Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of masculine Latin nouns of the 1st declension


 * 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 delete.  Sandstein  13:48, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

List of masculine Latin nouns of the 1st declension

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Per WP:NOT. This probably belongs at some sister project (as I already raised on the talk page in 2009...), but which one? I don't know if Wiktionary hosts such lists. But Wikipedia is not the place for such grammatical lists. Fram (talk) 07:55, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. Fram (talk) 07:55, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Fram (talk) 07:55, 12 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 08:31, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOTDICTIONARY. Ajf773 (talk) 08:40, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment Wiktionary list the information for each word, and has categories that can group these things together if it is a valid grouping.  D r e a m Focus  10:56, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete or transwiki. I wouldn't want to go after subject-specific glossaries, but this seems a pretty clear case of WP:NOTDICT. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:31, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Wikipedia is not a dictionary.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:41, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose deletion as unsupported by any of the policies cited. Some of these arguments clearly put the cart before the horse: "I don't know if this can go in Wiktionary—delete it because it should".  Well, it doesn't appear that Wiktionary hosts articles about elements of grammar.  That's what Wikipedia is for.  The encyclopedic part of this article is relatively short, but it doesn't become an "invalid" article either because it's short or because it has a list of things—in this case words—appended to it.  "NOTADICTIONARY" would apply if this were the definition of a word.  It's not.  It's a description of a class of words in Latin that goes on to list some of them, and explains their significance.  But even the list portion clearly isn't a collection of dictionary definitions; a short description of each word is not a definition.  if you visit Wiktionary and look for these words, in some cases you might not find an entry at all, particularly for the proper nouns.  In other cases you'll get much more information than is contained here.  But what you won't get is an explanation of the phenomenon—that can only exist on Wikipedia.  For comparison, a list like this will appear in some Latin grammars—but not in Latin dictionaries.
 * The editors seem to have been confused by the fact that the list consists of words used as words, and perhaps by the length; yet we have perfectly acceptable articles listing words because of their grammatical relationship or significance. For instance, the List of English prepositions easily withstood a challenge based on "NOTADICTIONARY", even though it consists primarily of a list of words.  The non-definition explanations provided are roughly equivalent to the lead in this article; and while I note that the list in question doesn't explain the significance of individual words, in the case of prepositions it would be rather hard to do so without giving dictionary definitions.  A list of nouns is somewhat easier to explain with brief descriptions, without any of them necessarily constituting dictionary definitions.  Dictionary definitions will generally be much longer and more detailed than any of the explanations provided here, but most dictionaries don't contain exhaustive lists of the proper nouns of persons who might have biographical entries in an encyclopedia, or taxonomic classifications.
 * The other policy cited, "NOTINDISCRIMINATE", is rarely invoked for what it's actually for: random, irrelevant, unencyclopedic information. The policy cites four examples, none of which is remotely connected with this article:
 * Summary-only descriptions of works. Summaries are fine, however, in the context of articles that treat a work in a more general way.
 * Lyrics databases. Excessive quotations from works that don't explain their significance and potentially violate copyright; the full text of lengthy sources.  Clearly not the case here, where nothing is being quoted and there is no copyright; the significance of the topic is explained at the beginning, and the examples provided illustrate the topic.
 * Excessive listing of unexplained statistics. This article consists of explanation, without really containing any statistics at all.
 * Exhaustive logs of software updates. Software updates can be perfectly encyclopedic, but should be described in third-party sources, and trimmed to a reasonable length.  Since this topic doesn't concern software, or any kind of log, this clearly isn't concerned with this article.
