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 redirect to Administrative division. GedUK  12:06, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Country subdivision (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Contested prod. This page is the product of banned user User:Tobias Conradi; I encountered it when one of his sock-puppets began to insist on it in a disuccion. The article is unsourced; the term, although not unknown, appears to be largely the neologism of one author; the text reads like a POV fork of administrative division; observe that the first sentence, even as it stands, is Country subdivision refers to the division of a sovereign state's territory for the sake of its administration, description or other such purpose and description by statistics (which seems to be meant) is an administrative function. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:12, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as nom. Septentrionalis [[User talk:Pmanderson|PMAnde--Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:54, 31 January 2011 (UTC)rson]] 01:12, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to Administrative division. While this does appear to be an unnecessary fork, it's still a likely search term as evidenced by articles like List of country subdivisions by population, which wasn't named by the banned user. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 09:03, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 14:47, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment The article is a neologism, but perhaps there is merit in an article that covers all the ways a country is subdivided. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 07:44, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose, for two reasons. First, forgetting the title, the content certainly has some merit and would be OK under a different name. A "country subdivision" (or whatever other term one may choose) is a superset of the "administrative divisions" and includes not only the latter, but the subdivisions of other types as well. Second, I am not convinced the current title is a neologism. The term has been in use since at least 1927; see, for example, The Journal of Geography, vol. 26, 1927, p. 271, and is currently used by the ISO ([1]), and major organizations which comply with the ISO standards (cf. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US Food & Drug Administration, or Public Health Data Standards Through Partnerships). There are plenty of gbooks hits as well.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); January 31, 2011; 15:00 (UTC)

  Superset? The definition given is division of a sovereign state's territory for the sake of its administration, description or other such purpose. Description is an administrative function, so this boils down to: for administrative purposes or purposes like them. For example, the division of the United States or Australia into States was not done for any purpose; in both cases, the States existed before the country of which they are parts; they're neither administrative nor "country" divisions. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:54, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  Seeing how the "definition given" was unsourced to begin with and is now gone altogether, I wouldn't make far-reaching decisions based on it alone. It's just poor choice of words, is all. Wikipedia is full of poorly written definitions for all sorts of things. Last I checked, poor writing wasn't grounds for deletion. Anyway, other types of subdivisions (not necessarily for "purposes like them [i.e., administrative purposes]") also exist, which have nothing to do with the administrative function (which itself is different from one country to another). Postal areas, military districts, census territories, industrial regions—in many countries these have nothing to do with "administration", yet can be distinctly recognized as "country divisions" (or a similar concept). Also, as a counter-example to your US/Australia example (with which I disagree, by the way, but will accept for the purposes of this discussion), the division of the Russian SFSR was done for the purpose of administration, but that function was forfeited in 1993, so the best term for the modern federal subjects of Russia now is "political divisions". And, to conclude, as demonstrated above, the term "country division" is a valid one; plenty of sources exist to support it.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); January 31, 2011; 21:09 (UTC)

  Yes, the article has been reedited by a single-purpose account (called User:country subdivision) who has begun editing since the ban of the article creator's last sockpuppet (in the manner of an experienced editor) - and who has not bothered to comment here, although the ((afd)) tag has been present the whole time. My confidence in the good faith of all this is -er- limited. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:24, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  Well, as long as the sources are reliable and verifiable, what do we care about who added them? I, for one, am not here to enjoy fine conversations about wikipolitics with fellow editors or to play "catch a sock"; I stick around because I like the idealistic goal to build the best encyclopedia in the world. The article we are discussing here is far from perfect, it needs tons of work and cleanup (either before or after the recent edits), but I just don't see why it should be nuked. All of the evidence I've found so far keeps pointing the other way.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); January 31, 2011; 21:42 (UTC)

  The sources are - all of them - google hits on division and country in the same sentence. A country can be divided without forming a "country division". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:47, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  Umm, no (to the first part) and yes (to the second part). A country does not necessarily need to be divided into "country divisions"; the concept of a "country division" may exist in different contexts. You seem to be thinking only in political/governmental terms (i.e., someone must actually declare a unit to be a "country division"), while the concept itself is much broader than that. Look at the definitions of the "term" (which is what the article should be about anyway).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); January 31, 2011; 21:55 (UTC)

  No, I'm making a linguistic point about a linguistic section (which belongs in Wiktionary, if anywhere): sources which say a "country is divided" are not attesting to the existence or the meaning of "country division", but to "divided countries". In English, word order is syntax. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:25, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  My reference was not to the sources which simply say something like "a country is divided" (and we are getting increasingly off-topic here).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 1, 2011; 20:51 (UTC)

• Delete or redirect another attempt by sockmaster Tobias to bend Wikipedia to his will. Unless the term has strong usage in reliable sources that differentiates it from the term Administrative division, it shouldn't be its own article. --JaGa^talk 21:36, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Heh, I see User:TurkChan and User:TopoCode contributed as well. I wonder if there are any more TC socks that worked on this. --JaGa^talk 00:49, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy delete per WP:CSD#G5. The user who created this article, Country subdivision (talk · contribs), was found to be a sockpuppet of another blocked user; see the SPI case. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 22:23, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  The article was not created by a sockpuppet but by Tobias himself, well before his ban, which makes WP:CSD#G5 inapplicable.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 1, 2011; 20:51 (UTC)

  In short, it was written by a now-banned user, edited by two of his sock-puppets after the ban, and massively restructured by a third. This is exactly the sort of situation that justifies G5: depriving the banned user of the incentive to violate his ban. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:55, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  Not to mention the article appears to be massive OR. --JaGa^talk 01:08, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge or redirect to Administrative division. Same thing, but has potentially useful content. The banning issue is not relevant as it seems the article was created before the author's ban.  Sandstein  09:25, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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.