The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was Keep (non-admin closure) Primefac (talk) 00:03, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Template:Ellis' Railway Encyclopaedia (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Currently unused template designed to facilitate citations to a self-published book at vanity press lulu.com. Guy (Help!) 23:10, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is "currently unused" because you have just removed all eight uses of it as part of a greater campaign against anything involving lulu.com.

If you think that there is a simple blanket embargo, without per instance consideration, against lulu.com then please say so - no doubt you will get some support for such a view. But please do not misrepresent your actions like this. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:48, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

All eight, yes. Which is hardly any. And yes, I am removing links to the vanity press lulu.com. Someone has to. Guy (Help!) 13:33, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Removing all instances of use of a template and then submitting it for deletion as "currently unused" is circular reasoning -- to put it kindly. It poisons the well and therefore I vote to close this discussion as Keep, on principle. We can then open a new discussion on the merits. (I have not examined the question on the merits, but it appears to depend entirely on the reputation for veracity of Iain Ellis himself; being self-published is a red flag but not necessarily a deal killer for using his work as reference.) Herostratus (talk) 01:20, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - Iain Ellis is a recognised expert whose encyclopaedia is pretty much the definitive guide for railway terminology. His works are cited in official accident reports. See, for example, this report at page 19 and this one at page 31. Lamberhurst (talk) 11:30, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

SO explain this: how come I have never even heard of him? Bear in mind that I am a railway modeller, have family members with main line steam licenses, and knew Tony Marchington, who owned the Flying Scotsman. I find it baffling that a self-published book could be of such significance when I have not even heard of it despite being at least somewhat active in this area. Guy (Help!) 13:32, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Because you might be an admin, but that still does not make you the final arbiter of all decisions. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:48, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"I have never even heard of him"? Is that the best argument you can come up with? Optimist on the run (talk) 15:20, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not at all. I am merely puzzled as to how such an eminent authority (a) thus far entirely escaped my notice and (b) has to publish via lulu.com rather than Ian Allen or one of the other well-known specialist presses for railway books. This is a large market with a significant ecosystem of specialist publishing houses, and noted authorities rarely have difficulty finding a publisher. There are whole shops devoted to books on railways and related topics, much to my wife's dismay. Guy (Help!) 17:01, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you were a little more familiar with Ian Allan (maybe enough to spell it?), their recent history, shop closure(s) and changes in their commissioning, then you might not need to ask. But then if you don't know that, it doesn't exist. If someone is an expert, and their book will sell without the promotion and marketing of a traditional publishing channel (which is nigh-on extinct anyway), then self-publishing makes more financial sense. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:09, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@JzG: This is the kind of work which would be more familiar to someone working in the railway industry. It's such a niche area that I doubt a commercial publisher would see much mileage in making the encyclopaedia available to a wider audience. As for not knowing him, this argument (raised by me) was rejected in the case of a certain Michael Schabas, whom I had never heard of then and still don't know much about now. Personal awareness doesn't really count for much. Lamberhurst (talk) 08:20, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK, that at least makes sense, though railway modellers also typically use operational materials from the prototype (there's a ready marker tin marshalling books, for example). Guy (Help!) 09:22, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep and revert removal of templates from affected articles - self-published does not necessarily imply unreliability. In this case, the book is well respected in the railway industry, as Lamberhurst states above. Optimist on the run (talk) 13:07, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. As others have pointed out, it's a little deceptive to remove the links and then say we should delete the template because there are no links! And then to try and mitigate it by saying "hardly any"! And further compound it by setting yourself up as an authority on the basis that books are significant only if you've heard of them! None of those are valid arguments for deletion. --Bermicourt (talk) 14:24, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question. Is it reasonable to reinstate the links at this point or do we wait for the outcome of this discussion? --Bermicourt (talk) 14:27, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per Lamberhurst and WP:SPS, "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications.". If the RAIB are happy to cite this encyclopedia for definitions, we should be too. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:51, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. It appears somewhat disingenuous to remove usage of a template and then argue that it should be deleted as it is not used. If an editor has suspicions about the veracity of a source, then it is much less brutal to add a maintenance template such as Template:Self-published inline to alert other editors to the discussion. I have reverted the original edits and added the mentioned template.

