Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of ships of the Hanseatic League

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 no consensus. Sandstein 07:21, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of ships of the Hanseatic League[edit]

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An unreferenced very short list. It has been nearly four years, but this very short list has never grown larger than two items - and presumably never will. It is not useful as a list and should be deleted. Kugao (talk) 15:06, 13 November 2010 (UTC) Kugao (talk) 15:06, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

weak keep This was prodded as "Unreferenced very short list." a few minutes ago, I removed it and the original prodifier has moved to AfD. WP:IMPERFECT seems relevant here. To address the issues:

"Unreferenced". The two articles listed are adequate in themselves. A longer list might want its references to be made more explicit, but this i no reason for deletion.
"Very short". Whilst it's currently very short, the conceptual limit of the list could be far longer. I would welcome expansion, but present shortness is no reason for deletion.

As always, there's a question as to whether a category or a list is the best choice. As it stands there's no reason to favour one or the other, but we might reconsider this post expansion. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:00, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 16:23, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 16:23, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. IMO this is precisely a case when a category is just right and a list is useless. The League operated how many? thousands of ships over many centuries. There was no single registry, no single flag (and I'd assume that many small boats never had anything like a real flag, and no one would care to register them anywhere even if they could. Middle Ages). Only a few of these ships made history. Only two are on wikipedia. Wikipedia will never have anything like a "complete list", and no one will. Then why attempt the futile task, at all? Use categories! East of Borschov 18:13, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd have no issue with replacing this by a category. Would the nom here see that as acceptable, or would they see the same reasons for deletion applying to both category and list? Andy Dingley (talk) 18:26, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I take no issue with replacing this list with a category. Kugao (talk) 18:26, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The list gives the false impression that these two ships are somehow more important than the other hundreds the league used. I don't think we should have a list when so little is known. It seems to me that just putting the category for the League itself would be fine for the articles, rather than having a sub-category for two articles. Although that would not do any harm.Jaque Hammer (talk) 19:19, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I did a Google book search for the Hanseatic League[1]. Not sure how many ships were in it, if they are listed anywhere, and how many would be notable enough to have their own articles. Were the two listed the only famous or important ones? Should be more. Anyway, it is quite is quite encyclopedic. You want to know about a historical group, then having a list of all the ships that were part of it, would aid you in understanding that. At least two of those ships are notable enough to have their own Wikipedia articles. And you can't make it into a category, since any category with only two entries would be deleted very quickly. It hurts nothing by remaining here, Wikipedia not paper WP:NOTPAPER so not going to run out of any space, and it can aid those interested in the subject to have a greater understanding of things. This league was far more famous in another nation, probably taught to all the school children there, so perhaps an article in their language's Wikipedia will show more results. I'll check on that. Dream Focus 20:44, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Typical 2007 Wikipedia article, with no sources, no real information, and no action after getting started as a stub. Until someone cares about writing an article about the military campaigns of the Hanseatic League (we have a Category:Wars involving the Hanseatic League), the two ships here (the Adler von Lübeck and the Peter von Danzig can be mentioned in a couple of sentences in the Hanseatic League article. Wikipedia isn't paper, but it isn't waste paper either. Mandsford 21:08, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Creating this list several years ago, I thought it would take off soon, but it never materialized. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:40, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I see potential for expansion, even if it is in a currently weak state. This pic at commons has 6 ships on it, if we could identify them, we would have something to expand the list with. This book, starting at page 141 specifically discusses ships of the hansa, both in terms of general models of ship (the cog, the caravel, etc.) and of specific named ships. This book only allows a limited preview, but even in that I can see specifically named ships. There are certainly more notable named ships of the Hansa, given the sheer number that were likely in existence. The fact that this article only has two listed is not a testament to the lack of notable Hansa ships, just a testament to the lack of editors who have found the time to write articles about them. Since Wikipedia is not finished, we shouldn't delete those parts that aren't finished without compelling reasoning. I don't see a compelling reason to delete this. --Jayron32 03:06, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Addendum: If someone wanted to, one could translate this article from teh German Wikipedia, which is about a "Hansecog" (Hanseatic Cog) named the Bunte Kuh. Here is another named the Jesus von Lubeck, and here is another named the Leopoldus Primus. Here is another possible one, named "Wapen von Hamburg". Here's another about a notable hanseatic shipwreck, the original name doesn't appear to be known, but its still a notable hanseatic ship. --Jayron32 03:16, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Good find! There should be a wikiproject or something somewhere on Wikipedia where you can ask people who speak another language to check it out. I used the search, but couldn't find anything. Can't think of what it'd be called if it exist. Dream Focus 19:24, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - For the record, I don't speak any German beyond counting to five, ordering a beer at a bar, and a few choice swear words. I just started from the ships that already existed at the English Wikipedia, followed the interlanguage links, and then started picking through categories. The books were all English language books I found in 15 minutes at Google Books. --Jayron32 05:18, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as per Jayron. Sources clearly exist and there's plenty of room for expansion. Edward321 (talk) 23:58, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: A category might be appropriate, but this is a several year old unsourced, unreferenced list with just two ships on it. Yes, it's quite possible to find books on the Hanseatic League, but no one's proposing deleting the League's own article. Beyond that, the very subject is inaccurate. The League was a