Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland
- 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. Courcelles 02:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Here is the original deletion rationale - I am collapsing it in favour of restatement below (but it's still relevant and should be read before the restatement) MickMacNee (talk) 19:40, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply] |
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The term "The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland" is not a notable place or name. It is an umbrella term that was apparently recently invented to list the three Scottish places of Mousa, Old Scatness and Jarlshof together as an application for inclusion on the new Tentative List of World Heritage sites in the UK. It is not certain yet which of those applications gets to go onto the Tentative List, and being on the Tentative List is no guarantee of ever becoming a World Heritage site - it is merely a pre-requesite for consideration. See List of World Heritage Sites of the United Kingdom#Tentative list for a fuller explanation. As such, any idea that "The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland" is actually a Heritage Site yet is very much speculation, and we already have decent articles on all three sites already. And the term as a name is only mentioned in sources as part of the press coverage of the original announcment of the applications. The current content of this article is simply some content from all three separate pages bunched together under this title. As such, this article is an exercise in pointless duplication/forking and improper speculation. At best, it can be turned into a usefull redirect to the applicatoins list, or a sort of dab page listing the three sites, but either way, there's no point keeping the current content in the article history, and thus it should be deleted first before that occurs. MickMacNee (talk) 15:47, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply] |
- Restatement. OK, I'm amazed at some of the things said in the 'keeps' below in the name of policy or common sense apparently, so I'm going to take the unusual step of restating the deletion rationale again, this time with explanations of the relevant actual guideline wordings, and with respect to the actual contents of this article, so that there can be no mistake as to what people are voting on. I'll be working off of this version. MickMacNee (talk) 19:40, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The restatement is collapsed in here because it's necessarily quite long MickMacNee (talk) 19:40, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply] |
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NOTABILITYThe first relevant guideline is WP:NOTABILITY. It states:
So, to assess if the sources support the claim that the 'crucible of iron age scotland' is notable, I shall review the article's references. I list below the sources in the order they are listed in the article, detailing how they relate to the topic:
So, in summary, only 6 of the 17 references in this article even qualify for consideration as evidence of notability of the topic of 'crucible of iron age scotland'. Of those 6, four simply name or list 'crucible of iron age scotland' as one of the 6 Scottish or 38 national bids, some not even including the term 'crucible' even. Of the 2 remaining (No. 6 and 8.), one gives just a sentence on the crucible bid, and the other manages to include a quote from one person involved in the crucible bid. That's it, that's the entire body of proof so far that 'crucible of iron age scotland' is a notable topic deserving of an article. This is patently nowhere near meeting the relevant wording in WP:N as described above. On inheritance and predictionOn a related matter to notability, it has been suggested that simply being a possible WHS site means that there should be an article on it. However, from the essay Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions, see WP:NOTINHERITED. Notability cannot be claimed for something because it is associated with something which is notable - therefore, you cannot claim that just because the 'crucible of iron age scotland' might someday become a WHS, it is not currently notable because of this fact. And it is simply incorrect to say that the crucible is even one step away from becoming a WHS, it is at most two steps, possibly more. First it has to be accepted as a Tentative List applicant, then it has to selected from the list, before it can become a WHS. And this process can take years. CONTENT FORKINGThe second relevant guideline is WP:CONTENTFORKING. It states:
As you can see from the reference list above, 99% of this article is redundant to material that already exsits, namely the articles on the three sites being termed the 'crucible', namely Mousa, Old Scatness and Jarlshof, or is properly treated in other articles such as on the bid process, detailed in List of World Heritage Sites of the United Kingdom#2010 applicants, or on heritage sites in Scotland. There is nothing here that sustains the topic of 'crucible of iron age scotland' in any way that justifies such pointless redundancy, and per policy, is to be avoided. Cut down to just novel and non-redundant material, and ignoring the fact it is already implicit in the crucible entry in the 2010 applicant list in the previous article, this article simply states:
That's it. This is not the basis of a separate article. On summary styleOn a matter related to forking, it is suggested that this article is an acceptable spinout because it is a summary style spinout fork. This is false, because of the fact that this material does not have a parent article from which it has been spun out of. It contains summary style sections of background material, namely on the three sites and the application process, but this does not make it a spinout article. Its inclusion only makes it more evident that this article is redundant to pre-existing articles. |
- Note: This discussion has been added to Wikipedia:WikiProject Scottish Islands's "news" section. Ben MacDui 17:18, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Note: This debate has been included in the list of Scotland-related deletion discussions. —Ben MacDui 17:21, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep
- Notability: "From the Shetland Isles in Scotland to the Dover Strait in southern England, Tourism and Heritage Minister John Penrose has today published the list of applications to get on the UK’s new Tentative List of sites for World Heritage status." The process has formally begun. There is some way to go, but if an initial application for World Heritage Site status does not meet notability guidelines then neither does 99% of what exists elsewhere on Wikipedia. The process involved in the application is being worked on in the artcile.
