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 merge to Coastal artillery. This seems to be the consensus. DGG ( talk ) 22:13, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Land battery

[edit]

ADMIN responding to Category:Wikipedia fully-protected edit requests - Please close this ASAP. However, be advised ... I did not check redirected page's Links here and make such fixups. FrankB

made a redirect with cats as of moments ago. FrankB 15:01, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect undone. It did not belong there. Anmccaff (talk) 19:29, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Unsourced, imprecise, ambiguous, partly inaccurate, and redundant...and has been for almost a decade. Anmccaff (talk) 19:16, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:24, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:24, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Merge anything necessary into Coastal artillery and Artillery battery, then redirect to Artillery battery. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 19:36, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds fine but I wonder if Coastal artillery should not be the redirect. The current lead certainly suggests that it is the coastal nature that is most notable. I suppose it comes down to how the phrase "land battery" is typically used. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:43, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with the phrase is that its meaning is completely variable. It sometimes means a water battery or a sea battery, but it sometimes means the exact opposite, a battery intended for defense from landward. It sometimes is used for ship's guns put ashore. It is sometimes meant in contrast to ship's guns afloat. It is sometimes used in contrast to floating battery. It sometimes is used in contrast to water battery, referring to a seaward-facing battery on higher ground, but sometimes it means ~~water battery~~, as mentioned above. There is no way to tell outside of context. Anmccaff (talk) 20:09, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, heh, Anmccaff ... welcome to the English language! FrankB

You are about 60 years late for that. Anmccaff (talk) 06:06, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Anmccaff ... Water battery linked is NOT artillery. Do you have a better link? FrankB

Oh, did one of those stay in? Feel free to strike through it, but consider the implications of that. Water battery was a stable term of art in fixed fortification, far more so than "land battery." Anmccaff (talk) 06:06, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dude!—then why can't you cite one or three? Never heard of the 'water battery' term outside a discussion of high versus low locations when a landing party wanted to take one, and apparently we were both born before 1956 and both well read in historical matters; besides, — it's your 'offensive post', so you should edit your own paras!
... Googling "sea battery"+gun and "water battery"+gun really shows the above reasoning is full of shit. The terms aren't showing up at all, at all, on the NET so any & all ambiguity seems to be in your beliefs.
That the term is normally used with some necessary context is not unusual for many terms (e.g. saddle). But to expedite this, I went ahead and crossed out the obvious falsehoods... leaving those with contrasting contexts, as a writer might be making; such as those batteries sited low down you termed 'water battery' mentions, and those upslope. The guns on, off and flying about hither and thither in small boats to and from Shore batterys is clearly a tactical situation (One common when ships were mothballed in the Age of Sail), so again, context rules. WE ARE, after all, still using English herein with all its glorious flexibility. Enough time wasted. Just redirect the damn page! FrankB 14:26, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oddly enough, when I google up "[water battery"+gun'] I get about 9500 solid looking book results, although, obviously, some of them are essentially duplicates of each other. Here, for example, is a A Naval Encyclopædia: Comprising a Dictionary of Nautical Words and Phrases .... I think the only bullshit here is that fake blue link above. Anmccaff (talk) 18:22, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can't help what you have or haven't heard, but the many book cites right bove there show water battery to be a boringly common term, especially in USAnian usage. Anmccaff (talk) 18:22, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Another reference. Note, again, the absence of land battery

Merge/redirect - Per nom, the content is uncited and significantly overlaps with other existing content. However, as the term itself is established and demonstrates SIGCOV,[1] I don't see the case for outright deletion. Anmccaff's concerns on variable meaning notwithstanding, Shawn in Montreal's compromise proposal (to merge any valid content and redirect to Coastal artillery) seems most sensible to me. Depending on the outcome of the AfD discussion, I'm happy to take the merge/redirect action. If needed the "variable meaning" issue could likely be addressed in a sentence or two in the merged Coastal artillery article. Guliolopez (talk) 01:04, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That search yields six results, after removing duplicates. Only two of them are related to the article's subject; one is simply happenstance. Anmccaff (talk) 07:13, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

~~Oppose~~ - JUST MERGE AND REDIRECT (for Pete's sake!) -- if anything, delete coastal artillery. But this is the same culture clash ole song and dance -- British English vs. North American. This term is simply more common on the American side of the pond--and in writings of C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower, and other authors using a Age of Sail mileau.

However, I also argue the gun emplacements of the Maginot Line are and have been termed land batteries. That boondoggle was not just forts and pillboxes, but had plenty of rifled guns shielded by domed steel turrets. I'm sure we've all seen pictures. Lastly, been about five minutes to find these references mentioning the term in proper contexts: [not sure why ((plain link)) is blowing up below!)

