Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Li Surname (郦)


 * 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   merge to Li (surname). Consensus is clear to Merge/redirect to Li (surname) (non-admin closure) ES  &#38;L  11:58, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Li Surname (郦)

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Non-notable stub written in poor English by a now-blocked user, whose creation of these articles was deemed disruptive editing. what little salvageable material there is can be incorporated at target Li (surname). this redirect has been discussed and there was some prior consensus at Talk:Li (surname). Not to mention that this falls foul of WP:USEENG. Rob Sinden (talk) 12:00, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose - User:Robsinden has been asked to take this and other Chinese family names he wishes to merge/delete to RfC. To use AfD is not going to work since AfD works on notability and this surname is evidently highly notable; so on what grounds is deletion being proposed? To delete via AfD someone will have to explain why Li Surname (郦) is not notable? "郦姓" i.e. "Li-xing, the family name Li" gets 196 Google Book hits, the fact that these hits are in Chinese is neither here no there since notability is not restricted to English sources, and without being inappropriate the threshold for WikiProject Anthroponymy surname stub notability on en.wp is not as high as 196x sources; In way of non-random proof of that assertion see "surname Sinden" which only gets 3x, please take that in good faith, it is not being personal but makes more sense than randomly picking an English surname since Sinden (surname) exists. If I picked any other surname it could be claimed to be cherry-picking, this at least isn't random. This is a stylistic issue (objection to a Chinese name in the title of a Chinese name article) and not driven by an AfD rationale. Hence this an inappropriate use (even misuse) of AfD. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:13, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Per this edit, it was your suggestion that this was taken to AfD!!! --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:29, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * And as far as my own surname goes, Sinden (surname) is just a List of people with the surname Sinden by another name - it's hardly notable outside of a list. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:32, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * That was my first off-the-cuff response in an edit summary restoring your blanking of the article before I saw the other articles blanked. My following edit summaries on reverting your blanking of the other articles were:
 * 12:05 Li Surname (莉) ‎ (Undid revision 579275163 by Robsinden same, requires RfC)
 * 12:05 Li Surname (理) ‎ (Undid revision 579275185 by Robsinden same)
 * 12:04 Li (surname meaning "chestnut") ‎ (Undid revision 579277000 by Robsinden you need to raise a RfC on this)
 * 12:03 Li (surname meaning "whetstone") ‎ (Undid revision 579277008 by Robsinden no consensus in July, and has been forgotten about is not a reason to delete)
 * 11:59 Liu (柳) ‎ (Undid revision 579275923 by Robsinden no consensus for this) (current)
 * 11:58 Li Surname (郦) ‎ (Undid revision 579441672 by Robsinden if you want to delete a Chinese family name please use AfD process)
 * As I said, you need to use RFC not AFD to make wholesale mergers/deletions of Chinese family name articles since AFD handles notability and notability is based on sources. You will find that almost all English family name articles are little more than lists, mainly because WikiProject Anthroponymy is poorly supported by the editing community as a whole - although it is partly that most English surnames simple aren't as notable in sources as the big Chinese ones in the "100 Names". That isn't a reason for wholesale mass deletion of English surname stubs. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:08, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * But, as we established in the previous discussion, these are stubs that are not independently notable outside of the "umbrella" article of Li (surname), that had recently (at the time anyway) been created by a blocked user whose actions in creating these and similar articles had been deemed disruptive editing. That's why I redirected - there was previous consensus as far as I'm concerned, and no-one had done anything since July.  Let's await the outcome of this discussion to decide once and for all.  --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:28, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * There's evidently a communication issue since you are repeating above in this paragraph things you have been told by several WP China editors and WP Anthroponymy editors are incorrect. In any case I see no need to rehash it here. This requires a high/wide discussion with all contributors to the China and Anthroponymy article corpus involved. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:41, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * There clearly is a communication issue. You advise me to AfD, then reprimand me for doing so.  Then you say that AfD is for notability, and when I point out that this is a notability issue that these recently created stubs do not meet, you do not listen.  There is nothing in my nomination that I "have been told by several WP China editors and WP Anthroponymy editors are incorrect".  I have no idea who these editors are anyway and why you assume that it is they that are "correct" and me "incorrect", seeing as consensus in the discussion those months ago was swaying away from your favour.  There is also no need for "high/wide discussion" to redirect these crappy little non-notable stubs.  These AfDs will sort it, and any editor interested enough can delve through the history of our disagreement and make their own minds up.  Now, let's leave it for other editors to have some input. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:48, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * See above wikt:off the cuff. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:43, 30 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Redirect the lot of these Li stubs to Li (surname). Were it not obvious that changes would be contested, I was tempted to do this boldly myself. There is already separate etymological information there, although it is badly in need of cleanup and sourcing (and, no, the sourcing of these stubs is by and large not suitable: I found Chinese Wikipedia and Baidu links). Whether there should be a list of notable Li individuals at the surname article is a matter of editorial discretion (although precedent from most surname articles would be to include that as a navigational/disambiguation aid). Regardless, AFD's remit is not restricted solely to discussions of notability and sources; the community is quite capable of resolving the issue here without the need for anything so grandiose as an RFC. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 14:05, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Previously, User:Blueboar made a good attempt to tidy up that article at User talk:Blueboar/drafts - Li (surname), but nothing came of it. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:12, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Unless I've overlooked something essential, I'd unilaterally support adoption of that draft in place of the current article. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 14:34, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * User:Squeamish Ossifrage - "although it is badly in need of cleanup and sourcing" - yes but that would have to be done by editors with an incentive to do so, I have to say I have no incentive to improve the articles if they are going to be continually messed about. In fact it's counterproductive to do so. If en.wp does not wish to host Chinese family name articles, why improve them? The content might be better on Wiktionary. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:41, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I hit an edit conflict to find that your comment to me changed entirely, so I'm not going to give as long a response this time. Yep, sometimes Wikipedia editing is frustrating. Is there an objection to replacing the parent article with the provided draft and redirecting the stubs to it? Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 14:56, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * User:Squeamish Ossifrage, hi, thanks. Sorry about the edit conflict. Yes, there is an objection to replacing the parent article with the provided draft and redirecting the stubs to it - these surnames are all individually notable and articles can easily be improved if disruption stops. However there's no objection to Blueboar making a Li (disambiguation) or indeed List of Li surnames - although such a list would be better done by an editor with article contributions in the subject area, I appreciate that Blueboar has contributed 10 freemasonry articles to en.wp, but that's very different from Chinese genealogy. The issue put simply is why a list, List of towns called Springfield precludes having standalone articles for Springfield, Massachusetts, Springfield, Missouri, Springfield, Illinois? How is this different from homonyms in Category:Chinese-language surnames? In ictu oculi (talk) 02:48, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, for one thing, the past editing history (or actual expertise, for that matter) is not a consideration for who can or should edit given articles at Wikipedia; that's simply the project's way. That said, I've spent a little while digging through our Manual of Style documents for some concrete guidance here. The Chinese-language MOS is not in a good way. Manual of Style/China-related articles seems to suggest that Chinese names should default to a romanized presentation (essentially Pinyin without tone marks), while Naming conventions (Chinese) suggests that Hanyu Pinyin with tone marks should be the default. Likewise, there doesn't seem to be any consensus about what degree of similarity is necessary for similar names to be "lumped" into a single article or "split" and disambiguated. While not addressing it from a Chinese perspective, WikiProject Anthroponymy considered the topic without any firm resolution, and as that WikiProject is only slightly better than moribund, I doubt consensus guidance will be forthcoming from that direction.  When in doubt, as this is the English language Wikipedia, we present information in whatever manner would be most useful to an English reader, and I still believe that is a unified article until there's enough individual content to spin sections out per WP:SUMMARYSTYLE and WP:SPINOUT. In the meantime, I think an interested editor should consider launching an RFC to resolve the conflict between the two Chinese-related MOS guidelines to determine whether tone marks are relegated to parenthetical notes or used as the preferred spelling (with the caution that this sort of thing has apparently been a contentious MOS topic in the past).  In any case, I don't think a perfect solution is capable of being sorted out at this AFD; the best we can hope for for now is to ensure the information is in a format most useful to our readership. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 17:06, 31 October 2013 (UTC)


 * keep Each Li-variant is likely independently notable; per WP:SUMMARYSTYLE, these can be spun out if necessary.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:07, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * And that's the key: "if necessary". I can't see the necessity. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:12, 30 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Li (surname)... feel free to use the format I created at my user draft page (linked above by Robsinden) if it would help. Blueboar (talk) 14:24, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * User:Blueboar, your strong support for RobSinden's view is noted, again, but if I am correct I recall you were asked by an editor in the previous discussion to explain why homonyms should be merged, and that is perhaps a discussion that can be had in a wider RfC.
