Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of invasions

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. W.marsh 20:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of invasions

The List of wars is sufficient. --Ineffable3000

• Strong Delete as nom. --Ineffable3000 04:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep an invasion is not a war. The lists serve different needs. --Karnesky 06:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete; actually following the current (objective) criteria for inclusion will cause this to be bloated by hundreds (perhaps thousands) of trivial entries from the back-and-forth warfare over a border so common in Medieval and Early Modern warfare. Pretty much every serious war includes multiple "invasions" of enemy territory, making the list pretty useless. Kirill Lokshin 09:22, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

If the list gets too large, it can be split by date. I'm concerned by a possible suggestion that historical lists should be deleted because they may contain too much history, as that argument so heavily favours fictional universes over RL. What makes history useful or useless? --Zigger «º» 13:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, my point was more that this will essentially become a copy of list of wars with all the links formatted as "Invasion of X by Y". (Indeed, I can only think of a handful of wars that didn't involve something that could be considered an "invasion".) Kirill Lokshin 20:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete: inflammatory and useless. We never stop arguing which military operation may be classed as invasion. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 11:24, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion about the list has been relatively calm and quiet compared to most other articles dealing with international relations. The list introduction does not define the contents well enough yet, but that's a clean-up issue, not a criteria for deletion. Controversy is also not a criteria for deletion. --Zigger «º» 13:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. If controversy qualifies an article for deletion, then we should get rid of all entries on anything political or religious, plus the theory of evolution and a round earth. Controversy and argument is not a reason to delete something, it's a reason to either come to a consensus, or to make a note that the section or item is disputed. -NorsemanII 00:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete, useless, just dumb, and hard to compile. Terence Ong 12:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep: Past invasions have been a major factor in many countries shaping politics, culture and ancestry. --Zigger «º» 13:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. List of invasions =/= list of wars. --- RockMFR 15:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Neutral — I'm unclear as to why this information would be of interest to somebody using an encyclopedia. It doesn't really tell me anything except that there have been a lot of invasions. — RJH (talk) 18:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep.Per Karnesky. Rex 19:14, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Lists complement categories. They are a great navigation aide. Categories have minimal context. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 23:24, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I feel that, although necessarily incomplete, this list provides a useful signposting to the relevant articles.--Anthony.bradbury 00:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Wars are not necessarily invasions, e.g. the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. The invasions category sorts the information alphabetically, which, as I have said before regarding history, is about as useful as a dictionary sorted by the approximate order the words came into use. Furthermore, the invasions category has the exact same controversy issues, so unless we are going to delete all listings of invasions on that justification, we shouldn't delete this. The controversy over whether or not something is an invasion must necessarily be done on a case-by-case basis, not by deleting all listings of invasions in a hope that censorship will somehow alleviate any problems. You'd still need to address whether or not it was an invasion on the actual article, so deleting this fixes nothing. As for calling this useless, it may be to you. However, historians have a lot of use for chronologically listed information. It's like saying that the numerous entries on dinosaurs are useless. If you don't care to learn about or study that information, it will be useless to you. If you're trying to understand history, they have a lot of use. -NorsemanII 00:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict isn't generally considered to be war, nor is it considered to be an invasion. It is a temporary conflict. --Ineffable3000 22:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment Where did you get that from? RTFA, "The 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, known in Lebanon as the July War and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War..." -NorsemanII 02:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Comment. The wording of that indicates that those are partisan names for it. The article title is a more NPOV method of naming.
• Keep. Wars and invasions are two separate things. --Hemlock Martinis 05:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. per hemlock Sifaka ^talk 07:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete indiscriminate and arbitrary list. WP:BAI. Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:53, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. WP:BAI has nothing that pertains to this discussion. --Hemlock Martinis 01:19, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - Also, it will be very difficult to maintain and categorize all invasions into one page. --Ineffable3000 21:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• delete war/invasion: splitting hair here. An invasion is an act of war, unless you stick to various stupid medieval rules that a war is not a war if it is not declared. Mukadderat 01:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. You're oversimplifying the matter at hand here. Wars can have multiple invasions within them, such at the D-Day landings at Normandy or the Invasion of France by Nazi Germany, both of which took place AFTER the countries were already at war. Also, those "stupid medieval rules" are why Wikipedia's article about the recent Israel-Lebanon conflict is titled "conflict" not "war". There is an important distinction. --Hemlock Martinis 01:46, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I think the article has to be done properly, but if done properly can be a great resource outside of 'list of wars', etc. MrMacMan 08:12, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Very strong keep - valuable chronological list. Further structured for major wars. Provides a "topography" (or feel for the flow) of history through the topics presented much better than categories ever could.  The Transhumanist   12:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep This article does provide some useful information on invasions as invasions are different from wars.--PrestonH 06:26, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
• 'Keep Even more find this one useful. DGG 07:52, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep An invasion is not always considered a war and this article serves a valuable purpose. - Am86 16:21, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

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.