Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Typographical personification


 * 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. Tone 21:14, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Typographical personification

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This article was proposed for deletion with the comment, "Non-notable and original research. I can find no substantial sources for any of this stuff." I moved this to AfD to allow it to have more widespread scrutiny. I note that Titivillus, and some of the other named fairies and demons said to afflict printers, do seem to show up in GBooks searches, but whether there is a coherent topic here or not, I am not so sure. Arxiloxos (talk) 16:08, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep. I see no reason to delete this article. All the words appear in texts in different languages, as far as I understand. An encyclopaedia is the right place to explain them to non native speakers. Requesting individual sources for each of them is overkill, as the content often is trivial to native speakers of the languages. Having one article for each of them would be overkill as well, as they are basically the same entity. Mlewan (talk) 17:38, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:28, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:28, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:28, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete. Of the five sources currently in the article, two are dictionary entries that say nothing about "typographical personification", two are very short primary sources, and one only talks about Titivillus, not typo demons in general. Unless reliable secondary sources can be found indicating that the topic is notable, the article should be deleted. —Mr. Granger (talk · contribs) 01:50, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete as original PROD proposer. There are no reliable sources to be found for any of these creatures. The only sources in this article are two links to a now-defunct website featuring user-submitted amateur art, and two dictionary entries regarding the etymology of the Spanish word for "baby rabbit" (???). The only half-way decent entry is Titivillus, who already has his own article. And he is a demon for messing with medieval scribes' handwriting, not typographical errors, so it's not even quite the same thing. I looked for sources that could be used as a basis for a proper article, but I could not find anything beyond name-mentions that did not go into any real detail. Reyk  YO!  23:33, 7 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   21:05, 13 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete as per nominator and PROD. Searching for the term "Typographical personifications" yields nothing (other than lots of Wikipedia mirrors picking up this article). I searched for "Typo fairies" and "Typo demons" and didn't find anything either. If some of the supposed specific fictional creatures such as Trykkleif -- if they exist -- then perhaps there should be a separate article on that term, for each one. This Wikipedia page should not serve as a catch-all category for numerous fictional creatures. If they 'exist' as concepts worthy of wiki-articles, then the proper thing to do would be to float individual articles, one per creature, and add the category "Typographical personifications" at the bottom of each article. But to declare that there is something called Typographical personifications is essentially an act of original research. Further, this article does not meet the WP:GNG by any stretch, almost appears to be a hoax.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 20:11, 20 September 2014 (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.