Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gallery of country coats of arms in 1863

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 delete. Galleries are discouraged on Wikipedia by WP:Galleries and WP:NOTGALLERY. That is not to say that we don’t want to have access to the files, but that the appropriate place for them is on Commons. While some galleries are possible search targets, such as Gallery of banknotes, consensus here is that this title is unlikely so deletion is the appropriate course. If anyone wishes to go to Commons and organise flag images by year date, that is a matter for discussion on Commons, not here. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 22:14, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Gallery of country coats of arms in 1863

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Wikipedia:NOTGALLERY, terribly obscure —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:43, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Not all useful things on Wikipedia should be deleted, and not all galleries are bad. For example, Gallery of sovereign-state flags is good. ~~It is even touted at Wikipedia:Gallery as an example of a good gallery (although that did not keep nominator for also nominating that gallery for deletion).~~ That gallery is indeed extremely useful as a navigational aid. Assisting navigation is one of the stated purposes of lists, and galleries can also serve that purpose, in particular for items whose primary representation is visual. As it is, for many people the primary representation of the topic of this gallery is also visual, and it serves a navigational purpose. --Lambiam 23:08, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Of all the galleries proposed for deletion by the user this is the only one that I agree should be deleted. There is no indication of 1863, of all years, should have this list. What makes that year more notable than 1990, 1992, 1815, 1648 etc. Having a gallery for country coat of arms for each country of every single years does seem like overkill. A gallery of current countries seems appropriate, while the remaining country coat of arms for countries that no longer exist can be included on their respective country pages. Ravendrop 23:43, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Ravendrop. Countries tend not to change their coats of arms very often. Hence, if someone wanted to know what a country's coat of arms looked like in a given year, it would be a better idea to refer them to the article on the country's coat of arms which should describe how that emblem has changed throughout history -- rather than having a gallery for every single year. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:19, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I agree that "by year" is an interesting way of curating this content. Sure, for a particular country it makes sense to look at that country's coat of arms article, and see how it changed throughout history. But seeing historical snapshots that cover multiple countries is also a relevant exercise in comparisons. TheGrappler (talk) 11:22, 8 October 2011 (UTC) [FWIW this is more obvious with flags. I have seen various (dead-wood) sources that let you see what the flags of the world all looked like at particular snapshots in history, but I can't see why that endeavour should be worthwhile but this one not. TheGrappler (talk) 11:24, 8 October 2011 (UTC)][reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:16, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete fails WP:GNG. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:43, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete fails WP:GNG. Arbitrary choice of year. This compilation is original research. You could include these images in individual historic articles about that period. Dzlife (talk) 18:58, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Question/proposal/opinion - Is it feasible to incorporate the coats of arms into List of sovereign states in 1863 (which already has the correct flags for each nation at that time)? Or scrap it in favour of Timeline of national coats of arms (following the excellent example of Timeline of national flags)?
This article is obviously not in breach of WP:NOTGALLERY, nor are nation state's coats of arms non-notable. But I certainly agree with Ravendrop that a specific article of this type for every single year is overkill. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 19:10, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd support a Timeline of national coats of arms (though do they change that often?), but I'm not sure of their addition to the list of states. States are most often identified by their flags, and in fact most coat of arms, most people would have no idea what state they belong to. I'd also be worried about possible visual clutter on that page. I still think the best option is simply to include these on (especially those for states that don't exist anymore) on their respective pages. Ravendrop 19:18, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, especially as it relates to visual clutter - the arms would need to be displayed in a higher resolution and larger size than flags to be identifiable. It seems some coats of arms change very frequently according to politics and some are unchanged for centuries. I think I'd support keeping this page if there was a long series of articles relating to politics and national governance in 1863 but as things stand it seems an arbitrary choice of year. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 09:13, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Apart from NOTGALLERY, there's no point in selecting a single arbitrary year as the basis of the presentation. Sandstein 13:05, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete WP:NOTGALLERY violation is rather blatant. Not really appropriate for an encyclopedia either. --Odie5533 (talk) 15:50, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep - WP:NOTGALLERY notwithstanding, this is an encyclopediatic topic. Perhaps it should be moved to National coats of arms of the mid 19th century, but (given the batch of other articles nominated for deletion by this nominator at the same time) this smacks of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, and something's being "obscure" is not at all a reason for deletion. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:46, 18 October 2011 (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.