Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nizamani (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 delete.  MBisanz  talk 23:16, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Nizamani
AfDs for this article: 
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Fails WP:GNG. Previous AfD was close as no consensus due to low participation (one for, one against). The two sources mentioned in that discussion are not reliable and were not reliable, per consensus, even at the time it took place. Sitush (talk) 14:28, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

To clarify my remark about the sources found last time. The consensus has long been that sources from the British Raj era and earlier are not reliable. There are a multitude of reasons for this, only a few of which have been summarised at an essay that is in (very slow) development - see User:Sitush/CasteSources. - Sitush (talk) 14:43, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment. The previous AfD received very little participation, and we might disagree with the outcome, but that outcome was "keep", not "no consensus". Now to the point, the notability of ethnic groups isn't my area, so all I can say is there are quite a few hits on google books, and one of the first results suggests the Nizamani were among the most important (Baloch?) tribes (see p. 71: though from the snippet I can't see the background against which this importance is asserted). – Uanfala (talk) 14:52, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You have participated at enough AfDs, including caste-based ones, to know that an AfD that has no consensus means that the article is kept but doesn't mean the consensus was "keep". You have also been around long enough to know that snippet views will not do, and this article itself has been around for years with no-one getting very far sorting it out. It can always be recreated but, sorry, I am fed up of seeing people produce tentative sources at AfD and then walk away, leaving the articles in the same poor state that they always were. The thing can always be recreated if there is any veracity to the claims of notability but while you're speculating about it, notability doesn't exist - you have to demonstrate it. I've done several BEFORE's, not one, and I have checked in a couple of libraries without making any progress in all these years myself. I'm not perfect, of course, but you're going to have to do better than "quite a few hits on Google Books", especially since GBooks doesn't even present the same view worldwide. Help me out, please, with sources but don't speculate. - Sitush (talk) 15:35, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You can try WP:RX if you want, eg: see my recent request there. But note that we need multiple independent reliable sources, so perhaps list a few of the others you have spotted here and I will try to do the leg-work if you would prefer and if GBooks let's me see the stuff. - Sitush (talk) 15:41, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
 * And you have participated at enough AfDs to be expected to know that "keep" is a different outcome from "no consensus" (and here's a pointer to WP:CLOSEAFD for those who might not be aware). Of course, you could argue that the AfD should have been closed as "no consensus", but the fact is that it wasn't. And the article isn't in a "poor state", it's a one-sentence stub making an undisputed statement. Yes, it would be nice if the article were longer, but its length is not grounds for deletion. And neither is the claim for the presumed absence of sources, given the ease with which a quality one was found online. – Uanfala (talk) 16:36, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Pakistan-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 16:37, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Read the close. It was a non-admin close and they made a mistake. It actually does say "no consensus". And where have I said there are no sources at all? You're making things up again, and you're not progressing things by providing some information that might help me or someone else to sort out this problem. Nor have I suggested that length is a reason to delete or that I have "presumed" sources are absent. You're throwing mud now.
