterious burst of ... 4 people, and then the page was deleted within a few hours. The Schola Latina Universalis article had been around for many years (as it has been delted, I cannot check exactly when it was first created). Very early on though (see above), its deletion was suggested. At that time (we are talking about 2007, see above) various arguments in favour of keeping the page were brought forward (some of them above, most others at the Talk page of the article, now unavailable). The arguments seemed at the time convincing, as deletion didn't in the end took place, and no other challenge to its continuity had been raised in half a decade. The first thing that I notice in the new deletion discussion is that those arguments, which were then convincing enough before the Wikipedia community, are not even mentioned or addressed (if re-addressing them was necessary). On the other hand, the arguments now raised seem comparatively weak. The journal Melissa, for instance, is presented as unreliable, but no justification for that judgement is given. Melissa is probably the second best known journal currently written in Latin in the world. Not even their updated website is provided in the discussion. It is certainly not self-published by the Schola Latina Universalis. A second contributor (teaching English in Japan like yourself, and equally active in deleting articles on modern Latin activists and institutions, it appears, see below) complains that «Describes itself as a school but is really just a website» (!). The article clearly said that the Schola Latina Universalis is a «school on the Internet», an on-line school. It is obvious that its interface with the world is not going to be a brick-and-mortar building, but a website. The statement is as weak as saying that Wikipedia «describes itself as an encyclopedia but is really just a website» (!). The Schola Latina Universalis is an on-line school but not «just a website». It has teachers, who are real people like yourselves, and hundreds of students, who are likewise real people doing real learning (I bear witness). It uses a Moodle course management system, like many of the best universities in the UK and elsewhere in the world. The third contributor wrote that no independent sources could be located, even in Latin, but some such sources were provided in the Talk section (now deleted) of the article, and went all the way to Russia if memory serves. More could be added, if only the page was again made available for any improvement perhaps due (e.g.: Xavier Zabaltza, Una historia de las lenguas y los nacionalismos, Barcelona, Gedisa, 2006, p.18 also bears witness to the notoriety of the school). Other comments seem to betray an ideological bias, like «a squib about an oddity». We are aware that many people consider modern use of Latin as an oddity, but like or dislike of that reality doesn't seem to be fair judgement on it. Basically, the discussion was carried out at a time when many people around the globe go on vacation, it struggled to attract enough amount of discussion, when it did its depth left to be desired, and deletion was rushed a few hours after such discussion had only started to get going. As I said at the beginning, I trust your good faith and request your help and guidance at least to allow for a more balanced discussion of the matter, with some more time, somewhere relevant (if we continue it here, in the Talk page of one specific user, it will surely continue to attract insufficient input). Thanks in advance. Retterama (talk) 15:33, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Nomination of A. Gratius Avitus for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article A. Gratius Avitus is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/A. Gratius Avitus until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Cnilep (talk) 10:57, 4 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Dear Dr. Nilep, as for the deletion of the article on the Schola Latina Universalis (above), I really have little time to fight for the article now about his admirable founder, certainly not at the same time as I try to make a case for the above, which is probably more disturbing. I can therefore just very briefly highlight here how the article was deleted in an even shorter time, and after only two contributions, one of them from your colleague Mr. Stradivarius above. A. Gratius Avitus is very well known in the Latin speaking community. His notoriety doesn't come from any current academic achievement (it is indeed possible that you look in vain for that), but from his efforts as an activist in defence of a language whose living use is endangered in our day. Now why the Latin speaking community is so invisible nowadays would require a very long discussion, but certainly the strenuous efforts of some people to silence it and obliterate any signs of its existence would account for a great part of the reason. Same goes for the page on Gaius Licoppe, deleted on the very same day by user Explicit. Gaius Licoppe is a cardiologist, not even an academic, and is much better known than Avitus. His article needed improvement (sources), but little chance (quick deletion over the winter holiday period) was given for that. If there is any way to revert any of this hasty deletion frenzy against our community and institutions, your guidance is more than appreciated. Very best wishes, Retterama (talk) 16:57, 27 January 2013 (UTC)