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. Nominator seems to have changed !vote to Keep as well. (non-admin closure) Natg 19 (talk) 00:31, 22 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Third Reserve Army of Observation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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I cannot find anything for this supposed army, except for mirrors and a few forum posts. Obviously there may be more in Russian, but I don't master that language. Perhaps there's a valid redirect target, and I'd be fine with a decent redirect--but then again, it can't be much of a search term if the internets don't produce any decent hits at all. Drmies (talk) 22:34, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Oh, I just discovered that it was created by an editor who's blocked as a sock: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mrg3105/Archive. Maybe someone wants to delete it via G5. Drmies (talk) 22:40, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Russia-related deletion discussions. —innotata 22:36, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. —innotata 22:36, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:59, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Certainly not much online, but enough to confirm its existence. I've added a reference to the article. And as a formation, it qualifies for notability under WP:MILUNIT, a widely accepted standard. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:44, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Necrothesp, thank you for that reference. I found a few more, following your lead. The article suffered from bad writing and linking, or certain connections (to Alexander Tormasov and Pavel Chichagov) would have been more clear. BTW, it seems to me that it should be renamed/moved to Third Western Army--please help me out with this. I won't withdraw nomination yet since I cannot judge whether the references are sufficient for MILUNIT: see below, Nha Trang's comment; but Nha Trang, please look at the newly improved sourcing. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 16:44, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Two of those references are coming up bupkis on my screen, so I can't evaluate them. The other two are momentary mentions: "Soandso commanded the Third Reserve Army," and that's all she wrote. That's obviously not a source providing any coverage, never mind "significant" coverage of the subject. Besides which, "passing" MILUNIT's a non-starter: it's an essay, and fulfilling it satisfies no valid notability criteria. This either passes the GNG or it doesn't, and so far it hasn't. Nha Trang 18:04, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• It would appear that the Third Western Army was a new formation, a product of the amalgamation of this formation and the Army of the Danube. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:30, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: Actually, the opening sentence of MILUNIT (which is an essay, not a guideline, and "widely accepted" according to whom?) is "As for any subject on Wikipedia, presumption of notability for a military unit or formation depends wholly on the existence of significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject." Obviously an essay can't be used as a reason to keep. We need more than a casual mention in a book, we need multiple reliable sources discussing the subject in detail. I don't doubt the unit existed, but that's no better than a WP:ITEXISTS argument. Nha Trang 15:26, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Widely accepted by those who write on military subjects on Wikipedia, as I think you'll find if you are at all familiar with AfDs on such subjects. It was an army, commanded by a general. How anyone with any knowledge of military organisation could say that such a thing is not notable is beyond me. Since it was a Russian formation of the early 19th century it's quite obvious that the internet is not a likely place to find masses of information on it (especially not when searching in English), but I think it's fair to assume that it is notable enough for an article. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:28, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • "As for any subject on Wikipedia, presumption of notability for a military unit or formation depends wholly on the existence of significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject." Is there something about that that's unclear? Where are the sources describing this army in "significant coverage?" Just being an "army" and commanded by a "general" is not enough, and you know it's not. Nha Trang 20:02, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Article stub such as it is meets notability guide (yes, there was such a unit, and yes it guarded the frontier. Although it failed in its primary mission, to cut off the French retreat), it did pursue the French into Poland, Sources are trust worthy enough enough, based on Mikaberidze, Alexander, alone, who is well-known historian of Russia military things related to Napoleonic period. He is a diligent researcher. I think it should be labeled as a stub and given low priority. I doubt there should be a separate article listing the order of battle, however. auntieruth (talk) 19:01, 16 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is also included in the Order of battle. Ideally, this article would be expanded to include material on all the units, similar toThe French Army of the Danube article and associated list. I'm not planning to do it, however.  :) auntieruth (talk) 19:07, 16 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per Auntieruth, who has academic expertise in the area. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:28, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Thanks Ed, Auntieruth: I drop my reservations. Keep. Please tell nominator to do due-er diligence. Drmies (talk) 15:28, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, subject of article clearly meets WP:MILUNIT, and can be verified to have existed by these two pre-internet sources (1, 2), and this more recent source.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:54, 18 October 2014 (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.