- "The current content of this article is simply some content from all three separate pages". True as of about an hour ago - it began this morning as part of the current Scottish Islands Collaboration of the Month. The outcome of these events is often a GAC and by this afternoon I had already started to add additional material.
- Forking - sheer rubbish. The sites are nominated collectively, not individually.
- Speculation - it would be if the article said it was going to be a World Heritage Site. It doesn't.
- The logic of the last sentence escapes me and, but it would be improper to comment further. Ben MacDui 16:13, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Extended discussion collapsed for ease of navigation MickMacNee (talk) 19:40, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply] |
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Perhaps I could summarise.
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- Keep The general topic is notable; for example, see In the shadow of the brochs which has much to say about these sites. The current title seems a bit fanciful but we might easily rename to Prehistoric Shetland, just as we have Prehistoric Orkney and Prehistoric Scotland. Such developments are a matter of ordinary editing in accordance with normal policy and deletion would be disruptive. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:13, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Extended discussion collapsed for ease of navigation MickMacNee (talk) 19:40, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply] |
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Extended discussion collapsed for ease of navigation MickMacNee (talk) 19:40, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply] |
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I came across this today. - "The UNESCO World Heritage List is possibly the best known list, of anything, anywhere on Earth". Perhaps the source - heritage-key.com/blogs" - is less impressive than the statement, but I couldn't resist posting it here. The existence of the LAWHF - hitherto unknown to me, must surely be of interest tho', give that it is a structure with a specific remit that includes supporting communities (i.e. local authorities I imagine) with potential World Heritage Sites within their areas. Ben MacDui 18:40, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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- Keep, and rename to Mousa, Old Scatness and Jarlshof: The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland, as this appears to be the full name under which the application is being made. This article, however, should concentrate on the sites collectively in relation to this application and avoid duplicating material covered in the articles on the individual sites. --Deskford (talk) 22:43, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- If this article truly covered just the collective aspects, then there really is no article here at all. What are you seeing here that justifies a keep vote? MickMacNee (talk) 23:04, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I am seeing a statement, backed up by reliable references, that this group of sites has been proposed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This indicates to my mind sufficient notability to merit coverage. --Deskford (talk) 14:11, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- The crucible is at least two application stages and many years away from ever becoming an WHS. To call this simply a 'notable proposed WHS' on the basis of that, is really stretching the very little RS that actually covers it, which is not much at all, and certainly not much that is independent of the 38 sites in all. It is stretching CRYSTAL to the very limit to suggest it deseves an entire article based on just that. And if it fails at the first hurdle, this article is just going to sit here forever, because of NTEMP, gradually degrading, a pointless orphan. I don't know about you, but if I came across this article in ten years, and all it said was 'these three sites were grouped together for a failed application to be a proposal to become a WHS', because that is the only thing RS support saying, I really would wonder how anybody thought it was notable at all. Infact, if it did fail at the first hurdle, this article would be a redirect in ten years, which shows that there is no notability here now, it would be bizarre to try and stop that in ten years time citing NTEMP. MickMacNee (talk) 19:50, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I am seeing a statement, backed up by reliable references, that this group of sites has been proposed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This indicates to my mind sufficient notability to merit coverage. --Deskford (talk) 14:11, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't object to the proposed move at all - it is the full name and I was just trying to keep it simple. I certainly don't see any reason to expand on the material about the individuals sites - it's summary all the way. Ben MacDui 08:04, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep meets WP:NN as it "has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources". The article makes it clear this is a planned nomination (so there is real, independent content) and discusses that aspect, then uses WP:Summary style to briefly describe the three sites. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 13:45, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- PS I have no problem with a move to the full name as proposed above. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 13:50, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- What are you defining as "significant coverage" here? Because the way I understand that phrase in other topics and other Afds, there is nothing here that even comes close to it. There is the orignal government announcment listing 38 sites, and the inevitable bits of news coverage, and nothing else. Please list them if you disagree. Despite the impression the padding in this article quite wrongly gives off as to sourcing, I've yet to see a single piece that has actually covered this one site in any detail at all. It is simply not notable, it is simply a news announcement. Even the Shetland Times piece says nothing, and that's the local paper for the site. MickMacNee (talk) 19:50, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- PS I have no problem with a move to the full name as proposed above. