Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Etiquette in Europe


 * 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 - but it appears to be going towards WP:HEY. Bearian (talk) 20:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Etiquette in Europe

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Basically, the article is just a list of unsourced, unverifiable guidebook-style information; Its a completely random collection of "helpful facts" that range somewhere between plain wrong and irrelevant. If the unencyclopaedic information is removed, almost nothing will remain.

I don't think that this article can be improved in a meaningful way. It would be much better if the really encyclopaedic information about Etiquette is integrated into the "Culture" section of the individual country and continent articles. (And leave the "helpful" travel information to Wikitravel ;-) This would also bring the etiquette into context with the overall culture.

I'm putting this up for a deletion discussion, because there was one editor on the talk page who liked it. However, I contacted the creator and main contributor of the page who agrees with the idea to delete it. So I hope this will not be overly controversial. Averell (talk) 08:58, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Wikipedia is not a guidebook or manual. A Wikipedia article should not read like a how-to style manual of instructions, advice or suggestions, or contain how-tos.-- Serviam  (talk)  14:37, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep The article has sources and some good content. The rest is a matter of improvement per our editing policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:49, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The "good content" could be easily integrated elsewhere. There are some sources, but the majority of content is unsourced and many sources are not of the highest quality. As for the improvement, the article exists for over a years, but it has not improved so far. See also the talk page. Averell (talk) 16:38, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Who is going to integrate this information elsewhere and how are they going to do it when this article has been deleted? And what of the editors who contributed this content?  How will their contributions under our licence terms be honoured? Please see GFDL which explains why you cannot treat other editors contributions so cavalierly. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Even if the article is deleted, the history will still be around, if I'm not mistaken. Averell (talk) 22:06, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The history is deleted along with the article and will not be visible. All contributing editors will thereby be snubbed. Not only is this illegal, it is rude. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:17, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't know that the history would also be deleted. However, it is not illegal (otherwise you could never delete an article on WP). Averell (talk) 17:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete (now weak keep, see further down) - Wikipedia is not a how-to guide. A possible encyclopedic approach might be to explain the origin of various customs, not just to list them in rule book format. Also, while there are sources cited, they are used to "support" generalizations where for most of them, sources supporting different rules could easily be found as well. Other than the article claims, many rules of polite behaviour vary considerably from country to country. --Latebird (talk) 16:49, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. It seems to be more an issue of style than content, as these statements could easily be rewritten as facts rather than as imperatives. E.g. "When you are visiting a house or flat, it is polite to remove your shoes." -> "It is considered polite to remove one's shoes when visiting a house or flat." Aldrich Hanssen (talk) 17:09, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * A how-to guide remains a how-to guide, no matter how you phrase it. --Latebird (talk) 17:48, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No, there are many articles about activities such as Surfing, Criticism or Vandalism which must necessarily say something about how these things are done. The point about how-to is a stylistic one - that Wikipedia articles should not read like instruction manuals with step-by-step instructions, troubleshooting guides, FAQs and the like.  Correct the style and the article is then acceptable. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:26, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid you're mistaken there. It's primarily the content that decides whether something is a how-to guide or an encyclopedic article. The article on Surfing doesn't contain enough of the information required to learn the sport, and it includes a large amount of background information not needed to learn it. That is not the case here. This article here is entirely sufficient to learn polite behaviour as understood by its authors and their sources, and it contains almost no background information on top of that. This limitation of content results in a clear violation of WP:NOTGUIDE. --Latebird (talk) 20:03, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No. Surfing contains paragraphs such as this
 * Surfing begins with the surfer eyeing a rideable wave on the horizon and then attempting to match its speed (by paddling or sometimes, by tow-in). Once the wave has started to carry the surfer forward, the surfer quickly jumps to his or her feet and proceeds to ride down the face of the wave, generally staying just ahead of the breaking part (white water) of the wave (in a place often referred to as "the pocket" or "the curl"). A common problem for beginners is not even being able to catch the wave in the first place, and one sign of a good surfer is being able to catch a difficult wave that other surfers cannot.
