Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/George Washington and slavery


 * 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 This is an instance where the content forking is actually encyclopedic and valid. Merging the two would simply result in an article, that is already bloated, exploding. Cheers,  I 'mperator 18:09, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

George Washington and slavery

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Unnecessary content forking. Content is already included elsewhere. Also, this appears to be a synthesis, rather than a reporting of second party sources. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:38, 5 July 2009 (UTC) Oppose Content forking, as I read the guideline, is only bad when the intent is to present a different POV from the one in the main article. This was obviously not the case when this was originally done, and I don't see that the POV here is significantly different from that in the main article. In fact, due to the size of the original article, the creation and continuing existence of the article seems to be totally consistent with Summary style. If anything, the original article's section on slavery could be trimmed as suggested by summary style -- adding additional info back to the already long main article does not seem like a good idea. The subject of George Washington and slavery is an important issue and has been the subject of at least one well-received recent (2003) book by historian Henry Wiencek. Like many articles, this one can be cleaned up, but that doesn't justify deletion. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 23:23, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: See also Articles for deletion/Thomas Jefferson and slavery. Both appear to be the same content forking issue, although this one is more encyclopaedic (hence I have struck out part of the nom)--Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:46, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep, but clean up -- This is a significnat subject that might be made into a sub-article to George Washington, there already being some, but in that case the subject should be summarised in the parent article. However care will need to be taken that there is no conflict of content.  I note that several books and articles on the subject exist.  I expect the authors do not entirely agree.   Peterkingiron (talk) 23:32, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions.  -- Peterkingiron (talk) 23:20, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge with George Washington. George Washington's legacy, George Washington and slavery and George Washington all seem to provide exactly the same information on the subject. According to WP:CFORK, the forked content (which reads like a personal essay) should be merged back into the main article.  — Rankiri (talk) 00:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 00:50, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Check for content that can be merged into the George Washington article. Otherwise delete. Keep because the editors who work on the George Washington article say that content forking is necessary.  Gosox5555 (talk) 23:15, 5 July 2009 (UTC) (updated Gosox5555 (talk) 02:52, 12 July 2009 (UTC))
 * Comment. Tom (North Shoreman) is right as usual. This article was created a couple years ago as part of an effort to split off several articles from the very long main article on Washington, per WP:Split. This is something that works in theory, but is notoriously hard to maintain because relatively few Wikipedians understand summary style writing, and so editors inevitably add new details to the main article instead of the daughter article. It takes one or more vigilant, knowledgeable editors watching both articles to keep the main and daughter articles properly synchronized. If that's not happening here, then a "merge" back to the main article may be appropriate until someone decides to maintain both articles, or the main article could be re-trimmed, as Tom suggets. A "delete" is the wrong move: scholars have written hundreds of thousands of words on Washington and slavery, so the topic is notable on its own merits. —Kevin Myers 01:08, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Articles that address this and are of sufficient length don't need to be remerged back into an article. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:44, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree completely with Kevin Rutherford. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.117.7.237 (talk) 03:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep the large George Washington article needs content migrated to sub articles. topic is notable given many printed sources on this topic. google:george washington slavery Pohick2 (talk) 16:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - valid, notable, NPOV topic. Colonial Williamsburg and Mount Vernon have information about this topic; the main article is way too large. Bearian (talk) 20:31, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per Tom and Kevin and WP:SPLIT Anarchangel (talk) 16:24, 10 July 2009 (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.