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 no consensus. No prejudice for an early renomination if the article continues to fail GNG post this current AfD Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 07:02, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dritok[edit]

Dritok (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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WP:NOTE. Dritok appears only in In the Land of Invented Languages, and a blog post on a newspaper's web site . No mention elsewhere, and both sources are rather thin. In In the Land it is mentioned in a single paragraph on page 288-289 as part of a larger discussion about the Language Creation Conference, and that paragraph is as much about the audience as the language itself. The blog post is about an exhibit of well-known conlangs like Esperanto and Klingon that the language's creator, Don Boozer, set up at the library he works at. The third citation, the podcast, is not an independent source since Don Boozer is "secretary and librarian" of that site. Hermione is a dude (talk) 21:27, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong keep. I thought my sources would be unimpeachable. There is enough material, even if you discount the non-independent source, to write an article that goes well beyond a stub. I mean, the Cleveland Plains Dealer blog has an entire article chock-full of useable info about Dritok! I should also note that it appears in the 500-language appendix to Okrent's In the Land of Invented Languages. Okrent writes here: "I have only listed the projects that I mention in the text, along with a few other especially noteworthy or well-developed ones – languages that most of the highly regarded conlangers will have heard of". In the Land is a reliable source published by a woman who used her expertise and best judgment as to which languages are notable, so if we ever settle on a notability guideline for conlangs, being on Okrent's list will likely be one of the criteria we can use. The inclusion or non-inclusion of a language on the list is an objective criterion. Wiwaxia (talk) 06:41, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Mentions this short in a book and a blog wouldn't suffice for any other subject, so I don't see why Dritok should be any different. I also think that saying Dritok is notable because Ms. Okrent says it is is a weak argument. It seems to me that conlanger Wikipedians expect people to cut them a lot of slack, but it gets silly sometimes. Og of Bashan (talk) 08:08, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Mentions this short in a book and a blog wouldn't suffice for any other subject." Oh, yes they would. And the mentions aren't that short. Wiwaxia (talk) 02:50, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Maybe a merge with Language Creation Society? The LCS article could have what it has now, with a listing of names of the main officers, but also include paragraphs on the best-known conlangs of the members of the LCS, those that have garnered independent mentions in the press or in books, with "See main article" links to those that already have full articles. In a way, this is the most logical action, as Dritok's notability is sort of reliant on the notability of the LCS and Don Boozer's EE&B exhibit. Quinoaeater (talk) 03:37, 30 July 2011 (UTC) Changing my !vote to keep, as per Jeremy Jigglypuff Jones' argument. Quinoaeater (talk) 07:05, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Again one of those difficult cases. Well, blogs are certainly not the best material for sourcing, but just discarding something just because the form is that of a blog won't fly either. If a blog is written by a knowledgeable or notable person, it is as good a source as any. As for In the Land of Constructed Languages... well, it's a great book, although IMHO Arika has made some curious choices here and there, both where it comes to inclusions and omissions. But it would be a stretch to say that a bare mentioning in a book like that would be sufficient to warrant inclusion in WP. An entry in this book or similar books definitely contributes to notability, which in combination with other sources that may also contribute to it, can tipple the balance. And this seems to be the case here. This is a doubtful case, and taking an ultimate decision is a matter of goodwill. Well, I do have that goodwill and therefore I agree with Wiwaxia and say keep. As for Quinoaeater's suggestion (merge with Language Creation Society): no, I don't think that would be a good idea. That would significantly "pollute" the article with irrelevant information. A language delivered by a member of the LCS as a result of a commission to the LCS, like Dothraki, should be mentioned by all means, but that does not go for works created independently of the LCS. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 12:47, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't know what you mean by "goodwill". I don't doubt that the writers of that article had the best of intentions, but that doesn't matter when there's not much evidence of notability, especially for something as ephemeral as this. Appeals to authority and just saying "you're wrong!" like Wiwaxia is doing doesn't change anything. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Og of Bashan (talk • contribs) 02:35, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • As to your comment that I just said, "You're wrong!", you provided no evidence that other topics with a similar degree of independent coverage would always or almost always get deleted, so I needed no evidence in disagreeing. You seem to be a deletionist. Well, I'm an inclusionist, and I think that if a newspaper-affiliated blog writes an article about a language and a dead-tree book includes a paragraph of about 200 words about it, that's hardly a passive mention. It's non-trivial enough to do something with. Wiwaxia (talk) 06:38, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am neither a deletionist nor an inclusionist. What I mean by "goodwill" is that things get difficult when a subject is neither obviously notable nor obviously unnotable. Notability is not a hard criterion, mind, and as a result, the ultimate outcome is bound to become even more subjective. All in all, what you or I or St. Nicholas want should not bear any significance. Instead, it's better to look at other things, too: is the article informative? Is it well-written? Is it objective? Is it verifiably true? Once we've established that this is the case, then IMO we can invoke arguments that otherwise are completely useless, like: server space is cheap, whom does this article disturb, etc. In other words, give it the benefit of the doubt. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 09:15, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: The WP:GNG speaks of "non-trivial" coverage. The guideline leaves it perhaps deliberately ambiguous as to how trivial is trivial, but enough coverage to write an article of this length is clearly non-trivial. All the article is from secondary sources, and it still stands at more than two screens' worth of length, not counting the AfD notice at the top. (Two of the sources are independent, too, and one is secondary but non-independent. Secondariness is distinct from independence, as independence includes intellectual independence, and as HiaD pointed out, Don Boozer is secretary and librarian of the podcast's site.)

