Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thai Thangai Paasam

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 Vijaya T. Rajendar. Systemic bias is a very real problem on Wikipedia, but the editors in the discussion appeared to give due weight to the problems involved in evaluated foreign language topics. I have redirecting without deleting the prior contents to allow for expansion should improved sourcing become available. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 13:35, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thai Thangai Paasam

A series of non-notable films - same director/actor and also page creator. The articles themselves are one liners that could possibly be A1/A3ed, but there's a basic assertion of notability and PROD was contested. I'm currently nominating four (a limit I'm setting per AfD). All films have extremely trivial coverage in the context of an actor saying "I acted in that movie" during an interview, or in the case of (Monisha En Monalisa), it's someone making her debut in this film, with a couple of RS sources adding that the movie was a flop. Also, since it comes up at these AfDs often, there isn't any systemic bias in this nomination, I have watched parts of a couple of these movies, and watch and follow Tamil movies regularly. Delete -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 00:41, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also nominating the following, for the above reasons:

Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions. -- -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 00:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. -- -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 00:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Some possible sources for expansion: Thai Thangai Paasam [1][2], Monisha En Monalisa [3], En Thangai Kalyani [4][5], Samsara Sangeetham [6][7]. Might take some work though. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 02:41, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response. Thai Thangai Paasam is featured in the list of videos book (which I didn't consider as anything more than a passing mention of an available video/DVD), the Encyclopaedia entry is actually for two different films (Thai - mother and Thangai - sister are common title words for Tamil films). For Monisha en Monalisa, I went through a lot of listings and all 17 Gnews listings, 15 of the Gnews just had it as Mumtaz's debut movie and two others called it a flop (but given that there wasn't any critical review of either the movie or the actress in the movie, I don't think it's a notable flop), En Thangai Kalyani (which I have seen), the mention is again part of a filmography, and not an article for the movie (which is the case for notable movies), but it does mention that the movie was a hit, so my nom for that might be misplaced; Samsara Sangeetham (parts of which I've seen), the entry is again a filmography listing (the director is clearly notable), so I don't believe the movie is indeed notable. All gnews entries in either English or Tamil, are in the context of so-and-so acted in this or in interviews of actors. --SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 03:05, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree... you'll never see a film from India reviewed in the New York Times. Such are rarely notable to the west. Sure wish I had access to archives of newspapers in those languages... and then of course wish I could actually read those languages. These are likely films that only have notability to that part of the world and can only be proven so by those who have access to those sources. I only offered what few English language sources I could find. Like I said... even if possible, it'd take a lot of work to be brought into line with en.Wikipedia notability requirements. I accept that there is no bias in your nominations, and that they are made in the best of good faith. Sadly, films such as these underscore the systemic bias that is unfortunately built into the English Wikipedia guidelines... a bias that en.Wikipedia even recognizes in such places as WP:UNKNOWNHERE which notes "Wikipedia should include all notable topics, even if the subject is not notable within the English speaking population", and WP:CSB which urges a wider view and acceptance even if something is dificult to source in English. Sometimes it is simply impossible to meet en.Wikipedia guideline, but we do what we can. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 04:07, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merge what can be and then set redirects of these 4 one-sentence stubs to either articles on lead actors or article on director Vijaya T. Rajendar where readers might expect to find them.[8] If at such time in the future that they might show independent notability, allow them back. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 04:56, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd normally be ok with a Merge/Redirect, one reason I didn't do the redirect myself, is the no of one line pages - xxx is an old T. Rajendar movie. T.R. Silambarasan was starring in this movie. all created by the same editor; all PRODded and dePRODded with no explanation/improvement. There are 10 such pages that I counted, and two more for future films (one of which I see on AfD currently). I haven't gotten to checking the remaining six yet, but given that except the xxx there's nothing different in all these pages, I found a blanket redirect to be a bit problematic. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 05:20, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If any of the articles have nothing worth merging, then a simple redirect of the film name to the filmmaker's article suffices quite well to direct readers to the only place where the film would then have encyclopedic context. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 23:20, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've redirected the others, but I'll let this AfD run its full course for these four, at least for the finality of the process. I'm still not convinced that a redirect is the best option here for these numerous titles, but I'll live. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 14:04, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, I've gone around sourcing and formatting them. Should be good enough to be an article. =) Universal Hero (talk) 18:09, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The articles look better for sure, but still, the reference is Cinesouth which is an IMDB equivalent for south Indian movies that shows that the movie was made, not notability. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 21:22, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Cinesouth may look rusty but do believe me, it's not the equivalent of IMDB. Films recorded are written down by that website, who are an official website for tamil film - (user's can' edit as per IMdbB) Universal Hero (talk) 10:57, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Vijaya T. Rajendar, could be likely search term. --Reinoutr (talk) 06:47, 22 July 2009 (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.