 * Why does it sometimes seem like I am expected to do everything round here regarding caste/tribe stuff but drive-by inclusionists etc can get away with off-whack commentary and half-baked links? - Sitush (talk) 16:42, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
 * There is this news story, which appears to have been syndicated, and they are mentioned on p 4 of this ... but I don't think anyone would deny that they exist. What we need is sources that discuss them in some sort of depth. - Sitush (talk) 16:39, 6 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete This present article is completely unsourced. Beside that is the article a magnet for unsourced own research. The Banner talk 18:43, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 02:20, 7 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep. I've added a bit to the article. One of the sources (Khuhro, the same one mentioned above) suggests the Nizamani were among the most important tribes of Sindh (at least in the 19th century). Additionally, I've found one more source, which makes a similar claim, and there are mentions of them as participants in the 18th century war between the Rajput/s of Jodhpur and the Khanate of Kalat (ibid. pp. 135–36), and in the context of Napier's conquest. Is this coverage in-depth? No it's not. But this is only stuff I've found in a five-minute browse through the two shelves of Sindh-related books in one local library. And it's worth bearing in mind that any in-depth literature on this topic is overwhelmingly more likely to consist in either Urdu-language monographs (pretty much off limits to those of us who have so far participated in this AfD), or in papers published in the journals of the local universities (not indexed anywhere, and so equally beyond reach for now). With the sources, we're really only scratching the surface, and if what we find is repeated statements about the tribe being among the major ones in the province, then in my opinion that's enough to satisfy notability. – Uanfala (talk) 23:54, 12 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I have deleted one of your new refs because we do not use censuses from the Raj era. All you have provided in the article is primary sources and passing mentions. The source you mention here doesn't look to be much better and is not independent. Please read WP:GNG and note that deletion does not preclude recreation if you do actually find decent mentions in future. If we based notability on speculation as to what may exist, we may as well bin the guideline. - Sitush (talk) 02:51, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Atlantic306 (talk) 18:40, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * And I've reverted your deletion: the source you removed was this:. Reprinted in: This is obiously not a census report. Thanks! – Uanfala (talk) 22:17, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * And your point is? Those censuses are not reliable, so it doesn't really matter whether an academic paper is comparing them or not. Is it even anything more than a passing mention anyway? You are well aware the Raj era sources are not reliable, and 1943 is in the Raj era. - Sitush (talk) 22:21, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, Raj-era source are all too often unreliable, but a paper doesn't automatically become rubbish just because it came out before 1947. And if the paper in question has recently been included in an anthology published by the OUP, then you'd need very good reasons for treating it as unreliable. As for the GNG: the whole idea of it is based on the possibility in principle to have decent access to the relevant sources. In the absence of this, then all we have is speculation, and your implied claim about the lack of sources is just as much speculation as my statement that enough sources should exist. At least I'm basing my speculation on what's there in the sources that we do have access to. Besides, GNG is not the one-size-fits-all solution: as well know, there are many subject-specific notability guidelines that override it, and they do so based on considerations like this. If an artist that has received a major award is presumed notable irrespective of coverage, then a major tribe of a major Pakistani province can be presumed notable as well. – Uanfala (talk) 22:34, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It does automatically become rubbish. That is the consensus and it has been the consensus for years. An anthology is a collection of stuff, not a validation of it. As for the rest of your comment, you are delving into the usually wikilawyering that you do when you are back into a corner. It needs to stop. If you want to propose a SNG for castes/tribes then feel free but until then it is what it is. And I am not speculating that there are no sources: the burden is on the creator etc to provide sources that meet the standard and not only have they not done that but no-one else has managed it in all these years, including myself and you. Sources may well exist but we cannot find them and we should not keep stuff forever on the off-chance that something might turn up because, as I said earlier, if we adopt that approach then there is no point in having GNG anyway. - Sitush (talk) 22:40, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, you misunderstand SNGs anyway. They are not instead of GNG but as well as, Their purpose is not to allow stuff to get in that would fail GNG but rather to keep stuff out that would pass GNG but which, nonetheless, the community has decided is of insufficient notability. - Sitush (talk) 22:43, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * To quote from WP:N: A topic is presumed to merit an article if: [i]t meets either the general notability guideline below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right. And this is repeated in pretty much every SNG that I've so far worked with. – Uanfala (talk) 22:47, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It is irrelevant anyway, isn't it, because there is no SNG for the subject? This is the problem when you start wikilawyering - things go off track very quickly. It's a good tactic to obfuscate when on the back foot. It makes no difference to my point about the sourcing etc, and there are a lot of long-term people who think as I do about the role of SNGs. Why not address the issues that matter instead of going down a rabbit-hole of what-ifs etc? - Sitush (talk) 22:56, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sam Sailor 19:10, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete This article fails WP:GNG because this tribe lacks WP:SIGCOV demonstrating it is a notable group of people. The sources are all very brief WP:ROUTINE mentions in government reports or other sources. As stated above, some of the sources are apparently of dubious value as well. There just isn't enough here in any respect for an article. Newshunter12 (talk) 05:15, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. As Newshunter12. Regarding the previous close, the outcome was clearly no consensus despite the bolded text. The NAC confused the outcome for the article (kept) with the outcome of the discussion (no consensus). Mackensen (talk) 17:45, 28 October 2018 (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.