Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Language Creation Society (2nd nomination)

Language Creation Society

AfDs for this article:

• Articles for deletion/Language Creation Society
• Articles for deletion/Language Creation Society (2nd nomination)

Language Creation Society (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Non-notable organization, yet again recreated, quite possibly at the behest of individuals with a financial connection to the Language Creation Society (albeit in the context of a Wiki-Ed supported course at the University of British Columbia).

The only thing that has changed since the last AfD and Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2016 May 24#DRV is that LCS helped bankroll a documentary (co-produced by the instructor for the aforementioned UBC/Wiki-Ed course instructor) which may have featured LCS to some extent. Because LCS provided funding to the film, I argue that it is irrelevant for the purposes of establishing notability. That LCS got a lawyer to write and file an amicus brief in their name in a constructed language lawsuit last year was discussed at length in the DRV, and makes no difference whatsoever.

I have no idea why this was accepted at AfC. This former student group is blatantly inappropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia. Even if you look at ghits, there are fewer than there were at the last AfD: I found 164 in the last AfD, and there are 145 ghits today. For an organization founded at Berkeley in the 2000s that primarily attracts heavy internet users, all or virtually all the coverage that it should ever be expected to receive should be online. No matter how niche this organization is, if it is notable within our standards, there should be something, anything online. There is not. There never has been.

Note to reviewing admin and other !voters: I fully expect that current and former LCS executives and board members will come out of the woodwork to !vote on this AfD. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 23:36, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 23:39, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 23:39, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 23:39, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

• Keep Clearly meets GNG. I reviewed the draft and moved it to mainspace. I did not do so at the "behest" of anyone; nor do I have any connection - financial or otherwise - to the LCS. A dose of AGF would not go amiss. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:46, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Nobody was talking about you. As to it "clearly" meeting GNG, by what standard? There is no significant coverage anywhere that is specifically about this organization. They rode the coattails of the guy who made a constructed language for Game of Thrones, which did get significant coverage, and got a few passing mentions themselves. Notability is not inherited. You should know this. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 23:52, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
    • You seem to have had it out for this page for some time, Mendaliv, and I wonder why... Seems fishy. In your comments throughout this page, you've said things that are either inaccurate, misleading, or a bit defensive, and I'm going to point them out here, so that, at the very least, maybe a less biased editor can step in and make a neutral evaluation. For what it's worth, though I don't know how I can verify this (if there's a way, you can let me know), I am David J. Peterson, the creator of Dothraki. For starters, on this comment, it would seem odd to say the Language Creation Society rode my coattails, since they were the ones that got the Dothraki job. The LCS was actually contracted by HBO, and then the LCS subcontracted the job to me, when I won the contest the LCS set up—just as it did with the movie Noah and the winner of that contest. Before that, neither the LCS nor I had any kind of notability outside the conlanging community, and when it was announced—going all the way back to the HBO press release—the LCS and myself were mentioned at the same time, just as both myself and the LCS are in the end credits throughout the first season of Game of Thrones. Throughout the entire time, the LCS continued to do what it was founded to do: serve as a resource for conlangers, promote conlanging, and put on the Language Creation Conference. Even if it were riding my coattails (coattails that never would have been there without the LCS, mind), what would they be riding them to? To continuing to do exactly what they were doing just fine beforehand? Or was it all a clever scheme to achieve Wikipedia notability? The fact of the matter is that since its inception ten years ago, the LCS has done what it was founded to do, but has also contributed significantly to the recent history of language creation. Given that language creation is, I would still argue, a very young art, its contributions are significant enough to make it noteworthy. David J Peterson (talk) 12:14, 23 December 2017 (UTC)This editor has a conflict of interest about the subject.Winged Blades^Godric 14:48, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. J947 ^{(c · m)} 00:15, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. J947 ^{(c · m)} 00:15, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• Delete. Several of the citations are internal stuff, like the organisation's pages about its members. Most of the others are sources without established reputations for accuracy in the field of linguistics, whether popular websites or news sources whose editors are responsible for publishing the latest things, not the things that are long-term important. [Note that citation #18 is a news source; someone cited the EZproxy login page, for some bizarre reason, but it's really an article entitled "Judge asked to rule Klingon is a language" from the 2016-04-29 issue of the National Post.] The only items that look like actually reliable sources are OCLC 781675594 and 941954806, but both of them are being used to support side items; neither one appears to talk about the LCS itself. Nyttend (talk) 00:38, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Right. This is the same problem that came up in the last AfD and the DRV. The claims of notability are solely coattail-riding on Dothraki. The situation here is essentially the same as the example in WP:N of something that is not WP:SIGCOV: Martin Walker's statement, in a newspaper article about Bill Clinton, that "In high school, he was part of a jazz band called Three Blind Mice" is plainly a trivial mention of that band. While Peterson may not be as famous as Bill Clinton, it's pretty evident from the sources and ghits that LCS is about as notable as Clinton's high school jazz band. Much of the concerted activity going on in the article as I type this, led by LCS-affiliated editors, seems focused on cramming links to any website anywhere that uses the phrase "language creation society" into the article. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 05:26, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
    • Again, you seem to have an utterly bizarre definition of coattail-riding. Bill Clinton is famous for his work as a politician. Presumably, his high school band did little to launch his political career, and so Bill Clinton being a part of the high school band wouldn't make the band noteworthy enough for a Wikipedia page. By using this analogy, though, you make it sound as if the LCS and the Dothraki language had nothing to do with one another—as if I was an LCS member for a couple years and then later I somehow found myself creating the Dothraki language. If this is what you believe, then I'll tell you it's plainly inaccurate. If it's not, then you're trying to mislead those who don't know any better. The LCS was actually the one contracted by HBO, and then the LCS subcontracted to the winner of the contest. Had I died, or done a bad job, it would have been on the LCS to replace me. I honestly thought this was common knowledge. If it's not, I'll go dig through the transcripts of one of the fifty interviews I've done where I've said as much and link to it. The way this went, as I've said many, many times, is the producers of Game of Thrones wanted a languages, so they contacted Arika Okrent, because she had a book out (In the Land of Invented Languages), and she sent them directly to Sai, the president of the Language Creation Society, whom she'd met two years earlier at the Language Creation Conference. Sai, as president of the LCS, then negotiated directly with HBO, signed the contract on behalf of the LCS, and put together the contest himself to find a conlanger to create the language. You cannot discuss the created languages of Game of Thrones without the LCS. The conversation starts there. They hardly rode my coattails. David J Peterson (talk) 12:14, 23 December 2017 (UTC)This editor has a conflict of interest about the subject.Winged Blades^Godric 14:48, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• Comment-At edit-a-thons I tell newbies that the first choice is not necessarily to create an article if there's a broader article to which a paragraph can properly fit. That failing, the first and second considerations are :

