Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of wars named for their duration

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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 delete‎. I find the arguments to keep very weak; "it's harmless" has no basis in policy at all, we need an affirmative reason to keep any page. The navigational purpose argument is stronger, but does not have consensus. I don't see much argumentation about DAB pages for similarly-named conflicts, which I understand this page originally was; this discussion does not preclude the (re)creation of such a page, but it would not be at the current title. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:49, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

List of wars named for their duration[edit]

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List of wars named for their duration (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Fails WP:LISTN, no evidence that this is a notable list covered by multiple reliable independent secondary sources. Basically WP:LISTCRUFT. Nothing found in WP:BEFORE that would support notability (though honestly I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to be looking for) - this just isn't a thing.

Not a valid WP:DAB because there is no real reason to combine these into a single page.

Reviewing the 2015 AFD it just looks like people focused on the idea of renaming the page, rather than whether the resulting page would be of any use. FOARP (talk) 16:26, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: History and Military. FOARP (talk) 16:26, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 17:09, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. PamD 15:45, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete another unsourced list; I'd !keep if there was some sort of discussion about the use of time-periods when naming wars or some sort of critical discussion of the issue, it's just a fancy wall of text otherwise. Basically trivia at this point. Oaktree b (talk) 20:16, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Previous AFD was at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Years'_War The result was keep. Also rename to List of wars named for their duration. Black Kite (talk) 13:16, 26 July 2015 (UTC) Dream Focus 01:11, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Tavix, Seyasirt, Clarityfiend, PWilkinson, Peterkingiron, Boleyn, Necrothesp, BD2412, North of Eden, Anotherclown, and Black Kite: as the contributors to and closer of the previous AfD at a different title. PamD 06:47, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I admit a COI: I saw the original AfD for a dab page because it was on a list of dab page AfD alerts, and it caught my interest so I developed it from the IAR-ish dab page (titled "Years' War") to an expanded, sortable, table. As I said in the previous AfD "It's trivia, but mildly encyclopedic". I now find several discussions of the importance of the choice of names of wars (eg Brookings, Quora, Bacevich) all of which acknowledge that duration is one of the options, used for many wars. Perhaps we need an article on "Naming of wars", which we currently do not seem to have (although we have one specific case: Names of the American Civil War), and which would refer to this, or include this list as a section. We have Lists of wars, to which I have today added this one. Jill Lepore's book The Name of War, while it is about the multi-named King Philip's War (which I don't think I'd ever heard of, in my UK education and reading), appears to include a discussion of the naming of wars. This list gathers together a large set of wars with a common characteristic: that one of their major names defines it by a time period. It is one aspect of the broader topic of "Naming of wars", and I think has value for the reader who can half-remember "What was that conflict, it was called the n years war wasn't it?" or similar, whether while solving a crossword or researching a topic, as well as the curious reader who thinks "OK, we have the six days' war and the thirty years' war, are there any others?". I think this list has a place in our encyclopedia, though perhaps in future merged into the not-yet-written article "Naming of wars". PamD 07:19, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I reviewed the Brookings entry in my WP:BEFORE. None of them are sigcov for anything other than the naming of conflicts in general, not for the actual topic here which is "wars named for their duration". That this might be included in an article that might be written is not a valid reason to keep it. I honestly cannot see how this list would not be just massively undue even in such a context since it would be for a very specific kind of naming. Even if this were effectively a list split off such an article, for a WP:SPLITLIST to be valid it has to pass the relevant notability standard per WP:AVOIDSPLIT, in this case that would be WP:LISTN. I just don't see how this passes that standard since at no point are wars named after their duration discussed "directly and in detail" in any of these sources. Just to highlight the extent to which these sources are not sigcov for this article's topic, here's the complete relevant coverage in each article -
  • Brookings: "Other times, wars are named by how long they lasted, from just Six Days (1967) to as much as Thirty (1618-1648) or even One Hundred Years (1337-1453)." A single sentence of ~20 words.
  • Quora (which is most definitely not a reliable source) : "Others are named by their length (after they end) - 30 years, 7 year, 9 year, 6 day wars etc." A single sentence of ~18 words.
  • Bacevitch - actually doesn't address the topic of wars named after their length directly and in detail anywhere.
This appears instead to be a non-encyclopaedic cross-categorisation (WP:CROSSCAT), which is against WP:NOT (specifically, Wikipedia is not a directory). FOARP (talk) 08:08, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Bacevich doesn't say much, but does say: If you incorporate the European conflict of 1914-1918 and the European conflict of 1939-1945 into a single narrative, you get a Second Thirty Years War (the first having occurred from 1618-1648). PamD 10:46, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's not addressing the topic "directly and in detail", though, is it? It's a sentence of 34 words that at most obliquely references it. All I'm getting from this is "some conflicts are named after their length" for which, well, duh, but collecting them in a list just seems like WP:TRIVIA/WP:LISTCRUFT. FOARP (talk) 12:07, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. There is not a requirement that a list topic be the end-all-be-all of lists to be of interest or use to readers. BD2412 T 14:29, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is a requirement that they be notable? And not offend against WP:NOT? This is a WP:CROSSCAT and doesn't pass WP:LISTN, your classic "List of X of Y" set. FOARP (talk) 14:44, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Are you asking me? I think there is sufficient support for the notability of the list as is, but would not be averse to merging this into a broader article on the naming of wars. BD2412 T 21:08, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
BD2412 - Which documents do you think give this support? I agree that maybe two of the references above give significant coverage to a "naming of wars" article (not Quora, as it's not a reliable source) but only one of them even directly addresses the idea of naming a war after its length and that's in a single sentence of about 20 words. FOARP (talk) 08:15, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Does not appear to pass WP:NLIST, as evidenced by FOARP's analysis above, and the "keep" rationales above read a lot like "I like it" or it's interesting", neither of which convince me. If an article titled Naming of wars existed (Google Scholar has at least a few hits for the expression, so there's some potential there), I'd see that as a potential redirect target, but it doesn't and we sure can't redirect to a red link. -Ljleppan (talk) 08:27, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Ljleppan: We can't redirect to a red link, but we can move this to that red link and build from there. BD2412 T 16:20, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      @BD2412: I don't really see the current content as a useful starting point for that article. Ljleppan (talk) 16:42, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm kind of confused why the people who favour keeping don't actually favour keeping but instead moving? To an article that doesn't exist? And if it did, it is hard to see how this list could be a useful part of it? FOARP (talk) 19:06, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How would we have an article on naming of wars that omits the list of wars named for their duration? BD2412 T 19:12, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Very, very easily, there being no reason at all to list all of them exhaustively? For a WP:SPLITLIST to be warranted it has to pass WP:AVOIDSPLIT, which in this case it wouldn’t. FOARP (talk) 21:08, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 16:32, 30 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep a useful list for navigation. List does not fail WP:NLIST, which states that there is consensus that lists of items discussed in RS as a notable group are notable, but doesn't say that other lists are not notable, but rather says that there's no consensus about "Lists of x of y" and other lists useful for navigation or other purposes.Jahaza (talk) 23:40, 30 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    NLIST says "One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources". I see exactly one 20-word sentence cited above from an RS that even mentions the idea of naming wars after their duration. This is not a discussion of the group/set since nothing is really said about them, much less multiple examples of different independent, reliable sources discussing it.
    What you're proposing is a notability standard for lists lower than WP:GNG, meaning that a list of wars named after their duration would be notable whilst an article about the concept "wars named after their duration" could not possibly be. This cannot be right since it would essentially negate GNG, as you could then write articles about the concept based only on passing mentions but simply include a list into them and, hey-presto!, GNG no longer applies. FOARP (talk) 07:03, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I don’t know why we have most lists tbh. Unless it’s for significant statistics (not “oldest left-handed quarterbacks in Canadian football”), articles about lists, or maybe award listings, what benefit at all does a hard-to-maintain, hard-to-format article have over an automatically expanded and alphabetized category? Dronebogus (talk) 10:22, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree that lists should not be used as a pseudo-category, or back-door route to write about non-notable subjects. If you can't write a GNG-passing article about "X", then "list of X" is also going to be non-notable. FOARP (talk) 10:29, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    You should propose a change to the guideline then, not put up for deletion lists on the basis that they don't meet a guideline that doesn't say that. Jahaza (talk) 22:43, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I like the idea of tighter list requirements but my last experience at village pump gave a strong sense that the community is instinctively hostile to “more rules” Dronebogus (talk) 03:00, 1 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    What you're proposing is a notability standard for lists lower than WP:GNG, meaning that a list of wars named after their duration would be notable whilst an article about the concept "wars named after their duration" could not possibly be.
    I'm not proposing it, the guideline is saying that there's consensus that lists can meet the standard of notability as a list, but that they don't always have to. You can't just read one sentence of NLIST.

