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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 speedy keep. Withdrawn NW (Talk) 03:19, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unit cohesion

[edit]
Unit cohesion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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A ridiculously POV article that seems to only serve as an anti "homosexuality in the military" coatrack. It doesn't look like the term is used for anything other than "this can undermine unit cohesion" claims from DADT debates. With all the DADT stuff removed, it's nothing more than a quotefarm and dictdef. Yaksar (let's chat) 00:32, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep - This is an important milihist topic, particular in the long line of "human vs material" (or "Red vs. Expert") debate in military science. Scholars has devoted great studies in this topic with regards to the Soviet Red Army, Imperial Japanese Army and Chinese People's Liberation Army and their tendency to launch mass suicide attacks. If the nominator is offended by homosexual reference, s/he is more than welcome to remove it rather than proposing outright deletion. Jim101 (talk) 03:05, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note to closing admin: the following comment by the nominator was deleted from the discussion rather than overstruck; the nominate cited Hrafn's Delete opinion immediately following (see edit summary on [1]).
Considering that this article has changed considerably, and that twinkle hiccuped with the nomination anyway, I'm willing to withdraw this. --Yaksar (let's chat) 03:07, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:DISCUSSAFD, it's better to overstrike when changing one's mind. But more to the point of AfD standard procedure, doesn't withdrawal of the nomination automatically terminate the process with a Keep result? Admittedly, "I'm willing to withdraw" isn't exactly "I'm withdrawing." But if you're willing to nominate in the first place, you should either stick to your guns or clearly lay them down; if you pick them back up again, you should be clear about that, too. Yakushima (talk) 10:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Incorrect on point (iii), Hrafn: this article cites Relooking Unit Cohesion: A Sensemaking Approach, which I don't see in the DADT article. Yakushima (talk) 06:54, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Incorrect" yourself -- Relooking Unit Cohesion: A Sensemaking Approach was covered under point (ii) not point (iii). HrafnTalkStalk(P) 13:31, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Request to closing admin: If this article does not survive AfD, please move it to my user space so I can keep working on it. I intend to make it much more that a dictdef or quote farm. --Uncle Ed (talk) 05:48, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NOTWEBHOST & this already overly-large collection may be relevant to this request. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 05:59, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well now, we don't have to be that strict, if the user really does have an intention to continue to work on it I can't see any issue with userification.--Yaksar (let's chat) 06:00, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Morever, Hrafn, see WP:ADHOM. I don't care what Ed Poor's written before; I don't care who wrote this article. A broken clock, and all that. If Ed Poor is transgressing WP:NOTWEBHOST, take it up in the appropriate venue for such problems. AfD is hardly an efficient mechanism for whittling down such excesses. Yakushima (talk) 10:01, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Morever" Yakushima, I was not making an argument for/against deletion, but on the issue userfication -- for which the editor's record of abandoned projects in his user space would appear entirely relevant. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 13:53, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • (i) Notability has simply been asserted, not demonstrated. (ii) The work to date has resulted in no non-duplicative encyclopaedic content -- so deletion and restarting from scratch would not eliminate any encyclopaedic content. (iii) Asserting that it "will most likely continue to improve" assumes that there has been some improvement to date -- which is contradicted by (ii). HrafnTalkStalk(P) 06:18, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment- References have the term used in discussions of gender & racial integration, religious differences, high turnover rate in short tours, differing tour lengths between services, impact of casualties, death and suicides on deployed units, relieving commanders, reported sexual assault and harassment incidents (confirmed and those deemed false)... Dru of Id (talk) 10:28, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The topic is notable, and has ample coverage, as others have already found and mentioned in this AFD. And yes, it has improved, there changes to it and references added from when it was nominated to date, and will most likely continue to do so. Just the information others found and linked to in this AFD would improve the article greatly. Dream Focus 17:00, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Frankly, WP:IDONTLIKEIT either, but let's keep in mind that AfD is WP:NOTCLEANUP, nor is it about getting rid of WP:UGLY articles. It's about WP:NOTABILITY of the topic itself, irrespective of content. Perhaps the term "unit cohesion" has picked up some unfortunate dog-whistle frequencies in the debates over DADT (and over overt expressions of minority sexual orientation in the U.S. military.) I wouldn't know. Nevertheless, it's a significant military concept, per comments above. As for remedies suggested above: I oppose deleting the references to the DADT debate, since this aspect of the topic is hardly insignificant -- if anything, there's probably a notability argument for a debate over unit cohesion vs gays in the U.S. military article, as suggested by (yes, gay-friendly) sources like this one: [2] Yakushima (talk) 06:38, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Try adding "von Clausewitz" to your searches on "unit cohesion" at Google books and Google Scholar, Hrafn.