[Wikipedia-l] Entries for deletion.... issues from the Third World

[Stan Shebs]

Michael Billington wrote:
> However, whilst lists of Australian, German or US (and more) topics are
> mostly blue links, there are lists populated almost entirely by red links,
> such as [[List of Sudanese singers]]. Unfortunately, very few or no reliable
> sources will probably be found to warrant articles about these singers (at
> least not on the internet), and the only way to get coverage of a large
> portion of them would be through original research (which we can't do
> obviously), or to find print sources. So does anyone on this mailing list
> happen to have access to archives for a Sudanese newspaper?
>   
Larger libraries pride themselves on extensive newspaper subscriptions, 
anybody in Boston or London should have no problem finding Sudanese 
papers. I note this particular list is itself unsourced, so there's no 
way to tell whether the people are articleworthy, even in Sudan.

It's still the case that I can go to my smallish university library, 
pick a random volume about an obscure country, and find it covering 
hundreds of topics not mentioned anywhere in WP. If the information is 
literally sitting on a shelf downtown being ignored, I don't think we're 
anywhere close to worrying about oral histories and storing interviews - 
it's more a matter of getting people to use the books that already 
exist. And on that note, I have three new books to start working from...

Stan