1. Notability. You must give one citation that's in an independent WP:RS and is all or mostly about the subject, not just mentioning it in passing. Two or three of those can much strengthen the case.
2. Fact. Several citations. You must cite each important fact to a RS but it can be a mention in passing. Making a dozen won't much strengthen the case.

I see plenty of citations, but unfortunately we lack a standard way of flagging the ones that are indicating notability. Which ones are carrying the notability burden? Jim.henderson (talk) 01:28, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

There's not a one that indicates notability. Looking to the DRV, the claim was that their amicus brief in a lawsuit did it... which is absolute garbage if you look at any of the sources LCS-affiliated people themselves have provided in support of this argument. Not a single one provides WP:SIGCOV. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 05:02, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• Keep: A notable subject mentioned by many popular culture sources. John Cummings (talk) 01:55, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • "Mentions" do not satisfy notability. There must be significant coverage. This burden has not been met. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 05:02, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Precisely what Mendaliv said.Mentions, out of which many are in quasi-reliable sources, don't matter.Significant covg., in a non-trivial manner matters.Winged Blades^Godric 14:31, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• Keep: As an encyclopedia, WP is a place where readers come to find additional information on topics mentioned elsewhere. Being that LCS has multiple mentions in mainstream news stories (even if a number are as a connection to David J. Peterson, etc.), those wanting more information on it would hopefully turn to WP as a source for additional information. Its notability comes from its mention in such articles in print and online, its mention in multiple articles as part of the Klingon lawsuit (e.g., NPR citations added to article), its sponsorship of a documentary film, its mention in OCLC 952721666 (p.35) (currently cited in article) which includes "Not surprisingly, it was this society that HBO contacted when the latter wanted to flesh out both the Dothraki language and the Valyrian languages for Game of Thrones...", and the fact that Fiat Lingua is cited within WorldCat with its ISSN 2156-566X. [Full Disclosure: I am currently listed in the LCS Officers emeriti but have had no official function since 2015.) Hamaxides (talk) 03:48, 23 December 2017 (UTC)This editor has a conflict of interest about the subject.Winged Blades^Godric 14:48, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Honestly, the notability of the documentary is highly questionable... if it hadn't been AfD'd with no consensus very recently I'd be nominating it as well. That it is mentioned on IMDB is tantamount to saying that because another subject has a Wikipedia article, this subject is notable: WP:NOTINHERITED. The other issues—Dothraki and the lawsuit—were dealt with in the DRV over a year ago: They do not cause LCS to become notable. The other argument, that because LCS is mentioned in multiple places, is both overstating the case (see my note above about the absolute paucity of Google hits on the LCS) and misses the point: Mentions are not enough, there must be WP:SIGCOV. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 05:02, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
    • As to the number of hits, a Google search for "language creation society" -site:conlang.org -intitle:conlang -fiatlingua (just to weed out some self-referential ones and those with conlang in the title of the page) retrieves 56,400 results. Hamaxides (talk) 05:34, 23 December 2017 (UTC)This editor has a conflict of interest about the subject.Winged Blades^Godric 14:48, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
      • Sorry, that's not how you do a google hits count: You don't take the number from the first page, which is an estimated number, and in low-relevance topics like LCS, always massively overstates it. You don't even have to take out the self-referential things: There are fewer than 200 Google hits about the Language Creation Society. Period. See WP:SET for how to do this. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 06:47, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
        • My bad, and thank you for the link to WP:SET. Hamaxides (talk) 14:29, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• Delete and Salt For the exact same reasons it's been deleted/draftified before. There is no point to having the article if it keeps getting re-created nearly identical to how it was previously. I urge any admin who closes this to look at all the previously deleted versions and actually see if there has been ANY improvement. If not, salt it. --Tarage (talk) 04:11, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• Keep. Conlanging is a small field, but LCS is well known within it. By its nature most conlanging discussion is ephemeral; it's just not going to produce a lot of newspaper articles. If you want to know if it's well known within conlanging, you have to ask conlangers. The fact that LCS is directly responsible for Dothraki, one of the best known conlangs, in a major media production, is notable enough. (If a novelist becomes famous after winning a prize, would people say the prize is non-notable?) Zompist (talk) 04:45, 23 December 2017 (UTC)This editor has a conflict of interest about the subject.Winged Blades^Godric 14:48, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • LCS is not directly responsible for Dothraki. All they did was select a person to create the language, who incidentally appears to have been notable already. Your analogy about books and authors, as well, fails: WP:NOTINHERITED. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 05:02, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
