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 keep. There is no consensus for any of the ideas that have been put forward so far, but there is a clear consensus not to delete the page, so the deletion discussion is closed. Please continue on talk. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 10:59, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Byelorussia[edit]

Byelorussia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Byelorussia is an exact synonym for Belarus. The name is a dated exonym for the country and nation which has existed under several states going back at least to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, 1236–1795. The title should be redirected to Belarus.

The first three links point to articles that are summary-style children of the parent article Belarus. The fourth link, the asteroid, can be moved to Belarus (disambiguation), where the “other uses” link at the top of the main article leads to.  —Michael Z. 01:13, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To expand on “exonym,” Belarus is a romanization of native Belarusian Беларусь, Belarusʹ, while Byelorussia is a rendering of Russian Белороссия, Belorossiia (compare En. Russia, Ru. Россия, Rossiia).

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Disambiguations and Belarus.  —Michael Z. 01:13, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect Since it is an synonym of it, change to a redirect to Belarus. BeckyAnne(talk) 05:45, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Is there WP:POTENTIAL for more entries beyond the single asteroid? If not, you should just use ((redirect|Byelorussia|the asteroid|2170 Byelorussia)) in a hatnote, because the average English reader probably won't immediately recognize the synonymous nature of Belarus and Byelorussia and so it's fine to make it a bit more explicit. --Joy (talk) 09:25, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree that this situation isn't obvious to the average English reader, and that's why keeping the two dab pages separate is in my opinion the better option. I don't think a hatnote is a good idea: it means dedicating space at the top of a very popular article for a mention of a very obscure asteroid. – Uanfala (talk) 11:09, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Then the country entries (like Byelorussian/Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic) should probably also be listed at Belarus (disambiguation), still leading to a largely redundant situation.  —Michael Z. 17:58, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  There's also hatnote templates that include multiple alternate meanings on the same line, surely there's way to format this in a sensible manner. --Joy (talk) 20:09, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. First off, this is a valid dab page as it lists four topics, each of which has, historically or currently, been referred to as "Byelorussia". The aim of the AfD is a merge of this page into Belarus (disambiguation). That's a valid proposal, but I don't think it makes sense for readers: the overlap between the two dab terms is only partial: the tractor and piano brands, for example, are not known as "Byelorussia", and neither is the asteroid referred to as "Belarus". – Uanfala (talk) 11:09, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I did some G Books and G Scholar searches, and confirm that about the usage of spellings. But readers may not know that, and may well not differentiate between the spellings and historical/non-historical usage of Belarus, Belorus, Belorussia, and Byelorussia. It may be more useful for them to have one medium-sized inclusive disambiguation page than two to four smaller ones that they may never see, according to the data management principal of don’t repeat yourself (DRY).  —Michael Z. 18:36, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I would rather say the opposite - a list containing multiple spellings is typically harder to navigate than two distinct straightforward lists. But, in this case there's sufficiently few entries that it's doable. --Joy (talk) 20:11, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment By the way, the alternate spellings Belorussia and Belorus redirect to the main article. (relative frequency of usage: 1935–1985, 1985–2019). And from 1987, the most commonly used historical spelling is Belorussia, not Byelorussia.[1] —Michael Z. 18:32, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect with a hatnote on the article Belarus, and move the present target to Byelorussia (disambiguation). InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 23:05, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Uanfala above. Libcub (talk) 05:25, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ASTIG️🎉 _{(HAPPY 2023)} 04:30, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. This should not have been at AFD. There is no proposal to delete, there is only some suggestion for which wp: Merge would be relevant. AFD is not for clean up nor is it for fake-type proposals. Doncram (talk,contribs) 06:16, 1 February 2023 (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.