Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Early life and work of Clint Eastwood (2nd 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. The consensus is really closer to that of a merge. While merge is a valid AfD close, it was not felt appropriate by many participating editors due to article size factors and so I am formally listing it as a keep. If editors involved with editing the Eastwood article(s) wish to propose different organization of the articles - such as by merging it to Personal life of Clint Eastwood the work and consensus for that can be established outside of this AfD. Barkeep49 (talk) 03:37, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Early life and work of Clint Eastwood
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Redundant; same even longer content found in main article Clint Eastwood — btphelps (talk to me) (what I've done) 08:47, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. — btphelps (talk to me) (what I've done) 08:47, 4 October 2019 (UTC)


 * delete just duplicates the content of the main article. FOARP (talk) 09:08, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: As material from this page appears to have been merged to the main article on Eastwood, deleting this with its history would remove credits from the authors. Or is all material here originally copied from the main article? Redirecting without deletion solves the problem. --Hegvald (talk) 09:54, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep The previous nomination was a unanimous Keep and this nomination does not make any new points. Deletion would disrupt and destroy the attribution of the various contributions made to these pages over the years and so is inappropriate per WP:ATD; WP:MAD; WP:PRESERVE; &c. Andrew D. (talk) 10:52, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 13:06, 4 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Clint Eastwood. There is already a more than satisfactory article on the subject. Capt. Milokan (talk) 14:28, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete/Merge Unclear why Wikipedia would need a bunch of overly detailed articles that are just paraphrases of the McGilligan book that are redundant to the main. If the main article were too long (which it isn't) then use proper summary style, not this. Reywas92Talk 19:59, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Per the guideline Article size, the main bio article is far too long. Oakshade (talk) 06:00, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Given the points raised by, fresh opinions are needed.
 * Delete due to the fact that concerns of close paraphrasing were raised in some of the associated AFDs. ミラP 21:20, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment Based on what I could gather from the article history, it was originally split from the main article. No sources will be lost if this article is deleted. — btphelps (talk to me) (what I've done) 07:34, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep - I was going to say "delete" but I noticed the nom made the very disingenuous move of removing over 5k of content from this article just before this AfD and then claims here that even longer content found the the full bio article when that wasn't the case before the TNT job. I have restored that pre-AfD content. Additionally, I see the nom last year removed over 22k of heavily sourced early work content from this article  which I have also restored, much of which would be too large and detailed for the already overlong bio article.  Oakshade (talk) 06:09, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, –&#8239;Joe (talk) 16:01, 11 October 2019 (UTC) Comment There was nothing "disingenuous" about the content I moved -- not removed -- to merge with related, overlapping info already found in the main article. Once I did that, it became evident that this article didn't need to exist, thus the nom. The many related Eastwood satellite articles are for the most part bloated with unencyclopedic detail, and this is one of them. There are other bio articles longer than the main Clint Eastwood article, and the info in this article, when consolidated with what's already in the main article, would eliminate the need for this article altogether. — btphelps (talk to me) (what I've done) 16:27, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The problem with that is it's violating the guideline Article size and specifically WP:SIZERULE which states that if an article is over 60k long it "probably should be divided" and if the article is over 100k the article "almost certainly should be divided." The bio article was divided for that reason. Before you moved content to that article it was already 152k.  Now it's over 156k.  This is one of the most common reasons we have divided articles as there frequently far too much sourced content for one article as was the case with the bio article and this AfD is simply serving to reverse the SIZERULE effort. Oakshade (talk) 19:47, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Keep - clearly the article had been purposefully de-contented to enroute it towards deletion. The article is well-sourced and meets policy. XavierItzm (talk) 00:43, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete/Merge, as per the reasons given by User: Reywas92Ta. I realize that people love their favorite celebrities, but this article does not have an encyclopedic title and smacks of "celebrity/idol worship". It's kind of embarrasing to be in an encyclopedia to be perfectly frank. We don't do this for other articles even for very notable people who have had a very beneficial or a very harmful effect on mankind (for example, Wikipedia does not have a "Early life and work of William Shakespeare" article).Knox490 (talk) 04:08, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * We have a Life of William Shakespeare separate from the bio article. Oakshade (talk) 06:49, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment @XavierItzm, @Oakshade, while you may infer from my actions anything you want, let me clearly state it was not my intent to purposefully create a situation that would necessitate deleting the article. To state I intended otherwise is to call me a liar. As I stated, I merged and edited here and here the military career content from this article, eliminating duplicate information in the main article and reducing the size of the content by almost one-half in the process, from four unnecessarily detailed ("...while returning from a prearranged tryst with a girlfriend in Seattle..."), wordy ("...Eventually, during the late afternoon, the plane ran out of fuel and the pilot was forced to ditch the aircraft ..."), chatty ("...After some difficulty getting onto the beach...") paragraphs to two.


 * Upon completing that process, I returned to this article and it was clearly evident that it did not merit a stand-alone article.


 * Now that the military content has been restored to this article, it's ballooned to more than 8,000kb in both articles and is clearly redundant. While there is a guideline that states when articles ought to be split, it is a guideline, and other articles exceed it. I am using a mobile device and do not have the ability to use tools to determine article size, but I can easily see that Benjamin Franklin is longer than the Clint Eastwood article.


