Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Afrikaans exonyms

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. Truly, and not a kick this down the road one. There are reasons to keep some of these, and reasons to consider transwiking others. Where they differ so much, a bundled discussion isn't viable even if the reason for doing so- to avoid perception of bias toward x language-is laudable. Suggest if some of these need to come back, smaller bundles would be better. ATDs might be better and this AfD should not be cited as a reason not to pursue an editorial ATD. Star Mississippi 23:46, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Afrikaans exonyms

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Long, unsourced list of translations. Wikipedia is WP:NOTDICTIONARY. PepperBeast (talk) 22:45, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am also nominating the following related pages for the same reasons. WP:NOTDICTIONARY, and even if it were, these are mostly unsourced::

Why have you linked to this discussion from the Cornish exonyms article ? Tewdar 23:04, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway , my opinion on the 'X exonyms' articles: delete the fucking lot, or delete none of 'em. Just don't single out Cornish for deletion, like some legacy admin. Tewdar 23:07, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I linked it from Cornish exonyms because I was rolling a whole list into one nom. PepperBeast (talk) 23:17, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I've temproraily blocked Tewdar for the personal attack above. Sandstein 07:32, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any personal attack in what Tewdar wrote: what exactly did you mean? Athel cb (talk) 10:58, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Against whom was the personal attack supposed to be? --Licks-rocks (talk) 13:26, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've explained this on Tewdar's talk page. Please continue any discussion about the block there. Sandstein 16:02, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've read this, and I still consider it absurdly sensitive to call "like some legacy admin" a personal insult. A (trivial) generic insult, maybe, but not directed to any particular named person, so not a personal insult. Athel cb (talk) 18:30, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Raised at Wikipedia:Administrative action review#48 hour block of Tewdar by Sandstein Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 22:56, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Language and Lists. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 00:12, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all. Unsourced (WP:V), WP:NOTDIC. Sandstein 07:32, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Tewdar has a valid point, most of the attacks are by EDL types who insist on airbrushing out first nation Cornish ethnicity, language etc. So not surprisingly there will always rightly be reactions against racism, racism in any form is never OK. 85.94.248.27 (talk) 08:29, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all, for the reasons given. As the Cornish article is specifically mentioned above, I had a look at it, wondering what the exonym for Devon (the neighbouring county and my birthplace) was. It's not there, though there is one for the more distant Somerset! Plymouth (fair enough) and Exeter are there, but given the great number of places in Devon to which Cornish people (including my great^12 grandfather Robert Cornyshe) moved over the centuries (that's why "Cornish" is a common surname in Devon) there must surely be other exonyms. This suggests that it is just a haphazard list of the ones the creator happened to know. Athel cb (talk) 11:14, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the Latin list, at least; it's actually useful, and you can't just look these up in a dictionary; you'd need quite a lot of sources to hunt them all down, if you could even do it, and that's just not practical. It should, however, be fairly easy to document individual entries knowing what the equivalents are, and that's just cleanup, for which there is no deadline. AfD is not cleanup. For that matter, many of the entries could simply be linked to articles about the places, that already give their Latin names in the article leads. The Latin names are relevant in a way that those in many of the other languages may not be, because most or all of these places were settled or colonized in Roman times, and are found under their Roman names in sources about Roman history.

