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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greater Armenia (state)

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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 in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect‎ to Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity). This discussion is a horrible mess. If there is evidence supporting the existence of this title as a standalone article, it has not been presented here. If there is a strong reason why this title needs to be a DAB separate from Greater Armenia, it has not been cogently presented either. As such I'm seeing consensus that the title should be redirect, and "Kingdom of Armenia" has the most support for a target, but alternate targets were not discussed much; so this discussion does not preclude retargetting if a future discussion finds consensus for it. I would remind all participants that this is a designated contentious topic; more decorum is expected, or sanctions may follow. Vanamonde93 (talk) 07:24, 28 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Greater Armenia (state)

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Greater Armenia (state) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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This article had been a dab (see here) before MarshallBagramyan rewrited it to an article (see here). It's not a broad-concept article, and may not stand for a separate topic from Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity). Although most of its material lacks reliable sources, A455bcd9 replaced it with a section similar to Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity)#Provinces (see here) and eventually turned it to a dab (see here) again one month after they proposed the merge. Given that the consensus in the merge discussion is not clear, I restored the dab at the base name and moved the article here to obtain further consensus if it should be deleted or blanked and redirected. NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 10:54, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Neither: merge the content, and then restore the disambiguation page. This isn't a deletion argument, because the title has some encyclopedic value and the content that was here should be/should have been merged into "Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity)". It shouldn't be a redirect, because there's a secondary (or perhaps even primary) meaning in a nationalist concept of Armenia extending beyond its present borders. The existence of two or more plausible meanings for the phrase is what justifies a disambiguation page; and we do not need to delete the article and create a new page for that purpose in order to hide what was previously written and merged into "Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity)". The original source of merged content is usually kept, with the content available for review under article history, unless for some reason it violated copyright or was patent nonsense.
Here the reasons for merging are that it's overlapping and underdeveloped. The lack of sources isn't even an issue in this regard. As far as I could see, the only arguments opposing the merger seemed to be vague assertions that the topic was somehow distinct in a way that could not be clearly described; and it seemed to me that they were coming from the perspective of modern Armenian nationalism, rather than anything to do with the article as it stood. P Aculeius (talk) 17:12, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Greater Armenia has already been a disambiguation page, while we might want to merge the history there. The only issue is that the merge proposer A455bcd9 tried to remove almost all content in this article without merging for the lack of sources. NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 00:17, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Stop repeating the nonsense that I debunked many times: I improved the content of the article and you reverted to add back unsourced content and removed sourced one. You keep refusing to engage in discussion on the content (not the process). You went against the consensus to start this new procedure, even after you recognized your disruption yourself and reopened the merge discussion. You're wasting other people's time. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 08:33, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Discussing with someone who is bludgeoning like you is actually wasting everyone's time. And I can't find any consensus formed before you unilaterally overwrited this article without merging anything into Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity). Hold yourself together and wait for AfD outcome. NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 10:40, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, since it doesn't look like you're going to be able to agree on who's bludgeoning whom—why not just see what material in this article needs to be merged into the other—with sources if possible, with tags requesting sources if not, but at least plausible—and then redirect this title to the best target.
It may be that nothing in here needs to be added to the other article, if it's already covered, or unclear/improbable and unsourced. That's okay—sometimes a merge just amounts to blanking with the edit summary "content merged into X" after you've made sure that there's nothing left over that isn't in the appropriate article. The difference between merging and deletion is that with a merger, the original page contents are preserved in case this gets turned into an article again in the future, or in case someone wants to check whether something in another article came from here. It also preserves the work that went into this article, so that the various editors who contributed to it receive credit. It doesn't matter if you don't take anything from here somewhere else; it's still useful to be able to review what was here, and who contributed to it. P Aculeius (talk) 16:55, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@NmWTfs85lXusaybq: I can't find any consensus, then what is 4 people in favor (providing arguments) vs 2 against (without providing any argument)?
@P Aculeius: I added tags requesting sources in October. I removed the unsourced content one month later after I failed to find sources and I aligned the content with the sources already cited. NmWTfs85lXusaybq, without reading anything, reverted that 🤷. I've just added back tags. But what should we do next? (I offered to request a third opinion but NmWTfs85lXusaybq refused...) a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 09:38, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What do you want then? This is already the discussion for its deletion, given that you are asking for removing most of the material which is unsourced or failed verification. Your section that overwrited this article should have been directly added to Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity)#Provinces instead. NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 14:02, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I want the same thing as @P Aculeius: "Neither: merge the content, and then restore the disambiguation page". Basically, revert everything you've done. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 14:11, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Determining consensus isn't about counting votes. You have to consider what the arguments being made by each side are, and whether they hold water. That's not to say you agree with them—they can be valid arguments even if you think that other arguments should prevail. However, from what I saw, no coherent argument was made by the people opposing the merger, and neither one was willing to explain that opposition in greater detail, which made it appear that they were opposing it out of nationalist sentiment—the sheer emotional assertion that "Greater Armenia is grand and noble country!"
