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 delete. Sandstein 06:49, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The article bears a striking resemblance to entry on Ellegassen in Eberhart, George M. (2002). Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology. ABC-CLIO. p. 163. ISBN978-1-57607-283-7.. Its structure is similar, the details largely the same. "Behavior": Roars or howls like a wolf. Herbivore. Makes its den in a cave." becomes: "Behavior It is known to be howling like a wolf and is believed to be a herbivorous. "Physical description: The size of a bull. Long hair" in the book becomes "Physical Description Ellengassen is said to be have a size of that of a bull while having long hair like horse." Thee book cites these sources:
Francisco P. Moreno, Viaje à la Patagonia austral, emprendido bajo los auspicios del gobierno nacional, 1876–1877 (Buenos Aires: La Nación, 1879), p. 395;
Santiago Roth, "Descripción de los restos encontrados en la Caverna de Ultima Esperanza," in "El mamifero misterioso de la Patagonia, II," Revista del Museo de La Plata 9 (1899): 421-453;
H. Hesketh Prichard, Through the Heart of Patagonia (New York: D. Appleton, 1902);
Robert and Katharine Barrett, A Yankee in Patagonia: Edward Chace (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), p. 30;
Carlos Rusconi, "La supuesta existencia de Milodontes en la Patagonia Austral (Milodon listai)," Revista del Museo de Historia Natural de Mendoza 3 (1949): 252-264;
Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia (New York: Summit, 1977), p. 72.
The article cited (since removed):
Moreno, Francisco P. (1923). Viaje Á La Patagonia Austral: Emprendido Bajo Los Auspicios Del Gobierno Nacional, 1876-1877.
Prichard, H. Hesketh (1902). Through the Heart of Patagonia.
Hauthal, Rodolfo; Roth, Santiago; Lehmann-Nitsche, Robert; Jacob, Christfried; Museo de La Plata (1899). El mamífero misterioso de la Patagonia II (in Spanish).
The creator denies that they have used Eberhart [1] and has added a note that says The content has been prepared by the physical copy of the sources mentioned, citing the relevant page number/s might lead to the undesirable confusion in the process of verifying the sources. That's why no page number has been mentioned. Any inconveniences for this, is sincerely regretted. That is highly unlikely because non of the content of the article appears in any of the cited sources, but it DOES appear in Eberhard (2002). Vexations (talk) 19:24, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Outside of the original author's eccentricities, I think that the AfD question is whether Ellengassen are notable or not. I see mentions in some books on Google Books, some of which you mention above:
This isn't my area, so I'm just posting this as a Comment, but these seem okay to me as references. Vexations, what would you think about TNTing the existing content but using these and similar references to build up an acceptable stub page? — Toughpigs (talk) 20:24, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Toughpigs, I have an example of such a complete rewrite at Elbst I wouldn't mind in the least if it got deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vexations (talk • contribs)
Vexations: I could help out, but I see that you took the reference to Through the Heart of Patagonia out of the article in this edit. You said that it doesn't mention Ellengassen, but as far as I can tell, it does (see Google Books). Was that a mistake, or am I misunderstanding something? I appreciate your response. — Toughpigs (talk) 21:42, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Toughpigs, Not sure what happend there. I had downloaded digital versions of all the books as pdfs, loaded them in Acrobat Pro, ran OCR on them and then did a text search. Your find of course confirms the term is used, so it should be restored. Vexations (talk) 21:54, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Vexations, okay, that makes sense; thanks for your answer. I'll see if I can get some time to TNT and rewrite, as Elmidae suggests below. Not today, but hopefully before the end of the AfD. — Toughpigs (talk) 22:52, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete based on the copyvio concerns. I'm sorry, but looking at the text examples above, the denial is just not plausible. There's at least two other productions of this type that have been draftified just due to the bad quality of the text. These should all be TNT'd and, if someone wants to put in the work, recreated with non-copied wording, non-cringeworthy prose, and honest sourcing. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:59, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Add: if this is indeed a name for Mylodon (can't check the source), then redirect there would be sensible. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:34, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. In the current form this is a OR-ish mess just right for TNT or speedy. Sources I see on Books/Scholar are low quality - not reliable and/or not discussing this urban legend in detail. At best, this could be redirected to some list or article about urban legends that mentions it, if any does. PS. I don't think we can base an article on a primary source from 1902. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:20, 30 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As the RS Pritchard-Hesketh source (available online) CLEARLY states, this is just another name for one of more species of Mylodon, recently-extinct giant ground sloths. These are not "urban legends" or anything like it - many museums have remains. We don't need an article for "Ellengassen", but some might be suitable for merging to Mylodon. Johnbod (talk) 12:07, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Johnbod, as it is known, the traces of Mylodon were found 10,000 BC which is very unlikely to be mentioned by Hesketh H Pritchard as the same creature to be what Dr. Moreno found during 1897 (the skin of some speculative mammalia). Also, I did not find the exact place where Hesketh H Pritchard have concluded that 'Ellengassen' is 'Mylodon' or have furnished any evidences or ground for such a conclution. My such assertion is backed by the further explanation provided in page 181-183, The Cambridge Natural Hitory Vol 10, some relevant sections from which are:
"After this it seems impossible to suppose that the skin can be of any very great age...... In fact it is impossible to believe that the animal was not alive quite a few years since, relatively speaking. It is admitted that this animal was contemporaneous with man."
