Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Goat people

Goat people

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I found far more sources describing "goat people" as "people who raise goats" than "mythological goat/humans". Does not seem to be a common enough motif to deserve a list to itself, given that half the list is less "goat person" and more anthropomorphic goat or demon. Does not give evidence that this was a "class of mythological beings". _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 06:08, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mythology-related deletion discussions. MT Train^Talk 06:35, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's "rescue list", here. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:07, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

• Keep The nomination doesn't provide any reason to delete; just some pointers for article improvement per our editing policy. It's easy to find more sources for this broad concept: Goat people; The Classical Tradition; &c. Note also that goatification was a thing at the last Wikimania. Andrew D. (talk) 08:19, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Note that the first source is the only one that explicitly mentions "Goat People", and you are suggesting using WP:SYNTH to connect it with the 2nd source, which is solely about how Pan relates to depictions of the Devil. While the first source does provide some link between early goatlike races and later gods, it doesn't seem like enough to make the term pass notability as a broad concept._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 15:33, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Note to closer The above analysis by Zxcvbnm of Andrew's comment is accurate. Regardless of how this ends, please be careful not to word your close in a manner that appears, even implicitly, to endorse SYNTH. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:55, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

*Keep there seems to be some merit to this article, and source are available to improve it. Prince of Thieves (talk) 09:17, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

• Delete While at first glance it might seem like a worthy article, it actually contains nothing at all of interest or notability. This is simply a list of mythological creatures - moreover, augmented by duplication of material, e.g. Pan is a satyr and does not merit a separate listing. There are no ciations, no links nothing. This could perhaps be a valid idea for an article if there are scientific or other sources expanding about the concept of people presented as goats in human mythology or biology :-) out there. Until then, this is yet another article indiscriminately created. -The Gnome (talk) 09:32, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
• Very Keep/Renamed - It's very keep as per good examples above me. But it's clearly need renaming as List of Mythological Goat-Human hybrids to end confusion [with better sources to prevent this again in future] for some people like the guy who proposing for deleting the page. Chad The Goatman (talk) 18:06, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
  • @Chad The Goatman: Would you mind defining what you mean by "hybrids"? Satyrs and the like are not traditionally portrayed as the result of humans mating with goats. Absent a reasonable alternate title, renaming the page isn't a viable solution. Never mind figures like "Satan", who come from Hebrew mythology and had nothing to do with goats until much later artistic representations. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:13, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Firstly they are fictional so no bestiality since they are made up by Ancient Greeks to explain outside world especially of explain how Wine exists and second two please don't take this mostly literal. And lastly, a course later version Satan satyric appearance was later adopted by 15/16th century Christian to try portrayed Satan's appearance to purposedly demonized Pagan gods. Chad The Goatman (talk) 24:25, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
• Redirect to List of hybrid creatures in mythology. There needs to be some form of WP:DAB/WP:SAL page for the various human-goat hybrids of mythology, but the current article at Goat people does a poor job of it and the title isn't ideal. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:16, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
• Don't keep; neutral on redirect/merge/rename/userfy/etc. Another unsourced OR nightmare. "broad concept" (as mentioned by Andrew Davidson in his canvassing message here) doesn't make any more sense than the last time he brought it up (or the time before that) -- if a topic is never described by a particular term in reliable sources, it is a violation of WP:NOR for us to describe it that way. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:07, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
• Redirect I endorse power~enwiki's redirect idea. This at the moment is an unsourced list. At the very least it should be renamed. It could possibly be replaced using the list here as GOAT People... SportingFlyer talk 07:13, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

• Keep per the significant coverage in reliable sources.
  1. King, Scott Alexander (2007). Graham, Tanya (ed.). Animal Dreaming: The Spiritual and Symbolic Language of the Australasian Animals. Blue Angel Publishing. p. 104. ISBN 0980398304. Retrieved 2018-03-13.

     The book notes:

     Pan, the half-man/half-Goat fertility God of Greek mythology (sometimes depicted with an erect penis), personifies the potency of the Goat's fecundity, as do creatures of equally fabulous ilk, satyrs, fawns and pookas. When negatively directing their potential, Goat people are typically followers who inconsequentially indulge themselves in shameless activity. They may drink to excess, for example, partake in illicit drugs, boast about their sexual conquests and forcefully exact their sexual wants and desires. They play harmful practical jokes, amuse themselves with cruel taunts and activities that frighten others (reckless driving, for example) and often adopt irrational or unreasonable attitudes regarding the environment and the world as a whole. When demonstrating their positive traits, however, Goat people are gentle and loving. They have an inherent love of animals, plants, the waterways, mountains and nature. They are demonstrative, funny, and sensitive. Goat people are often described as being the 'Salt of the Earth', grounded and sound.

     According to https://www.blueangelonline.com/about_us.html,

     Blue Angel Publishing started as a specialist bookstore and art gallery in 1997 and in 2001 evolved into a publishing company. The first Blue Angel Publishing publication was Toni Carmine Salerno's Universal Love Oracle.

