Talk:Southern Victory

Merger proposal

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a

Merge Proposal and / or Redirect. Please do not modify it.
The result of the request for the Proposed Merger of these articles into this talk page's article was:

Consensus Reached–Awaiting Merge.
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Formal request has been received to merge: How Few Remain, The Great War (novel series), The Great War: American Front, The Great War: Walk in Hell, The Great War: Breakthroughs, American Empire (Harry Turtledove), American Empire: Blood and Iron, American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold, American Empire: The Victorious Opposition, Settling Accounts, Settling Accounts: Return Engagement, Settling Accounts: Drive to the East, Settling Accounts: The Grapple and Settling Accounts: In at the Death into Southern Victory; dated: January 30, 2020. Proposer's rationale: The content of these articles is entirely in-universe plot, unreferenced since 2009. Pinging proposer @203.8.131.32: discuss below. Richard3120 (talk) 17:16, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

• Had to really look into this one. I'm going with support (after initially leaning oppose), because looking around for in-depth coverage in multiple, independent, reliable sources for each volume tends to not turn up nearly as much as I expected. While we can certainly have spin-out articles on individual works in any franchise/series (even specific episodes of TV shows), it's only justified when the specific episodic part passes WP:GNG by itself. It's dubious that many of these do. Regardless, this article is a complete trainwreck, and needs to be rewritten volume-by-volume (with volume titles as heading titles, in story-chronological order) so readers can make some kind of sense of it. As it stands right now, it's like it's trying to over-explain the plot of a single novel.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:56, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - Reviews for each are easily locatable (EDIT: and now I've added two reviews to each article). This is an attempt at deletion that should have gone through AFD. FOARP (talk) 16:44, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose There is room for expansion, and there are sources not used in the articles. Dimadick (talk) 17:16, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support Regardless of whether these could be developed into stand alone articles in the future, at present they're unencylcopedic per WP:ALLPLOT. If in future there is so much not all plot content in the main article to justify a split, it can done later on. buidhe 05:25, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support I agree with SMcCandlish - the individual books don't pass WP:GNG and don't merit individual articles. LaTeeDa (talk) 00:08, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Note that each of the book articles now has references to at least two reviews in reliable sources, and thus should be a WP:GNG pass per WP:BOOKCRIT no. 1. NB. - please note that the referencing of WP:GNG shows why this is really a delete discussion rather than a merger discussion. FOARP (talk) 08:06, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a WP:PM.

Please do not modify it.
Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 19:33, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

A copy of this template can be found here.

Continued discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Supplementary discussion confirms the merge, as per the original discussion close. Klbrain (talk) 09:01, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

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Disagree with your close at Southern Victory [transclusion from editor talk page]

In terms of simple vote-counting, a 2-3 split is not a consensus. Whilst of course it is not a vote, good policy reasons have been cited as to why this merge should not go ahead either (i.e., the articles meet the notability criteria for books). This looks like no-consensus to me. FOARP (talk) 14:54, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Actually, simple vote counting is a 4-2 split, as the proposer counts, too. (If I hadn't closed this, I probably would be reluctantly leaning on the "merge" side myself, per user 'SMcCandlish''s statement). Policy reasons which have been presented on both sides of the discussion are "good", including ALLPLOT and GNG, and should be weighed. Your statement at the discussion point re: that this is a de facto deletion discussion does have some merit, but I will point out that these articles have been in this atrocious, plot-only, state for over a decade, and no one seems anxious to step up and fix even one of them. Perhaps they would be better presented to AfD as opposed to Project Merge?

That said, I won't take it personally and would have no qualms with you reversing the closure – in the near term – provided some course of action going forward for these articles are arrived at, either blowing them up, actually performing a major editing overhaul, or merging, or whatever.

I am transcluding this correspondence to the article discussion area. Regards, GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 21:30, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

OK. So here is one way I think these can go. I think we should merge the subordinate novels into four 'parent' articles: 1) How Few Remain; 2) The Great War: American Front; 3) American Empire (Harry Turtledove); 4) Settling Accounts. I'm thinking of a short snippet of each novel creating a sub-section, similar to how articles of TV series episodes are set up, summarizing each episode. We can then merge these four 'parent' articles into Southern Victory, if it is felt necessary (or not–if enough RSs can be found to let the four newly updated articles stand alone with SV). Thoughts? GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 21:59, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Each book is still a WP:BOOKCRIT no. 1 pass so I honestly don't see the need for any of this. The answer to the WP:ALLPLOT issue (with an emphasis on the fact that WP:ALLPLOT is an essay, whilst WP:BOOKCRIT is a guideline) is to improve each article, a task for which there is WP:NO DEADLINE. If we're going to simply delete these articles, then take it to AFD. FOARP (talk) 08:34, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

PS - it is trivial to add a reception section to each book article based on the reviews, this has now been done for each of the books in the series. I urge people looking at this to look at the present state of the articles, and not as they were when the issue was first raised. It would seem that WP:ALLPLOT concerns (and again, let's emphasis that this is an essay-level concern) are addressed or addressable. FOARP (talk) 09:09, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

The problem with an all plot content is tht after all the non-cited material is removed from the articles, they will have very little content left - mere stubs. No one wants that. GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 10:19, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Again, let's address the present state of the articles, not the previous state. Every single article has cited references in it, those references are reliable, secondary sources for the plot of each book. There is therefore no reason, whatsoever, to remove all the plot information from each article. At most you might want to trim the plot quantity to give it due weight - but this is simply a page quality issue. Page quality issues, such as the lack of in-line citations, are not a WP:DELREASON. Hell, even simply being a stub is not a WP:DELREASON as there are plenty of perfectly viable stub articles.

