Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Folkspraak language


 * 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 of the debate was NO CONSENSUS. -Splash talk 00:58, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Folkspraak language
Non-notable IAL. — Home Row Keysplurge 05:52, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Disagree (Weak Keep or Merge). I think Folkspraak is a significant conlang (as far as conlangs go) and the article should be preserved.  The project is quite old and has many adherents, and is successful as an inter-German auxlang.  The Jade Knight 10:19, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Please define "successful". Where are the dictionaries of, grammars of, self-study guides for, and published works written in this language?  Where are this language's equivalents of ISBN 067174559X and ISBN 0939785013?  Indeed, where are the primary source materials in this language?  Where is this language's equivalent of this ? Uncle G 20:07, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
 * When it comes to conlangs, "success" is rarely determined by speakership or publications. Folkspraak is well-known among conlangers, and fairly well appreciated.  I can not argue against claims of "original research", as very little has been published (outside of vanity publication) on most conlangs, even well-known ones (such as Dr. Dirk Elzinga's "Tepa", which was considered one of the best 10 conlangs ever made at www.langmaker.com).  If you must delete most of the article for original research, that may be unavoidable, but I think Folkspraak is a significant enough conlang to warrant an entry in Wikipedia.  The Jade Knight 00:07, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * If that definition of "success" is unrelated to the existence of any secondary source or even primary source materials, then it isn't an appropriate benchmark to use in determining inclusion in an encyclopaedia which requires sources. If this language is "well appreciated", then some evidence of this appreciation needs to be provided.  If, for example, someone had written and published a formal paper documenting the failure of the inventors of this language to even agree on its grammar, then that would be evidence that could be provided.  Indeed, that would be a secondary source from which an encyclopaedia article could be constructed.  &#9786; Uncle G 01:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I think that's one of the real snags, and why I'm not more vocal about keeping the article—the project isn't yet completely unified, and is far from finished (thus the several "dialects"). It's just one of the bigger "projects".  However, I expect that if it were deleted it would resurface as a new article within several months.  I understand the reasoning behind the VfD.  I still think it'd be an article worth having around, but I do understand that I have little beyond my own experience and knowledge to support its notability.  The Jade Knight 08:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Limited google hits, when one excludes Wikipedia, it hasn't occured in dead tree format, it doesn't even have a standard form, and The Folkspraak Institute website only has ~6000 hits. --Ptcamn 11:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete since the article says it's in development, we have no idea whether it will ever become significant. Until then, it's substantially unverifiable. Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 18:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The article is about a language that is being invented by the participants in a Yahoo! Groups discussion forum. It has a web site that is empty (and that Google offers to translate from German).  One of the external links in the article is to another discussion forum thread that discusses the Wikipedia article.  Another is to another article on another wiki.  The GeoCities page contains a chrestomathy that contains 5 texts and a plea for more.  I apply the same rationale as at Articles for deletion/Interslurf.  The paucity of the chrestomathy indicates that no-one speaks or writes this made up language to any significant degree.  Indeed, the article and the externally linked web sites tell us that no two people have yet fully agreed on what this language is, even.  There are no printed dictionaries, grammars, Teach Yourself books, or other resources for it, and no printed works written in it.  There appear to be no secondary source materials for this language at all.  The article is unverifiable and original research. Delete. Uncle G 20:07, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Have you looked at the Yahoo! Group, and its contents? I fail to see how this is unverifiable or original research. The alleged indication "that no-one speaks or writes this made up language to any significant degree" surprises me, considering that variants of the language are used regularly for communication in the discussion group. The paucity of the chrestomathy merely indicates that the GeoCities page in particular is dead. Again, cf. the Yahoo! Group. EldKatt (Talk) 11:45, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Verifiability does not involve readers repeating primary research. If the only way for readers to verify the content of the article is for them to trawl through all of the messages in a discussion forum (which are not considered to be reliable sources, by the way) and piece together the history/grammar/vocabulary of the language from their contents, then the article is not verifiable. An encyclopaedia article synthesized from such messages is original research. Uncle G 11:58, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * On a sidenote, I think applying the recommendation against bulletin boards on WP:RS to this case is a bit rash, considering that we're discussing a project developed entirely in such a medium. If we were to apply the cited guideline blindly, we would prevent ourselves from having articles on any notable Usenet personalities or newsgroups, to make another example. Anyhow, nobody needs to rummage through messages to verify anything here. Proposed grammars and dictionaries are in the "Files" section, and no original research is necessary. I hope that we can dismiss the verifiability issue, and discuss notability instead, since that, I suspect, is really the important issue. EldKatt (Talk) 17:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Wrong. Notable Usenet personalities and newsgroups are documented independently of the raw postings in discussion fora.  Usenet newsgroups have FAQs on http://faqs.org./, for example.  And no, the verifiability issue has not gone away.  Notice the word "proposed" in "proposed grammars and dictionaries".  