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 13:50, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep per Ruhrfisch/Deskford. I rather like the "simplified" name but will not start kicking and screaming if it is changed. Finn Rindahl (talk) 14:22, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- To be honest I prefer the short form too, but I thought we probably ought to use the full name under which the proposal has been made. Amongst the sources cited, I think only the Shetland Times uses the shortened name. I guess it doesn't really matter one way or the other as long as we have a redirect. --Deskford (talk) 14:50, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I was BOLD and made Mousa, Old Scatness and Jarlshof: The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland a redirect here. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 15:05, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- To be honest I prefer the short form too, but I thought we probably ought to use the full name under which the proposal has been made. Amongst the sources cited, I think only the Shetland Times uses the shortened name. I guess it doesn't really matter one way or the other as long as we have a redirect. --Deskford (talk) 14:50, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Extend or relist Because AFD is a discussion and not a vote, and some of the nominators concerns haven't even been addressed by all the keep comments, we really don't have a consensus yet. I think all the points in the nomination need to at least be addressed and consensus reached before we can consider this a closed matter. Triona (talk) 23:33, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. (after edit conflict) I was about to "non-admin" close this as "keep" as so far that appears to be the consensus and there's too much participation to justify a relist. However, the nominator makes a good case for deletion. The question that should be asked is "does the umbrella term "The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland" that is used to describe these 3 sites itself have significant coverage in reliable sources?". There's no doubt that the sites themselves are notable. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:35, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- It seems unlikely that a consensus to delete will be obtained here now. The article is a new one and we see that there are proposals on the table for alternate titles and more general articles such as Prehistoric Shetland. The application for world heritage status is still pending and so we can expect more coverage as this application progresses. It seems best to close this discussion here. After some months of ordinary discussion and development, the matter can be reviewed and another AFD discussion started if it seemed that there was more likelihood of consensus then. Colonel Warden (talk) 06:34, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- The is NOT an 'application for for world heritage status'. It is an application to be considered to be part of the Tentative List, which is the actual list of 'applicants' for world heritage status if you like. And waiting around for more coverage is simply basic policy violation. Worst case scenario is that the update will be - 'it was decided not to put the crucible forward for the Tentative List', and the term is never seen again. And the only person proposing a rename is you, this article is nowhere near, not even close, to being about Prehistoric Shetland in general. There is no new content here in that respect anyway, there is nothing to merge and no sensible reason to rename it without almost total rewriting, so no, it is not best to close the discussion here and leave this duplicated content just floating. MickMacNee (talk) 11:01, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- We have multiple editors mulling over the best name for this article. Almost total rewriting is just fine and would be quite consistent with our editing policy which requires us to keep and build upon any useful scraps. Generalising the topic into Prehistoric Shetland would be an excellent solution which would be easy to develop using sources such as Ancient Shetland which covers all of these sites and more besides. I would have been bold and started this already but this ridiculously bloated AFD is now obstructing productive progress. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kaicho for a better example of how to get on with it. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:29, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- The only disruption here is your amazingly persistant and willfull refusal to listen. For the last time, the very last time, you are the ONLY PERSON who thinks this article is/can/should be about Prehistoric Shetland. That's a simple FACT. Ben MacDui pointed out that that subject was not covered in Wikipedia yet, and should be, but IN ADDITION to having this article. He actually said "Sadly we don't yet have Prehistoric Shetland, but when we do it will no doubt draw on this article", if you really cannot be bothered to go check. The other editors talking about renames HAVE STATED NO INTENTION of changing this article's focus, they are simply discussing what is the proper name of this application, the current short form The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland, or the fuller long form, Mousa, Old Scatness and Jarlshof: The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland. This is all perfectly clear if you actually READ WHAT OTHER PEOPLE WRITE. And you are free to disagree all you want, but frankly, when there is NO NEW CONTENT HERE about Prehistoric Shetland that is not present in other articles, and when the article would absolutely requite a COMPLETE REWRITE AND A RENAME to make it even close to resembling that topic, then in that case, it is simply TOTALLY POINTLESS voting keep here. That is what is disruption frankly, because you are the only person who advocates this stance, so keeping it on that basis would be a total waste of time, because I have no doubt that if it were kept, and someone tried to rename it and completely rewrite it, they would cite the Afd 'keep' to oppose you. Nobody is stopping you starting an article on Prehistoric Shetland. Go for it. This deletion nomination has NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT TOPICS MERITS. You can even start by copying this article to do it if you really want to, although I have absolutely no idea why you would do so. MickMacNee (talk) 17:34, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- The most common position held by other editors here is that the article should be kept, period. Their position is compatible with the development of the Prehistoric Shetland topic. Your suggestion that the article be deleted is not because it would leave a red link where we have a notable feature of Prehistoric Shetland. