Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch

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. Keep but rename and rework to be about the fable seems to be the emerging consensus. Fences&Windows 15:26, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Per WP:NOTDICTIONARY, this is not encyclopedic content. Potentially transwikiable, but I am not sure that is worth it. Shirik (talk) 09:55, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, Wiktionary already has this Polarpanda (talk) 10:36, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, Wikipedia is not a dictionary, does not require transwikification due to the phrase's presence on Wiktionary.. --TheGrimReaper 13:38, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Per WP:NOT#DICT. Joe Chill (talk) 17:14, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete fails WP:NOT#DICT -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 18:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Sadly, Wiktionary is one of the well-kept secrets on Wikipedia, something you really can't navigate to unless you go back to the wikimedia page and you're already aware of it, and by that time, why bother, google it. It gets mentioned here a lot, but AfD forum is another tar pit that one finds only by stumbling into. I can see a purpose for an article about the phrase, or at least about the Aesop's fable upon which it is based. One would never guess it from the title, "The Milkmaid and Her Pail" (she was thinking about trading the pail of milk for eggs and got distracted). That would be a keeper, since we seem to keep an article about nearly every song ever recorded. Until Wiktionary is listed in the sidebar, I'll never vote keep or delete on an article simply because it might exist somewhere else. That said, this article isn't very well sourced, and consists of one person's explanation of what the phrase means. Not a keeper. Mandsford (talk) 03:15, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment It seems that the fable is richer and more compelling than this moral that's drawn from it. There are articles on many of Aesop's Fables, but not this one. Could the fable be extracted as an article, and this moral redirected to the new article, or a section of that article? Surely that article would thrive in the care of folklorists where this one withers for want of moralists. Or is that cheating? Yappy2bhere (talk) 07:19, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I created the article and have no issues with the deletion. I have only one point which might go a long way in perhaps changing your views. Going beyond the definition of the term Don't count your chickens before they hatch, if we include plays, books, that have been written on this topic, would you be ok in keeping this article then? Because wiktionary perhaps would never have contents that would disambiguate the various real life usages of this article. Therefore, I would suggest that you put a tag on top of the article giving out details of request for adding additional citations. Wireless Fidelity Class One (talk 04:43, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, in that the author is looking at improving the article and someone else is tagging it for rescue. I do see the potential in it, and it could easily be sourced. I'd change the capitalization to "Don't count your chickens before they hatch" and make it about Aesop's fable and the subsequent usage for the proverb, because I think it goes beyond a dictionary definition. Kind of like "a stitch in time saves nine" or "don't cry wolf", the meaning isn't readily obvious, and some people never hear it until they're getting credit counseling. It's a fable, it's a proverb, it's a meme to explain a concept in seven words. Mandsford (talk) 14:08, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I do think that it is a valid argument that, if the article were to include some additional material beyond the phrase itself, such as the discussions of usage in Aesop's fables that was mentioned earlier, then it's quite possible it would be worthy of inclusion. I'll add a relevant maintenance tag as well to the article, but for now I retain my delete vote pending some sustenance. I'll see if I can look for some potential material tomorrow in hopes of rescue. --Shirik (talk) 06:25, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've changed my mind from delete to rename to "The milkmaid and her pail". Polarpanda (talk) 08:32, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'm working on the Aesop fable part of the article, although I think that "Don't count your chickens..." needs to be the name of the page. The fable itself is the background to an enduring phrase. By the way, anyone else who wants to see the translations of the story over the years would enjoy this site [1]. If anyone knows Latin, I'm curious as to when this first shows up. Mandsford (talk) 19:13, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Or perhaps the name of a section explaining this idiom in a new article The Milkmaid and Her Pail, with this topic redirected to one or the other, pro forma the section "Sour grapes" in the article about Aesop's fable The Fox and the Grapes, with the disambiguation page for the idiom linking the article. Yappy2bhere (talk) 22:41, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Move this article to The Milkmaid and Her Pail, rework it from a moral with a fable to a fable with a moral, and redirect Don't count your chickens before they hatch [sic] to The Milkmaid and Her Pail. Yappy2bhere (talk) 22:56, 15 December 2009 (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.