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 Alex Bakharev 22:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Border history of Romania

[edit]

A first nomination for deletion resulted in no consensus more than half a year ago. Many users voted "keep" in the hope that the article would shortly be improved. I still believe this is not possible, since whatever encyclopedic content could be included in this article belongs rather to the History of Romania article. This standpoint is now more or less proven by the facts that (1) there have been 4 edits to this article since the previous AfD, none of which was in any way substantial, and (2) the only reference to this article (from the article space) remains a single link in the "See also" section of the History of Romania article.

Apart from being practically useless (the images can be used later even if the article gets deleted now), this article also runs a mild risk of becoming a POV fork at some time, since it allows presenting historical states without providing enough context on what they do or do not have in common with modern states, unlike other articles containing sufficient amounts of prose (such as the well-written History of Romania series). Delete. K issL 15:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Per nom and the arguments for deletion given in the first nomination. Wikipedia is Not Wikimedia Commons. Gizza^Chat ^© 09:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I've posted a short message to the talk pages of all users who took part in the first AfD. K issL 09:12, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. As I said before, these pictures would be better served in the history of Romania article itself, if anywhere. That article is better than it was the first time around, but could still use more pictures. Grand master ka 09:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as unencyclopaedic at present. However, I will change my vote if the cleanup is carried out satisfactorily. Vizjim 09:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep notable topic, needs expanding (but how many articles in need of expansion are there and are never deleted?). Dpotop 10:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe all objections are about the un-wikiness of the article, not about its current state. When something is absurd, you don't make it better by expanding it. Dahn 10:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per KissL, Grandmasterka, and DaGizza. To which I will add: not only is that article a POV fork of no relevant use, but it is also not about what its title says it is about (the borders of Dacia and medieval Transylvania are certainly not the borders "of Romania", and wikipedia catalogs the more popular imaginary realms, not individual fantasies). Dahn 10:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or Merge this is not Wikimedia commons. - Francis Tyers · 10:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete In the middle ages, the East-Roman Empire was called Romania, thus, the title is not hisorically correct. If the title was eg. Historical states on the terriory of present-day Romania, there would be no problem with it. But if these maps were included in Category:Maps of the history of Romania, there would be no need for this article at all --KIDB 10:55, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Very simply, this article contains information that is more easily presented visually than in text. This is another example. I did not check each map, but it seems to me there are few if any fair use images there; that is not a reason not to have a gallery of these maps. Perhaps a move to something more precisely descriptive of the contents, like Gallery of historical maps of Romania, might be in order. - Smerdis of Tlön 12:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: As said above in various ways, one of the problems is that a state called Romania has only existed since the 19th century, not the 1st century BC. What exactly was going on during those two millennia is not straightforward enough to be able to be conveyed by just a series of maps. (Otherwise, why don't we present the histories of all countries like that?) KissL 15:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment - The captions in the article, while they surely could be expanded, made it reasonably clear that the various states in the region were not all called Romania. "Romania" and "Romanian" are one of those ambiguous terms that can mean both a citizen of a state of Romania, and a speaker of a Balkan Romance language. We don't present the history of some other countries like that because no one has written those articles yet. A category would be a poor substitute for this page; shifting borders would be harder to track. (FWIW, countries with less complicated histories can present similar data differently; look at Image:USA Territorial Growth small.gif. If this has something to do with Balkan ethnic politics, please say so. - Smerdis of Tlön 15:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Indirectly, it does have somewhat to do with ethnic politics – most ethnic groups over here are trying to prove in various ways that "they were first" in the neighbourhood where they currently are and even its surroundings. In this sense, the situation is not analogous to the US, where a consensus exists on historiography (unless I'm badly mistaken). However, if we were talking about an article titled "Border history of the US" containing just the maps in Image:USA Territorial Growth small.gif with some captions, my opinion would still be that it is not (and has no hope of becoming) encyclopedic. K issL 16:45, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, its just maps and maps. Well, my opinion on this article being kept has changed. Since nothing has been done since June 2006, this article does not deserve to be kept. As for the maps, they can be in a category and I don't see why its useful. Terence 13:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Notable for Romanian history. It needs clean-up, but that's not a good enough reason to delete it. It also needs more text, but maps are a very good way to refer information. --Roamataa 13:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Border History is not a good way to organise this; it'd make more sense split up, the maps put into the main article or into articles about each period. fel64 14:44, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Needs a cleanup is not a rational for deletion, I see none other presented. Is this nomination a joke or something? WilyD 14:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Wikipedia is not a mere collection of images, and I have seen no indication that the "article" in question will be otherwise. Olessi 15:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep or Move to Commons. - Jmabel | Talk 16:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

delete per WP:NOT. WP articles are not galleries. Nor should they be. The function of pictures is to illustrate articles and not to be articles by themselves. While deleting the articles, keep images of course and use them in proper articles with History of Romania series being the most natural candidate. A commons entry is also a solution to have all these maps handy in one place. --Irpen 18:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

delete per nom. I copy this page to Commoms. See commons:Border history of Romania. --Yakudza 20:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral - on the one hand, this is not the border history "of Romania", but rather goes back much farther. On the other hand, given the existence of articles like Territorial changes of Poland, Territorial evolution of the United States and Territorial evolution of Canada, the article does have potential, provided either a change in title or a shift in focus to post-1859. Biruitorul 01:03, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and maybe change the name of the article in Territorial evolution of Romania. We can not include in the History of Romania all details, is better to have a separate article and in the main article to have a link to it.--MariusM 01:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and rename as Territorial evolution of Romania, the definition of national boundaries is a very significant topic, especially for a country that has evolved so much as this one. --FateClub 20:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Transwikify (merge and delete) to commons:Atlas of Romania. If it had more text, it could be similar to Territorial changes of Poland or Territorial changes of Germany, but currently it is just a gallery.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 21:11, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, just delete as per Piotrus' arguments. This is too lousy to be salvageable. Pavel Vozenilek 09:46, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This article is merely a collection of maps that already appear in the satisfactory History of Roumania series. Alternatively, Transwikify as suggested above. Certainly the article should not remain here. Peterkingiron 20:18, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The maps are good content, but there is no reason for them to be collected under this single heading. The topic is covered in History of Romania. Even if additional text were to be added, giving the images narrative support, the material would still be better placed in individual articles such as Dacia (which indeed has one of these images). Mike Christie (talk) 17:35, 3 April 2007 (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.