Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Syria/Syrian Civil War task force

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: keep. Retaining history is a legitimate reason to keep project talk pages, and the redirect from the primary page has already been kept at RfD. RL0919 (talk) 21:16, 4 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Syria/Syrian Civil War task force[edit]

A stillborn WikiProject which became a stillborn task force which was then redirected to its own talk page, all in the space of a few days back in 2014, see revison history. This recently came up at RfD (discussion) but concensus was that MfD is the correct venue. PC78 (talk) 17:28, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@PBS, Thryduulf, and Sideways713: Pinging those users who commented at RfD. PC78 (talk) 17:31, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep. I don't really see any benefit in deleting this - just mark it as historical and leave it for anyone who wants to know about it and/or take it forward. Thryduulf (talk) 18:06, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. no point in deleting. Mark as historical, and let's move on. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:11, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- There's barely anything there to mark as historical. PC78 (talk) 18:20, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and Mark as historical anyway if there is nothing worth deleting. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:46, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Are we really going to mark a redirect as historical? What is the point of that? UnitedStatesian (talk) 03:42, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- @UnitedStatesian: No, it is the talk page that will be marked as historical. The redirect is not under discussion here and is completely irrelevant. Thryduulf (talk) 11:04, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  - @Thryduulf: I tagged the talk page merely because the project page is a redirect, the nomination is not intended for the talk page specifically. Clearly if people !vote to delete the project page then the talk page would be deleted too, likewise if people !vote to keep the talk page because it is deemed useful then the project page would need to be kept too. I think you're making an unnecessay distinction. PC78 (talk) 15:25, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    - And I think I've been perfectly clear that the project will not benefit from deleting the talk page and so it should be kept. Thryduulf (talk) 15:49, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment ping the two users who edited the project page and the talk page user:RGloucester and user:Technophant -- PBS (talk) 08:44, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete the page is a redirect to a talk page. @User:Thryduulf and User:MJL it is not historically accurate because it was set up by a user who was involved in content disput[s], who was indef-blocked around tthat time and the project gained no support from any other user. Keeping it labled historical is misleading. Now that this has been explained to you will you consider changing your opinion[s]? The user who created the page was unblocked earlier this year. -- PBS (talk) 08:36, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Absolutely none of that is relevant to my argument (nor anything I didn't know before): specifically there is no benefit to deleting the talk page (which is the page under discussion, not the redirect). The facts you cite also do not make the page not historically accurate (how could it?), and do not impact on whether or not the page is historical. Marking as historical just means "This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference." - it doesn't imply anything about its accuracy or worthiness. Thryduulf (talk) 11:03, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've explicitly added the project page to this discussion since this was not intented to be about the talk page specifically, apologies if this has been the source of any confusion. Plainly, we are discussing both since one redirects to the other. PC78 (talk) 15:34, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Adding the project page is unnecessary - if the talk page is deleted it will be deleted too (per WP:CSD#G8), if the talk page is not deleted then it will be kept per the outcome of the RfD. The project page is therefore irrelevant to whether the talk page is kept or not. Thryduulf (talk) 15:49, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  - But you made a clear distinction in your comments above, insisting that it was the talk page and not the redirect that was being discussed, and I don't see how that was relevant. We would not usually keep an unwanted page simply because of a few talk page comments. PC78 (talk) 18:37, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    - Why is this page unwanted? Nobody has yet explained what benefit deletion will bring to the encyclopaedia. We don't delete pages simply because some people don't think it is very useful. Thryduulf (talk) 19:34, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      - User:Thryduulf since when were the contents of a talk page marked as historical? Better to delete the redirect because it redirects from Wikipedia space to Wikipedia talk and is misleading (what benefit will keeping a confusing redirect bring to the encyclopaedia? -- PBS (talk) 08:12, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        @PBS: If you want to delete the redirect independently of the talk page you should have nominated it at RfD explaining why the consensus of the recent discussion that the redirect is at worst harmless is incorrect. Why would we not mark a talk page as historical if it is? There are at least five Wikipedia talk namespace pages listed among the first 200 pages at Category:Inactive project pages (along with a user talk and a template talk). You still haven't explained why deletion will benefit the project - it is up to those who want to change the status quo to explain the benfits of the change. Thryduulf (talk) 08:34, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        "you should have nominated it at RfD" I did nominate it (as you should be aware as you took place in the debate). To have done so again so soon after could have open me up to accusations of I "didn't hear that". I checked the talk pages listed at Category:Inactive project pages, AFAICT they are all related to pages that have been marked as historical with one exception where the project page is archived to talk space (?). So there is no president there to justify marking a talk page as historical without marking its project page as historical and as redirects are not marked as historical there is no justification for setting such an unuseful precedent as it would harm the encyclopaedia.-- PBS (talk) 09:19, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        But you are disagreeing with the RfD outcome by arguing here for the deletion of the redirect for reasons independent of the talk page being kept/deleted. How would marking this talk page historical harm the encyclopaedia? Why would the precedent (if it would indeed set one) be bad? Whether or not the page is marked as historical you still need to explain how deleting the talk page will benefit the encyclopaedia - which you have repeatedly failed to do. Thryduulf (talk) 09:53, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        Crikey folks, it's stillborn, single-user project with no content, no substantial discussion, created out of process (these thing are meant to be discussed first) and hasn't been touched in five years. I would have expected this to be uncontroversial housekeeping, and it's genuinely baffling why people are falling over themselves to keep it. Also ironic that this MfD has generated more discussion than the page being discussed. Oh well, moving on... PC78 (talk) 16:46, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I have no opinion on whether to keep the talk page, but like Thryduulf said, and like the consensus at RfD said, the discussion really should be limited to the talk page only. If there's a consensus to delete the talk page, the redirect will go with it. Sideways713 (talk) 19:51, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There is no reason why a consensus one page is binding here as only three people expressed that view. There is no reason why this discussion can not end up with the deletion of the redirect which is the project page under discussion.-- PBS (talk) 09:19, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There is no reason why the redirect should be under discussion here, since it's a redirect (why not discuss it at RfD? Well, because RfD would keep it and did keep it), all the content that might be worth keeping is on the talk page, and it's hard to see any circumstances in which the outcomes of this discussion would be different for the redirect and the talk page. As repeatedly pointed out at the RfD, "the page is a redirect to a talk page" is not a valid rationale for deleting the redirect, and it certainly isn't a valid rationale for deleting the talk page. Sideways713 (talk) 15:52, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Wikipedia:WikiProject Syria, do not delete as there is not reason to delete the harmless trivial history and things like this should not come to MfD unless there is opposition to the simple fix. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:30, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. There was never such a task force, so having a page/redirect saying otherwise is misleading. -- Tavix ^(talk) 14:48, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I can't see any "history" to preserve or keep here. This was an idea that never happened - as far as I can see it was abandoned after a few days. How is this of any "historical" interest to Wikipedia? I can't see any material here worth keeping or that would be useful to anybody? Britishfinance (talk) 20:11, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- There are posts on the talk page. Meaningful posts. These are history. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:39, 3 July 2019 (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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.