 * This is comparable with the entries in this article - giving the basic facts of how to do something but not being written in an instructional way. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Good luck learning to surf with just those "instructions". --Latebird (talk) 20:52, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment Since we have the usual failure of imagination above by editors who seem interested only in deleting the article rather than improving it, I have started rewriting the article to demonstrate its potential. My method is simple - to look for sources and then work from them.  I soon found an excellent source which covers this topic in scholarly way rather than being a travel/business guide.  This indicates that there is a substantial field of politeness studies from which other sources may be found.  I might go on to remove all the unsourced information in the article but will leave it for now so that editors may consider the full richness of the topic. Colonel Warden (talk) 21:18, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The lack of imagination was with the previous authors of the article, not with those attesting their failure. If you're going to improve it, you'll probably end up with a complete rewrite. When doing so, please also take Mansford's arguments from below into account. --Latebird (talk) 07:07, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment I disagree that this is simply a matter of style. To take the example from above: The fact that it's polite to remove your shoes is not encyclopaedic, no matter how you phrase it. It's just a random fact. Encyclopaedic would be: Why is it considered that people should take off their shoes? How did this rule evolve? Why is it important in the given society? This kind of thing. This is also in the surfing article: Of course it also describes what surfers do. But this is only a small part of the article, and it's information about what surfing is about, not how to do it. The article doesn't say "In surfing you have to set yourself firmly on the board. Then one must lean slightly forward, with arms spread." (or whatever it is you have to do...). Averell (talk) 22:24, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The typical stance of the expert surfer is shown in the article's many pictures. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:13, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment I hate to say delete, because etiquette is an encyclopedic topic, and this has the "ball of string" quality from lots of edits over the years, but what a mess. Although 36 sources may seem impressive, there appear to be hundreds of unsourced facts about "good manners in the old country".  Then there's the overly broad nature of the topic, which seeks to describe etiquette in an area with dozens of different cultural groups.  Generalizing about 700 million people is difficult; trying to get specific is confusing.  The solution may be to start writing articles like "Etiquette in Germany and Austria" or "Etiquette in Scandinavia", etc., with sourcing to travel guides and websites.  Etiquette in Europe would continue to exist, but mostly as a navigation page to a more manageable presentation of the topic. Mandsford (talk) 01:29, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You might be surprised about the differences already between Germany and Austria, eg. when addressing people. Austrians loooove titles, and use them in ways that would make people in Germany just look at you funny. There are many examples like this, often even within the same country. This topic is not just a can of worms, but a veritable truckload of cans... --Latebird (talk) 07:37, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Please, let's not do this. I fully agree that this problem exists. But one of the main articles was that "passing" editors used it as a trashdump for their funny information, with no one feeling responsible for quality. If the article is split, I fear that the problem will just be multiplied. Subpages should only be created after it is shown that sufficient encyclopaedic content exists for them.
 * That's why I suggested putting this in the "culture" section of the individual country pages, or in Culture of Europe, for example. I still think that "Etiquette" is a sub-topic of "Culture", and should be treated as such. Then, if we really see that there is enough stuff on "Etiquette" to warrant an stand-alone article, by all means break it out again. In any case, let's only break out the subsections that are actually worth it... Averell (talk) 08:31, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Subdividing the topic by country is the main problem since it encourages repetition and parochial, nationalistic content. The topic should be addressed at European level and divided by the differing types of etiquette: table manners, speech, business customs and so on.  For example, one issue is the extent to which the language has preserved the distinction between the formal and intimate second-person which is now archaic in English (you/thou).  French and German have this (vous/tu and Sie/Du) but I am not sure about the other languages.  The etiquette of such usage is quite involved and so a European-level treatment would be most interesting.  I expect that linguistic scholars have studied this and so good sources should be easy to find. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:05, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete along with its companion articles Etiquette in Asia, Etiquette in Australia and New Zealand, etc. These were originally one article and splitting them up only created more "balls of string" as an editor above commented.  I acknowledge that the problem is one of style and the concept of these articles isn't so bad, but I'd like to see them canned nonetheless. - House of Scandal (talk) 02:51, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment If there is unsourced, inappropriate content then it is easy to remove as I have just demonstrated. By keeping the article rather than deleting it we maintain the article's history so that the previous detailed content may be referred to for further development.  Deletion would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater and so disruptive. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:19, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Very Strong Keep: If the article has problem with lack of sources, then add references, do not delete the article. An underdeveloped article needs rewrite and development, not deletion. The topic is important, however it should be made clear which country it is describing. Europe has various countries, thus there may be regional variations on etiquette.  Otolemur crassicaudatus  (talk) 10:27, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment Although Colonel Warden's edits removed a lot of cruft my problem is still that it hasn't been demonstrated that this article could be more than just a listing of acceptable behaviours. In fact nobody in this whole discussion has defended the article's original content. As far as I can see, it's not even clear that the topic actually exists as a coherent thing. For the history, if we really need to preserve it we can probably move the whole thing to a different namespace to keep it around for reference (don't know if that is a possible solution, though...) Averell (talk) 18:11, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I rewrote the lede to demonstrate that we have a proper topic here. Since you still don't understand, here's a small bibliography that I found in a few seconds:


 * Bayraktaroglu, A., & Sifianou, M. (Eds.) (2001). Linguistic politeness across boundaries: The case of Greek and Turkish.
 * Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1978). Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena.
 * E. Goody (Ed.), Questions and politeness: Strategies in social interaction Cambridge University Press.
 * Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge University Press.
 * Eelen, G. (2001). A critique of politeness theories. Manchester, UK: St. Jerome.
 * Escandell-Vidal, V. (1996). Towards a cognitive approach to politeness.
 * K. Turner (Eds.), Contrastive semantics and pragmatics. Oxford, UK:Pergamon.
 * Laver, J. (1981). Linguistic routines and politeness in greeting and parting, Conversational routine. The Hague, Netherlands
 * Tannen, D. (1990). You just don’t understand. New York: Ballantine Books.
 * Watts, R. (2003). Politeness. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.


 * None of these texts appear to be guidebooks, right? It seems apparent there is more to be said about this than a simple catalogue of do's and don'ts. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:27, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep One of a set of important articles on regional etiquette. Is more efficent to have these grouped  at the continent level to have to drill down into sub-sub-articles on each country.  Especially because etiquette in nearby countries (i.e. Germany and Austria, or Argentina and Uruguay) is pretty similar. Squidfryerchef (talk) 15:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep – A notable topic, as demonstrated by the many examples of sources that Colonel Warden lists above. Paul Erik  (talk) (contribs) 21:47, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment - The five day for discussion are more than up, and clearly there is no consensus to delete. Colonel Warden has demonstrated that there is scholarly research on Etiquette, though the European part is still a bit fuzzy. In any case, it doesn't seem that it'll do any good if this stuff is randomly moved around. Therefore I suggest we just leave the article pages as they are, and see if and how they can improve. Maybe after some work is done it'll become clearer if it makes sense to merge or split those pages. On a side note, all that was said here applies equally to the other Etiquette on  articles. Averell (talk) 11:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, besides listing sources here (which is kind of pointless), Colonel Warden has also removed all the unsourced cruft (at least 80% of the text) from the article. What remains appears to be reasonably sourced, and seems sufficiently encyclopedic in content. I have thus changed my recommendation above to weak keep. --Latebird (talk) 12:07, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete - there is no way an article on this topic can be aquatically sourced. Furthermore it is a how-to guide --T-rex 18:53, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Everything in the article has been sourced. Your comment indicates that you have not read the article and so should be discounted. Colonel Warden (talk) 06:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: The article is certainly not how-to-guide. It describes some etiquette, and this types of articles on etiquette, customs, culture are never how-to-guide.  Otolemur crassicaudatus  (talk) 15:26, 7 July 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.