Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fort McKean


 * 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. Geschichte (talk) 08:48, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Fort McKean

 * – ( View AfD View log )

I'm not convinced this is a notable fort. Analysis of sources: a primary source military report, an obscure doctoral thesis from a minor college, an unpublished letter, a primary source letter, and Wisconsin in the War, which I tracked down and could only find passing mentions of this fort in. This is referring to a different for in North Dakota. This is referencing a site in Nebraska. This appears to be referring to Fort Plain, New York. Brief mention there. I'm just not seeing any way this passes WP:GNG, as everything's either passing mentions or in primary sources, except for an apparently unpublished letter and an obscure doctoral thesis. As the article says It is unknown what buildings or defenses were erected there. This seems to be a very obscure frontier fortification that didn't get any significant attention in secondary RS. Hog Farm Bacon 19:32, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Hog Farm Bacon 19:32, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Hog Farm Bacon 19:32, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Kansas-related deletion discussions. Hog Farm Bacon 19:32, 8 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I originally wrote the article on Fort McKean and since then I wrote a book entitled "Forts and Posts in Kansas During the Civil War: 1861-1865" in which I detailed many more references about Fort McKean. This fort was one of quite a few military posts along the Kansas-Missouri border that were established in response to guerrilla activity in the area. It seems I will need to add these references to the article. Since my book is also a published source, I will include it in the references. Bill Pollard (talk) 20:44, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep (edit conflict) The difficulty with this AfD is that it's for a frontier civil war fort that is verified (my search brought up records that a Company C was stationed there, and that specific soldiers were stationed there) but that hasn't been mentioned much since, if ever. We have WP:V. We might have GNG based on the sources provided, and we might not. The fort was definitely noted even if not extensively in the mid-1860s and late 1870s and forgotten about, making it hard to apply traditional WP:GNG principles, which are usually based on what you can easily find on the internet. Additionally mentioned  My gut says we're a better encyclopaedia with the article, so weak keep per WP:IAR, but if there are good places to merge the content I'd be open to those. SportingFlyer  T · C  20:47, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I kind of end up on keep myself. Seems to be a quality reference and stub.--Paul McDonald (talk) 05:09, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Seems to be a notable fort, and well-referenced too. ~ EDDY  ( talk / contribs )~ 16:49, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep But weakly like SportingFlyer, and I don't disagree with the nominator. The relevant guideline here is Notability (geographic features): Artificial geographical features that are officially assigned the status of cultural heritage or national heritage, or of any other protected status on a national level and for which verifiable information beyond simple statistics is available, are presumed to be notable. This fort has no such official status, although it does have some coverage in reliable sources. Would support merging into a list article on "Forts and Posts in Kansas", but there isn't one.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  20:55, 11 November 2020 (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.