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 . Has been transwikied, plausible search term, but the article contains nothing but "means", "refers to", and "is a term for". Wikipedia is not a dictionary.-Wafulz 14:16, 22 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Squaddie[edit]

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

Unsourced dicdef article for a colloquial term. The article has been transwikied to Wiktionary and proposed for deletion; but PROD was contested and more dicdef added ("squaddy-proof", "squaddie mentality"). In my opinion, there's no point in keeping it here. Any further edits should go to Wiktionary. -- Sent here as part of the Notability wikiproject. --B. Wolterding 12:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. A well known and well used term in the UK. Article requires a good clean up and some relevant references, but deserves expansion, not removal. Markb 12:22, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. As per Nick mallory point below - delete this and I will expect to see Digger, Doughboy & G.I. deleted. I await the ensuing fury. Markb 19:24, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Inclusion is not an indicator of notability. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a valid argument. (Of course that sounds odd in the context of this statement...) Morgan Wick 21:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do not doubt that the term is well known; but it deserves an entry in a dictionary, not in an encyclopedia. --B. Wolterding 12:25, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete A passing reference in soldier might be appropriate as it is a very well known UK term, bit wikitionary is the place for it. Pedro |  Chat  12:32, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak delete and/or merge to Soldier. Dicdef (should already exist at Wiktionary though), original research, unreferenced.-h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 12:41, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article now has references to the BBC, the Independent, the Belfast Telegraph and the Guardian who all use it as headlines for articles about the life and experiences of 'squaddies'. Nick mallory 14:26, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe redirect to soldier and close the AfD.-h i s ^{[[User --B. Wolterding 06:56, 21 June 2007 (UTC)talk:HisSpaceResearch|s p a c e]]} _{r e s e a r c h} 12:41, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletions. -- -- pb30<talk> 12:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep This is a very common term in the British Army and known in Britain as a whole. It can't be redirected to 'soldier' because it's not a synonym for that. It's a modern version of 'Tommy' really and there's a lot more that can be written about this. how about giving it five days rather than five minutes to allow people to improve it? Here's a BBC story on 'Squaddie couples' for instance [1] Nick mallory 13:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry, you said it yourself. It's a term. I know it's very well known, often in a derogative fashion, but any information on "what a squaddie is" would be eactly the same as "what a junior soldier in the UK Armed Forces is". Hence merge or add into the soldier article (I agree a re-direct is inappropriate though). Pedro |  Chat  14:10, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Presumably you're going to nominate Digger, Doughboy and G.I. for deletion as well then? After all the wikipedia article on Doughboy begins 'The origin of the term is unclear'. I'm not sure you understand what the concept is either. A squaddie isn't a junior soldier', squaddies can be much older than junior officers. It's a matter of rank and role and self definition, rather than age and therefore your suggestion is flawed. Nick mallory 14:17, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • With respect you have misinterpreted junior to mean young which is not the only defenition of the word I'm afraid. A squaddy is a soldier of the British Army. Alternative spelling - squaddie. Derivation is one whose life is spent totally as the member of a squad rather than as an individual. Hence, in non-military life "A squaddie mentality" means someone who prefers to spend their life being told what to do and not using their initiative. Squaddie is often a term used for someone pretty near the bottom of the chain of command and below whom no individual initiative is ever expected. Sometime used as a term of abuse, but usually worn with pride by a real squaddie. Take from dictionary.com - my bold. And with respect the argument "Because we have an article on X we must have one on Y, or because we have an article on Y we can't delete the article on X" has long been gone over and failed.Pedro |  Chat  14:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Wikipedia is not a source. You've just quoted a mirror of this very article as if it were a source. Uncle G 17:22, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Uncle G, you've missed the point. Let's take the quote direct from wiki then. Nick was arguing that I was wrong in my statement regarding the word junior as he took it to mean age - whereas junior also has a meaning of "below". I was clarifying the bit in bold - the fact that it comes from our own article means Nick was making a circular argument. Verifiability is to do with article writing and sourcing, not debating wether an article should stay. Cheers. Pedro |  Chat  16:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge and redirect to British Army. Doesn't need its own article. -- Necrothesp 15:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• A note about this AFD has been left at the British military history task force. Leithp 16:50, 13 June 2007 (UTC) [reply]
• Merge and redirect to British Army as per Necrothesp. Nothing here to merit a seperate article but a redirect should be retained as it is a plausible term to search for. Davewild 17:36, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Extremely Strong Keep. As said above-- would you delete G.I.? More evidence for the Americanocentric bias of the en.wiki. And "dicdef" is an extremely poor motive for deletion, anyway. Rhinoracer 20:45, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Hardly "Americanocentric". I'm British, ex-British Army and a military historian and I voted delete. "Squaddie" is just a slang word - it has no encyclopaedic qualities, no interesting origins (its origins are blatantly obvious), no unusual usages, it's just a word. It doesn't need its own article. -- Necrothesp 22:10, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would like to comment on two points here. First, dicdef is a valid reason for deletion, or rather for a transwiki process (which has occurred here). See WP:DICDEF. Second, I certainly did not nominate the article for "Americanocentric" reasons. --B. Wolterding 08:07, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep seemingly notable word, thus needs an article, right? G1ggy ^Talk/_Contribs 00:12, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Words need a dictionary entry rather than an article on Wikipedia (cf. WP:NOT#DICTIONARY). Notable topics would warrant an article; but everything that could be told here is already contained in the British Army article.

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.