I'm afraid I can't answer the question why an editor would not have heard of a particular work (however "well-connected" in the world of steam, or "active in the area" they may be). Just to say it's a big world with a lot of books and Wikipedia is built by people working together and sharing knowledge. I believe Ellis is available in many public libraries in the UK. It might be worthwhile borrowing it and give it a bit of a track test. Alternatively, one could raise one's concerns at a very active wiki project such as WikiProject UK Railways where you might find an informed opinion. Or, if your curiosity is piqued, you could ask for a list of railway sources by respected authors and established publishers that are known to be less than accurate than they might be... If they published music they'd be more boozy than hawks.

Unless someone has managed an elaborate fraud, over a number of years, it would appear that Ellis has worked in the railway industry for many years, is a member of the Permanent Way Institution and has contributed to its journal, is sufficiently regarded to be referenced frequently in the glossaries of reports by the RAIB and the RAIU, included in reading lists for university railway engineering courses, and referenced by a number of weighty academic tomes on railway safety.

However, I must thank the OP for bringing this useful template to my attention. I do hope it can be developed to cater for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions of this useful reference book. Robevans123 (talk) 17:44, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Seems to be a bit of a plague lately of users removing all usage instances and then nominating a template for deletion under "unused" rationale. Also, in my opinion, even if a template is unused, one should further expand, explaining it is not likely to be used. --SuperJew (talk) 17:57, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep with no prejudice towards revisiting this at a later time. We should first establish if this source is reliable before dealing with the template. clpo13_(talk) 18:01, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and reinstate/encourage usage. Whist WP:USERGENERATED says "self-published media are largely not acceptable" (my italics), it also says under exceptions: "Self-published material may sometimes be acceptable when its author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications". I think that the fact that Rail Accident Investigation Branch, a government body with quasi-legal powers, is happy to use large chunks of this work, credited to the author, in its official accident reports, is quite sufficient to remove any doubts that this work merits application of that exception. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 09:06, 14 October 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 template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was Delete (non-admin closure) Primefac (talk) 00:06, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Template:Avicularia Species (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

unused and duplicates Avicularia#Species. Frietjes (talk) 20:47, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge anything in the article not in the template, and then transclude it. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 03:38, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete It seems the only possible use for this template would be to generate the species list for the Avicularia article. Doing so would be highly unusual; I'm not aware of a single other instance where the list of species in a genus is produced by a template. The species list in Avicularia is more up to date and the list in the template; this template includes several species (e.g. A. palma, A. parvicola, A. pulchra, A. recifiensis, A. violaceae) that the Avicularia article indicates as having been transferred to other genera. The only species listed in the template that's not mentioned in the article is Avicularia tigrina, which the World Spider Catalog treats as a nomen dubium (that is, a name that taxonomists aren't sure how to handle and which we're probably best off ignoring in Wikipedia). Plantdrew (talk) 15:12, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Templates holding lists of species are a serious mistake. They aren't sourced (and can't properly be since any ref included might be a duplicate or in a different style) but they need to be. They don't get kept up-to-date since their location isn't obvious to many editors. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:35, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as duplicate which would only be called in one place. --SuperJew (talk) 20:43, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, it could be called from two, since there is a list of spider species by family as well as a list on the genus page, but this doesn't justify the template. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:51, 12 October 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 template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was soft delete. WP:REFUND applies. (non-admin closure) Primefac (talk) 00:07, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Template:Accident categories (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

unused and not clear why it would ever be used. Frietjes (talk) 20:44, 11 October 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 template's talk page or in a deletion review).

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The result of the discussion was Relisted on 2016 October 19 (non-admin closure) Primefac (talk) 04:28, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Template:A Short History Of Persian literature (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

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 template's talk page or in a deletion review).

