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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sher Khan

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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 on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was deleted as hoax by Raul654. · Katefan0(scribble) 06:33, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sher Khan

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This is probably a clever hoax created by the same persistent prankster or pranksters who invented the Nasher dynasty (old VfD page). It appears plausible, but:

  • The Ghaznavids haven't ruled anything since the 12th century. The article claimed that they did, but it should be easy to guess who added that fact.
  • Several assertions are verified and unverifiable through any sources I can find, namely:
    • the assertion that he founded the Spinzar corporation. In fact, it was founded as a venture of the Afghan National Bank.
    • the assertion that Kipling named Shere Khan after him. Not only does Shere Khan mean something like "Tiger Lord", according to the commentary in the 1992 Oxford University Press edition, but if this person was born in the 1890s, he would have been no more than four years old when The Jungle Book was published—thus an unlikely source for the name.
    • The assertion that Afghanistan's largest port is named after him. As was pointed out in the previous VfD, Afghanistan is landlocked, thus it's unlikely that it has any ports named after anybody. Okay, Shir Khan is a real port in Afghanistan, but I find no indication that it was named after him.

There may be some parts that are true, or at least based on a real person: see [1], the reliability of which is hard to judge. It appears that the hoaxster took some facts about Farhad Darya's grandfather from that source, mixed them with fiction about the Nasher dynasty, and came up with this article. References to this fictitious person have been added elsewhere and will need to be trimmed out carefully. —Charles P. (Mirv) 23:14, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • comment I buy that this article is a hoax. Note that the Columbia encyclopedia has an article about "Sher Khan" [2] from a totally different time period. — brighterorange (talk) 23:02, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to Shere Khan as possible misspelling to avoid recreation. - Mgm|(talk) 09:04, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding Kipling - did he ever go to Afghanistan? Some flicking through a handy biography suggests he spent several years in Lahore and got as far as the Khyber Pass, in 1885, to report on the visit of Abdur Rahman Khan; he doesn't seem to have travelled there, or if he did his biographer didn't think to mention it. As far as I can tell he'd have been in the UK or America by the time Khan was born, and it beggars belief a character written in 1892-4 would be named after an infant - possibly not even born - who he'd have no reason to be aware of. I'm not voting either way on the article, but that part's definitely got garbled en route; I'll remove it... Shimgray | talk | 00:18, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • (That said, if it does get deleted concur with Mgm - redirect as plausible mispelling rather than outright delete)

Support I was the one who created this article about Sher Khan. As a matter of fact, I created the original version which has been altered by other users. When factual errors appeared, I corrected them. I am a PhD student at Brown, specializing in Afghan history. Sher Khan is a key figur in post-British Afghanistan and should thus remain in the dictionary. About your points: True, the Ghaznavids have not ruled the country after the 12th century as Kings, but they lived as hereditary Khans in their home area, having some sort of 'traditional' power. The Spinzar Company was founded by Sher Khan, but largely owned by the Afghan Government through the Bank-e-Milli. Sher Khan held about 5 % and some percentage in the ACG (Afghan Cotton Company) in Gulbahar and Pol-e-chumri. After Sher Khan's death, his son Gholam Serwar served as CEO until the war with Russia broke out (most literature on Afghan history is - ALAS!!! - almost impossible to get, this you can check online on http://www.institute-for-afghan-studies.org/HistoricalResearchCorner/ACFAE9.pdf). He was then imprisoned by Daoud. The Spinzar Company is back in action today, ran by Mr Arianpoor. I do not know much about the association to Kipling. I do however know that Kipling spent some time in Kunduz. Sher Khan Bandar was named after Sher Khan Nasher, this fact is undisputed among anyone dealing with the history of Afghanistan. As a matter of fact, the Sher Khan Road leads from the Spinzar Company up to Sher Khan Bandar (passing Sher Khan high school). In 2002 the Afghan government wanted to change the name to Massoud Bandar. An outrage, followed by a quasi-riot broke out in Kunduz up to Sher Khan Bandar which made the government change its mind. The Columbia article deals with a different Sher Khan, mostly referred to as Sher Shah. He was an Afghan ruler of the Mughal empire for five years (1540–1545) who had defeated Homayun. So: except for the Kipling part, all the info is accurate. Steve

(the above posted by someone using the South African IP address 209.203.60.6 (talk • contribs), who also removed the AfD tag from the article and deleted the reference to the old Nasher hoax from my initial post. —Charles P. (Mirv))
Hi Steve. Are you LloydHughes (talk · contribs), who created the initial revision of Shir Khan, or are you 141.2.161.249 (talk · contribs), the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitaet IP address who created the initial revision of Sher Khan, or are you both? Can you cite any sources for the claims here and in the text of the article? It's important that information in Wikipedia be verifiable, and without sources, it's very hard (you're right about the paucity of literature on Afghanistan) for anyone else to check the facts—and they certainly need checking. I have access to a first-rate university library and should be able to get my hands on any relevant English or French works. (also, just FYI, it's generally considered impolite to edit other people's signed comments in a way that changes their meaning.) —Charles P. (Mirv) 18:38, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mirv We appreciate your effort very much. We are all trying to get as close to historical accuracy as possible. There is no need to act offensive. This service of writing about something I know much about (and spend my life with) is something I am giving to the Wikipedia community. I defended the points but I am not writing a scientific text scattered with footnotes for you as I have many other things to do (namely do research about other historical incidents and people I do not know much about). Regards, Steve

I am not asking for exhaustive footnoting of each and every point; I just want to know where you got the information contained in this article. My own research has turned up nothing that confirms what is written here; this, plus my experience with the previous Nasher hoax, leads me to believe that some or all of the article is erroneous or fictitious. If the facts cannot be verified, then the article will probably be deleted. I am willing to take the time to verify it, but I've hit a dead end in researching and don't know where to continue. If you name a few of the sources you used in writing the article, other editors can check them and be convinced that the article is not a hoax. —Charles P. (Mirv) 19:13, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I note with dismay that you have again edited my signed comments in a way that changes their meaning. This is considered vandalism and is not acceptable behavior. Please do not do it. —Charles P. (Mirv) 19:16, 26 September 2005 (UTC) [This post was deleted; it has been reinstated. Please do not delete others' signed comments. —Charles P. (Mirv) 23:08, 26 September 2005 (UTC)][reply]

Reply For the info on the Spinzar Cotton Company and Sher Khan and his son check "Light Garden of the Angel King: Travels in Afghanistan" by Peter Levi; Binding: Paperback Publisher: Trafalgar Square Published Date: 05/01/2001. The Kipling part I cannot confirm. The rest is 100 % accurate, see above. Dear Mirv, please understand that I cannot and will not leave personal indiscretions on this site which are of no concern to the matter discussed.

Thank you. As it happens, the Bibliothèque nationale has a French translation of that book; I will go there tomorrow and see if it confirms what is said in this article. I am also going to ask you one more time to stop altering and deleting signed comments from this page. This is impolite, unethical, and a violation of Wikipedia policy; if you persist I will have to ask another administrator to block you from editing. Removing information about an IP address from my post does not remove it from the site; it is still recorded in the page history, and whois searches are trivially easy. Furthermore I consider it highly relevant to this matter, because it originates from the same part of Germany as the IP address used by the creator of the original Nasher hoax (according to the Geobytes IP locator). One address is from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, which is in Frankfurt am Main; the IP locator places the second in Bensheim, which is (according to its article) within an hour's drive of Frankfurt. I doubt this is coincidence. —Charles P. (Mirv) 23:08, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I've deleted, per what appear to be accurate assertions that it is a hoax. →Raul654 05:34, 30 September 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.
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