Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of rulers of the Mossi state of Gwiriko


 * 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 no consensus. Bordering on consensus to keep. This indicates that we probably won't delete these lists outright merely just because they contain redlinks, but that editorial cleanup efforts such as unlinking red links, merging, referencing, etc. may continue subject to editorial consensus. Individual lists that are deemed unverifiable can still be renominated.  Sandstein  07:56, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

List of rulers of the Mossi state of Gwiriko ‎
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

See here. Enigmamsg 20:16, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

I am also nominating the following related pages because they are also lists of red-linked articles:


















 * Enigmamsg 20:19, 7 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep all. And for that matter, I'm not at all convinced that Articles for deletion/List of rulers of the Gurma Mossi state of Pama was correctly decided, despite the unanimous comments for deletion. The sole argument here has been that lists consisting exclusively of redlinks are eligible for deletion. I'm not sure that's the case. WP:CSC states that one of the criteria for inclusion for a stand-alone list is: "Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own non-redirect article in the English Wikipedia. Red-linked entries are acceptable if the entry is verifiably a member of the listed group, and it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the future." Rulers of recognized regions unquestionably meet the notability criteria, and these king lists are verifiable; they might have somewhat poor sourcing at the moment, but there are entire books on the topic of African rulers. So then we're faced with the question of whether the lack of articles in this topic requires the list deletion. The same guideline document has something to say there, too: "'Creation guide' lists—lists devoted to a large number of redlinked (unwritten) articles, for the purpose of keeping track of which articles still need to be written—don't belong in the main namespace." (emphasis mine). That's transparently not the purpose of these lists, and that's the only place in the list guidelines where I can see "everything is red" as a cause for deletion. Rather, these lists comprise redlinks nearly exclusively due to systemic bias. If all of the kings in List of rulers of Wales were redlinks, it would not stop that from being a valid article. Now, there's something to be said for handling these differently. Perhaps including the individual states as sections in a list of rulers of the Mossi people, for example, but that's an editorial determination, not a cause for deletion. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 22:45, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * "Correctly deleted" means on Wikipedia whether procedure was followed, not whether you personally want it deleted or kept. Enigmamsg 00:24, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Not correctly argued then, if you'd prefer. The policy-based arguments at that AFD were "per WP:LISTN", but the policy on stand-alone lists doesn't set any requirement at all that entries must be blue-linked (and is very different from the policy on disambiguation pages in that regard). That aside, the "everything is a redlink" argument doesn't stand here across this full set of articles. Wobogo, Naaba Koom II, and Rawa (Mossi) are bluelinks (from the Wogodogo and Yatenga lists); the former has considerable content. Naaba Baongo II was at one point a (very bare!) stub, redirected to Wogodogo Monarchy, which—if this article set is retained—should be merged into List of rulers of the Mossi state of Wogodogo (and includes further content and references). Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 00:54, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions.  MT Train Talk 03:04, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Africa-related deletion discussions.  MT Train Talk 03:04, 8 May 2018 (UTC)