[3][4] Then substitute "Sun Tzu" to go back another couple thousand years. Unit cohesion has been understood as a concept for a very long time, and in the U.S. military, the debates over whether racial integration of forces might be deleterious to unit cohesion (worthy of an article section in itself) long predate those for DADT. Consider putting the question to folks over at the Military History wikiproject. I predict they'll answer unanimously, and in the affirmative. Yakushima (talk) 07:29, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Try addressing my points -- lack of encyclopaedic & non-duplicative content. Try reading the article, which has almost nothing to do with the topic as you're describing it. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 07:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm adding encyclopedic content, there already was some before the AfD, and as for "non-duplicative content", you're welcome to go look at where it's all duplicated somewhere else. It's not, and it's moving toward being less of a duplication of DADT material on Wikipedia (which has WP:UNDUE weight in this article, biased as it is toward recency.) Yakushima (talk)
I noticed -- and I suspect that, if this article does survive, it is likely to do so with little or none of its pre-AfD content. Which does tend to validate the original nomination. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 08:28, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It seems you didn't know anything about what unit cohesion was before reading this article, and got confused about what it was based on the article. I had a better chance of knowing what it was really about, because (as someone once said) chance favors the prepared mind: I lived through the debates about unit cohesion and the lack thereof among ground troops in Vietnam. In any case, just clicking on the links above for Google news, books and scholar searches should have established WP:NOTABILITY in your mind; as for all your other objections (save perhaps "non-duplicative content"), none are grounds in themselves for deletion. And "non-duplicative content", as I point out above, you simply failed to notice that there was content not duplicated from the DADT and other articles, in particular the Van Epps quote and citation -- which was in the article [5] prior to your delete nom, so you have no excuse for overlooking it. Yakushima (talk) 08:52, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(i) Last I checked AfDs were about article compliance with basic policy, not 'what I knew about the topic before reading the article'. (ii) "it's about more than just WP:NOTABILITY -- it's about having content that is encyclopaedic ... and non-duplicative" (iii) And I addressed "the Van Epps quote and citation" -- WP:QUOTEFARM, thus WP:INDISCRIMINATE, thus WP:NOT encyclopaedic. Has this "established" these points "in your mind"? -- because you seem to be having a bit of difficulty keeping track of them. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 09:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
WP:QUOTEFARM is arguing from WP:UGLY, in this case, since all the quotes are directly relevant to the topic. Van Epps looks like a good source for the topic, even if a full quote is a bit much; and citations are also part of article content. Quoting Van Epps is hardly WP:INDISCRIMINATE in the context of the topic, since he addresses the topic directly. So that leaves whether the topic itself violates WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Unit cohesion is an established concept in military thought, one that's relevant on a number of levels, from clinical psychology of the individual soldier up to tactics and strategy and the social role of the military in democracies.) The literature establishes that: click the links above for news, scholar and books. If there were "Cohesion (military)" article, then fine, I might be persuaded that it would a good merge target for this article. But there isn't. Yakushima (talk) 09:43, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, WP:QUOTEFARM is NOT "arguing from WP:UGLY" -- a quotefarm is a WP:INDISCRIMINATE collection of information, the information in question being specifically quotes. This is true no matter how prettily-formatted or well-written the quote-farm may be. Collections of quotes belong on Wikiquotes, not Wikipedia. This is a rather simple and obvious point, but you seem to want to knit-pick. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 14:00, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note to closing admin: I have edited the above discussion in two ways: (1) I formatted it to be closer to what the adjudicating admin will expect (this is explicitly encouraged in AfD guidelines), and (2) I changed two "Oppose" votes above to "Keep", the usual word for the sense expressed (iffy, but I believe justifiable here, because "Oppose" is ambiguous in this context). I hope the latter is WP:GTD-conformat, see Discussion: "It is acceptable to correct the formatting in order to retain consistency with the bulleted indentation. Yakushima (talk) 06:38, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

