Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gunpowder empires


 * 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. Any discussion about converting the article into a stub can be done on the talk page, or an editor can just WP:BOLDly edit the article. (non-admin closure) Natg 19 (talk) 01:06, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Gunpowder empires

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On the surface the article may look neat: it has a longer introduction, two sections that define the subject and then follows with historical examples. However, a closer look reveals it is a big mishmash of WP:SYNTH and WP:OR.

The scholarly definition of a gunpowder empire is an empire that was built or maintained by the use of gunpowder weapons by the central state, usually headed by an autocratic ruler. As such the term is typically employed to describe the rise of the early modern, territorial, centralized state against both internal, factionalist enemies and foreign rivals that could not afford the same level of armament. The term "gunpowder empire" thus refers to a relation between use of weaponry and state power. Thus, the article should be concerned mainly if not exclusively with scholarly literature that focuses on this relation.

What the current article does, however, is citing a few such texts as a rough outline of the subject, but then it goes on to ignore what they say and fills the article space instead with unrelated literature on the development of weapons technology. This is synthesis. The subject of the article is not another history of gunpowder warfare, but about the impact these weapons had on state formation. In other words: The article should evolve primarily around military and political history, with a stress on administrative matters, but in its current form it is more a fleshed out timeline of the history of (weapons) technology.

In more detail, some of the bigger problems with the current version are: The sections on the other empires are, as been said, more accounts of the history of the spread of cannon and handguns than on the subject. Since the subject is notable but so thoroughly missed that the article is beyond repair, the article should be stubified and reworked. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:39, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The central role of Western Europe is largely ignored: The weapon technology, and the related organizational changes in warfare, that made gunpowder empires possible was developed and exported from Western Europe. Yet, no empire rose in Western Europe as the military and political rivalry was too intense for one power to gain the upper hand. The cited William H. McNeill 1993 devotes almost half of his space to this special path of Western Europe (pp. 103-117). In the section on Europe, however, this development is not even addressed, even though it provides the necessary comparative background for Asia. Instead, all that is offered is a brief outline of the history of the gunpowder formula in Europe that is irrelevant here.
 * The current article entirely omits those European gunpowder empires that did exist. McNeill, for one, treats Muscovy and the European overseas colonial empires such as Spain as the first gunpowder empires (pp. 121-125).
 * The current article overplays the importance of Muslim empires. It even goes so far to misrepresent in the lead and the info box the entire phenomenon as being synonymous with "Islamic Gunpowder Empires". This is WP:OR. In truth, McNeill covers them after the European ones and concludes that at least one of the three, the Safavid empire, "ought not, perhaps, to be counted as a gunpowder empire at all" (p. 131). As it is, the section on the Safavids does not contain a single reference to a work that is primarily concerned with gunpowder empires.
 * Same is true for Korea that is simply listed as one, although McNeill does not refer to it at all, but explicitly writes that the described empire formation process only occurred in the Far East in "China and Japan" (p. 103).
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2020 April 6.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 22:58, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 23:38, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 23:39, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Iran-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 23:40, 6 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Stub and rework sounds good to me. The article is very poorly written. Khirurg (talk) 00:57, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Stub per nom—I agree that it's a WP:OR mess. buidhe 04:02, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Why is this at AfD? The nominator is not asking for the article to be deleted, but simply for content to be changed, which can be done by bold editing or talk page discussion without an admin pressing the "delete" button. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:19, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:STUBIFY is a normal outcome of deletion processes. See here for a deletion discussion where the result was stub and rework. Nowhere does WP policy say that this outcome cannot be suggested by the editor himself who brings up the AfD. Note that WP:ATD-E does not preclude this possibility. I believe this is the right venue here for stubify as the entire contents of the current version need to be deleted, while the lemma should be kept for reasons of notability. Such a strong edit cannot realistically be made by an individual editor by being WP:bold. This move needs wider consensus. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 09:58, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
 * which may be better discussed with editors interested/expert in this subject ie. those that create/edit these types of articles, and wikiprojects that cover these subjects, and the article talkpage, not at afd which primarily looks at the notability or otherwise of a subject (although aforementioned editors can be made aware by the posting of afds at various subject deletion lists). Coolabahapple (talk) 08:54, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 08:55, 8 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep and stubify, or vice-versa, as discussed above. Bearian (talk) 14:27, 10 April 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.