Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Exploring the Ancient Greek Language and Culture

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 redirect to Ancient Greek#Modern use. And selective merge from history. Ultimately, only one person wants to keep this around as an article. Sandstein 22:01, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Exploring the Ancient Greek Language and Culture (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Notability concerns. None of the references mention this event (and all are in Greek). [1] shows that this existed at one point but little more, all other references look to be Wikipedia mirrors. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:08, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 04:17, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Greece-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 04:17, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect to Ancient_Greek#Modern_use and cover in one sentence. From p26 footnote 58 it ran between 2001 and 2008. Rationale for redirect rather than deletion is that it was an international competition with thousands of participants from hundreds of schools, and [2] shows some occasional pageview spikes for some reason. ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 08:45, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly find more for "European Student Competition in Ancient Greek Language and Literature"; haven't looked to see if there's enough. power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:00, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Based on the article's content, either deletion or redirection would be inappropriate. International scholastic competitions seem to be inherently notable. The fact that sources are in Greek is not a valid reason for deletion; valid sources may be in any language. There are questions as to whether the sources support the content of the article; these should be resolved, and additional sources sought to verify the content. However, the fact that such sources have not yet been identified is not itself a justification for deletion. I believe the question is whether independent, reliable sources exist, not whether anyone has identified them or whether the article cites to them. Obviously Wikipedia mirrors are not usable sources, since their content comes from here. But if the competition is mentioned in newspapers or magazines, or on mainstream news sites whose content is normally archived, then there are presumably reliable sources. The logical course of action here is to place {{Template:More citations needed}} or a related template on the page until a thorough search of likely sources can be undertaken. This article should be deleted only if the reliable sources that are likely to mention or describe the competition do not do so, and no other reliable sources can be identified by a thorough investigation (i.e. the competition is shown to be a hoax, or of so little notability that it is not covered by mainstream sources). However, there is no deadline for this; many articles take years for sourcing issues to be fully resolved, without deletion being appropriate. It may be the case that nobody has attempted to update the article substantially since its creation; that's certainly the impression created by the fact that only one year's winners are listed. That may also suggest that the competition is no longer being held. This is one of the issues that should be investigated thoroughly before the article is deleted. P Aculeius (talk) 13:19, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Except the Greek references don't mention the contest; having only references that don't support any content in the article is a reason for deletion. After a reasonable WP:BEFORE search, the burden is on you or someone else to demonstrate that sources do exist. The page has existed since 2007, the "years" to source this have already occurred. power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:00, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A source failing to support the statement for which it's cited (whether or not it names the subject of the article is not necessarily relevant) is grounds for removing that source, not for deleting the article that cited it. Having only references that don't support the content of an article is not a reason for deletion, because completely unsourced articles should not be deleted without reasonable efforts to ascertain whether reliable sources exist. The length of time since the article was created is utterly irrelevant to whether the article should be deleted. The question is whether reliable sources exist, not whether anybody has located them, cited them, or has had lots and lots of time to do so. Is the competition misnamed or has its name changed or varied by source? That's also a subject to be addressed in the article, but simply deleting it is not appropriate. The burden is not on whoever opposes the nomination to justify the article's continued existence by providing reliable sources; it is on the nominator to make reasonable efforts to determine whether such sources exist. Which, as you've already posted, seem to exist for this article. You're not required to cite them for whatever content they can provide, but you can't delete the article simply because nobody has cited them, or made necessary corrections or other edits to the article. P Aculeius (talk) 17:30, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete no evidence in the article for notability at this point. The content of the article would appear to be an attempt to promote the