Talk:Land battery

Merge

Given the outcome of the related discussion was a consensus for merge, and unless anyone beats me to it or has specific thoughts on how to approach, I'll likely do it tomorrow 13 Dec. Guliolopez (talk) 23:24, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

@Guliolopez:Gimme a day or two; I'm starting a deletion review. This does not belong in CA. Anmccaff (talk) 23:59, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Em. I'm not sure what to say to that to be honest. My note above was to discuss "how to merge" or possibly "when to merge" or "who might merge". The "whether to merge" discussion has (to my understanding) already taken place - with a pretty clear consensus outcome. I am not sure what reasoning you are planning to apply in the proposed DRV, but I am not seeing any procedural, interpretation or related issues that would align with WP:DRVPURPOSE (it was closed by an unrelated admin, only one editor seemed to advocate delete, I am unaware of any "new information" being available, and I'm not aware of any procedural issues). I am more than a little confused to be honest. And, though I'm sure it's not the case, there is the danger of slipping towards WP:IDHT there.... Guliolopez (talk) 09:41, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, where were any cites showing that this was an encyclopedic topic? Some contemporaneous encyclopedia cites? Some authoritative texts? Even a dictionary entry? Nope, just some personal essays and some google searches. If it won't justify an article -and this stuff clearly won't, it doesn't justify a misleading re-direct.

Looking at the Google searches, we have one which is forged, a fake cite. That is never a very good sign. We have one, which you provided, which shows 7 unique cites. One is about a completely unrelated topic, which just happens to have the two words land and battery next to each other. Of the remaining six, only one-third -may- refer to the redirect subject, and one means the exact opposite of the redirect subject. None supported -any- of the articles content. None were related to the article's illustration. We have a third Google search, provided by the fellow who forged a fake cite, which reiterates a couple of your examples -again, never a good sign- and contains no new examples that support a redirect.

This should not have been closed until something supporting the subject at all as an encyclopedic topic was provided. Dredging Google to find terms in close proximity is, at best WP:OR of itself. Anmccaff (talk) 18:06, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Respectfully I am not sure what to do with the WP:IDHT position that seems to being adopted. There is absolutely plenty of sources which confirm the term "land battery" as a viable and understood descriptor for a fixed coastal-defence anti-shipping gun emplacement. I am not sure what we are focusing on examples where the two words "just happen to appear together", when there are plenty of examples where the term is used in this context. Everything from:

• This 1840s description of the HMS Hannibal coming under fire from (and ultimately falling to) land batteries during the 1801 First Battle of Algeciras
• Or this 1848 translation of the term "land battery" in the multi-lingual dictionary "Technological military dictionary" by George Floyd Duckett
• Or these various notes from 1861 in Barnard's "Notes on Sea-Coast Defence".
• Or this more recent description of the US civil war-era Fort Popham being "part of the coastal defence land battery"
• Or this use of the term in "A treatise on fortification, with observations on the increased effects of artillery" from 1833
• Or this use of the term in "The military and naval history of the rebellion in the United States"
• Or various similar examples of use in a more modern book about the War of 1812
• Or various more modern uses of the term on the web.
• And (just so we are clear) many many many others besides.

Frankly I am baffled therefore at the suggestion that the term is an "invention" or "original research", when there is MANY AND VARIED examples of the term being used outside this project and over CENTURIES to mean a type of coastal artillery position. For this reason there was clear and unequivocal consensus to merge whatever salvageable, referenced and verifiable material we could into the coastal artillery article. And, if you have no thoughts on how to do that (and want to stick with an IDHT position that we are still at the "whether to do that" stage), then I am not sure what to say. Other than to note that I'll just go ahead and do it myself. Thanks. Guliolopez (talk) 00:37, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I think your own cites here again make my point. "Land battery" was an ambigigous term, and not always a "term of art" in the way that, say,water battery was, especially in USAnian usage.

Barnard is using "land battery" for two separate meanings within a page of each other. In one case, he is referring to guns ashore fighting against ships; in the other, to guns on land investing a fortress. The second usage has nothing whatsoever to do with "coast artillery," except, perhaps, in the provenance of the cannon. Naval types were much more likely to use the phrase. This bifurcation of meaning showed up throughout the earlier cites, with some sources using it for naval guns ashore, attacking land targets, one using it for guns for landward defense of Port Arthur.

Carstens' book is self-published, and looks it. It also explicitly acknowledges Wikipedia as a source.

Duckett is a useful cite, but still doesn't answer the question of why one term out of hundreds, perhaps thousands, deserves a particular redirect, aside from the fact that someone on Wiki had written a very bad article using it. Anmccaff (talk) 18:33, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Merge proposal ("how")

Am splitting this thread here somewhat, in an attempt to bring this back to the intended "how to merge" (rather than revisiting the closed "whether to merge" or "where to merge" discussions). In short, what I propose is simply adding the following line (highlighted in green) to the existing "History" section and text of the Coastal artillery article (existing text not highlighted):

Coastal artillery could be part of the Navy (as in Scandinavian countries, war-time Germany, and the Soviet Union), or part of the Army (as in English-speaking world countries). In English-speaking countries, certain coastal artillery positions were sometimes referred to as 'Land Batteries', distinguishing this form of artillery battery from for example floating batteries.

In the United Kingdom, in the later 19th and earlier 20th Centuries, the land batteries of the coastal artillery were the responsibility of the Royal Garrison Artillery.

I am not proposing to merge any of the uncited stuff about Vietnam, Iran or Iraq to the text. We can then simply make land battery a redirect to the top-level of the coastal artillery. Hopefully (given that this was already discuss at length), there are no major concerns with this. Guliolopez (talk) 14:40, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I ask again, then, what is there to merge, or do you think we should add a redirect for every word or phrase that might be relevant? Anmccaff (talk) 18:33, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

OK. I see three questions in your notes above. I will address those, and move on with the change. Because it seems unproductive to write 1000 lines about a planned 1 line change. In turn:

1. "What is there to merge?". Exactly the text that I have proposed above. That "land battery is and has been sometimes used as a term to describe certain types of coastal artillery positions". That is referenced, verifiable, and (as you note) about the only text from the source article that is appropriate to merge.
2. "But what about the other possible meanings?". Bluntly - so what? The proposed text is that "land batter is sometimes used to describe certain types of coastal artillery positions". There are enough qualifiers here that it doesn't preclude use of the term in other contexts. The project (and the world) is choc-full of terms with more than one meaning. Just because a term has more than one meaning it doesn't mean you can't use it - ever.
3. "Are we going to redirect all other meanings/terms". No. Only the term which - as per the consensus discussion and decision which meets all norms of the project - was agreed as an appropriate redirect. I am not (despite the straw-man OSE argument you propose) suggesting that all other terms should redirect. Only the one which (frankly) you yourself opened the discussion about, and which the community already came to an agreement about.

Thanks. Guliolopez (talk) 23:20, 14 December 2016 (UTC)