Also worth emphasising - if we're talking about a lack of in-line citations for the plot, the solution to this is not merging as merging plot descriptions will not fix this issue. If you want to delete these articles, then use WP:AFD to do it as that is the appropriate venue to page-deletion. Failing WP:GNG is a WP:DELREASON so if you think these articles fail for lack of notability then there is no reason to merge as, again, merging won't fix this because at every level the referencing is the same. FOARP (talk) 14:35, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

You keep talking about deletion. No one is talking about deleting anything. This is a merger discussion. Please see Merging. The cited content gets merged, the references/citations go with it, and a redirect is left behind. Notability is not the issue here. I am simply pointing out, that minus the un-cited plot content, there will be very little left besides stubs. I think that should be headed off by the addition of reliably cited content, which no one has been able to do even during this lengthy discussion, much less the last 10 years. (That has been plenty of time to find and add such, if it exists, for any of these.) In my opinion, having the minimal content combined into four or five over-arching articles instead of fourteen tiny, stubbed articles, makes more sense. The redirects can always be expanded in the future if information changes. Regards, GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 20:43, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

In this case, what is effectively under discussion is deletion, because the objection to the existence of these articles is their supposed lack of content and the solution is to make them no longer exist (i.e., deletion, please see WP:DELETE). WP:GNG was the reason given for this merge so it most certainly is relevant that the articles are in fact notable. Reliably cited content most definitely has been added - that's why every article now has a reception section and citations for the description of the plot (please look at the articles as they are now). There is no good reason for deleting these article now, and reducing the articles to stubs then combining stubs into bigger articles makes little sense, particularly when the content you're proposing to remove is referenced. No reason has been given for the books supposedly failing WP:GNG but the groupings of books supposedly passing WP:GNG - if the books aren't notable then neither are the groupings of books. Time passed is not relevant as there is no time limit. FOARP (talk) 20:08, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

support a merge as part of the editing process. Merger is not deletion. Articles are supposed to have sources that aren't affiliated with the subject and this is heavily unsourced. 2605:8D80:6A0:A1EA:5D49:2071:2B25:F094 (talk) 19:16, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I just stumbled upon this article. I don't even understand who is expected to read it. Who wants to read long, unsourced summaries of minor novels? People who read the books but can't figure out what happened? I gather that the narrative is usually pretty unambiguous, so that doesn't seem likely. If I were a fan of a big series like this then it would be helpful to have crufty readers' aids, like lists of characters or timelines, and maybe some excerpts from reviews. I appreciate that someone put lots of time into writing all this, but I don't think we're doing the readers any service with this article as it stands. It's be twice as good if it was half as long. Mobi Ditch (talk) 07:53, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Cancel the merger

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Supplementary discussion confirms cancellation of merger. FOARP (talk) 18:42, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

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I think it very notable that, in spite of the above discussion, the proposed merger has still not actually happened, because it is clearly so ill-conceived and no-one wishes to do it. The articles that are proposed to be merged here have stand-alone notability. If they don't have stand-alone notability then the solution would be to propose them for deletion via WP:AFD - but everyone knows that the articles are now properly referenced and notable per the relevant standard so they would not be deleted. Merging all the articles into a single article would simply result in an article that is obviously WP:TOOBIG (the total combined size of all the articles is ~160KB, so even if only half this content were kept the resulting article would be too big per the guideline, this is why this discussion is in reality clearly a deletion discussion since the obvious intent is simply delete nearly all of it).

This is clearly a stale merger decision that no-one actually thinks should go forward - for example, the articles have been edited by JCC the Alternate Historian and Geschichte in the past month (i.e., listing recent, non-bot editors), neither of whom acted on the notice saying that the article should be merged but instead continued to improve these articles. I therefore move that the merger not be carried out. FOARP (talk) 09:40, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

What have you done in this time to improve the articles? I'll remind you that this is a volunteer project. Eventually, someone is going to take a deep breath and plunge in here to do the work of cutting all these plot summaries to 5 or 600 words. You seem to be interested in the subjects at hand, and should consider working on the articles, as you may not care for the results of someone else's efforts. You have time to improve the articles so that a merge wouldn't be necessary, if you can bring them up to the standards of notability for stand-alone articles. I don't believe that's possible, but you may be better suited to find those references. GenQuest ^"scribble" 20:26, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Again, volunteer project. No editor is required to focus on tags before editing something else in an article. The merge backlog is 18-24 months as it is. GenQuest ^"scribble" 20:26, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

GenQuest - All of the book articles are now referenced, I'm not sure why you are still commenting as though they are not referenced. It is exactly because they are now referenced (two reviews at least cited in each article) that this merger need not happen. The sub-series articles aren't referenced and frankly I think they aren't ever going to be referenced since the coverage is either all of the specific books or of the series as a whole - which is why I did a WP:BOLD redirect of them to this page. The sub-series articles were an unnecessary intermediate layer I think, though as with any WP:BOLD action anyone who disagrees can revert and discuss.

And yes this merge is clearly stale as referencing has been added since it was concluded and no-one has carried it out in the many months it has now been up. If the merge backlog is so long this is another reason not to carry out mergers that are totally unnecessary. FOARP (talk) 20:47, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for taking so long to reply guys. Back in October, I went on all of the Southern Victory related articles and added at least one source and fixed some linking as well. All 11 book articles all now have multiples sources on them, which is enough to warrant the articles to be kept. --JCC the Alternate Historian (talk) 21:00, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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