Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kodhiyar (2nd nomination)


 * 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   keep. Kodhiyar, and Delete Samari. Shimeru (talk) 08:20, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Kodhiyar
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Unverifiable place, arguably notable (as a village) but there's no any references to prove it is indeed a village.

I am also nominating the following related pages because of the same reason:

Maashatra11 (talk) 11:30, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions.  —WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:41, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Question: When you say "there's no any references", do you mean "As far as I can tell, no reliable source has ever written about this place (in any language, in any form of media [including publications that are not available through your Favorite Web Search Engine], in any place in the world)", or do you mean "No Wikipedia editor has yet taken the time to cite specific sources in this article"?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:26, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Is there a possibility to answer "yes" to both? I can't see how they may contradict each other. However, I'm not sure about the first one, I take into account the possibility that a reliable source about those places might exist, though I'm doubtful. Cheers, --Maashatra11 (talk) 21:44, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment. If this is to be deleted, it should only be because it fails WP:Verifiablity. Abductive  (reasoning) 22:28, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with you; IMHO I don't see the point in leaving any article unsourced (and thus, unverifiable) and with a state like the current state of these articles. Basically they have no content (except for the district they belong to). If someone can find sources, then so be it, I agree that it's a good pretext. But for the article to stay a long time with nobody adding a reference means it cannot be verified now. For me it's a typical case of original research that has no place in an encyclopedia. Cheers, --Maashatra11
 * Do you understand the difference between something that is verifiable (the policy) and something that is already verified (not the policy)? If suitable sources exist (any language, online or offline, anywhere in the world), then we should keep the article, even if nobody has (yet) bothered to name the sources in the article.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:41, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Phil Bridger has already put considerable effort into digging and looking for suitable sources, and he actually found several for other villages in the same district. The fact that Kodhiyar and Samari haven't been found on the Panchayat Directory site indicates that they don't exist, until someone proves me wrong. I hope you get the point. And also, check this page: Articles for deletion/Common outcomes : "Cities and villages are generally kept, regardless of size, as long as their existence is verified through a reliable source " -It says "verified", not "verifiable". --Maashatra11 (talk) 00:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * OUTCOMES is generally badly written, partly outdated, and often hotly disputed. I recommend against reading too much into its word choice.
 * The fact that an editor has made a considerable effort without finding anything, however, is important. Could there be alternate spellings?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:13, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I extracted for you a report of the census villages in the Sitamarhi district. (see link) Nothing seems to be cognate with "Kodhiyar" and "Samari". There are many other reports in the Panchayat directory site so maybe you'll be able to find something that I didn't, though I already made a fairly thorough search.--Maashatra11 (talk) 14:07, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I cannot find either in this list of about 46,000 villages. Abductive  (reasoning) 20:40, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, it does not appear in this hand-drawn map. Or any of the other maps on http://sitamarhi.bih.nic.in/. Abductive  (reasoning) 20:48, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I actually found listings of "Khodiyar" (not "Kodhiyar" as the page title suggests) and "Samari" in your 46,000-villages list, the only problem is, those villages just aren't situated in the Sitamarhi district. Maybe we should start articles for them as well ? :-) --Maashatra11 (talk) 22:16, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Absolutely, if one has the correct name of the village, its latitude and longitude, and how many people live there. Abductive  (reasoning) 23:02, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * In the first nomination, there was no need for such information about the villages' articles in order to keep them. The policy says once there's sources, it becomes "inherently notable".--Maashatra11 (talk) 23:38, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Sure, reliable sources. Q. What defines a populated place? A. Placement and population. An article without a location or a source for the population is useless for the gazetteer function. Abductive  (reasoning) 01:02, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep The National Panchayat Directory (via Google cache) indicates that Kodhiyar exists. This page provides census statistics for Samari, which indicate that Samari also exists. Both places are therefore verifiable, and given the consensus on keeping verifiable settlements, should be kept. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 01:39, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That Kodhiyar is in Uttar Pradesh. The Kodhiyar being discussed here is alleged to be in Bihar. The coordinates given for Samari show it to be in Chhattisgarh. The Samari being discussed here is alleged to be in Bihar. Abductive  (reasoning) 05:16, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Upon further searching, and based on the sources listed above, there don't appear to be any references for communities with this name in Sitamarhi District of Bihar. It could be a case where the original author got the district name wrong, but without any sources to verify their existence, the two articles should be Deleted. Articles about the other communities by these names can be written since we now have sources for them, but that isn't relevant to the two communities at hand. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 18:03, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Since there now appears to be a source for it, I will change my !vote again to keep for Kodhiyar. My !vote stays as delete for Samari until someone finds a source for it. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 17:39, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you of the opinion that all the villages in the map of the Sitamarhi district deserve their own article? As you can see, their existence is proven. Maashatra11 (talk) 23:51, 22 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment. An editor has added a reference for Kodhiyar from the Sitamarhi district website. It is a pdf file in the Hindi language, so I couldn't verify it (I cannot read Hindi). I tried to convert it into a .doc file and inserting it to some transliteration software, but in vain (the .pdf Hindi fonts format isn't compatible with Word). I have no idea how that source my be taken into account, but I guess that for Hindi speakers it's reliable. --Maashatra11 (talk) 00:04, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You don't have to use transliteration to find the word Kodhiyar in that pdf file as it is written in English; just do a 'word search', you will find it. Salih  ( talk ) 06:09, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know which "word" to look for. Can you write down Kodhiyar in Hindi (preferrably also in the article so other users can do a word search as well). --Maashatra11 (talk) 11:12, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The word "Kodhiyar" is written in ENGLISH. Please see page #67 of the pdf document. Salih  ( talk ) 13:34, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, my mistake, but I still don't understand the context.Maashatra11 (talk) 15:06, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The pdf file is a document released by "Sitamarhi District Administration", and is connected to village-wise BPL Family List. It clearly shows that Kodhiyar is a village in Sitamarhi District. Salih  ( talk ) 16:58, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm prone to believe you, but the problem is that for non-Hindi readers (like myself) it's unreadable and thus unverifiable. I agree that it should be considered a source nevertheless. Maashatra11 (talk) 19:05, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:NONENG. Salih  ( talk ) 19:10, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * From there: "..the original and its translation should be provided if requested by other editors". I see that in the 3 instances that Kodhiyar appears, it is shown below "Akhta North", making me think that maybe it is a neighborhood of Akhta North. On the other hand, "Kodhiya Rai" appears many more times (a big village?). Furthermore in the Sitamarhi district article "Kodhiya" is in the list of villages.  Can I request you to translate the Hindi portion in the pdf file  denoting that "Kodhiyar" is a village and not a neighborhood? I hope it's not too much to ask.  -Maashatra11 (talk) 19:21, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Sure. In page 67, the Hindi word that appears on the left side of "Kodhiyar" could be transliterated as "Gram". It is the Hindi word for village. Salih  ( talk ) 19:53, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Akhta North is a sub-sub-?-district? drawn on this hand-drawn map (west is up on the map) I linked to above. Inside Akhta North appears "Kothiar" which could be Kodhiyar except it appear on the wrong side of the river from the article's description and the tag on Wikimapia (also by Arun Kumar Singh, the article's creator). Searching by Kothiar Sitamarhi reveals a lot more sourcing. Abductive  (reasoning) 20:51, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * This is all very confusing. Is it Kodhiyar, Kodhiya Rai, Kothiar, Kodhiya or maybe even Khodiyar? If you count the actual number of villages in the Sitamarhi district, you could reach thousands. But less than a percent of them is written down in Wikipedia. That ultimately gives undue weight and bias to villages' articles that were created by a single resident, and which would have never been expanded further anyway.--Maashatra11 (talk) 21:55, 22 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Please check this : map including virtually all the villages in the Sitamarhi district. Does each of them deserve its own article? Feels like a 5000-piece puzzle. According to sources mentioned above, Kothiar is apparently a variation of "Kodhiyar". Maashatra11 (talk) 22:52, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see why "there's a lot of them" is a good reason for not having articles on verifiable villages. There's 36,000 communes in France and we have articles on all of them. There's tons of small, unincorporated communities in the United States and they are almost always considered notable. There's no reason why Indian villages should be an exception to our general policy on settlements, even if there's a lot of them. (On a different note, are any of the villages on that map variant spellings of Samari?) TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 00:37, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I haven't yet searched for Samari in this map, and also don't want to, because I already have an headache. I checked the Panchayat directory site, and found that indeed there is a village called "Kothiar" in Admin Block "Suppi" in Gram Panchayat "AKHTA UTTAR", just like expected (I suppose Uttar means "North"?). In reports there seems to be 871 villages in total in the Sitamhari district and as for now, only 5 have an article in the Wiki. For some odd reason, none of those 871 villages bear the name "Samari" or a variant spelling. What I don't understand is, how articles like that are being constantly kept. As said before by User:Abductive : An article without a location (its latitude and longitude) or a source for the population is useless for the gazetteer function. Taking your example, ALL of the 36,000 French communes include sourced coordinates, and often other information. I don't like the idea of millions of articles containing "X is a village in Y district, enough said." Maashatra11 (talk) 00:50, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The thing that's really bugging me is that there is no sign of Dheng in the Sitamarhi websites, but it appears twice in Google maps.
