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. Cirt (talk) 00:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

United States Naval Gunfire Support debate[edit]

United States Naval Gunfire Support debate (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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This may be the first time I have ever nominated a page I created for deletion, but a degree of animosity toward the subject matter makes me think that perhaps the community would be the best judge of what to do with this page.

I split this off the Iowa class battleship page some time ago on WP:SIZE grounds; the Iowa article has grown to over 100kbs of info, and removing the bulk of the debate information from the reactivation section allowed for a more in depth analysis of the issues surrounding the gunfire debate stateside. Since then though I gotten a sense that people do not feel the article is needed on grounds that battleship will never come back. While that is in all probability correct, the fact remains that there are people who are unable or unwilling to let the battleship go. Type in battleship reactivation on google and you'll find any number of sites ranging from yahoo answers to military bluff blogs full of people ready to debate the points.

By the same token though if the battleships are not coming back then this article could be interpreted a number of different ways. It could be considered OR, it could be considered WP:NOT (INFO grounds), it could also be CRYSTAL from a certain perspective. The fact that most of the article outlines a debate that few if any care about combined with the fact that the information here could be summarized on both the Iowa class battleship article and Zumwalt class destroyer article makes we wonder if the article is still needed here (or if it was ever needed here in the first place.

That is why I am taking the advise of Hcobb (talk · contribs) to heart and nominating the page for deletion. What happens to it from here is entirely up to the community. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:42, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. —TomStar81 (Talk) 08:44, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - The article is well-written, has 57 refernces, and asserts notability. - The mere fact that the debate is now over is no reason to delete it. Much of WP is about old history anyway - should we delete all of them too? - BilCat (talk) 08:55, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - I agree with BilCat. Also the debate about the debate might itself be an item of historical and encyclopedic interest for those interested in the topic. Doomsdayer520 (Talk|Contribs) 09:45, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy close/keep Vast amounts has been written in reliable sources on this topic, so it easily meets the various inclusion guidelines. Given that the article has only attracted a handful of edits since January and Hcobb's talk page post is both only the third post of the year on any topic and the first since October 2008 to discuss the value of the article, I don't think that it was at all necessary to nominate this article for deletion. Discussing Hcobb's concerns on the talk page first would seem to be the best way to handle this. Nick-D (talk) 09:54, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy keep per above. Armbrust (talk) 11:34, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - Even though article isn't very good, it could be improved so that it explained the arguments of all sides properly. The article is not original research. This was an important issue. Defence thinking is centred around capability rather than platforms. It therefore makes sense to have articles that are capability centred.--Toddy1 (talk) 11:35, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. The debate did take place and was notable. This article is about what happened. Cla68 (talk) 11:59, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong keep Lots of reliable sources, and definitely notable. Could be improved, but definitely not worth deleting, very interesting debate DRosin (talk) 12:34, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep. The article is well-sourced and neutral, and the topic meets our notability guidelines. I'll let another admin handle it, but I was strongly inclined to close as a Speedy Keep per the above - the nominator does not actually advocate deletion of the article, but seeks rather to discuss its future, which is a discussion best kept on the article's talk page, or with a related Wikiproject (MILHIST comes to mind). UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 15:27, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep, per reasons given above. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:20, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Rename to Naval Surface Fire Support and merge in Naval gunfire support. The debate is a small part of the overall subject. The problem is that the debate is overshadowing the facts on the ground. Hcobb (talk) 18:55, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - my thoughts echo Nick-D's. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 05:45, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep/do not merge Do not merge, because this is a US centric debate, and naval gunfire support is not a US article. Keep, because it is a major politicking point in the United States, and large battles have been fought over the battleships. 76.66.201.33 (talk) 06:43, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Major battles fought "over" battleships are important to the US - we just had the aniversary of one of those battles on December 7, though it was quite one-sided. Seriously though, those are good points, especially on the US-centric part. Globalize-section tags would probably be added soon after any such merge.- BilCat (talk) 10:42, 17 December 2009 (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.