Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oregon (toponym)

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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. It's not clear whether this should be kept outright or merged to a rather vague somewhere. Evidently not being deleted at the present time, though. -Splash - tk 18:42, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Oregon (toponym)

Oregon (toponym) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Due credit for a creative article title, but note on the talk page that other considered titles included "Etymology of the word Oregon". Etymologies, of course, belong in Wiktionary. Powers T 16:45, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Merge with Oregon. --Blanchardb 16:48, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. There's already sufficient discussion in the Oregon article. This is OR. - Revolving Bugbear (formerly Che Nuevara) 16:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge into Oregon #Name of the state Delete Interesting, but not interesting enough to be an article all its own. Better that the existing paragraph in Oregon be kept under control through the editing process, than to open the door to long articles about place names. Mandsford 18:10, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep This article is more than a simple etymology. It can use some expansion and more thorough citation, but those are things that can be accomplished. Deleting the article will not help that happen. If it simply gets merged back into Oregon, WP:UNDUE will prevent it from getting expanded to thoroughly cover the topic. This is not original research, not by a long shot, I have read enough Oregon history books/articles to say with confidence. It looks like people have been sloppy about including citations; that is something that can be rectified. -Pete 18:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge to Oregon per Mandsford. Should not be its own article. See Wikipedia:Summary style. Stifle (talk) 19:13, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: Stifle, I don't understand. What does "Summary Style" have that applies in this situation? I see Wikipedia:Content forking#Article spinouts - "Summary style" articles as the relevant guideline; by my reading, it describes what's happened here as "completely normal Wikipedia procedure." There is a more detailed story to tell about the name of Oregon than would be appropriate on the Oregon page. Just because the article has not yet reached full maturity, is not a reason to merge back; merging back interrupts the development of a quality article. -Pete 19:28, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Response We agree that the article is interesting, and it's not original research, but it shouldn't stand on its own as a matter of policy. There are many interesting stories behind the names of important places, but having companion articles about the etymology of a name -- geographical, personal, etc --- is another matter entirely. If the article Oregon is getting to big to hold this, you might want to do a spinout called History of Oregon and make this part of it. Mandsford 20:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge somewhere else (Oregon, History of Oregon, etc.) or transwiki to Wiktionary. Occasionally articles of a primary etymological nature are interesting and useful (see "fuck" for one such example), but most lack sufficient encyclopedic content to stand on their own. --EngineerScotty 20:45, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Response: Mandsford, you make a good point, I hadn't thought of "History" as a home for this, but it makes perfect sense. But, there we butt up against a different problem: that article will take some time to write, and it seem to be the Wikiproject's consensus that having a stub for "History of..." is a bad idea. So, it will likely be a while before we have a "History of…" article online. What to do with the "name of…" article in the meantime? What's the harm in leaving it where it is, until there is a "History of…" article to merge it into? -Pete 20:54, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge per User:Mandsford. Chris! ct 21:23, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Reply to Pete... History of Oregon (which currently redirects to the section of the Oregon page) doesn't have to be a stub. The section is substantial (remember, if you copy it to a new page, look over the prior edits to that section). In addition, there's an article called Oregon pioneer history that would be a logical merge into the Oregon history. I'm sure there's probably a list of Governors of Oregon. And of course, this article about the origin of the name, which is an interesting part of Oregon's history. Then you edit out the redirect command. I'm almost inspired to be bold and do this myself, now that I've given the how-to. Suggestion: be bold and create the History of Oregon article with the text of Oregon (toponym) and some of the other articles. Mandsford 23:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment For those not part of WikiProject Oregon who don't know the history of our discussions vis-à-vis an article about our state's history, follow the link at Talk:History of Oregon. (There's plenty more discussion in our project's archives somewhere.) I'm not sure what to do about the page under discussion, but just a note to let people know that our active WikiProject is generally well on top of all matters Oregon, so we have a pretty good idea which interconnecting history articles we can choose from should we decide to go ahead and change the history article from a redir. Cheers, Katr67 00:16, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Reply to Mandsford: As Katr points out, the approach to writing History of Oregon is currently under active discussion at Wikiproject Oregon. I don't want to discourage you from being bold, or from joining in the project, but at face value the approach you describe would be over simplistic. It would entirely neglect everything before 1806, and using the list of Governors for everything 1890–present would be a fairly radical POV to advance. Again, at the present state, the stuff about the name of the state would run afoul of WP:UNDUE. If you take the step you describe, I'm sure we all will use it as an excuse and a foundation to build up the article, but please do not fool yourself that the approach you describe, in itself, will result in an article that's adequate. Again, I don't understand the motivation to delete a fairly reasonable article that is informative as-is, and will likely be an important part of another article in the future. I suppose there isn't any huge harm in deleting, as I'm sure several of us have archived the current article, but I don't see what's to be gained, either. -Pete 08:16, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
The reason to delete is that, in general, articles on words belong in dictionaries, not encyclopedias. Powers T 00:21, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Reply to LtPowers: Yes, in general, discussion of the derivation of a word belongs in a dictionary. But this is not a general case. This is a case in which numerous theories have been advanced, and where there is also an issue of pronunciation. It's a case in which history books and general-interest articles, not dictionaries and linguistics journals. I have no quarrel with the general principle, but I believe this is a legitimate exception to the rule. -Pete 05:58, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Changing "Merge" vote to "Delete". Speculation about the oregons of a place name can go on endlessly, and I'm persuaded that this one would not be concise. Too big, as is, to merge back into the Oregon article from which it was spun. Mandsford 00:26, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Leave as is: This article is clearly a valid subject which will be expanded. It was relatively recently (less than five months ago) spun off from the Oregon article as it was inappropriately lengthy as a section as Pete suggests. A dictionary entry to replace it isn't (quite) appropriate since several sources and their interaction with history are probably involved. It seems to be one of the few (only?) states for which the origin of the name is not known. One or more of the possibilities in the article might be correct, but then again, the correct explanation might not be included—yet. Thorough researching of the subject has been attempted several times by authors cited in the article, but unfortunately only summaries of their research are given. There is a great deal more material worthy of being in the article. Deleting and/or merging the article would discourage expansion, and is anti-collaborative. —EncMstr 01:00, 7 November 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.