    There is no present consensus for how to assess the notability of more complex and cross-categorization lists (such as "Lists of X of Y") or what other criteria may justify the notability of stand-alone lists, although non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations are touched upon in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a directory. Lists that fulfill recognized informational, navigation, or development purposes often are kept regardless of any demonstrated notability. Editors are still urged to demonstrate list notability via the grouping itself before creating stand-alone lists.

    Jahaza (talk) 22:42, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I’m pointing out that that makes no sense, this is *particularly* the case as the majority of people !voting keep here are doing it because they think there *should* be an article about the concept “wars named after their duration”.
    Your’re saying you don’t think it matters that no such article can be written due to lack of sources, but it is the lynchpin of the keep argument in this discussion.
    Also, even in WP:USEFUL terms, I disagree that it is useful since we already have List of conflicts by duration which is where people will go to find wars that last X amount of time and receives far more page views (~20 times more) than this page. FOARP (talk) 06:08, 1 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @FOARP That list sounded interesting, and I wondered about even adding a sortable tick column for "wars named after their duration" to provide the same kind of information as this list ... but it's in a poor state. It has a "sortable" duration column which doesn't function because no-one has done anything to standardise the sort keys (OK, slightly redundant as the list is sorted by duration, but it means it can't be sorted back once sorted by anything else). And apparently no wars have started since 2014. PamD 07:26, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
All of which sound like reasons to work on that page, not keep this one. FOARP (talk) 07:50, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, mostly per nom. The argument to keep seems to be that it's WP:USEFUL. To which I reply: why not make it a category? If it is too trivial to be a valid category, I don't see how a list is better. Walt Yoder (talk) 00:25, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It’s not too trivial, very little is; it just seems like some people are convinced 90% of our readers don’t know categories exist. Dronebogus (talk) 06:54, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    If readers use a mobile, then categories don't exist for them. PamD 07:35, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
UI issues are not a reason to keep non-notable listcruft articles. They are a reason to change the UI. FOARP (talk) 07:50, 3 June 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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