The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Discussion closed per request at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know&oldid=509010622#A_third_.28and_hopefully_final.29_request_for_now

Summary:
The results are mixed: There is a consensus against merging Loring Air Force Base Double Cantilever Hangar and Loring Military Heritage Center, and there is no consensus for or against merging Loring Military Heritage Center. For the first two articles, although the vote count was evenly divided, with Petebutt (talk · contribs) and WilliamJE (talk · contribs) supporting a merge and Ktr101 (talk · contribs) and Matthiasb (talk · contribs) opposing a merge, the oppose arguments are stronger. Wikipedia:Merging#Reasons for merger states that "Merging should be avoided if ... [t]he separate topics could be expanded into longer standalone (but cross-linked) articles". The evidence shows that the first two articles have the potential to become substantial standalone articles. For the third article, the evidence does not demonstrate that there is sufficient information for a standalone article; however, the arguments advanced here for a merge are not cogent enough to impose a merge.

More detailed closing rationale:

Three articles were proposed for merger in this discussion: (I) Loring Air Force Base Double Cantilever Hangar, (II) Loring Air Force Base Alert Area, and (III) Loring Military Heritage Center.

(I) Loring Air Force Base Double Cantilever Hangar has two sources: (i) http://www.themilitarystandard.com/afb/me/loring.php and (ii) http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/me/me0300/me0310/data/me0310data.pdf. The first source is a personal website; see http://www.themilitarystandard.com/:

We are switching the rest of the site to our new design, there are just some random pages left to switch. This site is also known as Techbastard, which was a site I'd started for fun as a personal web site. It has since grown into the military oriented site you see here today. As a result I decided it needed a more appropriate name, hence the name change. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments. Thank you for stopping by!

It is not a reliable source. The second source, from National Park Service's Heritage Documentation Programs, provides several pages of coverage about the DC Hangar. This supports Ktr101's assertion that this can be a stand-alone article.

(II) Loring Air Force Base Alert Area has two sources: (i) http://www.loringairforcebase.com/loc/loc_alert/LoringAFB_Alert_Data.pdf and (ii) http://www.scribd.com/doc/75085353/Loring-AFB-Cold-War-Study. Both sources provide substantial coverage about the subject, again supporting Ktr101's assertion that it can be further expanded.

(III) Loring Military Heritage Center has five sources. Some of the sources are under a paywall so cannot be thoroughly evaluated. The sources generally provided tangentional coverage of the subject save for http://bangordailynews.com/2011/08/19/news/aroostook/legacy-of-heat-plant-loring-base-live-on-at-loring-heritage-museum/. Of the three articles proposed for merger, this article is the best candidate for a merge because it and its sources currently contain little content about the museum. However, there is no consensus in this discussion to impose a merge because Loring Military Heritage Center was not specifically discussed. I also find that there is no prejudice to open a separate merge discussion for Loring Military Heritage Center to review the sources.

Cunard (talk) 00:35, 25 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I fail to see how a Hangar (note the spelling) is notable enough for a separate article so I have nominated this merge as the Loring Air Force Base Double Cantilever Hangar article is definitely superfluous.Petebutt (talk) 16:31, 10 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The same goes for Loring Air Force Base Alert Area, Why a separate article when a paragraph in the main article may even be too much?Petebutt (talk) 16:33, 10 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Loring Military Heritage Center might almost justify a separate article , but I can't see a reason, so I have proposed this merge too.Petebutt (talk) 16:37, 10 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you....William 01:28, 11 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the hangar is huge to begin with (so there is probably s, and is a focal point to the base. It also has a fair amount of information out there on it (say, when compared to other articles). The alert area could be expanded on a lot and that is why I kept it separate, and the entire place was evaluated by the Historic American Engineering Record and was recommended for possible inclusion within the National Register of Historic Places. It also has the added benefit of not being touched since it was closed, which is another thing that helps for a NRHP listing. Additionally, I really so no reason to include a merge for a separate article if you cannot find a definite reason. Furthermore, I have overhauled the entire page so that it looks more like a Wikipedia page for Air Force bases, so adding subsections in the articles for things like this isn't something I would agree with, as I still have a lot more material to add to the page. Finally, the article, if everything works out, will be over 50K in size when I'm done in a few days, which will make the argument for splitting it up even more coherent. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 23:50, 11 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bigger is not always better; from the prose in the nominated articles, I would bet that a call for slimming down might be raised, (Not to be used as an excuse for raising non-notable spin-off articles).Petebutt (talk) 01:52, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are you suggesting I slim down the articles you nominated for merger? The reason I'm wondering that, is because two of the articles with the engineering history could be vastly expanded due to the amount of information within them. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 19:15, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, slim them down before merging.Petebutt (talk) 20:24, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't agree with the proposal to merge in the hangar article, for reasons Kevin already has mentioned, which sooner or later would establish the need for splitting the content again in an own article, but also because of creating redundancy if the bulding is used within the Commercial Center. --Matthiasb (talk) 19:12, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.