I can't offer much of an opinion on the other lists nominated here, because I don't know much about those languages or the reasons why the lists exist, but as a member of WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome, I feel confident that the Latin list has a good reason to exist. I was going to say that the Greek list has a similar justification for keeping, but looking at it, most of the places included are modern names for places that didn't exist as part of the Hellenistic world; this distinguishes it from the Latin list, which consists primarily of places that had Latin names in Roman times. P Aculeius (talk) 14:33, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Does it add anything beyond Category:Lists of Latin place names? (Genuine question.) PepperBeast (talk) 15:56, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think organization by place (most of the lists of Latin place names) makes more sense than organization by linguistic type (...by exonyms). Therefore, I think the place names in Latin exonyms should be merged to the other lists before deletion. That said, delete all, per WP:NOTDICT. Exonyms for an individual place may be interesting, significant, or notable. And we should definitely mention famous exonyms like 旧金山 somewhere. But having a list of them seems more like a geographic-dictionary thing than an encyclopedia-thing, to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:32, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It does look like they overlap to the extent that merger is practical. I haven't gone through the whole list to check, but whoever merges the list presumably would. Ironically, however, despite frequently needing the Roman names of various places, I don't think I've seen these lists before, and wouldn't have today had it not been for this discussion! P Aculeius (talk) 03:11, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Kill them all, let Deletionpedia sort them out, for the reasons stated. High time. I have asked on many of their Talk pages what use (or interest) they have, and got a few replies to the effect that they are useful, but none of them said clearly how they are useful. —Tamfang (talk) 01:43, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, shouldn't the heading say "(nth nom.)"? —Tamfang (talk) 01:52, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I say keep all the pages. If a language learner wishes to have a list of place names, there should be a readily available list, considering that exonyms and endonyms can have wildly different names in between languages. While the individual pages can be edited so that they are more reliable, it would be extreme do completely obliterate entire pages worth of information instead of simply pruning them. GodenDaeg (talk) 05:09, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The issue isn't reliability or usefulness. Maybe you should have a read of WP:NOTDICTIONARY. PepperBeast (talk) 13:34, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Transwiki I checked and https://language.fandom.com/ exist. Good place to send these too. Dream Focus 01:53, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Did you look at its front page? It's for "Philosophy and Science of Language", not for language study. —Tamfang (talk) 06:55, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see its been abandoned for years. I did ask the founder of it to give me administrative rights to copy everything over, but no response yet. Since it is abandoned, anyone can adopt it, then move things over. I have too many fandoms already, someone who cares about languages can go to https://community.fandom.com/wiki/Adoption:Requests and adopt it. Dream Focus 16:45, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't List of European exonyms be on this list? —Tamfang (talk) 18:05, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Draftify or TNT-delete them all. Many of these articles have the potential to become encyclopedic content. Exonyms can tell a whole story of historical international relations, and for some of the languages we could present these stories in an OR-free manner based on reliable sources. But the way these articles are currently shaped (i.e. as lists), little or nothing is told about what is actually interesting about exonyms. Even List of Pokémon characters is more encyclopedic than every single one of these exonym articles, except maybe for Arabic exonyms, which has some very interesting material that is scattered unsystematically over various sections (because the exonyms are ordered by the least interesting criterion, viz. by modern countries). –Austronesier (talk) 20:15, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Always pleasant to find someone agreeing. (I pushed, once upon a time, for Arabic exonyms to be restricted to "interesting" cases.) —Tamfang (talk) 05:52, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Chinese exonyms I have substantially rewritten Chinese exonyms to contain more substantial encyclopedic content that is too long and not entirely relevant to be contained in Chinese language#Vocabulary. This includes information about the historical origins and changes to certain Chinese exonyms, with appropriate citations from academic sources (I will need to do more digging in Chinese sources to find more). I am open to researching and writing more content, as well as reviewing and greatly shortening the list in the article, but I am reluctant to do more work while this article is in AfD. Still, I think that there is enough right now to warrant keeping it. Richard Ye^talk 13:44, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Richard Ye (talk · contribs), thank you so much for your improvements to Chinese exonyms! I deeply appreciate your hard work and your interest in continuing to improve the article were it not at risk of being deleted. Here are two relevant guidelines:
  1. Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline says, "A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject."
  2. Wikipedia:Notability#Stand-alone lists says, "One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a stand-alone list. The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been."
  Can you find two reliable sources that discuss the concept of Chinese exonyms? If two reliable sources can be found, we will have a very strong case for keeping Chinese exonyms.
  Cunard (talk) 10:13, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  It may be preferable to have WP:THREE. Rotary Engine ^talk 11:01, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  Only to User:Roy Smith, whoever he is. That's the guy's personal essay on his talk page, not any form of anyone's policy. — LlywelynII 03:38, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  It would be preferable to me to have 3 independent, reliable sources which each provide significant coverage of the article topic; for the reasons outlined by Roy Smith in their essay. It may also be useful to other uninvolved editors who, like me, have yet to opine. I made (and make) no representation that the linked essay is a policy, guideline, or anything other than what it is. Rotary Engine ^talk 08:13, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  
  Here are some secondary, academic sources on Chinese exonyms as a distinct topic (not on a specific exonym or on Chinese foreign relations).
  On the general construction and form of Chinese exonyms:
  - Pierre de La Robertie, Le nom propre en chinois. Essai de morphosyntaxe (Chinese proper nouns: an essay on morphosyntax), Corela -- see section 2.3 on Exonyms
  - Wensheng Qu, Translation of Personal and Place Names from and into Chinese in Modern China: A Lexicographical History Perspective, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law
  - Liu Lian’an, Gao Yu and Ji Yuan, New Developments in Formulating the Transformation Guidelines of Geographical Names from Foreign Languages into Chinese, Eleventh United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names
  On the history and evolution of Chinese exonyms:
  - Magnus Fiskesjö, The Animal Other: China's Barbarians and Their Renaming in the Twentieth Century, Social Text, Duke University Press.
  - Kaitlyn Ugoretz, Distinguishing the 'Barbarian': Chinese Exonyms and Characterizations of the Other Across Eurasia, Working Paper
  - Yao Dali, 河西走廊的几个古地名 (Several ancient place names in the Hexi Corridor) , originally published in 西北民族研究 (Northwest Journal of Ethnology)
  - Chen Dong, 论国名与国号 (On country names and representations of country names) , Journal of Xiamen University (Arts and Social Sciences)
  Richard Ye^talk 12:11, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  - This is excellent work, thank you! I've supported keeping Chinese exonyms below. Cunard (talk) 12:40, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have now essentially rewritten the article. I have now greatly abbreviated the list in Chinese exonyms to "notable" exonyms only (though a few still lack citations, which I am slowly chasing down). The article is now otherwise fully cited from the notable, academic sources I've listed above. I hope this can convince fellow Wikipedians that a Keep decision is warranted for this article. Richard Ye^talk 13:17, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent work, thank you again for your hard work on this! Cunard (talk) 08:22, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please keep the List of Azerbaijani exonyms: I agree with the idea that most of the exonyms in all lists of exonyms are fantasy or fiction, but if you go down a little you will see how many sources are given, for example to List of Azerbaijani_exonyms#Russia, this happens because Russia changes the name of cities as soon as it conquers it. And even now, during the war in Ukraine, you can see this, for example, the fact that Russia renamed the Ukrainian Bakhmut to Artyomovsk. Most of the exonyms are historical and I find the use of this list useful in historical reconstructions. I could remove all the "garbage" from the article if we agreed to leave the list. Sebirkhan (talk) 14:01, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do we have an article on Russian renamings in general? That would seem the more appropriate place for such entries. To preserve List of Azerbaijani exonyms for this reason would be like buying peanut butter so that the jars can be used to store rice; and unless the title is changed, it will attract the same cruft that led to this discussion. —Tamfang (talk) 21:57, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Draftify all - We need to avoid a WP:TRAINWRECK here, and cases are being made for keeping individual pages, but not the full set. It is clear these have WP:NOTDICTIONARY issues per nom. Also, per Austronesier, there are articles that could be written about exonyms, but those arguments are not for these list articles. It is at least possible that some (especially those being argued for) could be rewritten as encyclopaedic pages, although I don't think any of them are there yet. If we draftify them then the ones with potential can be developed and submitted for review, and may become useful articles. The ones that are unloved and untouched will be deleted. This outcome would be superior to delete, which would delete some good information on a couple of the articles. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 14:32, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. Cunard (talk) 10:13, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment about deletion sorting: I added this AfD to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/China. Would an editor who is experienced in deletion sorting add this AfD to the relevant lists? This will inform editors who are experienced in the various languages about this AfD and give them an opportunity to improve the articles. Wcquidditch (talk · contribs), you added deletion sorting templates to this AfD. Would you be able to help or know where to post to ask for help? Thank you.
I recommend a relist to allow a full seven days after the deletion sorting is done.
Cunard (talk) 10:13, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have added the articles to the country delsorts. Jumpytoo Talk 05:10, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Jumpytoo! Cunard (talk) 08:22, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment about glossaries: The guideline Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary#Wikipedia is not a usage guide says: "Some articles are encyclopedic glossaries on the jargon of an industry or field; such articles must be informative, not guiding in nature, because Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, or textbook."
The guideline Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Lists of words says:
Glossaries – alphabetical, topical lists of terms, rather than of notable entities – are encyclopedic when the entries they provide are primarily informative explorations of the listed terminology, pertaining to a notable topic that already has its own main article on Wikipedia. A Featured example is Glossary of Texas A&M University terms. Stand-alone glossaries are categorized at Category:Wikipedia glossaries, as well as topically in article categories. Shorter ones are often better handled as embedded lists, though a redirect from a title like Glossary of X can be created to the section, and the redirect added to that category. Such embedded glossaries may split later into in stand-alone glossaries. There are multiple ways of formatting glossaries.
Because Wikipedia is not a dictionary, many ideas for glossaries, in which entries would be little more than dictionary definitions ("dicdefs"), may be better suited to Wiktionary. Glossaries that do not meet Wikipedia's notability criteria or not-a-dictionary policy should be migrated to Wiktionary at wikt:Category:English glossaries. Wiktionary also freely forks Wikipedia's encyclopedic glossaries for redevelopment to Wiktionary's purposes and standards, in its Appendix: namespace.
Some other, non-glossary lists of words can also yield an encyclopedic page, such as List of English words containing Q not followed by U, the condition being that reliable secondary sources for the topic can be cited.
Are these articles considered glossaries?
Cunard (talk) 10:13, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not by any reasonable meaning of the term "glossary". The lists, broadly, do not contain definitional information; nor are they limited to terms related to a specific, notable, domain of knowledge. Rotary Engine talk 10:57, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the analysis. Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Lists of words says: "Some other, non-glossary lists of words can also yield an encyclopedic page, such as List of English words containing Q not followed by U, the condition being that reliable secondary sources for the topic can be cited." So that is the guideline to follow. If "reliable secondary sources for the topic can be cited", then encyclopedic pages can be created from these "non-glossary lists of words". Cunard (talk) 11:19, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You're being too polite/deferential. The only thing RE's comment clarified was that their opinion is mistaken. Geographical terms in a foreign language is quite clearly a specific notable domain of knowledge. The fact that it's an interesting and needful topic is precisely why they were created in the first place, aside from its utility to gamers and its poor (and unable to be improved) handling at Wiktionary. — LlywelynII 03:35, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The lists in the articles that I reviewed are not of geographical terms, but of place names. Exonyms (and endonyms) in any given language might well be a specific notable domain of knowledge; and we would look to reliable sources to evidence that. But the individual exonyms would then be the subject of that domain, not the terms of that domain.