    • Unless someone else has taken the user name "Zompist" on Wikipedia, that is Mark Rosenfelder (cf. Zompist.com), who, by the way, took part in the Dothraki competition. If you had any understanding at all of the conlanging community, you'd understand what a huge deal it is that Mark Rosenfelder is stepping into this discussion to defend the LCS. That aside, it's also a bit comical that you, someone who clearly doesn't know how the Dothraki competition went down at all, judging by your comments, is correcting an actual competitor on who is or isn't responsible for the Dothraki language. I also find it quite amusing that you're now suggesting I was notable already, since I had my own Wikipedia page deleted several times the first time someone tried to add it after Game of Thrones had aired. If only I could have shared this comment of yours back then! To put it bluntly, no, I was not notable, full stop. I was well known in certain corners of the conlanging community, but not as well as known as, for example, Zompist.com, or even the LCS. I'd love to see what "keep" arguments you would produce for a Wikipedia page on me circa 2009. If you see my comment above, I'd like to know what counts as directly responsible. No, the LCS did not create the words or grammar of Dothraki, but they were directly responsible in the literal sense that they were directly responsible to HBO for it living up to HBO's standards. In fact, they were quite literally responsible for the language, in the simplest sense. It was the LCS's decision to have a competition to have someone else create it—something they were in no way required to do. David J Peterson (talk) 12:14, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Where did you come from User:Zompist? You haven't edited Wikipedia in OVER A YEAR and somehow you are magically here to contest this deletion? Who told you about this AFD? --Tarage (talk) 05:38, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
    • WHY would editing history matter? Should this AFD be kept a secret from people who are interested in this topic so you can win the day? So much for wikipedia as a collaborative effort. -CESchreyer (talk) 05:44, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
      • It matters because the majority of keep !voters in this discussion have known offline connections or are conlangers. The complete lack of on-wiki communication that led to the recreation of this article and the inexplicable acceptance of the AfC thirty minutes after its submission (along with an apology to the article creator, who hadn't asked for its recreation or submitted it for AfC on-wiki, and as far as I can tell hasn't done anything on-wiki since its deletion). AfC's backlog is massive right now. Even if we assume the recreation in userspace was via IRC request, why was this article walked to the front of the AfC queue when there are other drafts waiting months to be approved? What the hell is going on here? —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 06:54, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
        • "the inexplicable acceptance of the AfC thirty minutes after its submission " That' is in no way "inexplicable". I queried the article's deletion, and in a reply to my post that it had been recreated in draft, so reviewed it. So much for your bogus "complete lack of on-wiki communication" claim. Like I said above, you need to start assuming good faith instead of throwing around such snide insinuations in this manner. And I apologised to the artcle's creator because some editors have treated them in the same shamefully abysmal manner in which you and another are behaving here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:19, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• Keep. The Language Creation Society is an internationally known not-for-profit that has contributed to raising awareness about the art of language invention. Some of the most well-known conlangers in the world are members of the society or have presented at their conferences. Bias towards conlangs in general has been an issue in the public and in academia , but more and more people are accepting conlangs as legitimate languages which we can learn from for a number of reasons (as a simply google scholar search will tell you) and this attempt to delete this page, which is the main source of information and history on the world of conlanging on-line speaks to a bias against this topic more than the guidelines of wikipedia. CESchreyer (talk) 05:35, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Maybe some reading of WP:AADD? Cheers! Winged Blades^Godric 14:38, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• Concern How is it that every single keep vote so far has been either from an editor who directly worked on the article or from editors who have not edited Wikipedia in over a year? This seems awfully fishy to me. --Tarage (talk) 05:44, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
• Note:Students chose the articles they wished to edit on their own and I as the instructor of the course absolutely did not ask them to write this article. We did see it had been deleted several times, but as deleted content is removed we couldn't see why this was as we are not administrators.

