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.
I don't see any source discussing the topic.General caste=Forward castes i.e. castes not eligible for the special-affirmative-action-schemes by Govt. of India. ~ Winged BladesGodric 15:15, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Right after the last AFD that was closed as no consensus the article was blanked of content with just a no verification comment. I have restored the content that was there at the point of the AFD closure. No comment on the quality of the content. ~ GB fan 16:12, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@GB fan:--Hmm...In absence of any reliable source, there is no prohibition on pruning even to the extent of blanking.~ Winged BladesGodric 16:16, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed this AFD a few days ago when a comment showed up on a user talk page I was watching. I refrained from commenting because I don't know enough about the topic to say one way or another whether the nominator's rationale is valid (although it seems clear that the same is true for the only "keep" !vote so far, who only !voted based on a keepist principle rather than any specialist understanding that led to the conclusion that the OP has misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented the topic). But I gotta say, User:GB fan, that restoring unsourced content that has been blanked, just because the only complaint was that it was unsourced, is way out of line with Wikipedia policy. When someone blanks unsourced content rather than simply tagging, it is assumed that the blanker has read other sources that appear to contradict the content, or just knows from personal experience that the content is wrong, and both are valid reasons for blanking unsourced content. (Adding unsourced content based on one's personal experience is obviously a violation, but that's not what happened.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 19:57, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Per WP:BLANK, blanking the page was disruption. The topic is clearly notable per WP:LISTN and here's a selection of sources from the pervious AfD. There are plenty more out there. Andrew D. (talk) 22:11, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Mr Davidson doesn't appear to have improved his understanding of caste. Which of those sources refer to General Castes? The article is not about OBCs or SCs/STs, which are the other two government classifications, and the government provides no list of castes that it considers to be General/Forward. Since the government provide no such list, we would have to employ deduction and that is original research. - Sitush (talk) 22:30, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That's a detail. The sensible way forward is to list all the notable castes within the Sikh community. The ones which get government preferment can be marked and the others are then implicit. Andrew D. (talk) 22:49, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It is not a detail. Any caste could contain at least one person who is Sikh; government preferment is not a constant across the country (ie: a caste can be preferred in one area, preferred differently in another; and not preferred at all in a third). The rules of preferment change regularly and are themselves ambiguous due to issues of identifying the numerous names used for the same castes and because sometimes the same name is used for very different castes. Andrew, we've been through this time and again across numerous AfDs and you still do not get it. Either please take the trouble to listen and learn or don't bother disrupting with ill-advised thoughts. - Sitush (talk) 22:54, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) In fact, I am going to go further because I think Andrew is becoming a real problem with his contrarian positions in AfDs and RfAs. Despite the gap of umpteen years since the last discussion for this list, it has still not been sourced and least of all by the one person who really insisted that it should remain, ie: Andrew. So how about you put up or shut up on this occasion? The issue of the caste system in Sikhism is already covered at various articles but trying to create a list of General Castes in Sikhism simply is not feasible and he hasn't shown it to be so either at the last AfD or at any time since. We've got to get a grip on such extreme inclusionism achieved through misplaced and/or misguided wikilawyering. - Sitush (talk) 22:50, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking of improving the page this time around. But first we require enforcement of WP:BLANK which states "Repeated, unnecessary page blanking may get a user blocked indefinitely." I'm not volunteering my effort if Sitush is going to engage in blatant disruption and edit warring again. Andrew D. (talk) 22:55, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So improve it. You have a week and I will only be fixing your mistakes. I will drop you the standard caste sanctions alert in a few hours because your lack of competence in the subject area is well documented. - Sitush (talk) 23:07, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There hasn't been any repeated unnecessary page blanking, btw. - Sitush (talk) 11:08, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Blanking the page is disruptive because it doesn't leave any kind of framework for development. Consider the first entry in the list – Arora. This is a blue link and that's usually considered enough for most lists. If further sourcing seems needed then it is better to tag the entry with ((cn)) than to blank it because then readers can see what improvement is wanted. Finding a source in this case seems easy. For example, The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies says "Important Sikh occupational castes are Jat, Saini, Labana, Kamboj, Khatri, Arora,...". So, that source lists several such Sikh castes, and describes them as important. The topic thus passes WP:LISTN and improvement is just a matter of doing the legwork. Blanking is neither necessary nor helpful in this. Andrew D. (talk) 08:27, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And yet again you show your lack of knowledge. What does being "important" have to do with being General Caste? Answer: nothing. The items have been unsourced for years and the only reason we are in this mess is because of your objections in the last AfD causing a "no consensus" outcome. If anything, you are the one who was disruptive. For what it is worth, despite all my years here, your mention of BLANK above is the first time ever I have seen it, which also suggests that you may be lawyering to an extreme, citing a very obscure guideline. - Sitush (talk) 09:32, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
