Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Green man (spirit of nature)

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. The nominator is now arguing to Keep this article (after doing a lot of clean-up themselves) which doesn't mean a slam-dunk Keep but that's also the consensus I'm seeing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:44, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Green man (spirit of nature) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Folklorists agree that the Green man is not a mythological figure, but an architectural motif often called a "foliate head", as discussed in the main article which this was recently forked off of. (Sources: [1] [2] It makes no sense to have a separate article like this dedicated to the discredited concept that the "green man" is a mythological figure when it is not, especially when this idea is so intimately tied to the foliate head motif, essentially making it a WP:POVFORK. Many of the references used in this article make no reference to the concept of the "green man" at all making it WP:SYNTH, or are otherwise unreliable non-scholarly sources. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:21, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Visual arts, History, and Mythology. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:21, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I think this is now worthwhile as a separate article, though the title should be changed. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:38, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep @Hemiauchenia: Previously you applied a new definition of "foliate head" to Green Man. It was an improvement, better describing the main content of the article. You removed a lot of irrelevant material which was certainly WP:OFFTOPIC. Unfortunately the deletion was reverted. There then followed a rather indecisive conversation on Talk:Green Man#Article remains a mess.... Because of your objection, "mythological" was removed from the title of the spinoff article, a proposal at which nobody demurred. You are now suggesting that this spinoff article should be also be deleted because it isn't mythological. There are (by my very quick count) four mentions of "mythology" in Green man (spirit of nature), and one of those (your addition, AFAICR) is specifically refuting that mythology has any connection with "foliate heads".

As "mythological" hardly appears in this new article, its presence isn't valid as a reason to delete. None is strongly referenced (and at least one is cruft) and they could all be trimmed without loss. --AntientNestor (talk) 21:45, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article is currently a WP:SYNTH mish-mash of essentially unrelated mythological figures that have vague attributes in common. It uncritically takes the "Green Man" mythological concept at face value, when as previously mentioned it is not taken seriously by academic experts. The mythological aspect deserves some mention at the main Green Man article to debunk it. We should always preference academic sources over the opinions of non-experts. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:51, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My main point I guess is that all of the mythological stuff should have just been trimmed down from the main Green Man article rather than just moving it all to a POVFORK that treats the concept uncritically. I agree with you that Wuerzele's reversion was deeply unhelpful with attempting to fix the main article, and it looks a lot better with all of the mythological guff removed. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:45, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Comment - I tried to find the common theme in this article. The best I could do was "everybody was green". So maybe retitle this "Green people in folklore and culture". But would that then lead to articles for other colors ("Purple people in folklore and culture")?. Where would it stop - at mauve?

I'm just not sure we need this sort of article, even referenced.