     We are now a small boutique and independent publishing house with a strong network of distribution outlets around the globe and many of our publications are now published in various languages, including Japanese, German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Slovenian, Polish, Czech, Portugese, Chinese, Danish, Russian and Norwegian.

     I consider this edited book from an independent publisher to be a reliable source.
  2. Arrowsmith, Nancy (2009) [1977]. Field Guide to the Little People: A Curious Journey Into the Hidden Realm of Elves, Faeries, Hobgoblins & Other Not-so-mythical Creatures. Woodbury, Minnesota: Llewellyn Worldwide. p. 107. ISBN 0738715492. Retrieved 2018-03-13.

     The book notes:

     Goat people
     
     Besides various elves who occasionally take goat form or who have goatlike qualities, there is an entire group who have assumed the characteristics of both men and goats. The most famous of these are the Panes, Satyrs, and Sileni of classical Greece. These were early wood and field spirits who were later changed into the classical half-gods with which we are familiar. The Sileni, or Albanian Goat People, were reduced to Silenus, the drunken old goat-man who followed Dionysos. The Satyrs, once known only in Argos, were suddenly recognized all over Greece as the "gentle gods." The wood and herd Panes were telescoped into "the great god Pan," the pipe-playing nymph ravager.

     In Italy, the Goat People were called Fauni and Silvani, The Fauni, once field spirits who gave nightmares to animals, were honored at state festivals and were changed into the god Faunus. The Silvani, elves who guarded the herds, houses, and land boundaries of the ancient Romans, became the minor god Silvanus.

     [An "Identification" subsection that discusses what Goat People look like.]

     According to the book's title page, the book was first published in 1977 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and was published a second time in 2009 by Llewellyn Worldwide.
  There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Goat people to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

  Cunard (talk) 07:34, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

@Cunard: Umm ... the portion of Arrowsmith's book you quote seems to treat these myths with a degree too much credulity, and according to the publisher's website she has a master’s degree in acupuncture and runs her own healing practice: are you sure her book is a reliable source? As I said in the swamp monster AFD, mythology and folklore are topics of serious academic study, and we shouldn't be relying onfringe popular sources. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:06, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I do not consider the text to be unreliable based on how it's written. From Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction#Plot summaries of individual works: "In articles on individual works, the plot summary is usually described within a section labeled 'Plot', 'Story', or 'Synopsis'. This heading implicitly informs the reader that the text within it describes the fiction. For conciseness, it is thus not necessary to explicitly incorporate out-of-universe language". I believe Arrowsmith decided for concision not to use out-of-universe language (like "The Fauni, who was said in myths to be once field spirits who gave nightmares to animals" instead of "The Fauni, once field spirits who gave nightmares to animals") because it is clear to the reader that this is mythology.

The New York Times said of the book, "Rationalists, materialists, be forewarned: the ancient forces governing earthly incident and momentum lie neither in our heads nor our economics, but, rather, in the revelations from A Field Guide to the Little People." I don't consider this book, which was first published by mainstream publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1977, to be a fringe source based on the author's background.

Cunard (talk) 08:50, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I drafted a reply to an earlier comment that made it clear that there is a difference between "fiction" and what we are supposed to be writing here, but apparently forgot to post it. The guideline you quote definitely does not apply to articles on mythology and folklore, as I already painstakingly explained here. Anyway, are you aware that "Fauni" is plural? Your above hypothetical amendment to Arrowsmith's text seems to imply you are not, even though it is obvious from her grammar, and the NYT quote appears to agree with my reading of the source as fringe "the fairies are real" stuff, not with your assertion to the contrary. It is very difficult to discuss topics like this with editors who are not reading their own sources as closely as I am, and FS&G being a "mainstream" publisher is frankly irrelevant, as they're not an academic publisher known for strict fact-checking of content submitted to them by authors who promote fringe spiritualist theories -- Doubleday is a mainstream publisher, but that doesn't magically make The Da Vinci Code a reliable source on anything. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:44, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Funny coincidence: I last heard the name "Doubleday" in a lecture by John Meier about his influential series A Marginal Jew, which is a well-regarded scholarly work on exactly the kind of stuff Dan Brown got so wrong in his book; no general publishing house can be used as a measure of the "reliability" of everything they print, one way or the other. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:49, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

• Aaargh Browsing around the topic, it seems that goats screaming like people is a thing – see Slate's report, for example. The super-cut compilation is worth a view -- some of those goats express the Wikipedia experience very eloquently. Andrew D. (talk) 07:39, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
• Keep Just rename it to List of hybrid goat people. All it is is a list anyway. If someone wants to make an article about goat people used in a different means, they can do so. List_of_hybrid_creatures_in_mythology#Upper_part_human in the goat section doesn't list everything in this list, just the Greek mythology entries, so redirecting there wouldn't work. Dream Focus 11:43, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