WP:BLANK is commonsense. If you don't see much mention of it, I suppose that's most editors know better than to do something so obviously disruptive and the ones that persist tend not to last long. You will also find similar guidance in our policy WP:PRESERVE which says "Instead of removing content from an article, consider: ..." Andrew D. (talk) 09:49, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I've never seen PRESERVE either but, regardless, the bit of common sense that was needed here was for you to take aboard the comments of people who actually know something about the subject matter rather than fudge a no consensus outcome and then walk away from the mess you created. For what it is worth, I raised the state of this article on WT:INB a few days before it was nominated here. Don't suggest I don't try. - Sitush (talk) 09:55, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And you've been economical with the truth regarding the diffs provided above, as I noted here. Umpteen regular contributors over a three year period blanked the thing, presumably because of WP:BURDEN/WP:V. - Sitush (talk) 01:05, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion at WT:INB was promising. I've been thinking along similar lines to Cesdeva who suggested broadening the scope by making the topic cover all "Castes in Sikkhism". Note that we have another relevant page which nobody else seems to have noticed: List of Other Backward Classes in Sikhism. These topics should obviously be considered as a set and brought together and doing so by merger would be consistent with WP:PRESERVE which lists such alternatives to deletion. Andrew D. (talk) 15:07, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That is because you do not have a clue. There was a (correct) reason given for why it would not work, Cesdeva didn't respond, and in any event it is irrelevant to this AfD. Someone would have to start a new article under a new title. The other article is verifiable (although pointless) but this one is not even verifiable. Stop trying to squirm out of this mess you have created, admit you are wrong and let's move on. - Sitush (talk) 18:08, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have brought several good sources to this discussion whereas other editors just seem to be giving us their personal opinion. Andrew D. (talk) 15:07, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And yet again you lie. Your sources do not discuss the matter at hand and you forget that N, OR and V are being rolled out against you. Disagree with me? Start using the sources, then: you've had several years already. - Sitush (talk) 09:27, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping. It's pretty clear Andrew Davidson that you've pigeonholed yourself with your narrow article scope (and title). You've identified that there is a disparity between the teachings in Sikhism and the reality of the caste system. Maybe that's a starting point for a prose article instead of a list, i don't know. All i'm seeing is a dead horse getting beaten here though. Kind regards, Cesdeva (talk) 03:05, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete-The first thing that strikes me is the inconsistency caste ≈ Hinduism so I am not getting where Sikhism enters the picture. If the title suggest that the people had a certain caste before changing over to Sikhism even then it does not merit mentioning. Also General caste is a generalization at its best which seeks to encompass all castes major or minor which do not fall into any of the governments benefit schemes. There is no formal definition of this General caste making the scope of this article truly ambiguous and thus gives a scope for pov warriors to exploit this article and add incorrect stuff — FrcRdl 14:49, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Force Radical: Did you mean delete? Your rationale for keeping looks like a rationale for deletion. - Sitush (talk) 14:52, 28 February 2018 (UTC) FR has now corrected. - Sitush (talk) 00:53, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The official government website for India should have this information on it. https://data.gov.in/search/site?query=caste You can download documents to search through if you wish. That'll prove which caste exists. I see" Population by Religious Community for Scheduled Caste (Each Caste Separately)". Different caste I know, but searching around might find the right one with the information required. DreamFocus 18:30, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't. There is no list. I am getting really fed up of the Article Rescue Squadron people here: clueless, as at every past caste-related discussion. See my first two threaded replies to Andrew Davidson above. - Sitush (talk) 19:51, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It wasn't tagged for Article Rescue, that not why I'm here. And I simply assumed if they list some caste and their religion, they'd surely list the others somewhere as well. That's not being clueless, just common sense, their census should record this data somewhere. DreamFocus 