Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/History of Sri Lanka: pre-Colonial era (500 BC – 1505 AD)


 * 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   delete. If there is any significant material in this article that doesn't already appear in other existing articles, let me know and I'll be happy to restore the article to your userspace for the purpose of merging. -Scottywong | spill the beans _ 16:30, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

History of Sri Lanka: pre-Colonial era (500 BC – 1505 AD)
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This article is a very out of date collage of other history of Sri Lanka articles and is not a total representation of of the time mentioned, it is very poorly done. Also the history of Sri Lanka does not separate into pre and post colonial periods, all the appropriate sub articles already exist. Blackknight12 (talk) 14:56, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep That sounds like WP:RUBBISH. The article certainly needs clean up, possibly reduction in size, but that's not a reason to delete - there are enough references in there to warrant an article. -- Ritchie333  (talk)  15:03, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment - Sure the quality of the article can be upgraded, but the point is that everything in this article has been taken from one of the other subpages that have been properly spun off. And you missed the point that the history of Sri Lanka is not defined by pre and post colonial periods. The colonial era was just a fraction of the nation's 2500 year written history.--Blackknight12 (talk) 15:32, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sri Lanka-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 01:30, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 01:31, 11 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete - I agree with the nominator that this namespace does not seem useful in describing Sri Lanka's history, and there are already articles on the History of Sri Lanka as well as for Ancient history of Sri Lanka, Medieval history of Sri Lanka, and Colonial history of Sri Lanka. Nothing is to be gained by having an article that artificially combines two of these three periods based on them having nothing more in common than that they aren't the third.  Useful, non-duplicative material should be moved to either the general article (which, by the way, could use quick summaries of the individual kingdoms within the medieval period), or the pages for individual periods. Agricolae (talk) 01:55, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Merge with History of Sri Lanka, Anuradhapura Kingdom, Chola dynasty, Polonnaruwa Kingdom, Kingdom of Dambadeniya and Jaffna kingdom. I notice that some parts of the article, for example Kingdom of Dambadeniya, have already been merged with the appropriate articles. The rest of the article should also be merged, preserving the vital references and further reading material. But there is no reason for this article to exist separately, because it falls under the broad category of Hitory of Sri Lanka, and there exists a separate series of articles that deal with each era. A STRONOMYINERTI A  ( TALK ) 17:44, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Merge. My answer is almost the same as Astrmonyinertia's. I would also like to add that, when one speaks of precolonial era, the time limits tend to differ depending on the context. In a political context or if one is interested in tracing the history of the divisions which existed in the island, then it generally refers to the time right before the colonial entry into the island in 1505. Colonial era for the different parts of the island was quite different. Eg. for a good part of the Sinhalese people, namely the Kandyans, the colonial era doesn't start until 1815, when the Kandyan kingdom fell. In other words, the Kandyans have no history of Portuguese and Dutch colonial rule - they just had encounters with these colonial powers, mainly in the form of war, trade and negotiations. Sri Lanka's colonial period proper starts in 1815, with the whole island coming under foreign rule, and in the literature related to SL, one will therefore often find that scholars treat the period right upto 1815 as pre-colonial in many contexts. Also as Blackknight12 has pointed out, Sri Lanka's history is not (usually) dealt with, by dividing it in this manner and there are other sub-articles which deal with all the topics in the almost 2000 year period this single article tries to deal with by squeezing them into short paragraphs. --SriSuren (talk) 03:38, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Multiple Merge -- This is certainly not rubbish. The problem is that it si duplicating History of Sri Lanka and its more detailed sub-articles.  It is trying to cover everything up to 1505.  We have Ancient history of Sri Lanka and Medieval history of Sri Lanka, which should be sufficient.  However, the latter has a section that merely consists of a list of links to main articles on each kingdom.  This could do with expansion to provide a general account of the subject.  Peterkingiron (talk) 13:32, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete - I understand the reasoning for merging with other articles but I doubt this article contains any content that other articles don't - it's simply been copied from other articles. The section on Jaffna kingdom is the lead from Jaffna kingdom, the Books and magazines section is copied from the Further reading section of History of Sri Lanka.-- obi2canibe talk contr 15:09, 14 July 2012 (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.