The keyword in the GNG here is "subject". "Subject" means what something is about. In this case, the blog article is as much about Dritok and Mr. Boozer's development of it as about the Elvish, Esperanto and Beyond exhibit, perhaps even more so. Some people, oversimplifying the policy at WP:RS, say blogs are not reliable sources, but this is a blog associated with the Cleveland Plain Dealer, so this source is reliable.

HiaD has argued that the coverage in Ms. Okrent's book is as much about the audience' reaction as the language itself. But coverage of reaction is a Wikipedic part of describing something. Wikipedia articles should strive to include information that covers public reaction, reception, influence on the world and relevance to other things in addition to the obvious in-universe topical coverage. Guideline & Policy Wonk (talk) 23:39, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't know if article's length is significant. There are many single-sentence paragraphs in Real-world history, which is not much more than a summary of the blog post (hardly unique to this article or a problem, but still), and Reception has clearly been written in a way that gives the reader the impression that there is more to the source than there is, and in fact the presence of a "reception" is itself deceptive as such sections are typically used when there has been substantial commentary on a subject or in entertainment articles where reviews are to be expected. I also think the footnotes have been deliberately arranged in a way that gives the illusion of substance and weight (by not following WP:NAMEDREFS. Og of Bashan (talk) 07:38, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's a pretty bold statement, and not exactly according to the principle about assuming good faith and all that. If you ask me, this whole footnote thing has just become too damned user-unfriendly, at least for a person who is not used to all the technobabble or does not really belong to the incrowd either. It's not really fair to accuse a person of bad faith, just because he can't find his way easily through 10,000 templates and policy pages. And believe me, compared to other WP projects it is not easy go get things done here! —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 08:51, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • There's nothing malevolent about it, I only brought it up because Guideline & Policy Wonk talked about the amount of screen space the article took up. Wikipedia editors all want to present their preferred topics in the best possible light and as completely as they can, and they may also feel defensive when an article is of debatable notability as this is. As for the footnotes: consolidating them isn't an obscure policy or a piece of arcane formatting wizardry. Plenty of well-written and well-formatted Wikipedia articles use it and it took me about a minute to find the page that explained how it's done. Considering how obviously repetitive the references section is are and how well put together the rest of the article is I think that changing the impressions of casual readers is an easy assumption to make. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Og of Bashan (talk • contribs) 11:08, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Oh, it's quite possible that people sometimes do that sort of things. But I know by my own personal experience that it doesn't always work like that. The truth is, you can't peek in the head of someone you don't know, and therefore assuming that this particular author manipulated these particular references with this particular goal in mind is not only a form of completely unsubstantiated guesswork, it's just not done. Besides, even if it's true, it clearly doesn't work anyway, because even a child can see that there are only two references present there. What I really miss, in fact, are any references to the primary source, which by any standard is the main source of information about the language. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 12:58, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong keep - Enough sources to write a 438-word article is clearly non-trivial. Linguogeek (talk) 23:11, 2 August 2011 (UTC) — username (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
  • The length of an article does not create notability. See Og of Bashan's comments for a good, although rather rude, counterargument. Hermione is a dude (talk) 03:43, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Well, it looks as if this is going to be a No consensus close. All seven of us have referred to the GNG, and yet no one can agree over whether the coverage in these sources is significant or trivial. Linguogeek (talk) 07:06, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Give it a couple more days, I have put out a request at the village pump for more participants. Hermione is a dude (talk) 19:50, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Satori Son 01:16, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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• Weak keep Weak delete - This is a borderline case of notability. This is an artifical language was invented by a person, and it's gotten some mention by invented language blogs and the like. But it barely registers a blip in Google hits. There is a book that mentions it: In the Land of Invented Languages: Adventures in Linguistic Creativity by Arika Okrent, but is that sufficient? The WP:GNG guideline may require multiple independent secondary sources, as it says: "the number and nature of reliable sources needed varies depending on the depth of coverage and quality of the sources". Since the depth of coverage in that book is very minimal (a single paragraph), I conclude that multiple sources must be provided. Yet all I can find are very informal sources such as blogs and promotional material. If this invented language is truly notable, more reliable sources will mention in in the years to come, and it will be deserving of a WP article at that time.. Changing !vote from delete to keep, based on additional sources provided below. --Noleander (talk) 02:22, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• A note on blogs: personal blogs like, for instance, http://tselseth.blogspot.com are not considered reliable sources. Blogs affiliated with established newspapers, written by their team of writers, are considered reliable (although the comments in the comment section are not). The blog cited in the article is affiliated with the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The kybosh on blogs also does not apply to the official blogs of published experts, writing on a subject on which they are an authority. Guideline & Policy Wonk (talk) 01:59, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. — I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 05:13, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong keep and comment - I am the principle founder and current Chairman of the Board of the Language Creation Society. In my opinion Dritok is certainly notable inasmuch as any conlang can be. (To me, that is a very weak caveat, but I'm aware of others' different opinions.) Don Boozer was interviewed by us at http://podcast.conlang.org/2009/02/dritok-the-sound-of-no-voice-speaking/. He was also interviewed for a full segment of SETI's Are We Alone? podcast and IIRC two different Cleveland area newspapers.