*Delete Hooray, WP:QUOTEFARM. This article is a canvas for points-of-view on a topic that is closer to a definition than an actual encyclopedic topic. There is no history to "unit cohesion," and no practical distinction between it and "teamwork" or any number of valid redirects. If someone can convince me that "unit cohesion" is so notably distinct a topic on its own from "teamwork" or any number of possible merge options under the umbrella of the military, I might change my vote, but I don't see any compelling arguments above. You can use a pile of quotes to make just about any phrase notable. Doesn't mean it's notable as a topic. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 06:58, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Unit cohesion" is not "teamwork". It's a specifically military term, as you would have discovered instantly if you had simply tried the Google Scholar link above. WP:QUOTEFARM is a reasonable criticism of this article's style. It does not, in itself, make the topic non-notable. In particular, there is no mention of quote-farming in the AfD grounds for deletion guidelines. So your argument for deletion comes down to the non-argument, WP:UGLY. I concur on your stylistic judgment, not on your deletion judgment. Yakushima (talk) 07:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Changing my vote to keep based on the excellent improvements to the article since last I looked at it. Very, very well done. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 15:23, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: It's a pretty awful article at the moment, being largely a collection of quotes from various people, and presented in a particularly ugly way. I'm sure it can be saved with some effort, though. rpeh •T•C•E• 08:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Since some of those weighing in here seem unable to see past certain objections, like the problematic provenance of the original and its distressingly low quality as an article, I've rewritten it so that it's no longer a WP:QUOTEFARM. I've also added a little more historical context for those who seem to think the term is a product of the DADT controversies and simply a conservative "code" word for "we ain't gonna have no queers in our Army." Apart from these changes, however, the present article does rely mostly on the original sources, and mostly just paraphrases what it formerly quoted. It has not (as I'm sure at least one of you will object) become an article about some other topic entirely. It's just an amplification and contextualization of what the article was already about. And if you don't think so, well ... book up. Don't want to book up? Then remember: you're entitled to your own opinion (someone once said) but not your own facts. Yakushima (talk) 13:20, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - concerns about WP:QUOTEFARM, largely addressed by recent edit, are ones that are best addressed by an edit. "Unit cohesion" has reasonable sources as an issue in military effectiveness - the topic is definitely one that could have a good article on it, and the article as is seems to be sufficiently fertile ground. The cited articles on unit cohesion establish its notability. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:33, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep There are more than enough sources available to demonstrate the notability of the topic. It looks like this article has seen a lot of improvement over the past few days, any additional problems are surely fixable through regular editing rather than outright deletion. Qrsdogg (talk) 15:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. "Unit Cohesion" is not a term specific to the DADT debate. It was also used back in the 40s by opponents of military integration, and I suspect has applications outside of that discussion as well. Raul654 (talk) 16:27, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Clearly encyclopedic topic. If there are content issues, they should be fixed through the normal editing process, not by trying to frag the entire article here. Carrite (talk) 16:32, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment by AfD nominator - The substantial rewrite of this article has proven that the term has been used more than just as something thrown around in POV contexts. Since this also made the article more than a mess of quotes, I change my opinion and no longer !vote delete. That said, while I withdraw the nomination, there is at least 1 other delete !voter, so this can not yet be closed right away I guess?--Yaksar (let's chat) 17:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Demonstrably a significant topic in military science. Article has improved already. There is still one delete vote outstanding but in light of the nominator's change of position, maybe WP:SNOW could be invoked after this has been left open for 24 hours or so? --Arxiloxos (talk) 17:39, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Best to let things play out. I'm glad this article could be rescued. Dream Focus 19:46, 25 April 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.
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