The only thing that has changed since the last AfD and Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2016 May 24#DRV is that LCS helped bankroll a documentary (co-produced by the instructor for the aforementioned UBC/Wiki-Ed course instructor) which may have featured LCS to some extent.

It is not "to some extent" entire scenes are filmed at the LCC6, which is hosted by the LCS.

Because LCS provided funding to the film, I argue that it is irrelevant for the purposes of establishing notability.

The film was also supported by a Canadian federal funding agency (SSHRC) who knew that the majority of footage had been filmed at LCC6 and this grant greatly outweighs the funding provided by LCS (page 2). http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/transparency-transparence/disclosure-divulgation/grants-subventions/2015/july_2015.pdf

That LCS got a lawyer to write and file an amicus brief in their name in a constructed language lawsuit last year was discussed at length in the DRV, and makes no difference whatsoever.

Many articles that refer to the brief, also mention the LCS and their goals and various pursuits, which illustrates notability with many minor citations (see comment below).

For the record, not a board member. -CESchreyer (talk) 05:35, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Yeah that's not okay in the slightest. That's called canvasing and we have rules specifically against that. Also PLEASE stop spamming your comments all over the page in a haphazard way. You are not helping your case by making it completely unreadable. I had to clean it up quite a bit to get it to this point. --Tarage (talk) 05:49, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Note: I don't see any suggestion of canvassing in CESchreyer's comment above. Agreed that it wasn't in the format it should have been (@CESchreyer:, in the interests of clarity, AfD discussions customarily have replies below the entire comment - so if you want to reply to me here, you'd normally do one more indent below the last line of my comment and then reply, rather than interleaving your replies with my original comments, which makes it very hard for admins to read the discussion and judge consensus), but all the comment points to is a choice of article for the Wiki-Ed course. Perhaps a choice which should have been taken with more input from admins who could see the deleted content, but a choice nonetheless. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 07:55, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Pretty sure Tarage was referring to this: CESchreyer (talk) 05:44, 23 December 2017 (UTC) WHY would editing history matter? Should this AFD be kept a secret from people who are interested in this topic so you can win the day? So much for wikipedia as a collaborative effort. Unfortunately, CESchreyer's threading seems to have messed things up quite severely, and Tarage had to untangle things. As to the comment, CESchreyer's response was to Tarage asking where these mystery editors were coming from. Given we even had the creator of Dothraki come to the talk page the other day to personally oppose the G4 deletion, it is pretty clear that the LCS-affiliated people on Wikipedia are talking amongst themselves about this. AGF is not a suicide pact, and the Wikipedia community is not stupid. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 08:14, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

