Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tamil linguists


 * 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. Spartaz Humbug! 16:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Tamil linguists

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The page as it stands does more harm than good. I redirected once to List of linguists but was reverted by the page creator saying "it's a new page and errors are to be expected". At that point, the only blue link was to S. P. Balasubrahmanyam who is a singer and not a linguist. I left a message on WT:INB to see if someone else could do something about it. One editor removed some irrelevant content and the link to the singer and another editor posted a talk page message. I can't do much for this page as I'm just unable to find anything to create a list or an article. The people included don't even have their full name listed and it's impossible to find anything at all for them. (I'm Tamil and tried some online Tamil sources too.) Delete - Spaceman  Spiff  06:22, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions.  -- - Spaceman  Spiff  06:23, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Strong Delete. As per nominator. Also this list neither seems to add any value nor seems to be encyclopaedic. If only part of a name is provided (as has been done for all but one person), then it does not help anyone as there are hundreds, if not thousands of people with that name. There are no links to any linguist in the list and no references for the information provided. VasuVR  ( talk,  contribs ) 06:40, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Serves no encyvlopedic purpose. The list seems to be pointless. Does it talk about Tamil people who are linguists or people who studied Tamil? None of the names have links. No similar List of linguists seems to exist. --Deepak D'Souza (talk) 08:29, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. There are a few notable Tamil linguists, but does it need a seperate article?. Kamil Zvelebil, Robert Caldwell, Francis Whyte Ellis, George L. Hart, Constanzo Beschi, Devaneya Pavanar, Maraimalai Adigal,U. V. Swaminatha Iyer, Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai, Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, Johann Phillip Fabricius,Philip de Melho, Arumuka Navalar, Tokunaga Muneo, Susumu Ōno, Karashima Noboru, S. Vaiyapuri Pillai, Karthigesu Sivathamby loosely fit into the "Tamil Linguist" category. But the same purpose can be served with a Category instead of a new page. And a new page for tamil linguists will probably go this way  where vairamuthu and tholkappiyar are sitting in the same table. --Sodabottle (talk) 13:35, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * If something like the ta.wiki page can be done (but referenced, and not like the collection that page is), and the fact that there are quite a few blue links as above, I'm ready to withdraw the nomination if some improvements can be made to the article. A list definitely serves a valid navigational purpose in addition to a category, but it shouldn't be a case of "loosely fit into the Tamil linguist category", should be some well defined criteria. - Spaceman  Spiff  14:10, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thats the problem - defining it. :-)). If left to me, i will stick to people who have written books on grammar, phonetics and semantics. Avoid anyone who has "merely" written Tamil literature. But would that be a valid criteria?. I honestly don't know. But i don't want to see karunanidhi, vairamuthu and other authors/writers/poets classified as linguists.--Sodabottle (talk) 14:47, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Or we could go the ta.wiki way and create a "Tamil Scholar" list instead which would be broadly inclusive. Anyone with a considerably corpus of contributions on Tamil language could be lumped together. Would be easy and avoid a lot of future edit wars--Sodabottle (talk) 14:50, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I quite agree with you, the ta.wiki article is a bit odd at this point in that it combines unrelated groups to a big category and lists them. But Tamil scholar is too broad a term to actually be of any list value, in that case a category is best. And getting the above names in one list is definitely synthesis and not a good idea, so you've convinced me that my initial deletion rationale still holds good :) - Spaceman  Spiff  15:11, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Week delete Unless something can be said about Tamil linguists as a group, a category suffices. I can potentially imagine a article on Tamil linguistics that would describe how the field developed as an academic area, the role various prominent linguists played, its sub-specialties, relevant journals, publications, societies etc, but this article does not even serve as a useful start. Abecedare (talk) 07:38, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep There is no minimum size for a list given in WP:LIST, though I would be reluctant to make it if it would never conceivably grow beyond 3 or 4. Sodabottle names a few who have Wikipedia articles, so all the requirements are met. Whether nay of the people currently in the list are eligible will depend on whether Wikipedia  articles can be written about them. We should of course, have a category as well as a list. Normally, if we have one, we have the other--they each have advantages.    DGG ( talk ) 21:56, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Like I said, I'll be more than happy to withdraw the nomination if the article is corrected by someone who can. As for the links presented by Sodabottle, many don't fit with the definition of linguist. The ta.wiki rightfully classifies them as Tamil scholars and not linguists. In the absence of correction, this does more harm than good to our readers. - Spaceman  Spiff  05:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * No comment
 * As I have started this page, my comment about this issue is not important. It is for the rest who want to express their opinion. I now just took few names from here for editing the article. Arvind Arokara (talk) 05:56, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. This list is indiscriminate, since we have no source or metric for inclusion. In its current state, we have no way of even knowing who the people on the list are, since we are only given last names for most, and there are no articles for most of them. Put another way, this list fails WP:V. I suggest that the article author should create articles on individuals first. 208.59.120.194 (talk) 07:28, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: see also Category:Tamil-language writers. • Anakin 15:08, 28 November 2009 (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.