importance of this event. DGG ( talk ) 02:29, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment The article seems to correspond to a 2006 announcement of the Greek Ministry of Education on the Sixth Annual European Competition in "Exploring the Ancient Greek Language and Culture" [3] uploaded in a Spanish (!) website, or to any similar document with the same, standard references to these events (=actually it copies parts of these standard references). I do not know if the abovementioned announcement was originaly written in English, but I couldn't find anything in Greek related to this Competition (its title in Greek sould be "(Εξ)Ερευνώντας την αρχαία ελληνική γλώσσα και τον πολιτισμό"). Only a press release (in English) on "the award ceremony of the 5th Annual European Student Competition “Exploring the Ancient Greek Language and Culture”" by the Athens News Agency in 2006 [4]. I also didn't find anything about the history of the contest, when it started, who were responsible for launching it in the first place, what happened then, if it continued beyond the "sixth" competition etc. Only this en passant reference. According to my findings it looks to me like a rather obscure competition. ——Chalk19 (talk) 11:05, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Chalk19: The original Greek title is Ελληνική Ετήσιου Μαθητικού Ευρωπαϊκού Διαγωνισμού στην Αρχαία Ελληνική Γλώσσα και Γραμματεία. ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 11:49, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Hydronium Hydroxide: Well, in this case, in the title in Greek there is no "Exploring" and no "Culture". Τhe English title is a somehow free translation of the original Greek one. "Διαγωνισμός στην Αρχαία Ελληνική Γλώσσα και Γραμματεία" = "Competition in Ancient Greek Language and Literature". ——Chalk19 (talk) 13:28, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment 2 The Greek title is "Ετήσιος Μαθητικός Ευρωπαϊκός Διαγωνισμός στην Αρχαία Ελληνική Γλώσσα και Γραμματεία" = "Annual Student/Pupil European Competition in Ancient Greek Language and Literature". The results of the google search of the Greek title are many references in government websites, school websites, some mainstream media etc [5]. Most, if not all of these references, are either proclamations of the annual Competitions and calls for participation in the contests, or announcements for the award ceremonies. According to a paper on student competitions in Greece, published (in Greek) in the Proceedings of the 2nd Pan-hellenic Congress for the Promotion of Innovation in Education (2016), vol. II, p. 548, this Competition is an example of a failed attempt, of an event that didn't succeed to gain the recognition and acceptance of the teachers community. According to the paper, the Competition was probably discontinued in 2010. ——Chalk19 (talk) 15:07, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment So the competition seems to have run for eight or nine years. I thought I had seen a reference to a 2017 winner, but I think I must have misread 2007. Found the announcement of the 2007 competition mentioned above, describing it as the "sixth annual" one and giving the English title used above. Whether an international academic competition is "obscure" is a matter of opinion, but I agree that it seems to have failed to catch on; reading the document mentioned above I can imagine why. It seems to have been rather rigorous and inflexible in its requirements, and may have overestimated the volume of interest among young Greek scholars abroad. However, not sure that redirecting is preferable to keeping it as a separate article. If there were between six and nine winners, listing them would seem to be beyond the scope of a brief mention in and redirect to another article. The fact that it was an international scholastic competition still argues for notability, even though it's been discontinued. The "some mainstream media" coverage mentioned above probably satisfies the "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" requirement for notability, provided they don't consist entirely of the competition/government's press releases. But the facts that there may only have been a few hundred participants, and that the competition may only have lasted a few years, don't demonstrate a lack of notability. If no significant details can be found to flesh out this article in reliable, independent sources, and all of the details can be fit into a single paragraph in another article, then merging into another article with a redirect may be appropriate. P Aculeius (talk) 13:31, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: In a consideration of notability (may be the topic of an article) vs noteworthiness (may be included within an article), I couldn't find a sufficient level of independent SIGCOV to justify keeping as a full article. That leaves arguing for inherent notability and/or likelihood of offline sources, but I'm not reasonably convinced of either. Have inserted some text at the proposed target in [6]. If there were an article on (modern) education in Ancient Greek, then a fuller para might be reasonable, but as it is it's at the upper bound for WEIGHT. ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 23:16, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That looks like a reasonable summary, given the minimal coverage. If we don't have a list of winners available, then I would say that there's not enough detail to require splitting it from the "Ancient Greek" article. If better and more comprehensive sources come to light later, this article can always be reconstituted. P Aculeius (talk) 12:00, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ηere is a brief history of the Competition, compiled by the Organization for the Internationalization of the Greek Language (Οργανισμὸς για την Διάδοση της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας-ΟΔΕΓ), one of the societies that co-organized it. According to this account of the events it was them, ΟΔΕΓ, who had the initiative of the project, and later the authorities of Cyprus and of Greece joined the effort. A few of the links listed at the bottom of the page open pdfs that contain the awards given to the winners of the annual Competitions, but not of all years, eg. this is of the 7th Competition, and this of the 6th (schools abroad). ——Chalk19 (talk) 15:33, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's actually quite good. Many articles on Wikipedia have less detail than this, particularly in the field of classics, where very little is known about many presumably important historical figures. This competition doesn't rank in importance with a head of state—even an ancient one—but there's enough detail to support a stand-alone article, and even though the competition was suspended in 2009-10 (looks like for financial reasons), it was significant enough to garner some independent, third-party coverage over the course of the years in which it was held. Even if we don't have a complete list of the winners, this article should probably stay. The topic is plainly non-trivial, and it's possible to give a significant amount of detail about it using sources easily located on the internet. There are probably more sources that are beyond our current reach, but which could be cited in the future. The fact that the competition only lasted for a few years really isn't determinative. We have a number of articles about American competitions that only lasted a few years—like the AAA Travel High School Challenge (2003–2007), the Reader's Digest National Word Power Challenge (2002–2007), and the National Vocabulary Championship (2006–2008). Presumably their visibility is higher due to having been held in the United States with corporate sponsorship, but in terms of significance they don't seem that different from this one. In any case, this article now looks like a keep. P Aculeius (talk) 13:17, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Finally, I myself lean towards keeping the article. ——Chalk19 (talk) 07:56, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment -- @P Aculeius, Chalk19, DGG, and Power~enwiki: Have considered whether to switch to a weak keep (perhaps without prejudice against merging to a future article on modern education in the language), but am still landing at a Redirect. The Odeg history appears useful, but is in no way independent, any secondary coverage appears to be extremely limited, and it's a cul-de-sac. The current text at the proposed redirect target could, however, be tweaked to include the Odeg history link as an additional reference for any interested readers to follow. ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 02:27, 28 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• At the very most, draftifyThey fact that we have too few articles on he ancient world can be remedied by having more articles on those subjects, and on the notable scholars and writers who use it as a topic. Additional articles on the teaching of the classics would be good also, and this could include Important student competitions. .But I see no evidence of its actual importance. The references indicated above in the google search seem mainly announcements.Butthey maybe better than it seems, so I wouldn't object to draftification. But frankly, I doubt you will find sufficient sources. Announcements and local celebration of prize winners are not sufficient, no manner how many there may be., DGG ( talk ) 02:45, 28 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I think you're misunderstanding the purpose of identifying reliable, independent sources. They're to establish notability, which was the ground upon which this article was nominated for deletion. The question was whether there were sufficient independent references to demonstrate that the topic had notability; it's not necessary for each fact about the topic to be cited to multiple or independent reliable sources. The contest's own rules or publicity materials are sufficient to establish a number of basic facts; i.e. who sponsored the contest, who was eligible to participate, who the winners were. Coverage in secondary sources doesn't have to be extensive in order to prove that the contest attracted enough attention to justify the existence of the article. "Draftifying" an article is essentially deletion by another method, and altogether inappropriate. If a topic is notable and enough verifiable information exists to say something useful about it, then it belongs in article space. As previously mentioned, there are many articles about other contests that seem to have no greater significance, and even somewhat less; there are many articles about presumably notable subjects about which fewer details are known. So while this may strike some readers as unimportant—as a great many articles about subjects that fail to interest readers do—notability has been sufficiently demonstrated, and it is possible to provide enough information about the topic to justify the article's continued existence. I was on the fence in the beginning of this discussion, but with the additional information linked above, it no longer seems to be a close case. This article is a clear keep. P Aculeius (talk) 06:06, 28 December 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.