 * But when we get to RFC you actually will need to present evidence that these surnames are in fact homonyms. Yes they have the coincidence of similarity in modern toneless North China pinyin. But are they the same surname in Cantonese or Korean? What is your evidence that these surnames are really homonyms? In ictu oculi (talk) 14:39, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I never said they were homonyms... I don't care whether they are homonyms or not... I simply think that merging all the various "Li (surname)" articles into one single article is the best way to inform our English speaking readers about the various names that are transcribed in English as "Li". It's about how to present the information to our readers... not whether to present the information. Blueboar (talk) 15:32, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Blueboar, you said you wanted to merge them because they were all spelled the same, all spelled the same is a wikt:homonym. I ask again the question about merging all Towns called Springfield, that is also a wikt:homonym. In fact that is a real homonym, since all the towns called Springfield really are all called by the same name. In the case of these Li names they aren't all Li in all variants of Chinese and Korean. These are different family names that just happen to coincide when tones are removed in modern North Chinese dialect. Do you think it is confusing to have separate articles on so many Springfield (disambiguation) towns? In ictu oculi (talk) 02:38, 31 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Merge - All these Li Surname pieces belong in a single article. Redirect to Li (surname) as the merge target. Alternatively, delete all as non-notable dictionary definition-type coverage. Carrite (talk) 15:03, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * User:Carrite - are they the same surname? (And yes I personally would prefer to just delete all and have an outright ban on Chinese surnames than have a ban on making decent articles) In ictu oculi (talk) 15:10, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * If this is your interpretation of a decent article, I'd hate to see a poor one. Why not have one really decent article, in which we can show to the uninitiated the difference between all the different surnames romanized as "Li", instead of 5 or 6 confusing shitty little ones?  --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:28, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Robsinden, if I may ask what exactly is your content contribution area to wikipedia?
 * No, this is not my interpretation of a decent article, this is my interpretation of an article editors are staying away from because of disruption. I recall that when I tried adding a Chinese source - with translation - to one of these name articles the article was blanked. Will you allow the articles to be improved?