@Dream Focus: The list is pretty short, so "redirect" implies "merge, assuming content can be sourced". Are you willing to locate sources for some of the more dubious (read: OR) content in the list? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:03, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I was working on the article after posting here. [1] I eliminated one bad entry already, and tagged another as a reference needed, and started to organize and add information to the rest. Any references can be found in the articles linked to quite easily. I don't see anywhere most of the entries can be merged to. Dream Focus 12:06, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

• Keep: Wikipedia is not racist against goats or their people. In any event, this is more of a disambiguation page in my view, and it seems useful, just like List of piscine and amphibian humanoids and List of reptilian humanoids. Horse people currently redirects to Eurasian nomads, but that's a different usage entirely. In German, they are called "Reitervölker" which does mean Horse People. Alas, why is there no article on Hausziegevölker (goat people) on the German wikipedia?-Milowent • ^hasspoken 20:45, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
• Rename into List of goat hybrid creatures - they are not really "people". Staszek Lem (talk) 23:55, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect to List of hybrid creatures in mythology#Upper part human. This is a list and that's a list too. Merging and redirecting also takes care of the fact that this article is misnamed. There are other kinds of goat people that have nothing to do with mythology, such as year of the goat people. [[2]]. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:09, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

How do merge something to a list about mythology if most of the entries aren't about mythology at all? Dream Focus 19:14, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

They seem to fit, which ones are not fitting into mythology? Prince of Thieves (talk) 19:21, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Which entries are not mythology? If you mean creatures called "gods", then FYI all pagans gods today fall under both religion and mythology. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:23, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Looking it over, yeah, they don't just have Greek and Roman mythology but others as well. Remembering how someone argued that mythology and folklore were too different things, and I thought some would complain about some of the entries, but whatever. That could work. Need to do a proper merge discussion before merging of course. I posted on the talk page there just now to make certain no one had any objections to anything on the list. Dream Focus 19:27, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

This merge suggestion has another problem: it changes the subject: not all crritters in the list are "upper part human"see eg Baphomet Staszek Lem (talk) 19:34, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

We could put that critter in #Human with animal head on the same page. Prince of Thieves (talk) 19:44, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Good idea getting consensus from the other article - selective merging into different sections would seem to make sense, but that makes a specific redirect harder. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 23:05, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz ^Humbug! 19:44, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

• Keep. There appear to be sufficient sources for a separate article, but it will need retitling. I suggest there might well be sufficient sources for similar expansions of most of the other sections in articles also for most of the sections in List of hybrid creatures in mythology. DGG ( talk ) 00:32, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• Delete. At the moment, I don't see the utility of this article. Individual cases should be handled on an individual basis. If they have some relation, we can discuss that per article. I'm generally opposed to ill-defined lists with little solid content. This is a solid example. :bloodofox: (talk) 16:35, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• Delete Seeing as this article does not have any sources whatsoever and merely lists other articles about different types of so-called "goat-people," I see no point in keeping it. We have other articles about satyrs and fauns; we do not need an amorphously-titled one like "Goat people." --Katolophyromai (talk) 19:51, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• Keep notable mythological creature with extensive coverage in multiple cultures. I've added sources. The group of creatures have been collectively called Goat people. [3], [4], [5], and [6]. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 20:13, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

A quick look at these sources reveals that they're all from non-specialists. For example, can you find folklorists using this term? What would the relevant AT motif be? :bloodofox: (talk) 21:11, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• delete this is like something written by a junior high school kid. There were zero sources and the sources that have been added are poor. We are not an indiscriminate collection of random facts; that is policy and that is what N is all about. Jytdog (talk) 21:33, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

You mean something like this? That is an academic source. There are a tremendous number of sources from Google Scholar on "Goat men" [7] This should remove any doubts on WP:N. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 21:52, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Looking at the "tremendous number of sources" you cite from Google Scholar, I note a scant 356 results, most of which appear to be false positives or from non-academic sources. (Looks like Google might want to take a closer look at its approach, but that's another topic for another time.) :bloodofox: (talk) 22:00, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

@Bloodofox: you are right not all sources are directly related to the mythological creature as search engines are never completely specific, but there are enough to show this is a history subject covered in Greek plays and history. Here are some solid sources Books and Journals, https://search.proquest.com/openview/3495bb1f8badca7098a775e7bdaccc5b/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1819401 Proquest], Wiley. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 22:05, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• Delete I honestly looked for reasons to rename and merge this. Maybe there were a number of objective scholarly works that included all the goat people listed in the article, and discussed their common traits, significance in folklore, etc? But no, there aren't multiple sources making this distinction to justify Wikipedia creating this list and classification. I agree the original article was like something written by a high school kid, and sourced to things like the invented language of a TV show. Others have tried to patch it up with sources that only address satyr plays, etc. While it's true that articles like (totally unsourced) List of piscine and amphibian humanoids exist, that's not a compelling reason (to me) for creating one more. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:17, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Will someone at least remove the entry for "Chinese mythology"? It clearly uses the phrase "goat people" to refer to people born in the Chinese Year of the goat. It has nothing to do with the topic of mythological goat-humans. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:37, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

@LuckyLouie:,  Done, I hope you can reconsider. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 17:43, 2 April 2018 (UTC)