Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/La Lanterne


 * 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. per WP:HEY (non-admin closure) -- Trevj (talk) 05:59, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

La Lanterne

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Essentially a copy of the Nuttall Encyclopaedia ("Lanterne, La, a stout lamp-iron at the corner of a street in Paris, used by the mob for extemporised executions during the Revolution by Lynch law."), as far as I can tell, it is meaningless. "Lanterne just means "lantern" in French. Sure they were used for lynchings during the French Revolution, but an article about that should be called use of street lanterns for lynching during the French Revolution, and I really doubt we have enough material to make an article anyway.

As I think it is fairly obvious that the current article should not be kept, I was tempted to change its meaning to that fr:La Lanterne or fr:La Lanterne (journal). But those are completely different topics, so deleting the article and create new ones afterwards is a cleaner solution. Superzoulou (talk) 11:46, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of France-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:02, 5 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  D u s t i *poke* 03:17, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

 *Delete unless anyone can come up with modern reliable sources. Firstly, old encyclopedias are not an adequate source for Wikipedia, except in special circumstances. We simply do not know where the writers of individual entries got their information or how well they knew their topic, and modern research has often disproved what they say. Secondly, there is no hint of this usage at the French Wikipedia, which throws doubt on the notability of this usage if it ever existed (I suspect that the writer of the Nuttall entry had been reading too many novels). --AJHingston (talk) 09:27, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * So ... we should refuse old encyclopedias as a source and instead of it we should rely on the information of an incomplete crowd-sourced project? --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 15:16, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * In general, yes. Old encyclopedias are useful to establish notability of a topic, and occasionally have a particular value as a source when they are covering events contemporary with the topic covered there, but as a sole source they are suspect for the reasons I explained. On virtually every topic there will be more recent and better sources. For subjects most likely to be covered in another language version of Wikipedia, it is usual and useful to refer to these both because they are likely to cite other and better sources and because they can give a useful indication of notability. --AJHingston (talk) 17:19, 12 July 2013 (UTC)


 * delete As far as I can tell this really is nothing more than an explanation of one phrase in one version of one song. It's hardly necessary to have an article one what any connoisseur of lynching already knows, and I hardly think that even Nuttall meant one particular lamppost. Mangoe (talk) 12:57, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep and maybe rename to "A la lanterne!" (To the lamppost!). Please, read the article about this social phenomenon in the Encyclopedia of the Age of Political Revolutions and New Ideologies, 1760-1815, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007, ISBN 9780313049514, pp. 388-389, check the sources listed at the end of the entry or other references at G-books  . The topic is definitely notable and encyclopedic. It is also very interesting and scary. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 14:37, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * For those who need the topic to be covered on fr:wiki to prove notability, see Lanterne_(éclairage)#À la lanterne. Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 16:47, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The French examples show the opposite, given as how the passages in question are not articles in themselves. We don't need articles on every French expression, and especially not on ones which have no currency in English. A sentence in an appropriate article might suffice. Mangoe (talk) 16:54, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I've expanded the article. It isn't perfect but I believe it is better and more informative than before. Please, check. Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 08:52, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
 * So it turns out that we have enough sources for a short article, thanks. The current version is ok for me, as long as you consider that the article refers to a historical phenomenon, not an expression. For this reason, I would oppose renaming it "à la lanterne". As the current title is is misleading and grammatically weird, I really think it should be renamed to lantern lynching during the French Revolution or something meaning that. Superzoulou (talk) 17:44, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think renaming the article to À la lanterne would be problematic. Everything in the article revolves around the slogan, it is an expression with specific historical meaning. The article refers both to the historical phenomenon and to the expression and context should be crystal clear to anyone reading it. Lantern lynching during the French Revolution seems to me not wrong, but rather slavishly literal. We can discuss it on a broader basis via WP:RM if the article will be kept. Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 06:21, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
 * À la lanterne is certainly very different from the original title, and it is very helpful that you have managed to track it down in this way. There is a comparable expression in English hanging/hung/hanged from a lamp post both literally to describe mob justice or to display the penalties for disobedience to authority, and metaphorically (see this Indian example). The first question is whether that should be the subject of an article (and not confined to US lynchings even if that were the numerically most common example). The second is whether the French example à la lanterne is sufficiently distinctive to have its own article, and whether it is normally used in French even in English speaking countries. My feeling on the second is no. As to the first, I suspect that lamp posts, and Parisien street lanterns, were used because they were most convenient, at least in the past where they were shorter and often had a cross piece for the purpose, but any tree or other street furniture would serve. But I might be persuaded otherwise, because the lamp post did take hold in the popular imagination in this context - probably the most famous example is Benito Mussolini, commonly said to have been hung from a lamp post even though the contemporary photograph shows that it was a different structure. --AJHingston (talk) 11:12, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The slogan À la lanterne is—in my opinion—sufficiently distinctive to have its own article, I've tried to demonstrate it in the article. Read WP:GNG: If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article. WP:GNG is definitely met in this case, take a look at the article. During my work, I focused on describing the phenomenon solely in the context of the French Revolution. It could stay as it is or it can be developed from broader perspective and renamed respectively. The slogan À la lanterne doesn't need to be translated into English in the title, the topic (as it stands now) is purely French and it is irrelevant whether it is used in French in English speaking countries. Years ago, when I wrote the article Mánička, I decided to name it in Czech, as it is notable and known solely in the context of Czech Republic. This is similar example, the article doesn't need to be named in English because the topic/phenomenon is not English. Also, all the English books I cite refer to the French À la lanterne. As for the reason for using street lanterns, you can find an interesting explanation/opinion here (pp. 100-103). The author claims that the reason was partly symbolic, as the street lamps represented the ancien régime. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 10:42, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep I still feel that it is a manifestation of a wider phenomenon. As it stands, though, the article deals with the French revolutionary use, and I agree that you have found sources to establish notability. I am happy to change my vote. Renaming to À la lanterne is better, as I think you agree, and others may wish to write or suggest an article on the wider topic with which it might arguably be merged, but those are editing matters irrelevant to deletion. It is very different from the original article and I admire your efforts to improve it. --AJHingston (talk) 11:12, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I have changed the title. I am ok with keeping the article now, but I would agree that it can either widened or merged in a wider article. I would say that the interesting topic is lynching during the French revolution. The use of lantern seems rather anecdotal - presumably, it was just the most handy tool at their disposal. Sure it so happened that "à la lanterne" became an idiomatic expression, but that does not mean that things would have be really different if they had used another thing than a lantern. --Superzoulou (talk) 19:31, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Comment La Lanterne is a disambiguation page, but this discussion seems to be about A la lanterne. Should the deletion tag be removed from La Lanterne? Boleyn (talk) 14:25, 18 July 2013 (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.