 *  Strong keep  - I agree with Squeamish Ossifrage, both on these articles and on List of rulers of the Gurma Mossi state of Pama. Enigma, would you consider at least draftifying that now deleted article if I (we?) promised to fill in some redlinks before restoring it to article space? Smmurphy(Talk) 03:27, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * No objection. Where would you like it moved? <b style="color: blue;">Enigma</b><i style="color: #FFA500;">msg</i> 03:35, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * How about, Draft:List of rulers of the Gurma Mossi state of Pama. Smmurphy(Talk) 04:47, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm striking my vote for now. I'm trying to figure out what, for instance, is the "state of Piela". Some of these entities may be provinces or regions in Burkino Faso and some may have been states in the Mossi Kingdom, but it isn't clear to me that all of them are. I'll try to look at it more closely tomorrow. In the meantime, feel free to draftify the Pama list; Pama was for sure a significant Chiefdom in the eighteenth century and while I haven't looked into who its leaders were, such information may be source-able with some effort. Smmurphy(Talk) 05:01, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * ✅ By the way, I tried to read up on these regions on my own. Interesting note is that I didn't see them mentioned in Burkina Faso. <b style="color: blue;">Enigma</b><i style="color: #FFA500;">msg</i> 05:08, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Our coverage of this entire topic area is beyond terrible. Burkina Faso needs some work at summary style for the information spun off to History of Burkina Faso; the only link to Mossi Kingdoms is in an image caption! Not that the Mossi Kingdoms article is in great shape, but it's something. These lists under discussion now are the lists of rulers of the various Mossi Kingdoms. Wogodogo, Tenkodo, and Yatenga were the most politically important and best-studied. With a little work, I think I can write sourced stubs for a good bit of their king lists. Most of the rest of the lists are the ones currently titled "Gurma Mossi state". The Gurma people are related to the Mossi, but technically separate. Sources tend to bundle these Gurma-majority kingdoms with the Mossi ones during the Mossi Kingdoms period. All these were sovereign, but showed various measures of deference to Wogodogo. As far as the Gurma kingdoms go, Nunga (=Nuga, =Fada N'Gourma) is by far the best studied and documented. A lot of sources just concede that there were [some number] of other kingdoms, but either give them no coverage or a cursory naming. I'm less confident in the ability to write valid articles for their kings. A special mention goes to the last one of of these, List of rulers of the Mossi state of Liptako. That's actually a list of the rulers of Liptako, a Gurma-majority kingdom that overlaps modern-day Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali, and which appears to be considered distinct from the Mossi Kingdoms by most scholars. There's a lot written about Liptako, and I can (and will, hopefully today) clean that list up and source it appropriately. That said, it'll need a title change at some point. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 13:47, 8 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete all, following the outcome of Articles for deletion/List of rulers of the Gurma Mossi state of Pama, it is established that these lists most likely fail WP:LISTN given that most of the names are non-notable and exist as just duplicates of lists found elsewhere online. Ajf773 (talk) 07:59, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Ajf773 (talk) 07:59, 8 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment - so for the satisfaction of notability under these articles, under WP:LISTN, we need either grouping discussion or at least most of those mentioned within to have independent notability. I don't have many access rights when it comes to either JSTOR or google books, but if anyone does, at least a quick glance at African States and Rulers and Historical Dictionary of Burkina Faso (I'd like to note on that one, it's pretty detailed, and very detailed on a good few - not a direct failure on WP:DICTIONARY;  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nosebagbear (talk • contribs) 12:50, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Returning to the Liptako list Squeamish Ossifage mentions, one book (Irwin, Paul. Liptako Speaks: history from oral tradition in Africa. Princeton University Press, 2014) discusses exactly this, with a king list in table form on page 84 (If you don't have access to Project Muse, WP:TWL offers free accounts to Wikipedia editors!). Smmurphy(Talk) 18:12, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I have a question for anyone, especially Going through these, and starting with Gwiriko, it looks like some (most/all?) of the kingdoms discussed don't have pages themselves. When adding sources, I find I am more interested in creating a page for the state/kingdom/chiefdom than only cleaning up these lists. Further, a list like these would be a good starting point for such a page. I'm not terribly impressed by the names of these lists, for instance the "Mossi state of X" formulation seems inaccurate in some cases. Rather than renaming them to something more appropriate and creating a separate page about the state/kingdom/chiefdom I propose as a part of updating, moving (not leaving redirect?) these pages to pages about the states/kingdoms/chiefdoms themselves. So I would like to move List of rulers of the Mossi state of Gwiriko to "Kingdom of Gwiriko" without leaving a redirect. Alternatively, the list could be renamed to "List of rulers of the Kingdom of Gwiriko" and a new page on the kingdom be created; but the page on the Kingdom itself wouldn't really be so long that a separate article on the Kingdom and King list is really necessary.
 * Note that currently the pages as they are are referenced to http://www.rulers.org/burktrad.html, which doesn't meet RS standards, I think. As such, I don't feel tied to the word "states" if they are given other names in more RS. Anyway, I'm not in favor of renaming pages during an AfD, but am going to be bold and edit pages with that end goal in mind. Let me know if you have a strong inclination for keeping the list as a list rather than recasting the list as an article about the kingdom itself. Thanks, Smmurphy(Talk) 18:45, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, if I got to pick how we handled this, most of these kingdoms should be discussed in Mossi Kingdoms, a historically important topic where our article is reprehensible. The Gurma kingdoms weren't ethnically Mossi, but they're still "Mossi Kingdoms" so far as historians go. So that's probably where I'd start. Now, there's actually a LOT written about the Mossi Kingdoms period, so I imagine that—even if we merge much of this in, rather than covering each individually—we'll eventually want to spin off a List of kings of the Mossi Kingdoms. Or something like that. The notable exception is the content in List of rulers of the Mossi state of Liptako, which is just... sloppy. Rulers.org doesn't likely meet RS standards (although it's sole editor does try real hard), but even it doesn't say that Liptako was one of the Mossi Kingdoms; just "related" (which is true, it was a neighboring region). If we want to be pedantic, there was a Mossi (okay, actually Gurma) kingdom in what later became Liptako, but that was called Koala, and isn't what the list contains. For what it's worth, fixing the Liptako content is what I'm currently working on, by rebuilding it from scratch with better sourcing. Expect a List of rulers of Liptako within the next day or three. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 19:14, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'd say that you more or less do get to pick how this is handled, as there are few editors in this area. Basically, the outcome of this AfD is likely to be keep, merge (to the list of kings of the Mossi Kingdoms perhaps) or no consensus (given our protests and the nature of the articles, I doubt we'd get a lot of delete !votes going forward). I don't know who else will work to clean these up (the original editor, User:JohnArmagh, is still occasionally active but didn't take part in the previous AfD); so at that point you, I, and whoever, can move the pages or turn them into redirects as we like. I'm working on Gwiriko along the lines I described - anyone watching that page should also watch this AfD, so by explaining my reasoning here and getting feedback, I feel like it is fair if I am bold with moving/redirecting as I think is best after the AfD (so long as we aren't using redirect to perform out-of-process deletions, such behavior is generally good for the project). You can do what you like with Liptako, I'll keep an eye on it and try to help if I can. If you don't mind, we can let each other know if we are moving on to another of these so we don't overlap our efforts too much. Smmurphy(Talk) 19:38, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, agreed. They were sloppily created years ago and no one was ever interested enough to clean them up, including the article creator (who was notified of this AfD and the last AfD but didn't bother to weigh in), so if you have interest now, you do have carte blanche to do as you wish with them. <b style="color: blue;">Enigma</b><i style="color: #FFA500;">msg</i> 00:31, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I've created List of rulers of Liptako as a replacement for List of rulers of the Mossi state of Liptako. The AFD'ed version's title is badly inaccurate (Liptako was never a Mossi state), but there's probably noting wrong with turning it into a redirect to... what I hope is a pretty acceptable contribution to the project. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 15:38, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It's not a plausible search term so it doesn't make sense as a redirect, and there's nothing there worth salvaging, so I'll delete it after this AfD if there's no opposition, given that it's been supplanted by a superior article at a different location. <b style="color: blue;">Enigma</b><i style="color: #FFA500;">msg</i> 20:57, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

