Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Man's inhumanity to man

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 Man was made to Mourn. (non-admin closure) ASTIG️🙃 _{(ICE-T • ICE CUBE)} 15:15, 24 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Man's inhumanity to man (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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WP:INDISCRIMINATE collection of information, every use of a relatively common phrase or idiom is simply not content that belongs on an encyclopedia. As Wikipedia is not a dictionary, this should be deleted. - car chasm (talk) 14:46, 17 September 2022 (UTC) A suitable redirect target now exists that did not at the time of nomination, I believe it should be redirected there instead. - car chasm (talk) 16:21, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - Outside of the "phrase defined" section that is literally a dictionary definition, the entire rest of the article goes against WP:NOTDIRECTORY, as a "list or repository of loosely associated topics such as quotations". There could possibly be a legit article written on the phrase or it could be used as a Redirect, but as this current article goes against Wikipedia policy, it should not be retained for either of those possibilities to happen. Rorshacma (talk) 15:38, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect to Man was made to Mourn per below - an article on the notable poem the phrase originated from now exists, so redirecting this there as a reasonable search term is acceptable. Rorshacma (talk) 23:26, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per nom and above. Retinalsummer (talk) 16:50, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 17:52, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and rewrite into prose. There's enough usage by notable people (MLK's use seems pretty compelling) that an article is reasonable. The dictdef and many of the attributions to not-themselves-notable speakers should be deleted, leaving us with an RS'ed commentary on The problem of evil. Jclemens (talk) 18:48, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Perhaps I'm missing something here, but isn't what you're proposing a violation of WP:NOR? We're not in the business of writing original commentaries on the problem of evil. - car chasm (talk) 19:19, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Writing? Not any more than we write text around RS'es attestation in any other field. Rather, we should appropriately collect usages of this term by notable people--a slightly less ambitious and more focused purpose than the article as it currently stands seems to be trying to do. Jclemens (talk) 19:49, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'd recommend looking at WP:NOTDICT again - the project you're describing, "collecting usages of this term by notable people" is explained in the sections Not Size and Wikipedia is not a usage guide. If, on the other hand, you can point to reliable sources that collect usages of this term by notable people, analyze them, and provide a synthesis, those would constitute secondary sources. As a tertiary source, Wikipedia would then be able to cite those secondary sources as they would constitute significant coverage of the topic. If no such secondary sources exist, then wikipedia should not have an article on this. - car chasm (talk) 20:10, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  If you had done a proper WP:BEFORE a quick perusal of Google Scholar would have identified that enough material to build an appropriate article exists. I'd recommend focusing on your own responsibilities before trying to educate me about mine. Jclemens (talk) 21:23, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I did do a bit more than a quick perusal - there are a few articles that use the idiom in their title or subtitle (as it is a common idiom), an article that is a copy of this wikipedia page, and one single article from 2010 that uses the idiom in its title and includes a brief discussion of the idiom itself for one paragraph. I would not consider that WP:SIGCOV. - car chasm (talk) 22:24, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete See reasons below. We might move the most notable information to a section in the Robert Burns article. Otherwise, just delete.Augusthorsesdroppings10 (talk) 02:57, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: this article is currently in flagrant violation of WP:NOTQUOTE. I think, however, it would be easy to reformulate into an article about Burns' poem "Man was made to mourn" and include mention of the line itself in a subsection, something I'd be happy to do if the AfD reaches that consensus. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 02:06, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I have found coverage to indicate the poem is notable. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 02:09, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm struggling to see how this article could be reformulated to be about the broader problem of evil, however. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 02:10, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Actually, [1] p. 159 does give some attention to the concept. But I'm not sure this is the page for it... Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 02:19, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Special:Permalink/1111460693 is the beginning of what I'd envision a rewrite looking like. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 02:56, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  There's a bit of a description in there. The distinction exists, however, between the poem's notability and the quote's notability. As it stands, this article seems like someone went looking for trivial usages of the phrase, many of them from non-notable people, and then compiled them into a Wikiquote article...on Wikipedia. A quick look at Category:Quotations shows that, while there are many listed, most of them are redirects to main pages, with possibly a section devoted to the quote.Augusthorsesdroppings10 (talk) 02:57, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Carchasm, did you look at the rewrite I suggested? The article could be reverted to that and moved to Man Was Made to Mourn pretty easily. I think that Burns' article is somewhat too long for a merge to be feasible. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 02:59, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  meant to ping Augusthorsesdroppings10 Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 03:00, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Noting that Category:Quotations was being automatically populated from {{r from quotation}}, which I've just switched off as a bad idea. But Category:Redirects from quotations still illustrates Augusthorsesdroppings10's point here. --Lord Belbury (talk) 11:15, 23 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It looks good. Still if even famous quotes like damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse, or if it doesn't fit, you must acquit get only sections in the articles describing their events... Augusthorsesdroppings10 (talk) 03:03, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep as the article has been improved by Eddie891. I'm making an article on the poem Draft:Man was made to Mourn, so perhaps this can be merged into that eventually. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 03:25, 21 September 2022 (UTC) Redirect. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 23:50, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't see any problem with merging the new content into Man was made to Mourn, but is there any particular reason we need the redirect or the page history for this article? If we're already rewriting the whole article from scratch just to merge it into another one... - car chasm (talk) 04:50, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Well, I think the redirect is useful: people searching for the quote should be directed to the article on the poem, which discusses the quote. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 10:25, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Fair enough. - car chasm (talk) 16:21, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• That is just functionally the same result that I had hoped for in the end, so redirect to Man was made to Mourn. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 11:21, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect Similar to what I was saying, sounds good.Augusthorsesdroppings10 (talk) 16:05, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect Now that a suitable target exists, WP:ATD-R seems appropriate, a redirect doesn't need to establish notability. - car chasm (talk) 16:21, 21 September 2022 (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.