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:06, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Sigh. It's hardly worth replying anymore, you have such incomprehensible logic I don't even think we are speaking the same language, let alone dealing in commonly understood concepts. I think you are living in a delusional fantasy world if I had to be brutal about it. That's the only way I can describe your perception that everybody voting keep in here is doing so because the ultimate goal is to write Prehistoric Shetland, and declaring this term as non-notable would make that an impossibility. MickMacNee (talk) 19:10, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- The original application, announced by the UK government was covered by most if not all national media and much of the local media concerned. This event was commented on by 3 ministers of the crown. The article is a summary of information at the 3 sites concerned, and World Heritage Sites in Scotland. You will note that at the last named records that "According to Historic Scotland "Scottish Ministers identify and put forward sites to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for nomination"." The idea that these applications occur because someone thinks they are a good idea one day is well wide of the mark. What is frustrating is that for the most part this dialogue does not take part in public. The LAWHF website is not even updated for the announcement yet and the public information it provides is very scant. Given that the nominator is in a minority of one, I'd like to ask a question the other way around. Given that all bar one of the other 37 current applicants have articles where this process could be created as a section (and that all 2006 Scottish nominations had articles), why would we not have an article that covers the subject matter? Ben MacDui 08:48, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Forget about turning it around, these new commenters have it spot on - you have singularly failed to address the reason for nomination, and per CONSENSUS, there is no way that a dumb vote count can ever over-ride a policy based argument, if it has not even been addressed, let alone rebutted with another policy based argument. Common sense arguments are also allowed, but they have to actually make sense - and none of yours do frankly. The key issue is you simply don't seem to understand what notability is - the 'coverage' and comments from ministers you refer to are not about the crucible as a TOPIC, it is about the announcement of 38 applicants, or in the case of the Scottish press/ministers, just the Scottish ones, understandably. The crucible is covered in a trivial manner - 4 of the 6 refs simple give it's name as a list entry, just like the primary source it all comes from (with some not even mentioning 'crucible'!). Even the news source from Shetland, does not present anything different. Nobody is likely to suggest that that list of 38 now has independent notability on the basis of that collection of paltry coverage, (well, you might I suppose), so it is obviously absurd to then claim it is evidence that one single entry on its own has notability, not when the only novel info you can add to it amounts to a couple of lines. The fact that all the other sites have articles too is totally irrelevant - this is another of your policy problems. You see an announcement about 38 sites, and you think that equates to 38 new sections in 38 articles. Talk about wastefull duplication! This is not how Wikipedia editting works. The correct way is to detail that announcement and all the process detail in one article, which already exists, and that can be referred to with a link and a sentence at best in the actual articles about the sites. The only thing needed for the 'crucible' term (and there are other terms without articles too), is to redirect it to the application details, or your WHS in Scotland article (arguably another unecessary content fork tbh). Per standard policy and common sense, if you have nothing to say about this application from actual RS (another issue is the sheer amount of 2+2ing in the article using refs that don't mention the crucible application but you seem to think are relevant to notability), then you simply do not create the article as a placeholder, while we wait around for something to say in it that is not simply content forked from elsewhere. All that does is create editting and consistency overheads, with zero benefit for readers. MickMacNee (talk) 11:01, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- We simply disagree about what the standards for notability ought to be. I see coverage in umpteen national newspapers, the local one, and the involvement of significant political figures and believe this constitutes notability, given the overall importance of the subject matter. You see something different. I don't think we are going to persuade one another and I see no point in going on about it length. I am of course continuing to research the topic. I remain convinced that it is necessitated because, unlike all of the other Scottish nominations, it is an application about three separate sites that have no over-arching article. Ben MacDui 20:11, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, you can disagree all you want, but it's not a definition that is supported either by the wording of the actual guideline, or by any Afd conclusion I've ever seen that rested on notability. If this Afd determines this topic is notable based on this coverage, I may well just put the guideline up for deletion as patently not needed, because your definition barely goes beyond simply verifiable existence in RS, and that was the standard before anyone even thought about writing WP:NOTE. If you applied your standard of notability to other topics, like films or people, you would end up with totally bonkers outcomes, which would not resemble their actual existing and well accepted topic specific guidelines at all. That is not a sign