Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tourism in Somalia

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 following improvements to the article and per nominators request. Mjroots (talk) 04:39, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tourism in Somalia

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

I have checked google for info about tourist attractions, but no results other than this article, even under alternative spellings. Significantly, too, there is no mention of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers for Somalia here, contrary to the claim made in article. Almost certainly a hoax, albeit a clever one. LordVetinari (talk) 10:33, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete No sources given; information in the article is deeply suspicious, e.g. the implausible, and implausibly precise, "tourism [is] 89.23% of the country's gross domestic product". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:59, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep Article from The Economist exclusively about the subject. Book which looks like it probably contains decent coverage. Has the nominator checked out those potential sources yet? ╟─Treasury Tag►international waters─╢ 13:05, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I agree that someone wishing to create an article about tourism in Somalia may indeed find resource material. However, for how long will this article remain in its current form until those potential sources are studied, mined and utilised. Therefore, the question here is not whether the topic is worth keeping but whether the article is salvageable in its current form. I say it isn't on the following grounds:

Percentage of gross domestic product: Unless I'm extremely ignorant about the social and political climate in Somalia, I doubt the accuracy of the uncited figure. As for which Somali government is developing tourism, last I checked there were about three, none of which could claim to be the government for a clear majority of Somalis, let alone to have any control over the tourism industry throughout all or most of Somalia.
Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP): I assume this is a mistaken reference as there is no mention of such a paper here.
Tourist attractions: There's a curious emphasis here on subjects that would be likely to spring to mind if all that is known about Somalia relates to piracy, warfare and weapons.
Districts: The districts referred to in the article are not mentioned in any of the Somali region articles, all of which list their constituent districts. Incidentally, I have a passing familiarity with the customary transliteration of Somali and I wouldn't be surprised if several of the presumably-Somali words in the article are indeed Somali. However, I suspect "Haaah-Khaaah-Raaah" is just as Somali as "wao yu sum dum gai" is Chinese.

In other words, pending reliable sources, I stand by my nomination of this article (in its current form) as being worthy of deletion. Incidentally, I should point out that this nomination is not to accuse the article creator of vandalistic intent. I credit him/her with more intelligence than that. LordVetinari (talk) 14:21, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You don't seem to understand WP:DEADLINE and WP:BEFORE, which is unfortunate. If the topic is notable, the article should not be deleted but improved, for which there is no deadline and no obligation on you to do so if the topic doesn't interest you. If you don't like the current article, and aren't prepared to clean it up but know that it can be cleaned up, don't nominate it for deletion. ╟─Treasury Tag►draftsman─╢ 16:36, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, Speedy perhaps First of all, "how long will it..." is meaningless, the article is only one day old, if the topic is notable, it is unreasonable to expect it to be fully sourced in less than 24 hours. Second, not all of Somalia is in shambles, just most of it, so the idea of tourism being the leading source of income in a country half torn apart from civil war and without any heavy industries is plausible. This economist article would be sufficient to demonstrate notability. I had already tagged the article for refs, which should have been sufficient. It doesn't belong at AFD at all and not sure why it is here. The primary complaints are about content, which is an issue for the talk page, not AFD. Subject matter is obviously notable. Dennis Brown (talk) 14:35, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't about the topic and it certainly isn't a question of notability. This is about content that is almost certainly fake to the point of being a hoax. I agree the topic is notable. That's blatantly obvious. But a topic and an article about a topic are two different things. I've already described my reasons for suspecting a hoax so I won't repeat them. I would have thought, though, that the fact that most of Somalia is in shambles (as you stated above) would make tourism less plausible (as supported by the first paragraph in your source). If anything, I suspect the black market would account for far more of Somali GDP than tourism. As for the AFD nomination, I did so on the recommendation of the person who declined the original speedy delete.
To summarise, my argument is that a hoax article is still a hoax article regardless of the page title and, thus, should be removed. What those who want to keep this article appear to be saying, though, is that a hoax article should be kept simply because the title may also happen to cover a notable topic. LordVetinari (talk) 15:21, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Both the UK and US governments (and others) currently advise against any travel to Somalia, so the 89.23% figure is utterly implausible and makes the rest of the article suspect. I agree with LordVetinari that, while there may well be an article to be written on the subject of Tourism in Somali, this isn't it and it should be deleted. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:40, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Read WP:DEADLINE, then come back and provide an explanation of why we should delete an article covering a notable topic rather than repairing it if needed, please. ╟─Treasury Tag►cabinet─╢ 16:37, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep—Consistent with other articles in the Category:Tourism by country. There are travel guides that include Somalia, so apparently it is true and notable, as implausible as it seems.—RJH (talk) 22:04, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or incubate - It seems the problem is one of being able to properly quote the content available, or to find other content that is readily quotable. I would guess that for Somalia in particular it may be hard to come by, so while the subject of the article is perfectly suitable this may be removed until such content comes up - frankie^MR (talk) 22:53, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep AFD is not for poorly written or inaccurate articles on notable topics. I was easily able to find a number of good sources on Google News Archive:[1][2][3][4][5] Qrsdogg (talk) 02:02, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I've been advised by Qrsdogg that the article has improved, for which I'm glad. When I nominated this article, I was under the impression hoax articles are to be deleted but clearly I wasn't aware of alternative (conflicting?) policies. However, I still question why an article should be kept simply on the grounds of a title's coverage. As I tried to point out earlier, if the hoax hadn't been detected and so much attention drawn to it, it may have remained for months before being corrected, hence my preference for deletion. Nonetheless, as the article has been dealt with, I'm willing to support what apppears to be the consensus here and ask for this AfD to be closed with a Keep result. LordVetinari (talk) 03:29, 21 April 2011 (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.