Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Solar eclipse of February 25, 1914

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 overall consensus is there is sufficient sourcing available to write an appropriate article on this event. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:35, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Solar eclipse of February 25, 1914[edit]

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Modern eclipses are routine, predictable events of little significance; there is no special notability guideline or policy indicating that they are automatically notable enough for a Wikipedia entry. I think they should therefore be judged according to WP:NEVENT, and unfortunately most Wikipedia articles for eclipses, including this one, fails the test:

WP:LASTING: It was a routine event. No wars happened because of it, no emperor was deposed for it. It happened as predicted (prediction of solar eclipses being a nearly perfected science even by then), people noted it, and then promptly forgot about it. All coverage of it would be from around the time it occurred on, other than entries in eclipse databases. It finds its place in various databases of all solar eclipses that ever occurred.

WP:GEOSCOPE: It was probably covered internationally, in all the countries the eclipse happened in/passed through. But this is routine stuff: the local press of various countries makes note of the solar eclipses that pass through their territory.

WP:DEPTH: There is nothing much indepth to say about most eclipses unless they precipitate some other important event in history; this is specially true for eclipses in modern times, as events where people claim them to be a supernatural sign or prophecy affecting worldly matters anymore.

WP:DURATION: All coverage of it, aside from what are essentially database entries, happened around the time it occurred.

WP:DIVERSITY: It was probably covered by a variety of sources, but nearly all coverage would be of the same type.

WP:ROUTINE: Perhaps no other class of events are as certain and accurately predictable as solar eclipses; it certainly seems like "routine coverage of planned events".

I'm bringing only a single article to the AfD to not be too disruptive, but the consensus on this would be relevant for many other eclipse articles in Category:Annular solar eclipses, and possibly other categories. TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 00:03, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Events and Astronomy. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 00:14, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep due to the wealth of astronomical information available about solar eclipses it is valuable to keep them. Regarding WP:GEOSCOPE, eclipses almost always receive coverage by local news when they occur. Eclipses are not WP:ROUTINE, each one has a unique path, duration, etc. DirtyHarry991 (talk) 05:06, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Based on the map, this annular eclipse passed over Antarctica and ocean, so it wouldn't have been widely observed, if at all. I could find no evidence of a solar eclipse expedition, which might otherwise have made at least slightly notable. It could probably just be redirected to List of solar eclipses in the 20th century. Praemonitus (talk) 05:57, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. This particular eclipse had no significance, and received no news coverage. Owen× ☎ 10:36, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete routine and unlikely search term. AryKun (talk) 20:13, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Antarctica-related deletion discussions. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 11:00, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to List of solar eclipses in the 20th century. This event was observable only in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, with some partiality in a sparsely populated part of South America. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 11:02, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment For the last couple weeks I have been on a project to expand some of these stubs with additional sourcing; in fact, the reason I had this article open was because I had just finished with 1913 and was moving onto 1914. I guess we will have to see, but I am quite opposed to the sight-unseen assumption that it "received no news coverage". There are very few eclipses for which this is the case, including ones that are "stupid" or "pointless" et cetera. I will have to go check my resources; I've found sources for about thirty or forty of these eclipse articles so far, and for some it is harder than others. jp×g 🗯️ 22:10, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ping @TryKid, DirtyHarry991, Praemonitus, OwenX, AryKun, and LaundryPizza03: per below jp×g 🗯️ 23:37, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note to closer: this was the article being commented on prior to here, hence the ping. jp×g 🗯️ 18:39, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, per the seven reports on two continents I was able to find for this expansion. The nominator mentions WP:NEVENT, but the very first bulletpoint of NEVENT is the general notability guideline. Looking at this article, I can assess it thus: is there significant coverage? Yes, since all of these seven articles are about the eclipse. Are they reliable sources? Yes, they are all reputable newspapers, and they're writing based on the observations of others. The NASA source is from 2004. Are they independent of the subject? Yes, I would be quite shocked to find out that they were writing these results as a result of payola from Big Moon.

Is the coverage "routine"? Well, in a sense, yes, but so is all coverage of anything -- it's "routine" for newspapers to write about the person who is elected president, it's "routine" for newspapers to write about when a tornado destroys a city, it's "routine" for newspapers to write about every single time two countries go to war, et cetera. Something does not have to single-handedly turn the wheel of history to be notable; there is no part of notability guidelines that says "emperors must be deposed". I don't know what the coverage being "of the same type" means. I don't think it makes sense to look at something that was covered extensively by reliable sources, is still mentioned in the context of historical eclipses, and say "well passing GNG doesn't count because the thing was stupid". jp×g 🗯️ 23:37, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