By comparison, we might have a glossary of arithmetical terms, but we would not have a "glossary" of natural numbers; we might have a glossary of social science terms, but we would not have a "glossary" of individual's names.

There may be good reasons for these articles to be kept; some may even be based in policy, but glossary isn't one of them. Rotary Engine talk 08:08, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Chinese exonyms per the significant coverage in reliable sources in academic journals and books found by Richard Ye (talk · contribs). The sources definitively show that Chinese exonyms passes Wikipedia:Notability#Stand-alone lists, which says, One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a stand-alone list. The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been.
Richard Ye has already make substantial improvements to Chinese exonyms that demonstrate this is an encyclopedic topic, not just a list of dictionary definitions. Chinese exonyms can be improved through pruning and expansion. But that can be done at any time as I understand with Richard Ye's reluctance in improving the article while at AfD. Several times I've spent hours improving an article at AfD in the past only to have the article get deleted.
The policies say that articles containing flaws should not be deleted if they can be improved. Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Alternatives to deletion says, If editing can address all relevant reasons for deletion, this should be done rather than deleting the page. Wikipedia:Editing policy#Wikipedia is a work in progress: perfection is not required says, Perfection is not required: Wikipedia is a work in progress. Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome.
Cunard (talk) 12:40, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Japanese exonyms per Jumpytoo. The Japanese Wikipedia article for Japanese exonyms is extensively referenced to academic sources and discusses the topic in detail. Cunard (talk) 08:22, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Chinese exonyms per User:Cunard – there are a lot of Chinese-specific considerations about exonyms in general that are now discussed in some detail in that article. No opinion about the other articles. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 13:44, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Japan, Vietnam, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and Ukraine. Jumpytoo Talk 05:09, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Japanese exonyms, likely bad bundle, for the Japanese article speficially the Japanese version is very well cited, and is extremely likely to meet WP:GNG. Since we now have 2 articles that clear the bar, I think it's not appropiate to do these articles as a bundled AfD, it should be nominated individually. Jumpytoo Talk 05:14, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All - Way too many nominated articles to give a proper review and joint decision on all. Anyways, keep.BabbaQ (talk) 19:13, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: I'm tempted to close this as a Procedural Keep as opinion is divided between those editors asking for all articles to be treated similarly (whether that is Delete all, Draftify all or Keep all) and those editors arguing for individual articles to be Kept. That is one dilemma with large, bundled nominations like this, unless there is an overwhelming consensus for one particular action, they can fall apart. It's also clear that editors asking for "All" anything have not had the time to evaluate each article individually and given the arguments from editors asking for individual articles to be Kept, they obviously differ in quality and substance leaving me questioning any closure that paints them all with the same brush.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:16, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, unbundling will result in "Why are you picking on my pet language and ignoring dozens of others?" (even if they are all separately nominated) —Tamfang (talk) 03:08, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural keep. The encyclopedic content of these articles vary widely. I see the point in attempting to have one discussion about the principle, but I don't think it's doable, as shown above. /Julle (talk) 12:14, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete All. WP:NOTDICTIONARY. The only reservation I have is regarding languages that do not have their own WP forks. Otherwise why would you have Spanish exonyms on English wiki when Spanish wiki already does that!? XMcan (talk) 16:40, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Once when I raised that point, I got the reasonable reply: suppose I want a Greek exonym but cannot read Greek? —Tamfang (talk) 00:49, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: All the "List of" nominations except List of Russian exonyms are actually redirects and should be corrected. Nickps (talk) 22:42, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Add to that Latvian exonyms, Old Norse exonyms and Slovenian exonyms which are also redirects. Nickps (talk) 22:46, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I took the liberty to fix those myself. Let me know if I wasn't supposed to do that. Nickps (talk) 22:51, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Procedural keep As seen above, there are way too many considerations about the individual articles to handle in one AfD. It's also clear that no one looked at every article. All the participants missing that a bunch of redirects ended up in an AfD nomination for a week shouldn't have been possible. Nickps (talk) 23:01, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The assumption we missed these and therefore did not look at all the lists at all is incorrect. I did not register that as important. It is the content that is being considered. I did look at all of them. I did not look into detail of their sourcing and individual potential sourcing, because that would have taken many hours. That was why I suggested draftify all. I do not think any of these are encyclopaedic as they stand, as we are in NOTDICTIONARY territory, but individual cases are being made for individual pages, and it is likely some would make individual cases for others. I am not convinced that the individual cases are answering the NOTDICTIONARY aspect as things stand, but draftify would allow individual pages to be very quickly reviewed and republished - it would simply recognise that there is a concern to be addressed. It appears to be a good process for allowing that individual scrutiny without defaulting to a keep option that basically says that bundled nominations are impossible. I will say, however, that failing draftify, I oppose delete. Draftify all is my preference. Keep would be acceptable, but disappointing. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:05, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll admit I was a bit too eager with my conclusions. Then again, that wouldn't have happened were this a reasonably sized AfD.

