Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suvalkai Region

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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 no consensus. I suggest the issues here are far too complex for an AFD at present, and suggest further discussions on the relevant article talk page. Neıl ☎ 13:11, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Suvalkai Region

Suvalkai Region (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

First, this is a an unreferenced article under a rarely used name ([1]); this redirect (Suwalki region) is 20 times as popular. It has been suggested in the past that this article should be merged with Sudovia[2] (aka Suwalszczyzna[3]), the target article should be renamed either Suwałki region or remain as Sudovia. Certainly, no evidence has been presented (despite discussion split between both talkpages - Talk:Sudovia and Talk:Suvalkai Region) to support the existence of the two articles on the same region (no refs differentiate between entity A - Suvalkai Region and entity B - Sudovia, together with entity C - Suwalszczyzna and entity D - Suwałki Region - they are simply the different names for the same place (here, for example, is a Polish government site that equates Suwalki Region - a redirect to Suvalkai Region - with Suwalszczyzna, a redirect to Sudovia... Also, note the lack of Lithuanian or Polish interwikis on Suwalkai Region, and extensive interwikis on Sudovia (surely if the Suvalkai Region was important as a separate entity, Lithuanian or Polish wikis would have an article on it). Simply put, one of them severs as a POV fork, with one article being geared towards the Lithuanian POV and another one, towards the Polish POV. In the end it's one and the same region and both POVs should be presented in one article. Hence, I believe that this article should be merged and redirected into Sudovia, which may or may not need to be moved to Suwałki region. Merger of histories would also be useful here, as both articles have been relatively significantly edited in the past. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:21, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Merge Suvalkai region with Sudovia. Do include map, table and most of text. greg park avenue (talk) 22:17, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • HUH??? A) AfD is not a place for discussions whether articles should or should not be merged. Therefore this AfD is not proper and should be speedily closed. B) Suvalkai Region or Suwałki Region is a very small border area disputed between Poland and Lithuania - the reason for the Polish-Lithuanian War in 1919 and 1920 and center of the Sejny Uprising. Sudovia is one of the five regions of Lithuania - a concept which is extremely difficult to explain to a non-Lithuanian. Suwalszczyzna is a geographical/cultural/historical region in Poland. Sodovia + Suwalszczyzna = Suwałki Governorate, an administrative division of the Russian Empire which was split along ethnic lines when Poland and Lithuania declared independence in 1918. It's distinction comes from as far as the Sudovians, an extinct Baltic tribe. All these terms talk about different areas in different time periods in different countries. If the article does not do a good job explaining the differences, they should be improved. Confusing terminology is not a reason to merge distinct articles. Renata (talk) 01:47, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy reopen. A user involved in the discussion should not speedy close it. The article as it stands is unreferenced OR and thus ripe for deletion - though merger I think would be the preferred outcome. AfD is a good place to debate that. Finally, Renata: in literature I have read those terms are used interchangingly. If you want to defend your different definitions, please follow WP:V, provide refs to back them up - preferably one which do discuss them all and compare (democracy may have 200 different definitions but it does not mean we need 200 different articles on the same concept).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 04:33, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • And so as to avoid accusations that such a user should not speedy reopen it either, I concur with Piotrus's decision to overturn the closure. Stifle (talk) 15:46, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • For the record: opening AfD discussion for a merger is bad enough, but opening it to override the same discussion that takes place on talk:Sudovia and does not go in the direction a user wants, is a gross violation and abuse of WP policies and procedures. Renata (talk) 17:37, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep per Renata arguments. Although I'm also convinced, that there are better ways to discuss merger than ultimatum to delete the article or merge.--Lokyz (talk) 08:27, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You should be glad we support merging an unreferenced article. It's just your friendly neighbor attitude. Keeping it is out of question until the proper references are provided. greg park avenue (talk) 13:19, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I'll let this personal attack go, references now are provided in the language most of the opposing force should understand.--Lokyz (talk) 18:07, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. There are not two different articles on Alsace/Elsass. Tymek (talk) 05:06, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maps:
  • Suwałki Governorate in yellow - approx. the total territory discussed here
    Suwałki Governorate in yellow - approx. the total territory discussed here
  • Sudovia in pale orange. One of the five ethnographic regions of Lithuania. Think of it as an administrative subdivision of Lithuania.
