WP:Articles for deletion/Botella (measurement)

:{{la|Botella (measurement)}} – (View AfDView log{{int:dot-separator}} [https://tools.wmflabs.org/jackbot/snottywong/cgi-bin/votecounter.cgi?page=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Botella_(measurement) Stats])

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The source (Cardarelli) is an unreliable "kitchen sink" collection: it includes vast numbers of units which are not scientific units at all. (E.g. 'dash', 'coffee spoon'). In particular botella is neo-Latin for bottle (see Wiktionary [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/botella] ) and obviously has been used in history to mean "a bottleful"; no evidence of more. Imaginatorium (talk) 12:15, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

: {{ping|Imaginatorium}} The source is a proper reliable source, go through the all references in the bibliography list. The book does not intend to include only the scientific units as it title suggests it include scientific units, weights and measures. Origin of the word of the unit may have different aspects, but here the recent usage is provided.Shevonsilva (talk) 01:08, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

:: {{ping|Shevonsilva}} Your attempts at an argument are not persuasive. Please describe this "recent usage" which is provided. Why are you so obsessed with this book? From a money mill (Springer, last changed hands for $4000000000) it costs 153 pounds at Amazon. Why did you buy a copy? Do you have a financial interest in more copies being sold? Could you also supply me with a copy of the entire entry for the unit UKline, preferably in facsimile; is it printed exactly like that? Imaginatorium (talk) 04:05, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

:: {{Ping|Imaginatorium}} Botella was used as Guatemalan units of capacity. This article is needed to be enriched later with additional information. UKline is mentioned in page 30. Please provide me your email. I can email you.Shevonsilva (talk) 04:27, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

• Delete as not notable. And even if it WERE notable, Wikipedia is not a dictionary. PianoDan (talk) 15:43, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:07, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

: {{ping|PianoDan}} Here, in addition to the meaning of the unit, definition and conversions are provided for the additional usage. This is not a dictionary entry as it provides references and additional information. In future, this article can be further improved by other authors. Shevonsilva (talk) 01:08, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

:: {{Ping|PianoDan}} Botella was used as Guatemalan units of capacity. This article is needed to be enriched later with additional information.Shevonsilva (talk) 04:27, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

• Delete and consider AfD-ing the related articles as well. This looks to be a permastub/dicdef and per arguments above, wikipedia is not a dictionary. — kikichugirl ^speak up! 03:04, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

::Botella was used as Guatemalan units of capacity. This article is needed to be enriched later with additional information.Shevonsilva (talk) 04:27, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

• Keep The botella seems to have been used throughout the Spanish-speaking world and still seems to be in everyday use in places such as Guatemalan. It is thus comparable with the pint used in the English-speaking world and so we should build on this in accordance with our editing policy and global perspective. Andrew D. (talk) 11:17, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

::Yes, of course botella is used throughout the Spanish-speaking world. You know why? It's the Spanish for "bottle", and in wine circles it is standard that a "bottle" is 75 cl. So yes, in Spanish wine terms una botella es un unidade di capaci... sorry, I can't speak Spanish, but you can read about it here: :es:Botella#Capacidades. If a person is reading in Spanish, and doesn't know what botella means, Wiktionary will tell them it means "bottle", no more no less, as of course "bottle" is also used in English to mean a standard bottle of 75 cl. (Even so, it is quite marginal whether this is really use as a *unit*.) Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Imaginatorium (talk) 11:34, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

::: The standardisation of the wine bottle as 75 cl seems to be recent. The sources all seem quite definite that there were 5 botelas to the Spanish gallon and as 5 x .75 = 3.75, this seems to be an earlier unit than the litre (which was itself based on the older French unit of litron). As an encyclopedia, it is our business to cover the complex history and details of such weights and measures. Simply leaving this to a dictionary to say that this means bottle would be quite inadequate and contrary to our editing policy. Andrew D. (talk) 12:45, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

:::: You keep referring to "our editing policies" as though they said "Keep anything". Have you read the es:WP article? Do you not find it curious that despite the obvious care spent in describing the standard bottle, and the list of bottle sizes, there is no mention of this supposed distinct "unit" usage? Can you find a reference in Spanish? I don't really speak Spanish, but I do speak Japanese and I have watched some ludicrous discussions on WP about well-known facts, ludicrous because the participants were trying to rely on references in English. And we know that Cardarelli is happy to chuck in just any English word for a container if he can find someone mentioning that a particular bag held so much, so it's unlikely he would stop at Spanish. BTW, Spanish_customary_units does not have a plausible volume unit of 3-4 litres, nor any unit including 'gal', so there is no source for the purported "Spanish gallon". And where on earth would the description of "between a pint and a litre" come from? Except that, well, wine bottles at least, which many might regard as the most important bottles, are generally in that size range. Imaginatorium (talk) 07:10, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

:::::* I keep referring to our policies because policy-based argument is preferred here. WP:IMPERFECT states{{quote|"Perfection is not required: Wikipedia is a work in progress. Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome. For instance, one person may start an article with an overview of a subject or a few random facts. Another may help standardize the article's formatting, or have additional facts and figures or a graphic to add. Yet another may bring better balance to the views represented in the article, and perform fact-checking and sourcing to existing content. At any point during this process, the article may become disorganized or contain substandard writing."}}

:::::: So, we should be tolerant of weak, fragmentary starts to a topic because this is our fundamental way of working. A more perfectionist approach was tried in Wikipedia's predecessor, Nupedia, but that was so unproductive that it was abandoned.