Specifically regarding merger with the LCS wiki page: I believe that would be a bad idea. Donald Boozer is indeed a member of the LCS, and moreover a member of our Board and an Officer as well. However, as a conlanger he is a completely independent person. There are a very limited number of conlangs that the LCS itself has any hand in - Dothraki being one of them - and we would not want to give a false impression of our involvement or lack thereof in the independent activities of individual members. The LCS serves a community support role. Sai ¿?✍ 08:21, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - Dritok is a conlang that I have looked up before and shown to other people. Not many conlangs make that cut in my experince, so I'd say this one is more "notable" than your average conlang. Arthaey (talk) 08:34, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per Wiwaxia and Sai. -- Evertype·✆ 08:58, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per Wiwaxia, Sai et al. P M C 09:33, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep -- the existing sources seem to me both reliable and nontrivial in their treatment of the subject, and the objection to the footnote formatting is trivial; if the article is saved from deletion, I volunteer to fix the footnotes myself - though probably not till after Worldcon. Keep especially in view of the additional sources Sai has cross-posted below; at least long enough for Wikipedia editors to familiarize themselves with these additional sources, at least one and probably two or three of which are sufficiently independent of the already-cited sources. I'll add an additional possible source here, mentioned above but not I think linked: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Speaking_Klingon / http://media.rawvoice.com/arewealone/traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_09-03-30.mp3 -- I'm downloading it but won't be able to listen to it right away. --Jim Henry (talk) 18:01, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Sources found by someone else via duckduckgo.com, passed along without comment:

NPR article http://www.theworld.org/2009/07/esperanto-klingon-blissymbolics-and-900-others-why-we-invent-languages/

Article copied from The Plain Dealer about the library exhibit. The original doesn't appear to be accessible anymore. http://starsofelbereth.blogspot.com/2008/06/cleveland-public-library-exhibit.html

http://www.suburbandestiny.com/conlang/?p=51

Copy of article from The Times. The original requires registration, etc. http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/32376

Another radio interview with Okrent http://tunein.com/program/?SegmentId=31790922&ProgramId=61903

Aho's 2010 Teaching Compilers talk references via Okrent's book http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~aho/Talks/10-03-12_SIGCSE.pdf

