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. (non-admin closure) Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 04:43, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Southern Levant (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Following request in this post from User:Corriebertus. The article as it stands consists solely of the archaeological history for a poorly defined region which has many other overlapping articles such as Palestine (region), Land of Israel, Southern Syria, and Canaan. All of the content is already in either of those articles or else in History of Palestine or in History of Israel or in Prehistory of the Levant, which are characterized in the relevant section as being the "main articles" for this topic. Also, many of the sources which refer to southern Levant, do so with a lower case s. A merge into Levant would be one option worth considering. Oncenawhile (talk) 17:03, 6 July 2016 (UTC) [ Please be noted that I consider this not to be my (complete) motivation: see my posting below, 7Jul10:10. Corriebertus. ][reply]

• Keep article is well sourced and the claim that it should be part of the larger Levant article doesn't mean that because the southern part has more archaeological activity should not have its own article. Everything in this article is sourced, notable and verified. Even if we discount the whole being of a Southern Levant, it is notable enough and large enough to have its own article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sir Joseph (talk • contribs) 17:29, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Even acknowledging the (absurd) "lowercase s" dispute, this is clearly a notable term. It is the standard way of referring to the region consisting of modern-day Israel, Jordan and Palestine in archaeology, history and environmental science, as evidenced by several thousand Google Scholar hits. I agree that the content of the article at the moment is arguably redundant―this entire topic area is full of duplication—but is that really a discussion for AfD? (Not a rhetorical question; I honestly don't know.) Joe Roe (talk) 17:40, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Commonly used name, standard neutral name for the region in academia. Also per the above editor who has a Masters in Archaeology. Drsmoo (talk) 18:39, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep just as Drsmoo states, it is a term in very common use, and it is not interchangeable with Palestine (region), Land of Israel, Southern Syria, Canaan - making it hard to redirect. We really do need to make it easy for peple running into a term like this to quickly find out where the Southern Levant is. This page does that very well.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:12, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per E.M.Gregory. Debresser (talk) 20:24, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge - there's just not much material here, and it seems a minorly used term rather than a separate topic. The whole History section can/should be tossed since it is generic and not about the region. Just put the top para definition into [Prehistory of the Levant], plus steal the categories and see also bits, there's nothing else of value here. Markbassett (talk) 21:38, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - As has been mentioned above, the term is commonly used in academia in order to be neutral. There is enough information on the region, especially its archaeology, to warrant a stand-alone article. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:48, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, but specify its usage and users in the first sentence for readers unfamiliar with the term per WP:BEGINNING. This can be done with "In archeology, ..."/"... is an archeological region ..." etc. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 10:06, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete (after its content having been merged already) - Just to inform you that my motivation is not (anymore) (only) the motivation as it is written in the top of this section. Today I've elaborated on a better, clearer, more complete motivation for deletion, which you can read now in section Talk:Southern Levant#Delete the article altogether. Actually, I've this morning already merged all content of Southern Levant into Levant#History.
  I notice Drsmoo,Gregory,Debresser,McClenon contending that ‘Southern Levant’ is a commonly used name. But one of my main arguments is that the definition of SouthLev in the article is based on only ONE source, which I’d consider insufficient to justify the existence of the article. If the name is indeed commonly used as you claim, then show and prove that by giving several more sources of its definition in the article.
  If there's a specific reason to designate a sub-region 'Southern Levant' -- and of course there must be a reason to do so -- then I'd expect to read that reason, both in the article Southern Levant and in article Levant.
  @Sir Joseph claims(6Jul) the article to be “large enough” etc. Strange: the article is rather short, and consists only of summaries of three main articles. Summaries can be made as long or short as anyone decides; these summaries should in the first place be located though in article Levant where they are lacking as yet. And if they’re introduced there, as they ought to be, there’s probably no need to have them ‘doubled’ in a separate article as in article Southern Levant today.
  SJoseph also claims that while the southern part has more archaeological activity, that archeol. activity should have its own (= separate) article. No: that would become logically necessary only when Levant#History or Levant#Archaeology (which does not even exist as yet) would get too large.
  Ofcourse we all agree that the offered information is notable (as SJ states), but we don’t discard of that information. It remains in the mentioned main articles, which will be referred to from article Levant. --Corriebertus (talk) 10:10, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. The content issues that have been raised don't justify deletion. The only valid argument for deletion presented here seems to be that the term isn't notable, but per my comment above it clearly is. Joe Roe (talk) 13:21, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• ? - Joe Roe dismisses the "argument that the term isn't notable", but nobody has made that argument, I believe. (And he refers to "his comment above", but he has not yet contributed in this subsection.) --Corriebertus (talk) 13:44, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• My comment is the second bullet in this section. I admit I'm having trouble understanding what policy-based rationale you and the nominator have for deleting this, but I was trying to WP:AGF and interpret your argument that the definition is only based on one source and that the article's existence is "not justified" as a point about notability, and not simply WP:IDL. Joe Roe (talk) 13:56, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• (sorry) - Sorry, yes you were indeed in this section. The rest of your new posting I will read later, don't have time now. --Corriebertus (talk) 14:31, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• @Joe Roe: the policy assertion is that this article is a WP:CONTENTFORK. The proposed counterarguments are contradictory - one unsubstantiated argument goes that Southern Levant denotes a differentiated geographical area than Palestine (region) or the Land of Israel, whilst another argument suggests that it is a term created in order to allow scholars to avoid using either of those terms. Clearly those two arguments are conflicting. The only notable subject that could be covered under this title which isn't already covered in multiple other articles is a description of the scholarly debate surrouding usage of the term Levant or Southern Levant. The rest is redundant. Oncenawhile (talk) 14:45, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As was pointed out, Southern Levant is by itself a highly notable subject in academia, with multiple scholarly papers published every day focusing on the region. Scholars do use Southern Levant as the neutral term for the area, however the Southern Levant contains the regions of Palestine, Israel, Jordan etc, it is not synonymous with them. Regarding Corriebertus post about HighBeam, Highbeam isn't a source, it's an archive of scholastic material, which would have been very apparent upon clicking the link. The source that was used via HighBeam was Antiquity (journal), which is an archaeology journal produced by Cambridge University, though there are thousands of other sources that could have been used instead. The idea that "the definition of SouthLev in the article is based on only ONE source, which I’d consider insufficient to justify the existence of the article" solely because a single source was provided, is puzzling (to say the least) Drsmoo (talk) 15:14, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I realise anecdotes don't carry much weight in an AfD, but just for the record: I use "Southern Levant" frequently in my own research, including in the title of my PhD thesis. It is not a synonym for Palestine or Israel, because neither of these regions unambigiously include Transjordan or the Negev, or for Syria-Palestine, which includes the Northern Levant. Maybe scholars working on later periods or Biblical archaeology find it useful that it avoids sensitive political issues, but in my field (prehistoric archaeology) the politics are neither here nor there; it's simply a precise, concise geographical term. There is no "scholarly debate" over its use. Joe Roe (talk) 15:38, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep – Like others, I feel like this is a notable term and that the article meets notability. I don't see a reason for this to be deleted, although merging may be a possibility if you wish to just have one article about the region. United States Man (talk) 17:20, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep – and update Template:Ancient Syria and Mesopotamia accordingly. 96.29.176.92 (talk) 19:18, 10 July 2016 (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.