Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/東北大學 (2nd nomination)

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 wrong forum. AfD is not the place to discuss whether a page should be redirected rather than being a disambig page. As there are only two entries, and only one of them currently uses the characters, I have redirected the page and added a disambig link at the top of the Northeastern University (Shenyang, China) page. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 03:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

東北大學 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Article was previously nominated for deletion with the proposal to move to Northeastern University (disambiguation). The AfD discussion was framed around whether or not this article title, being of non-Latin characters, should exist. That AfD discussion resulted in no concensus. But I believe the AfD should have been discussed in the context of the page being a disambig page with only two entries, one of them being the main article. "東北大學" is Traditional Chinese and it actually only refers to Northeastern University (Shenyang, China). The other item that the page disambiguates is Tohoku University, which is actually written in Japanese kanji as "東北大学" (the difference is in the last character). Similar but different. The two other ways of writing "東北大學" actually are both redirects. Both 东北大学 (Simplified Chinese) and 東北大学 (Japanese kanji) actually already correctly redirect to their respective main articles. 東北大學 should be a redirect as well. So please move this article to Northeastern University (Shenyang, China). Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 07:57, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong Delete, especially considering that this is a disambiguation page. The discussion should focus on the fact people typing those characters in the search box (and having the ability to type them directly) would probably go to Chinese or Japanese Wikipedia instead of the English one. --Blanchardb-Me^MyEars_MyMouth-timed 12:09, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• comment and what about people who copy/paste words to the search box from zh.wiki or jp.wiki to see what they can find about them in English, because English is their native language? If wikipedia is going to give adequate coverage to East Asian things it has to take into account people using the East Asian names for the entries. --Paularblaster (talk) 02:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• • Regardless of my personal opinion on this, the result of the previous discussion, which was closed a little more than a week ago, was 没有公众舆论. Which translates as No consensus. I doubt that we will have much more of a consensus this early. --Blanchardb-Me^MyEars_MyMouth-timed 13:03, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, but I'm trying to start the AfD discussion off on a different direction than the last AfD discussion took. This is not about the usefulness of a disambig page with a name with non-Latin characters. This is about the fact that it's a disambig page with only two entries, one of them being the main subject matter. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:45, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. The DAB has a use as much as a Chinese/Japanese-English dictioonary that people not so fluent in these languages also use sometimes to look up a word or two. WP:ENGLISH also writes: "a non-Latin-alphabet redirect could be created to link to the actual Latin-alphabet-titled article." See Talk:東北大學 for further reasoning of mine on this issue. --Saintjust (talk) 13:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I want to point out that, as I wrote above, this is really not a matter of the usefulness of disambig pages with non-Latin names. That itself is debatable, and I actually think that certain situations require them. The real issue here is, this is a disambig page with only two entries, one of them being the main entry. So just like 东北大学 and 東北大学, this page should be a redirect as well. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:40, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Delete Ridiculous debate. The very article presupposes that someone will be typing on the "東" and the "北" keys and end up at Northeastern University (Shenyang, China), instead of Tohoku University, in Sendai, Japan and be unable to resolve their confusion. In the last debate, the arguments for keeping were based on fears that we would offend Japanese and Chinese users if we didn't keep this title. I'd be more worried about offending English-speaking Japanese and Chinese users by this condescending "help them, they get so confused" approach to research. Mandsford (talk) 15:02, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Clearly you've misunderstood the first debate; no one's worrying about "offending" people, but rather the very real problem that the vast majority of people who read Chinese characters are not quadrilingual in Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese and hence have no idea how a given Chinese-character title is supposed to be transcribed in one of the other languages (let alone all the dialects of Chinese). There's nothing condescending about recognising that fact and helping such people to navigate Wikipedia, and telling them to go to the Chinese/etc. Wikipedia is a ridiculous solution for the millions among them whose preferred reading language is English (anyone learning the above as second languages, many Singaporeans, etc.) cab (talk) 00:28, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• comment: none of the arguments for keeping had anything to do with offending anyone, and certainly mine didn't; things like this are most useful to native English-speakers such as myself who are interested in East Asian things but don't have much grasp of the languages. Condescend away. --Paularblaster (talk) 02:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete If I wanted to read Chinese titles I'd go to a Chinese wiki, this is English Wikipedia, non-English titles are a no-no. --WebHamster 17:05, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Non-English titles are hardly an unqualified "no-no" (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#CJKV disambiguation pages) and not everyone who wants to navigate using Chinese titles wants to read zh/jp/ko/viwiki. Read the last debate where this argument was addressed. cab (talk) 00:28, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• comment: we don't all have your facility with Oriental languages, WebHamster. --Paularblaster (talk) 02:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. This is the English Wikipedia...Right? Malinaccier (talk) 17:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per WebHamster et al. Bearian'sBooties (talk) 18:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to Northeastern University (Shenyang, China) as a dab-hatnote, as User:HongQiGong suggested in the last debate, due to the specific orthographic issues here. (If you don't understand what those issues are and have nothing to say besides WP:BASH-ing everyone over the head with WP:UE, can I suggest you stay on the sidelines for this debate?) And my vote should in absolutely no way be taken as a "precedent" for applying the same treatment to other Chinese-character dab pages. cab (talk) 01:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep as it is a name that has at one time or another been used for both universities. This might make it of limited interest and usefulness to non-historians, but an encyclopedia should have some sense of the past. --Paularblaster (talk) 02:12, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • That still does not take away from the fact that the name mainly refers to Northeastern University (Shenyang, China) right now, and it is a dab page with only two entries. And again, I absolutely think some dab pages with Chinese character names are necessary or useful. But 東北大學 does not happen to be one of these useful dab pages. Making this a redirect will actually help a user reach Northeastern University (Shenyang, China) in one less mouse click if he was searching for "東北大學", and the same number of mouse clicks to Tohoku University. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 05:17, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak delete per WebHamster.--Jerry 20:59, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I fail to see why redirects or dabs to articles where the thing in question clearly has a non-english name should not also have that actual name exist as a redirect or dab. This does not help if I cut and paste something to look it up. It doesn't matter whether I can read Chinese or Japanese if I cut and paste it. The arguements for looking in ZH or JA wikipedia clearly do not understand that if I can't read Chinese or Japanese, it won't help, and IF I can't even identify it as Chinese or Japanese, it REALLY DOESN'T HELP. 132.205.99.122 (talk) 21:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you read what I wrote at the top of this AfD, you'd see that I'm requesting that this dab page be made into a redirect... Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 21:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - Just a note to everybody that did not fully understand the point of this AfD - I'm not trying to get this page deleted, and I'm not saying page names with non-Latin characters should be deleted. This is a dab page with only two entries, one of them being the main entry. I'm requesting that this page does what 东北大学 and 東北大学 already does. They are both redirects, and both the articles that they redirect to have an italicised disambig message at the top that leads readers to the other article that the term may be disambiguated to. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 21:31, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete As I understand, the raison d'être of a disambiguations page is when an ambiguous word is linked, the disambig page directs the readers to the correct pages. Since we don't link chinese characters, this article has no purpose. (It's still possible, though, that non-latin words may be contained in the article title like raison d'être) -- Taku (talk) 21:58, 10 December 2007 (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.