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The result of the discussion was Delete (non-admin closure) Primefac (talk) 00:07, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Template:ASS (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

unused, poorly named template. Frietjes (talk) 20:41, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per nom. Pointless. Kierzek (talk) 17:51, 13 October 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 template's talk page or in a deletion review).

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The result of the discussion was Delete (non-admin closure) Primefac (talk) 00:08, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Template:ASP_Down (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)
• Template:ASP_Up (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)
• Template:ASP_Even (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

unused, and not used for some time. Frietjes (talk) 20:40, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per nom. Not developed, not needed and not notable. Kierzek (talk) 11:56, 17 October 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 template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was Delete (non-admin closure) Primefac (talk) 00:08, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Template:2 Years On (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

not needed, redundant navigation for connecting a couple articles. Frietjes (talk) 20:20, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per nom. Limited navigational benefit already provided by other related navboxes.

• Delete as "listcruft". K.e.coffman (talk) 05:59, 13 October 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 template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was soft delete. WP:REFUND applies. (non-admin closure) Primefac (talk) 04:29, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Template:10TeamBracket-NRL (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)
• Template:12TeamBracket-TI5LowerFirstStage (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)
• Template:13TeamBracket-MLRH (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)
• Template:16TeamBracket-Finals3 (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)
• Template:16TeamBracket-NBA Conference (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)
• Template:3TeamBracket-3finals (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)
• Template:32TeamBracket-Compact-Tennis57-NoSeeds (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)
• Template:8DE8STeamBracket (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)
• Template:8TeamBracket-Bestof3-OnlyQF (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)
• Template:8TeamBracket-FIRST (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

unused, and not used for some time. Frietjes (talk) 20:15, 11 October 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 template's talk page or in a deletion review).

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The result of the discussion was soft delete. WP:REFUND applies. (non-admin closure) Primefac (talk) 04:28, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Template:Central Coast Mariners FC W-League head coaches (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Only contains one link, has no potential for more as club is defunct. SuperJew (talk) 07:07, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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The result of the discussion was Delete (non-admin closure) Primefac (talk) 00:09, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Template:Central Coast Mariners FC W-League squad (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Club is defunct, no usage for navigation. SuperJew (talk) 07:07, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per nomination; no consensus to include historical football squads. Macosal (talk) 23:12, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete -- I checked several article of athletes that appear on the template, and their articles do not include this template. K.e.coffman (talk) 06:05, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That would be because the club doesn't have any current player as it's defunct. --SuperJew (talk) 11:09, 13 October 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 template's talk page or in a deletion review).

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The result of the discussion was delete the template. As for the information contained, I've turned it into a list in my userspace. Thoughts about its appropriateness for being an actual article are welcome on that page's Talk. (non-admin closure) Primefac (talk) 03:19, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Update: After discussion on the talk page, it was determined that the list was not notable and has been deleted. Primefac (talk) 15:22, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Template:Knight's Cross recipients in the Bundeswehr and Bundesgrenzschutz (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

The template lists recipients of the Knight's Cross of Nazi Germany who subsequently served in the Bundeswehr of West Germany. The template may not be in compliance with WP:NOR, WP:V and WP:NPOV. Many of the linked articles do not provide citations as the subjects' post-war service, and the article on "Knight's Cross recipients in the Bundeswehr and Bundesgrenzschutz" does not exist.

The template also strikes me as POV, as the Bundeswehr explicitly shunned the traditions of the Wehrmacht and disclaimed any connections between the two armed forces. The only discussions of "continuity" between the Wehrmacht and the Bundeswehr that I found were in far right publications, such as Denied paternity: Wehrmacht officers created the Bundeswehr by Franz Kurowski, via the extreme-right publisher Pour le Mérite Verlag.