You did hear from me, and you're going to keep hearing from me if you use false or misleading statements as proof. You've repeatedly claimed the LCS is riding my coattails to fame. If they come to defend this claim, you decry them for being interested parties trying to sway the conversation. I'm the one who should be able to come in here and set the record straight. It's clear as day to me you haven't got the slightest clue how the Dothraki job happened, despite the fact that it's not a secret. That's no crime, but acting as if you do know, and then using that as ammunition to get the LCS Wikipedia article deleted is something I can't stand for. If you want to talk about sources, fine, but you cannot speak with any kind of authority about the LCS's involvement in Game of Thrones. David J Peterson (talk) 12:14, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• Extreme Concern We have admitted COI issues with both the creation of this article and voting to keep it. I HIGHLY recommend that an administrator step in to deal with this, because I sure as hell can't. --Tarage (talk) 08:56, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Admin Note, @Tarage: If you have evidence of sockpuppeting, then take it to WP:SPI. Otherwise kindly assume good faith and refute the arguments rather than the arguer. Constructive input is welcome from all at AFD, including new and returning editors. The closing admin will have the savvy to judge the merit of the arguments made by editors here. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 11:43, 23 December 2017 (UTC).
    • Yeah, to be fair, I don't think there's socking happening here. CESchreyer said on her user talk earlier that she had complained on Twitter that the LCS page got deleted. It looks like some in the conlanging scene picked up on that. I don't think there was an intention to canvas in violation of policy, more annoyance. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 11:48, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
      • I never said socking. If anything this is meat puppetry and offsite canvasing. Take it as you will. --Tarage (talk) 11:56, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
        • Let me be a little more blunt then. Your constant bludgeoning of this point, complete with edit summaries like this is unhelpful, and borderline disruptive. Your concerns are noted. Please stop repeatedly bombarding this discussion with them. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 12:21, 23 December 2017 (UTC).
• Keep, per User:Pigsonthewing and others. (And, for the record, I have no connection to the LCS other than a broad interest in languages plus I'm an editor of something like 15 years, as if that matters) I'm more concerned that Tarage and Mendaliv seem to have an obsessive dislike for this article than I am that some editors are !voting while on a wikibreak. — OwenBlacker (talk) 09:40, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • There is no WP:SIGCOV here. No keep !voter has even come close to addressing this beyond claiming that LCS is notable because the person who created Dothraki is notable. Come on. Policy-based arguments, please. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 09:46, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • If you are seriously going to tell me with a straight face that an editor who hasn't edited in over a year is going to randomly come here and vote keep, you think I am far more stupid than I am, and I am insulted. I actually don't have a strong opinion about this article, but I do about the process, which is being violated in new and troubling ways with every vote. --Tarage (talk) 10:00, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
• Keep. Language creation is a small field, and a young art. The LCS has made significant contributions to an artform that has only been recognized as such—if at all—for the past 10-15 years. This incarnation of the article was created by a student who may not have had all the best sources at hand, but for that I refer to WP:NOTCLEANUP. I'd love to hear from neutral parties, to let those who are making this page know what specifically needs more sourcing. The notability of the LCS at this point shouldn't be in question. David J Peterson (talk) 12:14, 23 December 2017 (UTC)This editor has a conflict of interest about the subject.Winged Blades^Godric 14:48, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm guessing from your IP and manner of writing that you're David J. Peterson again (based on the now-deleted comment that was at Talk:Language Creation Society by a similar IPv6 address). This isn't a matter of sourcing: It's been clearly established that there are no sources to establish LCS's notability. We're talking about a former student organization created in the mid-2000s at one of the most technologically-connected universities on the planet, and a practice (conlanging) which has deep roots in listservs and web forums (and probably newsgroups, for the conlangers of that era). Notability needs to be established by reliable sources, and the reliable sources do not bear out LCS's notability. And for a topic like LCS, where virtually everyone involved is clearly highly web-savvy and techno-savvy, and has been long before most people became so, it is not only unlikely, it is downright preposterous that there are reliable sources demonstrating significant coverage, within Wikipedia's standards, that are both offline and not clearly indicated as existing in the online information. And given we've had at least five LCS-affiliated editors in these deletion discussions over the past two years, I find it even more preposterous that none of them have produced any evidence that any reliable sources demonstrating the requisite significant coverage exist. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 12:30, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
• Delete--I was looking at this for some time and Mendaliv and Nyttend's argument completely convince me.The closing sysop is cautioned to strongly weigh the keep arguments in light of meatpuppetry and/or offwiki collusion.I also note that none of the keep !voters including the quite-experienced ACC-reviewer has bothered to elaborate on how the article passes GNG.Winged Blades^Godric 14:16, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Maybe not offwiki collusion, but (not sure if mentioned before) offwiki canvassing on twitter has occured, and is probably responsible for a lot of the people coming. Galobtter (pingó mió) 15:16, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• Delete somewhat reluctantly as I am (personally and professionally) interested in human languages, constructed or otherwise. The society just doesn't have significant coverage in reliable independent sources; I won't repeat the arguments already made above re WP:NOTINHERITED or trivial mentions versus deep coverage, but they are of course relevant. Sorry, but neither WP:GNG nor WP:ORG is met here. --bonadea contributions talk 14:19, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
• Keep — This organization has received two flurries of press coverage, for its role in the creation of Dothraki and for its amicus brief regarding the Klingon language. Coverage of the former extended into in-depth consideration of the conlang-ing community and substantial consideration of the society (see [1]), while coverage of the latter included discussion of a substantial legal initiative by the organization. Moreover, general purpose texts on the literary imagination (The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds) and linguistics (For the Love of Language: An Introduction to Linguistics) seem to treat the LCS as a genuine resource on the issue.--Carwil (talk) 14:49, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • None of this is significant coverage of the organization, let alone its activities. The New Republic article you cite has a single sentence mention of LCS. The amicus brief coverage, as well, was just coverage of the underlying lawsuit plus a couple of legal commentators smiling about the use of Klingon script in a court filing. At best, you might have an argument that LCS might be mentioned in the articles on Dothraki and the Klingon language lawsuit. As to the documentary you cite, it does not rise to the level of significant coverage because it is not independent of LCS, as WP:SIGCOV requires. This is without even needing to review the documentary itself because the documentary was partly funded by LCS. The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds is a source I have not yet seen, but I have great doubts as to the depth of coverage provided in that work given the paucity of coverage discovered thus far. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 15:12, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Yup, pretty much. My thinking is that "genuine resource" means probably just citing it, or at most a mention of it. Galobtter (pingó mió) 15:53, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• Delete Per bonadea. Affirming Godric's message; also, those arguments should be discounted on weighed less as not aligning with our policies and guidelines. As far as I can see, the newrepublic piece has only a mention of the society. Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:51, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
• Delete: As much as I would like to wave this off there are issues that cannot be overlooked. Primary sources no not advance notability. There just is NOT significant coverage per policies and guidelines for the subject. Otr500 (talk)

