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 keep. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 21:03, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

National dish (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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This was recently heavily trimmed and referenced, but unfortunately it still does not belong in the encyclopedia. The definition of "national dish" is far too vague and uninformative, serving only to assert that a list of pairing will follow, and the actual list itself - despite now being referenced - does not actually establish sufficiently that most of these are regarded as "national dishes", rather than simply being identified with some nation or well thought of there. Better to move this information to the individual nation articles (where appropriate and if it's missing) and delete this as an insufficiently well-defined list. — Gavia immer (talk) 18:14, 12 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Food and drink-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 18:45, 12 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Rename, redefine, and keep I haven't formed an opinion yet, I lean delete. I have always had a problem with the title of this article. The contents have always been problematic to source, and even now I am surprised foie gras is missing from France despite an easy source [1]. Although, it occurs that this could be salvaged by changing the title, "list of dishes popular by region" for example, that may be too indiscriminate. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Making a list of overwhelmingly popular dishes could be done, because that's a much clearer criterion. The current list is a mix of popular dishes, dishes that are explicitly a part of national self-identification (Italy and pasta), and dishes that are identified with some nation mostly by outsiders. It's the muddle that's the largest problem. — Gavia immer (talk) 19:57, 12 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. This article is just inviting endless debate over what constitutes a national dish. (I can see at least three foods on that list that I would change.) And while I will not debate the notability of having an article about a nation's signature cuisines, it should be in the form of individual articles for each country so that multiple foods can be included and discussed rather than one "signature" dish which would rarely gain consensus, perhaps with a portal that combines the respective articles. elektrikSHOOS 19:48, 12 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The irony of your rationale is that, in fact, it is possible to verifiably say, based upon reliable sources, that people have strong opinions and conflicts over what constitutes a national dish, in an encyclopaedia article on the subject. Your rationale is not a deletion rationale at all, but rather article content. Uncle G (talk) 02:22, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• keep. This is a good article worthy of project inclusion. A paper encyclopedia could not hadle this, but we are a perfect venue. For those dishes that are debatable, simply state it is debatable and list all entries that may be considered "national dish". There should really not be hundreds, there may be 2-4. I bet that google gets thousands of searches on "national dish". keep per WP:N. Take a look at the sourcing, it is adequate. WildHorsesPulled (talk) 20:19, 12 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - who decides the national dish ? It's a matter of tradition, and can't be verified. Claritas § 20:56, 12 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • In some countries, the government, apparently. Uncle G (talk) 02:22, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - The impossibility of finding an appropriate definition is enough. Both of the words are themselves not straightforward concepts (i.e. "national" and "dish"). The fact that Google hits appear for "national dish" says little about the necessity of its inclusion in an encyclopedia. I say this should be taken off the menu indefinitely.Jimjamjak (talk) 23:02, 12 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep but rewrite. This article should be explaining the term "National dish" in general [de-wiki handles their article this way and I think we should do the same on en:wiki. The pre-existing article should be moved to "List of national and traditional dishes by country" (or similar) which gives us more freedom, should please our editors and give our readers the knowledge they're looking for.The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 23:33, 12 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per Magnificent Clean-keeper. "National dish" is a perfectly notable concept, as you can get a flavor of by looking here. Compiling a list of national dishes may or may not present insurmountable problems (I wouldn't think so, if the list can be derived from reliable sources, e.g. this one). Still, there's plenty that can be said about the topic.  Glenfarclas  (talk) 00:17, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - definition of list is not specific enough. The concept needs to be better defined in order to have any hope of consensus.SharkxFanSJ (talk) 00:46, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Yes, it needs work and the concept needs to more clearly defined to make it encyclopaedic, but a particular dish can be a significant part of a nation's culture- like fish and chips in the UK, for example. The concept itself is plenty notable enough for an article. Exactly what parameters we set is a difficult question, but not one that can be answered in a deletion discussion. Whisky drinker | HJ's sock 00:50, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note that this article claims -- per a speech by an arbitrary politco -- that fish and chips is not the national dish but rather Chicken Tikka Masala is?! For me this is the kernel of the reason why this should be deleted -- its totally arbitrary. Bigdaddy1981 (talk) 01:19, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • No, that's the kernel of the reason that you and some other editors should consider turning your hands to writing. It can be verifiably said in an article that national dishes are disputed, and not necessarily even national. You've come to an AFD discussion presenting human knowledge about national dishes as somehow the basis for not having an article about them. The purpose of an encyclopaedia is to contain human knowledge. Propounding human knowledge of a subject as a reason not to have an article about that subject is a self-defeating argument. It's rather a reason for having an article, containing the knowledge being propounded. Find a source that supports this knowledge that you have, and write.

