Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Historic families of Ghana

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. There is a rough consensus that there is something of value here, but not on what should be done with the page. I would perhaps have relisted but, after this AfD was opened, the article was moved to a new title and significantly rewritten, which arguably rendered the initial discussion moot. So I'm closing, but without prejudice if anybody wants to re-nominate or move it to draft. – Joe (talk) 09:36, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Historic families of Ghana

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This article says effectively nothing of value on its topic, and the list of families is unsourced and few of the links are to families of Ghana. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:48, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 06:46, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 06:46, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ghana-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 06:46, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@ power~enwiki: Opposed to deletion of article - I'm honestly quite baffled that you say the article offers nothing in value in relation to its topic. The well-referenced article is about intellectual families that made pioneering contributions to the socioeconomic development of Ghana. This article is analogous to the articles on Boston Brahmin and Old Philadelphians. You may check the books referenced if you have time. I've removed any unsourced family names. If you want to discuss, please let me know.Kandymotownie (π, ν) 12:37, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It may be too harsh an assessment, but content like participation in ... academia, architecture, church development, civil service, education, engineering, health services, journalism, law, medicine, natural sciences, public administration, public health, public policy and urban planning. ... contributed to arts and crafts, producing artisans in pottery, basket and mat weaving, carpentry, shoe-making, masonry, joinery, hat-making and black-smithing. is so far past indiscriminate as to be of no value to the reader. power~enwiki (π, ν) 15:24, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@ User:power~enwiki I removed the listing of the fields. I urge you you to at least read the books referenced before any deletion. This is not original research as information is sourced from the bibliography. Kandymotownie (π, ν) 17:34, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Userfy or Delete per WP:NOTESSAY.Icewhiz (talk) 14:45, 12 June 2018 (UTC) Moving this to Draft is also possible - there might be an article to be salvaged here.Icewhiz (talk) 04:54, 14 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment @Kandymotownie: Please try to refrain from WP:MOVEing this article any more until this AfD is resolved. The multiple moves you’ve made so far might create some unnecessary problems as explained in bullet #4 in WP:EDITATAFD. The page can be always be moved if necessary after the AfD has benn closed. — Marchjuly (talk) 22:47, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. @Kandymotownie: can you point to any one source that discusses Gold Coast families in depth and directly as a subject. The first sentence of the page, which establishes the topic of the article, is referenced to three sources. The first one is Encounters in Quest of Christian Womanhood. The title does not seem likely for this subject, and I am not seeing anywhere where Gold Coast families are discussed as a group. Can you offer a page number? (lack of page numbers is a big failing of your referencing). The other two sources seem to be on one particular family, or even just one individual, so not verifying the opening sentence. Without a source directly addressing the subject, I'm afraid the page amounts to original research. It may be true, it may even be important, but if Wikipedia is the first to discuss this, then it is still WP:OR and not within our inclusion criteria. SpinningSpark 22:58, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- @SpinningSpark@ power~enwiki @Marchjuly Please see pages 132-135; 147; 174 in Encounters in Quest of Christian Womanhood. This book was a doctoral dissertation of the author, Ulrike Sill before being published into a book. See pages 35-36 of Recovery of the West African Past. Also see The Pen-pictures of Modern Africans and African Celebrities by Charles Francis Hutchison: A Collective Biography of Elite Society in the Gold Coast Colony. This book has several examples on the topic. The Wiki article is about families that lived on the coast of Ghana and had certain characteristics that influenced everyday life in that period, all covered in the literature. Gold Coast was the name of the coastal part of the country in the pre-colonial period. I urge all of you to take time and do due diligence before rushing to reject a well-researched article under the pretext of “original research”. To get a better idea on this topic, the pages must be read in context and not just book titles which may not tell you the whole picture of historiography relating to 19th century West Africa. You might also want to take some time to learn about general colonial history in Anglophone West Africa. Let’s create an environment where people can share their expertise in our collective quest to expand human knowledge. Thank you. Kandymotownie (π, ν) 01:19, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  - My comment was only about moving articles during an ongoing AfD discussion; it was not a comment on whether the article should be kept or deleted. However, your statement Let’s create an environment where people can share their expertise in our collective quest to expand human knowledge. does give the impression that you might misunderstand WP:OR. Wikipedia role is not to create an enviroment where people can share their expertise per se; editors who are experts in a particular subject matter are of course welcome to edit just like everyone else, but they need to also be aware of WP:EXPERT. Wikipedia role is basically only to summarize content found in reliable sources and support said content with citations so that it can be verified; it's purpose isn't to interpret what is found in external sources. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:13, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    - @Marchjuly, I perfectly understand that Wiki articles are summaries of topics based on reliable sources. My comment is in connection to the fact that in general, those summaries based on reliable sources are indeed a way to expand human knowledge i.e. access to said knowledge for all. My article isn't an interpretation though or a creation of any new idea. Everything is already available in existing literature and not original research. I haven't re-invented the wheel, here. Kandymotownie (π, ν) 09:08, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  - I asked you for a single source discussing the subject in depth. A link to the passage in gbooks would have been helpful. Instead, you have referred to multiple pages in multiple books which only give passing mentions of "coastal families" at best. It is too much hard work to go through all of your references in depth so I've only looked at the first ref you gave. Page 147 was not available in preview, but I read all the other pages you indicated. This material is largely about women working as missionaries or the wives of missionaries. Their coastal background is occassionally mentioned in passing. It is about specific individuals, not about a particular social group, and not in the context of Gold Coast families per se. The closest this comes to discussing a group is the sentence "Regina Hesse was born in 1832, her parentage typical for many of the influential Euro-African families of the coast." That is very far from discussion of the subject directly and in depth. So I ask you again, can you link to a single source that discusses the subject of "Gold Coast families" directly and in depth? ~~Failing that, my recommendation is unfortunately delete as OR~~ (EDIT:striking my delete, the user seems willing to work on this in draft). I do this reluctantly because you seem to have an interesting subject here, but you are just not demonstrating the notability required by Wikipedia. SpinningSpark 15:19, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    - @SpinningSpark Like I mentioned earlier, for a broader overview, you can also see pages 35-36 of Recovery of the West African Past. Also see The Pen-pictures of Modern Africans and African Celebrities by Charles Francis Hutchison: A Collective Biography of Elite Society in the Gold Coast Colony. For a specific link: See here and here The Gold Coast Euro-African families discussed are "Gold Coast families" who have the genealogy and characteristics discussed in the article. Alternatively, if you prefer, I could rename the page "Gold Coast Euro-African families" which would meet all the criteria. This topic has been studied extensively by historians that I'm actually really surprised you say it doesn't meet notability per Wikipedia's own standards. "Gold Coast families", "Euro-African Gold Coast families" "coastal families" "Euro-African families of the Gold Coast" "Gold Coast Euro-Africans" are all the same thing per the literature in the field. If you feel strongly about deletion, then can you please give me an actual reason as this article meets the notability and is not original research-it meets reliable sources criterion. Kandymotownie (π, ν) 18:20, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      - Well that first source is more like the coverage we need (you should have led with that the first time), but it shows the page is still problematic. The impression I get from the source is radically different from the article. First of all, there is the name. The source nowhere uses the phrase Gold Coast families or anything like it. The group name it uses is owulai. However, as this is also applied to Europeans, I guess the article is about Euro-African owulai. More importantly, the article is unremittingly positive about this group. Assuming the source is talking about the same group, things like "Many were prone...to hard drinking, gambling and occassional outbursts of violent behaviour" conveys a rather different impression. The article talks at length about their Christianity, but the source says that "most Euro-African men were little more than nominal Christians", apparently, mostly for the commercial advantages it offered. The article suggests that these families were influential continuously right up to the present day. The source says that they were "systematically excluded" by the colonial power by the 1880s. In short, my impression is that this article has not been written from the sources. Rather, sources have been sought to back up the POV of an essay. This is not the right way to write Wikipedia articles. I think the best thing you can do with this is move it into draft space and entirely rework it, starting with what the sources actually say. SpinningSpark 21:43, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        @SpinningSpark Thanks! I think that's a very good suggestion. I'll be moving the article into the draft space and totally rework/overhaul based on the historiographical sources to present a more balanced or nuanced view and not just positive aspects of this demographic. I believe this discussion has been quite constructive.@ power~enwiki @Marchjuly, I'm moving this article to the draft space per SpinningSpark's suggestion to completely rework over the next few days. The new article will be renamed "Gold Coast Euro-Africans" to accurately reflect the academic literature. Thank you all for the feedback. Kandymotownie (π, ν) 1:37, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
        @Kandymotownie: Moving the article to the draft namespace so that you can continue working on it seems fine, but whatever move you tried to make seems to have been reverted for some reason. My suggestion to you is still the same as before in that you probably should not try to continue to move the article while this AfD is ongoing. If the consensus is to return the article back to draft status, then the closing administrator will do all the moving that needs to be done. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:18, 14 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        
        @Marchjuly: OK, thank you for the heads up. I guess I'd just have to wait until the administrator moves the page if it's the final resolution to this AfD. Thanks. Kandymotownie (π, ν) 5:05, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
Potential keep -- It is a horrid article on what may well be a notable subject. There is a community of mixed race descent, as a result of liaisons between European men and local women. Such mixed race people seem to have held a particular place in the commercial life of the colony. The present "Gold Coast" title is to be preferred to the previous Ghana one, as this relates mainly to the coast. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:27, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Draftify: The article's creator seems to be willing to have this moved back to the draft namespace, so that they can address the issues raised in this AfD and work on making other improvements as needed. That seems like a reasonable alternative to deletion per WP:DRAFTIFY. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:25, 14 June 2018 (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.