you are on the correct side of this disagreement at all, and you not realising this or accepting it without any reason other than pure self-belief is not going to do you any good on Wikipedia, you will simply find that your articles will eventually all be deleted or merged, and your time here will have been wasted. There are so many issues with your ideas of coverage it's just not credible to call this a simple disagreement between two valid ideas about what notability is - you don't have multiple sources, you have WP:109PAPERS reporting on the same primary source, you don't have ministers talking about the crucible, you have ministers talking about all the applications, etc etc etc. I will take this all the way to a site wide Rfc if necessary, because I am not prepared to have such a basic, core idea like WP:N, which until I met you I believed was very widely understood, so massively misinterpreted in this way to produce such a bizarre outcome. MickMacNee (talk) 23:08, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- WP:N is not core policy; it is not even a policy. There are numerous cases of topics here which lack significant notability but which are retained nonetheless because their ex officio status seems significant. A putative world heritage site seems of this sort. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:06, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- You're correct about this and I wish this argument was made more often instead of trying to shoehorn non-notable subjects into WP:N. Yes the subject fails WP:N but should be kept anyway because "purple monkey dishwasher" would be a valid keep argument. (but never for a BLP) If enough people agreed with this and enough AFDs were closed this way, it would eventually result in a new guideline WP:PURPLEMONKEYDISHWASHER. That's how many of our older guidelines and policies were created. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:32, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, in this context, the proposed PURPLEMONKEYDISHWASHER would be - 'must have been namechecked in RS as an applicant to be on a Tentative List to become a WHS someday in the future'. By my calculation, that's probably a few thousand sites all around the world. And if not a single one needs any other details beyond that basic namecheck in RS, that just sounds like a charter for turning Wikipedia into a useless vaporware database, a pointless collection of out of date announcements and press releases, and a whole bunch of pointlessly duplicated forking, making it more likely that even that usefull and notable info gets corrupted as an actual valuable information source. Me, I'd rather have adherence to WP:N as a basic requirement than that scenario, but then I think that Wikipedia pages are supposed to be for topics we can actually say something about, because other people have actually said something about it. It's wacky I know, but it just might work. Colonel Warden needs to get real, and realise that 'WP:N is not even a policy' as an Afd argument is, and always will be, a fringe viewpoint. I wouldn't even call that statement an example of being simply an inclusionist, it's beyond even that tbh. MickMacNee (talk) 19:10, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- It is easy to find cases where topics are kept at AFD regardless of their lack of notability. This is not a fringe viewpoint - it is common practise. It is presumably for this reason that notability has not been accepted as a policy, despite attempts to promote it. Mick therefore misrepresents the status of this guideline. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:01, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Do any of those cases remotely compare to this? I know of some of them, like pro-footballers, and their reasons for being kept, and they don't even come close to this example, so I doubt it very much. Frankly, if there was ever a case where it could be possible to push the community into accepting N as a policy to prevent auto-assumed-notability being claimed for situations not covered by things like WP:ATHLETE, it is this one. You can wish all you want that simply ignoring N is not a fringe viewpoint, but to assess that for any truthfullness, one would have to examine your general voting record at Afd, against the community average. If you routinely make arguments and interpretations like the ones I'm seeing in here in other Afd's, I would be amazed if you were even within 30% of the community median. MickMacNee (talk) 14:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Your arguments have failed to convince the other editors commenting here and so it is you that is marching to the beat of a different drummer. Colonel Warden (talk) 16:17, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, we'll see about that. The average notability Rfc attracts around 30 editors at least, this Afd has attracted about 5 plus an IP, not counting the creator or nominator. There's you, who can't decide if it is notable, or whether that doesn't matter; there's Deskford and Ruhrfisch, who, while they are not exactly voting 'JN', there rationales have not exactly been rigorous rebuttals of the nomination. Crucially, after their and your votes, two new people made it clear that the deletion rationale has not been addressed, supported by the subsequent relist. Tom Reedy wants to delete or merge, and seems to acknowledge the rather vapourness of this article's existence. SmokeyJoe is a keep, but not exactly emphatic, for the same reasons. I suspect he is not averse to a simple redirect while we wait for some actual information to emerge to support an article. Then there's an IP's single vote, who does not address the nomination. So, all in all, your assertion that this is cut and dried is just another stretching of the reality. I'm fully prepared to present to the community the question of WTF? if this finishes as a keep. Such craziness cannot be right, either the guidelines are wrong, or the few people voting keep here are wrong. We'll see what the closer says before pondering a DRV, but I will most likely file one, especially if the closer gives a one word close. MickMacNee (talk) 19:21, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete or Merge into World Heritage Sites in Scotland (or more realistically, perhaps into a new article, Tentative Sites Proposed for World Heritage Status in Scotland). To me this smacks of WP:PROMOTE as an attempt to lend a veneer of vintage notability to the name (which was not really a collective name until whoever wrote the application dreamed it up). Tom Reedy (talk) 14:38, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - you are quite right. A significant aspect of the idea is to promote Scotland in general and Shetland in particular. That is part of what WH sites do. The name has been invented, just as was "Heart of Neolithic Orkney" some years ago. But I am reporting these events which have taken place after due consideration by third parties - which is what we do. Ben MacDui 20:11, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Black Kite (t) (c) 17:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