Podcast http://www.abc.net.au/rn/linguafranca/stories/2010/2915027.htm

-- Sai ¿?✍ 16:57, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Isn't the New English Review article just a one-word mention of Dritok, though? Guideline & Policy Wonk (talk) 01:59, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete The sum of sources cited do not satisfy WP:N. Blogs, podcasts, passing referenc4e in an article about the constructor do not add up to notability. Edison (talk) 20:01, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - The page on notability actually defined what significance means: "'Significant coverage' means that sources address the subject directly in detail, so no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material.[1]" There is no original research in the Dritok article; every word flows directly from the reliable sources. Enough content has been extracted for an article of 438 words (if Linquogeek's count is to be believed). Based on this definition, straight from the guideline page, I would say that the guideline indicates this article should be kept. Jeremy Jigglypuff Jones (talk) 21:56, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• You know, that's the best argument I've seen either way in this debate. It also answers concerns about whether article length is relevant to notability. If an article this long is written from the sources, without original research, then WP:GNG pretty much answers our question. Quinoaeater (talk) 07:05, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per Edison. The existing sources do not (IMO) address this subject in any real detail (other than to report the existence and basic rationale of the language). Richwales (talk · contribs) 00:56, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure the review of Okrent's book in What to Read This Summer -- New York Magazine 17 May 2009 42 15-22 2009 has "Okrent takes us on a tour of the most colorful attempts: Solresol, the language built entirely from the language built entirely from the seven notes of the musical scale ( statements could be sung or played on the violin); Láadan, a language to express the full range of women's experiences (ashaana = "to menstruate joyfully"); Dritok, made from chipmunk noises (clicks, pops, and hisses). She ends, delightfully, with one of the most successful, Klingon." ... just on the face of it, it's tentatively nudging into WP:notability as examples of invented music-language, gender-language, animal-language, alien-language. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:43, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Solresol and Klingon have extensive, unquestioned coverage in reliable sources to establish their notability. Merely listing other constructed languages such as Láadan and Dritok in the same breath as Solresol and Klingon does not suffice to establish their notability. We can't do "notability by association". Richwales (talk · contribs) 02:56, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Did you just question the notability of Láadan? Wiwaxia (talk) 02:55, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong keep per Jeremy. Subliminable (talk) 21:40, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak delete. I am a fan of constructed languages. But I thing mentioning in Okrent's book is a quite thin basis for a Wikipedia entry. It seems like the author wanted to write about constructed languages in general, with Dritok being one of the languages she happened to come across. It could be a mere coincidence that Dritok, as opposed to multitudes of other conlangs, made its way into the book. 1700-talet (talk) 09:17, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• I know I haven't posted here before, but I've been following Dritok for a while, and first discovered its Wikipedia article a few weeks before it was nominated for deletion. I'm Khemehekis, best known in the conlanging community as the creator of Kankonian. I just discovered that it was up for deletion. There are a lot of passionate arguments in this deletion discussion, but the most convincing seems to be Jigglypuff's argument, so I'm going to vote keep. If the sources that are currently cited in this article allow a reasonably long article that follows the sources logically without resorting to original research, than the coverage is not trivial and therefore this topic meets WP:NOTE. There are a lot of conlangers out there who would kill to have a language as notable as Dritok! Khemehekis (talk) 21:55, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Impressive knowledge of Wikipedia policies for a first time editor. Unfortunately, that is not enough for you to vote here. I think I'll give up this nomination, as the four people who voted "keep" in the span of an hour a few days ago show me that the Wikipedia community definitely supports this page. Hermione is a dude (talk) 15:06, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • That sounds like an implicit accusation of sockpuppetry. To be honest, neither can I understand why people would want to use sockpuppets, nor why others keep accusing people of being sockpuppets, because unless I am misinformed, an AFD is not a vote but a discussion, and ultimately it's the arguments that count. Personally, I'd rather listen to a first time editor who brings forward one valid point than to a person with thousands of low-value edits who only communicates in abbreviations. To me, this is a clear case of no consensus - not because of the number of people who say keep or delete, but because the same policy can be — and is — interpreted in two directions. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 16:02, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I agree, there is no consensus. However, the value of sockpuppets is obvious: it drowns out the delete votes and makes opinions seem more evenly divided than they are. As for saizai et al, if you're going to canvass for votes off of Wikipedia be less obvious about it. Four editors with identical interests show up to vote in a little more than an hour after almost a week in which only a few more had contributed? Get real. Hermione is a dude (talk) 18:44, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • I agree canvassing outside Wikipedia in general is better to be avoided, but let's face it: it happens. But then, the same can be said about mobilising inclusionists or deletionists inside Wikipedia. Same thing: it happens and we have to live with it. On the other hand, I also don't see what is wrong about getting a few opinions from knowledgeable outsiders. Besides, none of the people you mention are newcomers at all, and even if they were, so what? It's not like the weight of a person's argument increases with his number of edits or something. Ultimately, it's good arguments that make the difference, not the mere counting of votes. That said, let's call it two weeks and conclude this discussion, since it is highly unlikely that anything shockingly new is going to come up. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 01:50, 11 August 2011 (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.