Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Significance of Venona

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep. -- BD2412 ^talk 11:55, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Significance of Venona

This text belongs on VENONA project, not here. It should be merged into the VENONA project page - half of this is on that page already, such duplication makes no sense, and is two points for edit wars to erupt. I think the best vote is merge, then delete - if there is any material worth merging. Ruy Lopez 18:24, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

This article is the beginning of a cooperative effort to remove names of persons identified within the Venona project from the main article; as stated, a proposal to remove references to identified persons within the main text, with the exception of the List of Americans named in Venona papers, with the full intention to spin that section off or merge it elsewhere once biographical information is completed. Persistent vandalism to the page, and an effort to politicize the subject has hindered understanding of its historical and cryptographical contributions. There is an active discussion on both Talk pages regarding a new editor expressing an interest in bringing significant contributions to the subject. nobs 18:44, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

• Comment "merge and delete" is incompatible with the GDFL, so it's "Merge and Redirect" or "Delete entirely, no Merge". --Icelight 20:20, August 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • Care to explain that cryptic remark? Mirror Vax 16:56, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
• Strong keep. VENONA project is becoming inordinately long and would itself be best if one article is left to describe the project and one to recount at greater length its implications for history as well as involved individuals and many researchers and commentators. Ruy Lopez is mainly irked at the prospect of having yet another article he must continually disrupt with pointless reversions. --TJive 22:43, August 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • The Venona article is not particularly long. Mirror Vax 16:56, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Not since this was made as well as the name list was moved by Ruy, contrary to his previous objections. --TJive 17:45, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
      • Not before either. Mirror Vax 18:01, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
        • You don't find this as the base of an article with ongoing additions a bit excessive for one page? Okay.... --TJive 18:05, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. This article does not overlap significantly with the VENONA project page. It is reasonable to have multiple articles on an important project, to keep the page size manageable. ManoaChild 04:36, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. The "significance" of something can be discussed in an article on that thing. Gamaliel 16:33, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Gamaliel: This article is going to grow much larger than what it is, and will touch on a host of subsidiary subjects, foreign policy, revisionism, secrecy in government, partisan ideologies, hundreds of biographical pages, espionage, various wars and economic policies, governmental reforms within the NSA, CIA, FBI and host of other government bureaus and private enterprise. This article will take years to complete, if ever. The significance is being dilluted by stale partisan rhetoric. And the significance needs to be understood clearly. nobs 01:14, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Nob01: you are only asking to be left alone while you rewrite the history of the CPUSA "as Venona". I believe that including the political/significance ramifications of Venona in the article itself will help ground your work in the larger narrative of the party. It may be messier for you, but there is no need to split. DJ Silverfish 15:15, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep The article on Venona is going to become far to large, might as well start splitting it up now. TDC 18:49, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep I concur with TDC. As active editor I see the amount growing quickly. As the subject is also very contested, it is a good way to make sure that reverts, etc. stay localized and passages can be developed seperately. --Ebralph 19:54, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, and once cooperation is gained as per my proposal Talk:VENONA_project#Proceedural_proposal, the crypotographers who have expressed interest in Venona can have the page back. nobs 21:24, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
• Delete "Significance of..." pages are just a less accountable way of introducing partisan material. Many have been created, but after consideration redirect back to the subject page (for example Significance of Jesus' resurrection). These pages are invitations to speechify without need to reference facts. Start a subsection in the Venona page on "politics of the..." and if it grows in a serious way to article length, split it off then. Now that the names have been separated, into a category, presumably, the original article isn't that long. DJ Silverfish 15:10, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
  • There are several aspects to the Venona materials; it has significant historic aspects to complete the picture of American history back to the 1930s at least (perhaps as far back as 1921); this is of nominal interest to a younger generation of persons interesting in further developing the field of cryptography. Splitting it off keeps the original art of cryptography clean, while the historic and political aspects can be examined elsewhere. nobs 19:41, 12 August 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.