Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Military history by country

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 of the debate was No consensus. Deathphoenix ʕ 16:08, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Military history by country

I'm curious whether lists with mostly redlinks are acceptable. While this would be a great page to encourage people to write articles, they're basically contentless. Until I'm really persuaded in either direction, I'm voting neutral. —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 20:22, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

• There's no reason to keep this, except maybe as a subpage of some wikiproject. Nearly all links are red, and it contributes actually nothing to the encyclopaedia. --Rory096 20:36, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
  • TUF-KAT actually maintains a page kind of like it. —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 21:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
• Redirect to [[1]] -Markeer 21:26, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Is it convention to make mainspace redirects to categories? —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 21:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
    • If it involves a duplication of work, yes, but my main argument is that this mainspace IS a category, and in fact a category that already exists in wikipedia, so redirect so those doing a search for this category can find it in the appropriate place Markeer 21:41, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

This list serves a purpase that a catagorie can't serve. (See my comments below) ---J.S (t|c) 23:34, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

• • Whatever happens, do not redirect to a category. --Rory096 03:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, if all articles in it are in the category. Duplicates the category, and the category is easier to maintain. The Land 22:28, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

None of those articles linked-to are written yet. Can't be in a category until they are written. ---J.S (t|c) 23:34, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

• Delete — In this case a bunch of red links serves no useful purpose other than to show which countries do not have Mhbc pages. — RJH (talk) 23:01, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
• Delete use category instead, too many red links and easier to maintain that way. SM247 23:13, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
• STRONG Keep - Redlinks are the exact reason why lists like this are kept. They should only be deleted when there are very few redlinks. (If there are no/few missing articles in a topic categories at the right tool, then a topic is vastly under-represented then lists are the right tool) Category can't index articles that have yet to be created. Each of those red-links are notable topics. (except for the few small countries without any military history... Like Belize maybe). ---J.S (t|c) 23:34, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
  • It should be noted that nearly-complete (i.e. few redlinks) lists of these types are still useful for those who aren't aware of our category system. —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 23:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I disagree. Things like that would be good in projectspace, as it encourages editors create the articles, but it doesn't contribute to the encyclopaedia at all. --Rory096 03:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
• Comment nobody is likely to compose military histories for many of these, better just to have those that do exist categorised as created. SM247 23:45, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
• Transwiki to project space. An organisational tool, but not an article. -- GWO

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.