Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Svalbard and Jan Mayen

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. Good work, people. DS 18:34, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Svalbard and Jan Mayen

• Delete. There is no such thing. Svalbard and Jan Mayen are two distinct parts of Norway, they are never treated as the same. They already have their separate articles. Note also the conspicuous absence of any such page at no: and nn:. Dagnabit 08:40, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Even though Google does give plenty of hits on the phrase, these two things are not well connected in any way. Such "and" subjects are difficult to cover meaningfully without duplication when we already have separate articles giving reasonable coverage, and disambiguation just seems meaningless as was illustrated at this AFD. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. All meaningful information is already present in the separate articles, thus leaving us with an article which itself admits to being tenuous ("two separate parts of Norway" and the fact that they are linked only by a piece of "trivia"). BigHaz - Schreit mich an 10:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep. The article explains the rationale for keeping it: there apparently is an ISO 3166 country code "SJ" which stands for "Svalbard and Jan Mayen"; as a result there is also an assigned Internet domain set, .sj, with the same name. Someone seeing this code and not having heard of Svalbard and/or Jan Mayen may enter "Svalbard and Jan Mayen" into Wikipedia, and the search needs to lead the user to an article. Redirecting to either Svalbard or Jan Mayen would be inappropriate as the code relates to both locations and there is no basis for choosing the redirect target as between them. Accordingly, the short article we have is the best solution. Newyorkbrad 19:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I've fixed the .sj page. Dagnabit 20:05, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

That is appreciated, but it still doesn't address the need for an article on "Svalbard and Jan Mayen" in case people enter that query. People from locations far from Norway may not have heard of either place, and they may see the phrase and think "where the heck is that" and should get an article in response to the query. Newyorkbrad 21:09, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Please cite the existence of "Svalbard and Jan Mayen". Dagnabit 21:24, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Will do: [1], [2], [3], [4]. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.113.147.229 (talk • contribs).

There is no evidence that "Svalbard and Jan Mayen" exists separately from Svalbard and Jan Mayen on those pages. They are just long lists with various misinformation. The UN is plain wrong. Please cite reliable sources. Dagnabit 22:09, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Is the UN considered an "unreliable source", sir? Most sources will tell you that Svalbard and Jan Mayen were administered together from the 1920ies up until 1994. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.113.147.229 (talk • contribs).

The UN is certainly a reliable source that it is a term, even if the term is wrong, we can have an article explaining that the term is wrong, which is what we have. However can you please provide a source for your last assertion, that says they were "administered together from the 1920's until 1994"? If that is truly the case, it should settle it: if nothing else, it is legitimate as a historical entity. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 01:04, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

All right, sure: According to dates retrieved from this source Jan Mayen has been administered as follows:

1930-1994: by the governors of Svalbard

Since 1995: by the governors of Nordland County

This source quotes the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (on page 127) as stating that "Norway has restricted sovereignty on Svalbard (but not on Jan Mayen).

This is another source that briefly explains the current (i.e. post-1994) administration of Jan Mayen.

So, perhaps this reversion should also be overturned? 213.113.147.233

• Keep though make it more clear it's a disambiguation page. Mister.Manticore 19:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Newyorkbrad. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 20:35, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I've fixed the .sj page. Dagnabit 21:02, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep or redirect. Either keep per Newyorkbrad and clarify disambiguation per Mister.Manticore or redirect to .sj. -- Black Falcon 21:42, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. While I understand the two places are distinct parts, the term is used in ISO and many international documents. I agree with the points made by Newyorkbrad that there needs to be an article to explain "Svalbard and Jan Mayen". I think we can improve the current article to stress that the places are not administered together (see United States Minor Outlying Islands and for a similar situation). And finally, .sj is simply the ccTLD given to S&J, they're not the same either. Redirecting to .sj would likely confuse the reader more. Chanheigeorge 00:33, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

See also Scattered islands in the Indian Ocean. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.113.147.229 (talk • contribs).

• Strong delete. Nonsense article. There is no such thing. This is like lumping Los Angeles and Dallas in an article, that's how close and closely related these islands are. TexasWalkerRanger 14:53, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per all above. 129.241.71.164 11:02, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. Please note that the article is not about the islands: the intro sentence says "Svalbard and Jan Mayen is a statistical designation". -- Black Falcon 17:53, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. For someone who knew almost nothing about the subject other than having seen the name on globes, rather near the top, I found the article quite informative. It explains the situation clearly, and answered several questions that I had. It's a shame to think that someone doesn't want me to read this information because of some nationalistic pov. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 00:31, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't follow the reasoning here. Nobody's trying to prevent anyone from reading about Svalbard or Jan Mayen. What people are arguing about, though, is whether it makes sense to have an article on the two of them together. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 00:38, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm talking about the encyclopedic information and links that are actually on this page, that are not present on any other pages. Why destroy access to that information, that may be of historical interest, for purely political considerations? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 13:54, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
      • • I still think that's an overreaction. The information (such as it is) can be moved to the pages on both islands if this article is deleted. Nobody's trying to "destroy access" to anything at all. I also totally fail to see where these "political considerations" are. As far as I can tell, the arguments are based on the validity or lack thereof of the designation, not politics. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 22:02, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Given that it is a statistical designation used by the UN and many others, it would not hurt to have a semi-disambiguatory article on the subject. The text of the article does not leave any room for confusion that the islands somehow belong together geographically or administratively. Please note that the article does not write that the phrase "Svalbard and Jan Mayen" refers to two islands, but rather that it is a statistical designation. -- Black Falcon 17:45, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. "Svalbard and Jan Mayen" may be a nonsensical misnomer, but it's a well-documented one (ISO 3166, etc.) which needs to be explained. —Psychonaut 02:49, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. This is the actual text of an ISO designation[5], the designation being the subject of the article, not the two separate areas - Sjakkalle is incorrect in suggesting that this is an "and" article . This might be made more clear in the article, to avoid the appearance that it is the name of a governmental administrative district or the like, emphasize Norwegian sovreignty, etc., or the whole article might be named something like "Svalbard and Jan Mayen (ISO designation)". Presumably Svalbard required a separate code because in some cases organizations would need to code for it separately, probably due to the signatory rights of the Svalbard Treaty. An interesting tidbit found here and perhaps suitable for inclusion in the article:

Since Svalbard was given a separate code in the ISO list, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs wanted to make it represent both Jan Mayen and Svalbard...An attempt to change the name of the ISO entry from ‘Svalbard and Jan Mayen’ to ‘Svalbard’ failed because the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not approve. - David Oberst 06:56, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Naturally, not to rehash the separate island articles, but to address the designation that is apparently used. A new article title (as suggested above) would be helpful to make this more clear. --Van helsing 13:41, 2 March 2007 (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.