    Sudovia in pale orange. One of the five ethnographic regions of Lithuania. Think of it as an administrative subdivision of Lithuania.
  • Suvalkai Region (sometimes also "Suwałki triangle") in dark purple - territory disputed between Poland and Lithuania in 1918-1939
    Suvalkai Region (sometimes also "Suwałki triangle") in dark purple - territory disputed between Poland and Lithuania in 1918-1939
  • The same "Suwałki triangle" in the context of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
    The same "Suwałki triangle" in the context of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Don't have map for Suwalszczyzna, but it's pretty much the Suwaŀki Governorate that's now in Poland. My zero Polish knowledge is enough to understand that that article in Polish Wikipedia has nothing to do with Lithuanian Sudovia. And Sudovia has really nothing to do with Poland - it's a region of Lithuania. So it's a mistake to redirect Suwalszczyzna to Sudovia. It should be an article on its own. And then we can discuss whether to merge Suwalszczyzna with Suvalkai Region as those areas do largely overlap. Renata (talk) 17:37, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Where map of Suvalkai Region came from, Soviet sources? I guess so. There are their military bases marked on the map, and only Soviets could consider Poland as still sovereign country back in 1940 which is news to me. Besides, it looks like a pacification map to me, hardly a proof of historical heritage of Suvalkai and its region, but I still vote to include it into Sudovia article as a document of bygone era whoever drew it. Thanks! greg park avenue (talk) 21:24, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I drew the map based on Lithuanian map published in 2001 (full details in description page). It does not show any specific date and I made it to illustrate a ton of different territorial changes and disputes 1919-1940 (focusing on 1939-1940 period). Soviet bases are there because it was a condition for transferring part of Vilnius Region to Lithuania. And label "Poland" is there to give general context and not to indicate anyone's sovereignty. Renata (talk) 01:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Editor drawn maps are useful but there are not a valid reference. This still leaves the article pretty unreferenced.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 01:57, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Editor drawn maps shows to contributors, who is unfamiliar with situation, simple fact - those regions are different.M.K. (talk) 08:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Maps might differ, regions often change its names but these still stay the same though, even if they are not marked on any map for some time. Unlike many streets in post-Soviet era cities including Russia, Poland, Lithuania and in many other ex-republics or ex-satelites, so called regions of Soviet domination - these are always on any map - only their names change. greg park avenue (talk) 23:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, article appears to be referenced. Martintg (talk) 05:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please provide quotations from the references with definitions, as far as I can tell they are nothing but three random mentions - uses of the name - in the context that would pefectly fill the Sudovia region, too. Nobody is denying that Suvalkai Region is a (very rarely) used alternative name for the same region. The fact that we can reference the existence of a term used in a redirect does not mean the redirect should become a POV fork. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 14:24, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge Suvalkai Region article into Sudovia, the same region. Visor (talk) 07:20, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Suvalkai Region article into Sudovia, the same region.Art to integration --Lukaszenka (talk) 08:13, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or Merge. It's no good anyway. //Halibutt 10:14, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete-seems completely unfounded concept. A short paragraph on territorial claims by Lithuanian nationalists will be enough in Suwałki article. All the talk about "concept will be difficult to understand to non-Lithuanians" and ancient "extinct Baltic tribes" convices me of OR and nationalist bent.