Ref- 1
"Land+battery"&source=bl&ots=0amJnLLxsN&sig=PHiNNbYgD_-b9K_xDQfHJF7vlOE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqneGe-tHQAhVI6IMKHaHUB7M4ChDoAQgnMAE#v=onepage&q=%22Land%20battery%22&f=false Ref- 2
"Land+battery"&source=bl&ots=s0VsOj01FA&sig=jk4LSZWwl9kcn4TrNRjKSFjsJN4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqneGe-tHQAhVI6IMKHaHUB7M4ChDoAQgrMAI#v=onepage&q=%22Land%20battery%22&f=false Ref- 3
"Land+battery"&source=bl&ots=XX_W9VrwFs&sig=tNLZUP7ZQRorekZvTMBbn1_-vAY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqneGe-tHQAhVI6IMKHaHUB7M4ChDoAQgwMAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Land%20battery%22&f=false Ref- 4
"Land+battery"&source=bl&ots=aYxP-wsZhI&sig=l7rOyoe8_Lk18gfSUTIEAtQZPok&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqi7Dw-tHQAhXs8YMKHecBBbI4FBDoAQgaMAA#v=onepage&q=%22Land%20battery%22&f=false Ref- 5
and that's just into a second google grouping ... so next time Anmccaff, if you want to spend time contributing to Wikipedia, try actually spending time fixing up such, which in this case also means weighing the time cost to others... With WP:AGF, I could have supported you acting like an adult editor per WP:BOLD and making the one a redirect with apropos & Fair coverage of the alternative TERM, but instead you chose the route of an insecure child, wasting our time and worse, unprofessionally... to sneer at the ten years of history of a well established term. The topic doesn't need a lot of coverage, so the lack of attention is hardly reason to ding it for lacking cites. It's a completion term of art, so a short article covering the dic-def completes other coverages, SO KEEP THEM BOTH. I have no sympathy with deletionist philosophy for One term does not fit all needs', as we never can predict how and what angle any another's mind is thinking, nor the context of their search. Cutting out searchable titles is counterproductive to servicing our customers.
If this is made a redirect, be sure to use ((R from historic name)) so the title is in the search bar search queues. (printworthy) // FrankB 03:06, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Let's take a look at the referents from each of those cites.

Ref 1 A temporary battery, field or siege guns, to deal with a naval threat. The article fits it.
Ref 2 }...as does this
Ref 3, on the other hand, uses the word in the exact opposite way, referring to a battery intended for landward defence.
Ref 4 also refers to something different, a siege battery, with land used opposide "gunboat."
...as does reference 5, again noting the relative weakness of seaborne guns.

Three of your five cites, then, have nothing to do with the article.

The cites google-dredged here support at least two different meanings of the phrase, and none strongly suggests a term of art, but rather simple descriptives. Anmccaff (talk) 06:06, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Next, there appear to be absolutely no Pondial differences seen in your cite. Two American usages, with two different meanings, two British, with the same two different meanings, and a (xlated) Russian piece using a third. On the other hand, you can see differences based on POV, shooter vs shootee, groundpounder vs. sea life, etc. This shouldn't be an article, or even a redirect; perhaps it should be a disambiguation page... Anmccaff (talk) 06:06, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You mistake my point--I didn't need to puruse any of those cites, nor consider their biases, for I reject the notion that the term is something that should be buried at all as a redirect. There are plenty of historical references using the term, and if that 'used two ways' ambiguity is bothersome to you (there are plenty of other such terms in English we need explain such differences about--actually a reason to retain the article!), run it down and write a paragraph or two saying when and where someone used the obverse case... but cutting a reasonably written article page about a term of art is just wikilawyering at its worse, and causeless as well. Cites are and should not hardly be needed for short articles on point, particularly for technical languages, as this is part of military science as was used in my ROTC classes long ago.
Perhaps I was misinformed and this is not a EDUCATIONAL PROJECT to provide basic information on a topic... for say a curious nine-year-old, or a single mom trying to answer a question to another child? Get off your elitist shoes and put on some mission glasses. The article can be tweaked, but assuredly, it isn't like some band or song title where the provenance of its notability needs established by cites. The term is and has been used. It is and has been useful in describing situations. Period. // FrankB 14:26, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Merge (if necessary) and redirect to coastal artillery. "Land battery" actually suggests an ordinary mobile artillery battery, as opposed to one of these things which is commonly called a "coastal battery". If "land battery" is used in American English then fine, we can say that in the coastal artillery article, but it certainly doesn't need a separate article. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:02, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Land battery" is vanishingly rare in USAnian, and uncommon in BrE. It's occasionally used as a phrase in naval parlance, but it isn't a propert noun, just a thing (battery) with a modifier (land) needed for the situation. Anmccaff (talk) 19:16, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Your distinction for Land Battery as horse artillery matches my 'usage' recollections as well. Shore battery is my recollection of the Americanism, but have to accept 'coastal artillery' is the more erudite uptight asinine academic style and more modern term likely in current use. Bottom line, why are we discussing this no brainer at all? // FrankB 14:26, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, "shore battery" is used in British English as well. Probably more often than "coastal battery". But Coastal artillery is the general title for the whole shebang in both versions of English, so far as I'm aware. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:56, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Merge and close per WP:SNOW. Bearian (talk) 18:59, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's nothing to merge except WP:OR, and a self-contradictory illustration. Anmccaff (talk) 19:16, 5 December 2016 (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.