Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cibus Hilleli


 * 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. Stifle (talk) 10:03, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Cibus Hilleli

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Non-notable Wikipedian navel-gazing cruft. The fact that needs cites is that this was "widely reported on the Internet". This article would need to show reliable secondary sources talking about the hoax, not merely someone pointing out that something false got added to a Wikipedia article and some other people didn't notice that. It needs to have had some sort of impact, like the Siegenthaler incident. TheMolecularMan (talk) 21:06, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Internet appearance and restaurant menu (on-line) are now cited. Wikipedia mirrors no longer reflect this around the Internet, as I have removed it from the article "Sandwich". That may suffice; however, I did think that this needs a brief Wikipedia article to quash further embedding in culinary pseudohistory. "Navel-gazing cruft" is self-indulgent and usually self-promotional: this addresses the Wikipedia reader's information. Not really a very big deal.--Wetman (talk) 21:28, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep on the whole - that it was, and is, cited on the internet is referenced, though "widely" might be disputed I suppose. Deleting the article would give an unfortunate impression of Wikipedia covering its tracks, since the hoax was first perpetrated here. I think its better this is left to help correct lingering confusion (such as is seen on the talk page, where some are reluctant to give the story up). Johnbod (talk) 21:43, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Pointing out the use of the hoax term on some online menus looks like original research to me, not a citation of a secondary source establishing notability (as does the Whois reference). To show that this "hoax" is notable, we'd need to see something like an article from a reliable, noteworthy independent publication describing how the false term originated on Wikipedia and found its way into numerous menus and such. That notice needs to come from a secondary source, not Wikipedia itself; that's how we draw a line so we don't end up with an article about every piece of vandalism on Wikipedia that fools somebody, no matter how insignificant. And if there is some interest in preserving this so it doesn't look like "Wikipedia covering its own tracks", that doesn't need to happen in the article namespace. TheMolecularMan (talk) 22:08, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Googling brought up the on-line menu. Using a tool like Whois is very like looking up something in the DNB. Not really very "original". Is every enquiry "research"?. Could be so... --Wetman (talk) 02:37, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not the obscurity of the research methods that make it "original"; it's the fact that the research is occurring here and not in a secondary source which we are then citing. TheMolecularMan (talk) 03:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. It does not meet notability guidelines, but in this case, let's just ignore them. The article demonstrates Wikipedia's ability to correct its misinformation as easily as it can be manipulated to misinform. Srnec (talk) 22:55, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment This is better accomplished served by articles on Wikipedia-related hoaxes like the Siegenthaler incident, which are notable on their own merits. TheMolecularMan (talk) 23:18, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, not notable. Period.  Every bit of Wikipedia vandalism doesn't deserve an article.   Corvus cornix  talk  23:08, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete A google for Cibus Hilleli hoax returns precisely 5 results. 2 to Wp, 1 to an RSS feed of .. WP, 1 to a Harry Potter forum and 1 doesnt appear to have the word "hoax" anywhere on the page. Coverage of it as a hoax seems minimal. MadScot (talk) 00:09, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Two reasons at the moment:
 * As I wrote on the article's Talk page, "A single reference to it as a hoax doesn't make it a notable hoax. I shudder to think how it will be if people start speculatively putting hoaxes on Wikipedia in the expectation of then being justified in placing an article about their hoax on Wikipedia the instant anyone, anywhere, mentions it. People aren't supposed to using Wikipedia to create notability for that which isn't already notable, correct?" Let's not encourage that behavior.
 * It isn't at all clear what is true and what isn't true in the article, what part of it is a hoax and what isn't, and I doubt that anyone will ever know. The term itself? The attribution of the term to the Romans (as opposed to being a jocular coinage of recent origin)? The particular attribution to Varro? Regarding the first case: I just finished a correspondence with someone from Beneluxx restaurant in Philadelphia, whose menu was listed as a reference in the article! One set of dishes are listed under the heading "Cibus Hilleli". I inquired as to where the person who used that name had gotten it from, and he said he picked it up when he was taking Latin in high school. Assuming that's true, then one thing we know is that the term wasn't coined just last year. It may be authentic Roman Latin, it may be a later joke, but the term isn't a hoax. Then, regarding the last case: as far as the attribution to Varro is concerned: Was it a hoax? Could it just have been someone's mistake, like misattributing Kepler's work to Copernicus or Tycho? As for whether the mere attribution to any Romans was a hoax: is there any way to tell?
 * Bottom line: I think that it is not only unclear what the article is claiming, I think it's unclear what the article should be claiming about what the nature of the hoax is, or whether there was a hoax at all. I think the article should go. &#8212;Largo Plazo (talk) 02:42, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Personally I'm assuming what the guy told you isn't true. If he had indeed "picked it up when he was taking Latin in high school" don't you think there would be serious references to Roman use of the term, so common as to be found by high-school students, on the web?  But if you were right, then the subject would indeed be notable, surely?  You seem to have worked yourself into a Catch 22.  Johnbod (talk) 02:54, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It isn't really a Catch 22. The article was written about a supposed hoax. So if there is no such hoax, it's beside the point that the title of the article could also be used for something else. If somebody wrote an article titled "Poland" about an alleged town in Cameroon called Poland, named after the country, and it was determined that there was no town by that name in Cameroon, I'd call for the article to be deleted. I wouldn't say, "Leave it, in case anyone decides to use it to write about the actual country called Poland." As for the guy's veracity: why would he lie? &#8212;Largo Plazo (talk) 03:08, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. There plenty more notable incidents regarding Wikipedia, which were reported in mainstream press, and are inlcuded in Reliability of Wikipedia. This one is not notable. VasileGaburici (talk) 09:18, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete Even if true it is way too trivial for an encyclopedia article. Northwestgnome (talk) 11:46, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge to the discussion of this in Hillel. The phrase in various languages, as Hillel sandwich, is  very well known and notable, as part of the Passover ritual, I quote from there "This is based on a part of the Passover Seder (the annual commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt), in the section of Korech, where the Haggadah, the ancient liturgy, instructs participants to take the matzo and wrap it around the bitter herbs and eat them together whilst saying in Hebrew: This is a remembrance of Hillel in Temple times — This is what Hillel did when the Temple existed: he used to enwrap the Paschal lamb, the matzo and the bitter herbs and eat them as one. In the Ashkenazi tradition, the usual practice is to do this by making a matzo and horseradish sandwich."
 * It was already noted that the source from which the expression alleged was derived is genuine. What's in the air was whether that term exist in Latin as spoken by people in Roman times to refer more generally to their version of today's sandwich. There isn't anything demonstrably true from the article that could be merged into the Hillel article. &#8212;Largo Plazo (talk) 22:47, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, a minor, non-notable hoax. Minimal secondary coverage, as pointed out above.  Lankiveil (speak to me) 04:17, 22 September 2008 (UTC).


 * 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.