JPxG, GNG requires that the sources be secondary. News reports published near the time of the eclipse do not constitute "secondary sources", they are primary sources reporting on how to best view the eclipse or what others saw during the eclipse and so on. The NASA source is essentially a database entry, the database includes a chart of every eclipse that ever occurred within some time period. It is not significant coverage. Nearly every eclipse article on Wikipedia relies on this type of sourcing, recounting what various news papers said about an eclipse around the it occurred. None pass the GNG bar of "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources". regards, TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 10:03, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's circular logic to say that sources can't be significant coverage, because the event wasn't significant, because there was no significant coverage, et cetera. The "significant" in WP:SIGCOV does not mean "important and grandiose", it means "devoted primarily to the subject". That is to say, it's meant to exclude an article about the Tsar's ulcer that says "the surgery, which happened on the same day as an annular eclipse, went off just as elegantly as the moon across the sun." It's not meant to exclude an article about the eclipse that says "People went out to see the eclipse and here is what they said about it". jp×g 🗯️ 17:56, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
JPxG, I think you misunderstood me: my contention was that the NASA entries are not significant coverage; the newspaper reports, on the other hand do constitute significant coverage, but they're not secondary sources. cf. WP:PRIMARYNEWS. I don't see any kind of "retrospective" coverage, it's the same type of report one would see any other routine event. regards, TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 13:09, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I just don't really see the utility in reinterpreting the guidelines this way. There have been thousands of AfDs voted, judged and closed on the basis that verifiability, news coverage and inclusion in secondary sources suggests something is notable. But with this nomination you're explicitly setting out to go through about a hundred eclipse articles, so first of all there is a mountain to be moved: and second, why? You think they are "of little significance", okay, but there is tons of stuff on Wikipedia that is dumb and lame. The standard you seem to want to apply here, that things should be deleted unless they have some kind of perpetual worldwide relevance, is at odds with a lot of consensus and a lot of content. jp×g 🗯️ 06:38, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. WP:5P1 suggests Wikipedia has features of almanacs. Eclipses have long been a feature of almanacs. (In fact here's an almanac listing this very eclipse [1]). Additionally, (relatedly), in response to the above, news reports about upcoming eclipses are indeed relying on scientific predictions and thus are secondary. And of course, the NASA source is indeed a strong one. Personally, I can't see how the encyclopedia is improved by deleting such articles, though I could see a compelling argument for WP:NOPAGE merges-in-full of these articles in some way that improves the way these are presented to the reader. A delete or even redirect to a table row leaves the encyclopedia weaker. —siro χ o 10:59, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Convinced by JPxG's arguments and additional sources to change my opinion. Thank you for your work on this! Owen× ☎ 19:21, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Not convinced by the nominator's arguments, especially after JPxG's expansion (and also don't see the sources used as primary, like Siroxo said). Definitely not convinced by the "unlikely search term" argument, otherwise we'd have to delete a better half of the Wikipedia. AstonishingTunesAdmirer 連絡 00:14, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to List of solar eclipses in the 20th century. Just the routine coverage during the short news cycle, lacking WP:CONTINUEDCOVERAGE. It didn't produce any secondary coverage (in contrast with the solar eclipse in August 1914) and being mentioned in a NASA's database doesn't mean it is notable. --C messier (talk) 17:48, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: I see no consensus. But I'd like to the thank the nominator for floating this AFD to be about one article rather than posting a huge bundled nomination. Let's test the waters.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:17, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per the excellent nomination statement (really a redirect is fine too, but meh). Except for the recent additions by jpxg (I'll get to those in a second), this is a pure cookie-cutter article of statistics that could essentially be auto-generated from a database, every single eclipse article would be virtually identical with only the particular details of that eclipse differing. Not only that, but the vast majority of this article isn't even about this eclipse, but is just tables of other eclipses and an explanation of the basics of eclipses that has no business being in an article as specific as this. The basics of the stats can and should be in summary list-type articles; that much is perfectly fine.
But none of the keep !votes address the lack of any sustained coverage or lasting impact of this event. Adding in a couple blurbs from routine (yes, it's routine) coverage in the press of the day does nothing but confirm that yes, people knew when and where this eclipse would occur, even over 100 years ago. There's nothing even remotely in-depth about any of the coverage. The first one I checked, for example, was all of three sentences long. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 04:53, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

35.139.154.158 (talk) 04:53, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The sources are sufficient to support an article. In particular WP:V is clearly met. WP:GNG is debatable, but not really key, IMO. Since most contemporary eclipses are highly notable it makes more sense to organize our coverage so that each 20th century eclipse has its own article rather than spending time debating exactly how much news coverage is necessary to support notability. This is really just about the organization of content since the basic facts will be included in list articles about this series of eclipses either way. Removing the article leaves a gap in our eclipse coverage that is annoying to some editors bust doesn't really help readers in any way that I can see. Eluchil404 (talk) 00:10, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep based on contemporaneous news reports, some of which note where it would have been visible, even if only a few people would be there to see it (e.g., "Two Eclipses of Moon in 1914", The Kansas Evening Star (February 28, 1914), p. 3):

Four eclipses, two solar and two lunar, will occur in 1914. The first one of these has already performed and left the stage. Maybe you didn't notice it, but it occurred February 24. This was what is known as an annular eclipse; the moon finally seems to cover up the center of the sun, leaving a ring-like fiery border all around the former. Our moon at her distance from us cannot apparently conceal the sun's disk from sight and what is seen of his disk appears like a complete blazing circle. The eclipse of February 24 was not particularly interesting from a popular standpoint and was not to be seen in North America. The moon not only crosses the fiery disk of the sun, but also intercepts some of the solar light from the earth. Wherever this lunar shadow falls is called the "path of eclipse," and the inhabitants of that region see the moon partially or totally cover for a while the face of the sun. Our earth and moon are both in motion, particularly our earth. The widest shadow cast by the moon is only 167 miles, and accordingly, a solar eclipse can be seen only from a limited part of the world. On February 24 this lunar shadow did not fall upon North America, for the path of the annulus remained entirely within the Antarctic and South Pacific oceans. Therefore it was witnessed by the inhabitants in the southern part of Patagonia and the eastern coast of New Zealand. But though the citizens of Independence were not able to see the solar eclipse of February 24th, they will be able to see some of the solar eclipse of August 24. On that day the moon will wholly hide the face of the sun; but unfortunately this eclipse will appear to the citizens of this city only as a partial eclipse.

BD2412 T 01:51, 25 November 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.