Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wani (caste)


 * 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. While there are a number of WP:HEY rationalized "keep" votes, that essay isn't as persuasive as the other policy based rationales for deletion. Dennis Brown &#124; 2¢ &#124; WER  02:33, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Wani (caste)

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Delete because it fails verification in a reliable source. Additionally, it fails WP:GNG because it does not have significant coverage in reliable sources. There appear to be no reliable modern Indian sources that identify and significantly describe this caste and British Raj sources have been deemed unreliable. They were not reliable in their own time (like Tod) and they ain't reliable now. editor Sitush at Talk:Gairola. Also, some modern sources rely on earlier British Raj sources, see for example, Kolenda's "Toward a Model of the Hindu Jajmani System". Therefore, great care needs to be taken that a source is actually reliable. --Bejnar (talk) 23:51, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:43, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:44, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Hinduism-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:44, 12 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The topic is now verified in a reliable source, so I withdraw that basis for deletion; however, it still fails to meet the general notability guidelines for significant coverage in multiple reliable sources. --Bejnar (talk) 21:17, 14 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep - Article Wani (caste) is a notable subject in India, specially in the Kashmir and Maharashtra region of India. The content of the article needs to be rewritten to meet the layout guidelines. C ute st Penguin '''  {talk • contribs} 09:27, 13 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment - I have reorganized and removed the unreferenced contents from the article, please have a look again. See how easy it is to restructure a article rather nominating it.  C ute st Penguin '''  {talk • contribs} 10:11, 13 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The problem remains. I see that two reliable sources have been added: one, the official Other Backward Classes (OBC) list of Maharashtra, which lists: Kathar, Kathar-Wani, Kanthhar Wani, Vaishya Wani, Kulwant Wani, and Nevi (Lingayat Wani or excluding Ladwani); and the second (The Times of India) reports a change in the official list mentioning the subcaste Ladshakhiya Wani being shifted from Other Backward Classes (OBC) to Nomadic Tribes (NT). I see no discussion of the Wani caste in those sources, much less "significant coverage". In addition there is now a citation to a "message" entry from genealogy.com, which does provide a thumbnail sketch of the Wani, but which does not qualify as a reliable source. --Bejnar (talk) 15:44, 13 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment - That article is referenced from official govt. website including one from times of india, earlier the content was mismatched with the published source maybe that's why I supported it with two references, please help me with unreliable references I will happily remove the content or references. I would also like to mention that, I have no personal interest in that I am supporting on the bases of knowledge as well as the census report which was done in the year 1891 and was published on the page no. 167 of so called 1891 Census of India but unfortunately after doing a lot of research I am unable to find the original publication online maybe because of copyrights issues.  C ute st Penguin '''  {talk • contribs} 16:16, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I realize that you have only been on Wikipedia as an editor for less than a month. Maybe this will help. Among the fundamental principles at Five pillars it says All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy, citing reliable, authoritative sources. It goes on to say Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong. It is not particularly meaningful to say in a Article for Deletion discussion that "X is notable in India". Wikipedia has its own explicit guidelines for notability. You might want to take a look at the essay Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions.  I do realize that there is the acknowledged problem of systemic bias in the Wikipedia, and I have tried to channel more of my editorial work in unrepresented areas. This can be a problem, as electronic and paper resources are often scare. However, that is not an excuse for relaxing editorial policy. --Bejnar (talk) 16:53, 13 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Regarding the Census of India 1891, copies are not widely held. It was published in multiple volumes, mostly by region.  For example Volume 23 dealt with Hyderabad. So, you will need to have a volume number to go with the page number.  Unfortunately, while I may be able to accept that as a reliable source showing the existence of such a caste, other's have objected to British Raj sources on the basis of reliability, particularly with regard to caste, see above. And the 1891 census does not really discuss specific castes in the volumes that I have looked at in the past. Like volume 23, it may give population figures and literacy rates, but nothing else. I note that in Volume 23, Chapter VIII, on page 72, Wani is included in a list of other languages. --Bejnar (talk) 17:33, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I am unable to find the original publication because of two main reasons,1 the book is not published online and 2 the one I found was not in English. Please wait until the AfD outcome or you can withdraw the nomination if you think that this article fills wikipedia guidelines . I would like to apologize... if it was my mistake in expending that article, contesting tha Afd as well as urging you for AGF. HEY should also be considered. Thank you! C ute st Penguin '''  {talk • contribs} 20:17, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * To encapsulate what I said about about the Census of 1891, it is unlikely to have significant information about the Wani, and even were it to have such information, other editor's such as Sitush above would challenge its reliability. --Bejnar (talk) 21:06, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * As to the HEY standard, to change my opinion I would have to see significant coverage in at least two reliable published sources. So far, despite the additional footnotes, there is no significant coverage and only one reliable source that actually mentions the Wani, see my analysis of the footnotes below. I don't have a copy of the Encyclopaedia of Indian Castes, Races and Tribes (2009) and I don't know if it is reliable, although I would hope so, since the author, Dr. Gyanendra Yadav, is a reader in the Dep't of Sociology, Commerce College, Patna University. But that would be a good place to start looking.  --Bejnar (talk)


