Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thakur Dal Singh


 * 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. The "delete" arguments are compelling in the light of core policy, WP:V. The only references in the article are "Archives of Agricultural Institute of Allahabad, Allahabad, UP, India", "Archives of Bikaner State Revenue Department" and "Communication with Thakur Mohan Singh, painter of Bikaner". A whole archive is not a verifiable source because a reader who wants to verify the article can't search through the whole archive, and personal communications are not reliable sources. The article can be recreated if it is based on reliable sources.  Sandstein  06:32, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Thakur Dal Singh

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Indian administrator. The references seem thin to say the least. &mdash; RHaworth 19:12, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment This article has been badly written and needs a clean up.  Wilbysuffolk   Talk to me  19:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 23:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 23:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Speedy Keep yes the references are thin, this would be a matter for an improvement notice and helping a new contributor with such improvements. The article may be suitable for deletion on grounds of notability but as BEFORE does not appear to have been followed here, I would rather see the benefit of the doubt for the creator rather than a poorly expressed nomination that may as well be I don't like it. Fæ (talk) 05:28, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete: The references aren't "thin," they're non-existent. I rather expect that we can't get our hands on the "Archives of Bikaner State Revenue Department" or "Archives of Agricultural Institute of Allahabad."  I'm not so much concerned with issues of notability (although that is an issue, because what criteria of WP:BIO does anyone claim this subject meets?) as issues of verifiability, because as it stands, there is none.  I appreciate that the creator is new, but the creator must also provide references which we can check.  If he cannot do so, WP:V explicitly holds that an article on this subject cannot be sustained.  It's possibly indicative that a search on Google India for "Thakur Dal Singh" + Churu turns up just sixteen hits, all but a single personal website consisting of this article and various Wiki mirrors.    ῲ Ravenswing ῴ  06:48, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Rather than assuming that sources that have been declared on the article are some strange fantasy, perhaps you could think of following standard guidelines and ask for verification. A simple search on Google shows these archives exist. There seems to be a lack of assumption of good faith for what appears to me to be an article created by a new contributor in perfectly good faith. Fæ (talk) 08:11, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Reply: And no doubt the nom nominated this AfD in good faith as well, but you disparaged his action and charged him with misleading people as to the true nature of his objection. That being said, as far as your Google searches go, I just did one myself.  There are four hits  and two hits  respectively, each and every one of them from this Wikipedia article or Wikipedia mirrors.  Come to that, the "Agricultural Institute of Allahabad" itself only has nine hits, most of them mirrors of three unique hits, and the "Bikaner State Revenue Department" shares the same four Wikipedia hits as its "archives" do.  (The degree to which they exist at all is one which begs an answer, seeing as the princely state of Bikaner was abolished over sixty years ago.)  May I ask what manner of search for these sources you performed that returned anything other than this blatant lack of information?   ῲ Ravenswing ῴ  08:37, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You seem to be missing the point, before raising an AFD the consensus is to "make a good-faith attempt to confirm that such sources don't exist." There is no evidence that this happened and I am under no obligation to fix the article or to do a full sources research before raising my opinion here. We have no guideline that suggest we should delete articles if nobody has been bothered to verify the sources yet. As for your interpretation of the wording of my opinion, you are incorrect. By the way, I am aware that the political and administrative organization has changed, I see no reason to doubt that many records of the period still exist and that the current administration that they evolved into maintain archives. This is a situation for improvement and verification, not deletion on the basis of assumptions and a lack of willingness to believe in records that cannot be checked via a website. Fæ (talk) 08:55, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * "A simple search on Google shows these archives exist" was your statement. I challenged you to reveal the results of your search.  Now you claim you don't have to research anything before posting your opinion.  Yes, that's indeed true; you don't, and apparently, you haven't.  Fair enough, although laying a charge of bad faith in the same breath as a claim, which you now retract, that you'd researched the issue rings poorly.  That being said, if the sum of your opposition is that you don't believe (based on what proof?) that the nom sufficiently researched this subject to find valid sources, I have put in a half hour of leg work, and I can find no sources.  You do understand, of course, that it is not the job of those challenging an article's validity to prove that no sources exist, but explicitly the job of those advocating keeping an article to find ones which can be reviewed by other editors to ensure their validity.   