Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tulāsana


 * 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. We've got a mess here, where there's no way to pull a consensus from this, as we have articles with wildly different levels of notability, mashed into the same debate. Anything other than a no consensus close here for the lot would really require me to pull something out of thin air. Anyone is free to bring these back here as soon as they desire, no need to wait any longer than it takes me to get the tags off them. Courcelles 08:23, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Tulāsana
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log )

I've looked at the asana articles listed by asana. They are mostly little more than stubs and unsourced medical advice and it is difficult to establish notability outside the use of yoga, and most of these poses are not notable. Some of them are tagged for merging, some of them into list of yoga postures.

I propose deletion of these pages or merging into list of yoga postures, asana, hatha yoga, or Yoga as exercise or alternative medicine.

cf Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletionCurb Chain (talk) 04:07, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

I am also nominating the following related pages because it will be easier and more expeditious to decide on the fate of these almost identical articles together than deliberating them one by one:


 * Merge into list of yoga postures AND a subset into asana. Wikipedia is  not a how-to guide, and some of these pages provide detailed instructions for performing the positions (e.g.| 1, | 2, | 3.  The benefits of the positions are sometimes sourced and sometimes are not.  However, I think the asana article would benefit from a few concrete example positions with benefits that are reliably sourced. I Jethrobot (talk) 18:50, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The problem here is that these are not all yoga postures. Some of these are also postures used in Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, etc. To combine some of these into a combined "asana" page for yoga would be inappropriate in these cases. Specifically, lotus position is very notable for Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism, and there is a significant amount of material available just on this one position. In these cases, its role and function are not at all the same as an asana in yoga. Tengu800 11:19, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Keep some of these, I think. Agreed, the Tulasana page is so brief as to be useless, but at least 1 other page is much better. I haven't done a search to determine which asana pages are useful and which aren't, but I happened to be asking myself: Is Wheel pose (Chakrasana) the same thing as Upward Bow (Urdhvadhanurasana)? That is, are the names synonymous? The list page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hatha_yoga_postures has a lot of good info, but doesn't answer my question. I followed the links, which answered my question (yes, they are synonyms). Oddly, both have the same title (Chakrasana) but 2 different URLs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakrasana (with box about proposed deletion)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urdhva_Dhanurasana (without the box) These look like different versions of the same page; I prefer the version that comes via the latter link.

An alternate approach would be to upgrade the "list" page so that it answers questions like mine. But that would be a lot of work. (I'm a newbie at such discussions.) Oaklandguy (talk) 03:29, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Your contribution is greatly appreciated. I do agree definitely that some pages are better or "beefier" than others; it may be a great/good idea to merge them into list of yoga postures.Curb Chain (talk) 06:52, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

History and New Energy
Great to see some new energy here, and working towards an open-minded constructive consensus. I stopped contributing a while back because of my perception of lack of support from other editors and will to negotiate open-mindedly. I will summarise what I think should be taken into account.


 * 1) all names of positions ought *at least* to remain as redirects to a page that adequately describes them, or at least lists them as a known yoga asana, if no other *encyclopaedic* material on them exists here. This in no way encumbers or compromises Wikipedia.
 * 2) uncited "how to" and "claims of benefits" material should at least be reduced to a general description. I did a lot of this pruning but it had a way of reappearing (mainly from India).
 * 3) the tabulated "list" format of the suggested merge-to page, is in itself ***not*** an ideal format.  I would advocate a list of all actual names, limited to a single line of text, cross-referencing synonyms, that links to a short prose paragraph on each minor asana, and/or to pages where an asana has enough important material to justify its notability.
 * 4) I was working towards a particular implementation of my suggestion, above, using the software generated "contants" box as being the actual list, as it is default, is fairly compact and is linked. Below the contents box appears a short paragraph and a *very small* thumbnail image of the asana. This arrangement is compact, inclusive, syntactically appropriate (a table is not) and spatially and visually appropriate and relaxed (a table with random sized images and spaces is not).
 * 5) I'm prepared to help, continue ignoring or work alongside anyone who'd like to work *open-mindedly* on these articles. But I am v. busy outside WP at the moment.
 * 6) There's a lash up on in my personal space working towards the above, but it used transcluded material, which was intended to be short lived, and may now be somewhat randomised by editing across, or removing, the transclude tags. []. All the non-textual info appearing *within* the sections has occured as a result of this kind of editing, making it ridiculously long. Previous to this, it was little bigger than the existing asanas list page.

Thanks to those who emailed me to let me know this debate was live again.  Trev M ~  08:31, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I am completely at a loss of what you are saying:
 * (3.) What is this software generated "contants" box. Did you mean "contents"?  In this point, you are discusing the layout of the article and I am guessing that you don't feel the table format is best for the current contents of these articles?  This seems a little off topic with our issue at hand, because we are assessing weather or not this material should be included on Wikipedia per WP:NOTDIRECTORY.
 * (5.) Can you explain this point?Curb Chain (talk) 12:01, 30 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep all as per our Editing policy: "If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion."

To this end I will for the main article nominated, Tulasana, contribute with a draft for improvement shortly, and I invite anyone who wish to collaborate positively to join in.

I notice that this nomination does not include arguments to recommend deletion relating to the three cardinal content policies "unverifiable" (violates WP:V), "original research" (violates WP:NOR), or "non-neutral point of view" (violates WP:NPOV).

