Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of Huliaipole

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Battle of Huliaipole[edit]

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

Battle of Huliaipole (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

No named event of this name in sources. Events not independently notable to warrant a stand alone article (GNG/NOTNEWS). The brief incursion into Huliaipole is already sufficiently covered at Southern Ukraine campaign. Ongoing shelling is sufficiently covered at Huliaipole. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:21, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: As the principal author of the article, I would be remiss not to comment that I've put a lot of work into this and would be devastated to see it all thrown in the trash container. I'm not opposed to less notable events being cut down (previous edits have already been made by others to this effect) but I would ask that if this moves towards deletion, that relevant information be merged into relevant articles. Not voting either way right now, just asking that participants take this into consideration. --Grnrchst (talk) 13:22, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Super Dromaeosaurus, RadioactiveBoulevardier, Jebiguess, and HappyWithWhatYouHaveToBeHappyWith: Pinging previous talk page participants. --Grnrchst (talk) 13:38, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose deletion - The article is well-sourced and extensive, and the sources showcase that there is more than enough for an article (Thus I strongly disaagree with Cinderella's statement that the "Events [are] not independently notable"). However, I think concerns about the article name are valid in relation to the article content. Thus, I propopse that insteads of deleting the article, we should rename it to Huliaipole during the Russian invasion of Ukraine or History of Huliaipole (2022–2024) to save the valuable work done for the article, while clarifying that this is the history of a certain city during a war instead of a single battle. Applodion (talk) 18:31, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rename into Huliaipole during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There is significant coverage of this town during the war and the battles for it, but I don't think any individual battle for the city or it's outskirts is notable for its own article. I also think that describing the city's role as one continuous battle is disingenuous; renaming the article to the the history of the town during the war and the role it played as one of the major cities on the southern front more than establishes notability while keeping the bulk of the information. Jebiguess (talk) 20:08, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose deletion. Deletion seems unnecessary, but I think changing the article’s name would be fine. Professor Penguino (talk) 21:13, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There exists no named "Battle of Huliaipole" in reliable sources, as Cinderella157 has mentioned, and I agree with Jebiguess that portraying these events as a battle is "disingenuous"; there appears to be strong consensus that, at least, the current title should not be retained.
The real debate lies in what to do with the content of the page, as the notability of the events has been called into question. Let us analyze the content of this article. One could probably divide most of it into two categories: (1) bombardment of the city of Huliaipole and (2) combat on the front line in some villages south of the city. Honestly speaking, much of the latter probably does not belong here - there is excessive undue mention of places a significant distance from the city, such as Novodarivka, Mala Tokmachka, and Velyka Novosilka.
With respect to the former category: the city lies close to a front line that has been largely stable for two years, so it is understandably a regular target of artillery bombardment. We do not have similar articles for other such frequently attacked places, nor should we be expected to – at a certain point, the 50th instance of "Russian forces shelled Huliaipole" is simply not notable enough for inclusion – this content should be dramatically condensed. Consider, for example, the sections for March 2024 and April 2024, and then read WP:NOTEVERYTHING. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 00:00, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Merge useful content without redirect per SaintPaulOfTarsus. Agree with nom that the article is yet another non-battle. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 03:31, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: An analysis of the sources would be helpful.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Owen× ☎ 20:23, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The page has over 300 references. Could you clarify what should be analyzed, and what the purpose of the analysis would be? SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 22:31, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
An article typically needs two or three solid sources providing significant coverage from reliable, independent sources. Analyzing such two or three refs among those 300 will likely go a long way towards establishing notability. Owen× ☎ 22:38, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Owenx: The problem of this article is not really one of notability or significant coverage of the "Battle of Huliaipole" itself – We cannot establish notability for an event has been conceptualized and given a name by Wikipedia editors alone, and does not exist anywhere else. Nearly all participants in this discussion, by my count, are of the mind that the current title is not ideal because this page is essentially a patchwork of nearly every article that happens to mention Huliapole in any war-related context. Take, for example:

On 5 November, Ivan Fedorov gave an interview with Ukrinform, in which he claimed that detained residents of Melitopol were being used by the Russian military to dig trenches around Huliaipole.

from this source:

How many residents of the Melitopol district are in captivity? Daily statistics change. More than a hundred Someone is already in a pre-trial detention center in Moscow, someone is digging trenches near Huliaipole. They are looking for partisans, but cannot find them.

SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 07:54, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: For the record, I was never happy about the title, I raised issues with it years ago and even before it was created. This article was effectively a content fork from the article on the city, as coverage of how the war affected the city quickly came to overrun the rest of the article. The title simply stuck out of inertia, as I was the only person that stayed around to update the article in the long term, and my attempts to gain consensus on a move or merge went nowhere. I'd still support either of these options, as proposed above. --Grnrchst (talk) 08:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The title is irrelevant for AfD. The closing admin will likely ignore !votes that are based solely on the inappropriateness of the title. The only question before us in this AfD is: could the events described in the body of the article meet our notability guidelines (e.g., WP:NEVENT), based on existing sources, and is this notability independent of that of more general events, such as those described in Southern Ukraine campaign? If, and only if, the answer to both questions is Yes, the article will be kept, and discussion may then commence about giving it a better title. At this point, the title should be seen as a placeholder. Debating it here is a distraction. Owen× ☎ 10:48, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What is pertinent from Grnrchst's comment is that this is an inappropriate content fork and therefore not independently notable. The metric of how many sources are cited does not of itself establish notability. Almost all of these are WP:NEWSORG and none are peer reviewed (that I can see). Those I do not class as NEWSORG are think tanks, predominantly ISW that makes regular summary updates of events and are only a short step away from being a NEWSORG in spirit. Most of these sources make only the briefest passing mentions of Huliaipole. I sampled three citations (100 Ukrainska Pravda 4 July 2023, 200 Ukrainska Pravda 23 December 2023 and 300 France24 22 May 2023). They each make a single mention of Huliaipole:

  • [Russian forces] ... deployed artillery to attack more than 30 settlements, including Levadne, Olhivske, Malynivka, Huliaipole, Bilohirya (Zaporizhzhia Oblast); Zmiivka, Lvove, Tokarivka, Antonivka, Veletenske, Stanislav (Kherson Oblast) and the city of Kherson.
  • Around 20 civilian settlements came under Russian artillery and mortar fire, including Poltavka, Huliaipole, Charivne, Mala Tokmachka and Robotyne (Zaporizhzhia Oblast).
  • The team [of Ukrainian volunteers] has been setting up a shelter in Huliaipole, a devastated town in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Collectively, these sources are an indiscriminate collection of routine reporting that lack depth and produce no evidence of lasting independent notability. They do not establish WP:NEVENT. There is some relevance to the article on Huliaipole and the southern Ukraine campaign but that which is noteworthy from such reporting has already been effectively summarised in those articles. This is not a named event there is no reasonable rationale to maintain the article as a place-holder. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:58, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So far that kind of articles only exists for major cities. Lowering the threshold to a small town like Huliaipole could also ignite the creation of many content forks. Personally I don't believe it is a good idea. Even if they're well-written, I don't think we should have this kind of articles for places in Ukraine unless they're prominent. Super Ψ Dro 16:29, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Merge or keep without prejudice to a moving the page? Move is not a valid AfD outcome.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, voorts (talk/contributions) 22:56, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Further comment: merging with an uncreated article is not possible; that would be a cut-and-paste move. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:11, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Battle_of_Huliaipole&oldid=1224531437"