      And go and read the English section of the German Wikipedia article, too. Uncle G (talk) 03:41, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete -- as with many of these lists, the content is totally subjective and quite impossible to source meaningfully. Bigdaddy1981 (talk) 01:16, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• As The Magnificent Clean-keeper notes, both the Spanish Wikipedia and the German Wikipedia have far better articles on this subject. I suggest that anyone thinking that it's not possible to write (sourced) analysis of this concept go and read es:plato nacional and de:Nationalgericht. The saddest thing about this deletion nomination and the rationales above, is that no-one seems to have clicked on that "history" link to look at the history of the article, where one will find that it used to look rather different, until this vandalism occurred in March 2010. That was actually the part of the article that should have been expanded upon and improved, as the Portuguese, Spanish, German, and even (to an extent) Hebrew Wikipedias have all done, not lost to vandalism and forgotten. Uncle G (talk) 02:22, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since that edit removed content that was entirely unreferenced I wouldn't call it vandalism at all. Blanking unreferenced content as an editing response to conflict is quite normal. Whether or not that was teh motive of the IP who blanked it (without an edit summary) we do not know, but this article has had serious edit wars in its history as well. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

• • • Those edit wars weren't over that part of the article at all, and are wholly unrelated. Look at them. Some of The Usual Suspects were arguing over their usual bone of contention. And it's fairly clear that that edit was vandalism. Look at it. We should recognize section blanking vandalism when it is before us. This is pretty much its canonical form. Characterizing such blanking vandalism as attempted improvement, when in this case it removed the part of the article that should have been retained and built upon, and left the part of the article that was just a raw laundry list and that should have been turned into prose and eliminated, is, at best, a weak and wholly fallacious argument.

      Go and read the Spanish and German Wikipedias' articles, and go and read the actual prose that was vandalized. They are almost existence proofs that it is possible to have a verifiable article with analysis of this subject, and that it is possible to get to one by writing, without use of administrator tools at all. And that's to ignore the editors ironically justifying deletion here with potential article content. Uncle G (talk) 03:41, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the edit again, I see that what was added made it vandalism. Still, I'll stand by that removing unreferenced text isn't automatically vandalism. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

BTW, good job on adding referenced content, I assume translated from es. Thanks. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

• • • It wasn't. I spent a couple of minutes looking for sources, found a reasonable one, took it in hand, and wrote. That was before I found the vandalism in the edit history, too. The Spanish and German Wikipedias, and indeed what was vandalized out of this article, show that there's much more to say on this subject, too, from shared national dishes in Europe, through historical changes to national dishes, to the problems of stereotyping. Uncle G (talk) 03:41, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Great. I changed my vote. I'm sure your experience and wisdom will extend to shepherding the article to a good state. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

• Keep Hundreds of encylopedias recount the national dishes of various places. Scholars discuss the construction of such dishes as a matter of nation building - see The history of sensibilities. The topic is therefore notable and our editing policy is to improve rather than to delete. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:40, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep this article provides a lot of good informations and also serves as some kind of portal for anyone interested in world culinary-art, its origin and connection with nations and even natonalism sentiments. And yes.., this article needs a rewriting and more references. Deleting this article would be such a loss of compiled informations provides by wikipedians (Gunkarta (talk) 10:50, 13 July 2010 (UTC)).[reply]
• Keep this article is a terrible mess currently but it certainly notable , it's certainly can be referenced far better and it's needs some inclusion criteria. All of this can be fixed Gnevin (talk) 15:24, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - the concept of a national dish is certainly notable. At issue is the actual content which is not a reason for deletion. There will be disputes over what is a notional dish. That's the reality. But the information can be sourced and worked through. -- Whpq (talk) 16:59, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: The article under discussion here has been flagged for ((Rescue)) by the Article Rescue Squadron. SnottyWong ^verbalize 18:36, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, but... delete the list of national dishes in the article. There are no sources which establish one singular dish as the national dish of each country. There are multiple national dishes for many of these countries, and listing only one is deceptive. For instance, Sauerbraten is listed as the national dish of Germany, but what about Bratwurst, Weisswurst, Schnitzel, Spätzle, etc. SnottyWong ^verbalize 18:36, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per the reasons above. Maashatra11 (talk) 20:41, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep With sourcing well under way on the list, the only thing I can think of to add to it would be a brief description of the different items. I'm glad to see a concerted effort on this one. Mandsford 21:29, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Plenty of coverage for this. Clicking the Google news search link at the top of the AFD [2] you'll find the first page of results shows it mentioning the national dish of one nation after another. Dream Focus 07:54, 14 July 2010 (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.