As I said before, no two people have yet fully agreed on what this language is, even. Uncle G 12:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Correct, the language is not unified, and all available grammars and dictionaries are proposals. How does this affect the verifiability of anything? I admit that my Usenet analogy was not satisfactory, but I am still of the opinion that the mentioned guideline does not warrant blind application to all subjects, and similarly that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. It's clear enough that we quite simply disagree here, so I neither wish nor intend to argue further. EldKatt (Talk) 15:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The Verifiability and No original research policies are not guidelines that can be ignored. They do apply to all subjects. Uncle G 20:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I was referring to the guideline relevant to the Usenet example, namely Reliable sources. Perhaps I should've made the separation between my two comments above clearer. EldKatt (Talk) 20:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak keep seems sufficiently notable. Though I don't understand why there are three separate versions for Folkspraak in the Lord's Prayer section. If that issue isn't explained, I might change my vote to delete because conlangs in construction aren't notable. --Revolución (talk) 01:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Ahem! From the article itself:  "The members of the Yahoo! group are working steadily toward a consensus, [...] There are currently disagreements about many rather basic areas of the language including orthography, grammar, and vocabulary."  What is your basis for considering this subject notable?  It doesn't even get as far as notability.  It isn't even verifiable.  Uncle G 01:18, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I had done a Google search and it had sufficient hits for me to consider it notable. Thanks for telling me that. I change my vote to Delete --Revolución (talk) 01:28, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Although I would not call Folkspraak a unified language, it's a very interesting language group, and it has a very active community. True, there is little consencus and chances are low that a final language will emerge soon. But the discussions, the common interest for some form of inter-Germanic, is very much alive. The article needs to be edited to reflect this. I would go as far as to not call Folkspraak a language but a community which is interested in IAL's and Germanic languages. FYI: I'm the admin of the www.tidingkonien.com website, but I have no stake in the development of the Folkspraak language itself. -- Evert Mouw 10:10, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment User's 1st edit. --Revolución (talk) 05:42, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
 * That's true. I was a bit amazed when I saw this, because actually there are grammers, dictionaries, and so on. They can be found in the files section of the yahoo group. But I agree about the lack of convergence. I really think teh Folkspraak poject is more a community with some common goals than a unified language. Evert Mouw 10:10, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. I do not consider lack of notability among a general audience a satisfactory criterion for deletion on its own. Among conlangs, I consider this notable enough. EldKatt (Talk) 11:45, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * As pointed out above, this article isn't verifiable. Notability isn't even an issue. Uncle G 11:58, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Although it's past closing time, I am, after some deliberation, changing my vote to a weak delete. Removing unverifiable material (the existence of which can't be denied, although I still don't think everything is) would leave a very small article on a subject of little notability. EldKatt (Talk) 20:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep qwm 20:21, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete as per Uncle G --Khoikhoi 19:28, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep (changed to Keep or Merge, below) - There are IALs focused on families of languages (Slovio on Slavic family, Lingua Franca Nova on Romance family) so why not Folkspraak as example of IAL focussing on the Germanic family. It is a big family: related to English and German language having milions of speakers. Yes, it is not finished. It is still in development, just like Esperanto, Interlingua, and all other IALs. -- ActiveSelective 11:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Deletion sets an example. Therefore, I would like to know if, and why or why not, Uncle G would like to judge and delete other IALs such as Slovio and Lingua Franca Nova on the same criteria (born/developed through the internet, mainly communities, not many speakers) -- ActiveSelective 12:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Those are your criteria. My criteria are verifiability and no original research, as plainly stated above.  Yes, articles that don't satisfy those criteria should be deleted.  See our Deletion policy.  Do those languages have dictionaries of, grammars of, self-study guides for, and published works written in them? Are there secondary source materials available for them from which an encyclopaedia article can be written?  Lingua Franca Nova states, and Slovio implies, that there are dictionaries available for the language.  (Neither article has references, however, I note.)  Folkspraak language states that there are no dictionaries available, because people haven't even agreed on a vocabulary.  ("There are currently disagreements about many rather basic areas of the language including orthography, grammar, and vocabulary.") Uncle G 12:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The existence of dictionaries, grammars, self-study guides and published works seems like a notability issue rather than a verifiability issue to me, as I've already implied above. I still don't quite get your point. EldKatt (Talk) 15:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * It's a verifiability issue when it comes to writing an article on a language. I pointed this out above.  An encyclopaedia article cannot be written if there are no sources to verify it against.  (An encyclopaedia is a tertiary source, remember.)  If there are no grammars for the language that have yet been agreed upon by people and published, an encyclopaedia article on the language cannot be written that gives a grammar for the language.  The same goes for vocabulary and so forth.  Uncle G 20:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * As was mooted on the FS Yahoo! group, perhaps an article on Germanic-based IALs in general would be more appropriate? It could explain the issues people have had when designing such languages and compare them to each other. With regards FS dictionaries etc. there ARE dictionaries for individual 'dialects', which are thus just as valid as any created for one-man-band auxlangs IMHO, but there is no unified dictionary as there is indeed no unfied FS language as yet.Xipirho