--Molobo (talk) 12:30, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, no matter what the usual WP:IDONTLIKEIT suspects say. This term is established in English literature [4] and used by apparently non-Lithuanian authors, while the Polish-POV term [5] is, as so often, promoted by many Polish-named authors, and "Polska Akademia Nauk". -- Matthead  Discuß   14:36, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A remark Matthead, please keep you POV about Poland and its institutions to yourself. Tymek (talk) 17:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please, such unproductive comments, those definitely would not make your case look better. M.K. (talk) 08:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge. I read both articles and couldn’t help but noticing that the article Suvalkai Region is written along the old geopolitical lines as if the 1919-1920 dispute never ended. Its existence is based solely on semiotics. We can hope for a fair size comprehensive study with potential for a good article only if it is merged into Sudovia as part of its own history. --Poeticbent talk 15:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge, and rename to "Suwałki Region," which best reflects the region's current native name. Nihil novi (talk) 07:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep + gross misuse of WP principles. When the contributor initiates proper merger process on the articles in question and do not find support on talk pages for such POV from different contributors and at the end yet again lobbing for merger on complete improper venue, indeed such behavior could be called, as already noted, as gross violation and abuse of WP policies and procedures nothing more. And till now, despite the Renata's best attempt to demonstrate that those regions are completely different from each with illustrative means, we see volunteers who still insisting that those are the same region. Despite the fact that even U.S. department of State uses Suvalkai region terminology. Curios enough that only Polish contributors insisting on deletion and I can image that after this "nomination" failure we will see yet another attempt, it will be a renaming procedure to "proper" name...M.K. (talk) 09:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, recommending some rewrite to distinguish it as an ethnic region, apart from the various political entities that it belonged to. There are a good number of refs to Suvalkija in Gbooks and Gscholar [6],[7] and some solid refs on plain Google as well [8]. Archeologists use it [9], as well as the US Dept of State. Suvalkai Region vs. Suvalkija, they seem somewhat interchangeable, per this ref [10], but that can be sorted out later. If you look at this last ref, you see how it was divvied up in various ways over its history, but its usage by archeologists and ethnologists argues for a separate entry. Novickas (talk) 14:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I see the article has been rewritten with an ethnologic focus, so presumably this will go to a naming conflict. Yuck. Some preliminary results:
  • 75 for Suvalkija in Google scholar: [11]
  • 21 for Sudovia in Google scholar: [12]
  • 187 for Suvalkija in GBooks [13]
  • 95 for Sudovia in GBooks [14]
  • 66 for Suvalkai area in Gbooks,[15] it's a little harder here because Suvalkai is also the name of a town, but most of these seem to refer to the area. Novickas (talk) 15:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC). Add link Novickas (talk) 15:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regular Google:

  • 3,100 English pages for suvalkija -wikipedia -wapedia -wiktionary [16]
  • 1,580 English pages for sudovia -wikipedia -wapedia -wiktionary [17] Novickas (talk) 15:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge. Per Poeticbent. Space Cadet (talk) 15:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Novickas summed it up pretty well. --Irpen 18:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Can we agree that this is too complex for an AFD? Move it somewhere - all participants will be notified? Novickas (talk) 20:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral - AfDs are often a great way to grab people's attention - as we all know, "merge" tags or talk-page posts can often sit for months without anyone caring, but this has a certain urgency about it. Now that attention has been grabbed - a legitimate purpose of AfD, within limits - I think it's time to close this and for all involved parties to head to the talk page and resolve the dispute somehow. Biruitorul (talk) 21:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • What? AfD is used for grab people's attention??? Deletion policy clearly states that disputes over page content are not dealt with by deleting the page.Moreover suggesting that "merge" tags or talk-page posts can often sit for months without anyone caring is wrong in this case, as merge proposal on article's talk page attracted a lot of contributors (including completely neutral) [18]. The only "problem" was that extensive discussion on article talk page denounce Polish lobbing for merger, quite clearly. Therefore now there was made another attempt to eliminate not handy article to certain POV on this venue. Actually, this "nomination" should go till the end and we will see if new precedent of using RfD will be drown. M.K. (talk) 08:16, 23 April 2008 (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.
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