Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of Karánsebes (3rd nomination)


 * 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. ✗ plicit  11:52, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Battle of Karánsebes
AfDs for this article:


 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

I have concerns whether this incident is notable (WP:GNG). The article seeml like a WP:OR mess (starting with the lead which claims this incident "supposedly occurred"). Source query for "Battle of Karánsebes" gives a passing mention in one reliable book (here), and few mentions in less reliable works: a larger account in an unreliable self-published book here - lulu.com, quite possibly based on our article, another one here, iUniverse, and a few more similar accounts. Our article includes a list of sources, but they are either primary or just master/doctoral theses. The references are almost entirely 18th-19th century primary sources. I am not sure this ORish mess can be rescued; as someone mentioned in the past AfD, this was an interesting 'friendly fire' incident, but on that doesn't seem very well researched. Note that our article has infobox claiming 150 dead, referenced in text to a 1788 primary source; the text then provides two larger casualties assessments, one also to 18th century, one to a modern German doctoral thesis. But the single reliable mention I found and linked above is for "thousands", and such a high causlty count is more common in the mostly-unreliabe source found. As I said, this is a poorly researched mess. Comments appreciated - can this be rewritten and rescued, do we invoke WP:TNT, or do we just delete this? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 10:26, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  10:26, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
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 * Weak keep or find a merge target. Doctoral theses are the subject of an examination, which is similar to peer-review.  I do not like the inclusion of the word "supposedly", but that is a matter of editing.  There may be a conflict of evidence on casualty numbers, but that is an issue for improvement by editing and better research.  We have enough sources to show that the incident happened, so that this is not a case of invention.  Peterkingiron (talk) 15:07, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @Peterkingiron Just to be clear, the doctoral thesis is not about this event, it only mentions it at some point. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 15:55, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep Contrary to nom, by my count there are 4 19th century secondary sources in the list (old secondary sources are still secondary sources!) The article might need to be improved by a German-speaking editor, but prima facie notability is established. Atchom (talk) 21:52, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep Years ago I urged that Wikipedia's article on "Salvino D'Armati" (the supposed inventor of eyeglasses) be deleted because he was completely fictional. But it was decided to keep the article because D'Armati was prominent:  he was cited in a number of sources.  I don't understand why this article is being nominated for deletion.  The Battle of Karánsebes actually happened:  primary and secondary sources attest that.  It is notable as a friendly fire incident but for the wrong reason:  in 1968 Paul Bernard claimed (falsely) that about 10,000 people had died during the battle; in 2000 Geoffrey Regan's book on military blunders spread this falsehood widely — making the battle notable but for the wrong reason.  (I mentioned this in the article but someone deleted that information.)  That many of the sources date to the eighteenth or nineteenth century is irrelevant:  they're valid sources and they're generally consistent with each other.  That the article isn't tidy is grounds for extensive editing or a complete rewrite, not deletion.  (I'd be willing to rewrite it if a restriction on subsequent editing were imposed so that someone else couldn't mess up my work.)  If you decide to delete this article, then the article on "Salvino D'Armati" should also be deleted — for the same reason. VexorAbVikipædia (talk) 15:03, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep per VexorAbVikipædia  Oreo Priest  talk 20:27, 13 April 2022 (UTC)


 * 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.