User talk:North Shoreman/Sandbox2

Deleting articles

I think that you're severely misunderstanding the original proposal. This is a WP:MERGING of five articles - African-American Civil Rights Movement (1896–1954), Nadir of American race relations, Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era, Jim Crow laws, and African-American Civil Rights Movement (1865–95). Nothing more, nothing less. A merge is NOT synonymous with delete.

When I read your posts on the talk pages, you seem to think there is an agenda to DELETE ARTICLES. That is NOT or NEVER will happen. I am not understanding why you are thinking this. Can you copy and paste the sentence or sentences that state any person wants to delete content? I don't see that suggestion anywhere. Mitchumch (talk) 07:40, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

The process of merging BY DEFINITION involves DELETING ARTICLES. If a reader cannot find anything but a redirect at Nadir of American race relations, then that article has been DELETED.

If your proposal truly is "nothing more, nothing less", then what do you mean when your original proposal at African-American Civil Rights Movement (1896–1954) says, "Nor, does that period limit itself solely to the experiences of African Americans." Perhaps you need to clarify exactly what else besides the content of the five articles that will no longer exist will be added to the new article. I went through existing articles that are part of the time period of the Jim Crow article and listed links to them. It seems like all of these articles would be subarticles of the new article and need to be included to some extent in the new article. Also, look at your exchange with Dimadick. You seem to have committed to including in the article significant topics not covered in the five articles. I don't oppose creating such a comprehensive article -- I'm saying that you keep all the existing articles as subarticles (trimmed down if necessary). If you take all the details from the five articles, eliminate duplication, and add them to the new article you will still have created an extremely large article -- even before anything else is added. If you don't add this additional information, then you haven't created an article adequately covering the Jim Crow Era. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 12:26, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

"then that article has been DELETED"

ALL the content in those articles will be in Jim Crow Era. You have lost nothing. You've only lost the old title. The reader will be sent to the NEW home of the SAME, OLD content. That's it.

"Nor, does that period limit itself solely to the experiences of African Americans."

Everybody throughout the United States was affected by this system of southern state governance. Southern congressmen served as chairmen on important committees in the Senate. They blocked legislation that would weaken or destroy racist laws or conditions. They added provisions into legislation that promoted segregation and discrimination throughout the country.

Also, states in the North and West had laws on the books that prevented a comparable system from developing in those regions. Those laws were added during the Reconstruction Era thru to early twentieth century. Alternative systems that circumnavigated those state laws developed in municipalities and school districts. Those systems were able to produce racial segregation, discrimination in housing, employment, and education, and voting rights were diluted by changing ward based systems of election to at-large systems of elections. This type of experience was duplicated throughout the United States against other non-white populations.

Last, but not least, are the beneficiaries of these practices. Nobody escaped from this system, whether you were injured by it or benefited by it. The reliable sources are explicit and clear.

"clarify exactly what else besides the content of the five articles that will no longer exist will be added to the new article."

Again, the article TITLE will be a redirect. The article CONTENT will remain. This is why I agreed to your suggestion to work on this in a sandbox. I hope that will prove to you nothing will be lost. Nothing. I don't know how to phrase this so you understand this.

Look at the Template:Jim Crow Era that I created a while ago. I've just started placing content into it. All those redlinks need articles. This is only a fraction of stuff about the Jim Crow Era. I will need to eventually break-up the template to accommodate the new material.

I want to name every person, organization, event, and idea connected to the Jim Crow Era. No more obscure references to any of those things. I want to see an information rich article arranged in chronological, topical, and geographic order. I want to go to articles like Origins of Jim Crow Era, Jim Crow Era in Mississippi, Founders of the Jim Crow system, Jim Crow Era and peonage system, Jim Crow Era in Atlanta, Congress and Jim Crow Era, Historiography of Jim Crow Era, United States military and the Jim Crow Era, etc. I want to add infoboxes and navboxes to link all these articles together.

"You seem to have committed to including in the article significant topics not covered in the five articles."

I am committed to adding content derived by scholarly sources that is directly about the Jim Crow Era. The existing five articles only cover a portion of material covered in that scholarly literature.

"I'm saying that you keep all the existing articles as subarticles (trimmed down if necessary)"

Why would you keep WP:CONTENTFORKs - "the creation of multiple separate articles all treating the same subject. Content forks that are created unintentionally result in redundant or conflicting articles and are to be avoided." It would be a violation of Wikipedia policy to keep those five articles. At best, those articles will have to cover material in great detail not present in any other article. Like, Anti-poll tax movement or something.

"If you take all the details from the five articles, eliminate duplication, and add them to the new article you will still have created an extremely large article"

The article covers several decades, because the system of Jim Crow lasted that long. That system affected the lives of tens of millions of people. Of course the article will be large. Wikipedia has a system in place to deal with such large articles - WP:SPLIT. Creating subsections that lead to new articles and unique articles will solve that problem.

"If you don't add this additional information, then you haven't created an article adequately covering the Jim Crow Era."

I agree 100%.

I hope I've answered your questions and addressed each of your points. If not, then please let me know. Mitchumch (talk) 14:20, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

You can't, or won't, differentiate between content forking and acceptable overlap. You also fail to understand, or choose to ignore, why we should be looking to Wikipedia:Summary style in planning this article. You amazingly say regarding the large size of the article that, "Creating subsections that lead to new articles and unique articles will solve that problem." You are the one that wants to create that problem. The five articles you want to delete can serve as "summary-style spin-offs" of your new article. There is no logical or wikipedia reason to merge five good sized articles into one super large article (250,000 bytes BEFORE you add a lot of material not covered in these five). The logical thing to do is keep the five articles and then create sections and subsections in the new article that summarize these articles.

You can respond or not -- I've pretty much decided that you are not someone I can work with. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 18:00, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

What is the point of the sandbox article? Is it not to demonstrate the type of article Jim Crow Era can be? You care about the topic and I care about the topic. Mitchumch (talk)