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 22:06, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 03:56, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. That said, I'm impressed with all the work that someone did on this article. It's nicely laid out with good images, too. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 22:10, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment There is a kernel of something coherent here (theories linking a certain artistic/cultural motif to a religious past) with an outgrowth of synth (listing random green-coloured deities and things that happen to have the name "green man"). For the former stuff, the further the sources get from being focused on the motif, the more zany and unreliable-looking they tend to be. small jars tc 23:19, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete While I agree, there could be an article for this mythical creature/figure/thing, this doesn't seem to be it. SYNTH for sure is happening here; various mentions of mythical beings, smooshed together to try and create an article here. Valiant effort, but I'm just not seeing it as subject for an article. Oaktree b (talk) 00:09, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I very much doubt it is true that "Folklorists agree that the Green man is not a mythological figure" (for one thing, they never agree on anything). Most would perhaps agree he is not usually any specific figure, with any myth attached. The article is messy and dives off in several directions, but that goes with the territory. The deletion rationale is completely defective: "It makes no sense to have a separate article like this dedicated to the discredited concept that the "green man" is a mythological figure when it is not." There is abundant coverage, some cited in the article, of folkloric interpretations of the heads; the topic is therefore notable. The nominator seems to think that because it is "an architectural motif often called a "foliate head"", it can't represent anything else. This is completely wrong. I think the fork, based on a very thin consensus, was perhaps a mistake, but in any case the material here, scrappy as it is, should not just be deleted (people will only add similar back to the main article anyway). Johnbod (talk) 01:55, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The recent coverage asserting that the "Green Man" is a mythological figure are not academic sources. The big 5 publishers will publish any old nonsense, whether that's Worlds in Collision or anything by Graham Hancock. people will only add similar back to the main article anyway is not an excuse. People will add titillating details to the "Personal life" sections of BLPs, doesn't mean that they shouldn't be trimmed. Articles should always be based on reliable, scholarly sources when available. The mythological concept of the "green man" is not separable from the "foliate head" concept. They should be covered in the same article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:04, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Second Comment The field of folklore almost seems designed to create scope problems. According to this source cited in the article, the term "green man" was first invented by the folklorist Lady Raglan as part of a folkloric theory, but what she first used the term to refer to was the specific architectural motif of the foliate head. She went on to hypothesise that this motif was related to other figures such as Jack in the Green and Robin Hood, who she also saw as forms of "the green man.” A key question here is how far later folklorists concerned with theory of the green man have shifted their focus away from the original evidence of foliate heads. According to the same source, the phrase "green man" has also ended up being used by several folklorists who disagree with Raglan's hypothesis. With my present, very limited, understanding of the topic, I'm thinking that it might be a good idea to move Green man to Foliate head, since that strips it of the originally folkloric connotations of "green man,” allowing it to focus squarely on architecture, and to move Green man (spirit of nature) to Green man, where it could hopefully be cleaned up weeded and reworked to provide appropriately critical coverage of the various competing theories that make use of this term. small jars tc 02:38, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep We should report what people have said about the GM, even if it is not a "real" mythological figure (which ones are?). The article needs work, and if necessary I wouldn't object to it being remerged, but no content should be lost if this happens. Boynamedsue (talk) 05:32, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  The content in § Early agrarian societies does need to be lost. Its first three paragraphs are pure WP:SYNTH based on mythology textbooks and direct reference to scripture, and the last two cite these sources, [3][4], which are both essentially works of Jungian psychology arguing for the green man as a subconscious "archetype,” but which the section treats more like sources of rigorous comparative mythology. small jars tc 15:27, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. That is by far the worst section in the article for the reasons you stated. If it is kept, the article needs to be trimmed to remove unreliable sources. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:03, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Whatever else happens, please don't reinsert this stuff back into the original article, where it's very definitely off topic.--AntientNestor (talk) 07:02, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • That should remain an option (not all of it, there is far too much). I didn't see the nomination to split, but nor did anybody else much, to judge by the turnout. I agree that "The mythological concept of the "green man" is not separable from the "foliate head" concept. They should be covered in the same article." as the nom says above. Two words should not be used at all in this discussion: "mythology" and "architecture". We should instead be talking about folklore and art - the most common surviving form is architectural, but there are plenty of paintings and manuscript illuminations. Johnbod (talk) 17:21, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Whether or not it was a mere architectural motif, it has become a real belief held by a number of pagans (see e.g. Smith 2017). First reason: I've been confused before by the lack of a page about this aspect of the religion. If this is the primary thing discussed by the page, the current version should probably be made into a religion article rather than a folklore/mythology article. Alternatively perhaps it could be merged into the Horned Man article, but I am not certain whether those are the same deity or not. Second reason: A quick review of articles available in ResearchGate suggests that at least some researchers do see it as a valid construct or archetype—whether or not it was invented wholesale in the last few centuries, there seems to be a belief that it is being used now. (see e.g. Bucher 2023, Wood 2022, Yarova 2020, Araneo 2018). Kalany (talk) 10:07, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, sorry, but deletion makes no sense. This was a very recent fork with long-standing information from a long-standing article which is now being nominated for deletion. Seems a round-about way of deleting the material from Wikipedia's coverage of Green Man, which also makes no sense when viewing the two articles as a unit (which they were until a few days ago). Signed, Confused in Kansas. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:04, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• @Kalany and Randy Kryn: I hope you agree that if the article is kept, the title Green man (spirit of nature) is not a good description of what this conglomerate of ideas is. Would you be in favour of the moves I suggested in my second comment? Do you have any alternate ideas, maybe Green man (folklore)? Clear distinctions should be made between sources treating the green man as a folkloric motif, as an "archetype" and as a neo-pagan deity, though these ideas may be related. I also don't believe the fact that the information is "long standing" excuses some of the synthier parts. small jars tc 19:33, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I certainly agree that a title like Green man (folklore) is better, & that much of the article can be junked. The stuff that should be here includes this sort of thing. Johnbod (talk) 02:29, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oh, I see much of that has now gone. But the stuff in the link above needs adding. Johnbod (talk) 02:33, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • That's a really good link, thanks. The more I look at this topic, the more confusing it gets. It's obvious that this concept of the "Green Man" as a whiffler in the Early Modern Period (as also discussed in "The Name of the Green Man" from 1997) seems to be linked to the concept of the wild man, but the source does not support Ragland's assertion that there is a direct link between the foliate heads and those green men. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:43, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment should this be renamed if kept as Green man (mythology) like Pluto (mythology)? Green man (spirit of nature) seems to assert that it is a confirmed spirit. --Lenticel ^(talk) 02:47, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • No - see above - there is NO mythology here. What do you think the myth is? You could fill a book with accounts of Pluto's doings. Johnbod (talk) 03:01, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep After to improvements made by nom, ironically. AfD is cleanup after all. small jars tc 03:06, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm still really struggling to think about how a coherent article can be written about a topic like this. There are so many concepts about what the "green man" is supposed to be, that it's really hard to talk about them in a balanced way, while also incorporating the criticism the entire "green man" concept has gotten. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:11, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    At least one of those sub-concepts (the debunked (?) folklore theory) would be notable on it's own if you took them as seperate, but since all of them are ultimately due to Ragland's initial assertion, they seem related enough to justify them being in the same article. You could have something like § History [of the term], to talk about the facts of where the term came from, whose been using it, etc.; then § In folklore [studies], § In psychoanalysis/As a Jungian archetype, § Neo-Paganism, and § In popular culture, to discuss each use and respective criticism in detail. small jars tc 03:57, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    Damn it seems like the LOC source denies that Raglan actually was the first to coin it. This is confusing but I have to wonder how much the earlier mentions actually matter. small jars tc 04:09, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    • Of course they do. It's pretty clear; she was the first to apply it to the "foliate heads" but the term long preceded this, for the carnival-type figures, and the pubs named after them - see the OED. The question is, what is the connection between these two? There's no difficulty connecting the Wild Man figures in art and in festivities. Johnbod (talk) 06:36, 15 June 2023 (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.