Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Serbians


 * 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 redirect to Serbs. There is clear consensus against keeping this. There is some support for merging the bare definitions, undercut by opposition to merging based on sourcing issues. I see no strong opposition to a redirect, and no opposition based in policy to adding a sourced version of the definition to the target. Vanamonde (Talk) 02:41, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Serbians

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

This article was created in 2007 and has since then been repeatedly redirected and restored. There doesn’t seem to be any end to this pointless going and froing so I am bringing here for consensus. Mccapra (talk) 08:39, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Language and Serbia. Mccapra (talk) 08:39, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Redirect or disambiguate seems like notdict to me. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  08:57, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment my issues with this article are firstly that its core proposition is unsupported by any evidence, namely that the single word “Serbian” has two distinct morphological forms. It doesn’t, it’s just more ambiguous in its meaning than the equivalent term in Serbian itself is. Secondly most of the rest of the article doesn’t even discuss the purported topic of an English language word, and instead veers off to tell us about words in Serbian and Croatian. So there is a non topic - actually a false assertion about the English language - followed by discussion of different, tangentially related topics. In my view there is no basis for an article here at all, so I think deletion is appropriate, but at the very least I’d like a consensus to redirect so we can stop the pointless bickering over it. Mccapra (talk) 08:48, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm leaning towards a merge and redirect into article Serbs. To address the paragraph about "Croatian usage" in the article, the issue mentioned there is not existent in English; Srbijanci is an outlier in the native Serbo-Croatian language because you cannot equivalently refer to any other nations - there are no Hrvatijanci, Slovenijanci, Rusijanci (Croatians, Slovenians, Russians) etc. The word is most comparable to Bosanci i.e. "Bosnians", but the latter is typically self-identification as opposed to imposition by outsiders. It is typically utilized to avoid referring to anyone or anything as Srbin/Srpkinja (ethnic Serb) or srpsko ("ethnically Serbian", but has no different literal translation to "of Serbia" srbijansko in English), whereas everything and everyone from Croatia is referred to as hrvatsko (no equivalent "hrvatijansko" exists) regardless of ethnic affiliation. -Vipz (talk) 14:35, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Which is interesting, yes, but not the topic of this article. There may be value in an article about how various groups in the western balkans refer to themselves and their neighbours, but that has nothing to do with the alleged meanings of an English word. Mccapra (talk) 17:01, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Consensus is against keeping so far, though given the apparent history we should try to come to a clearer consensus about what to do with the page instead. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   21:08, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete DICDEF, although longer, that's essentially what this is. Oaktree b (talk) 16:43, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Weak keep, IMO this is a (badly organised) set index article because it links to two possible meanings that are both demographic groups. It should be kept as a list of notable items per the SIA guidelines. small jars 16:45, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment: These issues should have been discussed first at the talk page of that article, before initiating the deletion procedure. Sorabino (talk) 09:04, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge to Serbs unless someone can explain to me what the difference between the two is. Stifle (talk) 13:15, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Opposed and especially to any proposal of merging with the article Serbs. I'll respond to what the significance of this term is and why in my view keeping the page is useful and needed. English speakers generally fail to see differences between the terms Serb and Serbian, using them interchangeably but native speakers and speakers of related languages use Serb as an ethnonym while Serbian is used as a demonym. In simpler terms, Serbs are an ethnic group while Serbians are people from Serbia, not all of whom are Serbs. Milorad Dodik, Nikola Tesla and Vuk Karadžić are all Serbs but not all of them are Serbians. Meanwhile, Vasko Popa and Bekim Fehmiu are Serbians but they're not Serbs. This distinction has a lot of cultural and political polemics surrounding it and it has been debated, misunderstood and attacked since at least the 19th century. Here's a Serbian news article from 2018 explaining the history of the term, the usage and perception of it. Vuk Karadžić's dictionary has a definition of it, it simply means someone from Serbia much like someone from California would be called a Californian. Serb nationalists don't like this term for example because they believe it creates artificial divisions among Serbs depending on where they live. English speakers are generally unaware of all of this and treat it like a synonym. Deleting the page would do a great disservice to this encyclopedia and I'd urge editors to look more into the term. Your very own perception of the term, even though clearly different from the native views, likewise adds valuable information. Indeed, the page starts with the two different uses of the term but I suppose the wording is not the best. P.S. Here's another article in Croatian from 2011 explaining the difference because it's a thing that pops up from time to time in the cultural sphere. There's even a politically derisive term Drugosrbijanci that's based on this word. This isn't even mentioned in the article, which upon closer examination really needs some cleaning by people who are familiar with the topic. The page needs better wording, more content and sources, not deletion. --Killuminator (talk) 11:15, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment we should not propagate a falsehood because it allegedly helps distinguish between the meaning of two terms. It is absolutely fine for us to say Serb is an ethnonym and Serbian is a demonym, but we don’t need two separate articles to do that, let alone one that makes up a non existent distinction between two alleged derivations of a word in English, and then discusses terms in other languages anyway (off topic). Mccapra (talk) 17:08, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete: This is a dictionary def, not an encyclopedic topic. There is not enough proper sourcing to merge content (strongly oppose merging poorly sourced content), a redirect to Wiktionary would work if someone wants to do it.  // Timothy :: talk  08:25, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete - as it stands now, or redirect to Serbs. Any difference between the two terms can be handled there.  Onel 5969  TT me 00:31, 24 March 2023 (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.