Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Finnish 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. It appears we are no further ahead than we were when Star Mississippi closed the bundled nomination seven months ago. There seems to be some agreement that the topic is notable, and that a general article about Finnish exonyms could be written, but that this minimal-prose, extensive list isn't it. Editors are encouraged to expand the prose and trim down the list to a few examples needed to support it, or to discuss a merger to a more general article on the Talk page. Despite the popularity of the WP:TNT essay, cleanup via deletion is not supported by policy for this type of situation. Owen× ☎ 18:28, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Finnish exonyms

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Indiscriminate mostly unreferenced list of proper names, Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Other such articles have recently been deleted, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/French exonyms. toweli (talk) 23:37, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Language, Geography, Lists, Europe, and Finland. toweli (talk) 23:37, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Finnish names for random places around the world are not encyclopedic; however, Finnish names for parts of Russia that used to be a part of Finland are encyclopedic, and the same might pertain to Sweden and Norway - Finns/Kven are a recognized minority in Norway and some places in Norway e.g. Porsanger have official Finnish names. Indeed, there is a Finnish exonyms for places in Norway. Perhaps there also should be a Finnish exonyms for places in Russia, and maybe Sweden, and this main Finnish exonyms page be an index for those two/three. Remove the rest. Geschichte (talk) 06:43, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are also a few nontrivial entries in the Baltic States. —Tamfang (talk) 05:20, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It might be better to have an article about Toponymy in Karelia instead of focusing on the exonym aspect, as it might be difficult to separate Finnish and Karelian names, and Karelian names are not exonyms anyway. There could also be an article about Toponymy in the Karelian Isthmus, which is a special case, since the all the names were changed there in the 1940s. This would discuss both the old Finnish/Karelian names and the Soviet replacement names. See for example the book reviewed at https://agricolaverkko.fi/review/karjalankannaksen-toponyminen-katastrofi/ Jähmefyysikko (talk) 06:06, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It is reasonable to cull exonyms that are simply a matter of spelling rules (in effect, a transliteration). But the rest are useful. There has been an attempted stealth cull of these pages. There should have been an announcement at least on Talk:Endonym and exonym.OsFish (talk) 05:39, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. There are some good sources discussing Finnish exonyms here:

I don't think there is that much useful content in the current article, but a new article could probably be written based on these sources. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 05:56, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Doczilla _{Ohhhhhh, no!} 05:23, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Trim: A few names in the list are evidently not cognate to the respective endonyms, and I'd preserve these. Otherwise, delete as trivial; each language adapts foreign words to its own phonology and orthography, okay, we get it. —Tamfang (talk) 23:57, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: This is a confusing AFD discussion to close because almost all participants are making editing recommendations and, if offering a closure outcome, it is dependent on future changes happening to this article if it is Kept. I will relist this discussion in hopes of more specific feedback being offered but right now it looks like No consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:20, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

~~Keep~~ (struck out, see below Jähmefyysikko (talk) 12:48, 15 October 2024 (UTC)). The topic is notable. There is a clear consensus to trim the entries per WP:NOTDICT. However, there are also sources which can be used to improve the article beyond a mere list of words. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 04:41, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. There are literally thousands of active languages in the world, many are quite obscure. Keeping the articles of the "List of ...ian exonyms" with seemingly random selection of entries and practically no sources offered for verification (this article actually is of this type) will be a very bad precedent, as it will be inviting hoaxes (this is not the one, but who will be checking spelling of, say, Bangkok in Rotokas?). The preceding explanation is IMHO one of the (many) reasons for WP:NOTDICTIONARY, which is IMHO very clearly violated here (there is zero non-dictionary material here, indeed, an entry of a decent geographic dictionary contains more information than here). --Викидим (talk) 05:39, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd expect that in case of Rotokas it will not be easy to find sources that discuss the history of exonyms in Rotokas language. The sources in my earlier comment provide such information. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 05:45, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do not foresee much trouble with, say, Finnish exonyms for places in Karelia (with, say, [1] as a source for the list) or Finnish exonyms for places in Sweden. But this seemingly random list includes, say, one city in Cyprus. Why Cyprus? Why one city? I understand the need for the dictionaries of geographical names, they make sense, but should be reasonably complete to be useful - attempt to include one here would surely run against WP:NOTDICT. Викидим (talk) 06:04, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The name of this article is not List of Finnish exonyms, but Finnish exonyms, so this article should not be a list article. I have no problem with removing almost all of exonyms here, and retaining only illustrative examples within the article text. There is a good-quality geographic exonymic dictionary available at https://kaino.kotus.fi/eksonyymit/ which we should not try to duplicate. We only need to add an external link to it. List of names of nationalities and languages can similarly be found at https://www.kotus.fi/julkaisut/nimijulkaisut/maat_paakaupungit_ja_kansalaisuudet Again, no reason to include that list in the article. The general principles of conjugation of place names can be discussed based on https://www.kotus.fi/ohjeet/suomen_kielen_lautakunnan_suosituksia/suositukset/maiden_nimien_taivuttaminen
From the articles at https://kaino.kotus.fi/eksonyymit/?a=taustaa one can source e.g. the following things:
the origin of Finnish exonyms, including which languages have acted as mediators and which areas have most exonyms.
the history of exonyms in standardized Finnish ("the great 19th-century exonym debate")
many more references (https://kaino.kotus.fi/eksonyymit/?a=taustaa&s=paikannimioppaita)
Jähmefyysikko (talk) 06:32, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You propose to discuss not the article in question, but some other one that can be, quite probably, written. I might (and most likely, will) change my position once I see this other article. As-is, I see no reason to keep the existing text while waiting for the new one: the current list and your (very reasonable) proposal do not appear to share practically any text, so WP:TNT logic might be useful. Викидим (talk) 06:42, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In AfD we often consider whether the topic offers possibilities for an article, not necessarily its current state. But I agree that my vision of the future article might be divergent enough from its current state to merit the TNT. I'll strike my !vote now, and will perhaps recreate a different article under this title in the future. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 12:47, 15 October 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.