 * Keep per WP:HEY - it's now properly sourced. Bearian (talk) 19:58, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * It is now verified, by one source with a single descriptive sentence: The Wanis are in a small way the chief traders and money-lenders, and in their latter capacity they have obtained a hold over much valuable land. FN2 (Struck as source is not reliable, see Sitush comment below.) The only other source that mentions the Wani is the blog at genealogy.com.  There are two sources that relate to the OBC and NT listings but they don't mention the Wani directly. The remaining four "sources" are bios of people with Wani as a last name.  How does that relate to being "properly sourced"? and how does that meet the prong 2 WP:GNG? --Bejnar (talk) 20:43, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * How can you say that this article does not meet the criteria of GNG? If you have noticed the section People with similar surname in the article which fulfills the first criteria of General notability guideline which says  "Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail. As well as genealogy.com is not a bogging site, its different think that some content cannot be taken from all the sources. I would also like to have a look of the book which you have found and the one which was taking about that it is a language may be this could be useful. I am curious to know that why people would like to use a language as their surname. C ute st Penguin '''  {talk • contribs} 20:59, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * genealogy.com is many things, in this case the citation provided is to a message posted by user Bilal Rathur on January 11, 2008 to the "Wain Family Genealogy Forum". That is not a reliable source. --Bejnar (talk) 21:13, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * What relation does People with similar surname have to the article topic? It does not discuss the caste, the citations do not even mention the caste. --Bejnar (talk) 21:13, 14 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:HEY - It is has been reduced to stub and even the referenced text have been removed by overzealous editors. Nestwiki (talk) 01:21, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, they were overzealous, but WP:HEY does not apply because the sources were not good. One source from the British Raj with a single descriptive sentence: The Wanis are in a small way the chief traders and money-lenders, and in their latter capacity they have obtained a hold over much valuable land. former FN2 The only other source that mentions the Wani was the blog at genealogy.com. There were two sources that related to the OBC and NT listings but they didn't mention the Wani directly. The remaining four "sources" were bios of people with Wani as a last name.  Nothing met WP:GNG. --Bejnar (talk) 04:47, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

50 pages report on the official website NIC, considering Wahi so called Vahi as ANUSUCHIT JATI VANI i.e. OBC http://ncsc.nic.in/files/ncsc/patrika/189.pdf C ute st Penguin '''  {talk • contribs} 21:22, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment - National Commission for Scheduled Castes, Govt. of India and Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment published a
 * Actually the document is a journal entitled in English Scheduled Caste Speech, and so far as I can tell does not mention the Wani caste. --Bejnar (talk) 04:50, 15 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment I've just stubbed the article again. It consisted of unreliable sources from the Raj era, original research, synthesis and a useless article from The Times of India that was not only referring to a different community but also contradicted itself. I've left a page request for the remaining source and I'll see what I can dig up in the next day or so. - Sitush (talk) 22:11, 14 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep - as per WP:NPOV and of course WP:HEY when it is properly scoured and notable at least in India. Intellectual Bookworm (talk) 13:26, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * what on earth does NPOV have to do with it? And, for that matter, why are people going mad about this weird WP:HEY thing that I've never seen in any previous AfD in which I've participated. It is bizarre and seems designed primarily to please inclusionists by providing a way to keep pretty much everything. We need sources that discuss the community and those are what I - something of a caste specialist here - am trying to find. If you, me and everyone else fail to find such reliable sources then the article should go; if we do find some then HEY is irrelevant. I don't think it is even a policy and as such it probably isn't worth much at AfD. - Sitush (talk) 16:23, 15 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete Ok, I've dug around both online and offline. As far as I can see, there are communities that include "Wani" in their name and their names may or may not be synonymous (this basically comes from the government caste lists, which are notoriously ambiguous and contradictory). Aside from those listings and some very poor Raj sources, I can find nothing but passing mentions of the community. Since GNG requires decent coverage in multiple reliable sources, this article fails the test. If at some point in the future this situation should change - perhaps, if an academic anthropologist takes an interest - then there is no problem with recreating the article. As said above, I don't really see the point of WP:HEY but the very fact that articles can be recreated if new information arises should cover it. - Sitush (talk) 06:35, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete I looked at the sources in the long version of the article (permalink), and they are extremely unclear.  The only reference with (weak) information on the topic is the genealogy.com forum post which has correctly been removed because it does not satisfy WP:RS. AfD is pretty simple—there is no evidence that the "topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" so the article should be deleted until such sources are available. Johnuniq (talk) 07:46, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete, I think we need to be very careful when it comes to British Raj sources, which were often distorted to provide cover for the ruling authorities of the time. I can find very little to support this article that isn't based upon that, especially the possibly contentious claim that they are originally of Hindu origin.  I think the article needs to go because it doesn't meet the WP:GNG, and because of verifiability issues.  Lankiveil (speak to me) 00:27, 20 July 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.