:::::: As for the Spanish gallon, there are multiple sources attesting to this in places such as Costa Rica and Nicaragua. They have 5 botellas = 1 Spanish gallon = 120 fluid ounces. The latter equivalence indicates that this gallon is what we cover at wine gallon. I find some interesting history of that at the [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1aNKAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA272 North American Review] but it seems quite complicated. Working on topics of this complexity is not simple and straightforward and so time is required to gather and digest all the elements. Deletion would disrupt this process and so is only mandated in special cases such as BLP. This isn't such a special case and so our policy is not to delete.

:::::: Andrew D. (talk) 10:36, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

• Comment. I have great trouble understanding the article. Its wording suggests that this unit is now used in Cuba and Guatemala. But two of the sources are from the 1920. Is it used now, was it used then, or was it used in the past? It is, or was, one fifth of a "Spanish gallon", a term that's not explained: according to the article Gallon, Guatemala uses the US gallon; according to the article :es:Galón, central America uses the US gallon (when it uses the gallon at all). I don't know what the little quotation from the Guatemala guide means: out of context, it seems open to the interpretation of "sold by the bottle". (And if so, well, yes: no surprise here.) ¶ Incidentally, in the generally good Tan'i no jiten (ie "dictionary of units"), 4th ed, there's an entry for botella (pp.276-277). For what this is worth, it doesn't mention time (the entry is worded in such a way that unit could be used at the time of publication or just at some unspecified period in the past), variability, Cuba, Guatemala, or any kind of gallon. Instead, Koizumi states (with whatever degree of authority/credibility) that it's an El Salvadorean unit of liquid capacity, equivalent to 0.73 litre. I'd expect Koizumi (the editor) to say something like "Although the term normally just means 'bottle', in El Salvador it is additionally used as a unit, equivalent to a particular kind of bottle." But he doesn't, making me wonder if he knows what he's talking about here. -- Hoary (talk) 14:18, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

:* My impression is that the Spanish gallon is the same as the wine gallon but I'm still digging to find out more, as time permits. Andrew D. (talk) 10:44, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

• Delete per WP:NOTDICTIONARY. As explained above, naturally the Spanish word for "bottle" has been used to measure quantities such as "a bottle of milk", but no encyclopedic information about a notable unit is available. Johnuniq (talk) 06:34, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

:* Please see the article milk bottle. That's still quite poor but shows the potential of such a topic. Andrew D. (talk) 10:46, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

::*Imagine if Bottle said "A bottle is a liquid measure used in English-speaking countries such as England and Canada...six bottles make an English gallon", with a reference that includes "Many products, including liquor, are sold by the bottle". The current article is about a unit for which there is no demonstrated notability, and it should be deleted. Later, if someone finds encyclopedic information about botellas (information that does not belong in bottle), a new article can be created. Sticking up for stub creators is fine, but please also think of other editors who are concerned about the proliferation of perma-stubs with dubious content. Johnuniq (talk) 03:56, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

• Comment sizes.com [http://www.sizes.com/units/botella.htm] actually has a useful list of the standardised bottle sizes throughout the Spanish-speaking world, with one glaring defect: it fails to mention that "botella" is Spanish for bottle. Imagine you are a Spanish speaker with no knowledge of English, and you read of various English units, the ounce, gill, bottle, pound, bag, sack, tun, ton, quart, room, load, standard, etc etc. You have no way of knowing which of these are genuinely names of units, and which are simply words for containers. Imaginatorium (talk) 07:27, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

:* That's a helpful source which shows that botella was more than just an arbitrary container. It was a unit of commerce and recorded as such by local ministries and even the United Nations. As the UN took the trouble to record it, this demonstrates notability. Imagine you're an English speaker with no good knowledge of the Spanish language and customs. You come to Wikipedia to find out about this only to find that the information has been deleted! Andrew D. (talk) 10:54, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

::* No, because the information you are saying this person would be complaining as missing is not in the article we are talking about. The sizes.com page (almost, cuz it doesn't say 'bottle') shows precisely that bottles were used to sell liquids, and every town had its own idea of how big a bottle was. You cite the milk bottle article, which is -- surprise, surprise -- about milk bottles, as though this meant that the "milk bottle" was a unit, which it isn't. The (useful/interesting) factoid that at least sometimes somewhere a Spanish bottle for wine and the like held 1/5 of a (more research needed) "Spanish gallon" belongs at "Spanish gallon", or "Wine bottle", or "Bottle", or "Wine bottle sizes" or more or less anywhere except at an article whose title is the Spanish for 'bottle'. Why does WP have article titles which are not in English? There are sometimes genuine reasons, but I keep running across things like wasei-eigo, eikaiwa, shukko, kyoyasai, and so on, which are presumably incomprehensible to almost all readers, are not genuinely "untranslatable", and in many cases are actually inaccurate as well.Imaginatorium (talk) 11:14, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