 * Yes, we can show to the uninitiated the difference between all the different surnames romanized as "Li" in List of different Chinese surnames romanized as Li in modern toneless pinyin or Li (several surnames) or Li (disambiguation) or similar. But that would be a list article or a dab. Merging homonyms is as meaningless as an article on Towns called Springfield, what sort of an article is that? It is a list or a dab. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:33, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
 * You need to stop trying to discredit the editors, and concentrate on the content. There is no salvagable content on these "recently" created stubs by a blocked user that is not better served on the "umbrella" article.  If a breakout article is warranted, then we can look to split away (though if we do, we also need to follow proper naming conventions) .  Note that I did not nominate Li (surname meaning "plum") for deletion, as I think there is a valid argument for a standalone article there.  I judged these redirects (although deletion is preferable, as the redirects are not useful) to be uncontroversial based on previous discussions, and still stand by that.  --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:00, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

.....and now Rob Sinden is edit forcing his removal of content from the article admittedly it is not good content source, far from it, but it illustrates that better content and better articles exist on Baidu and Zh.wp. Again sources are not the point 192x Google Books sources exist on this surname, they could be added the article could be expanded, but what Chinese speaking/reading editor is going to bother for an article which will be List of surnames which are Li in toneless pinyin. And such a list article will have to have in text 10x separate interwiki links to zh.wp anyway - exactly what RobSinden has just deleted. Because it will be a list representing in English 10 different zh.wp articles. What is the point? Are we going to have editors who have never created, or even contributed to, any name or Germany article suddenly propose to merge 10 German surnames? In ictu oculi (talk) 15:22, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * You're clearly unreasonable, misrepresenting me like this. No content removed whatsoever, just the links to WP:CIRCULAR and WP:USERG references.  --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:25, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * See above, what I have actually written. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:33, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
 * What, "Rob Sinden is edit forcing his removal of content from the article"? You really know how to wind other editors up.  --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:52, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I would say the same to any editor who is reverted from removing interwiki and html links from an article he/she has AFDed, and then he/she forces through the removal anyway after being reverted. See WP:BRD. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:36, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 20:05, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 20:08, 30 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Content and sources added - I have added 2 mainstream state-owned print sources - one of them China Social Sciences Publishing House, the other China Meteorological Press - despite the name they publish science and linguistic books also - and removed speculative content which may be true, but without access to the library today cannot source it so cutting for the time being. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:42, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Despite these improvements, article is still little more than WP:DICDEF, and would still be better served by an "umbrella" article of Li (surname). --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:30, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
 * This editor said above "Note that I did not nominate Li (surname meaning "plum") for deletion, as I think there is a valid argument for a standalone article there." - yet the amount of information and sources is now about the same. What is the difference that makes Li/Yi/Lei/Rhee surname notable and Li/Lih/Lik not notable? In ictu oculi (talk) 05:09, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, my personal opinion is that it should be merged, but I recognise that it is a more controversial case, and that valid arguments could be made for its inclusion. However I deemed these stubs, based on previous discussions, non-controversial.  --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:11, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
 * And also if the editor proposes merging all Li/Lee/Lik/Yi etc into a List or dab, how does Li (surname meaning "plum") get included in that article? In ictu oculi (talk) 05:10, 1 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment - This should either be one umbrella article differentiating the various "Lis" or they should all be deleted as dictionary definitions. I'm indifferent as to which. What I do know is that this slug of little unencylopedic dictionary definitions need to go away. Carrite (talk) 02:28, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Carrite, to put your view into context, how many 1,000s of surname articles do you estimate are in Category:Surnames by language? And what percentage of them should "go away"? Can you point to e.g. a German, Czech or French, etc, surname article that is a well referenced by print sources as this Chinese family name article? In ictu oculi (talk) 05:03, 2 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep - notable surname with 3000 years of recorded history. -Zanhe (talk) 01:47, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep: Article is referenced, and demonstrates notability. Any assumption of non-notability is, in my eyes, systemic bias in action. There is no reason for a bunch of completely unrelated surnames to be bunched together. A article with limitations can be gradually improved; that's what Wikipedia is all about. The author being a "now-blocked user" is an irrelevant factor. -- benlisquare T•C•E 04:07, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Merge into Li (surname) or delete:
 * In their current state, the various Li surname articles (and Feng surname articles) are more dictionary entries than encyclopedia articles. Reading these articles I found myself wondering if Wikipedia should have any articles on surnames.  Fortunately I found Yuan (surname), which is a good example of a surname article that is actually an encyclopedia article.  Not that an article has to be FA quality to exist, but I really think that the various Li surname articles should be merged into Li (surname) until they are ready to stand alone.  They can be improved there and then spun out when they are ready.
 * It seems to be a point of pride for some editors that all the different Li surnames should have their own articles. I don't see how this makes the encyclopedia better.  Another reason for keeping different articles seems to be that the different Li surnames are in fact different surnames, so it rankles to group them together.  While it might not make much sense to group them together in Chinese (I assume), they all transliterate to the same word in English, so it does make sense to group them together in English.--Wikimedes (talk) 20:46, 8 November 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.