KeepDo not delete. The multiple uses of the term demonstrates its notability. Normal editorial decisions may mean that the content should be located at other articles. At worst, it could be a disambiguation page pointing to the three sites. However, I think that the current page is quite suitable. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:32, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- The 'multiple uses' of this term comes from the routine reporting of the contents of one primary source. And the 'usage' is trivial, 4 sources say nothing at all about it except to print it as a list entry, some not even using the actual term - that's how much notice they took of it. The only thing this level of coverage actually proves is that the country has more than one newspaper, and they report news. And let's not kid ourselves that if this Afd declares a 'keep', that people (well, one person), is not then going to play bloody murder if someone then made the perfectly reasonable editorial suggestion that this could simply be a dab page. These things never go down like that. No, it would be seen as an endorsement that the 'Crucible of Iron Age Shetland' is somehow notable, even though that's not a conclusion anybody could reach if they actually bothered to look at the sources and actually read WP:N. MickMacNee (talk) 19:10, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I do not agree that "routine reporting" is necessarily a precluding criterion from meeting or beating WP:N, and in this case I am happy for this reporting of a term to stand as evidence that the term should be covered (at least mentioned) in the encyclopedia. The fact that there has been reporting is an argument that the primary source information is worth mention. I agree that "a consensus to keep" result could easily be misread as a reason to not change the current presentation, and so I have changed my bold !vote accordingly. At the other extreme, "a consensus to delete" would also be unhelpful to the proper editorial process. Perhaps I am significantly more eventualist than you? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:16, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I did make it plain in the nomination that deletion and then recreation as a redirect or other sensible arrangement of the basic content like a rich dab page was perfectly acceptable to me, but the starting state of the article was such a violation that I do not think it should be acceptable, and cannot remain in the history, because it was all effectively just a fork, coatracked onto what we can agree to disagree is quite meagre evidence of notability if the term is being applied in a way that means evidence beyond simple verification of existence of the name. So, to clarify, if you had changed your vote to redirect, I would not be objecting to that. If the article were not simply duplication, I'd would even have been fine with a merge, but it isn't, so I'm not. I can embrace eventualism too, but really, the best case scenario that I can foresee for the next few years of possible article development, is that we might need to add another line to the article stating 'on date xyx it was added to the Tentative List', and a few more generically happy yet vacuous renta-a-quotes. BenMcDui says he's doing research, but I've not seen him find anything that mentions the crucible, he is adding a bunch of material that is just generic or relevant by implied association. Nobody that I have seen has presented any case for suggesting that even a decision to approve adding it to the Tentative List is going to instigate a large influx of new material about an entity called 'the crucible'. This article would still be simply based on the basic news reporting of those two simple events, which really do not justify this large scale forking operation. And God only knows what will happen if these articles do get more editor attention if it did get on the Tentive List - how would they even know which article to improve? The development of a common branding or infrastructure or financial arrangement across the entire 'crucible' entity is the sort of detail this article should have, and it would have if it were even remotely a notable 'thing' at this point in time, but instead, it has a mixture of redundancy and pointless details, and not much else. If anything, it's only going to get in the way of people actualy wanting to write a well structured article on the crucible if good quality and highly relevant information did later emerge. Right now, I can't see how anyone taking that term from the newspapers and doing a Wikipedia lookup on it, is not going to be dissatisfied at having to read all of this, and then realise it's just duplication of the three site articles bunched with repetion of the basic stuff they read in the newspaper about the state/stage of the application. MickMacNee (talk) 01:08, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I do continue to research and I confess to a degree of frustration that various websites that you might expect the occasional update to are currently silent (it's August), but I still think the existing sources are perfectly adequate for a basic article. You still haven't explained the concept of a "a sort of dab page listing the three sites". Re a "rich dab page", dab pages with citations etc. are unacceptable to the MOSDAB police as I have found to my cost. Dab pages disambiguate. Summary style articles summarise. It's pretty clear which kind of article this is. To the best of my knowledge you can't redirect to three different articles. Ben MacDui