20:23, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't. How many more times must I say this? You're just demonstrating some weird sort of systemic bias, making assumptions about how India should do things. If all you can do is speculate or produce irrelevant sources, as AD has done, then you're just wasting your own time and, worse, that of others. Please also note that the Indian reservation system is not, in the strictest sense, based on caste anyway. There are plenty of communities with reserved status who are not castes. - Sitush (talk) 20:50, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Sitush: Both the explicit keep !vote and the user to whom you are replying do have a systemic bias, but it's not the one you seem to think; they auto-vote "keep" in AFDs. Best just ignore them or this will be closed as "no consensus; default to keep" because the back-and-forth became too WP:TLDR for outside commenters to bother. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:01, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If that is what they do then they should be banned from AfD because they're disrupting to make a point. Caste AfDs often attract little attention and that makes such actions particularly disruptive, as evidenced in the prior AfD for this list: it is too easy to get a no consensus outcome, regardless of how much I write. - Sitush (talk) 21:05, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Total nonsense. I thought I was being helpful here, pointing where people who wanted to spend more time searching about could find information if it existed. I did not say "Keep" at all. I do not auto-vote Keep, ever. Most of the articles tagged for ARS I never participate in at all. Kindly assume good faith and stop spreading the same ridiculous lies every chance you get. DreamFocus 21:11, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Dream Focus: Re-read my comment. I never said you had !voted "keep" in this AFD, and in fact in two out of three of my comments I specifically stated that there had only been one explicit "keep" !vote (not yours). What I said about you was that you tend to auto-!vote "keep" in a lot of AFDs, as can be seen in the evidence below:
Evidence requested; evidence given.
here, you !voted based on a nonsense equation of Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" with the "Dark Lord" of modern fantasy fiction, then tried to justify yourself by doing a Google News search and linking the first source you found that used the two words in sequence, apparently without reading the source yourself;
here, you !voted "keep" but then when presented with the evidence decided to unilaterally delete everything in the article, rename it, change its focus to somehing completely different, and then pretended the article had always been about that while never withdrawing your initial !vote apparently on principle.
That's just the last month: while looking around to see if you had ever gotten in trouble for copyright violation before, I noticed that your user page is linked to from well over 10,000 WP:-namespace pages, many of them AFDs; I checked a few (nowhere near them all, mind) to see if you had defended any of the articles against copyvio claims, and while I didn't find any of that, I did notice that you hadn't !voted "delete" in a single one of them. You know your own record better than I do: can you link to any from the last ten years in which you were in favour of deletion?
Anyway, here you may not have explicitly !voted, but a comment that does not say "keep", "delete", "merge", "redirect" or "userfy" but does essentially amount to "Sources probably exist" could easily be read as "Keep", especially given how you recently told editors to read "behind" your comments to establish whether you supported or opposed another content proposal.
As an aside, please retract your baseless personal attack stop spreading the same ridiculous lies every chance you get. I have never lied a single time in my interactions wih you; accusations without evidence (ditto your completely off-topic "hounding" accusation here) are personal attacks and are completely unacceptable.
Delete I don't know anything about this topic, but the same is clearly true of others, and that has apparently not stopped them from !voting "keep" based on the principle that sources discussing this probably exist and that the topic as exemplified in the page title must not be inherently biased/flawed to the point where nothing in the page history is worth preserving. Based on the apparent lack of sources, I'm working under the assumption that the India-focused editors, who have so far all commented in favour of deletion, know more about Indian topics than the AFD-focused editors, who have so far all commented in favour of keeping. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:01, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Merge with List of Other Backward Classes in Sikhism to form an article called "Castes in Sikhism". Also I'd like to remind everyone to be civil. Acebulf (talk) 14:05, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Won't work. In fact, the proposed merge target should be deleted also for the reasons I gave in my early responses to AD. There is an infinite number of communities (ca. 1800 identified by the British, now over 3200 because anyone can "create" a caste simply by calling themselves one; some only last a few years and then give up), not all communities affected by the reservation system are castes, anyone in any community can profess any religion they choose, and we've already deleted List of Indian castes (which lies dormant in AD's userspace ever since the AfD). An utterly pointless, impossible to maintain list that will merely serve as a honeypot for warring that, frankly, about three experienced contributors will be expected to manage. - Sitush (talk) 14:26, 3 March 2018 (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.