 * Hey, Xipirho. this is Wakuran_Wakaran. I wondered if you'd like to delete the section about Middelsprake. I don't think it's particularly interesting, and Ingmar has moved on to Folkspraak now anyway. I haven't registered yet, so I don't want to delete the section myself. About the discussion, I agree that there is no standard form yet, but I fail to see how that counts as "unverifiable", mostly the info in the article is generally true, albeit slightly outdated. I agree in Eldkatt's comment that the information is verifiable, and that if something, it's the notability that matters.81.232.72.53 17:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi. With regards that section I certainly think it should be shortened a bit or the rest made longer so that there's not more about MS than FS, which there's getting close to being at the moment! :-) I'd like to ask Ingmar first though. With regards verifiability versus notability I agree, as you can see. - Xipirho 17:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Alright... Another thought, since the language is more of an idea than a real language at the meantime, maybe the page could be moved to "Folkspraak Language Project" or something, since it is far from being a complete uniform language at the meantime... 81.232.72.53 20:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Our No original research and Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought official policies exclude "one-man-band" things, be they one-man-band religions, one-man-band philosophies, one-man-band scientific theories, one-man-band historical interpretations, or, indeed, one-man-band languages. Uncle G 14:11, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Quenya is a one-man-band language. It should be instantly clear that this criterion alone isn't very good. EldKatt (Talk) 15:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * False. Quenya is not a one-man-band language.  Quenya has been acknowledged by people other than that one man, and they have published grammars, dictionaries, teaching courses, and other works of their own.  See our article.  That is very different to Folkspraak.  Uncle G 19:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I assumed "one-man-band" referred to the fact that it was produced entirely by one man--a real one-man-band, in the sense of a guy with a guitar in his hands and a drum on his back, is still a one-man-band even if an audience is present. Your comments per se are of course valid. EldKatt (Talk) 20:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree to EldKatt -- Folkspraak is an umbrella term and as such not a one-man-thing. Also, I do see the general problem: that it is a running project in development, and as such does not have definite outcomes yet, nor independently published articles on it. It is a 'problem' that other conlangs also have. But the community itself, the plan behind it, the commonalities of intergermanic conlangs, and the relation to other family IALs, are interesting and hard enough to consider the Folkspraak project and the dialects existent, potential, notable, and for us to write about it. There is enough visible of it to see that it is not just a myth, nor that it will die a quick death. -- ActiveSelective 16:11, 4 January 2006 (UTC) (On the side, I do hope those Folspraakers will hurry the hell up with the finishing of their project)
 * How can we write about a language with no secondary source materials on that language to write from? Uncle G 19:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * LOL ActiveSelective. I do too, especially as I'm one of them! I was just reading through the deletion policy and I just think that the article probably best fits the "Such a minor branch of a subject that it doesn't deserve an article" catagory, thus leading to the action "Merge the useful content into a more comprehensive article and redirect.". I don't really care if it's deleted though I must say - I mean we really do need something a bit more definite for it to be considered anything like a real IAL. -Xipirho 17:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Neither elvish nor klingon are one-man-band languages. That's like saying Casino Royale is a one man band book because one person wrote it. They aren't self published and self promoted, they are both notable and verifiable. Despite this being well overdue for being closed, in accordance with policy I have to say delete Lotusduck 19:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep or Merge into general Germanic conlang article. At a glance it seems just as notable as Lingua Franca Nova, just not fully developed yet.  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 19:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. You really have to be a guideline fetishist if you want to delete this article. Caesarion 21:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * ...or guideline fascist, at least in the way they're interpreted... (Wakuran_Wakaran) 81.232.72.53 22:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep or Merge (was: keep) -- I move to keep and patch up, or merge into a more general Germanic conlang article. Uncle G does have some good arguments. No fetishism, or worse. There just is not much to go on. However, I do think there is enough not to delete this item completely -- ActiveSelective 04:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Merge. Having participated on and off in the Folkspraak project, I can assure you that it will never come to completion. What has happened once or twice is that interested individuals have creamed off research from the Yahoo archive and created their own versions. I'd vote for giving it a mention on a Germanic conlang page, alongside historical, verifiable projects like Teutonish.--Chris 11:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep, most definitely! Folkspraak is very well-known, it has its own (rather large) Yahoo! group, numerous people speak it, and it is interesting for several reasons (its design principles, the fact that it is a collaborative project with quite some people involved, the fact that it has several "dialects" instead of one standardised form, just to mention a few). Sure, it is never going to be the IAL to end all IALs, but then, neither is Ido, or Interlingua, or Novial... No, Folkspraak is definitely a significant language; just imagine, it even survived an AfD in the German wikipedia, which in general is not exactly tolerant towards constructed languages! Besides, it's easy to say "merge it into an article about Germanic conlangs", but the truth is that there is no such article yet, and I don't see it coming too soon. And even then, there's more than enough that can be said about Folkspraak to warrant an article on its own. &mdash;IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij  13:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep or Redirect to Folkspraak project or similar, or Merge into a currently non-existent article about Germanic conlangs or IALs. It's been around enough to be an influence on conlanging in general as seen in a search of the incomplete CONLANG list archives. DenisMoskowitz 16:54, 5 January 2006 (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.