loose confederation of city-states; it had no standing navy. Any vessels involved in the League's military campaigns were private vessels homeported at one or other of the League members, lent for the duration of the fighting. Considerably more is necessary to meet WP:V than "Oh, there's a picture of ships, they must be Hanseatic League ships and there must be information on those ships somewhere or other." Ravenswing 17:18, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Notable ships that were recorded as being part of that league, have been identified in the German language Wikipedia, they having stricter rules of notability for articles than we have. So they already found ample sources to prove this. You could have a list of notable/famous ships of the American Civil War, and list those with articles or a lot of historical coverage. Same thing. List of notable/famous ships in the Hanseatic League might be more appropriate since not every single ship in it will be worth listing. Dream Focus 19:28, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Really? And your sources for them being "Hanseatic League" ships is what? From what I'm seeing above, the provenance of this speculation is that some editors who admittedly do not speak German are finding articles on 15th century ships operating out of the Baltic. Speaking to your analogy, no, you couldn't have a list of notable/famous ships of the "American Civil War." You could have a list of (for instance) Confederate Navy ships, that being a verifiable list pertaining to a particular organization. For here, I could see a List of notable 15th century ships, for instance. Ravenswing 19:52, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Here [2] it is from Google translator. They list ships in that league. Dream Focus 21:39, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I presume you didn't actually click on those links; you would have found that the Adler von Lubeck was, in fact, a warship of Lubeck (but which never, in fact, served), that the Bunte Kuh was a converted merchantman in the service of Hamburg, that the Jesus of Lubeck was built in Lubeck but was in fact an English naval ship, that the Leopoldus Primus was put into service after the last meeting of the League, and the Peter von Danzig was in service to the city of Danzig for a year before passing into private hands? In any event, you're quite aware that Wikipedia is itself not a reliable source. Do you have any specific reliable sources you would care to cite to back your assertion that these are "Hanseatic" ships? Ravenswing 21:51, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They are in a category for that. Their articles mention the "Hanseatic League" in them. And the references are listed at the bottom of those articles. The first ship listed, Adler von Lübeck, or the Eagle of Lübeck, has Fritze, Konrad & Krause, Günter (1997): "naval war of the Hanseatic League," Brandenburg publisher / Siegler, Berlin as well as Dollinger, Philippe (1998), "The Hanseatic League, Alfred Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart. It was part of the league, even if it didn't serve in active combat. Google translator says "Handelsschiffen der Hanse" translates as "Merchant ships of the Hanseatic League".[3]. So the article says its in that league, and has references to back that up. Dream Focus 22:23, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And you've reviewed those sources to verify that they say what you claim they say? No, of course not. Sorry, after the Ashley Wood AfD, I'm afraid I'm not taking your assumptions on sources on faith. You cannot really be asking us to accept that "An article about this ship has a book about the Hanseatic League as a source" equals "This ship was an official vessel of the Hanseatic League." Ravenswing 02:12, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Whoever put them and many other sources in the German articles reviewed those sources. Do you not trust the Germans? I'm not going to go out and buy a copy of those books, learn to speak German, and read them myself. As for as the Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ashley_A._Wood, what does that have to do with this here? The first link shows ample news coverage from a major news program. The fact that it was based in the same well populated city that she is in, made someone declare it invalid, calling it local coverage, which is ridiculous, since this isn't just some small town which covers everything, but a major city. Dream Focus 10:04, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No one's asking you to learn German. What I am asking you to do is restrict your claims about what sources say to what they actually do say, and to not read wishful thinking into them. The parallel to the Wood AfD was that it was a case in which - in like fashion - you made exaggerated and inaccurate claims for sources. Ravenswing 14:18, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The scope of the list needs to be defined, but there is justification for the list to exist. The fact that it may never be complete is neither here nor there, as that applies to the vast majority of ship lists. Mjroots (talk) 17:27, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep Be nice to have something a little larger, but not issues with keeping it as is. We aren't going to run out of space anytime soon.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:02, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep A category would be as useful for navigation. However a list full of redlinks is useful as a guide for new articles. Probably should include at least 1 ref for a redlink entry so people some starting point. I don't understand the contention that these ships would only be notable if they were part of a standing navy (rare anywhere in that period). The Hanseatic League was primarily about trade and when I saw the title my first thought was merchant ships.Dankarl (talk) 18:59, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reply: That wasn't the contention; the contention was that since the League was an association of sovereign city-states, the only way they could be "ships of the League" was if the League maintained a standing navy, which it never did. The issue of whether the ships themselves are notable isn't on the table. (And that being said, would the previous three Keep voters care to express a policy reason to retain? "There's justification for it to exist," "We're not running out of space" and "It's useful" are scarcely valid ones.) Ravenswing 19:58, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's a different sense of "ships of..." Were we to write "Ships of France" it could just as well include French merchant ships. Likewise we could then write "Ships of the EU" and it would include all the ships of all the states of the EU. Same situation 700 years earlier.Dankarl (talk) 04:07, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and improve. Add to the list, and add a prose lead section at least. Perhaps later the article would have a prose summary on each ship. These types of historical articles are the kind of material Wikipedia needs to encourage more of. It's much harder to find free online reliable sources for ships of the Hanseatic League (and editors willing to do the work) than for a list of Grey's Anatomy episodes, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't endeavor to expand our information on the Hanseatic League.--Johnsemlak (talk) 17:51, 20 November 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.