Extra comments: There are "corporate" entities at work and claimed or not there is bias. The article is misnamed for starters as it is more about David Peterson or Constructed language ("Conlang") than anything else. The use of too close primary sources indicates that notability is an issue. I have far less of a problem with self-identified COI than paid editors but there is an obvious lack of a neutral point of view. Claiming Language Creation Society is an internationally known not-for-profit (and I support these) then why is the article full of primary and too close to the subject sources? Why are there more attempts (accidental or not) at sourcing things that beat around the bush? The COI that I disdain, is that the article has two embedded lists, proudly proclaiming names of the very people directly involved with the organization that has edited some areas. BIG FLAG. THEN, as if to impune my integrity, a self-disclosed COI editor tries to appeal that I am biased because "this attempt to delete this page, which is the main source of information and history on the world of conlanging on-line speaks to a bias against this topic more than the guidelines of wikipedia". I am glad I do strive to practice civility because this type of insensitive language (some pun intended) makes that little guy with horns on the shoulder scream "DELETE", "SALT with a drum full", and "BLOCK". However, as insinuations seem to be an order of the day, I will simply state that allowing this article to remain in the sorry state it is in, would be a travesty. Take out the embedded officers list and actually explain how, or where, there is this "source of information and history on the world of conlanging on-line".