Now, onto the actual argument, draftify all to me sounds like, "delete in 6 months". Lithuanian exonyms, for example, had no edits for a year prior to the nom and that's on mainspace. Others were untouched for even longer. We could get it done faster with separate AfDs, even if we spread them across a few months so we don't overwhelm the venue. I also think the specific examples should be kept in mainspace and improved there, so a procedural keep still seems like the best solution. Nickps (talk) 13:21, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
...draftify all to me sounds like, "delete in 6 months...

Because that's all it ever is unless there's a specific editor making the request to preserve something. It shouldn't even be a thing as a policy. In this case, like you're saying, the articles should just be left active until they're separately nominated. — LlywelynII 02:47, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comments - Latin, Chinese and Japanese exonyms are clearly notable. I'm not sure about the rest. Some can be draftified, but some are heading to deletion. This keeps coming up on my AfD feed. Can we put it to sleep and start over in April? Bearian (talk) 19:21, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I don't think anyone has said this explicitly: Exonyms are interesting if they are not trivial examples (among innumerable) of the obvious fact that each language adapts foreign words, including placenames, to its own phonology and orthography. Interesting ones are worth preserving. If they are not segregated by language, perhaps they won't attract cruft, he suggested in passing. —Tamfang (talk) 00:55, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for procedural reasons (baby/bathwater) and particularly for sourced info at the Arabic list. There's a single editor who keeps repeating the idea to 'draftify'. That should be avoided as well: Draftspace for minor topics is just a slow bleed-out towards needless deletion of content helpful for our WP:READERS and in this case falls under WP:POINT. End this request altogether, nominate specific bad articles, and move on. — LlywelynII 02:35, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's a single editor who keeps repeating the idea to 'draftify'. There are two editors who suggested draftify, and I only repeated the point once in a reply to a comment after the relist. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:21, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments — A. There clearly isn't consensus and what support ("delete all") votes there are seem to be either merely applying WP:NOTDICT without examining the articles, alternatives, or counterarguments or to be entirely mistaken ("unsourced" or "not a specific notable area of knowledge"). Can we get this closed? and get the actual bad articles separately and individually renominated?

B. For the curious, the WP:POINTily-enforced WP:NOTDICT alternative to these lists—which would be almost impossible for normal WP:READERs to find—would be the separate categories of exonyms by language at Wiktionary. The way they work can be seen at Category:Arabic exonyms: the lists are grossly incomplete, given in illegible foreign script without context or even transcription, and in the alphabetical order of those foreign languages. The way the application falls completely on its face can be seen at Category:English exonyms: they include terms like Kyiv and Curaçao as "exonyms" because one is isn't written in Cyrillic and the other doesn't have all of its Portuguese diacritics. It's completely unhelpful for any English-speaking reader looking for this information. These articles should be kept for the same reasons as Glossary of rhetorical terms and Glossary of ancient Roman religion unless they are literally only completely unsourced laundry lists. Anything else should just be kept in mainspace and allowed time to improve. — LlywelynII 03:02, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Japanese exonyms and likely others as well. There's plenty of references discussing the topic wrt Japan and likely most of the others. Individual nominations with a proper BEFORE search for each article is the way to go. DCsansei (talk) 20:18, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all 1) This is an inappropriate way to discuss the general principle of these articles existing. 2) If the requirement is for every translation to be sourced, let that be the case. That would make the articles easily salvageable. Proposed as a bundle makes efforts to improve during an AfD impossible. 3) These lists are not dictionary entries. They do not (and should not) contain all translations of all toponyms around the world. 4) These lists have a clear limiting criteria for inclusion: that the exonym is different from the endonym, and not as a result of standard transliteration. 5) Exonyms are not a mere curiosity; they are an issue of political significance and contention. There is a UN committee dealing with them and the naming of places.

Some of these lists certainly need tidying up because there are entries which are not true exonyms on some of the pages (I have been purging a couple in recent times, which is how I was notified of this debate.) But that is a different matter entirely. OsFish (talk) 04:36, 4 April 2024 (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.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Afrikaans exonyms

Afrikaans exonyms

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