In order for retaining this article to make sense, it needs to represent a real and definable topic that is clearly distinguishable from the ancient kingdom of Armenia as a topic, and include significant (i.e. not trivial), verifiable contents that are not already found in the main article about that kingdom and cannot conveniently be added and addressed there. That doesn't mean that the contents of this article would need to be added there verbatim and without alteration to the sources. Redundant or trivial information, material that is incorrect or that cannot be verified with diligent effort to locate a good source for it may be omitted. If better sources exist for something than the ones cited in this short article, then they can be replaced too—the same as if they had been copied over first, and then someone found better sources and replaced them.
If everything significant and verifiable in this very short article is adequately covered in the other one, then there is nothing remaining to merge. Any edits that added material—even a minimal amount, such as a redundant source citation—to the other article can indicate a partial merger from this article in the edit summary. This article can then be turned into a redirect to the disambiguation page, with a similar edit summary: "contents merged to Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity)" or something similar.
If you're opposed to this process, please indicate clearly what contents in this article cannot properly be merged into "Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity)", and why they justify a stand-alone article. There is already an article about the concept of "Greater Armenia" as the current state plus extraterritorial claims that nationalists would like to add to it. Anything along those lines can be merged there, as well—you can merge content into more than one article—and if the title of that article isn't satisfactory, you can open a page move discussion there. But since the title of this article is probably ambiguous, it'd be better as a redirect to the disambiguation page. The fact that other editors opposed the move without explaining clearly why merger should not be done doesn't provide a significant reason for opposing it.
This is how the process is supposed to work under ordinary circumstances. A third-party opinion from someone else who isn't involved and doesn't have a strong opinion before reading the arguments is a way of seeking help if, after reading the above, you still can't agree on how to proceed. But it seems to me that you have a pretty straightforward merger here: short article, poorly sourced, the contents of which seem to duplicate or fit entirely within the scope of a much larger and better-sourced article (I didn't say perfect: that one also could use work, but most articles can be improved). You should be able to agree on that if you're both arguing in good faith, in which case a third-party opinion may not be needed. P Aculeius (talk) 14:09, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree @P Aculeius. (FYI: That's what I did on Dec 3rd: Changing 'Greater Armenia' to a dab and merging one source to 'Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity)'. NmWTfs85lXusaybq reverted all of that for reasons that I still fail to understand then renamed the article, created a dab, closed, reopened and then reclosed the merge discussion and started this AfD process.) a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 14:17, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Finally, you admit that all the content you merged into Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity) is no extant material but only a source you just tagged with {{Failed verification}}. However, the other source which passed verification was replaced and later abandoned from your merging. NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 14:43, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What?! What's your point? Nonsense again:
I tagged the sentence that cannot be verified by the source used. But the source is good and it does talk about Greater Armenia so I added it to the related section in Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity) which was unsourced. How is this a problem? If you could take the time to read the source, you'd understand.
What is "the other source"? The Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia? It's only used in Greater Armenia (state) in the sentence about Lesser Armenia. The same sentence could be backed by Hewsen 1997 which also mentions Lesser Armenia, that's what I did. So there was no reason to cite The Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia (which might not be RS btw...). a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 15:08, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Once again, you have removed all extant material in the original article and even one source added by yourself without merging. A deletion could never be seen as a merge and must be concluded formally in the AfD procedure. NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 15:21, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But all the content is already in Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity). You cannot merge what is already there. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 15:23, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's only the section you used to overwrite this article, otherwise you wouldn't drop your source from merging. Almost all extant material in this article had been tagged with {{cn}} and later removed in your consecutive edits from 29 November 2023. NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 15:30, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What are you arguing for? I'm really trying to understand your point.
Greater Armenia (state) has 5 sentences:
  1. The first one, with cn, is already covered by Kingdom_of_Armenia_(antiquity)#Artaxiad_dynasty => I did not move it.
  2. The second one, unsourced, is covered by Kingdom_of_Armenia_(antiquity)#Provinces => I moved the source there.
  3. The third one, unsourced, is indeed not in Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity). I removed it while editing the article. So when I transformed into a dab, I did not copy this unsourced content into Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity). Is this a problem?
  4. The fourth one about the Latin name and the distinction between Lesser and Greater Armenia, is already mentioned in Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity) as well. So I did not copy it to Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity) either.
  5. The fifth one about Cicilia, is unsourced and not covered in Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity). I could not find a source so I deleted it and later transformed into a dab. Is that an issue?
a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 16:27, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion is about deletion of Greater Armenia (state), as opposed to its merge to Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity). In your version, the first sentence is not expanded by material and sources in Kingdom_of_Armenia_(antiquity)#Artaxiad_dynasty, but removed for no RS. NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 00:29, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Doczilla Ohhhhhh, no! 07:21, 13 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, The WordsmithTalk to me 22:50, 20 December 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.
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