 * The issues are two-fold:
 * Is it permissible for the main Clint Eastwood article to exceed the guidelines for article size?
 * Should Eastwood's early life be migrated from the main article to this article, and if so, does the content merit a stand-alone article?
 * So debate the quality of this article and it's true merits, compare the military content in both articles (encyclopedic and summary style, or not?), But don't base your analysis on what you think my machiavellian intentions may or may not have been. — btphelps (talk to me) (what I've done) 07:40, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I've removed much of that duplicate content you added to the already too-long bio article and restored it here. No it's not permissible for an article to exceed article size guidelines. That's why Article size is an offical guideline.  In this case the bio article is WAY oversize. If you'd like to change WP:SIZERULE, you have to make your case on its talk page. Oakshade (talk) 16:57, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Indeed, deletion is not an appropriate way of dealing with issues of size. Split and merge are best done by ordinary editing so that the history and attribution is preserved per WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD. Andrew D. (talk) 22:36, 12 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Merge to Clint Eastwood. There is not enough to justify seperate articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:55, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge I see no reason why thus cannot be merged to Clint Eastwood. It is confusing to our readers and creates a clumsy process for research, with the added problem of duplicated information Wm335td (talk) 17:32, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * It shouldn’t be merged because the Clint Eastwood article is already way beyond our official WP:SIZERULE guidelines and such lengthy an article creates readability issues to our readers - see WP:LENGTH. While there is always some overlap of content between related articles, in this case most of the content was removed from the Clint Eastwood article and returned here.Oakshade (talk) 01:44, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Outright deletion seems to be untenable due to some material already being merged into Clint Eastwood and the need to preserve that history. Therefore: keep or merge? (and if merge, where?)
 * Comment Just because the main article is quite long does not mean that it must be split in this way. An alternative is a merge with Personal life of Clint Eastwood as Early and personal life of Clint Eastwood perhaps. Much of this excessively detailed article overlaps with Clint_Eastwood, and, like the previously deleted articles, it is entirely sourced to McGilligan's Clint: The Life and Legend. A Wikipedia article should not simply be a paraphrase of one book! Reywas92Talk 03:46, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep This article contains relevant material not provided in the main bio article and size limitations prevent a merge. I am no particular fan of Eastwood's acting or politics, but that's no reason that Wikipedia should limit coverage of his life that meets our editing guidelines and criteria. My own contribution to this article was to source info on his 1951 plane crash. Sure, this article has many flaws, which can best be addressed through additional work, not deletion. 18:41, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- Scott Burley (talk) 15:59, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Strong delete. It's full of detailed minutia (e.g. "He was a large baby at 11 lb 6 oz (5.16 kg) and was named 'Samson' by the nurses", plane crash blow-by-blow, etc.). Way over the top. Does he also have a mole somewhere? Does he like Italian or is Chinese food his favorite? What did he get on his last birthday? This kind of thing belongs in People or a book, not here. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:13, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge to Clint Eastwood. We probably could write similar length novels on many major figures of the last 50 years, but if an article is growing too long, put in some editorial effort and trim the unencyclopedic bits.  Clarityfiend points out some places where things were indiscriminately added.  One thing that worries me is that this article sprung into existence as a 28k character monstrosity.  It had 60 references, of which 53 were different pages of "Clint: The Life and Legend". Even now it has 56 references to that book and only 14 references to anything else. This is not a good addition to our encyclopedia. Rockphed (talk) 16:57, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment the article should be kept because it is well sourced. The WP:RS decided the data was of public interest and thereby published it; per policy, Wikipedia goes by the sources.  It would be quite artbitrary to say, well, the RS put out all this well-sourced material that meet all policies, but hey, we editors have decided the WP:RS were all wrong to cover the subject matters! XavierItzm (talk) 22:48, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep - I was going to say delete initially - however, the article is quite detailed, and as per wikipedia standards, there is too much info here to be put into the main article - it would then become too long. Its also been decided to keep it on its first AFD, which tipped my opinion. Deathlibrarian (talk) 02:59, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:SPINOFF. It's lengthy and well referenced and on a notable topic. There's no reason we can't have more thorough coverage on this part of Clint Eastwood's life. Merging is not an ideal option because the main article is already substantial in size. A content fork is really the best option.4meter4 (talk) 04:04, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep or Re-work and Merge the Clint Eastwood series of articles. As per and 's rationale, article length likely prevents these details from being merged into the parent article; however, this is a detailed and well written article, I'd argue. It could be, perhaps, merged into other spin-off articles of Clint Eastwood and renamed in some way, I think. --Doug Mehus (talk) 21:28, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Agreed. But that’s really a decision to be made or not made on the article’s talk page by the editors who actually want to do the work of a merger, if indeed a merger is agreed upon. That’s not really something we can or should decide in an AFD. It’s a reasonable content fork as is per AFDs concerns.4meter4 (talk) 21:52, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * True, but these opinions may help guide post-AfD merger, splitting, and other workings of the articles on which said editors could build off of.--Doug Mehus (talk) 23:19, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not big on offering complex merge opinions at AFD. That's really something best determined by those editors committed to improving that content area. Having the merger discussion here can distract from our purposes at AFD by creating conflict on an outside issue. It can also create an unnecessarily complicated close.4meter4 (talk) 23:37, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * True, but I forgot to mention I've seen other editors point out that AfD is often a more useful avenue for merger and split decisions that otherwise languish for months, even years in some cases. As well, anecdotally, I've observed some editors tend to participate more in page move and merger discussions than in AfD (and vice versa). So, there can be merit to bringing articles to AfD in order to increase the diversity of voices in said discussions. I also subscribe to the view that merge is really a variation on keep. Doug Mehus (talk) 00:50, 28 October 2019 (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.