Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of female military historians


 * 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. Consensus to keep after improvements to the article. Whether a similar list which may contain redlinks should be created in a WikiProject subpage is out of this discussion (i.e. of course any editor may create such a list in project space to facilitiate article creation and improvement). (non-admin closure) f eminist 01:24, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

List of female military historians

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

2 sources for entire list; not a single WL for names; not clear why being female is significant in this context. ‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia ᐐT₳LKᐬ  09:01, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment For a range of reasons, women only make up a small proportion of military historians. Nick-D (talk) 09:41, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Nick-D (talk) 09:41, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Of the people listed at List_of_historians_by_area_of_study, not one of them is obviously female. This suggests that female military historians may be notable (in a colloquial sense rather than necessarily in terms of WP:GNG) simply for being female military historians. Zazpot (talk) 14:06, 6 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep or move. As it stands, the article seems not to pass WP:GNG, but with work it might do, and close to meeting WP:LISTN, per Joe's comment below. I am OK with keeping it.
 * Failing that, it is still likely to be of great use to Wikipedia efforts such as Women in Red and/or Gender gap task force, etc, and should be moved either to a sub-page of one of those WikiProjects, or to a sub-page of the user who created it, so that it can add value to Wikipedia without necessarily being in the article namespace. If at some point in the future it has been updated so as to pass WP:GNG and any other applicable policies, then at that point it could be moved back to the article namespace. Zazpot (talk) 14:15, 6 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Move: I agree with Zazpot unless some of the names on the list are already the subject of biographies. If so, a shortened linked list could be prepared for the main space.--Ipigott (talk) 14:55, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:14, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:14, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:14, 6 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment. We have Category:Military historians, no Category:Female military historians at present. The category's existing subdivisions are by nationality and topic/war of study. List of military historians redirects to List of historians by area of study. postdlf (talk) 16:23, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep Meets WP:LISTN in that the group has been the subject of significant coverage . Women in traditionally male-dominated scholarly fields (i.e. all of them) are frequently notable, and we have many similar lists, e.g. List of women linguists, List of women classicists, List of women botanists. Based on some quick spot checks I think the majority of the entries could be blue-linked, so while better sourcing would be nice, it isn't strictly necessary. If kept it should be moved (back) to List of women military historians, because it's a list of people not lab specimens. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:10, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:10, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Joe, I agree that "women" is more appropriate than "female": good point. About notability, I have little or no experience of WP:LISTN discussions. Is your claim that, "while better sourcing would be nice, it isn't strictly necessary", based upon WP:LISTN, or upon something else? I'm not asking because I disagree (I don't: I'm undecided at this moment) but only for clarity of understanding. Thanks :) Zazpot (talk) 17:19, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that there are two things we need sources for with lists: first to demonstrate that the list itself is on a notable topic per WP:LISTN, but these won't necessarily be mentioned in the article itself; second to support the inclusion of individual entries and verify any details. In my experience editors are usually happy for entries to appear on a list without a supporting citation if we have an article on that entry which backs up the information (presumably with citations). See List of archaeologists for example; only the red-linked entries have citations. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:30, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Joe, ah OK, hence your remark about blue links. But if those are needed, then presumably the list as it stands is not yet ready for article space? Zazpot (talk) 17:36, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * It's not a long list, it wouldn't take a lot of effort to go through and add them, so I don't think their absence it's sufficient reason for deletion. We certainly have many lists that have been in much worse shape for years. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:38, 6 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep Per Joe: This is a viable topic for a list given the coverage, and the article can be improved. Nick-D (talk) 00:33, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment assuming this is kept, as seems the consensus, it would still be natural to remove all the entries which are not WLed or appropriately sourced. Which is still almost all of them. And the list is rather long. ‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia  ᐐT₳LKᐬ  02:50, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
 * , what do you think about moving it to a sub-page of WikiProject Women in Red or WikiProject Gender gap task force per my suggestion above? Zazpot (talk) 13:22, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * no disagreement here. ‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia  ᐐT₳LKᐬ  17:23, 10 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete Despite the sources Joe pointed to, I don't think the subject is generally notable. The list of names overwhelmingly contain NN entries and is largely unsourced. I don't think it makes sense to keep this article at this stage in the game; if anything, this is a good WP:TNT opportunity for another editor to start over from scratch. There are too few NN entries to excuse a category, either. Wikipedia needs a list of woman historians before a list of women in the sub-field of military history. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 03:28, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
 * , what do you think about moving it to a sub-page of WikiProject Women in Red or WikiProject Gender gap task force per my suggestion above? Zazpot (talk) 13:22, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not opposed in principle to making it a WikiProject subpage but Userfication doesn't support that. Perhaps the content could be moved into your userspace for development. Be advised, your ping did not work. You might check the box under preferences for the interface to warn you when a ping fails. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 23:17, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * thanks for the heads-up about the ping and the preference. No idea why it didn't work. Did it work this time?