:::* Information is missing because all the effort seems to be going into attacking this editor and the topic, rather than building upon it in a collaborative way. The page in question was nominated for deletion less than one hour after its creation. The reason given is that the page was vandalism. This was an outrageous attack contrary to our behavioural guidelines but the editor who did this has not been reprimanded. I was training a new editor recently and was surprised at the level of hostility which was immediately shown to her. Without my assistance, her first experience of Wikipedia would have been very negative and we would have lost yet another editor. We have multiple policies and guidelines which emphasise the need for tolerance and forbearance because the process of editing is not easy and we rely upon volunteer goodwill. Wikipedia's volunteer base is clearly in decline and some attitude adjustment is required to turn this around. Andrew D. (talk) 11:39, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

::::*I don't know which new editor you, Andrew D., are talking about, but anyway regret that this person faced hostility. As for the editor who created this page and many others like it, her experience of en:WP started slowly but as far back as 2005; she has been very active recently and can hardly be considered a new editor. Yes, this article [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Botella_%28measurement%29&diff=635742053&oldid=635737850 was marked "{{speedy deletion-vandalism}}"] and no its creation/existence didn't constitute vandalism. However, consider what it was: "An obsolete unit of capacity." That was it, the article in toto: the most charitable description I can come up with is the possibility of a promise of an encyclopedic article some time in the future (but in the meantime merely the bleakest kind of dicdef, whereas Wikipedia is not a dictionary). No, not vandalism, but seemingly a waste of time. Anyway, you were and are free to reprimand the user who called it vandalism. ¶ We do indeed depend on volunteer goodwill. This article was created on 28 December. [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Shevonsilva&oldid=639764100 Here] is its creator's talk page one day earlier. Read it, and you will see that the creation of this article flies in the face of repeated, polite, reasoned requests. Toward the end of the talk page, we do see volunteers losing their cool; but for the great majority of it we see volunteers being extraordinarily patient (probably far more patient than I would have been). I would imagine that these volunteers would have preferred to be doing something else. (As for me, I'd rather be improving articles on the history of photography.) -- Hoary (talk) 13:47, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

:::::* I'm seeing more pitchforks than patience here. Anyway, that other editor was User:Mauladad and it remains to be seen whether she will stick with it or is now quite intimidated. To demonstrate how that works, there's another dispute over at ANI. One of the editors has been editing for 4 years and has made about 25000 edits but explains that "I've never created an article because I'd feel disheartened if it were nominated". The effect is quite the opposite of our policy WP:BOLD which is endorsed in the five pillars, "Be bold but not reckless in updating articles, and do not agonize about making mistakes. Every past version of a page is saved, so any mistakes can be easily corrected." Deletion is problematic in this area because it is not so reversible and so does systemic as well as psychological damage. Andrew D. (talk) 14:09, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

::::::*I see more patience than pitchforks. (The secret is not to start reading near the end.) ¶ [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zhang_Xiao&oldid=629274058 Here]'s my most recent creation (I mean, before anyone else touched it): it's pretty rough, but it does say something. I've created some pretty crappy articles in my time (I like to think that these days I know better), but I don't remember ever fearing that any would be deleted. ¶ "Trent from Punchy" (which has almost nothing to do with me) was deleted (twice), and there it is, alive and well. -- Hoary (talk) 14:26, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

• Comment I could imagine some articles on weights and measures organized by time and place. This editor has created a few of these, it seems. I doubt if there will be enough information about an individual measure to warrant an article, even though the measure itself can be found in the related reference books. Therefore, my advice would be to drop the individual articles for lack of anything to say about them other than "a unit of measure...", since a one or two-line article isn't likely to be helpful. Another option is to gather the measures by type - liquid measurements, weight measurements, packaging measurements (OK, I'm making that up but I think you get what I mean). References can be made from the names of the individual measurements to the pages. It's not that the content of these articles isn't of interest, it's that alone the individual measures are too brief and lack context. Perhaps, since some work has been done, the articles could be userfyd so that like measures could then be put together in a rational and helpful way. LaMona (talk) 03:20, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

:: It should be pointed out that the editor creating all these articles has also started on much more reasonable titles (which no-one has tried to delete), "Units of measurement in..." Abbyssinia, Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina, and well, you get the idea. But these are still just copied wholesale from various number-collectors' books, so for example the Argentina one has one set of units with Spanish names from one book, and an apparently unrelated set with German names from another book. So lots wants investigation, but not the article titles themselves. Imaginatorium (talk) 04:52, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

: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.