Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Supergun


 * 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The result was Withdrawn.  Sandstein   20:52, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

large-calibre artillery (ne&eacute; Supergun)

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Fails WP:NOTABLE/WP:GNG.The topic appears to have been invented by the original editor. No references in the article refer to the word 'supergun', and I have found no reliable sources that define this term. No sources are given to support the assertions in the lead. The principal sources/references in the early part of the article are German texts relating to 16th century weapons which use the word 'Riesengeschütze' ('giant guns'). There is no evidence that these guns, nor the guns up to the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century, have ever been referred to by reliable sources as 'superguns'. The word 'supergun' appears to be a modern confection used in journalism, etc., but without any clear definition. There is no encylopaedic reason, (except WP:OR) to include in one article descriptions of mediaeval guns with those of modern guns under this same word. The article has been tagged under WP:WEASEL since January 2012. Parts of the article might be relocated in other articles, (e.g. Artillery). At present it is just a WP:OR assembly of miscellaneous information about large guns. Smerus (talk) 12:01, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Firearms-related deletion discussions. North America1000 15:09, 14 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The topic most definitely was not invented by the original editor, unless xe had a time machine to take xem back from 2004 to 1990. What the original editor wrote about, however, was not what other people later turned this article into.  Put the phrase ″supergun affair″ into some search engines.  Would that the original editor had thought to use Supergun affair as the title from the start!  Then people would have not added every big gun that they could think of to the article, and by now we might have had an article on the original subject that the article creator started writing about. Uncle G (talk) 15:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Uncle G, thanks for this perspective. Clearly, even in your view, the article is not presently fit for purpose.  I learn from this that  it is only the last section of the article, Supergun, that can be held to relate to the notion of 'supergun'. Is therefore one answer to change the article title as you suggest, and remove what doesn't relate to that title to other appropriate articles? I would be happy to support that if it has consensus.Smerus (talk) 17:01, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Steven Zaloga wrote about superguns, but offered no cohesive definition of the concept, did so in 2018 a decade and a half after this article existed, covered the very topics here, and made pointed remarks about encyclopaedias in doing so. So I suspect that xe took the notion from Wikipedia.  In any case, the lack of a definition is a problem, and no-one else seems to have adopted this, from Zaloga or Wikipedia. I would say ignore that section and the current introduction entirely, grow a Supergun affair article from scratch, and try to work out whether there is a real subject here that is being obscured.  Is this about bombards? Or siege guns perhaps?  What, if any, overarching subject does encompass large-calibre artillery?  Would the UNROCA Category III definition do?  Then slap that on the article introduction with a decent source and rename. Uncle G (talk) 18:39, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * In view of your helpful reconstruction of the lede, I would intend to move the article to Large-calibre artillery and withdraw the deletion proposal.Smerus (talk) 07:36, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Now done, and I will also eventually seek to move Category:Superguns to Category:Large-calibre artillery.Smerus (talk) 07:45, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * See also Categories for discussion/Log/2009 June 11. Uncle G (talk) 09:38, 15 August 2019 (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.