 * Puzzled by your saying, "Userfication doesn't support that". Userfication is just an essay. As we're the editors deciding what to do with the page, we can WP:IGNORE that essay, especially if we come up with a better outcome than the essay describes. IMO, moving the list into the namespace of an appropriate WikiProject is exactly such a case. Zazpot (talk) 05:06, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * We can WP:IGNORE anything, but I am be very uncomfortable with the idea of moving an article in the space of a project that has not expressed a desire for it.   Hawkeye7   (discuss)  05:22, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * No, the ping did not work. I don't know why. Yes, it's just an essay but I think that essay enjoys pretty wide consensus and I prefer to stick with what this community agrees to do. Since you're invested in this list, I don't understand why you'd be opposed to moving into your userspace. I can see some editors agree with your suggestion and I won't fight consensus if it decides to move into WP-space; it's just a bit outside our norm. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 04:41, 12 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete, or move upon request to project space, Women in Red. Almost none of the entries on the list do not have articles, and the notability of the subjects is unclear. Does not meet WP:LISTN and WP:SIGCOV; a non encyclopedic cross-categorisation at the moment. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:07, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * , what do you think about moving it to a sub-page of WikiProject Women in Red or WikiProject Gender gap task force per my suggestion above? Zazpot (talk) 13:22, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Either one would work. It could be an interesting project. Just not ready for the mainspace yet. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:30, 12 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep and move to List of women military historian. Lorstaking (talk) 04:51, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. Too few people of proven notability. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:06, 10 October 2017 (UTC).
 * , what do you think about moving it to a sub-page of WikiProject Women in Red or WikiProject Gender gap task force per my suggestion above? Zazpot (talk) 13:22, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Could do, but the black links should go. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:24, 10 October 2017 (UTC).
 * Xxanthippe, thank you for the reply :) I'm a bit puzzled, though: are you saying you believe that black-linked entries should be deleted before a move into the namespace of one of those WikiProjects, even though the whole purpose of such a move would be to turn those black links into blue links before the page is restored to article space? If so, please could you explain the rationale behind your belief? Thanks, Zazpot (talk) 22:11, 10 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Move to a sub-page of WikiProject Women in Red. The blue-links should be added to List_of_historians_by_area_of_study if it is moved. power~enwiki ( π,  ν ) 15:23, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I assume that Women in Red actually wants the page, but don't know for certain. If not, there's probably a user space that it can be moved to, that of  by default. power~enwiki ( π,  ν ) 16:03, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I can confirm we want the page. Dysklyver  19:44, 11 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep The notability of the subjects is clear enough to me. Many already have articles, although they could be improved. Sourcing would be easy.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  19:53, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Move to project space without changes per power~enwiki & Zazpot. Dysklyver  16:00, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Question for those suggesting a move to project or userspace: can you clarify what the purpose of such a move would be? If it's to provide a Women-in-Red-style "redlist" of articles for later creation, I'm not sure that would add much to the very long redlist at WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by occupation/Historians. It would also seem to implicitly accept that most of the people in this list are notable, in which case what is the rationale for removing it from mainspace? Or if the idea is to incubate it with a view to returning it to mainspace at a later date, why can't it be left in place and improved in the same way? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 09:36, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Joe, I already did, but to clarify: the reason for moving it to a sub-page of e.g. WP:WOMRED would be to provide a place where interested editors could work on it, safe from deletion attempts, until it reaches the point where no reasonable editor would propose it for deletion even in the article namespace, at which point it would be moved back to the latter.Zazpot (talk) 12:50, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification. I just wasn't sure if others were !voting with you for the same reasons. As mentioned I do have something of a pet peeve about this logic, per WP:IMPERFECT: if an article is on a viable encyclopaedic topic and isn't irrecoverably crap, I don't see any reason why it can't stay in mainspace while it is improved. But I realise that since draftspace came along many editors have come to disagree with me on that (although WP:IMPERFECT is still a policy!) –&#8239;Joe (talk) 13:00, 12 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment. As suggested by and others, I've trimmed the list down to only blue-linked or verifiably notable people. I've also added a lead section and some references, and removed the table. I wasn't particularly thorough in checking if those without articles were potentially notable, and I noticed that the names mentioned here as two of the most influential women historians (Joanna Bourke and Amanda Foreman) weren't actually on the list, which suggests to me there is definitely room for expansion. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 10:35, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Joe, your comment above caused me some WP:WIKISTRESS until I viewed the article's edit history and saw that you saved the rest of the list - with table formatting intact - to the article's talk page. Phew! Thanks for that :) I felt it was worth making this comment here, to spare other editors the same stress ;) Zazpot (talk) 12:43, 12 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep, honestly when I saw this a while ago I thought I'd be in favour of deletion per WP:NOTDIRECTORY mostly. But the subject has received significant commentary in reliable sources, so that's a clear pass of WP:GNG. The rest of the issues can be address through regular editing. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:47, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep per Joe, Headbomb. I lean weak for "lists of X in Y" type things, but see no reason to qualify the !vote in this case. Smmurphy(Talk) 15:42, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep after the cleanup, a move isn't called for. The content on the talk page can be moved to a project sub-page without an AfD discussion. power~enwiki ( π,  ν ) 15:53, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep, on notability; needs work; the clean up, helped. Kierzek (talk) 16:16, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. Sources indicate that this is a notable subtopic. The list has been significantly cleaned up but I'd be in favor of additional tightening by removing the entries that have no bluelink and for which secondary sources cannot be found (currently, most of the unlinked entries are only primary-sourced). —David Eppstein (talk) 18:46, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I restored the bluelinks only list. The references (mostly faculty profiles) didn't show notability. I'm not oppose to redlinks, but only if backed by sources that can be used to established WP:N. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:43, 12 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep - per Joe, Nick, etc. Clearly a notable topic, and as for the suggestion to move to project space, WP:AFDISNOTCLEANUP. If the topic is notable and the article is not irretrievably broken, there's no reason to move it out of main space. Parsecboy (talk) 14:36, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep as per above comments.  Greenbörg  (talk)  18:06, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep per Joe and Nick.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 19:59, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep -- has been sufficiently improved in the course of this AfD and is suitable for retention. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:55, 14 October 2017 (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.