In summary, the template appears to be a non-encyclopedic cross-categorization which Wikipedia is WP:NOT. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:30, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think it might be a fair category, but the template is a bit of a strange and unnecessary concoction. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:43, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Per nom and per Peacemaker. This does work as a category (though not a great one IMO), but it's a rather dubious concept for template given it strongly implies a direct lineage between the Wehrmacht and the Bundeswehr, which is not at all the case. Nick-D (talk) 07:15, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. It seems a reasonable category to me. The suspicion that some of the linked articles may not comply with WP:NOR, WP:V and WP:NPOV is not a reason to delete a template. If it is demonstrated that some articles fail notability or other tests they can be deleted and the link removed, or the articles can be improved and the link left in place. Bermicourt (talk) 09:21, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was not suggesting that the linked articles do not comply with Wikipedia's policies, but the template as a whole, especially given the fact that an article one would expect to accompany such a template ("Knight's Cross recipients in the Bundeswehr and Bundesgrenzschutz") does not exist. I suspect that it would be impossible to build such an article as this topic (KC winners in the Bundeswehr) has not received attention from secondary RS, as far as I know. K.e.coffman (talk) 09:41, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Question Are there any comparable categories? As an intentionally invalid example: Victoria Cross recipients in the New Zealand Military? If there are none, I would suspect a subtle intrusion of WP:NPOV may exist here and I would vote to Delete. If kept, I would also question the use of Bundesgrenzschutz in en:wikipedia. --Lineagegeek (talk) 23:16, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply. Bundesgrenzschutz is the current en.wiki article name. If that changes then, yes, the template words should change too. --Bermicourt (talk) 14:57, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep but purge any of the articles you feel are unfit. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 03:40, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment The Bundeswehr themselves addressed this topic in 2003 and 2004. An exert of how the Bundeswehr handled the historic inheritance of the Iron Cross and Knight's Cross is available online. The Bundeswehr Military History Museum featured a special exhibition titled Das Eiserne Kreuz – Zur Geschichte einer Auszeichnung [The Iron Cross – The History of an Award] at the time. The accompanying exhibit documentation was the blueprint for this template. Cheers MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:14, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Thank you for providing the link. I believe it largely confirms what I stated in the nomination, as the article is mostly about the Iron Cross not the Knight's Cross specifically:

• The Iron Cross: "The Iron Cross has a permanent place in German history. Initially [in 1813] conceived as bravery, it soon became the state symbol. Since 1956 it's the emblem of the Bundeswehr." Etc.

The Knight's Cross is mentioned twice:

• "Thirteen participants of the 20 July plot were recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross."

The article also states that 711 holders of the Knight's Cross served in the Bunderswehr, some reaching high ranks, but says nothing else about the topic. It should also be noted that in 1999 Bunderswehr explicitly prohibited its members any contact with the Association of Knight's Cross Recipients on the grounds that the latter was a neo-Nazi and revanchist organisation whose ideology was incompatible with the Federal Constitution. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:53, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak Delete, although I believe more is being "read" into it than there should be as far as POV interpretation. "Unnecessary concoction", I suppose in the end. Kierzek (talk) 18:02, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Listify: The subject is relevant and worth exploring, however, a template creates more problems than it solves. For one, it creates a link between Nazi Germany and West Germany, that massively expands search results by including huge numbers of WWII-era personnel in searches of Bundeswehr personnel and vice-versa. Secondly, the differentiation according to service branches might make sense with regard to the time they received their decorations, but where they ended up after the war depended on the structure of the armed forces of West Germany (e.g. paras were air force in Nazi Germany, but part of the ground forces after 1956.) Thirdly, I don't quite see the need to navigate between articles of Knight's cross recipients who served in the Federal Armed Forces, as their post-war service is usually only mentioned in passing in the individual biographic articles, and their decoration was more an obstacle in their careers, since the acts considered heroic by Nazi Germany were often seen differently by West Germany's post-war allies (e.g. Erich Topp missed out on a NATO posting to Norway). ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 11:09, 17 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• reformat as a list article. it would be easier to read as a list article. Frietjes (talk) 13:42, 20 October 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 template's talk page or in a deletion review).