Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:American Military History

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 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was: delete. Overall consensus is to nuke the lot for now and if they ever come back, they'll see my note on the talk page and can request refunds. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 20:49, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

User:American Military History


and numerous sub-pages. I'm asking for a consensus on whether or not these pages amount to a violation of WP:NOTWEBHOST as they at first appear to be.  &mdash; jmcgnh  (talk) (contribs)  06:49, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment the lead page appears to be an attempt at organizing improvememts to wikipedia coverage of American military history. The subpages appear to be all new unpopulated pages for every day of the year. I'm not sure the main user page should host all that material vs a usersubpage or a wikiproject. I spent a couple minutes looking, and maybe I missed something, so please elaborate on where the issue is exactly. Legacypac (talk) 07:00, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * My reading is that the purpose of these subpages is to enable another website to post links to current-day-relevant WP pages. There is very little evidence that the purpose is somehow to improve WP content. I would not be opposed if there were a WikiProject willing to host such content, that would be – at least on the surface – a collaborative project. But the intent here is that this particular user controls the content of these pages and is the sole authority on whether any of the daily entries is correct, with there being no independent verification.  &mdash; jmcgnh  (talk) (contribs)  07:23, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmm ok, well it would be nice if User:American Military History would explain themselves. Pinging them. Legacypac (talk) 16:56, 12 September 2017 (UTC)


 * It looks like it is sufficiently related to the project to not fail NOTWEBHOST. It looks like an undeclared alternative account.  It looks like resources best located in a WikiProject.  Consider Move to WikiProject Military history/United States military history task force/Notable events in US Armed Forces history  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:00, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
 * interesting; this looks like an unambiguous WP:NOTWEBHOST violation to me. The page User:American Military History explicitly states that these subpages are being used to update this external website, which incidentally appears to violate the Wikipedia TOS by not providing attribution and share-alike licensing per the terms of WP:CC BY-SA. VQuakr (talk) 01:13, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
 * VQuakr, I don't agree that there is an unambiguous violation. You do make the case that this looks like the userpage of a reader, using userspace for facilitating downstream use.  This is unusual, but it is not violating NOTWEBHOST.  Reader accounts are allowed, and I am not familiar with our custom on limitation of userpage use by reader accounts.  http://www.navysmart.com/ may be violating copyright law by not attributing the Wikipedia source, yes, but most certainly this is not fixed by deleting the evidence.  The solution would be to write to navysmart.com@gmail.com (bottom of their webpage) and request attribution.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:42, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
 * IMHO, a few hundred subpages that serve no function except to be parsed onto an external website are webhost violations ("Do not store material unrelated to Wikipedia, including in userspace."). I honestly don't understand why you disagree in this case, but I also don't want you to feel badgered. Can you define "reader account", though? That is not a term with which I am familiar. VQuakr (talk) 01:50, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Don't worry re badgering. I am feeling ambivalent here and am interested in your comments, and others' comments.  A few hundred subpages?  I have only seen one.  One page to facilitate pretty reasonable downstream use seems OK to me.  If there are hundreds, probably they should be using their own web resources.  Definitely, they should be attributing Wikipedia.  I think we should assist this downstream user in doing things properly.  Even if hundred of subpages should be deleted, let's not do it in a kneejerk response.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:03, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Cheers. VQuakr (talk) 04:14, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
 * NB. I am only now reading you !vote below.  My comments above have only considered keep the main page User:American Military History.  Can you link the subpages?  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:05, 14 September 2017 (UTC) These subpages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PrefixIndex/User:American_Military_History/ ?  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:06, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
 * There is a subpage for each of the 365 days of the year, to start with. There may be more. Legacypac (talk) 02:27, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I did not try to verify that the subpages are fully populated, but the intended use would indicate 366 subpages times 5 service branches (Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corp, Navy), so something like 1830 subpages.  &mdash; jmcgnh  (talk) (contribs)  03:02, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I did not verify 365 days x 5 service branches but I did check 20 random date pages and found they had no meaningful content. Legacypac (talk) 06:32, 14 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete all subpages per WP:WEBHOST; keep the main page User:American Military History (which I am fine with blanking, but which itself does not appear to be a WP:WEBHOST violation). Per my reply to SmokeyJoe above these pages have been used to update an off-wiki website, which as near as I can tell is as unambiguous of WP:WEBHOST violation as you can get. The user account appears to be unaffiliated with WP:WikiProject Military history. Incidentally, the user appears to have already moved this material to another, privately-served, wiki - which is the correct solution here. Hopefully they understand the reasons behind the policy and there are no sour grapes: it is good to see this information getting used for their website! This is a weird one, so please let me know if someone thinks I should reconsider the !vote. please see my note above about the Terms of Use violation on your external website. WP:REUSE has more information. VQuakr (talk) 01:13, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
 * 's contribution history demonstrates a violation of Bot policy. If the user doesn't explain, Delete all bot-like created pages, and block.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:35, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment looking at the contribution history, I see some useful work on existing pages and even a new page on a ship. They are starting to fill in some of the date pages. I wish they would communicate here. Legacypac (talk) 06:41, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Concur with VQuakr and Legacypac. I don't see a compelling reason to delete or block the account, but a huge pile of essentially blank pages that may not exist except for a WP:REUSE purpose need not be retained.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:20, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Not compelling to block a non-active account, but Bot policy should be respected more widely. Unapproved automated editing or page creations have been troublesome before.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:11, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete all I wonder if the user in question really just misunderstood how to accomplish building content on Wikipedia or there was something sinister going on. As all those subpages are not in keeping with the goals of the project, I'd delete all of them including the user page. The user in question ought to get a warning on their talk page about WP:NOT. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 23:56, 16 September 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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.