Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Modern Indo-European language

Modern Indo-European language

Modern Indo-European language (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Intro paragraph says it all: "a proposed international auxiliary language [...] presented by two undergraduate students [...] in 2006. Apart from the two students who invented it, it has no support from any scholars or public officials, has never been used by anyone, and has never been referenced by a reliable source". This is essentially still a correct summary of the state of affairs. This article has existed for six years and no reliable sources providing any amount of testable notability to it have ever been added. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:18, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

That "never been referenced by a reliable source" is false, although the rest may be true. -- 202.124.75.170 (talk) 08:13, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. The intro paragraph "says it all" because of this edit that was made to the lede 3 years after the article was created. Why Rjensen didn't just nominate it for deletion I don't know. It may indeed be deletable but I would still recommend doing the standard homework. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 17:36, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
  • What makes you think I didn't? Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:47, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
    • I guess I should have worded it differently. I meant "doing the standard homework if you haven't already". With such an obvious target painted on it, it would be tempting to skip that step even if one is a "careful" nominator. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 17:55, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. —Tom Morris (talk) 18:52, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

The "Modern Indo-European language" is interesting in a way, but also kind of stupid, and a remarkable amount of subsidiary Wikipedia nonsense (on other articles) seems to have been based around other people's interpretation of it. I would say that if there are no reliable sources or usable references, then at this point the article does not deserve any extra chances or special treatment, and should be dealt with according to the strict letter of Wikipedia policies... AnonMoos (talk) 23:01, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

• Weak keep or selective merge into Proto-Indo-European language. The project has produced several editions of a rather substantial grammar (about 800 pages). This book seems to have a half dozen or so citations (e.g. here and here). Thin, but not an obvious deletion. One of the students involved, btw, was a doctoral student, not an undergraduate, as the edit to the lede suggested. -- 202.124.75.170 (talk) 07:57, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
  • That "rather substantial grammar" is cobbled together from Wikipedia articles. It's a self-published work and utterly unreliable. The reference to it you cite [1] is a single passing mention in a footnote (p.970). All other references to this work I've seen are in fact unrelated to its actual topic: non-expert authors erroneously use this "grammar" as a handy online reference for ancient proto-IE or its historical daughter languages. I can't remember seeing any other reference to it that reflected a real interest in its nominal topic, i.e. the reconstruction/revitalization project as such. This also goes for the second ref you cite ([2]) Sad to see a PhD student at a serious university can get away with quoting this work in a dissertation. But whatever that reference is, it is not a substantial discussion of the topic of this article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:55, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Their grammar is "substantial." That's not the same as "correct," [as this PIE scholar points out]. The citations indicate it's marginally notable, (although some citations may, as you point out, reflect a misunderstanding of what the book is). Not a clear delete IMHO, but certainly very, very borderline. Probably deserving of a few lines in the PIE article (if only to save other people from confusion). What's your basis, btw, for asserting that their grammar is "cobbled together from Wikipedia articles"? -- 202.124.72.1 (talk) 10:54, 18 March 2012 (UTC)