Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Weapon-smith

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. No arguments for deletion aside from the nominator. The issue of merging can be discussed on the article's talk page. Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:43, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Weapon-smith[edit]

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Trivial portmanteau of two words, unreferenced. Not even up to WP:DICDEF standard.

This was a contested prod of Weaponsmith, with the comment, "deprod; such a neologism that it appears in the Oxford English Dictionary as first being recorded in 1849! Do your research before you falsely accuse other editors of making up words" However "weaponsmith" doesn't appear in the OED. "Weapon-smith" does appear in the OED, but are we interested in trivial articles with no referencing, on a word whose only vaguely reliable existence is just as a hyphenated composite of two trivially obvious words? Andy Dingley (talk) 13:56, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Weapon-smith appears in the OED: "a forger or maker of weapons". One of its citations indicates that there are interesting things to be said about them: "(Expositor Sept. 265) The settled weapon-smiths of ancient Egypt‥were quite a different class from the nomad clans of tinsmiths and coppersmiths.". Warden (talk) 14:01, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If "there are interesting things to be said about them", then perhaps the article should say them. As it is, there is simply nothing in this article beyond the trivially obvious, that a weapon-smith is someone who smiths weapons. I've seen Lolcats and "This is a flammenwerfer. It werfs flammen" that had more information in them than this article. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:17, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you want content added then please go ahead but AFD is not an article-writing service as we're here to decide just one thing: whether an admin should use the delete function. Our editing policy indicates that the answer is no. Warden (talk) 15:10, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Attempted justification at poor research by saying that "weaponsmith" doesn't appear in the OED, although "weapon-smith" does! And that is a good reason for deletion is it? In any case, the unhyphenated version does appear in a number of other dictionaries and is in common use. An article can certainly be written about this. The fact it is currently only a stub is neither here nor there and not a good reason for deletion. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:27, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to blacksmith Here I was thinking weaponsmith and armorsmith were commonly used terms for blacksmiths specialized in making armor and weapons, but it turns out that was basically invented by fantasy books and videogames. I did find this book, which contains an interesting quote: The Anglo-Saxon weapon-smith himself was celebrated in two Old English poems, one of which speaks of him shaping the helmet, the corslet, the gleaming blade and the round shield. Clearly weapon-smiths did more than just make weapons. Based on the extremely limited coverage we seem to have now I would suggest merging to the general blacksmith article, starting a new section on blacksmiths specialized in the production of weapons and armor, which the blacksmith article is clearly missing. If the section grows large enough to be a separate section, rather than a useless stub with incorrect information, it can be unmerged again. Yoenit (talk) 14:47, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just in case somebody is going to argue that blacksmith is not a good merge target, because the article claims it "can also refer to firearms (gunsmiths)": Until you can present a source to back that statement up I am convinced it is bollocks. Yoenit (talk) 15:00, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We're here purely to decide the question of deletion, not to write or develop the article as AFD is not cleanup. There is an article bladesmith which is obviously related to this topic and who knows what else is already here. We should not rush to merge into any of these without full consideration. Warden (talk) 15:06, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Yoenit - historically, "weaponsmith" as a maker of arms and armour is just as much bollocks (sorry, ballocks) as it is for gunsmith. Although armouring and cutlery were both branches of smithing, neither of them were carried out (at anything beyond the baggage train expedient level) by the same smiths. It's a Victorian fancy to even think of some Wayland character who turned out the whole lot. We can source this "weapon-smith", but never to any more than a post-period hyphenated portmanteau. It would be hard to stretch this to a WP:DICDEF, it would be impossible to write an encyclopedic article on such people in period, because this supposed overall role just didn't happen like that. Probably the first historical "weaponsmiths" who really did make the whole lot would be Armstrong or Krupp! Andy Dingley (talk) 15:27, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep There is no doubt that this was an important historical craft. Evidence of this appears in, for example, this book. It is clear that it was not synonymous with armourer or bladesmith/swordmaker, because references suggest they might do both. A blacksmith might make weapons, but specialist weaponsmiths were clearly in a different class. Their skill was celebrated by contemporaries in works such as Beowulf, and has been written about in works on art and materials science. The topic is notable, could be expanded, and is unsuited to a simple dicdef. --AJHingston (talk) 15:21, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per AJHingston. In particular, the second reference states, "To many Vikings, the weapon-smith was the most important of all such craftsmen". Bladesmith and gunsmith are subcategories of weapon-smith. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:57, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Arts-related deletion discussions. — Frankie (talk) 14:11, 23 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. — Frankie (talk) 14:11, 23 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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.