 * Dheng appears in this link(the one supplied by Salih for Kodhiyar), under district "Maniyari". Maniyari district and its villages are listed in the Panchayat directory but with no mention of "Dheng". After some searching I have been informed that Dheng is quite a small village,  having a P.O., a railway and a bridge, and serves mainly  as a connection between "Sitamarhi-Bairgania road link". The other notable feature of this village is "the north-most village of India on the border with Nepal", but it's unverified. --Maashatra11 (talk) 12:21, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * If the existence of a village is verifiable, its location and thus its coordinates should eventually be verifiable. Unless it's a ghost town, it's somewhat ridiculous to say that a village can be proven to exist, but its exact location is unknown. We already have a map showing the location of the village, so the coordinates should be out there. As for the population estimates, these are hard to find for a lot of communities because their existence and availability depends entirely on how certain countries conduct their censuses. Even in the United States most unincorporated communities aren't counted separately in the census, but those are still considered notable. Poorer countries and countries that don't speak English are less likely to post census figures in English online as well, making census figures incredibly hard to find even if they're out there. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 03:08, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You say that coords SHOULD be verifiable, but in practice almost none of the Indian small villages with articles in Wikipedia have them. I suggest to make a request to Wikiproject India to add basic verifiable information about all unsourced Indian locations. Maashatra11 (talk) 12:29, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That's a valid request if you want to make it, but it doesn't mean we should be deleting verifiable places just because they have no coordinates yet; Wikipedia is a work in progress, after all. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 18:42, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I say we should delete any location article that doesn't give coordinates or at least describe the location. This is part of WP:V, a policy that overrides that essay. Abductive  (reasoning) 22:02, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * What prevents you from voting here, then ? :-) --Maashatra11 (talk) 22:05, 23 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete Samari, India as completely unverified despite the best efforts of many editors. Failing WP:V should always result in delete, as it is the most basic principle governing content on Wikipedia. The other I am unsure about, but am leaning delete. Abductive  (reasoning) 11:48, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Kodihiyar: As its existence has been verified.  I also added another cite to the article from Indian census materials that confirms that Kothiar is located in the Suppi subdistrict.--Milowent (talk) 16:23, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
 * What is your opinion about Samari, India? I also nominated it for deletion Maashatra11 (talk) 16:52, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete Samari: I can't find it.  Based on first version of that article, I would expect this village to be in the Bokhra subdistrict, but I can't find it.  There is a "Siari" but no way to tell if its the same place, not that there is any content to lose at this point.--Milowent (talk) 17:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: Looking at this map (which seems to have been tagged by the creator of the Wikipedia article), Samari could be a misspelling of Simari (a village in the Dumra block shown in the map). Anglicization of Hindi words is somewhat complex in nature, and (assuming good faith) it is possible that the creator of the article felt that the spelling "Samari" is more reflective of the pronunciation of the village's name in Hindi. Such examples are quite common - for example, Jhumri Tilaiya is often anglicized as Jhumri Taliya or Jhumri Teliya. There's another village called Simari in the Riga block (but this seems to be inconsistent with the location shown in the map). A very remote possibility is that Samari could be a local short name for the Samarmahisautha village. In any case, it's just a one line article - it can be recreated easily with the proper spelling. utcursch | talk 09:25, 26 May 2010 (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.