Also we see, "..... in Mylodon, the sculptured appearance of the dermal ossicles appears to indicate that they reached the surface of the body and were covered by epidermis alone, which is not the case with the animal now under consideration."
Thus the try to establish the correlation between the two is completely conjectural in nature while lacking evidences which further fails when we consider the timespan.--AranyaPathak (talk) 07:14, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep For the charge related to WP:COPYRIGHT, a plagiarism check for the contents added by me will make claim of copyright infringement invalid.
While coming to the question of not having any mention of the word 'Ellengassen' in the three relevant referred books, the same have been proven wrong already through the collective efforts taken by Toughpigs, Vexations and myself.
Besides, the content is undergoing through the process of continual planned enrichment. Thus at this point of time while keeping an eye at WP:ATD, the article should be kept for the general interest of this platform.--AranyaPathak (talk) 20:33, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
AranyaPathak, For the charge related to WP:COPYRIGHT, a plagiarism check for the contents added by me will make claim of copyright infringement invalid No it doesn't. That smallseotools doesn't find a match proves nothing. Your claim is falsifiable; all we need to do is show that there is a source that bears a striking resemblance to your creations, and I have already done so. Vexations (talk) 21:18, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Vexations, what happened is simple, you threw the name of the article for search and the very first book that it fetched, you acquired it by some means. From then on, you are engaged in a vicious campaign of defaming, slurring me by accusing of plagiarism and copyright violation by picking sentences from my content and finding a fitting sentence from your book; which is not at all that difficult as the content is descriptive and the original sources are the same. Please stop this malicious campaign of spite. If your intention was otherwise, then you would have stopped while finding your claim that, "the references given doesn't even contain the name" is absurd and false. Due to your tarnishing campaign, the content enrichment process is becoming the primary casualty. I have already given my sources/references which are reliable, notable and verifiable. I have gathered materials from them over the last five months. I don't need the aid of a pseudo scientific cornucopia (without meaning any disrespect) for my articles which are altogether different in scope and objective.--AranyaPathak (talk) 08:05, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
AranyaPathak, Actually, what really happened is that I was reviewing Elbst for WP:NPP and came across this sentence: 'The word Elbst is said to have it's origin from the German word "albiz" meaning "swan".' which struck me as wrong, since the German word for swan is Schwan. I did find it fairly quickly on a rather suspicious-looking website, which used it to generate a lot of content to distract from the fact that they were running a scam. That text was easy to identify as copied from the book I referenced, Eberhardt (2002) and indeed the entry in that book says on page 161 "Etymology: From the Old German albiz (“swan”)." Well, alright, Old High German is not contemporary German, so perhaps there is support for this claim in the sources. Then I took a look at the sources you cited, Cysat, Kohlrusch, and Müller. And that claim is not made in any of them. I find that remarkable, and you have not offered a plausible explanation for where you got it. Then I stated looking int your other articles including this one, and found similar problems. We can settle the matter, by showing that you copied or paraphrased it one of the sources you cited. What is that source that says the etymology of elbst is albiz? Cysat, Kohlrusch or Müller? Where does it say that? Vexations (talk) 12:27, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect. The only source used in this article is Hesketh-Prichard, Hesketh and that identifies it as Mylodon per Johnbod. The development work suggested by Toughpigs and Vexations should go into that article. // Timothy :: talk 22:17, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
For the record: according to the suggestion in favour of redirect (which I am objecting on the valid ground) of Timothy, the content that will remain after exclusion of my contribution will look like this- Special:Diff/970204892, Special:Diff/970327370,i.e. only Bibliography (constituents of which have been copied from my initial content) and a couple of URLs
Delete to avoid copyright issues. No objection to creating a redirect afterwards, or even expanding it with reliable sourced material that doesn't heavily copy sources verbatim. Jontesta (talk) 19:10, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Author request, I am relying the request of the author ([2]) that this be draftified.--Eostrix (🦉 hoothoot🦉) 07:13, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per total WP:TNT and borderline WP:COPYVIO. I am against userfication, because that does not solve the copyright violation issue. I have turned in plagiarism cases before and gotten students failed for less. If the subject matter easily passed WP:GNG, I would say, let it slide, but this is a subject that might or might not be notable. Userfying it would create a terrible precedent and be used as an argument in future similar cases. It needs to be blown up to protect the Wikipedia Foundation. Bearian (talk) 14:32, 5 August 2020 (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.