User talk:JorisvS/2009

Proposed deletion of Swadesh list of Avar-Andic languages

The article Swadesh list of Avar-Andic languages has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Article includes only an empty table. It appears that the page's creator intended to fill in words from the Swadesh list for each language, but has not done so since creating the page on 19 November 2009.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{dated prod}} will stop the Proposed Deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The Speedy Deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and Articles for Deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Cnilep (talk) 20:04, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Swadesh list pages

You appear to have created a number of 'Swadesh list of...' pages, most of which are largely empty. I'm a bit concerned that these may conflict with policies such as WP:NOT PAPERS and WP:NOT#STATS. May I suggest moving these pages to user space pending adding some content to the tables, in order to prevent other editors from proposing or nominating the pages for deletion as I did? Cnilep (talk) 19:26, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I have looked at your links, but I can't find the potential conflict. Can you explain what you concretely mean, then? In my opinion these articles are simply (stub) sister articles of Swadesh list of Slavic languages. Yes, they are still very much unfinished (and young!), but they have to start somewhere, just like there are quite a number of Wikipedia articles that are very much unfinished (sometimes nothing more than a very short definition, but of which the subjects in principle certainly warrant an article). If the Swadesh list of Slavic languages article has the right to exist, so have these, and only when the lists exist (though otherwise still empty) will other users ever add information to them. I did add a call for patience to the talk pages of the still empty lists to try to prevent reactions similar to yours.

If this explanation doesn't satify you, could you please elaborate on what you mean? --JorisvS (talk) 21:50, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

My principal concern is that filling out these charts would be essentially original research via synthesis. I agree that it is worthwhile to publish a comparison of cognates in these various sets of genetically related languages, but creating new lists of this type strikes me as beyond the purview of Wikipedia. If the research has already been done and published in peer-reviewed journals or books, then those sources should be summarized on Wikipedia. If the research has not yet been done, however, Wikipedia is not a suitable place to collaborate on it. For more discussion, see WP:What Wikipedia is not and WP:What Wikipedia is. Hope this helps clear it up. Cnilep (talk) 22:34, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Many articles use information from different sources. Does this common synthesis then, according to you, also constitute original research? When I created these articles my intention was exactly a summary from other sources, certainly not to 'publish a comparison of cognates' (aside the point that not all the words in the list necessarily have to be cognates to be included). If there aren't (yet) sufficient independent sources for the complete scope of the article, then, unfortunately, the article would have to await completion until that time, though potentially part of it could still be added, something not uncommon in other Wikipedia articles (what, by the way, does that mean precisely, a "completed article"?). I, for one, will try to stick to the sources, keen on having the information properly cited. Does this sufficiently satisfy your concerns? --JorisvS (talk) 23:36, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

An anonymous user just added a lot of entries to the Swadesh list of Avar-Andic languages(!), unfortunately without sources. I did place a request for the sources on the anonymous user talk page, hopefully that this has any effect... --JorisvS (talk) 12:51, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Yes, I noted those unsourced additions. I have no particular expertise in Slavic languages, but if you see anything that strikes you as off, maybe you could check to make sure those data don't conflict with known-good sources? Otherwise, I guess we just wait for someone to add better sourced data.

To your question, "Does this common synthesis then, according to you, also constitute original research?" let me quote from Wikipedia policy. "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Editors should not make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to reach conclusion C."

In terms of comparative or diachronic linguistic research, I take this to mean that combining research from, say, journal articles that present comparative work is completely fine, since such combination implies conclusions similar to those actually made in those articles. On the other hand, combining data from, say, published lexicons to imply a conclusion about the relationship among languages or their histories is a step too far. That is, implying conclusions not made by the source material constitutes original research; citing similar conclusions from several sources does not. Cnilep (talk) 17:08, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I completely agree. These Swadesh lists must be bound by the published materials, wherever these bounds lie at the moment. It is good to note that A+B->C is an extremely common pitfall (even when trying to prevent it), though fortunately easy to fix by the same or other users if properly sourced. Unfortunately, not everyone is in the habit of properly sourcing their edits (like the anonymous user who recently expanded the Avar-Andic Swadesh list), making it hard for us to check whether their edits are reliable and within the bounds of what Wikipedia is(n't). --JorisvS (talk) 21:35, 13 December 2009 (UTC)