<div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Inclined to Keep unless each list can be merged to an article on the state that they ruled. However the red-links should be delinked to discourage the creation of stub articles, which will never get expanded on each of them.  Such a merge might well be a better option.  Peterkingiron (talk) 16:32, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, 78.26  (spin me / revolutions) 15:06, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment some of these can be sourced to reliable sources (such as Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, I'm not convinced all of them are. Naaba Kango (on List of rulers of the Mossi state of Yatenga) has a page and a half in that book.  The only reference currently doesn't seem particularly reliable, and it doesn't list its own sources.  Moving to draft/userspace might be the best option until these are cleaned up and verified for accuracy. power~enwiki ( π,  ν ) 17:34, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I've been trying to get some work done on the Tenkodogo / Wogodogo / Yentaki lists, but it's slow going... especially because scholars in the field seem to have, shall we say, a slight disagreement about the chronology of the entire region. One proposed chronology sets Oubri's founding of Oubritenga in 1182; a competing proposal sets the date circa 1485 (and add or subtract another 100 years for the minority opinions). I'm trying to track down more recent publications to ascertain the current state of scholarship on the topic and see if the 300-year discrepency has been resolved in any way, but most of the historians working in the field write in French and don't publish in the US. I read enough French to manage, but source access doesn't move quickly, and there's only so much I can do. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 19:21, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The fr:Royaume mossi entry has a Wogodogo/Ouagadougou list with a source. I agree this is an area where the references may be contradictory. power~enwiki ( π,  ν ) 19:26, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I've unilaterally redirected List of rulers of the Mossi state of Wogodogo to List of rulers of Wogodogo – a content fork I created with better referencing, better structure, and better list-policy compliance – and struck it from the list. The new article is not perfect. Most importantly, I'm waiting on a source to arrive via interlibrary loan to incorporate the alternative (15th century) chronology. And at some point, I'll go through the list and add meaningful notes to the various entries; a lot of these are going to get their own articles, too. Anyway, the redirect is probably not strictly copacetic under the AFD rules, but cleaning this topic area up is the important part. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 20:47, 16 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep while not all the lists of rulers are sourced well enough, I expect there is enough (French-language) references to source everything. There definitely is enough to source articles about the regions as a whole; renaming List of rulers of the Mossi state of Yatenga to Yatenga (Mossi state) would make it possible to add some (sourced) background info, while removing red-links to rulers that can't be sourced to anything other than rulers.org . power~enwiki ( π,  ν ) 19:34, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Strong keep as per User:Squeamish Ossifrage. I do not see any rationale here based on policy that warrants deletion. The Mossi Empire and kingdoms were important not to mention powerful kingdom in Africa with several notable kings. Even the great Mansa Musa, Emperor of the Mali Empire recounted the threats that he received from the Mossi - to the Arab notables when he made his hajj to Mecca. Should we also delete List of rulers of Wales, List of British monarchs, etc? Why are African articles being nominated on foolish grounds? Red links does not warrant deletion. Senegambianamestudy (talk) 02:10, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep. No good reason for deletion. Squeamish Ossifrage has already greatly improved two articles. Srnec (talk) 23:12, 17 May 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.