I was a Star Trek fan before many here were born, so I had to look at this long and hard. The futuristic Sci-fi appeal had an allure. It was over and then came "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Michael Dorn (Worf) became the star I liked with the strange language. There are however, problems here beyond a lack of notability of this organization, using these primary sources, does call to question the organization's notability. Not "Conlang" as that is notable and I even glanced at List of language creators. I tagged this article and that one as BLP related. When the names of real people are in an article (and many seem to overlook this) there is automatically extra criteria. It does not matter if the content is flowery, neutral, or derogatory.

Take out the biased embedded lists, leaving about 448 words of prose, and what is left? Again, notability is established by significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. That is the bottom line, having nothing to do with liking or disliking "Conlang", or this article. By-the-way, I like Game of Thrones. Otr500 (talk) 16:14, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• Comment I'm Sai, founder of the LCS. I find this AfD, and indeed any discussion of the right to exist, to be toxic and therefore do not intend to participate substantively. However, I'll note a few factual points:
  1. @Mendaliv: has repeatedly accused, or insinuated, a WP:NPOV violation without any actual evidence of a single neutrality-affecting edit. I find personally find this insinuation of unethical conduct insulting. On the WP bureaucratic side, Mendaliv's tagging the article with Template:COI violates that template's explicit guidance to the contrary. This appears to be in bad faith. See discussion page.
  2. Mendaliv seems to have a hangup about the fact that the LCS was started — by me — as a UC Berkeley student group. How is that relevant? The LCS' transition from student group to independent 501(c)(3) was over a decade ago — and there are enough notable student groups on WP to have a large multi-level category.
  3. LCS currently has about 165 members worldwide. None of the officers/directors, except me, were part of the Berkeley group, and none of the current ones, except me, were even part of the founding directors of the LCS. (See last page of last link, the LCS Articles of Incorporation.)
  4. Mendaliv's ghits do not match mine. Using an incognito Chrome window, I got ~250 ghits, not the claimed 145. In what world is 250 hits — which include multiple major US & European news outlets, both print and online — not "something, anything online"?
  5. LCS did not get prominence via DJP — other way around. I ran LCC1. Arika Okrent heard about it and attended LCC2 as part of research for her book, Okrent, Arika (2009). In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language. Spiegel & Grau. p. 352. ISBN 0-385-52788-8.. GoT producer Dan Weiss contacted her because of the book; she referred him to me (as LCS President), and I ran the competitive job application for Dothraki, which DJP eventually won. (To be absolutely clear, it was thoroughly double-blinded, with validation of the effectiveness of the blinding. He won because his proposal was one of 3 extremely good finalists, not because of his status at the time as LCS Secretary.) That then got famous, because HBO. The LCS has handled many other conlanging jobs since then, though none as high-profile. Also, conlanging jobs are a small part of LCS' function — it's mainly a community support organization, e.g. running the Language Creation Conference, Fiat Lingua journal, resources for the public, etc. Pro conlanging is a thing we do on the side; it's an aspect of our serving as a public resource. We're the only organization in the world for conlangers. People who need conlanging done know to come to us and conlangers who want to try their hand at pro work do too.
  6. Dismissing international coverage of the Axanar/Klingon case seems like saying that Citizens United (organization) is non-notable because they're mainly known for Citizens United v. FEC. But, here's press about the organization & its relation to the conlanging community, not just Axanar/Klingon or Dothraki:
     • VICE Motherboard interview with me. See e.g. 17:20–19:15, 26:46–29:50 (parts not about Klingon case or legal issues).
     • Usona Esperanto interview with me and DJP.
  7. This entire discussion does not appear to make any attempt at suggesting improvements, but rather saying "delete most of it, even when neutrality is not contested, and nothing is left". That's not assuming good faith.

Cheers. Sai ¿?✍ 17:44, 23 December 2017 (UTC)