- We can discuss that with the DAB people if necessary, but I will say it is not my preferred option because it merely papers over the fundemental flaw of this article. And we've been over the idea that this is somehow a summary article before - it absolutely is not, because it is not a summary of a larger article. This is made perfectly clear in WP:SUMMARY, if you haven't yet read it in all this time, please do so. The article is in essence, like any other - it asserts a topic exists, and attempts to explain it. Yes, it contains sections that can be called summaries of other articles, but their inclusion is not what justifies this article's existence per WP:SUMMARY. You have totally confused the concept of summarising information, and justifying an article based on the fact it is a summary of another article. And the overall quality of the summary parts of this article is simply poor anyway, as explained below. As we see from your frustration, the topic does not exist in the real world with sufficient notability to yet justify an article, which is why you are now scratching around trying to guess what might or might not be relevant material and just adding it, to go with the summaries, which, without any actual topic here, is just redundant filler. No matter how bloated this gets, based on the actual coverage, there can never be a coherent narrative to this article, there is nothing glueing it together, and there is zero benefit to the reader in lying to them about what this article is about, before they have to suffer the wasted time finding out for themselves. We don't need to redirect to three articles, redirecting to the article that already explained the actually novel parts of this article, would suffice, as it already contained all the relevant sources and wikilinks to allow the reader once they have been appraised of what 'the crucible' is, to then actualy go to the more informative other articles which contain the actual useful, and non-redundant, information. MickMacNee (talk) 14:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I do continue to research and I confess to a degree of frustration that various websites that you might expect the occasional update to are currently silent (it's August), but I still think the existing sources are perfectly adequate for a basic article. You still haven't explained the concept of a "a sort of dab page listing the three sites". Re a "rich dab page", dab pages with citations etc. are unacceptable to the MOSDAB police as I have found to my cost. Dab pages disambiguate. Summary style articles summarise. It's pretty clear which kind of article this is. To the best of my knowledge you can't redirect to three different articles. Ben MacDui
- I did make it plain in the nomination that deletion and then recreation as a redirect or other sensible arrangement of the basic content like a rich dab page was perfectly acceptable to me, but the starting state of the article was such a violation that I do not think it should be acceptable, and cannot remain in the history, because it was all effectively just a fork, coatracked onto what we can agree to disagree is quite meagre evidence of notability if the term is being applied in a way that means evidence beyond simple verification of existence of the name. So, to clarify, if you had changed your vote to redirect, I would not be objecting to that. If the article were not simply duplication, I'd would even have been fine with a merge, but it isn't, so I'm not. I can embrace eventualism too, but really, the best case scenario that I can foresee for the next few years of possible article development, is that we might need to add another line to the article stating 'on date xyx it was added to the Tentative List', and a few more generically happy yet vacuous renta-a-quotes. BenMcDui says he's doing research, but I've not seen him find anything that mentions the crucible, he is adding a bunch of material that is just generic or relevant by implied association. Nobody that I have seen has presented any case for suggesting that even a decision to approve adding it to the Tentative List is going to instigate a large influx of new material about an entity called 'the crucible'. This article would still be simply based on the basic news reporting of those two simple events, which really do not justify this large scale forking operation. And God only knows what will happen if these articles do get more editor attention if it did get on the Tentive List - how would they even know which article to improve? The development of a common branding or infrastructure or financial arrangement across the entire 'crucible' entity is the sort of detail this article should have, and it would have if it were even remotely a notable 'thing' at this point in time, but instead, it has a mixture of redundancy and pointless details, and not much else. If anything, it's only going to get in the way of people actualy wanting to write a well structured article on the crucible if good quality and highly relevant information did later emerge. Right now, I can't see how anyone taking that term from the newspapers and doing a Wikipedia lookup on it, is not going to be dissatisfied at having to read all of this, and then realise it's just duplication of the three site articles bunched with repetion of the basic stuff they read in the newspaper about the state/stage of the application. MickMacNee (talk) 01:08, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I do not agree that "routine reporting" is necessarily a precluding criterion from meeting or beating WP:N, and in this case I am happy for this reporting of a term to stand as evidence that the term should be covered (at least mentioned) in the encyclopedia. The fact that there has been reporting is an argument that the primary source information is worth mention. I agree that "a consensus to keep" result could easily be misread as a reason to not change the current presentation, and so I have changed my bold !vote accordingly. At the other extreme, "a consensus to delete" would also be unhelpful to the proper editorial process. Perhaps I am significantly more eventualist than you? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:16, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep. The article is pretty clear the subject is a collection of notable sites that have been bundled for the application as part of a well publicized process. The process itself is explained and generally well written, that is my main concern. And reliable sources confirm that everything here is verified. This doesn't smack of a campaigning effort but more of an encyclopedia treatment of the subject. As the process unfolds the naming issues will sort themselves out as more news media discuss the proposals. 