Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Order of battle for the Battle of Long Tan

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 lack of policy discussion in this AfD suggests that this is not a deletion issue but an editorial issue. Further editorial discussions about possible mergers should be held on the relevant talk pages. Pax:Vobiscum (talk) 18:40, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Order of battle for the Battle of Long Tan

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Completely unnecessary fork from the already overlong Battle of Long Tan, all relevant information is already contained on that page. A separate order of battle is completely unwarranted for such a minor action involving small forces. Mztourist (talk) 04:55, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Mztourist (talk) 04:56, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions. Mztourist (talk) 08:47, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Vietnam-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 12:17, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. Someone needs to go through the battle article and deal with the excessive level of detail. I'm also going to nominate Assessment of the Battle of Long Tan. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:06, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is a perfectly viable article. The Battle of Long Tan is the most important Australian battle of the Vietnam War, and the huge number of accounts of the engagement usually include detailed descriptions of the forces involved. Nick-D (talk) 07:35, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment with all due respect to those who participated, Long Tan was a trivial 4 hour engagement that has been vastly overwritten. Far more significant battles of the Vietnam War: Battle of Ia Drang, Battle of Dak To, Battle of Khe Sanh, Battle of Hue, Battle of Hamburger Hill, Cambodian Campaign and Operation Lam Son 719 and other wars don't have such extensive pages describing the battle and then also supporting pages such as this unnecessary order of battle and the excessive Assessment of the Battle of Long Tan.Mztourist (talk) 08:31, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - With respect, your views aren't relevant here per Wikipedia's usual emphasis on reliable sources rather than what individual contributors happen to think. There are a vast number of RS on this topic given its significance in Australia. We also have plenty of other articles which provide orders of battle for individual engagements, some of which are FAs. WP:NOTPAPER also applies. Nick-D (talk) 09:02, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    - "Given its significance in Australia" appears to sum up your whole argument. This isn't about the existence of RS, its about whether or not this page is needed as a standalone when its all more than adequately covered on the main page. The fact that we may have "plenty of other articles which provide orders of battle for individual engagements" is unconvincing as such pages usually are where large diverse forces are involved (see [1]) which isn't the case here. WP:NOTPAPER is similarly unconvincing Mztourist (talk) 09:10, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Already covered in way more detail then it needs to be in the original article. There's zero reason to have a unique article for the order the battle was in. Unless there was some uniquely notable thing about "the order the battle happened in." Which there doesn't seem to be. So it shouldn't have an article on it's own as a subject just through association. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:55, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Adamant1: I think that you've misunderstood the topic of the article. An order of battle is a list of military units, not the order something happened in. It's quite common for military history works to have annexes setting out the order of battle for the units involved in the topic the work covers. Nick-D (talk) 09:02, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - That's possible. I still think what I said would apply though. Unless there is something uniquely notable about the order of battle for the units (or whatever) it doesn't warrant it's own article. At least not in this case IMO. --Adamant1 (talk) 09:12, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Merge I do not see how this warrants its own article. It is, however, direclty relevant detail for the battle. Put it into a show hide collapse div at the end of the main article. Aoziwe (talk) 12:00, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - the article contains relevant and reliably sourced details for the battle. To the extent there is duplicated material, AfD is not cleanup - merger proposals should be debated on the talk page rather than here. This is also a bad faith nomination - Mztourist expressed a merge proposal on the article's talk page and then started the AfD without bothering to let it run its course. Bookscale (talk) 10:41, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Response Bookscale nothing bad faith at all, I never proposed a merger, I made a comment on the Talk Page questioning if the page was necessary, having received no response after a week I put the page up for AFD. The page is entirely duplicative of information already contained on the overlong Battle of Long Tan Mztourist (talk) 11:02, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment - you didn't wait a week, and you didn't even contact the author of the page. And I repeat my comments about AfD not being for cleaning up articles. Bookscale (talk) 11:10, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    - Response Bookscale I don't have to wait any length of time (yes I was 5 hours short of a week - sue me!), nor do I have any obligation to contact the author of the page (who I know has Retired). This is not a matter of cleaning up articles, it is about deleting a totally redundant fork that is already covered on the main page. Mztourist (talk) 11:16, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      - Comment - if you thought it was redundant and you think the editor is retired, why didn't you just merge (or redirect if you contend there is nothing to merge) the content then? Bookscale (talk) 11:19, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        Because there's nothing worth merging, its all on the main page. Rather than blanking and redirecting I put it up for AFD so that other Users can express their views on it. Mztourist (talk) 11:21, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        It clearly wasn't the original intent behind the AfD to use it for something they aren't intended for. But If an AfD does lead to cleanup, then surely that's to the benefit of Wikipedia. So why even make an issue out of it? --Adamant1 (talk) 04:22, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: there seems sufficient coverage to support a stand alone order of battle article, IMO. Orders of battle are quite common in the coverage of battles (not just on Wikipedia, but in books and other mediums etc), and IMO it makes it easier for the reader to quickly determine what units took part, using a list format, without having to wade through the prose of the main battle article (which should arguably just focus on just the main formations, IMO). If the main battle article has too much detail in this regard, I'd suggest paring it back to utilise the OOB article/list to provide the detail. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:51, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Response I refer to my comments on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Assessment of the Battle of Long Tan regarding SIGCOV and Australiocentricity. I am not sure what criteria there are (if any) for creating separate stand alone order of battle articles, but on my quick skim of pages in the Category:Orders of battle, Long Tan seems to be the shortest and simplest and is the only Vietnam War battle order of battle. My understanding is that an order of battle is used to add clarity where there are multiple units/squadrons/ships/fleets in a battle that might confuse a reader and that just wasn't the case at Long Tan. One Australian infantry company was engaged by a VC force of unknown size composed of 2 or 3 different units, air and artillery support was provided and then 2 more infantry companies and some APCs arrived and that was the battle. It all fits easily into the Infobox with no confusion. Mztourist (talk) 13:25, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 13:09, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Nick-D and AustralianRupert Bumbubookworm (talk) 22:20, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep We have plenty of OrBat articles, and putting this detail in a separate article is valid under WP:SPINOFF. I accept Mztourist's point that Long Tan has had far too much written about it, but in Wikipedia terms that amounts to WP:SIGCOV. "Uniquely notable" is not the criterion for lists; significant coverage in reliable sources is. Yes, it could be in the main article, but moving material into a subarticle is valid under WP:SPINOFF. That no other Vietnam War engagement has an OrBat falls under WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST: "The nature of Wikipedia means that you cannot make a convincing argument based solely on whether other articles do or do not exist, because there is nothing stopping anyone from creating any article." Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:29, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Hawkeye7 I see your WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST and raise you WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS in relation to "We have plenty of OrBat articles". In relation to WP:SPINOFF as I have pointed out above the Long Tan OrBat is not sufficiently complicated to justify its own page, fitting easily into the Infobox and it appears to be the smallest OrBat on WP. There needs to be some commonsense applied here, an OrBat is only justified if it clarifies a complicated mix of forces and that wasn't the case at Long Tan. Mztourist (talk) 04:57, 20 February 2020 (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.