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. —Kurykh 04:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The latin phonetic method of Shanghainese[edit]

The latin phonetic method of Shanghainese (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

DeleteThis page looks quite like a rehash in expanded form of the deleted Lumazi - a project to develop a Romanisation scheme for Shanghainese. The content was originally inserted into, then deleted from, Shanghainese ([1] [2] and [3] on the grounds of "self promotion"). Several grounds for deletion:

1. no assertion of notability;
2. external links reveal only a limited online presence: one project website, and one example of implementation; other links are to web forum posts;
3. The article links to Chinese and French wikipedia articles, but those were created by the same user over a 3 week period - which seems to give the subject matter a hint of notability that it does not in fact possess. PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:42, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On further reading of the Chinese Wikipedia page (zh:吳語拉丁式注音法), that article gives the following details about the project: it was created in 2001 by a person identified through his/her web alias as "上海闲話abc", and developed with two other persons identified via web aliases as "Hisahara" and "Key". Nothing is stated about the extent of its usage on that page. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:49, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I'm really not sure about this. Could this fit under WP:NOT#HOWTO in that wikipedia is not a pronunciation guide? Corpx 02:32, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yeah, there's that aspect too. And it's a pronunciation guide of a non-notable scheme for transliterating Chinese, not the language itself. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:38, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Well, I've read the article, and I still can't quite figure out what it is. Is it some kind system for romanizing Chinese characters, or what? I'm kind of inclined to support deletion as it seems to be altogether non-notable, as well as a sort of manual (not to mention incredibly confusing), but I wouldn't want to do that if I'm not sure exactly what I'm discussing the deletion of. Calgary 05:43, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • It seems to be a system for romanizing Chinese characters according to their Shanghai dialect pronunciation (as opposed to the more standard Mandarin pronunciation). Comparable (but more notable and less confusingly written) systems would be, e.g., Pinyin or Standard Cantonese Pinyin. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 06:03, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Very interesting for a linguist, but misses notability criteria by a large margin. This is a very recent proposal, it has had no official recognition, and its author is not notable. This system might catch on in the future (although I doubt it), but it's certainly not notable enough right now. --Targeman 14:12, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - sourced and I see no reason why an editor might want to hide an article about this romanization system from other WP users. Badagnani 18:42, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are no external sources. And what do you think about the notability criterion though? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - There are external sources. It's also real bad that the original author of the article was not alerted of this AFD nor was any discussion posted to his/her discussion page. That really isn't right! Badagnani 01:44, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The external links consist of the project's own website, one example of implementation on a website, and web forum posts. There are no external, third-party sources for the article. Most problematically, no claim to notability is made out.

This AfD was notified on Wikiproject:China, and of course it is prominently displayed on the article itself. There is no requirement to notify the creator (who, btw, has not edited since June 5, when this article was created). If you think notification is necessary, I will do so now. But please give us your thoughts on notability.--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:50, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep as per Badaboom Mandsford 01:14, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminant collection of information. Notability needs to be satisfied. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:33, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Much of the article's content is already covered in a better-written and referenced article at Shanghainese. However, I would encourage editors who are more familiar with the subject have a look and see if there's anything that can be salvaged from this article and put into Shanghainese. enochlau (talk) 09:18, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - The system has to actually catch on and be used by a significant number of people for it to be notable. Otherwise, we leave ourselves open to making an article for every romanization system that anyone dreams up.--Danaman5 21:07, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - The article is primarily a How-To violating WP:NOT. The article has no reliable sources, and fails notability. -- Whpq 14:48, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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.