ῲ Ravenswing ῴ  09:36, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not an advocate, please do not marginalize me this way; I have only expressed an opinion in a deletion discussion. If you check the article history I have added some links to the article to show the organizations that hold these archives exist. As for the evidence that this is a poor nomination, I need only read the deletion policy and read the words of the nomination to realize this is the case. I have made no assumptions about what undeclared efforts the nominator might have made to address the deletion policy and not told anyone about, I can only go by the meaning of words "the references seem thin" which is clearly not an acceptable basis for deletion. Fæ (talk) 09:59, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No one suggested that the Agricultural Institute of Allahabad didn't exist, and the second link you posted had nothing to do with the aforementioned "Bikaner State Revenue Department."  ῲ Ravenswing ῴ  10:05, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course the "Rajasthan State Excise Department" is not called "Bikaner State Revenue Department" as per your own point made earlier, it no longer exists, refer to History of Bikaner. Could you put the link back, it seems perfectly valid to me and deleting possible sources and then arguing here that there are no sources seems like inflammatory behaviour. Fæ (talk) 10:22, 25 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Current references are certainly thin, and I suspect that improving this article requires offline search in Indian newspaper archives. The fact that the state involved was abolished over sixty years ago may make things more difficult but can't alter the chap's notability, the important thing to remember is that the state existed when he was working for it. If "Overcoming institutional bias" means anything it is that articles like this need extra work to bring up to scratch, I note there have been proposals for the foundation to assist in the digitisation of reliable source info in areas of the world where our coverage is weakest, and I think that this is the sort of article that would benefit from that.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  09:51, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: I admit I'm confused. Were I to cobble together a hoax article for a fortuitously foreign subject, claiming sources that just happened to be unverifiable, you'd advocate keeping it?  How would you know, one way or another?  To quote from WP:V: "Other people have to be able to check that you didn't just make things up. This means that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation ... Verifiability in this context means anyone should be able to check that material in a Wikipedia article has been published by a reliable source." WP:V is one of the core policies of the encyclopedia, and cannot be handwaved.   ῲ Ravenswing ῴ  10:01, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Anyone can ask for verification, and anyone is free to contact the Rajasthan State Excise Department and ask to see the archives quoted in the article as a source. Verifiability does not mean that you personally must be able to access the records via the internet or even your local library. At the moment, nobody has asked the creator of the article for verification, preferring instead to just PROD and AFD the article of a long dead person, presumably as engaging in friendly discussion is too much hassle. Fæ (talk) 11:57, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Dear all, I appreciate all your comments concerning the piece on "Thakur Dal Singh" which is my first attempt. I am seeking your guidance in the matter of cleaning or improving it. Concerning the references and notabilty please see my comments as follows. Dear Wilbysuffolk. Thanks for your comments concerning the piece on "Thakur Dal Singh" drafted by me. You have stated it needs some clean up. This is my first attempt, can you please guide me. Concerning the issue of references raised by some people, I have original documents with me. Can I scan and show them to the people who have doubted their existence. About notability, the category is "People from Churu District" which is like a county in a state. Obviously, Thakur Dal Singh cannot be called notable in whole of India but he was notable in Churu where he did philanthropic work. I do not understand what can I do to prove he was notable in Churu. If we do not recognize people from Churu to be notable then we should remove this entire category of "people from Churu" or people from other small places. I would appreciate your guidance as to what I can do to counter the preceding comments on references and notability. Thanks. Pkandhal (talk) 18:20, 25 June 2011 (UTC)pkandhal
 * Keep Though it needs a clean up it otherwise is notable and with some work and adding more refs. it should be good.  Wilbysuffolk   Talk to me  20:34, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. Article almost entirely based on personal communication, which is not a WP:RS. FuFoFuEd (talk) 06:15, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I see one reference that refers to a "Communication" which is marked as needing a citation. It's not clear if that is a personal communication or not, and this amounts to one paragraph out of six in the article, this is not the normal meaning of "almost entirely" but perhaps I'm interpreting your statement overly mathematically. Thanks Fæ (talk) 06:39, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If this article is deleted due to lack of notability, the category of "people from .......places" should be deleted entirely from the wikipedia especially those concerned with small districts (counties)throughout the world. This is because people from small regions are not being called "notable" by some commenters. India is not as advanced as other developed countries wherein people are computer savvy and one can get hits on the internet for specific subjects, if that is what is considered a proof of verifiability. In that case, developing countries are at a disadvantage because they cannot make such entries for the people from small districts, who otherwise may be notable and were long deceased.

About the references, if the author of this article can produce certificates to back the statements, how it can be done. To whom the scanned certificates should be sent. These are the questions which need to be responded. Thanks. Pkandhal (talk)pkandhal —Preceding undated comment added 10:41, 30 June 2011 (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.