I also notice that - no content expanding improvements have been made to the articles prior to nomination - no relevant tags have been added to the articles to note problems prior to nomination - the existing but dried out merging discussion has not been revived prior to nomination - neither the relevant Wiki Project nor any article creators or key contributors have been notified.

The following four rationales are given for nomination and I will add my comments:
 * 1) "mostly little more than stubs" Comment: Stub status is not a reason for deletion.
 * 2) "unsourced medical advice" Comment: "Fix problems if you can, flag or remove them if you can't." Blatant over-the-hill claims for cure or amelioration as e.g. in Uttanasana and Sarvangasana that are unlikely to be verifiable with reliable sources should have been deleted on sight prior to nomination, but the inclusion of unsourced material, that has not yet been questioned and attributed to reliable sources, within an article, is not per se a reason for deletion.
 * 3) "difficult to establish notability outside the use of yoga" Comment: Several of the asanas have notability outside yoga, Padmasana (Lotus posture) as mentioned by Tengu800 above being one example, Siddhasana, Sirsasana, and Sukhasana being three more, and should not have been bundled, but no policy demands notability in more than one category. Without necessarily assuming inherited notability it can in addition be mentioned that yoga as physical exercise according to a survey released in December 2008 by the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine was found to be practiced by 6.1 percent of the population (some 18 million) in the United States alone.
 * 4) "most of these poses are not notable" Comment: This unsupported rationale is an opinion rather than a fact, and is a variation over WP:JNN which should be avoided. The poses listed comprises for the vast majority if not all, classical poses described in the literature, c.f. e.g. 84 Classic Yoga Asanas, and the majority of the articles are already verified with reliable sources that stands uncontested.

Looking ahead A handfull or so of the articles listed are in a state similar to Tulasana and will be rescue tagged including but not limited to P%C4%81dahast%C4%81sana, Siddhasana and Supta Virasana. I will try to lead the way and find time within the next week to heave them out of their current misery, and other editors are very welcome to join in with citations, sections, images etc. None of the articles can't be fixed and all of the articles have room for improvement. I see this as a fine opportunity to work together and kick some life in the Yoga Project, and I second Trev M's suggestion of working alongside anyone who'd like to work *open-mindedly* on these articles. I have limited time in July and August but will be able to allocate more time for these articles come September.

Notification I will post Adw notifications for selected users and can suggest others do likewise. As this is done very late and as it is now summer vacation time for a lot of people in the northern hemisphere I ask the closing admin to kindly consider giving the discussion a couple of extra days on the old page.

Om shanti, MarB4  •ɯɒɹ• 07:44, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Hinduism-related deletion discussions.  — I, Jethrobot drop me a line 07:55, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Buddhism-related deletion discussions.  — I, Jethrobot drop me a line 07:55, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Spirituality-related deletion discussions.  — I, Jethrobot drop me a line 07:56, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep No valid reasons for deletion have been listed, being a stub is not a reason to delete an article. "Notability outside the use of X" is not a valid reason for deletion either. I know WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS only goes so far in an AfD discussion, but an example: It is difficult to establish the notability of List of Spider-Man enemies outside of Spider-Man.  The same can be said for hundreds, if not thousands of articles. - SudoGhost&trade; 08:19, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * DELETE SOME, MAINTAIN A LIST OF MAIN POSTURES ONLY: The classical text (that deals with the physical aspects of yoga ), the 15th century Hatha Yoga Pradipika devotes only one of its four chapters to asana, the now popular physical "yoga exercises", and only describes FOURTEEN such postures, the majority being postures suitable for sitting meditation. Yoga Mat (talk) 12:06, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep full articles on notable poses. The claim that all assanas are not notable is wrong.  I suggest merge templates be added on the less notbale ones, and proceed from there. Lentower (talk) 15:01, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * STRONG Keep This bulk deletion request should be rejected. These articles have been around for years in many cases and are in different states of repair. Most would satisfy notability requirements. Most that I have looked ate stubby and basically suck. But that is not different than thousands of other WP articles. Each COULD be brought up to reasonably high standards. So: I'll be happy to consider and approve deletion of some these articles, but I strongly believe a bulk delete request like this is a very bad idea. --Nemonoman (talk) 15:45, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * STRONG delete+redirect "These articles have been around for years"? That's exactly the problem. We have been far too lenient with this sort of thing. People dump some random text off the top of their head and we preserve it for years and years, afraid to get rid of it lest it could potentially have some unidentified factual or encyclopedic kernel. That's not how it works at all. Either fix the article now, or delete it. It can always be recreated iff proper references ar given and WP:NOTE is met. WP:OTHERCRAP doesn't cut it. The burden of establishing notability lies entirely with whoever wishes to keep a given article. The default solution is redirection or deletion. In the case of this asana cruft, this means: if the term can be substantiated as the name of an asana and nothing more, delete it and create a redirect it to List of yoga postures. Proving that a term exists falls very short of establishing that we need a standalone article about it. Wikipedia is not a dictionary. ANy time you wish to bring such an article to "reasonable standard", you are certainly welcome to go ahead. As long as nobody does, Wikipedia will be better off with this stuff gone and clean redirects to a list of asanas. --dab (𒁳) 16:27, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Neutralish: some of these articles are notable enough to stand alone (Downward-facing dog). I don't know about the rest though, but would leave them be. Many of these poses are very notable, less so in English speaking places though. A comparison I think would be on the Indian Wikipedia there being a deletion discussion to delete many English exercises that are not really done over there.AerobicFox (talk) 00:23, 3 July 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.