71.139.18.173 (talk) 23:51, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Note: This is the editor's only edit to Wikipedia MickMacNee (talk) 01:08, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Clarity and/or nice writing is not a defence against the given nomination, nice articles which are not notale or have other issues like being content forks, are routinely deleted. The process is well written and explained niceley because I was able to correct it's original innaccurate and wholly over-detailed version, using the copy we already have in the article for discussing the process, - again, this does not address the nomination reason, it infact reinforces it. While others have said this smacks as a campaigning article, I didn't, so again, technically, this also does not address the nomination. And finally, yes, RS confirm V, but again, this was never challenged in the nomination (although there is now a hell of a lot of basic supposition of relevance included, which only clouds the basic verfiability of the article). I hope you can see what I'm getting at....but if it's not clear, please could you actually address the deletion nomination. It's all I ask...., and is after all how Afd is supposed to work. MickMacNee (talk) 01:08, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Addressing the deletion nomination directly is made difficult because it is such a dog's dinner. The essence of the complaint seems to be notability and content forking. The notability argument fails because we have adequate coverage in reliable sources and, in any case, a putative world heritage site is sufficiently momentous that it merits an entry by virtue of its status. The content forking argument fails because the article is neither redundant nor POV pushing and there is clearly some functional purpose to bringing this material together under this or a similar title. Both notability and forking are guidelines not hard policies and so allow plenty of latitude and discretion in their interpretation. The attempts of the nominator to act as the judge of his own case, pushing his own interpretation of the matter, seem excessive and it should be clearly understood that his arguments are not accepted and so we should agree to disagree. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:57, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- "The notability argument fails because we have adequate coverage in reliable sources" - nope, not proven in the slightest. People can see the level of coverage in the restatement, which also contains full reproduction of the relevant WP:N wording that defines what is and is not 'adequate coverage' if you are hoping to present evidence notability. It is nowhere near adequate using those wordings, and I find it odd that your strategy in here seems to be to have your cake and eat it - in some posts you say that the article has satisfied WP:N, in others, you say it is a topic that does not need to meet WP:N and trot out the 'it's just a guideline' excuse. MickMacNee (talk) 14:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- "a putative world heritage site is sufficiently momentous that it merits an entry by virtue of its status" - pure personal assertion coloured by your inclusionist mindset. This view of 'automatic worth' is not supported by any generic wording of a policy or guideline that people could find to verify this is a legitimate view. If 'the crucible' is a 'putative' WHS, then any random teenager having a trial at Grimsby Town, is a putative Premier League footballer. It's a stretch and a half.
- "The content forking argument fails because the article is neither redundant nor POV pushing" - I never onces said it was a POV fork, but it is a redundant fork. You can deny it all you want, but people can simply check the articles that were used to scrape together this one and decide for themselves. I don't think you've even looked tbh, because a cursory check shows that even know, when the author has asserted many times that this is a 'summary article', and not just a cut and paste hack job, that for example, the entire Jarlshof section is just a copy and paste job from the first two paragraphs of the Jarlshof article lede. Oh, and guess what the third paragraph of that article's lede is about - you guessed it, this application. The section in this article about Old Scatness is 525 characers long, while our entire article on the site is just 862 characters. Again, it has simply been copied and pasted from the whole of the first and part of the second paragraphs of that article, leaving behind in our main article only details such as details of tours and site facilities. If that is not evidence of redundancy, then I question if you know what the word means. Again, people can go check the actual wording of WP:FORK to see if this qualifies, it's in the restatement
- "there is clearly some functional purpose to bringing this material together under this or a similar title" - simply a vague assertion not backed up by the clear evidence above of what it actually is. There is no functional purpose to this that would not also be delivered by a redirect, unless you think that it is Wikipedia's function to waste people's time, assert notability where it does not exist, and make the chance of errors greater by not properly managing the material being randomly cut and pasted and duplicated for no good reason. MickMacNee (talk) 14:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- A redirect would be unsatisfactory because there are three components to this topic and so there is no single clear target. And too, redirection is not achieved by use of the delete function. There is not the slightest case for deletion. Colonel Warden (talk) 16:17, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- What about the target where all of the information was copied from to create the application part of this article? Or even Ben's WHS in Scotland fork. You've read both right? You must have, that's basic due diligence in a forking case. MickMacNee (talk) 19:21, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- You have lost me again. Which "target" it this? I don't think you can mean List of World Heritage Sites of the United Kingdom, which merely provides a list and enlarges on none of the Scottish or Shetland dimensions - and nor should it. It's a perfectly good list. Ben MacDui 09:02, 14 August 2010 (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.