 * The present article simply doesn't come within the purview of "NOTINDISCRIMINATE"; this policy seems to be invoked primarily when people think that a topic is unimportant, rather than when it fits any of the criteria listed. However, notability is not really an issue here.  The relevant policy states: "One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a stand-alone list. The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been."  Any Latin grammar—and there are several notable ones—will describe the existence of first-declension masculine nouns as an exception to the general rule that first-declension nouns are usually feminine, and typically some examples will be provided (typically "agricola, nauta, pirata").  The topic of this article clearly meets the criteria for notability, although it might benefit from more citations.  The fact that the list of examples is much longer than that found in Latin grammars doesn't affect its notability.
 * Now, it's possible that the list would benefit from some trimming, because although Wiktionary can't discuss the topic of first-declension masculine nouns, it does contain a corresponding category which appears to be much larger than the one here. But this list is apparently not exhaustive; it contains a selection, for which the significance of entries is provided in one place.  The benefit for readers that cannot be obtained from a Wiktionary category is not insignificant.  For instance, I would not have realized that there are several rivers and watercourses that are masculine although they belong to the first declension (most river names in Latin are second declension and obviously masculine; there are only a handful of feminine rivers, to the best of my knowledge).  So it seems to me that this article might benefit from an examination of what is useful to readers, and perhaps a more thorough explanation with more citations.  But there's nothing inherently wrong with the concept or the structure; none of the policies cited justify deletion.  P Aculeius (talk) 13:26, 13 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep A lot of articles like this exist. Arabic nouns and adjectives Gender_in_Dutch_grammar Latin declension etc.  Seems encyclopedic, and isn't found anywhere else.  This is not a dictionary, not one article for each word that exist with a short definition only, but something else.  Wikipedia is for educational content also, not just popular culture.  The Wikiprojects for Latin and for Language have this AFD on their list, so hopefully they'll participate.   D r e a m Focus  16:21, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
 * None of the three examples you give are comparable to this list though: those three are explanations of aspects of a language (and a much larger aspect than the one described here), not lists of all words and nouns matching said aspect. There are whole books (well, libraries probably) about "Arabic nouns and adjectives", separate from books of "Arabic nouns and adjectives" (which are, er, dictionaries). Here, we have lists of masculine Latin nouns of the 1st declension, but where are the books, texts, ... about the subject? A list of words which share a common grammatical characteristic is not the same as an article about such a characteristic. By the way, Wiktionary has this, so the information is already there. Fram (talk) 16:43, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
 * As I said above, Latin grammars routinely discuss this particular phenomenon. There doesn't need to be a book about it; just reliable, independent sources—and it doesn't matter whether they've already been cited: the question is whether sources exist, not whether they've been cited.  And the Wiktionary category provides a perfect example of why this topic can not be adequately addressed in Wiktionary.  Wiktionary doesn't allow for extended discussion, or really any discussion of topics such as the usual characteristics of first declension Latin nouns, or why most are feminine and certain ones masculine.  The category seems to contain many more examples than this article does; the article contains a selection which can be pruned or improved as needed; Wiktionary doesn't allow for that.  And of course in the category you don't know the significance of any of the items in the list without visiting the corresponding entries; in Wikipedia it's possible to explain their significance briefly and without the length or complexity of a dictionary definition, all in one place.  So in fact, comparing this article with what Wiktionary provides seems to make abundantly clear why this article should be kept.  P Aculeius (talk) 23:50, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree, the list is far better than a category.  D r e a m Focus  12:02, 14 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete This is a weird one, but broadly speaking lists of words don't belong on Wikipedia, especially not ones this oddly specific. If there were several articles about these words, this page could serve as a list of them, but as is it is just a weirdly specific dictionary. BSMRD (talk) 18:33, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOTDICTIONARY; it's also a dictionary that somebody stopped working on by the letter H. User:力 (power~enwiki, π,  ν ) 18:43, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * This is covered at wikt:Category:Latin masculine nouns in the first declension. I don't know if xwiki links to categories are permitted by policy, and I'm not sure why we would need one here, but it is technically an option. User:力 (power~enwiki,  π,  ν ) 18:45, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Wikipedia is neither a dictionary nor an indiscriminate collection of information. Rubbish computer (Talk: Contribs) 20:25, 18 July 2021 (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.